“Outer space sucks.” Cormac was going to yell at me, but I was going with my ninety-five percent gut instinct that told me Enzo and the rest of these Atlans were good guys. I did not want him to die up there with Ruk. “Okay. But I have one condition.”

“As do I, if we are to risk our lives in this battle.”

We discussed. We made our bargain.

I lifted my hand to the controls next to Enzo’s cell.

13

Cormac

Bright blood coated the exterior of my armored suit with a layer of sludge. I glanced at Ruk as the remaining Hive Soldiers backed away from us, their footsteps in unison.

That was not right. Not fucking right.

“What are they doing?” Ruk asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I thought you had faced this enemy.”

“I have. Never seen them do this.” The Hive Soldiers moved backward in an arc formation but remained facing us. Like me, they had given up on using their ion blasters. Every hit made Ruk more enraged, and the shots glanced off or were absorbed by my armor. Which I suspected was nearly identical to the armor the Hive wore.

This was Styx legion armor. We’d developed it in secret. Kept it quiet.

Someone had sold us out. Worse, they’d sold the new tech to the Hive.

Probably the same fuckers who were rounding up Hyperion natives like Ruk and selling them to the Hive. For what, the gods only knew.

Ruk glared at the retreating enemy and bared his fangs with a roar of challenge. There were seven of them left. We’d managed to take out the Scouts and five of the Soldiers. If I wasn’t mistaken, there was an Integration Unit, one of their evil doctors who did all the implantations and torture, standing a good distance behind them. Waiting.

“That fucker in the back is mine.”

“He leave you in that cell?”

“He did. I will tear out his throat.”

No argument from me. But we had seven Hive Soldiers standing between us and Ruk’s prize. Unmoving. Blank expressions. Waiting for…something.

My Hunter blood kicked in and with it the gifts of instinct and heightened senses. I heard the new arrival before I saw it. The mid-sized cargo ship appeared half a minute later. The ship was coming in our direction, the body style not one I recognized, which meant it wasn’t legion or Coalition. Fuck. Had to be Hive.

Ruk noticed it, too. “Reinforcements?”

“Looks like.”

Ruk lowered his gaze to look over the remaining Soldiers on the ground several paces in front of us. “Guess we’d better finish them off before their friends get here.”

“You go right, I go left?” I asked.