They weren’t alone.
A female voice screamed, and the wall of armor parted to reveal Magnolia, crumpled at the feet of a short woman in armor. It had to be Carmela Moreto. Behind them, a massive soldier strode out of the shadows. Like the monster, the bastard prince wore a metal crown. His sported a horn.
Something about the flaps of dried flesh on his helmet seemed familiar. The lips looked female, but it was the buzzed crown cut from a skull that told X exactly who the face had belonged to.
“You sick son of a bitch,” he snarled.
Behind him, the bone beast gave a deep, baying howl and slammed into two Barracudas. One crashed to the ground, sliding all the way to X, with a dent in his chest armor. He wheezed, trying to suck breath into crushed lungs.
All around, in what seemed like slow motion, gunfire rang out with the war cries of warriors. X and his men were outnumbered over two to one, and the bone beast was tearing apart their rear flank.
He saw Magnolia move slightly.
Back when he first met her, the girl with attitude and a gothic vibe had given him the creeps. Now she was practically family—the rebellious daughter he never had. And there was only one way to save her: fight.
Horn twirled an axe and pointed it at X.
Victor screamed as he raised his shield with his injured arm, stopping several arrows and bullets meant for the king.
X used the moment and turned with his blaster, firing a flare into the bone beast’s face. The flare hit right where he had hoped, and rained sparks down on the Barracuda the creature was pummeling.
Dropping his blaster, X pulled the other half of Rhino’s spear from the sheath on his back. Releasing a war cry of his own, X ran with Victor and several Barracudas toward the skinwalkers. Horn and his men didn’t fire their guns. Instead, they brandished spears, swords, and machetes.
X clenched his jaw, focusing on Horn. In just seconds, he would have his chance to kill the man. As he ran, faint booming sounded in the distance. He spotted flashes on the horizon.
Shadow had finally found Raven’s Claw.
And X had finally found Horn and Moreto.
It was time to end this or die trying.
THIRTY-EIGHT
An hour after Discovery surprised the army of machines, the remaining divers had worked their way through the jungles and into Kilimanjaro’s rocky foothills. A bluff with multiple peaks provided a perfect vantage point over the fortress built at the southern base of the mountain.
Only a half mile away from the nearest section of wall, it was the closest Michael had been to the base. Glancing up to higher promontories, he spotted Edgar and Les, now in position.
Michael moved behind a rock and glassed the battlefield where Timothy had obliterated the small army of machines. Smoke still wafted up from the scorched dirt. Twisted and charred exoskeletons of machines smoldered in the debris field. Four tanks lay on their backs like dead beetles, their segmented legs twisted and melted from the intense heat of the bombs.
Michael couldn’t see the airship, but knowing that it was up there, with Timothy, Samson, and the crew watching over the divers, gave him a new sense of confidence.
Now he just had to get inside the base.
That wasn’t going to be easy, even with two gaping holes in the fortress walls. The rocket impacts had opened the doors, but new tanks had shown up to plug them, with laser barrels aimed at the skyline.
Michael couldn’t see the cannons that had taken out Cricket, but he knew they were waiting for the airship to move into firing range.
Discovery had been lucky to get away on the first run. Against all that firepower, the chances of its surviving a second attack were thin. And it wasn’t just the cannons and tanks. A swarm of drones patrolled the sky. Michael guessed they couldn’t fly as high as Discovery, or they would already have blown the airship out of the clouds.
It had wreaked havoc on the base. Four of the fourteen buildings inside the walls were now piles of rubble. The undamaged buildings looked manufactured—all the same metallic color, all in perfect rows, like a small old-world city for machines instead of humans.
Centered in the small city was a massive steel tower with a spiked roof. It was ten times the height of the other buildings. Several rockets had hit the odd structure, leaving black streaks on the surface. But there didn’t appear to be any damage. Nor could he see a single window or doorway leading into the tower.
Several DEF-Nine patrols marched down the roads, where the divers had little to hide them from the machines. A few trees grew in the dirt, along with clumps of weeds. Stacks of pipes and metal parts might also provide cover.
There were still enough machines to make sneaking in difficult, especially with the drones. He ducked back into the rocks as another flew overhead. This would be harder than he had supposed.
The drone hovered a moment, and Michael decided to return to the cave, where Arlo and Sofia rested. Lena waited at the entrance, holding a laser rifle. They exchanged a nod, and Michael went inside to check on the injured divers. Both sat on the dirt floor, leaning against the cave wall.
The armor had saved Arlo’s life, but it hadn’t stopped the laser bolt that sheared off the top of Sofia’s shoulder. As Michael knew all too well, the only upside to being shot with a laser bolt was the cauterizing effect.
“I can still fight,” she said, standing. “Did you find a way in?”
“Not yet,” Michael said.
Arlo remained seated, holding his side. The wound he got in Rio de Janeiro had flared up after his tumble down the hill, and he likely had a concussion.
“Tell me when it’s time to finish these tin pots off,” he said.
“Soon,” Michael replied. But we’re running out of time.
If there were machines at the Outrider, X and his team could be in terrible danger, and not just from the defectors. The drones had changed the game, and seeing them here meant they could be out there, too.
Crunching footsteps sounded, and Michael moved over for Les and Edgar.
“Gather around,” Les said.
His tone was grave. Michael wondered what Les had seen that he hadn’t.
“I’m uploading video to your HUDs,” Les said. He tapped his wrist computer and fed the recorded video to their subscreens. “I still don’t know where the entry to their main hub is, but I did see a road…” He tapped his monitor and zoomed in. “Right here.”
The road went straight into the mountain—something Michael had missed.
“As we suspected, the mainframe must be buried,” Les said.
Now Michael understood the grave tone.
“So how do we get in?” Arlo asked.
“By finding an alternative route,” Les said. “There has to be one. My guess is, there are underground tunnels from the main buildings to the base below. But they’ll surely be heavily guarded.”
Michael studied the imagery. The road was just behind the factories built against the mountain. Les was probably right, but it was a big risk on a hunch. Then again, a hunch was all they were going on anyway.
“We counted ten patrols of defectors, each four strong, and three more of those walking beetle tanks,” Edgar said. “Some of them are clearing debris piles, though, so that’s good for us.”
Sofia checked Les’s arm. “You okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine. You’re the one that—”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said, eyeing the missing armor and the charred flesh beneath. “I can fight.”
Les stepped closer to check the wound. “Good, because I need all of you,” he said. “Lena and Edgar, find a spot up here to provide covering fire if we run into problems.”