Rhodes wheeled to a halt a dozen yards from where that fusion blast hit him. He took a second to reorient himself in space.

  More explosions going off all over the battlefield showed him more than he ever wanted to see. Legion platoons battled hand to hand against the Masks on the ground.

  Legion Dusters and Predators buzzed back and forth over the battlefield. They tried to bombard the Masks’ ground troops from the air, but the Legion aircraft had their hands full fighting the Masks’ invasion ships.

  They towered over the battlefield hitting everything in sight. They fired at the Legion’s big assault guns on the mountaintop, detonated them to smithereens, and then went back to destroying both the aircraft and the platoons.

  None of that concerned Rhodes as much as what Battalion 1 was doing. Thackery used her grid lines to transform herself into some kind of creature with multiple arms.

  Lasers erupted from the end of every limb. She dropped right down in the middle of the Legion platoons and used her lasers to cut down dozens of soldiers.

  Coulter transformed himself into a Striker, pelted back and forth across the skies on the Legion side, and hammered Dusters and Predators with punishing fire.

  His thermal cannons weakened their hulls. Then he smashed his Striker into them full force to blow the ships to pieces.

  Everyone in Battalion 1 got separated from each other, but they only did more damage this way.

  They worked their way through the Legion ranks and softened the Legion position so the Masks could advance. They pushed the platoons back to the base of the mountains.

  More Masks invasion ships stationed themselves above the ridgetop to pound the defensive guns into oblivion. No more platoons came from up there. The platoons had nowhere left to fall back to.

  That one fusion blast brought Rhodes back to his senses. B must have wiped Rhodes’s memory again when he sent Rhodes back to Stonebridge. Did Rhodes really think it would be any different?

  He didn’t remember anything about the city machine or Fisher’s warning while he and Rhodes worked on Fisher’s roof.

  Rhodes felt so damn good when he looked through that doorway at Ora and the children sitting around the table.

  He didn’t remember how much they disgusted him when he first went to Stonebridge. He remembered it now, though. He remembered everything.

  Fisher was right. The Masks sent the battalion into battle against the Legion.

  Rhodes could have gone after the invasion ships. He could have gone after the Masks ground forces, but that wouldn’t make any difference.

  The other part of Fisher’s warning came back to Rhodes, too. This was his chance. This was the whole battalion’s chance to escape from the Masks and get back to the Legion.

  He banked downward, fired his boosters, and plummeted straight into the thickest battle. “What are you doing?!” Fisher hollered. “You have to attack the enemy!”

  Rhodes didn’t answer. He used The Grid to show Fisher their combined memory of that other battle—the battle where Rhodes got shot down and destroyed the accelerator—the battle where Rhodes and Fisher had the conversation about escaping back to the Legion.

  Fisher’s expression changed immediately. He got it. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  Rhodes made a quick assessment of the battalion. “We won’t be able to get through to Thackery or Fuentes. We need Rhinehart…or Oakes. They listen to us.”

  Rhodes located both men in the chaos. Rhinehart stood on the ground in his normal form. He didn’t change anything. He didn’t have to.

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  He planted himself in the center of the battle—right at the hottest part of the fighting where the Masks and the Legion met.

  Rhinehart faced the Legion platoons thumping them with his scourge guns, cutting them to shreds with his lasers, and firing dozens of Vipers into their thickest ranks to wipe out as many soldiers as he could hit.

  Oakes had transformed himself into another slithering creature that stayed low to the ground. Oakes snaked all over the battlefield at incredible speed, coiled between the soldiers’ feet, and fired up at them before they even knew he was there.

  He left swaths of bodies in his wake, swerved everywhere, and flattened the soldiers in the rear so the Masks could drive those in front farther toward the mountains.

  Rhodes made a split second decision to go after Rhinehart instead. He made himself a much more obvious target.

  The Dusters and Predators thought so, too. They revolved around his head firing fusion loads at him, but they hit their own men more often.

  They also brought themselves into his range. He unleashed his Vipers at them without slackening his assault on the platoons. He blew up four Legion aircraft before the others decided it might be a good idea to back off.

  Rhodes gunned his boosters, sprinted past the Masks from the rear on their side, and angled his approach to get closer to Rhinehart.

  Rhodes didn’t know how well he’d be able to carry Rhinehart away from the battle. Rhinehart’s size and weight made him a formidable character.

  Rhodes also wouldn’t be able to stop Rhinehart from going back into the battle if Rhinehart decided to resist or if he refused to listen to Rhodes.

  Rhodes made up his mind on the fly. He got without a hundred feet of Rhinehart’s position, interfaced with him and Rocky, and showed them both the memory of their confrontation at Fort Bastion.

  Rhinehart froze in the middle of the battle when Rhodes replayed the image of him and Fisher tearing a hole in The Grid to show the battalion the Masks’ lab.

  Rhinehart stopped shooting for a second and the platoons attacked without mercy. Dozens of men turned their weapons on him.

  Fusion blasts smashed Rhinehart in his chest plate. He staggered backward and raised his weapons to defend himself.

  Rhodes flew in as fast as he could, snatched Rhinehart off the ground, and kept on going. Rhodes zoomed up the mountainside and landed himself and Rhinehart on a ledge between two rocky peaks.

  Rhinehart jolted, spun around, and stiffened to defend himself.

  “Lieutenant!” Rhodes shook Rhinehart and wrestled him around to face the right way. Rhodes maneuvered Rhinehart so Rhinehart had no choice but to look Rhodes in the eye. “Lieutenant! It’s me! Rhinehart—look at me!”

  Rhinehart’s vision cleared. He looked straight into Rhodes’s eyes. “Captain…..the Masks…..” His gaze swiveled toward the battle.

  “We have to get the others out,” Rhodes checked that Rhinehart really was back. “You okay?”

  Rhinehart nodded, but he didn’t look okay. He kept gulping. He curled his lip at the battle.

  Rhodes was getting used to that look. Rhinehart understood now. He knew he was a prisoner—except that he wasn’t. The battalion was out on the battlefield right next to the Aemon Legion.

  “You get Lauer,” Rhodes told him. “I’ll get Oakes. We can take on the rest of them after that.”

  Rhinehart nodded again. “Rudy and Alyssa won’t come easily.”

  “We have to get through to them. We can’t leave anyone behind. Are you ready?”

  Rhinehart braced himself. “Ready.”

  Rhodes let go of him, turned away for the last time, and located Oakes in The Grid. Oakes stood on the ground well inside the Legion ranks.

  He had changed his outer shape, but not his basic body structure. Lasers and thermal blasts belched from his rib cage to flatten the platoons swarming all around him. He did the most damage to Dusters and Predators that tried to surround him.

  He sprouted multiple tentacles from his shoulders, snatched Legion aircraft out of the sky, smashed them against each other, and brought them down with brutal force on the ground.

  He pulverized them to scrap metal and the explosions wiped out as many soldiers as his guns.

  Rhodes interfaced with Oakes, but Rhodes couldn’t get Oakes’s attention. He went into a frenzy of killing, destroying, and shooting everything and everyone who came near him.

  Rhodes fired his boosters, flew down there, and landed on the ground near Oakes. Oakes came out of his trance long enough to recognize one of his own nearby. He didn’t shoot at Rhodes or attack.

  Oakes actually turned away from Rhodes to avoid hitting him. Rhodes fought his way through the platoons. He had to be careful not to hurt or kill any of the Legion soldiers.

  They didn’t make it easy. They crushed in on him, fired at him, and when that failed, they pounced on him and tried to punch and kick him.

  He struggled through them. He had to work hard to quell the urge to hit them back. “Get the hell off me, you bastards!” he bellowed. “I’m trying to help you, you idiots!”

  They couldn’t hear him over the noise of battle and their own ferocious bellows.

  He staggered under a Jackhammer shot from behind. He finally worked his way over to Oakes, grabbed him by the shoulders, and spun him around.

  Rhodes opened his mouth to speak when a Viper coiled out of nowhere and smashed Rhodes into the ground. He staggered to his feet only to buckle from a blast of scourge fire hitting him from the front.

  He barely corrected in time before Fuentes hurtled out of nowhere, collided with Rhodes, and tackled him onto his back.

  End of Chapter 23.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

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