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the hard floor underneath me and darkness wrapped its inky fingers around my vision as I lost consciousness.

17

As the light turned back on in my brain, I could hear people shouting. Their voices were far off as if they were yelling at me from across a field or hall. I blinked a few times, trying to remember where I was. When I did finally remember, I muttered a few obscenities, took in some deep breaths, and tried to assess the damage.

I rolled over onto my hands and knees as their voices cut through my head like an axe. Pain erupted throughout my skull as if it were in fact being split in two. I winced, looking up at those yelling. Tong lay on the ground, not moving. A line of blood soaked the ground underneath the back of his head. I hoped he was just unconscious, not dead.

Stacy, Maksim, and John were still on the door, holding up the metal sheet against it. They were yelling at one another, me, and Tong. I didn’t see Dama or Sulk.

I tried to make sense of what had happened.

Get up, Dean, I told myself. Get up. You have more to give. You’re not out of this fight yet.

I rose to my feet, blinking as something wet fell over my face. I wiped a hand across my brow, which came back sticky and red with my own blood.

“Here it comes again!” Maksim yelled. “Hold!”

Something like a battering ram hit the opposite side of the steel plate so violently, it actually put a dent in the metal. The defenders lost their grip on the metal barrier. Stacy was thrown to the floor. She tucked her chin and went down on her side to protect her head.

“Helmets back on!” John boomed, placing his bucket onto his head once more, and holding onto the metal at the same time. That was no small achievement, with his injured shoulder and other impediments.

“What is it?” I asked, reaching down for my own helmet. I ignored the pain in my head and rejoined Maksim and John at the barrier. “What’s doing that?”

“I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter,” Maksim said, gasping as he hung on. “All that matters is that we don’t let them through.”

Stacy got up and went over to check on Tong. “He’s breathing, but I need to stop the bleeding,” she shouted as she knelt over his still form.

“Do it,” John growled. “We’ll hold the barrier.”

Another strike sent us off the steel barrier. The blow was so intense, it sent a tremor through my entire body. Now, as I anticipated the impact, it was easier to keep my feet. I absorbed as much of the blow as possible before letting off the steel sheet.

Another imprint on the steel we were holding showed what looked like a massive hammer head.

Stacy worked diligently, stripping off a piece of Tong’s shirt and wrapping his head with it. The amount of blood the Remboshi lost and was still losing was terrifying. His breath came shallow and labored.

The strikes on the opposite side of the barrier descended again and again. It was as if some ancient god had chosen this piece of steel as his anvil.

Each time the object on the other side struck, my teeth rattled. Pain exploded in my head. I felt like I was going to throw up, raising my suspicions more than ever that I might have a concussion. Another reason to stay awake, I thought as another wave of sickening nausea rolled over me.

Not in your helmet, I told myself. Throw up in your helmet and this day just went from horrible to the worst ever.

This thought raced through my mind right before a strike hit the barrier twice as hard as any of the others. All three of us were flung into the room, landing on our backs. Thanks to my helmet, my head was saved from the blow of the ground.

I looked up from where I was lying to see the sheet metal barrier that had been our last hope flung from the entrance like a piece of trash.

Two infected so large they made John look like a little kid stood there with war hammers in their gigantic hands. Each infected easily cleared six feet, with enough muscles to have been bodybuilders in their previous lives.

Thus far in our altercation with Legion, he had used Rung to battle us in their bunker. He must have called on his larger human troops at some point and it seemed they had arrived just in time—or at the exact wrong time, depending on whose side you were on. For me and my crew, it was obviously the most inopportune time, as Dama and Sulk were still missing, seeming to take forever to get the armor, and the rest of us were taking an unscheduled break courtesy of their hammering talents.

Maksim was first on his feet. He launched at the two colossal infected, burying a dagger he held in his right hand hilt-deep into the throat of one before turning to the other.

I saw the blow coming for him in slow motion. I fought to my feet, but I was too slow. The second infected brought his hammer down on Maksim, pulverizing his left leg.

Maksim cried out in pain. A wave of infected squeezed through the door like water through a burst dam. They fell on the already wounded Maksim, tearing at his eyes and throat.

John, Stacy, and I were rushing into the fight when we felt the floor shake. Mechanical gears whined and bright lights punctured the darkness around us.

“Down!” Dama’s voice sounded like it came through a speaker of some kind. I obeyed, pressing myself to the floor.

The rhythmic beat of heavy weapons lit up the room. Even with my helmet on, the sound was deafening, like being caught in the middle of a thunderstorm.

I looked over to my rear to see two black power armor suits doling out death. Twin cannons with