Fireteam Delta, J. Halpin [online e book reading .txt] 📗

every single one of them was staring right back at him.

Chapter 39: Long Road

Summers and the others left early the next morning. At the speed they were going, he was fairly confident their newfound stalkers would be left in the dust. Oddly, he’d noticed they hadn’t really tried to follow. Instead, they seemed content to watch them leave.

Cortez rubbed at tired eyes from beside Summers. The whole group looked more than a little haggard. He hadn’t gotten much sleep, either, which made him question the sight in front of him.

“Guys . . . tell me you’re seeing this, too,” Nowak called out.

“Yeah . . .” Summers stood beside his horse, looking up.

“Is that a fucking tank?” Cortez asked.

It was, in fact, a fucking tank. Or half of one, at least. Its turret was pointed at an almost perfect ninety-degree angle, with treads poking out from a small rocky outcropping, one that was very clearly not large enough to hold a tank.

“Did . . . it get buried or something?”

“I don’t think so.” Summers studied the rocky protrusion. Even from this angle, he could see the rear treads poking out the bottom of the formation. It looked like chunks of metal had rained down below it.

It was as though it were growing out of the stone.

Summers rode closer to the outcropping, struggling to balance on his horse for a moment before hopping down, looking at the odd metal pieces scattered around.

They were in chunks. Cleanly cut at odd, sharp angles.

They reminded him of what happened when they first got here, of how the creature that had wiped out the 63rd was left neatly cut into small, distinct cubes, after Summers destroyed the machine that got them here.

“Hey . . .” Cortez called over. “I think we got another problem.”

Summers followed Cortez’s gaze. There was a small, hunched man far in the distance. He looked bone thin, his skin an almost onyx black, and behind him were a dozen men.

But the real problem was the large, white-feathered creature towering over them.

It looked like a dragon.

A giant, white, mostly dead dragon.

“Well, that’s not good.” Summers stared back at the group.

He hadn’t seen them approach. Yes, he was tired, but that thing was massive. There was no way it should have been able to sneak up on all of them.

“Need a plan here, Sarge.” Cortez hopped down from her horse, eyeing the massive creature in the distance.

“I’ll get the right side. Summers, think you can take the guy in the center out? Go for the legs. We’ll run while they’re licking their wounds.”

“Not a problem, Sarge.” Summers shrugged the rifle on his shoulder, looking down the scope at the thin man in front of them.

He ignored the others as Nowak began to shout orders to the rest of the group. He sighted in on the man, then fired a short burst.

Almost immediately, Summers saw the thin man’s hand move, just slightly—then something slammed into him.

“Fuck!” Summers rolled with the impact, feeling as if someone had hit him with a sledgehammer. “What the hell—?”

Summers turned to see the others looking at him, weapons ready. There was nothing behind them.

“Where’re the shooters?” Cortez moved to cover behind her horse.

“I can’t see where it came from,” Nowak called out.

Summers reached to the back of his vest, feeling three new holes below his shoulder. Exactly as many shots as he’d fired.

He’d been at the front of the group. There was no way someone could get an angle like that on them. Not unless they were in the sky, and it was clear.

Then he felt it. The strange vibrating sensation he’d recognized from when they’d first arrived in this world. In the sky, about a dozen feet away from them, was a small portal. He could see the thin man’s face smiling back at him.

He looked back just as Cortez was lining up her shot.

“Wait!”

Cortez fired. Summers darted forward, tackling the woman just as another stream of fire impacted the ground where she’d been standing.

“What—?” Cortez didn’t get a chance to finish as the dragon roared. Summers felt a rush of air wash over the group.

“Sarge, we need to start running. Now!”

They didn’t have the tools to take down anything near that big. And if his theory on the thin man was right, they didn’t stand a chance of killing him like this.

Nowak hesitated a moment before yelling to the others.

“Head north. Go!”

They ran.

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“There was a tear in space?” Nowak leaned back against the cliff wall, trying to get his bearings.

“I don’t know. Maybe a wormhole or something? Like the one that brought us here,” Summers explained. “We can’t hit it like that, not if it’s gonna throw our own fire back at us.” Summers dug out the now broken plate on his back. It had been shattered into a million pieces. The tough, gray skin beneath it had already started to bruise.

The fact he’d never gotten around to removing that skin had likely saved his life.

Summers leaned against the small alcove they’d taken refuge in.

For the last seven hours, their group had been hounded by the beast-like men. They always kept a distance, but Summers was certain they’d come eventually.

Thankfully, the large forest and cliffs must have made it hard for the dragon to move, because it hadn’t caught up to them. Yet.

He’d guessed they’d wait for Summers’ group to fall asleep, or for enough of their own to show up to overwhelm them. To wear them down.

Judging by the state of their group, it was working.

“We can’t keep this up.” Cortez looked back at the road they’d come from.

They hadn’t seen anyone for the last hour. Presumably, they’d lost them. But given