“How do you know all of this?” Letho asked.

“I’ve got a guy on the inside,” Saul said. “Owes me a huge favor. He works in an office somewhere in Abraxas’s compound. Gives us lots of choice info.”

Zedock had a strange look on his face, and Saul looked a little too pleased with himself about this supposed inside guy. There was something that Saul wasn’t telling them, and both Zedock and Letho could sense it. Letho wished for Thresha’s mind-reading abilities again. Unfortunately, though many of the Mendraga gifts overlapped with his own, telepathy was not one of them.

“So what do you say, Letho? Want to give it a shot? Or are you too afraid your little girlfriend will cut and run the minute we take her topside?”

Letho felt anger well up in his cheeks, burning hot in his belly and clouding his thoughts. He was standing in front of Saul before he even knew what he was doing.

“Hey, buddy, if I remember correctly, you were the one who voiced that very same concern as a reason not to let her come inside in the first place. Why the sudden change in heart?” His chest was heaving, and he hoped that his eyes looked as menacing as he was willing them to be. He gritted his teeth and furrowed his brow—it was not so much a natural response to his anger as it was an intentional flair for theatrics.

Saul didn’t back down. He had no doubt heard the stories of what Letho was capable of, had seen his work first-hand in the form of a pile of mutant bodies. But still he didn’t back down. Did Saul really think he could actually win against Letho in a fight, or was he just insane? Wait—could he win against Letho in a fight? He had drawn that pistol pretty fast.

“You got a better idea?” Saul said, doing his best to appear taller, though even if he were to stand on his tiptoes he would still be half a head shorter than Letho.

“That’s enough, boys. Let’s act like men. Split it up,” Zedock said, putting his hands on their chests and pushing them apart.

Letho just glared. Saul smile remained, a grin devoid of any sort of emotion. Zedock stepped in between Letho and Saul and placed his hands on Letho’s shoulders.

“Letho, you okay with this?” Zedock asked. “It’s your call. We don’t have to if you don’t want to. But I really think it’s a good idea.”

“Does Thresha get a say in this?” Letho asked. The two men said nothing. “Well, what the hell. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Let’s do it.”

****

The twin suns of Eursus were high in the sky, blistering everything under pale, unblinking eyes. Letho felt a little exposed venturing out into the planetscape in broad daylight, but Saul assured him that it was safe—that the creatures he referred to as “muties” were predominantly nocturnal.

They had emerged out of a great exhaust pipe that had been repurposed as an exit hatch for their all-terrain vehicles. There was an entire hive of these giant tunneling pipes, and they snaked and twisted away in a confusing tangle that didn’t give away the silo’s location. They had even fashioned faux terrain coverings to mask the doors at the end of each tunnel. They trundled through long abandoned housing zones, across the broken backs of forgotten highways, sometimes cruising down them for a bit, other times taking a more off-road tack.

Their ATV was nicknamed “the razorback,” and to Letho the moniker was fitting. It was all angular edges and military frugality, and it looked like it had seen many heated conflicts. Letho noticed the fender and sidewall on his side were torn by four parallel slash marks.

“Hey, are these claw marks?” he shouted.

“WHAT?” Saul shouted back. The open canopy of the vehicle and the wind howling all around them as they tore down a particularly desolate highway made it very difficult to hear.

“NEVER MIND!” Letho shouted. He went back to running his fingers along the jagged serrations in the side wall.

It was just the three of them: Saul, Thresha, and Letho. It had turned out that Thresha wasn’t too keen on Saul’s great idea, but she had ultimately seen the reasoning behind it and had begrudgingly accepted. She sat in the seat next to Letho, anger spread across her face. But to Letho it seemed as if she was struggling to keep up the grouchy facade. It felt great to be out in the bracing chill, sucking in sweet, fresh air after a day or two of canned oxygen; surely she felt that too.

The scenery rushed past in a cracked brown-red blur. The lush greenery and swaying trees that Letho had seen in so many videodocs were nowhere to be found. He had no way of knowing if the whole planet was like this, but the sheer absence of life around him made his stomach churn. He thought about the all the propaganda he had been subjected to as a citizen of the Fulcrum station. Rebuilding the planet, saving the human race. Your offspring will someday return home. Fulcrum stations, united under a mission: finding new planets to colonize and preserving humanity until Eursus is fit for our return.

Letho looked down to see that he had been pressing a little too hard and had created a small gash in his finger. He rubbed the blood on his pants, then went back to scanning the arid scenery.

Thresha turned to Letho, her eyes glimmering with lust, her tongue flicking behind her lips. Letho stuck his finger in his mouth and sucked the blood away, and when he pulled his finger from his mouth, the cut was gone. Thresha’s eyes dulled for a moment, and she shook her head, looking like someone who had just woken from a dream. She said nothing, for they had already discovered that communication in the rush of air all around them was difficult if not impossible.

Saul brought the vehicle to a stop just under a rocky outcropping a few meters from the highway they had followed. He placed a finger to his lips and gestured for the others to waitHe then leapt out, circled around the vehicle, and began to rummage in the razorback’s cargo hold. When he popped out with a small triangular metallic plate he looked up at Letho, grinning ear to ear. Then he took off up a jagged slope and out of Letho’s sight. He returned a few moments later, dusting off his shoulders, still smiling.

“What now?” Letho asked.

“Shhhh!” Saul hissed. “Keep your voice down. When you hear it, make for the road up there.”

“Hear what?”

“You’ll know.”

Just then there was a rumble of low-frequency sound, and the sound of an engine revving. “GO!” shouted Saul, no longer concerned about staying quiet.

They leapt from the ATV, Thresha and Saul clutching assault rifles. As Letho slid through the open canopy he drew his sword and his Black Bear, enjoying the rush of adrenaline that filled his body.

“All right, Saladin, let’s do this!” he shouted.

Letho made his way up the hill in one swift leap, rising up and over Saul. Thresha was already there. A large truck hovered in midair in the center of the highway. The wheels still spun, and the driver and his passenger were cursing and gesturing at one another in the truck’s cab. The triangular device that Saul had pulled from the trunk was somehow holding the truck perfectly in place, most likely with a magnetic field, Letho thought.

“That’s it?” Letho asked. “What did you even need us for?”

Letho’s question was answered by a strange sound that began to rise from the distant horizon. Letho turned to look, and could see something moving along at rather quick clip and fairly low to the ground. As it drew closer, a low roar filled Letho’s ears. It was some sort of recon vehicle, alien in nature. In fact, it looked like a miniature version of Abraxas’s ship, though when it reached them, Letho saw that it was still large enough to dwarf the captured truck, which it now hovered over.

A door slid open and Mendraga soldiers garbed in crimson armor began to spill out, leaping from heights that would shatter the legs and backs of normal men. Saul immediately dropped to one knee and formed a tight V with his sinewy forearms, with an assault rifle at the apex. As it began to bark, Mendraga began to fall, their heads popping like overripe melons under the parching sun.