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Hawkins sat still, elbows on his knees, head lowered like a man in prayer, which wasn’t far from the truth, if you ignored the black body armor, sinister looking helmet and visor and the oxygen mask over his face. He couldn’t decide if he looked more like a Star Wars character or Daft Punk. The body armor and helmet were there to protect him from the elements—outside the plane was 25 degrees below zero—and from the enemy. The oxygen mask was there to protect him from the bends. He’d been wearing it for forty minutes, pre-breathing pure oxygen to purge the nitrogen from his system.

Looking at the cargo bay’s floor revealed nothing more than grated metal and his boots. But the digital display in his facemask revealed outlines of the world below. He’d watched the coastline of Alaska come and go, and was now over the open ocean of the Bering Strait, headed for Russian airspace.

Hawkins had seen and done a lot in his life, but three years ago, he believed his life and death struggle with a grizzly bear at Yellowstone park where he was a ranger, would always be the hardest experience of his life. The bright red scars running across his chest were a constant reminder of that near-death experience. But in the years since then, he had endured a trial by fire that revealed dangers far worse than a bear, and his ability to help overcome those dangers. He’d faced the twisted chimeras of Island 731 and the deranged and powerful General Gordon in Washington, D.C., and he had helped defeat the Tsuchi, both large and small varieties, just a year ago. On top of all that, he’d been a father to a cat-girl turned cat-woman, whose unique physiology and needs made her the biggest of all his life’s challenges. And yet he loved her like she was his own.

So as he bowed his head and stared at the floor, he said a prayer for Lilly. That she would be safe, and that the Russians hadn’t taken her or harmed her, so help them God. His next prayer was for Maigo, knowing that Hudson was feeling similarly right now, even if he was focused on a different task.

“Ranger.” The pilot’s voice was crystal clear in his headset.

“Amen,” Hawkins whispered, and then louder, “I’m here.”

“We’re two minutes out. Time to get ready.”

Hawkins stood and headed for the back of the plane. He carried an unmarked Israeli X95 submachine gun, armed with rubber bullets and a Zed-5 stun gun developed by Zoomb. The weapon used electromagnets to silently propel two pronged darts with enough power to jolt a human being into unconsciousness. He also carried several flashbang grenades. All of it was non-lethal. If Russians were killed, the finger-pointing that would take place after his escape could turn deadly.

“One minute,” the pilot said.

Hawkins’s felt the plane begin to bank and slow. “Why are we turning?”

“Once we open the back, we’ll be visible on radar, so we’re not actually going to fly into Russian airspace,” the pilot said. “That’s your job.”

“Right,” Hawkins said.

He was going to free fall from 30,000 feet, for a full two minutes, long enough to cross over the imaginary line drawn between Big and Little Diomede islands. There was a time in his life when he and Hudson had pursued adrenaline for fun. They’d jumped out of planes, dived to the ocean’s depths and jumped off a number of tall bridges with little more than a glorified elastic band to keep them from violent deaths. But a HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) was one of the most extreme things Hawkins had ever done, and this would be his second. The first was in FC-P training, six months previous. They’d had a BBQ after landing. This time, he was dropping onto a remote island populated by Russian soldiers and patrolled by a swarm of helicopters and jets. His only advantages were that no one would expect a lone person to drop in from 30,000 feet, his plummeting body wouldn’t be picked up on radar, it was still dark out and he was dressed in black. Once the sun came up, he would lose all of them.

“Ten seconds,” the pilot said. “Once the hatch is down, you’ll get three seconds before it comes back up.” The lights inside the cabin went black and the helmet’s night vision quickly compensated, shading everything in hues of green. The cargo hatch lowered, and a gust of wind filled the open space.

“Go, go, go,” the pilot said.

Hawkins didn’t hesitate. He threw himself out of the plane, into the night sky, where he was struck by a frigid, roaring wind. He spun around as he fell, looking back to where he’d just leapt, and he saw nothing. The transport was already gone. He twisted back and saw the green outlines of two islands far below him. He angled himself toward the larger of the two and pulled his hands back, accelerating to his terminal velocity.

He could see tiny red lights of jets making broad circles around the island. And then, the lights of helicopters, much closer and lower, shining spotlights back and forth over the island’s surface, like they were looking for something.

Not a good sign.

But most of the island itself was dark. He knew that lights had been erected, along with the prefab base, but something had happened to them, which suited him just fine.

One minute into his descent, he passed the elevation at which the fighter jets were patrolling without being carved in half by gunfire. The island loomed large below him now, its form digitally outlined in green. He angled himself toward a portion of it still cloaked in darkness and waited for the altitude-triggered parachute to deploy.

He heard the chop of helicopter blades a moment before the chopper passed beneath him, the vortex of air pulling him toward the rotor. He flared his arms and legs, and grunted as the wind buffeting them stretched his muscles to the breaking point. But the subtle shift in speed saved his life. The chopper charged past below him and swept around the island’s outer edge. He turned his head back toward the ground and nearly screamed. He was seconds from impact. He could clearly see the silhouette of the rocky surface partially cloaked by thin fog.

And then, just a thousand feet from the ground, deployment. The expanding parachute felt like a giant reaching out and plucking him from the sky, but that jolt wasn’t the worst of it. The parachute would stop him from being smeared on the ground, but he would still hit hard. Broken bones from HALO jumps weren’t uncommon, and his first and only experience had dropped them into a lush, grassy field. Hawkins tucked and rolled over the uneven, hard ground, thankful for the body armor that absorbed much of the impact and spared his skin from being torn apart.

The roll carried him back to his feet as a breeze caught and yanked the parachute. He caught the lines and dragged the chute in, detaching it and crumpling it into a tight ball before putting a rock on top of it.

But the snap of the chute opening hadn’t gone unnoticed.

He heard voices approaching, slow and cautious. The beams of two flashlights mounted to the barrels of AK-47s, cut through the fog, mostly failing, but the men were already on top of him, their Kevlar-armored bodies and pale skin coming into view. He drew the Zed, took aim and pulled the trigger. It struck the first man’s forehead and delivered a shock that sent him into a momentary seizure before dropping him to the ground. Hawkins took aim at the second man, who was bringing the barrel of his AK-47 around. Even if the man fired and missed, Hawkins would be screwed.

He pulled the trigger twice. The first round struck the man’s body armor protecting his shoulder; the second found his neck. The man dropped beside his partner, both of them unconscious.
For now,
Hawkins thought. He had about ten minutes before they woke up, and he wasn’t about to kill either man. He did take their ammunition and the antennas from their radios. It would buy him a few extra minutes as the men stumbled their way through the thickening fog.

Viewing the island through his visor, Hawkins headed for the core, which had been radically changed by the Russian demolitions. The closer he got, the more voices he heard, all angry, all Russian. Something had them irked, and few people could irk a gaggle of grown men like a pair of teenage girls, especially when those girls had the strength, speed and will to make fools of the men.

Hawkins switched out the Zed’s magazine while he slid through the night. He was a good shot, but the Zed carried only eight rounds, and it sounded like there were at least double that number of men up ahead. When he reached the outer ring of the exposed Atlantean symbol, he slid down into the recess and crept to the other side. He could see the backs of several men standing at the core, looking at a black hole descending into the island. He couldn’t see the men on the far side, but he could hear them, and if he got close enough to see them, they would see him.

He took aim at the closest man, working out his course of action—in which order he would shoot the men before leaping forward and unleashing a torrent of rubber bullets, all aimed at chest level. Hopefully there weren’t any short Russians on the receiving end. A rubber bullet to the head—or worse, to the eye—could still kill a man.

Then the island shook.

He braced himself and wondered if the Russians had set off more explosives underground. But they sounded just as surprised as he was. Several of them backed away from the hole.

The ground shook again, this time more violently, and as the men shouted and stumbled, a black blur exploded up out of the hole. When the blur reached the apex of its jump and unfurled clawed hands, Hawkins knew who it was.

Lilly!

The cat-woman descended toward the men with a hiss, triggering a fusillade of chaotic gunfire. Hawkins rose from his hiding spot and pulled the trigger, firing eight shots in rapid succession and dropping five men. He could hear Lilly working her way through the men on the far side of the hole. Gunshots, hissing and grunts rose from the fog like a punk band had kicked off a concert. He switched out the magazine and dropped two more men, turning toward a black shape emerging through the fog like a specter.

His finger froze over the trigger, aimed at his target’s head, just as his target pulled up short, sparing his face from a hard punch.

Lilly’s yellow, feline eyes went wide in time with a smile. “Dad?”

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Where’s Maigo?”

Lilly’s already wide eyes broadened.

The ground shook again, even more violently than before.

“Grab some of these guys,” she shouted. “Pull them back!”

Hawkins didn’t question her. He took two of the men by their uniforms and dragged them out of the circle. By the time he returned for more, Lilly had moved most of the rest. She threw two of the remaining three over her shoulders as Hawkins picked up the final man.

“What’s happening?” he asked as the ground trembled.

“She’s coming!”

“Who is coming?”

“Maigo!” Lilly shouted, and then she leapt away.

Hawkins carried a man through the large rings, fighting to stay upright against the quavering ground. Lilly greeted him at the edge and took the man from him, quickly depositing the soldier another hundred feet back.

What the hell are we running from?
he wondered. As strong as Maigo was, she couldn’t move an entire island. The ground beneath his feet rose up and cracked. Then it fell away.

Hawkins dangled over the open space for a moment before Lilly yanked him up by his arm. She carried him back away from the widening pit. Soil poured into the hole, and then something massive rose from it. At first, it was just an immense shape pushing through the fog, but then it rose up, climbing out of the Earth, a hundred feet at a time.

When it finally cleared the massive hole, the thing—the
robot
—stood over three hundred feet tall, its armor gleaming in the first rays of the morning’s sun.

Lilly tugged on Hawkins’s arm, pulling his attention away from the mechanical behemoth that somehow looked both futuristic and ancient.

“The hell is that?” Hawkins asked, looking back at her to find Future Betty descending toward them, the rear hatch lowering. Lilly held the craft’s remote in her hand.

Lilly climbed inside the X-35 and turned around, glancing up at the colossal machine. “That...is Maigo.” Lilly toggled her headset. “You hear me, Maig?”

“I’m here,” said an electronic-sounding version of Maigo’s voice. “Hyperion is transmitting my thoughts on our frequency.”

“Hyperion?” Lilly asked. “You named it already?”

“Like father, like daughter,” Hawkins said.

Hyperion raised its massive hands up and clutched its head.

“You okay?” Lilly asked.

“Just a lot of information at once,” Maigo said, her projected voice sounding strained. “Dad’s in trouble. In Boston. Tokyo has problems, too.”

A loud hum rumbled from the giant robot.

“What’s happening?” Hawkins asked.

“I don’t—” Maigo let out a grunt. “Get back! Quick!”

As quick to act as ever, Hawkins charged into the X-35, dragging Lilly behind him. “Get us out of here!”

Lilly dove behind the controls and sent them hurtling skyward, rising up past Hyperion’s stoic face and going hundreds of feet higher. Warning chimes started sounding, but they had nothing to do with Hyperion and everything to do with the incoming missiles. The Russians had launched an attack on the robot.

Watching the scene through the projection on the floor, Hawkins saw Hyperion bend its knees and flex its arms like it was preparing to fight the missiles off.

Then, in a blink, Hyperion was gone, as though it had never existed.

Russian missiles and rockets rained down on the island, laying waste to the surface, and to a large number of Russian soldiers. That all those men had died was tragic, but it also meant the Russian government would never talk about what happened here today. If anything, they’d quickly cover it up.

Hawkins slid into the cockpit passenger’s seat beside Lilly.

“Sorry,” she said. “For—”

“Later.” Hawkins looked at his daughter, feeling a mixture of anger, relief and pride. She had broken some serious rules and put people they cared about in danger, but they had also managed to recover a massive robot, which would have been dangerous under Russian control. He didn’t know what happened to the robot when it disappeared, but he was pretty sure it was out of the Russians’ reach. He pointed to the south and said, “Get us to Tokyo.”