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“Anti-aircraft?” Leon demanded of the first man to approach him. Leon recognized him, knew he was experienced, and that he’d led many of their operations. But if Leon had ever known his name, it escaped him now, and he remembered Mal’ik’s dismissive scoff with a twist of frustration.
“All accounted for.” The man pointed to all the surrounding roofs and the large, manned, anti-aircraft and missile guns—weapons that had taken the Resistance years and years to procure—set up on each one. They would keep this command site as safe as possible while they directed the ground fighting below and would hopefully stymie any of the Klah’Eel’s observational ships or drones.
“Radio.” Leon held out his hand, and the man quickly placed his own radio into it.
“It’s already tuned to command frequency.”
“Report,” Leon barked into it as he strode to the western corner of the roof, and everything fell away.
All the chronic worries—the certainty of his own inadequacy, the incessant what-ifs and questioning ever spinning around his mind—fell away like nothing. It sloughed off and left him in command, confident and powerful.
He lost himself then to the rhythm of the fight, flush with the energy of it like he had been when they’d taken back Ralscoln. He paced around the roof, surveying the defenses and the men and shouting down words of strength and encouragement to them.
“This is your fight!”
“This is your home!”
“This is your planet and the planet of your families!”
Things that he believed down to his very bones.
The tension between him and Mal’ik blew away like smoke, and they circled back around to each other constantly, putting their heads together and comparing and dissecting what they saw, planning ahead.
“The barricades are weakest on the eastern side.”
“But if the enemy gets there, they’ll have been fortified by the men that fell back.”
“The machine guns have the best angles on Tule Street.”
“We’ll funnel them through there.”
But it wasn’t until they could make out the lights of land cruisers speeding toward them just beyond the bulk of the city and the lumbering shapes of armored vehicles that they were convinced of what was about to happen. And it wasn’t until the whine of an incoming missile, then the deafening explosion, and the blinding firework as one of the anti-aircraft guns shot it out of the sky that they were certain.
Mal’ik straightened up first, dropping the arm he’d lifted to shield his eyes. “The attack’s coming from the west.”
“Good to guess right about some things.” Leon turned to the man who had given him the radio and shouted to be heard among the din of battle. “Get me a line to headquarters.”
“Have them send everything they’ve g—” Mal’ik’s words were cut off by another missile being shot out of the sky, but this one was too low to be safe. The debris rained down into Tule Street, and Mal’ik and Leon raced over to that edge of their roof, though Tule Street was still a block over.
Leon raised his radio to his lips first. “What’s happened?”
A long, crackling pause in which Leon’s heart rate ratcheted up another notch, and then, “Nothing! We’re fine. No casualties.”
“Thank god.” Leon dropped his radio and shouted back to the man in the center of the roof. “Where’s that line to headquarters?”
The man looked up from his data tablet with wide eyes, a hand over his earpiece. “They’re not responding!”
“What?” Leon stormed over as though his presence might force them to pick up. “What do you mean?”
“The connection’s gone through”—the man turned the screen toward Leon before he could snatch it away to show him the green connected readout—“but they’re just not responding.”
“Why—”
A loud drone filled the air as a low-surface ship swung toward their position. Leon threw his belly to the ground, jarring his arms on the hard surface. Then the rattle of gunfire drowned out the sound of the ship, and it sped off, repelled by their defenses. For now.
Mal’ik was at his side in an instant, hauling him back to his feet. “What’s their ETA?”
“We don’t have one!” Leon barked back, vibrating with frustration.
