At the top of the ramp, the twenty clone soldiers were preparing to march downward. They stepped forward in perfect unison.The moment their heavy combat boots touched the altered glass, they slipped.It was immediate and chaotic. The clones lost their footing entirely. Because they were standing on a steep incline with zero friction, gravity took over instantly.The twenty perfect, deadly clone soldiers fell onto their backs. They began to slide down the long, steep ramp.They slid incredibly fast. They could not stop. They dropped their rifles as they spun and tumbled down the frictionless glass. They crashed into each other, forming a tangled, sliding ball of black armor."They are falling!" Vega cheered."Step aside," Oliver commanded his squad perfectly.Oliver and his men stepped to the very edges of the ramp, pressing their backs against the walls.The screaming pile of clone soldiers slid right past them at forty miles an hour. They slid off the bottom edge of the ramp and plu

"We are going to unite the human squad and the rebel mutant army," Oliver explained. "We will set a trap at the Great Gate. But I cannot do it alone. I need to coordinate their forces."Oliver turned to Rax. "Rax. Can you contact Gorrok? Can you speak to the leader of the Iron Claws?"Rax nodded his heavy, scaly head. "I have a stolen human radio. We use a secret frequency.""Give it to Billy," Oliver ordered.Rax handed a small, dirty radio to the hacker. Billy quickly connected it to his cracked tablet."Billy. Open a secure channel to Gorrok," Oliver commanded.Static hissed over the tablet. Then, a deep, rough voice answered."Rax? Are you alive? Did the metal human lead you to your deaths?" Gorrok growled over the radio."I am alive, Gorrok," Oliver spoke into the tablet. His metallic voice was perfectly flat. "This is Commander Oliver. The tactical situation has escalated.""Commander?" Gorrok laughed a dark laugh. "You broke the door for us. We have the upper slums. Why are you

The red numbers flashed in Commander Oliver’s mind. 00:05:59.00:05:58.The clock was ticking. In less than six minutes, the massive energy wall blocking the underground river would fall. When it fell, one hundred thousand angry Wraithborn monsters would sail through the Great Gate. They would flood the lower tunnels. They would tear everything to pieces. And high above them, the blue plasma reactor was still ticking down. The Overlord’s bomb was preparing to detonate and crack the planet Sigma-12 in half. "Move," Oliver commanded. His voice was a flat, cold, metallic echo. He did not yell. He did not panic. He just set the perfect, unbreakable rhythm. Oliver ran at the front of the squad. His heavy combat boots hit the black stone floor. Step. Step. Step. He ran with smooth, robotic strides. He did not breathe heavily. He did not sweat. His right arm and the right side of his face were covered in smooth, pitch-black alien metal. The Wraithborn magic pulsed in his veins. The bri

As Oliver passed under the monster, he drew his sharp titanium combat knife. SLASH. Oliver cut the thick tendons behind the mutant’s knees. The mutant roared in pain and collapsed backward. Oliver stopped sliding. He instantly spun around. He stood up. The red bomb finished bouncing off the ceiling. It began to fall back down toward the floor. BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEEEEP. It was one second away from detonating. Oliver raised his black metal right arm. He did not grab the bomb. He did not punch it. He opened his dark metal palm. He pushed a tiny, focused pulse of anti-gravity magic directly out of his hand. WUB! The anti-gravity pulse caught the falling bomb in mid-air. It stopped the bomb from hitting the ground. Then, Oliver swept his arm violently to the side. He used the gravity magic to throw the bomb horizontally. He threw it as hard as he could toward the solid stone wall on the far right side of the tunnel. But Oliver knew a secret about that wall. He had seen it on his E

They stood on the edge of the River of Shadows. The water was pitch black. A sickly green mist floated on the surface. Along the riverbank, there were three massive metal pumps. The pumps were pulling the black water and the magical energy up into the Citadel through thick glass pipes. "These are the three energy supply points," Oliver analyzed. "Supply Point Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. They are spaced fifty yards apart. We must protect all three.""How do we guard a hundred and fifty yards of open river with only seven guns?" Jax asked. "We do not use just guns. We use efficiency," Oliver replied. Oliver went to work. He moved like a perfectly programmed machine. He did not waste a single second. He did not take a single unnecessary step. "Step One: Anchor-stabilized barriers," Oliver commanded. He took his last remaining silver Anchor discs. He walked to the edge of the black water. He placed the discs in the shallow water, exactly twenty feet in front of the three metal pumps.