"Shoot anything that moves! Don't let him reach the lower streets!"The shout bounced off the cracked concrete walls of the old highway pass. Two heavy flashlight beams cut through the gray smoke, sweeping over the wrecked cars at the bottom of the mountain road. Up on the ridge, three soldiers wearing Vance Group gear were climbing down over the broken guardrail. Their boots kicked loose stones down the slope.Ronan pressed his back against the rusted side of an overturned city bus. He held his breath. His left shoulder felt like someone had driven a hot spike into his bones, and the smell of his own burned skin made his stomach turn. He squeezed the grip of his plasma rifle with his right hand. The weapon was heavy, and the energy display showed twenty-five percent. Three shots left if he fired at full power.He could not afford to waste a single shot."He came down this way!" one of the soldiers yelled, his voice close enough that Ronan could hear the crunch of broken glass under h

"He is still breathing down there! Flood the lower shafts before the purge begins!"The command screamed through the cracked radio on the rubble, harsh and metallic against the grinding echo of settling stone. Ronan did not wait to hear more. He kicked the broken communicator into the drainage trench and forced his legs to move, dragging his heavy boots across the buckled train tracks.Ten minutes. That was all the Covenant was giving this district before whatever they called the second phase wiped it off the map.Above him, the subway ceiling groaned as another tremor shook the concrete arches. Dust rained down in thick gray curtains, coating his tongue with the taste of dry chalk and old blood. His left arm hung useless at his side, numb from the shoulder down where the gray rot had sunk deep into his muscle. The burn he had inflicted on himself earlier was cracking open again, leaking dark, thick fluid down his sleeve.If he did not reach the underground medical depot soon, the rot