The bridge of the aircraft carrier became a kill box.
The Admiral—now a hulking statue of gray stone—lunged at Lucilla.
Marcus moved.
He swung the Vibro-Gladius two-handed.
CRACK.
The blade hit the Admiral's stone neck. It didn't slice clean like flesh. It chipped. The vibration of the blade fought against the density of the calcified bone.
Dust sprayed.
The blade bit deep, getting stuck halfway.
The Admiral didn't bleed. He just growled—a sound like tectonic plates grinding. He backhanded Marcus.
The stone fist hit Marcus's chest plate.
BOOM.
Marcus flew backward, crashing into the navigation console. His ceramic armor held, but his ribs screamed. He gasped, the wind knocked out of him.
"It's rock!" Marcus shouted, scrambling up. "The sword can't cut it!"
Narcissus roared.
The giant stepped in front of Lucilla. He didn't use a weapon. He used his shield—the limestone slab reinforced with Sentinel plating.
He charged.
He slammed the shield into the Admiral.
CRUNCH.
The stone statue shattered. An arm flew off. The torso cracked down the middle.
The Admiral collapsed into a pile of rubble and dust.
"Use blunt force!" Marcus yelled.
"The corridor is full!" Galen shouted, backing away from the door.
Salt Walkers poured onto the bridge. Dozens of them. Sailors fused with their uniforms, their skin impenetrable gray rock.
"Out the window!" Marcus ordered.
He grabbed a heavy chair. He threw it through the bridge glass.
The window shattered.
Wind and fog rushed in.
"Jump!"
They leaped onto the exterior catwalk, three stories down.
Marcus landed hard, rolling to absorb the impact. Narcissus landed with a thud that shook the steel grating.
"To the hangar!" Marcus yelled. "We need the supplies!"
They sprinted along the catwalk.
Above them, Salt Walkers spilled out of the broken window. They didn't climb down. They just fell.
THUD. THUD.
They hit the steel deck. Some shattered. Some cracked but stood up, limping toward the sound of life.
They reached the hangar bay doors. They were open.
Inside, the cavernous space was filled with shadows and dust.
But in the center, bathed in the emergency lights, were pallets.
[US NAVY EMERGENCY RATIONS]
[DESALINATION FILTERS]
[AVIATION FUEL]
"Jackpot," Galen breathed.
"We can't carry this," Lucilla said. "It's tons."
"The crane!" Marcus pointed to the deck edge.
The Neptune was bobbing alongside the carrier, fifty feet down.
Marcus tapped his comms.
"Valeria! Bring the ship around! We're lowering a pallet!"
"Copy!" Valeria shouted over the static. "But you have company! They're swarming the deck!"
Marcus looked at the far end of the hangar.
A sea of gray was moving toward them. Hundreds of Salt Walkers. The entire crew.
"Narcissus! Get the pallet on the lift!" Marcus ordered. "Galen, help him!"
"And you?"
"I'll hold the door."
Marcus stood at the choke point—a narrow corridor between two parked helicopters.
He sheathed the sword. It was useless here.
He drew the heavy flare gun he had looted from the Sentinel armory.
He loaded a high-explosive canister.
The horde shuffled closer. The sound was deafening—thousands of stone feet dragging on steel.
"Come on," Marcus whispered.
The lead Walker—a massive man fused with a wrench—reached for him.
Marcus fired.
THUMP-WHOOSH.
The flare hit the Walker in the chest.
It didn't burn. It exploded.
BOOM.
The Walker shattered. The blast wave knocked the ten behind it down like bowling pins.
"Loading!" Narcissus shouted from the deck edge.
The giant had hooked the pallet of supplies to the carrier's deck crane. He was cranking the manual release.
The pallet swung out over the water.
"It's dropping!" Galen yelled.
On the Neptune, refugees scrambled to catch the swinging load. It crashed onto the deck.
"We have the water!" Decimus shouted up. "Jump!"
Marcus fired another flare. Another explosion of rock and dust.
But they were too many. They were climbing over the wreckage.
One grabbed Marcus's leg. Its grip was crushing.
Marcus kicked it in the face. His boot cracked the stone nose, but the grip held.
"Let go!"
He drew his Vibro-Knife. He jammed it into the creature's eye socket. It vibrated the skull apart.
The grip loosened.
Marcus turned and ran.
He sprinted across the hangar deck.
Narcissus and Galen were already at the edge.
"Jump!" Narcissus roared.
The giant grabbed Galen and threw him over the side. The physician screamed, landing in a pile of nets on the Neptune.
Narcissus leaped. He hit the deck with a massive crash.
Marcus reached the edge.
The Salt Walkers were right behind him.
He didn't stop. He vaulted the railing.
He fell fifty feet.
He hit a stack of canvas tarps on the Neptune. The impact knocked the wind out of him.
"Go! Go! Go!" Marcus wheezed.
Valeria slammed the throttle.
The Neptune surged away from the carrier.
Salt Walkers reached the edge of the flight deck above. They didn't stop. They walked off the edge.
They rained down into the black water. Splash. Splash.
They sank like stones.
The Neptune sped into the fog. The Ghost Ship faded behind them.
Marcus lay on the tarp, staring up at the gray sky.
He rolled over. He looked at the pallet.
Cases of water filters. Drums of fuel. MREs.
"We're rich," Galen gasped, hugging a box of filters.
Marcus sat up. He wiped stone dust from his armor.
"Lucilla," he said. "The map."
Lucilla pulled out the datapad. She brought up the stolen file.
It showed the Mediterranean.
A red grid covered the sea—the kill zone of the orbital lasers.
But there was a hole. A moving green circle.
"The blind spot," Lucilla said. "It's drifting East. Towards Crete."
"How fast?"
"Twenty knots."
"Can we match it?"
Valeria looked at the fuel drums they had just stolen.
"With this fuel? Yes. We can surf the gap."
"Then we have a path," Marcus said.
He stood up. He walked to the bow.
The fog was beginning to lift. For the first time in days, the sky cleared.
Stars appeared.
And then, the datapad chimed.
Not a ping. A message.
[PRIORITY TRANSMISSION]
[SOURCE: LEGIO X COMMAND - SYRIA]
Lucilla handed it to him.
The text scrolled across the screen.
"TO ANY ROMAN SURVIVORS. THIS IS LEGATE MARCIA. WE ARE UNDER SIEGE. THE WALL IS FALLING. THE ENEMY HAS BREACHED THE OUTER PERIMETER. WE CANNOT HOLD FOREVER. HURRY."
Marcus stared at the words.
The Wall is falling.
He looked East.
"Full speed," Marcus said. His voice was quiet, deadly.
"Burn the engines until they melt."
"The Legion is dying."