We passed the first sensor mounds, high-crawling fast enough to make my breath come in white puffs. No goats this time. If they were here, they stayed hidden. Sensible animals.

  I sweated, the sweat turning my shirt into a cold, clammy weight that mired sand to my back. The Knife claimed we still had at least an hour of semi-dark left. It felt too little to me.

  Our lead, a rail-thin, pale woman called Chocolate, stopped, pointed off to the side, and lifted the edges of her camouflage cloak so it didn't drag before moving forward again. The bloods after her did the same.

  I reached the spot and couldn't see anything. To make sure, I conjured a thread of force, up-tuning my vision ward.

  There was a thin, black-anodized metal wire laying in the sand. Star-shaped razors the length of my thumb studded it at thirty-centimeter intervals. It couldn't have been electrified, too much contact with the ground. The defensive value was close to zero. This was trash, tossed into the desert instead of the recycling because it was cheaper, and it might harm someone.

  Crudmucking Syndicates.

  We crawled, stooping and running in the dells and gullies, looking for traps, mines, the glint of light from a badly shielded night scope. I kept expecting gunshots.

  Nothing.

  In the distance, the roar of ammonia/methanol engines ripped apart the silence of the pre-dawn, their high-pitched, angry whizzing coming in waves as they crested dunes.

  A large column, heading our way. Two kilometers away, maybe less. Another kilometer to the port. Yet another to the Void Orb bunker.

  I needed to get closer. At four kilometers, I'd have five, maybe six shots with the magerifle in me before my mind went blank and iced over. At one kilometer, I could fire ten or fifteen. Less than that, and I'd have dozens.

  "We need to stop," I wheezed, loud enough for the Knife to hear. The air felt like barbs in my throat, my lungs hurting from the cold. If there'd been water on Remba, it'd have frozen solid.

  "Keep crawling," the Knife hissed back. "They won't spot us for minutes."

  "Can't," I said. "I need the rest to shoot. There will be too many of them."

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  "We'll hide," the Knife said. "Let them roll over us."

  "They'll reach the sneaks and diggers," I said. It came out with a cough. I started faltering, the distance to the Knife increasing.

  He turned, let me catch up, and pulled me forward in a half-crouching stagger.

  "Crudmucking run," he said with such harshness that it sent shivers of alarm up my neck. I let him pull me along.

  "We can't let them pass," I said. "They'll-"

  "You need to get close," he said, still pulling. "Said so yourself. How close?"

  I considered lying, didn't.

  "A kilometer. Four hundred meters would be better," I said.

  The Knife didn't reply, only increased his speed. I did the same, letting him pull until his breath sounded as loudly as mine.

  We were stopped by the whine of an electric engine. The bloods all fell to the sand. The Knife pulled me down. One of the Kylians did the same to Hao.

  My heart hammered in my throat. For a breath, nothing happened. Then a two-man trike with a massive recoilless rifle mounted above the gunner's seat crested the low ridge in front of us.

  It bore down on us, meter-high wheels churning up sand, the driver's night-vision goggles leaking light, illuminating his face a sickly green. The trike passed close enough for me to feel the spray of cold sand. I started to get up, but the Knife pulled me down again.

  Another engine. And another, the grating roar of chemical fuel. More.

  Trikes, quads, eight-wheeled transports like the one we'd ridden to the hunter's blind, all passing us, flinging up curtains of dust, spraying us with sand. An army of vehicles driving by, over, next to us, their headlights illuminating the dust, turning the night into shining fog. Twice, I had to roll to avoid being squashed. The second time, I lost track of the Knife.

  Everything was dust. I couldn't see the bloods, the Kylians, Hao. Someone screamed, a wail of pain instantly drowned out by engine noise. A wheel struck me a glancing blow, my impact ward deflecting it.

  As suddenly as it had begun, the army passed us, a few stragglers churning through the rutted sand, the drivers squinting to see anything but gritty, glowing fog.

  "Run," someone yelled, and I looked around, bewildered.

  The Knife grabbed me, started pulling, running toward the port.

  No, toward City.

  It was still too far. But the sound of the motorized army was already fading. I sprinted, pushing myself. How far could I get? How fast were they disappearing?

  My legs moved on their own accord, stumbling in the loose sand. Hate running in sand. Thighs burning, grains worming their way into my boots, scraping my shins raw.

  Ignore it. Breathe. Run.

  Step by step, we came closer to City. Ten more minutes to decent firing range. Less, maybe. We'd make it.

  The thud-thud-thud of a low-bore automatic cannon slammed into my awareness, making me stumble. Then I realized what I was hearing and flung myself down, but the tracer rounds were aimed off to the side.

  Toward where our first group was heading for the transmission tower. The group led by the Kylian woman, whom I'd sent to fight without even asking for her name.

  Another gun opened up, a high-caliber semi-automatic. Maybe one of the Void Orb's Kassards. Another joined it. Everything was heading to the void.

  I sank down on one knee, and brought up my rifle.