Within minutes, Top admitted defeat and called in his flanks. Out there among the razor rocks, Sizemore and Ruiz simply couldn't keep with the team. Top posted them back with Jorgenson, where he could call them up as a reserve force if anything ambushed the team. It was just as well. The black onyx terrain became rapidly rougher, the butcher knives of stone becoming ax heads, then buzzsaw blades, then sharpened formations at such a scale Garrett had no words for them. Hills, though, if hills were like teeth. They marched into those hills through a flat-bottomed canyon bordered by gigantic black Cuisinart blades of rock.

"We're getting funneled," Top said over commo. "I'm not liking this."

"Keep cautious, eyes up," Garrett responded. "Watch the overhangs."<...

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