Sol
The invading swarm chased after the light from the Home Fleet’s last stand. Half of the surviving mass followed only a short distance before settling around the gate like a swarm of angry wasps. Some darted out at random, seeking out small pockets of radio emissions. But the rest moved with a purpose. The rest advanced towards the heart of Sol — towards Earth and Mars.
The few remaining Terran warships formed up in a thin, ragged line against the onrushing tide. The swarm swept past them without ever slowing, leaving shattered hulls teeming with their dull, grey sludge.
One tendril of the invaders curved away, looping out towards Mars. The rest struck Earth’s outer defenses. The Terran orbital defense platforms, designed to stop kinetic strikes and interplanetary missiles, not an invading fleet, fared poorly.
The swarm of replicators reached the atmosphere and their momentum faltered. They now faced defenses built to stop a tide of ships, crewed by men and women who’d trained for this moment their entire life. Explosions lit the sky, and blanketed the Earth in thunder. The invader’s ships died by the ten thousands.
For a time, mankind’s homeworld held fast.
Bridge, TSS Dewdrop. Far Earth Orbit
The door to the bridge hissed opened and Tweetie stepped through. Calloway and Jenkins didn’t turn from the main viewscreen, but Rusty did.
Rusty was Calloway’s dog. They’d picked him up during their brief stopover at the chief warrant officer’s Martian ranch, along with Calloway’s sizable private arsenal. Tweetie’s rifle had come from that cache, along with the unpowered body armor the Nedji now wore.
Tweetie edged back as the massive German Shepard padded over. He wasn’t entirely sure what he thought about dogs — pets bred to develop normally in the low gravity of Mars were rare. The beast probably weighed as much as he did, and Tweetie had no doubt that Rusty could cave in his skull with a blow from one of his massive paws. But on the flip side, they weren’t cats. Cats didn’t like Nedji, and the feeling was mutual.
Tweetie winced as Rusty’s tongue rasped across his face. The rhythmic thumping of the dog’s tail caught Calloway’s attention, who turned his head and sighed.
“Sorry, Tweetie,” said Calloway. “Rusty! Back off!”
The dog trotted back over to his corner and laid down, his eyes still fixed on Tweetie. His tail didn’t miss a beat.
“How’s the armory?” asked Jenkins.
“Chaos,” said Tweetie, “but we’ve got three coffins in the tubes, along with kit for the drop. Cromley and Naomi are enjoying themselves. Any news from up here?”
“Not much,” said Jenkins. “Twisted got one more transmission off before we lost contact with Chicago. He made it into one of the bunkers, but Flaring and Walsh weren’t as lucky. They’re caught on the outskirts.”
Tweetie nodded. Twisted-claw-silent-flight, a 3rd SOR Nedji sergeant, had attached himself to the the newly-elevated Councilor Mottled-crest-broken-tailfeather’s as soon as the unit had left active rotation. Twisted was the de-facto rally point for members of their unit scattered across North America.
“And the planet’s holding?”
“See for yourself,” said Calloway. The human gestured towards the viewscreen as he stepped aside. “It’s not looking too good.”
Their was nothing left in orbit except for the swarm. Matte grey ships choked the edges of the atmosphere and hurled destruction into the cities. Terran ground installations answered back, but already Tweetie could see patches of sky where the return fire was thinning.
Europe had been hit especially hard. Berlin and Paris had fallen silent, and London’s airspace was overwhelmed by the invaders. Their streets were sure to be choked with replicators.
North American had been spared the worst of the destruction, but that mercy was poised to end. A massive cloud of replicators was drifting out across the Atlantic ocean, on course to merge with the forces assaulting the eastern coast. Once merged, they’d overwhelm the cities anti-air batteries and descend onto the city en masse.
“‘Not looking good’ is a bit of an understatement,” said Tweetie. “Dropping into that’s going to be hell.”
Secure Room, Bunker V02. Chicago.
Councilor Eldest-of-Fields watched with grim amusement as Councilor Mottled-crest-broken-tailfeather, his Nedji counterpart, tried and failed to ignore the persistent thumping of the bunker’s anti-air battery. The Askran’s body had been on the brink of failure for so long that a quick death was almost welcome.
Twisted-claw-silent-flight paced near the entrance to their secure room. Reaching-wings-blunt-beak, the other half of Mottled’s escort, waited outside. Eldest-of-Fields still wasn’t sure his fellow councilor had refused the customary Terran Marshal protection detail. Marshal-Lieutenant Mick Founder, the fourth and final inhabitant of the room, had served the Askran well for the past years.
“You’re sure your friends are coming?” asked Founder. “Because with the way things going, we might have to start dropping nukes.” The short human rapped the bunker wall with a fist, producing an echoless thunk. “Unless they can get us out quick, this’ll be the safest place do be.”
“They’ll be here,” replied Twisted. “Calloway gave his word.”
Founder snorted. “Sure they will. Some washed-up warrant’s going to set his yacht down in an LZ that’s already claimed three marshal pilots. I’ll believe it when they see it.”
The two bodyguards settled back into their customary tense silence. They hadn’t exchanged blows yet, but Eldest-of-Fields had seen them come close.
“If they can land, marshal-lieutenant, then they will land,” said Eldest-of-Fields. “Now, if the two of you would be kind enough to quiet down, my fellow councilor have work to conclude.” He turned to Mottled. “I believe we were discussing your recent elevation before the invasion began?”
“Yes, actually,” said Mottled. He seemed to relax as his mind shifted back to politics. “An unprecedented fraction of the Remnant Flock voted against the wishes of their tribal Flocklords. We could be on the brink of…”
The Nedji’s eyes settled on Eldest-of-Fields as they talked. While the Askran hadn’t spent much time with the councilor, he thought he could read relief and thanks in Mottled’s four bright violet eyes.
Everyone needs their distractions, thought Eldest-of-Fields. An image of Kyla, cowering in the Dallas warrens, threatened to overwhelm the aging Askran, but he let Mottled’s argument drown it out. Even I’m not immune.
Armoury, TSS Dewdrop. Far Earth Orbit
“Everyone prepped?” asked Calloway. The human’s voice sounded tinny on Tweetie’s drop pod’s small speaker.
“Loaded with kit to spare,” said Jenkins.
“Ready to go,” said Cromley.
“Already cursing myself for letting you guys talk me into this,” said Tweetie.
“Cold feet? From you?” Jenkins sounded taken aback. “This is a first.”
“You know how much I hate these things.”
“True, you did loath these in basic. Plus we’re all dropping as civvies, so you can’t boss me around like you normally do. Must take some of the fun out of things.”
“Okay, now I’m terrified,” said Cromley. “Motion to designate Tweetie as the leader of this little expedition?”
“Seconded,” said Calloway over the speaker.
“I have no objections,” said Tweetie.
“Motion passed,” said Cromley. “Jenkins, Tweetie’s in charge.”
“Damnit,” said Jenkins. “Just when I thought I could have some fun.”
Tweetie, Cromley, and Jenkins were each strapped into a drop pod — basically just metal coffins fitted with an impeller drive, an inertial dampener, and a small fission pile — and waiting for Calloway to fire them through the swarm of replicators.
“Launch in five,” came Calloway’s voice over the speaker. “Last we heard, Walsh and Flaring were making their way to your LZ. I hope you guys were generous when you packed their kit.”
The edge of Flaring’s ruck, stuffed with a set of body armor and a two-thirds pulse rifle, was currently digging into Tweetie’s back. They’d tossed as many toys in as they could manage.
“They’ll be happy,” said Tweetie. “Any news?”
“Lieutenant Sanders com’d in a few minutes ago,” continued Calloway. “They’ve convinced the major to get the hell off Mars. Most of the regiment’s joining one of the evac groups at the edge of the system.”
“And Whep and Leil?” asked Tweetie. The two Nyctra had gone to ground shortly after publicizing the classified documents that were, even now, at the core of the Terran Alliance’s response to the replicators. That had earned them an arrest warrant.
“No,” replied Calloway, “but remember who we’re talking about. Leil’s a master at covering her tracks. I’m sure they’ll pop up once this thing is all over.” The speakers fell silent for a moment. “Three minutes to launch.”
“You sure these F/F codes you loaded the pods with are good?” asked Jenkins. “I’d rather not get tagged by blue-on-blue.”
“They’re good,” said Calloway. His voice carried absolute conviction.
The conversation died out and Tweetie was left with only the dim hum of the ship’s reactor to distract him from the coming drop. The minutes stretched on.
“Fifteen seconds to drop,” came Calloway’s tinny voice.
Tweetie fixated on the small, red icon that would alert him when Calloway opened the tubes. Always better to see it coming.
“Drop.”
The icon turned green and Tweetie was slammed against his restraints. Even with the pod’s dampeners cranked to the max, acceleration leaked through.
The first terrifying seconds would have been silent without the Nedji’s ragged breathing and an annoying rattling sound coming from Flaring’s pack. They must not have stuffed the padding in tight enough when they’d loaded it up.
Tweetie hit the atmosphere a quarter of a minute later and felt terror grip his spine. In the vacuum of space, you could almost pretend that you were flying. But here, in a small metal coffin plummeting through Earth’s sky, there was no doubt that Tweetie was falling.
Nedji flew or glided. They never fell. For most of their evolutionary history, a falling Nedji meant that something had gone horribly wrong.
Tweetie breathed deeply as he fought to overcome a fear wrought into his hollow bones by millenia of evolution. He barely noticed the growing roar as the pod tore a path through the atmosphere.
The pod continued accelerating downwards until less than a kilometer separated it from the ground. Then it started accelerating faster. It wasn’t until it was a few hundred meters from the ground that the pod reversed its efforts in one massive burst of dV, burning out its impellars and inertial dampeners in the process.
The metal shell around Tweetie peeled back and spat the Nedji free. He unfurled his wings and felt the air billow beneath them. His fall became a glide.
Above him, the night sky burned.
Emergency Launch Site 05, Vancouver.
Whep grabbed Spik and pulled both of them deeper into the shadowed alley. Beside him, Leil sighted down her rifle at the human marshal walking down the path. If the man glanced to his right, he’d be dead and Whep wouldn’t be any sorrier. Pack came first, no matter how much he liked humans.
Whep’s hand shot across his cub’s face as Spik’s mouth began to form a sneeze. He was too slow, but the rumble of an anti-air battery drowned out the outburst.
That was lucky, thought Whep.
One of their contacts in the local militia, a human named Al, had warned them of a heavy marshal presence around the nearest Ark-class evacuation ship. Whep was reasonably confident that nobody in Fleet would touch them, but the Terran Alliance’s secret police were another matter entirely. If they were caught, they’d be detained, with no hope of escape if the city fell.
It wasn’t that Whep doubted the Terran Alliance’s fighting ability. The humans had built a war machine that could rival any three Demesnes. and their small pocket of the galaxy was extremely well-defended. No, the problem was that even the Compact, with their near-infinite number of resources and troops, had feared the replicators.
Whep could remember the drills he’d run back on the Galactic Pride. They’d seemed pointless then — wiping data and then physically destroying the computer towers, planting explosives keyed to primitive electrical detonators, and taking up defensive positions around bulky field generators — but they made perfect sense now. Every measure had been tailored to combat the replicator threat.
Whep’s fears proved to be unfounded: the marshal walked by without ever noticing the three fugitive Nyctra. Leil lowered her silenced slughthrower and Whep slid his pulse rifle back over his shoulder. Then they slipped out of the alley and started towards the people crowding the Ark’s intake line.
It was an even longer line than they’d expected, with perhaps a thousand humans milling in something halfway between a defensive wall and an orderly queue. Men and women held rifles or carried bulky interference generators, only breaking their vigil to shuffle forward a few places whenever the speaker blared out instructions.
Whep led his family towards the line without much hope. Every minute they spent in the line increased the odds of a marshal patrol catching sight of them. Worse, there wasn’t even any guarantee that there’d be room on the ark.
Al was stationed at a bunker not far from here. Maybe their human friend probably smuggle them into one of the armories. They could hide from the marshals there and not risk the line.
“Make a hole!” shouted one of the queuing humans. “Family, one kid coming through!”
Whep watched with amazement as the crowd parted. An older lady prodded the stunned Nyctra forward.
“Well? You gonna get in there? The space won’t last forever.”
They walked through the crowd in a daze. A path opened before them, then closed immediately afterwards. Men and women, some old and some young, watched Whep, Leil, and Spik pass without the slightest hint of malice.
It wasn’t until they’d checked their weapons, climbed into the colossal Ark, and found there cabin that the situation caught up to Whep. He turned to Leil.
“Did we just make it?” he asked.
“I think we did,” replied Leil. She flopped down onto one of the two tiny bunks in the room. “We’re safe.”