Bridge, Dewdrop. Chicago.
Calloway paced across the bridge, hands clasped behind his back. His tension had bled over into Rusty — the German Shepherd had slunk into the corner, eyes wide and ears low.
Naomi watched her husband with a worried look on his face. The Chicago skyline filled viewscreen, along with the massive swarm of replicators that assaulted the city’s airspace. Over the last hour, they’d watched invaders creep steadily closer to the towertop anti-air batteries. In some districts of the city, they’d already reached the ground.
The Dewdrop was parked a few hundred kilometers away, powered down and waiting for Tweetie’s squad to request extraction. Naomi could think of a dozen ways the plan could go wrong. The away team’s radio might not be able to punch through the swarm’s interference. Or the replicators might notice the Dewdrop and consume the fast-attack craft. Or they could still be sitting on the ground when the nukes dropped.
The Council had already glassed Europe. It was only a matter of time until they were desperate enough to try the same on the east coast.
“How long do we give them?” asked Naomi softly.
“As long as it takes,” said Calloway.
“At some point we have to–“
“As long as it takes,” repeated Calloway. “We’re not abandoning them.”
Secure Room, Bunker V02. Chicago.
The bunker’s anti-air batteries stopped firing and filled the small fortified room with silence.
“That’s it, then?” asked Mottled. “We won?”
“Hardly,” said Twisted. “The all-clear siren would have sounded. If anything, I’d say that those guns going offline means we’re losing.”
Small arms fire echoed through the bunker.
Founder’s face went pale as he glanced down at a small tablet. “We’ve been breached. We have to go.”
Eldest-of-Fields was already heaving himself to his feet. It hurt. His joints wailed in protest as he leaned against his small cane.
Should have taken the humans up on their surgeries, thought Eldest-of-Fields. Maybe then you wouldn’t be as much of a burden. Maybe then you could have been more of a help to your clan.
They made an odd procession as they left the room and headed towards the main entranceway. Twisted and Reaching flanked Mottled, but Twisted somehow ensured that he was always between Founder and Mottled. The off-duty assaulter didn’t try to hide his suspicion towards the Marshal close protection officer.
Founder ignored Twisted’s hostility entirely. He swept the corridors in front of them with cold precision, walking in lockstep with his charge. Eldest-of-Fields kept expecting to stumble across another group of human soldiers, but the only evidence they weren’t alone in the bunker was the harsh tap-tap of pulser fire.
Their first encounter with the replicators caught Eldest-of-Fields of guard. Twisted tossed something into the midst of the seething grey sludge blocking their advance, then dragged Mottled backwards as a flash of light and radiation lit the corridor. Founder scooped the Askran councilor up in one arm and dashed around the corner as Reaching opened fire.
A wave of skittering, spider-like robots rounded the corner and raced towards them. The Terrans fled, dodging through hatchways and doors until the sounds of pursuit vanished in the distance.
“One IF grenades left,” said Twisted when they slowed to a halt. “Founder, you’d better not lose that generator.” The Nedji turned towards Eldest-of-Fields. “Councilor, I’m lost. What’s the best way out of here.”
“South auxiliary access,” replied Eldest-of-Fields. The answer came automatically — The Askran spent his entire life in tunnels and warrens far more confusing than this one. One glance at the map had been enough for him to memorize the layout.
“South aux it is, then.” Twisted glanced at Founder. “Any objections, marshal?”
“None,” replied the human. “In fact, I’ll lead the way.”
Founder shifted the bulky interference field generator higher up onto his back and stepped forward. Reaching gestured for Eldest-of-Fields to join Mottled in the middle of the formation.
Gunfire still echoed through the bunker as the Terran militia fought the invaders.
The group had only traveled a few hundred meters when they encountered the replicators a second time. There weren’t nearly as many: a lump of grey sludge barely covered the half-digested remains of a Terran militia squad. Eldest-of-Fields was struck by how peaceful the corpses seemed — if the surface of the replicator goop hadn’t writhed with geometric shapes, the five humans could have just been submerged in water.
Then Founder’s interference field reached the replicators.
The goop came to life, coalescing into solid forms and leaping towards the clustered Terrans. Founder picked off three, Twisted downed two, and Reaching blew one spider to bits, but the last replicator slipped by.
It struck the Nedji standing at the groups right. He screamed as a claws pierced his armor. The attacking replicator seemed to flow into the wound. In less than a second it was no longer visible.
Founder’s hurled the unfortunate soldier away from the group even as grey sludge began to leak out from Reaching’s eyes and beak. Then he leveled his rifle and poured rounds into the writhing figure.
One of the darts found the Nedji’s head. The twitching stopped.
“Thanks,” said Twisted. He tossed an IF grenade towards the replicator goop spilling out of the Nedji’s corpse. There wasn’t enough of the sludge to shield itself — the grenade’s pulse dissolved it completely. “That’s it for the IF ‘nades.”
Founder retched, and Eldest-of-Fields didn’t blame him. The six corpses were grotesque — patches flesh, muscle, and cartilage had been stripped away, with the nanobots then munching on the bone and cartilage underneath. Hollowed skulls grinned up at the surviving Terrans.
Twisted ignored the tableau. The Nedji’s head was cocked to one side, his four eyes distant. “Hear that?” he asked. “Sounds like we didn’t lose that first group. We should keep moving.”
Eldest-of-Fields could hear the sharp tap-tap of claws on metal in the distance. It was steadily growing louder.
“Agreed,” said Founder. He wasn’t dry-heaving anymore, but tears ran down his face. “Councilor, lead the way.”
Anti-Air Battery 034. Chicago.
Tweetie’s impromptu squad crowded around a small holographic projection of the city, ignored amidst the general chaos of the anti-air battery they sheltered in. The Nedji was glad to be out of the elements: enough replicator ships had been destroyed in the atmosphere that the rain burned when it hit feathers or flesh.
Walsh, still out of breath from her race to the top of the battery, was just finishing her report.
“The good news is we’ve got a straight shot in and out,” said the sniper. “The local armor’s done a damn fine job keeping the major streets clear. Just have to avoid Old Town. That’s repl territory for sure.”
“Did you get a sighting on Twisted’s bunker?” asked Jenkins. “They still alive?”
“Maybe,” replied Walsh. She hesitated. “I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like it may have taken a hit from one of the repl ships. Its guns are down. Could’ve been any one of the dozen or so overrun bunkers we’ve passed.” The scout-sniper looked at Tweetie. “We’re still going in, sir. Right?”
Tweetie cracked his beak in a half-hearted imitation of a human grin. “Of course we will. Nobody’s getting left behind. And drop the ‘sir’ — unless there’s some memo floating around that I missed, all of us are off active duty for the rest of the month.”
“Right, si– Tweetie,” said Walsh.
“Cromley, any luck securing transport?” asked Tweetie.
“Nope.” The short human grimaced. “Every ground asset this post’s got was deployed when the bombardment started. Unless you want to take the CO’s segway, we’re walking.”
“Fuck,” said Jenkins. “At least Mylar had transit.”
“So does Chicago,” said Flaring-wings-dappled-feathers. “But you’re not getting me into a train tube with this many replicators swarming the city. You don’t get to cave a tunnel on me a second time.”
“That was once,” protested Jenkins, “and it also wasn’t my fault.”
“So you’re saying you didn’t put that bomb together?”
“Well, yeah, but I wasn’t the one who got frisked by a Nyctran–“
“Can it, you two,” said Tweetie. “We need to get moving. Jenkins, take point. May as well put that minigun of yours to good use.”
Bunker V02. Chicago.
Founder grunted as the bunker’s outer door slid slowly open. Its hydraulics were out, and the thick steel groaned as it scraped along its track. Eldest-of-Fields winced.
“Think they heard that?” asked Mottled. The Nedji councilor looked frazzled.
“No,” said Twisted. “We lost them a few levels back.”
“There might be more replicators ahead,” said Eldest-of-Fields. “We broke free of them several times, only to stumble across other groups later on.”
“But,” groaned Founder, “we made it out.” He stepped back from the door and sucked in a desperate breath of air. “Any of you guys want a turn?”
All three aliens combines didn’t weigh as much as the human. Twisted laughed.
“It’s almost open, marshal. I’ll lug the IF generator around once we’re outside.”
Founder nodded and braced himself against the wall. Three colossal heaves later, they stared out at Chicago.
“Well shit,” said Founder.
Their small access hatch opened out on to the roof, giving them a birds-eye view of the wreckage. The bunker’s anti-air gun was hidden beneath a mound of writhing sludge, and the main entrance was a solid mass of grey. They couldn’t see too far into the distance — heavy rain pushed the horizon in close — but the occasional flash of light from a surviving Terran battery showed hundreds of replicator ships touching down in the city streets.
Eldest-of-Fields stepped out into the downpour and hissed with pain. His skin burned wherever the rain struck. He ducked back into the hatch as quickly as his aching bones would allow.
“Moving through that will be difficult,” said the Askran. “The water burns.”
“They can’t have that many ships,” muttered Founder. “How the hell can they have that many ships?”
“By eating up rocks like this, shitpump,” said Twisted. “And no, councilor, the rain won’t be a problem. Wrap yourself in one of these.”
Eldest-of-Fields caught the small bundle that the Nedji threw. He unrolled it to reveal a lightweight poncho.
“Why the hell were you carrying around a half-dozen raincoats?” asked Founder as he stretched one over his pulse rifle. Neither Twisted or the marshal wanted to find out what the rain might do to their weapons.
“I learned to pack from the best,” said Twisted. “Humans, that is. Well, humans in Fleet. And Tweetie. Not you goddamn marshals.”
“Fair enough,” said Founder.
They dropped the escape ladder and climbed down. Eldest-of-Fields palms stung as he gripped each rung, but he ignored it. The pain was nothing compared to the protests of his age-wearied body. Even with Founders considerable help, the dash through the bunker’s tunnels had not been kind.
Once on the street, they dodged between seething patches of replicators as they struck out away from the border of the Old City. Twisted was confident that help would arrive from that direction so, bereft of any other plan, that’s the way they went.
Their progress was slowed by massive patches of replicator sludge. It spread slowly down the sides of the buildings and across the streets, forcing the group into the middle of the wide boulevards. Though the darkened sky made it impossible to tell, Eldest-of-Fields was sure that the tower rooftops were completely overrun. That was where most of the city’s anti-air cannons had been built, and the last battery had gone silent a half-hour ago.
The acid rain seemed to hinder the replicators as much as it did the Terrans. Though it stung their hands and faces whenever a trickle found its way past the ponchos, it also slowed the replicators growth and confused their sensors. By keeping his radio from transmitting and the group’s noise to a minimum, Twisted could bring them to within a few feet of the unnatural sludge without alerting the invaders.
The Nedji sergeant handed the pack containing the powered-down IF generator back to Founder after a few kilometers. The marshal took the dead weight without a word — they hadn’t risked activating the anti-replicator field since they left the bunker, but neither Twisted nor Founder was willing to leave the valuable equipment behind.
Eldest-of-Fields thought he could see the beginnings of an understanding forming, but the Askran couldn’t give it much thought. Ignoring his body’s protests took every spare scrap of his willpower.
He heard the rumble of Terran vehicles in the distance. Hope flared in Eldest-of-Fields’ snout, but it was quickly replaced by confusion as Founder scooped him up under one arm and started to jog down the street.
“Why are we running?” asked the Askran. “Should we not be glad to find Terrans in this mess.”
“Not here,” replied Founder. “Here, they’re just a repl magnet.”
Eldest-of-Fields heard the loud booms of tank-mounted grasers and the sharp zap of IF shells detonating. He could also make out the quieter, more subtle clicks of replicators coalescing into their mobile forms and attacking. The sounds of fighting died out before they’d ran three blocks.
Twisted and Mottled slowed after a few hundred meters. “We should be good for now. That was too close.”
“Don’t worry,” said Founder. “Your friends are coming, and from what you’ve told me, they’re not the type to give up.”
“I hope so,” said Twisted. “I really hope so.”
Chicago.
Tweetie blinked his acid-burned eyes as the small column of tanks glide around the corner. He could just make out the hum of their powerful reactors over the pounding of the rain — most of Chicago’s deafening anti-air batteries had long since fallen silent.
“Goddamn fools,” said the Nedji. “They should be booking it out of the city as fast as their impellars will carry them, not charging into the middle of a hot zone.”
“They probably have orders to clear the VIP Bunker,” said Walsh. “Just ’cause the Marshal’s can’t be arsed to evac two councilor’s doesn’t mean the militia won’t try.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that those men are going to die,” said Jenkins. “Couldn’t we at least radio them and get them to pull out.”
“No,” said Tweetie. “Total radio silence until we’re well clear of these repls. There’s way too much sludge here to risk a transmission.”
Jenkins nodded reluctantly. Tweetie pulled his poncho tighter as a droplet of acid-laden rainwater splashed against the down around his beak. About the only good thing the Nedji could say about this weather was that it wasn’t windy.
Walsh let out a surprised gasp. “Hey Cromley, take a look at this. Down the street, about a klick and a half north. Those look like friendlies to you?”
The chief warrant officer pressed the proffered binoculars to his eyes. “They’re definitely not repls. Three figures. Might be a human and two Nedji, although the human’s carrying something bulky n his back.” Cromley lowered the magnifiers. “I’ll be damned. That’s Twisted.”
“Thank god,” said Jenkins.
“Fuck,” said Walsh. She had the binoculars back. “Look where they’re headed. They’re going to walk right under that sludge-covered walkways.”
Tweetie fumbled in his pack for his own pair of binoculars, cursing the loss of his HUD. He could’ve pulled Walsh’s field of view and projected it for the whole squad to see if the replicators hadn’t forced the Terrans to burn out their implants.
He finally pulled his magnifiers free and followed Walsh’s outstretched hand. Another street cut across their boulevard, the intersection opening up into a wide public square. Twisted’s group had nearly made it through.
Ahead of them, a walkway spanning two of Chicago’s massive skyscrapers had been hit by a crashing replicator ship. The nanobots had eagerly spread across the over-engineered platform, and a nearly invisible stream of grey goop now trickled silently to the ground below.
Anyone passing beneath the walkway would see only the dark grey sky. Walsh had only noticed the sludge because it was silhouetted against the white backdrop of one of the towers.
A gust of wind blew in, splashing rain into all four of Tweetie’s eyes. The Nedji cursed again. If Twisted got too close to that walkway…
“Here’s the plan,” said Tweetie. “Jenkins will take Cromley and Flaring to intercept Twisted. Reach him before he’s under that deathtrap, and try not to fall into a puddle of repls in the process. Walsh, you find us a way out of this mess. I want to be able to strike out for the Dewdrop the minute we link up with the other squad.”
“And you, sir?”
“I’m on overwatch.”
“C’mon,” said Twisted, “just a few blocks more and we can take a kip in the metro station. We’ll be there before you know it.”
Eldest-of-Fields was spent. His legs had seized up and he was now curled up in Founder’s ruck, heedless of the small pool of stinging water that had gathered on top of the inert IF generator.
He was dimly aware of the marshal’s labored breathing. The man’s insane, thought the small corner of Eldest-of-Fields’ mind not consumed by pain. Twisted offered to take the generator, but the bloody human wouldn’t hear of it. Between the weight and the vapor coming off the rain, he has to be close to getting out.
The Askran pulled his poncho tighter and squeezed his eyes shut. He could hear the leaden splashes of Founder’s boots as they stomped through puddles, hear the softer rhythm of Twisted’s and Mottled’s four-legged gaits. His bodyguard’s rifle clanged against something solid with the human’s every lurching step. Wind whistled through the tall towers. The dull roar of a tank’s reactor took the edge off the patter of rain.
The last sound surprised Eldest-of-Fields.
“Tank,” he croaked. Founder continued his march, giving no indication that he’d heard. “Tank,” he said louder. Still nothing. Damn human. Damn wind.
Eldest-of-Fields pushed himself upright in the marshal’s pack, shaking with the effort, and brought his snout right next to the human’s ear.
“Tank!” bellowed the Askran. Founder jumped, then cast his eyes around. He broke into a run.
“Behind us!” yelled the human. “A tank! We’ve got to get clear of the street!”
Eldest-of-Fields settled back down into the ruck, but not before he checked where they were going. A mess of alleyways, maybe three hundred meters ahead. Some sort of walkway sheltered the side passages.
He slumped back and let his eyes drift shut. He was so tired.
Tweetie stared in mute horror as Twisted’s small group broke into a run. He wasn’t sure what had spooked the other Nedji, and right now he didn’t really care. The group would be repl goop in less than a minute.
Rotten luck, thought Tweetie. Today’s brought nothing but rotten luck.
It had started with Whep and Leil. If they’d just bumped into a high-ranking aide, or met a clerk who was willing to cut through the bureaucracy and deliver their intel, then maybe the Home Fleet would’ve stood more of a chance against these replicators. Instead they’d had to leak it to the public and go into hiding.
Then they’d lost Slater. The bastard shouldn’t have been on the Redoubtable. He’d been putting his masters degree to good use on the TASS Hephaestus, but some freak inspection tour had dragged him into the thick of the invasion. Tweetie had been through a lot with the man. Slater’s death stung.
And now Tweetie watched Twisted, one of the first Nedji to enlist with the Terran Fleet, run towards certain death. More bad luck. Jenkins was never going to make it. They’d barely covered half the distance that separated the two squads, and their shouts would never carry over the storm at that distance. Hell, a gunshot probably wouldn’t be loud enough to reach Twisted’s squad. They hadn’t been fast enough.
That left only one option: Tweetie’s radio. The Nedji hefted the small plastic box thoughtfully. He checked the climbing hooks tucked into his tac vest, then made sure his rifle was secured against his chest. He gave his wings an experimental flex.
Tweetie’s finger mashed the transmit button. “Twisted-claw-silent-flight,” he began, “this is Tweetie. Halt your advance immediately, the overhead walkway ahead of you is dripping with sludge. Jenkins is approaching from the south.” He paused. “If I don’t make it out, know that you’re a right bastard. Do our race proud.”
That took care of Twisted. Tweetie pocketed the radio and sprinted towards the nearest tower wall. Around him, the replicators stirred.