20

Oliver Bowen

May 27, 2030. Washington, D.C.

“There, in Mumbai,” Oteri said, pointing at the feed. Finally, a glimpse of a defender. He was pressed close against the buildings, his enormous body hunched. The streets were deserted; the emergency signal would have sounded by then, ordering everyone inside, away from windows. It was not simply a safety consideration—any human watching the battle became involuntary eyes and ears for the Luyten.

The defender paused, looked left, then right. The camera sending the feed rose above building level and panned the area, revealing another defender on the adjacent street.

“They’re nowhere near the production facility,” Ariel commented. She checked her system. “The facility is under Seshadripuram; they’re out in Rajajinagar.”

“Maybe they figure our forces are dug in around the perimeter, so they’ll take the fight to the starfish.” Oteri smiled. “The starfish won’t be expecting that.”

“For once those fuckers have no idea what’s coming, or from where,” Wood said. “It’s time they find out what that feels like.”

“Starfish!” someone shouted, pointing at the Mumbai feed. There were three, their bright emerald, gold, and mustard skin fouled with sewage, galloping in a line perpendicular to the defenders’ route.

One of the defenders spotted them. He said something into his comm and took off, parallel to the Luyten, one block to their right. Another defender took the street one block to their left. They were incredibly fast. Three legs allowed them to run upright, yet almost gallop.

“Go!” Wood shouted, like he was watching a running back heading toward the end zone. “Go, go, go!”

The defenders drew ahead of the Luyten, then cut inward on a crossing street. They stopped just out of sight of the approaching Luyten, pressed against buildings on either side, weapons raised.

“Get ’em!” Wood shouted. “Yes!”

Others in the command center joined in, shouting at the screen, as the Luyten passed the spot where the defenders had set up their ambush. The defenders stepped into the street and opened fire from behind.

The Luyten were hurled forward by the force of the shots, black blood splattering across the pavement. Deafening cheers filled the war room. The president leaped, swung his fist in the air, again, again.

Oliver couldn’t tell if all the Luyten were dead at that point, but it didn’t matter, because the defenders were on them in an instant, shooting each at close range before moving on.

Now the feeds from all of the cities showed either Luyten, defenders, or both.

“Look at that Manhattan feed,” Ariel said. She expanded it. Two defenders were standing in an alley. It almost looked like they were hiding.

“What are they doing?” someone asked.

A Luyten passed in the street. The defenders just watched it.

Oteri studied the scene, frowning, hands on her hips. “Either something went very wrong in their training, or everything went right. We’ll know soon enough.”

They spotted more defenders on the roof of Clayton Tower in Manhattan, watching Luyten movements and relaying them to troops on the ground. A few of the troops were involved in firefights, putting up some resistance, but most were actively avoiding the enemy.

Manhattan’s production facility was beneath the tip of the island, much of it under the bay. The Luyten were converging on it. As each arrived it set up close to the outside layer of human defenses, creating a web encircling those defenses. If the soldiers holding it were overrun, they had nowhere to go but into the bay.

More Luyten arrived by the minute. Soon there were hundreds, maybe thousands. It was a terrifying sight, to see so many in one place. Oliver’s heart was pounding; he turned his head, tugged at the collar of his shirt, which suddenly felt too tight.

The Luyten attacked. It came simultaneously, from all sides.

“Why are the defenders hanging back like that?” Oliver said. “Those soldiers need help, right now.”

The Luyten wasted no time pressing in, trying to break through the perimeter. Mostly they stayed behind their cover, moving only when necessary. Oliver watched as a Luyten firing a human-made wall-buster from behind a truck suddenly bolted. Two seconds later, the truck blew to pieces.

Suddenly all of the Luyten scattered, just before a sphere the size of a coconut sailed from a high window inside the human defense perimeter.

“Tasmanian devil,” Oteri said.

It exploded like a swarm of angry bees, the individual bits creating gaping wounds in wood, concrete, even the street itself, before burning out.

As soon as things settled, the Luyten began to reappear.

Just as suddenly, they disappeared again. Another Tasmanian devil flew from the same window.

“They’re buying time,” Oteri said, “hoping the defenders will show. We’re in trouble if they don’t.”

Three Luyten flying in modified Harriers appeared high over the rooftops. They hovered there as the Tasmanian devil played out, then two swooped down, fired wall-busters point-blank at the window where the Tasmanian devils originated. The side of the building erupted, spewing concrete and steel into the street. Both airborne Luyten were hammered with small-arms fire. They were cut to pieces before their aircraft had time to fall out of the air and crash, one of them taking a chunk out of a building before dropping to the sidewalk, the other tumbling and spinning down the center of a street.

The Luyten kept coming, probing for a breach in the perimeter, firing captured human-shoulder-launched rockets that blew sections off the old buildings, their snipers waiting patiently for the soldiers to grow the least bit careless. The soldiers were using right-angle rifles with electronic sights to shoot without exposing themselves, because even before they poked a head out, the Luyten would know it was coming and blow it to chunks.

Oliver opened his mouth to ask what the hell the defenders were waiting for, when the first few stormed into view. At that moment he realized what they were planning, and wondered if he was the last person in the room to catch on. They’d been waiting for the Luyten to pin themselves against the human defenses. They came with weapons blazing, screaming in maniacal rage. Luyten spun to engage them.

Immediately, a Luyten fell, two of its limbs blown off. It twitched and scrabbled on the pavement as if trying to right itself, then lay still.

“A pincer maneuver,” Oteri said, seeming to relish her role as the room’s military authority. “Perfect for this situation.”

“The Luyten had to know it was coming,” Ariel said. “Every human in the area is a set of eyes for them.”

“But what choice did they have?” Oliver said. “They could have hung back, chased the defenders around the city, but their best chance to destroy the production facility was to get there before—”

Wood shushed him. Oliver shut up.

A defender’s legs glowed red, then blackened. Writhing in agony it crashed to the ground, its head all but crushing a minivan as it landed. A second defender was firing blasts from its forearm-mounted weapon while pressing his other hand against a badly bleeding chest wound.

The humans continued to engage the Luyten, their fire tightly contained to avoid hitting defenders.

The Luyten were falling faster than Oliver could track; black blood was everywhere. Defenders pressed forward, spraying the Luyten with bullets, tearing them to shreds.

Moving as one, the Luyten surged forward, storming the defenders’ position, trying to escape the trap they were in. The defenders fell back, letting them come. They waited until the Luyten were almost on top of them, then, shrieking, eyes wild, they attacked the Luyten close in, using their bladed limbs to slash Luyten open. The Luyten couldn’t match the giants in hand-to-hand combat, and had trouble firing weapons with the defenders so close; their heat guns roasted as many Luyten as defenders as they tried to repel the onslaught.

Within a few minutes, all of the Luyten lay dead. At least half the defenders—Oliver estimated sixty or seventy—were dead or wounded as well.

The war room had gone silent during the final battle, but now President Wood raised his face toward the ceiling and let out an undulating whoop, part Native American war cry, part coyote howl.

People exchanged hugs and high-fives, but only briefly, because there were eleven battles still raging, and not all were as clean and beautiful as Manhattan. London, especially, was a mess. Teams of Luyten had each defender surrounded, while other Luyten had penetrated the human defense perimeter. There were no cameras inside the facility, but it appeared the Luyten were already inside.

“What’s happening in London?” Oliver asked.

“They had only two platoons of defenders ready,” Ariel said. “It looks as if there were too many Luyten.”

“If the London facility is the only one we lose, this will be a very good day,” Wood said.