The first pair were hit by heaters, bursting into flame short of the artificial lake. Despite being thousands of miles away, Dominique felt singed by the heat that engulfed them, felt their loss like a sting as each managed a few steps before they fell, nothing but husks, black smoke rising from them.
Dominique took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She hadn’t expected to feel their deaths so strongly, to take them so personally.
The next pair made it, as the airborne defenders continued to lay down a blinding cloak of cover fire, the Harriers diving toward the plant, then rising just as rapidly. The pair hurled the skiff into the lake and retreated. The lake was shallow; the skiff landed with a splash and lay impotently on its side.
The third pair heaved their skiff beyond the first, and suddenly Dominique understood what they were doing: They were building a bridge out of the skiffs, which were undoubtedly composed of carbon fiber, and not electricity-conducting.
Another aircraft flew into view to the east, this one large, clearly not a fighter. Without slowing it dropped a pile of unidentifiable materials—slabs and poles.
One of the Harriers was hit. It spun in a tight circle, dropping rapidly. The defender clinging to it let go, plummeted a hundred feet, and landed in a tucked roll on the edge of the platform surrounding the plant. It came up firing, its shots uncannily accurate.
Seconds later lightning crackled, the pale blue zigzag landing just beyond the stranded defender. It trembled violently and dropped.
“Shit,” Dominique said. Colonel Willis looked at her. She kept her eyes on the feed.
Ten or eleven defenders were down, maybe more. Each time one fell, Dominique felt it like a punch in the heart. Another skiff went into the water, this one hurled, flying end over end before landing. One more, and there was a ragged line in place, like stones across a brook.
Immediately, the defenders charged across it. The first few had no chance, but there was no hesitation in their steps as they leaped from skiff to skiff until they were hit, and fell.
C Company surged from the tree line. As they passed the materials dropped moments earlier, each scooped up rectangular sections and pilings.
As the battle raged to the west, the defenders to the east constructed a bridge, fitting pilings into slots in the large rectangles. They took Luyten lightning and heat fire, but it was tepid compared to what B Company had faced, because now the Luyten were under siege. Only one of the Harriers was still in the air, but it was wreaking havoc on the Luyten position. Maybe three dozen defenders had made it to the platform surrounding the plant.
Dominique watched as a defender, screaming with a rage that seemed all too personal, charged two Luyten blocking the entrance to the plant. He put a dozen bullets in one while slashing the other open with an uppercut of his edged forearm. Before reinforcements could reach him, he stepped to one side of the door, swung his arm around, and pumped artillery bursts at the door from his forearm unit. Before the smoke had cleared, one of his comrades charged what was left of the big door, dropping his shoulder and battering it open.
Fighting at close range, the defenders made vicious use of their size and the built-in blades running down their limbs. To say they were fierce fighters didn’t capture the jaw-dropping combination of rage and cold efficiency they displayed. Dominique found herself on her feet, roaring with her companions as the defenders tore the Luyten apart.
When the defenders dragged the last of the Luyten bodies from inside the plant, Dominique counted fifty-four. It would take a while, because the Andes to the east and the DeValparaiso range to the west would slow them, but more Luyten would come. They would come three at a time, from the nearest quadrants first, their numbers growing each day until they believed they had enough to retake the plant.
There had better be a lot of them.
18
Oliver Bowen
May 27, 2030. Washington, D.C.
Oliver couldn’t help thinking of Five. What was going through his mind, as he waited to follow the battles through the minds of his enemies? Was he nervous? Afraid?
“Mr. President?” Oteri gestured toward the wall of video feeds being transmitted from cities around the world. “The Luyten are attacking. Mumbai, London, Rio, Seoul.”
The president, who had been huddled in a corner, discussing something with his brother, hurried over.
In London, they were all over the streets, already past the defense perimeter. Oliver watched as a half dozen barreled through Trafalgar Square. It was raining, so their lightning bolts were electrocuting fleeing civilians in wide arcs around the points of impact. Bodies lay everywhere, the ruined soles of their feet smoldering. Crisscrossing blue blades sizzled along the puddled ground.
“How did they get through the perimeter defenses so quickly?” Wood shouted.
Nielsen was scanning data on his portable system, his fingers flying across the keys, seeking some answer.
“Look at Shanghai,” someone said.
They were in Shanghai as well, marauding through the darkness of the downtown area.
“They know the threat is real,” Ariel said. “They were waiting to see what the defenders could do. If the defenders had stumbled in Santiago, I bet they would have gone back to their slow-and-steady strategy.”
The population clock on the wall was racing backward. The human population was tens of millions fewer than it had been an hour before.
“They’re coming from underground,” Nielsen called out, still working his system.
“Underground?” Wood spun to face Nielsen. “How the fuck is that possible? All the subway lines were blasted precisely so they couldn’t come from underground.”
“They’re coming through the sewers.”
“The sewers? What do you mean, the sewers? They’re as big as fucking elephants.”
Elephants without bones. The voice in his head made Oliver flinch.
“Elephants without bones,” Oliver repeated aloud.
“What did you say?” Wood asked.
“I didn’t say it, Five did. Elephants without bones.” On the feed from New York, Oliver watched one of the big, rectangular sewer grates glow red and drop away. He pointed at the feed. “New York. Watch.” A Luyten squeezed out of the hole, its appendages folded tightly behind it until it popped free.
President Wood cursed a blue streak. He turned to Oteri. “Get the defenders out there.”
“They’ve already been released,” Oteri said. “Premier Chandar ordered it ten minutes ago.”
For once, Wood didn’t seem annoyed to be reminded he was not in charge. He seemed relieved.
It was difficult for Oliver to watch the carnage on the screens, but he couldn’t turn away; it was his duty to stay apprised of what was happening.
What was happening was, people were dying. The streets of London, New York, Rio, Shanghai were littered with corpses as the starfish killed everyone in sight on their march toward the production facilities.
“Order civilian evacuation of the areas surrounding all production facilities. Those people don’t know which way to run,” President Wood said.
The Luyten were choosing routes that sidestepped combatants, instead wreaking havoc on civilians, who had nowhere to hide. Some of the Luyten were being picked off by stationary visual-recognition drones set up on rooftops, but each of the drones only worked once, then the Luyten knew where they were and took them out.
Their heaters were firing almost continuously, burning and melting people, vehicles, the sides of buildings, leaving behind a landscape that resembled a giant scar.