The troops lined up on the rocky shores of the Island. Fresh off the Colony’s ships, the new recruits had spent the day establishing a beachhead to defend the Island against a human attack. Tents sprang up, trenches were carved into the earth. Culdesac had been waiting a long time for a straight-up fight that would involve both the ants and the surface animals. It would be like the old days of the war. No more of this administrative nonsense, no more politics, no more wiping civilian asses, no more smiling at Council members who had never picked up a gun or faced down a rabid human. It would be him and his soldiers, and the Queen’s song in his head, guiding him forward.

Culdesac told the troops that the Queen desired witnesses for this battle. The last time the humans came here, not a single one was left alive. Every inch of the Island had been scrubbed clean. Even the craters had been smoothed over. This time, the surfacers would see the power of the Colony firsthand and spread the word to their comrades on the mainland. A new legend would arise, telling the final destruction of the human rebels.

The quarantine was behind him. Destroying an entire settlement never got easier. And this one was different—even more unforgiving. The first quarantine when he had to leave behind his soldiers. The Queen showed him the carnage in brief flashing images and shouting voices that cut out before Culdesac could decipher what they were saying. She stayed with him through the moments of despair, holding his hand, whispering, Walk through this with me. Suffer with me. Bleed with me. He trusted her. She was the only one he could trust. No matter how difficult the last days of this war proved to be, he would follow her orders. Her pain gave her wisdom. If she chose to kill everyone who showed symptoms—even if those people were his loyal soldiers—so be it. He knew better than anyone how destructive the syndrome was. He knew it would take even more lives to stamp it out. The god of the humans was stubborn, with long claws that sank into the hearts of even the bravest warriors. As for the Red Sphinx, there were others who could be trained. If he could replace Socks and Mort(e), then he could replace Wawa, Bonaparte, Archer, and the others. Maybe some of these shitheels standing before him had the abilities he needed.

Now, with preparations complete and the soldiers formed into ranks, Culdesac stared them down and concluded that they were too damn young. This was the best the army could do on such short notice, so soon after the quarantine of the closest settlement. These recruits had barely jogged a few miles, let alone faced delirious and suicidal humans in battle. They didn’t smell right. Too much soap and detergent where there should have been mud and grime. Those who were still woozy with seasickness had slowly drying pools of tan vomit at their feet, which contrasted sharply with the purplish-brown stone of the landscape. Others nervously peeked at the legions of Alpha soldiers waiting perfectly still on the crest of a hill nearby. Beyond them rose the sphere of the great tower, along with the entrance to the great tunnel that led into the heart of the Colony.

“Do any of you realize how lucky you are to be standing here?” Culdesac asked them. This was the stronghold of the Colony, he said. The nerve center of the greatest empire in history. Though it was crazy for the humans and the animals they had brainwashed to attack this place, they had already succeeded in contaminating another settlement with their plague. They were emboldened and ready to strike.

“The humans are going to mount a suicide mission here,” Culdesac said. “We are here to make sure it remains a suicide mission.” An approving grumble rose up from the soldiers.

“I know that many of you are from the countryside and may have come across stories of the most recent quarantine,” Culdesac went on. “I am a survivor of it. I am a survivor of many things. Aren’t we all since this war began?”

He caught a few of them nodding. If this were boot camp, he would have disciplined them for it, but he was glad to see that they were listening. “If you think that the quarantine is an extreme response, you are dead wrong,” he said.

It was time to tell them the story.

“I had no slave name,” he said. “I am not ashamed of what I was called before the war, but the name is unpronounceable. And the ones who could speak it are dead.”

He told them everything, from the hunt, to the conflict with the humans, to the war with no name, to the Change. He described the church he came across in the early days of the war. Many of the soldiers were so horrified by it that they didn’t even blink.

“This is the logical, inevitable conclusion of EMSAH,” Culdesac told the soldiers. “Don’t let your friends tell you otherwise. Even the worst legends are true. Even the—”

“Sir?” came a voice at his side.

She was an officer assigned from another settlement. A coyote of some sort, or maybe a half-breed wolf-dog. Beautiful eyes resting above a menacing jaw. Almost certainly a good fighter.

“What is it?” he said. Someone spoke in the ranks, and Culdesac turned toward the disturbance. The new recruits stared straight ahead, some biting their lips.

“We have a call coming in over the radio channels,” she said. “We ignored it at first, but the user relayed a confirmed authorization code.”

She handed him a printed transcript of the conversation with the radio operator. At the bottom of the page, it read, AUTHORIZATION CODE NINE-FOUR-NINE.

“I’ve already alerted the envoy from the Colony,” the coyote said. “We think the person on the other end is a human.”

Nine-four-nine, he thought. That was Wawa’s most recent code for their conversations, right before the quarantine. His heart pumped a little faster. Had they beaten it out of her? Did she hand it over willingly? He didn’t want her to suffer—she had earned a quick and noble death. The quarantine should have provided it. But if these humans had gotten to her, infected her, then her suffering would go on indefinitely.

An Alpha soldier approached from the hilltop. Culdesac unhooked his new translator from his belt and put it on his head, fixing the earpiece and antenna. “Give the word to the soldiers,” he said to the coyote. “We’re about to fight.”

THE VESUVIUS HAD no formal parachuting bay, so the crew had to build one. And the best place to do it was in the lowest level of the ship, the chapel. The other paratroopers told Wawa that there had been some controversy over this. Would they be offending God and his bloodied son and his righteous prophet by blowing out a wall of his house? Once the plan had been set in motion, however, the Archon put their minds at ease. “I think God understands that we didn’t build this ship for an airborne invasion,” she said.

So the night before the attack, after the prayer service, the troopers spent the night whacking away at the stern-side wall with sledgehammers. These “Black Hats,” as they called themselves, were fighters from many different countries, separated by language in the same way that the animals were separated by species. Everyone was in good spirits. This constructive act of destruction brought them together. They laughed, sang songs, poked fun at those who had clearly never wielded heavy tools before. Even the bitter cold from the high-atmosphere winds did not dampen their mood. Whenever a great piece of the wall fell away, the soldiers would cheer. Once the hole got big enough, the officers decided that it was too dangerous to have all the men and women swinging wildly. One slip would send them tumbling to their deaths. So each one took turns while others held him or her with a rope tied at the waist. The banter continued, with people from rival countries yelling playful insults at one another. Each person on the end of the rope had to endure heckling from the peanut gallery.

No one made any comments when it was Wawa’s turn. They were too awed by her strength. Two Americans and a Canadian had spent several minutes hitting a reinforced section of the wall. Wawa knocked it out in one swing. By this time, a few soldiers were lying flat on their stomachs beside the newly made hole, watching the debris tumble away and vanish into the clouds. The moon was out, and its light reflected off the thick cirrus. Someone came up with the idea of shutting out the lights so that only the silvery glow of the moon came through, casting its eerie shadows and making everything resemble a black-and-white movie.

Citing safety concerns, an officer ordered that the lights be turned back on. A few people groaned in protest. But in that surreal moment, Wawa knew that she had made the right decision to join with these people. For the first time, she was in the presence of humans without being reminded of her master. She did not share in their beliefs—she did not have EMSAH yet—but even the most absurd things about Bloody Jesus and his son Muhammad seemed plausible if they brought all these people together to jump out of a zeppelin. The belief would come to her in its own time, the Archon had told her. This gathering of souls was more than a pack, carving out a brutal existence for no other reason than to eat for another day. These people shared something that went beyond blood or circumstances or mutual enemies.

Wawa’s newfound joy was strong enough to last through the early morning hours, when Mort(e) dropped his medallion in her outstretched hands as though it were contaminated with a virus.

Moments later, as the Archon entered the Golgotha for the last time, she assured Wawa that the medallion had found its true owner. The Archon told her that she already saw in Wawa the hope that her former masters—both human and animal—had taught her to extinguish. They passed through her life for a reason. They made her who she was, leading her to this moment. If she didn’t forgive them, if she wasn’t grateful for them, if she didn’t learn to love them, then she had made it this far for nothing. An enormous weight slid from Wawa, allowing her to stand upright and expand her chest. She told the Archon that she understood now.

Soon after that, when Wawa lined up in the chapel-turned-drop-point, she squeezed the medallion so hard her fingertips throbbed. She was so eager to join the attack that she neglected to mention until now that she did not know the first thing about parachuting. The humans’ response was simple: “Neither do we.” This would be the first and only drop of the Black Hats. Where could they have possibly tested their skills? On top of that, the officers warned everyone that the old chutes—stolen from an abandoned military base in Utah—might not even work. “We predict a one-to-five-percent failure rate,” the major said. He was a humorless, pale man with a flat head—or maybe that was simply the shape of his hair. Wawa couldn’t tell. The major said that there was still a chance that a trooper could survive the fall, if he or she landed in the water. “Tuck and roll,” he added, although he did not elaborate. No one seemed comfortable with this until another officer added, “God will decide who floats and who falls.”

Several officers went first, while two others stood at the edge of the former chapel and exhorted the recruits to make the jump. With each leap, the Black Hats let out a throaty cheer, like spectators at a sporting event. Wawa peered over her new comrades and saw a gap in the clouds. The Island passed underneath them, taking up the entire opening in the wall, spreading out like a horde of ants. A row of inflated parachutes trailed the ship.

One man jumped, and the cheers died down. His chute did not join the neat row that had formed in the sky. The next jumper hesitated. The major told him to go. Instead, the man raced to the back of the line, where Wawa was waiting. While the officer yelled at him, the man grabbed Wawa’s necklace, kissed the medallion, and whispered something in either Spanish or Portuguese. Then he ran in the opposite direction, leaping into the void. The Black Hats roared again when his chute opened. His arms flapped as he waved to his comrades on the ship—or maybe he had simply failed to operate the parachute correctly. From then on, they all kissed her medallion before jumping. The officers gave up trying to stop them. Instead, they moved Wawa to the very end of the line, so everyone could have a chance to kiss St. Jude before plunging toward the earth.

It was almost Wawa’s turn. One hand was on the rip cord, the other on the medal. When she finally made it to the front, the major yanked her hand away from the necklace. “Proper stance,” he yelled over the wind.

Mechanically, she tucked her chin into her chest and pulled in her elbows. She wanted to close her eyes when she went, but she knew that the officer was watching.

Go, she thought. Go!

She stepped into the whistling wind and fell.

And fell.

She counted in her head. One thousand. Two thousand. But she was going too fast. One one thousand, she corrected. Two one …

“Choke it,” she said, pulling the rip cord. The straps unraveled out of her pack. Then the chute deployed, jolting her body before stabilizing. She breathed again. Between her dangling feet, the surface of the Island expanded. She was part of this airborne pack, held up by the hand of God, bringing his justice to the earth.

THE SOLDIERS EAGERLY manned their foxholes, trenches, and pillboxes, desperate to pretend that their enthusiasm would make up for a lack of experience. Though Culdesac was drained from discussing his past—it felt like donating a pint of blood—the reaction of the soldiers seemed to be worth the trouble. They were excited. And afraid. And maybe even a little angry that this war was still not over.

The Alphas, however, remained motionless in their formation. They did not need the cover of barricades. Their presence alone was enough.

There was a command post set up at the rear of the mammal army. Instead of a tent, it was a cave that seemed to have been sculpted by skilled artists. The ants were able to manipulate the landscape. The surface felt strange to Culdesac’s feet. He thought of the ground as a living thing that could pull him under if he did anything that the Queen found suspicious.

The colonel, along with the coyote and several soldiers, met with the envoy inside. Two orbs made up of some bioluminescent material lit up the cave. From here, Culdesac had a perfect view of the soldiers and the sea. The overcast sky, though, was an impenetrable milky white.

A raccoon operated the radio. While he fussed with the machine, Culdesac readied the translator. He would be able to speak with the person on the radio while the device sent the exchange into the Alpha’s antennae. The chemical signal would eventually travel to the Queen in the Colony’s version of whisper-down-the-lane.

“Ready, sir?” the raccoon asked.

Culdesac took the receiver. “Speak, human,” he said.

“Good morning, Colonel,” replied a woman’s voice. Definitely human.

“Congratulations on getting this code,” he said. “May I ask how you acquired it?”

“Your lieutenant gave it to me,” she said. “The one you left for dead.”

Culdesac looked to the Alpha for some reaction. The creature remained still.

“She forgives you, Colonel,” the voice said. “And you’ll see her again before the day is done.”

“You have my attention, human,” he said. “Does this conversation have a purpose?”

“Yes. I’m calling to give you a chance.”

“A chance for what?”

“Salvation. Surrender now. We will forgive all debts, but you must join us or die.”

Culdesac laughed.

“Can you see me yet?” the voice asked.

Pulling the radio’s cord, Culdesac walked to the entrance of the cave. The Alpha lumbered beside him, still connected to the translator’s antenna. The sky was empty, a white expanse. But then, like a mirage, the ship cut through the clouds, its chameleon skin switched off to reveal a dull silver bullet heading straight for the Island.

“Do I have the pleasure of speaking with the Archon?” he asked.

“You do.”

“I thought the Vesuvius crashed years ago.”

“This is not the Vesuvius,” she said. “My ship is called the Golgotha. The place of the skull. Your island has never had a formal name. I’m about to give it one.”

Culdesac reached over and swiped a pair of binoculars hanging from the coyote’s neck. He could see no cannons or other weapons on board the ship. He handed the binoculars to the coyote. There was a commotion brewing among the soldiers. Culdesac could hear the sergeants and officers shouting, “Hold your ground!”

“No weapons visible,” the coyote whispered. “Kamikaze, maybe?”

“Sorry,” Culdesac said into the receiver. “I have to turn down your generous offer. I never had a slave master. I don’t intend to start now.”

“You could have fooled me,” the Archon said, “now that you’re the Queen’s little mascot.”

“Is she trying to take out the tower?” the coyote asked.

“If she is, she’s going to miss badly,” Culdesac replied.

“This war can come to an end if you join us and fight the real enemy,” the Archon continued.

“I’ve seen the enemy,” Culdesac said.

“Your lieutenant no longer agrees with you. She saw hope in our cause.”

“Congratulations. You brainwashed another one.”

“And the spirit and the bride say, ‘Come,’ ” she said. “And let him that heareth say, ‘Come.’ ”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”

The airship pointed down at a forty-five-degree angle, its nose aimed right for the Alpha soldiers. He heard more yelling from his own troops, along with random orders to hold their fire and stand ready.

“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book,” the Archon continued, “if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.”

Culdesac put his hand over the receiver and faced the Alpha soldier. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

STAND BY, the creature said.

The rows upon rows of Alpha soldiers began moving away from the impact site like a receding oil slick.

“Such a waste,” Culdesac said into the receiver. “Destroying that lovely ship because a magic book told you to do it.”

“He which testifieth these things saith, ‘Surely I come quickly,’ ” the Archon said, trancelike. “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

“See you in the next life, human,” Culdesac said. “Or not.”

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”

The ship was dropping fast. It was only seconds away.

“There is still love,” the Archon said. “There is still hope, Colonel. There is still a chance.”

The nose of the ship touched down on the hilltop with a sound like a thousand bones breaking. The frame crumpled, collapsing the giant balloon. A great fireball blossomed like an orange flower. The boom shook Culdesac a second later. There was a loud pop, then a deep thwoom that drowned out the screaming of the soldiers. The Archon had aimed her suicide mission right between both forces. The young ones began to cheer, acting as if they had brought down the ship themselves. The yellow bloom of the explosion hung in the air for a few seconds before dissipating into a gray cloud.

The flames consumed the rear fins of the ship. The propellers, still whirring, ground into the surface and then came to a halt. The glorious wreckage exploded one more time, releasing clouds of oily smoke. So stupid, Culdesac thought. He breathed normally again, for he knew that this sacrifice would not convince anyone to join the humans. It amounted only to fire and theatrics and martyrdom, the only forms of art that mankind had perfected. Only in destroying things could the humans create something beautiful.

This war would be over soon.