28

Ben planted the last of his claymore mines in a jumble of rubble in the middle of the street and covered them with loose dirt and crumbled concrete. The chatter of machine-gun fire echoed everywhere, and tracers seemed to tap out endless Morse code across the sky. It was still night, but the air was filled with a dirty orange hue from the fires and explosions. Missiles and rockets from the human defenders streaked out from between burning buildings, few of which found their targets. The mrill were organized, thorough, and merciless. Here on the ground, shoulder to shoulder, their lack of electronic communication was less of a hurdle, as they could turn and talk to each other or simply point to targets. Every tank and helicopter that got too close was destroyed.

The US military was now trying to engage the enemy from farther off, but the thick cluster of buildings made it difficult to target the mrill, and most of their ordnance was crashing into apartments, offices, and parking lots. The only battle mankind was winning right now was against its own creations.

Ben arrived at the northeast corner of Logan Circle, barely a kilometer from the White House lawn. Two separate mrill detachments were moving southwest down Vermont Avenue and Rhode Island Avenue, inadvertently converging on his location.

He was safe for the moment, though, and ordered his ragged squad to take cover behind a white duplex along the southwest edge of the Circle. They were alive. Many others weren’t. Ben estimated military and civilian dead and wounded numbered somewhere close to 10,000, with the tally ticking up like digits on a gas pump. Most of those casualties were fatalities. The mrill didn’t leave many wounded.

Thousands of civilians were hunkered down all around him. He could sense them, even if he couldn’t see them. They were frantically trying to make calls and send texts on the overloaded network. And the body heat generated by their fear stood out clearly through the walls of their apartments and homes. The mrill knew they were there. They didn’t target the civilians specifically, but they bulldozed any building in their way, cutting jagged tunnels through concrete and steel. Dead bodies and screaming people tumbled out of the wreckage.

It drove Ben nearly insane not to leap to their defense, but he couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t stand it. A block and a half away, dozens of refugees were packed in the Hotel Helix, too terrified to make a run. The building was directly in the path of the advancing mrill. It was as good a spot as any for the next ambush. One claymore and seven marines wouldn’t be enough to stop the mrill, but maybe it would slow them down long enough for a nearby squad to clear the hotel. The old weight was compressing his chest. It felt harder to breathe. He knew he wasn’t choking. Still felt like it, though, the invisible weight of the dead and soon-to-die lying across his throat.

He was running back to take cover with the marines when his sensors detected the incoming B-2s. He smiled, and the invisible vise eased just a bit. Maybe this would be enough.

Ben opened a secure voice channel with the B-2 squadron.

“This is Lieutenant Shepherd. Nice of you boys to show up.”

“It ain’t just the boys, Lieutenant,” a voice drawled back over his internal radio. “Major Stephanie Williams, 509th Bomb Wing, reporting for ass-kicking duty. We’ll review your gender sensitivity training materials later.”

Ben laughed despite himself.

“Yes, ma’am. Looking forward to it. In the meantime, I’ve accessed your targeting systems and you should see markers indicated on your screens. If you would ever so kindly be disposed to bomb the ever-loving shit out of those positions, us leathernecks and frogmen would be much obliged.”

“I’m not going to ask how you just bypassed a dozen security systems to hack into our targeting and comms systems. You can explain that one after you’ve been socially enlightened. In the meantime, ETA is two minutes. Activate your transponders so we can see your team and avoid friendly fire.”

“Negative on that front, I’m afraid,” Ben said. “The mrill might see those signals and would be on us in two seconds. This channel is secure, but the transponders are not. I’m jamming most of their comms, but just barely. You do what you have to do, and we’ll make sure to not be in the way.”

“I hope so, Lieutenant. We brought the big iron, and I’d damn sure regret it if we couldn’t bring you home in one piece for your political reeducation.”

“That makes two of us, Major. Good luck.”

“You too, caveman. See you on the other side.”

Ben looked up at Sergeant Daniels and the seven marines huddled with him. Beyond the duplex loomed another building.

“Change of plans,” he said. “We’ve got a flight of B-2s inbound, ETA one minute forty-five seconds. We’ve got about sixty mrill foot soldiers and combat robots headed our way, one claymore planted in the circle. No partridge in a pear tree, but improvise, adapt, and overcome, oorah?”

“Oorah.”

Most of the exhausted, grimy foot soldiers managed to smile, slightly refreshed at hearing their traditional battle cry. They were on the edge of exhaustion but still in one piece. Still in the fight.

“We have to give those bombers as much cover as we can before they strike,” Ben said. “The mrill haven’t detected them yet, and I suspect that’s because their air cover has been blown to hell and I’m still able to keep most of their sensors jammed. Once those bombers are within line of sight, I wouldn’t be surprised if the mrill ground units spot them, stealth or no stealth. So we’re going to take positions on the rooftops overlooking the circle. Now here’s the tricky part.”

“Shit,” one of the marines let slip out.

“Yeah, I know. We can’t fire and give away our positions too soon. I’ll be passively monitoring their comms channels, and if I get a hint that they’ve detected the bombers you’ll get my signal. Gotta be Johnny on the spot. Engage for no more than 10 seconds, fast-rope off your building, and regroup at Thomas Circle two blocks southwest down Vermont. Nobody plays hero. We might need to do this a couple times. Got it? Go.”

Four marines darted in through the back of the building they were taking cover against on the west side of Vermont and headed up the stairs. Daniels and the other three sprinted across the street to the east side and kicked in the door of an office. Ben reactivated his cloaking technology and waited. He wasn’t sure why the mrill weren’t using their own cloaking tech. He suspected the robots were seen as expendable and didn’t have the capability, while the mrill soldiers simply didn’t see the need. While Ben had done some damage, their force was still largely intact, and the human weapons they’d encountered thus far posed almost no threat. The hulks of smoking tanks scattered across the streets behind them were testament enough to that.

Ben thought they kept themselves visible for the psychological edge as well. Seeing enemy troops march down the streets of your capital was intimidating. If that’s why they’re staying visible, then their psychology maybe isn’t so different from ours. If so, if they understood fear, then maybe they were susceptible to it, too. Ben sent a quick mental note to Nick and Eddie, a piece of intel that might prove helpful in this battle or a future one, if they lived to see it.

Ben shouldered his rifle, mentally counting down to the arrival of the B-2s. Just a few more seconds. A new signal popped up on his internal sensors. An army force was approaching the circle from P Street to the west. They were about to stumble right into the bombers’ target zone.

It appeared to be an entire infantry company, some 200 soldiers in total, going by the electromagnetic froth swirling around them like an invisible dust cloud. He glanced back to the Circle, spotting the vanguard of mrill forces moving into the clearing from Vermont and Rhode Island Avenues. The unit was marching into a slaughter from above and below.

It looked like three rifle platoons up front and a heavy weapons platoon in the rear, armed with powerful recoilless rifles. The human fighters poured into the circle and the mrill opened fire. A sizable force, but in the wrong place at the wrong time. Streaks of energy screamed across the once-tranquil park, tearing apart man and machine. The soldiers returned fire, the big recoilless guns thundering over the heads of the infantry, who darted from cover to cover, firing their rifles. None of it was having much effect against the responsive, adaptable mrill armor. Ben itched to engage but knew the B-2s were only moments away from striking. He needed the mrill bunched up here. If he signaled to the company to retreat, it would give away his position. He raged as he watched men die, some in agony, others instantly. He felt the nanobots trying to take over his senses, to cool his fury and transform him into the cold machine he needed to be. He resisted.

His anger rose in him like magma, a caldera filling up that would annihilate everything around it. His mind refused to relinquish his body to his alien companions. Ben hated them, too. All of these creatures that had come to this planet, invaders and would-be saviors alike, had brought only death.

The bombers overhead began dropping their bombs, their payload plummeting to the ground. Ben finally surrendered to the pestering machines in his body. Hatred would have to wait. As he did, he squeezed the remote trigger for the claymore mine planted across the circle, behind the mrill who had marched right past the hidden and inert lump of metal. The mine roared and hurled a wall of energy and shrapnel at the aliens, knocking them off their feet. At the same time, Ben opened fire, as did the marines on the rooftops a moment later. The army infantry troops who could still stand and fight did the same, and the mrill were momentarily stunned.

It wouldn’t last long. While his rifle was capable of hurting and killing the mrill, most of the human weapons were not. One of the marines on the roof was pumping explosive rounds from his grenade launcher, and that weapon at least had some effect on the alien force. But the standard-issue M4 carbines might as well have been BB guns and slingshots against the armored, reactive skin of the mrill and the thick shielding of their mobile cannons. The mrill were already regrouping.

Then the bombs began to hit.