36

“Sir, are you okay? Sir?”

Ben blinked, and he was back on the ground in Washington, DC. It was still raining, and he blinked again, pushing the water from his eyes. Above him stood a bloodied marine, rifle still at the ready. When Ben moved, he yelled for a medic.

Ben sat up and ran his hand along his side, then his leg. The wounds were gone. His body had expelled various pieces of metal and other shrapnel, and they lay on the ground around his body in an outline. No scars. None you could see, anyway.

“Don’t bother, Sergeant. I’m good. It’s over.”

“Sir?”

“We got ’em. Both the ground force and the mothership are destroyed. It’s time to look for wounded and regroup.”

The marine opened his mouth, glanced again at Ben’s gray skin and steady gaze, closed his mouth and moved off, ordering his men to organize search and rescue teams.

“General, you there?”

“I’m here, Ben,” Rickert replied. “I’m glad you’re there, too. I guess thank you doesn’t begin to cover it, but thank you.”

Ben looked up as he sensed Eddie’s ship descending through the rain clouds. The soldiers on the ground cried out as it emerged from the gloom, thinking it another mrill ship.

Ben stood and waved them off, assuring them it was one of the good guys.

He walked toward the ship as it settled in a small clearing in the wreckage.

“You know, all of this, all of the sacrifice, all it did was buy us some time,” Ben said to Rickert and Eddie over his connection. “The mrill sent their expeditionary force because they thought they could catch us with our pants down, or at least only halfway up. They thought they’d get lucky—they almost did. But this wasn’t their full strength. I don’t know how long we’ve got. A year or more, hopefully, while they assemble a complete invasion force and cross the galaxy. We’ll have to be better next time. We’ll need more like us.”

Eddie stepped down the ramp of his ship, quiet and thoughtful.

“We need to restart the nano injection process,” Ben said. “We need an army. The three of us barely held them back, and now there’s only two of us.”

“I know,” Rickert said.

“And I think the mrill sent one last signal down here at the very end.”

“Yeah, I felt it too,” Eddie said. “I don’t know what it was, but they broadcast something toward Earth. I don’t know. Something . . . a sleeper agent maybe?”

“Yeah, we might be fighting a two-front war before we know it,” Ben said. “Any word on the president?”

“They’re still digging. I don’t know. I hope so. I’m trying to get a command system up and running. Someone needs to address the country soon. The TV anchors have basically been crapping their pants, and I don’t think anyone else smells much better. If we’re going to regroup, we need to do it soon.”

“Copy that. I’ll be there soon, sir,” Ben said.

“Copy that. And . . . heck of a job out there. A lot of people are going to have a hard time saying that. There will be some that will blame you for what happened. Don’t listen to any of that. You, Eddie, Nick, you guys are heroes.”

“Thank you, sir. See you soon.”

Ben sighed. Eddie walked up to him and was silent for a moment. He dug into his pocket.

“You know, I heard you liked these,” he said as he pulled out two cigars.

Ben laughed in the rain. Eddie waved at one of the marines combing through the wreckage nearby.

“Hey, kid, got a light?”

The marine, a Lance Corporal with O’MALLEY stitched above his heart, approached slowly, picking his way through the concrete and steel, stumbling occasionally. He fumbled through his pockets, unable to keep his eyes off the two men and their gray skin. He finally produced a battered lighter and held it out to Eddie.

Eddie took it, flicked the cap open, and spun the wheel.

Click.

Ben leaned in to the fragile flame, blocking out the rain. He took a deep pull, letting the smoke fill him as his nanomachines filtered out the toxins. He exhaled, watching the smoke drift off. Eddie tossed the lighter back to the marine, who stared for another moment before his sergeant yelled for him to get back in formation. As the troops moved on, Ben and Eddie stood without speaking or thinking, surveying the destruction that stretched off to the northeast.

“So, you think you could have broken some more shit down here? I see a flower pot over there you forgot to nuke,” Eddie said, finally breaking the silence.

Ben laughed again. It seemed right. Earned. The rain was passing, and he felt cleansed, if not yet healed.

“Seriously, it’s like Godzilla used the city as his own personal ball scratcher. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna get stuck for the tab on this one.”

“Next time Godzilla has itchy nuts, I’ll be sure to call you first,” Ben said.

They both smiled and smoked as the clouds began to turn from gray to a soft white.

After a few minutes, Ben ground his cigar under his foot. He almost left it there, then bent down, picked it up, and flung it into a nearby trashcan that was almost miraculously unscathed. He lifted an eyebrow toward Eddie, who shrugged.

“Well, it’s a start. Ready to go?”

Ben nodded, his smile fading.

“Yeah, something I’ve got to do first.”

“What’s that?”

“I need to go see Nick’s parents. Diego’s, too.”

The sky coughed one last spat of rain, then fell into sullen silence as the weather system trudged east, out to sea.

The sun wasn’t out yet. Ben thought it might rain again, but the sun would emerge before the day was done.

“I’ll come with you,” Eddie said.