Xaxkluth do not fear water the way the uluth do.

  “Then we need to stop them.”

  You can’t stop them, Caleb. You don’t have the means.

  “Even with the QDM?”

  Ishek hesitated to answer. That was good enough for him.

  There is no guarantee I can make it work. If we linger, we will die.

  Then they would die. He wasn’t going to leave innocent people to whatever kind of monster was approaching.

  They kept running, the groaning sounds increasing in volume, the new creatures gaining ground. Gunfire began to sound again ahead of them. Someone was shooting at something.

  “The trife won’t go in the damn water,” Stacker barked to him. “They’re clogging the escape, and trying to get onto the ships.”

  Caleb swallowed hard. He hadn’t thought of that.

  “Drop them and get underway,” he heard Stacker order. “I know. We don’t have a choice. Do it. All units, keep the trife away from the docks. If you want to save your families, your loved ones, keep them off the damn docks.”

  There was pain in Stacker’s voice. Caleb felt it too. Whoever hadn’t gotten onto the ships by now was probably going to die.

  Including them.

  “Stacker,” Caleb said. “Pull your soldiers back, as many as you can, to the spire.”

  The armored soldier didn’t ask any questions. He began issuing the orders. “Clear the docks and fall back.”

  At least the path to the spire would have them going against traffic.

  The dropship swept overhead, plasma cannons firing closer to the water. It passed by and banked hard, preparing for another run.

  The race took Caleb through familiar city streets. He had spent time at Quantico to the north during his early career and had come south to Norfolk plenty of times. Crossing paths he had crossed many times before, he was shocked by how much had changed, and at the same time how little looked nearly the same. Some of the old storefronts were still intact, their signage restored at some point to near-original condition. Trees lined the buffers between sidewalk and roadway, and restored-to-like-new cars rested at the curbs.

  On one hand, the sight transported him back to that earlier, simpler time before the trife invasion. On the other, it was a stark reminder of the suffering and pain that had followed, especially as the trife crashed through the trees, tearing off limbs, or bounded over the cars, scratching the finish.

  It was like watching the start of the invasion all over again—only worse.

  The groaning continued to get louder, and Caleb could hear the xaxkluth approaching now, the sound of moist, slapping flesh overcoming the hissing and shouting and gunfire. Stacker turned left at the next street, bringing the spire into view ahead of them, two blocks away. A number of soldiers were already in the area, gathered around the spire. They leaned against one another or huddled against the wall—tired, bloody and sweaty. The ones who saw Stacker coming perked up immediately, coming to attention.

  Caleb looked to the left as they crossed the first street, back in the direction of the wall. An echo of tearing metal rose above the rest of the chaotic noise, and he got his first look at the new threat, the first of too many advancing into the city.

  “What the hell…,” he whispered, slowing slightly as his eyes crossed the expanse of tentacles stretching forward from the gigantic monster.

  Xaxkluth. Nyarlath’s favorite children. The trife didn’t gather to attack this city. They were trying to escape.

  30

  Caleb

  Caleb followed Stacker to the base of the spire. The groaning and slapping sounds from the xaxkluth pursuing them was louder than ever, the monsters closing on them. The soldiers were all back on their feet by the time they arrived, ready and waiting for orders.

  “The control room is inside, straight ahead,” Stacker said. “I don’t know what you’ll be able to do. The system melted down.”

  A handful of people emerged from the front of the building. Uniformed officers carrying rifles. They joined the ragged group on the steps.

  “I’m not sure either,” Caleb replied. “What about the QDM?”

  “QDM?”

  “The power source.”

  “There are stairs to the left. Descend to the bottom and go through the door. We’ll hold them off for as long as we can.”

  “Roger that. Aim for the eyes on the central mass. It’ll slow them down.”

  “Where did you come from?” Stacker asked, surprised Caleb knew anything about the creatures.

  He didn’t, but Ishek did. “Long story,” Caleb replied. “We can get a beer when this is over.”

  Stacker grunted out a laugh. “It’s on me.”

  “Roger that.”Caleb said as he rushed past Stacker and up the stairs into the base of the spire. “Which way?” he asked Ishek. “The energy unit or the control room?”

  Control room. Let us see what we can accomplish.

  As Caleb ran through the open door just ahead of him, he heard gunfire begin behind him. The change in pitch of the xaxkluth’s groaning signalled its rage as it came under attack. He knew he didn’t have much time.

  The control room was standard military design. Stations. Terminals. Displays.The largest hung across the front of the room. Most of the computers were offline, including the large display. The smell of burning circuits hung thick in the air.

  “Stacker said the system overloaded,” Caleb said.

  That terminal is operational.

  Caleb looked at the station in the corner. Its display was still active. He hurried over to it and sat in the task chair, pulling it forward.

  Give me control.

  Caleb breathed in, closing his eyes and trying to relax. The pressure in his head built as the Relyeh Advocate seized his mind, taking full ownership of it.

  Ishek opened his eyes, staring at the display. Humans were so easily weakened without their sight. They relied on vision for too many operations.

  We haven’t had hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. If you ask me, Relyeh are primitive relative to their age.

  Ishek wasn’t going to argue with Caleb. Not right now, anyway. He began tapping on the control surface, using Caleb’s understanding of computer systems to navigate this one. He needed to understand how the spire’s energy shield functioned before he could determine if he could use it as an offensive weapon.

  He pulled up the schematics. The spire had dense carbon crystals mounted at the top. Diamond silicate, its many facets refracted the energy around the city. It wasn’t so much a shield as a web, with gaps too small for anything larger than a rodent to squeeze through.

  The crystals were mounted to adjustable arms, the web able to be repositioned if necessary. It didn’t seem the technicians in charge of the spire even knew that. But they weren’t the ones who had created the tech, were they? Only the caretakers.

  Of course, the wiring connecting the modulator to the system at the top of the spire was human-made and couldn’t withstand the sheer power required to keep it running while it was under stress. The link was damaged somewhere and there was likely no way to fix it.

  But the system hadn’t failed. It had been turned off. Shut down before it broke completely. Ishek smiled. The humans had done something smart for once.

  Does that mean you can use it?

  He could use it. But they would only have one shot, and the spire would likely be destroyed.

  With them in it.

  “I’m not eager to die,” Ishek said.

  You’ll die anyway if we don’t stop the xaxkluth.

  Ishek sighed. He couldn’t argue the truth of the situation.

  “There is one way we might survive, but we’ll have to leave the modulator behind.”

  Whatever it takes, Ish.

  The Advocate sighed again and began tapping on the control surface. He entered the reflector controls, quickly programming in a series of positioning alterations.

  He glanced up when he heard activity near the door. General Stacker entered the room, trailed by nearly a dozen shocked soldiers.

  “Sergeant, this is all we have left,” Stacker said. “I hope you have a plan.”

  The building shook as the xaxkluth slammed into it, trying to get inside.

  “I have a plan,” Ishek said. “Stay as close to me as you can.”

  The survivors came forward, huddling around him. Ishek tapped on the controls, his finger hovering over the power transfer switch that would turn the system back on.

  “Let us hope the system doesn’t fail.”

  His finger came down on the button. A sharp hum immediately filled the room, a massive spike of energy flowing from the modulator up to the top of the spire. The display changed as it did, showing the output of the energy and the movement of the reflectors.

  “What’s happening?” Stacker asked.

  “If we’re lucky, the xaxkluth are dying.”

  The building continued to shake. A deafening roar sounded from outside, along with groaning screams. The seconds ticked past slowly.

  Ishek watched the progression of the programmed route on the display. Seventy percent complete. The building continued to shake, and the screen started flashing red, the system overloading and beginning to fail.

  Come on, damn it.

  “Come on,” Ishek said, echoing Caleb’s urging.

  The side of the building cracked and started to crumble, a giant tentacle ripping away at the stone, still trying to reach them.

  Ishek tapped the control surface, increasing power through the system.

  Increasing?

  “Stay close,” he said. “Timing is everything.”

  The display flashed and began to spark and smoke. The soldiers around Stacker were terrified, their eyes wide and faces pale. Ishek drank in their fear, feeding on it. There was no reason not to take advantage of the situation. They needed it to survive.

  A second tentacle pushed through the crumbling building, reaching out for them. The display went dark. The humming increased to an ear-splitting scream.

  Something popped, followed by a bright flash of light. Ishek activated the Skin’s shields, using the rest of its stored power to push it out past the gathered survivors, encasing them in a cocoon of energy.

  The building exploded.

  31

  Nathan

  Nathan was sure he was going to die. That’s what a loud pop and a flash of light usually meant for anyone close enough to be blinded by it.

  Then again, this was the seventh or eighth time in the last hour he was sure he was about to die, and yet here he was—somehow, still standing—in the spire control room with a featureless black humanoid figure who claimed to be a Space Force Marine.

  If he hadn’t watched the figure save his life, he probably wouldn’t have believed any part of that story. Even now, he wasn’t so sure.

  But he wasn’t going to question it. Not when Caleb Card was trying his best to save his life and the lives of thousands. He didn’t have to be here in the city. Nathan had fought him earlier and chased him off. But why had he run? If he was human, why hadn’t he revealed himself then?

  Maybe he hadn’t realized Nathan was human too. The powered armor did give him more of a mechanical, robotic countenance. Either way, he hoped it was a simple misunderstanding.

  One he wasn’t sure they would have the chance to clear up.

  The building shook violently around them, the ceiling beginning to collapse at the same time a flash of energy washed through him, stopping his breath for an instant. He could see the slight hue of the shield suddenly hovering just in front of his face, enveloping him and his surviving Space Force soldiers. Only a dozen of those who hadn’t been able to escape to the ships remained alive..

  Out of over five thousand.

  The reality hit him like a punch to the gut. So many lives gone. So many still to save. But had they saved them? Was he going to get out of this alive? Did he deserve to?

  The groaning of the monster outside the control room changed in pitch and Nathan turned his attention to the pair of tentacles. They thrashed violently in the hole the creature had made in the wall while it screamed outside.

  His soldiers shouted as a large piece of cement hit the top of the shield, expecting it to crush them instead of rolling off to the side. They cried out again as more of the building came down, smashing into the shield and shedding away. Dust and debris filled the air, the tearing, cracking, and collapsing noises drowning out the dying alien outside. An extra loud crack shook the entire room, and then the ceiling vanished into open air, the upper part of the spire falling sideways. It broke away from its roots, toppling laterally like a tree. Nathan didn’t see the impact, but he heard the breaking windows and rending metal as the top of the spire crashed into it.

  “Up and out,” Caleb said, the shield fading away almost as quickly as it had come. There was something different about the man now. His whole posture seemed off. Uncanny. It shifted suddenly, returning to normal. Had he imagined it?

  “Come on,” Nathan growled, activating his jump pack and launching himself up to the top of the rubble pile. He turned and bent down, taking his people by the hand and helping then onto the crumbled stone.

  Caleb quickly scaled the rock, joining him at the top and helping recover the rest of the soldiers.

  “Armageddon,” one of them said.

  Nathan looked up for the first time, quickly scanning the city. Whatever Caleb had done with the spire had made a mess of Edenrise. The buildings were cracked and smoldering, the vehicles were thrown from their positions and burning, and there were corpses everywhere. Trife mostly, with a few humans mixed in here and there, along with at least a dozen of the odd giant tentacled aliens that had assaulted them.

  “Pyro, do you copy?” Nathan asked, activating his comm. It crackled inside his helmet, but she didn’t respond. He looked up, searching for the dropship. It was impossible to see through the cloud of dust.

  A loud groan sounded to the east, followed by a second. At least two of the monsters had escaped the massacre.

  “We didn’t get all of them,” Nathan said.

  Caleb looked at him. He was trying to hide the truth behind his expression, but Nathan wasn’t an idiot. The creatures were tailing the ships. If they managed to catch up to the carriers…

  Damn it.

  Nathan knew they should all be dead. Caleb had tried to save them. All of them. It wasn’t his fault the plan had fallen short.

  “We need to get out of here,” Caleb said. “In case they come back.”

  “Come back?” one of the soldiers said. “What for? Look at this place. An hour ago, this was a safe haven. My home.” He was distraught. “My wife. My children. I hope they made it to the ships. Or maybe I don’t.” The man put his head in his hands and began to sob.

  “What do we do now, General?” one of the other men asked. “Where the hell do we go?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Nathan replied. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “What the hell are those things?” A third soldier said. "Why are they here?”

  “Yeah, I thought the trife were bad news,” the second replied.

  Nathan looked at Caleb. The so-called Marine Sergeant knew something about these creatures. He had told him how to disable them.

  His attention caused the rest of his soldiers to divert their attention until all eyes were on the black humanoid.

  Caleb reached back behind his head to the base of his neck. and pulled the hood back over his head and down, proving that there was a human being underneath.

  “I’ll be happy to tell you everything I know once we’re someplace safe,” he said. “Everything I’ve told you is true, Stacker. I’m not convinced you’ve shown me the same courtesy.”

  “Like you said, we’ll settle this someplace safe. Pyro has to be up there somewhere. We need to get into the open for pickup.”

  “What about those two monsters out there that got away?” the sobbing soldier asked.

  “We’ll catch up to them and we’ll kill them, Hotch. That’s what we do. Get your shit together. You can mourn when we’re on the dropship.”

  “Yes, General,” Hotch replied, straightening up and wiping at his moist eyes.

  “Follow me,” Nathan said, guiding them down off the rubble to a clearing in the street.

  They headed west, away from the shore. The groaning sounds faded into the distance, but he was sure he heard the faint sound of screaming through the suit’s sensitive microphones. It made him sick.

  They came across another of the monsters, severed nearly in half beneath a piece of a damaged building. Two of its tentacles were still twitching, the teeth at the ends opening and snapping closed. Nathan stopped a meter away from it to stare. He understood the trife and the Others. This was something else altogether.

  What was this thing? Why was it here? And why now?

  He hoped like hell Caleb had answers.

  “Pyro, do you copy?” Nathan asked again, still trying to raise her. The armor had taken a beating. There was a good chance his comms were damaged.

  A deep groan caught his attention. He looked up in time to see a tentacle reach over a slab of rubble. Another followed, and then the creature’s central mass and huge mouth began to rise. It was oozing a dark liquid, and half its eyes were punctured.

  Injured but still very much alive.

  He glanced at his survivors. Only a couple of them were still carrying their rifles. He couldn’t come down on them. He had lost his too.

  “Caleb, can you take it down?” he asked.

  “Negative,” Caleb replied. “The Skin’s out of juice.”

  The creature saw them, groaning even louder in response. More tentacles came over the slab as it maneuvered to attack them.

  “Back,” Nathan decided, waving his people away from it. “The other way.”

  They turned around. Caleb took the lead, coming to a quick stop when a tentacle appeared from around the corner of a building. “Shit.”

  “Don’t these damn things die?” Hotch whined.