“The xaxkluth who attacked your city were only one group. As near as we can tell, there are thousands of them emerging planetwide.”

  “What?”

  “That’s not the worst part.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “The Relyeh are divided under twelve siblings born of the first Relyeh hundreds of thousands of years ago. It’s their responsibility to carry out the destiny of the Hunger and conquer the entire universe from end to end. Earth is a prize they all want to claim because whoever controls it will have a better foothold against the Axon. From what Ishek and I have been able to learn, we’re confident that one of the most powerful of the Relyeh, Nyarlath, is making a move on the planet. The xaxkluth are her vanguard.”

  “Vanguard against what? Have you seen a lot of the planet, Sergeant? Other than Edenrise, there’s only one other place I know that can put up even a hint of a fight.”

  Nathan froze as soon as the words left his mouth. His heart thundered in his chest.

  “What is it?” Caleb asked.

  “I have to warn him.”

  “Warn who?”

  “I need to find Pyro. We leave in forty-eight minutes. Right after I talk to my soldiers.”

  “Roger that, Nathan. Warn who?”

  “Sheriff Duke,” Nathan said, turning to leave. He glanced back over his shoulder. “And you’re wrong, Sergeant. You do need a shower. You’re covered in alien guts, and no offense, but you stink.”

  He hurried from the head, across the dropship and out through the hold, sprinting across the deck at full speed and leaving a very confused Caleb Card behind.

  40

  Hayden

  Hayden looked out through the open side of the Iroquois, watching the city of Sanisco approach below. It was like most of the cities in the area. Ravaged by war, beaten and crumbling.

  But not broken.

  The outskirts were lined with streets filled with dilapidated buildings and rusted wrecks of old cars, shattered glass, chunks of rock and other debris left over from the first invasion. Vegetation crept in through the cracks of worn asphalt, cement and concrete. In some places the weeds took on a surreal beauty that captured Hayden’s imagination every time he saw them. To the north, the detonated halves of the Golden Gate Bridge rested on opposite shores while the central expanse poked up from the bay. To the east, the Oakland Bay Bridge was in a similar state, the overall destruction cutting the city off from trife attack on three sides.

  His eyes turned toward the northeast section of the city. Toward home. The destruction lessened, the vegetation faded. The buildings, while old, showed increasing signs of stability and improving conditions. A wall had been erected along the perimeter, composed of concrete and old cars, tracing Interstate 80 from the Bay Bridge to Route 100, and following it north to Black Point. It was all that remained of the city, and it was more than enough for the survivors who lived there.

  Or it had been enough. The loss of Haven and Lavega had brought thousands of refugees north, and he could see them too, camping just inside the walls. They had crews working overtime to test the stability of more buildings to renovate for the new residents to have safe places to live. It wasn’t a fast process, especially considering the size of the influx. It would take months to get them all adequately housed. Maybe years. Not that any of them were complaining. They had been lucky to escape north with their lives and were fortunate to be in one of the only two places Hayden knew had walls of any kind.

  There was another benefit. A lot of the refugees wanted to be UWT Law Officers. They wanted to learn to defend themselves, their families and the rest of the survivors. They wanted to stand up and fight against the threat that had chased them here and for the cause they had come to believe in.

  Hayden’s cause. Peace. Security. Justice. Freedom. Simple tenets that were easy to name and harder to achieve. But they were working on it.

  The helicopter started its descent, dropping among a handful of buildings under repairs and landing in the street beside the tallest of the intact structures. Old documentation had informed them the building used to be called the Transamerica Pyramid. Two-hundred sixty meters tall and shaped the way its name suggested, it rose above almost everything in the city, the newly restored light in the crown jewel at the top a beacon for the refugees to follow. It was the home of the United Western Territory government, the main headquarters for Law, and the most extensive and advanced science and research center on the west coast of the former United States, if not the entire globe.

  Of course, the trife problem wasn’t localized to the States, but Hayden had enough to worry about here to give too much thought to the rest of the planet. Judging by the Relyeh interest in this part of the world, he had a feeling they had fared significantly better than some other places. It was a mixed blessing to be sure.

  Deputy Fry was waiting at the landing area when the chopper touched down. He hurried over to the helicopter, staying low to avoid the diminishing downwash so he could meet Hayden and the others as they exited. A second group of deputies waited nearby to take the bodies of the fallen.

  “Sheriff, Chief Deputy Hicks,” Fry said in greeting as Hayden and Hicks climbed out of the helicopter.

  “Deputy Fry,” Hayden said. “Where’s the Governor?”

  “In the lab.”

  Hayden shook his head. “Doc Hess told her to stay out of the lab.”

  “Sheriff, I think you’d have better luck pacifying a trife.”

  “Solino, you’re with me,” Hayden said. “Hicks, get your people rested. I’m not sure what comes next, but I want you ready when it happens.”

  “Roger, Sheriff,” Hicks said.

  Hayden and Solino headed away from the helicopter and up the steps of the pyramid while Hicks took the Rangers to the armory to shed their equipment and then to the barracks for some downtime. The ride north had been quick but tense, the entire unit stressed by what they had experienced. Hayden didn’t blame them. He was stressed too. The new aliens were one thing. The strange hologram was something else. Its threat of war and its arrogant confidence had left him shaken. For as much as the UWT had accomplished against the trife, they had no chance against the true might of the Hunger.

  But the might of the Hunger was coming, and sooner than he had expected.

  Inside the building, the two men crossed the lobby to the bank of lifts at the rear. Hayden tapped the control pad and a set of doors slid open, one of the cabs already waiting. They boarded and descended to sublevel three, exiting into an underground parking garage that had been converted to a research and development lab. Dozens of computers and displays of various shapes, sizes, and ages sat on tables spread across the open floor, while bundles of wires snaked away toward the corner. A handful of engineers perched on an assortment of seats, from an aluminum stool to an old wooden dining chair. Some ran programs that sifted through data stores while others used small tools to try to repair more of the machines. Almost all of it was made before the war, scavenged by the UWT’s collectors or acquired from scavengers via trade. More equipment was always coming in, assessed and either rebuilt or used as parts to restore other devices.

  Hayden didn’t see Natalia with the other engineers. He turned toward the southern section of the lab. His eyes crossed over a cluster of computer terminals fronting a half-dozen large machines that Doctor Hess and Natalia had been using in recent biological and genetic research and testing. And then his gaze passed over a makeshift divider to a terminal resting beside a motorized chair salvaged from a dentist’s office. The divider was composed of individual wood crates, each one containing a mechanical limb, augments similar to Hayden’s arms, while the terminal and chair were used to install and program the prosthetics.

  Another machine rested to the right of the botter station that Natalia called a neural interlink. From the outside, it was little more than a metal frame wrapped around a plastic seat, but the exterior simplicity hid the interior complexity. Originally designed to allow humans to communicate with the goliaths, it was the result of years of work by some of Proxima’s brightest scientists. They still used it for the goliaths, but now they had a secondary—it was a dangerous but potentially invaluable—use for the technology.

  Hayden spotted Natalia in the seat and reacted with a deep sigh. Dismayed but not surprised, he glanced at Solino, who knew to wait while Hayden approached the interlink. Wires ran from a box at the side of the frame to electrodes attached to different parts of Natalia’s body beneath her clothes. A wired cap and a pair of bulky goggles hid most of her face, leaving only the tips of her short black hair, small turned-up nose and jaw exposed.

  Chief Engineer Sean Lutz was sitting at a computer terminal across from the interlink, monitoring the output from the system. A tall, rail-thin man with wild hair and a scruffy face, he stiffened when he noticed Hayden approaching.

  “Uh…Sheriff Duke,” he said. “You, uh…you’re back early.”

  “I radioed that I was on my way,” Hayden replied. “I thought Nat would be waiting outside.”

  The system output froze. Natalia reached up, grabbing the goggles and lifting them off her head. She looked at Hayden with apologetic brown eyes.

  “Hayden,” she said. “Before you say anything, I have a good reason for being here.”

  “Do you?” Hayden replied, unconvinced. Natalia hung the goggles on a waiting hook and removed the cap while he knelt beside her, reaching under her shirt and tenderly peeling the electrodes off her skin. “I almost lost you the last time you used this thing.”

  She leaned over, putting her forehead against his. “I know. I wasn’t using it. We were collecting some diagnostics.”

  “Preparing it for use,” Hayden translated.

  “Caught,” Natalia admitted. “It’s been weeks, Hayden. I’m fine now. Back to normal.”

  “I’m not eager to see that change again anytime soon.”

  “We may not have a choice, all things considered.”

  Hayden stood and offered his hand. Natalia took it, letting him pull her out of the interlink. They embraced for a moment.

  “Does this mean I’m not in trouble?” Lutz asked. “I was only following the Governor’s orders.”

  “We’ll see,” Hayden replied. He locked eyes with Natalia. “We need to talk.”

  41

  Hayden

  “Nick, can you go upstairs and tell Heather I’ll be up in another hour or so?” Natalia asked.

  Deputy Solino smiled and glanced at Hayden, who nodded his approval. “Of course, Governor. I’d be happy to.”

  “Thank you.”

  Solino turned and hurried for the stairs, not wanting to wait for a lift.

  “He seems pretty eager,” Hayden said, watching him go.

  “He and Heather are seeing each other.”

  “By seeing, you mean…”

  “Yes, Hayden. You sound like such an old man sometimes.”

  Hayden smiled. “Kids these days. If they aren’t out teasing trife, they’re making out in the shadows of ruined buildings.”

  Natalia punched him playfully in the arm. “Like we never ran into the splits to make out.”

  “Feels like ancient history.”

  “Because it is. I’m sorry about Nan, Cortez, and Rollins. They were good people.”

  “They were.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “We can notify their families after we talk. We have a problem, Nat. A big problem.”

  “I know, you told me before you headed up from Tijuana.”

  “And you reacted by going to the lab to prep the interlink. That’s a separate problem in itself.”

  “Somebody has to do it.”

  “It doesn’t have to be you.” They reached the lift banks. Hayden tapped on the pad. The one he had taken to the garage was still waiting, and they stepped in. “What floor?”

  “Let’s go to forty-two.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “They just finished the rebuild last week. I know we talked about keeping the UWT offices down on ten, but I’ve been thinking a lot about that. We need to go back up, if only to show we won’t be cowed by adversity.”

  Hayden tapped the floor on the control pad and looked at his wife. The last governor of the UWT had died up there during an attack that had cost nearly fifty lives and left most of the floor in ruins. It was still a painful memory for a lot of people in Sanisco.

  “You know I appreciate the symbolism. But can it wait until we figure this crisis out?”

  “If that’s how the Sheriff wants it.”

  “It is.”

  Natalia smiled. “Okay.”

  “So, the interlink,” Hayden pressed as the lift ascended. “It doesn’t have to be you. Let Lutz calibrate it from the hot seat while you run the diagnostics.”

  “I’m impressed. You almost sounded like you knew what you were talking about there.”

  Hayden laughed. “Come on, Nat. I’m serious. That thing nearly killed you.”

  “Which is why it has to be me. I’m not putting someone else in that seat to die. I can’t ask anyone to do something I won’t do myself. And besides, I already have experience in the Collective. I spoke to Shub-Nigu. And I survived. Even Doc Hess said by all accounts I should be dead.”

  “That’s not something to be proud of.”

  “But it still means something. My mind is strong enough to withstand the pressures of the Collective. That seems to be more important than ever, considering what you encountered out there. New aliens that make the trife look like pansies?”

  “Ugliest things I’ve ever seen. And they grew so damn fast. I’m nervous to think what would happen if one of them had gotten to a nest.”

  “Ironic that they’re trife-eaters, isn’t it?”

  “I think they’ll eat anything they encounter. Besides, you know the Relyeh feed on fear. Those things were definitely frightening.”

  “But you killed them all.”

  “I killed one deposit of them. Their mother made it sound like there are plenty more.”

  “Their mother?”

  The lift stopped, the doors sliding open. Hayden and Natalia stepped out onto the forty-second floor. It still had a smell of fresh plaster and cement, and the windows Proxima had provided still glistened in the light of bright LEDs.

  “They did fantastic work,” Hayden said, scanning the room. “They picked all this up from books?”

  “We have some really talented people in the city,” Natalia replied. “But it wasn’t without some trial and error. The flubs were cleaned and redone.”

  The room was open and large and led back to a second office and a conference room adjacent to an open-air patio. Natalia led Hayden toward it.

  “I skipped over that part during the ride. I was still processing the whole interaction. It was strange, Nat. Real strange.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew the projector, holding it out to her.

  “A projector?” she guessed, surprising him with her ability to identify it.

  “You’ve seen something like it before?”

  “No. But the crystal in the center gave it away.”

  “I didn’t even notice a crystal,” Hayden admitted, looking closer at it. “The hologram was a middle-aged woman dressed like a lab tech. Maybe like someone who worked in the building where we found the egg sacs. But she spoke to us like she was in the present, only kind of stilted.”

  “Stilted?”

  “Maybe that’s not the best word for it. I don’t know. It was like she learned to speak by watching old movies. Bad dialogue. Does that make any sense?”

  “Not really, but it probably doesn’t matter.” They reached the glass doors to the patio, which slid open silently at their approach.

  “It matters because it was out of the ordinary. And it matters because of what she said and how she said it. She was arrogant. Confident.”

  “If she’s a Relyeh like Shurrath, why wouldn’t she be both of those things? Especially if you’re right about there being more of those creatures.”

  “Exactly. Like I said, a big problem. And we have no idea what the consequences are or what we’re about to come up against. I don’t think it begins and ends with tentacled monsters.”

  They walked across the patio to the edge of the building. The air was cooler up high, and the city small below.

  “What do you suggest, Sheriff?” Natalia asked, looking out over the city. “How do we keep these people safe?”

  Hayden shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about that since I got on the chopper. I don’t have an answer, and it pisses me off.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it too,” Natalia said. “Which is why I was working on the interlink. Caleb Card,” she said, almost to herself.

  “What?”

  “Do you remember? When we connected to the Collective. Caleb Card was there. A human on the Relyeh comm network. He’s here on Earth somewhere.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I’m pretty sure. He was close. I could sense it.”

  “Let’s say you’re right. How will finding him help us?”

  “For one, he must know quite a bit about the Relyeh to be on their comm network,don’t you think?”

  “Pozz.”

  “For another, he still has access to it, which means he has access to information. Maybe he can tell us more about what the Hunger is planning.”

  “We know what they’re planning.”

  “I mean how. Like you said—beyond tentacle monsters. That can’t be all there is.”

  “Assuming you’re right on both counts, we don’t know how to find him.”

  Natalia took Hayden’s hand, turning to face him. Their eyes met. Hayden didn’t like the look in hers.

  “Yes, you do.”

  Hayden shook his head. “Nat, you have no way of knowing if that’ll work. You could wind up dead, and still no Caleb Card. And considering we’re making some big assumptions on his usefulness, that’s not worth the risk.”