“Meaning?” Hayden asked.

  “It works on every QCT we can test it against,” Caleb said.

  “Theoretically,” Nitch said. “Because you don’t have the real thing.”

  “Exactly,” Rush said. “But we work with what we’ve got.”

  “By working, what exactly does it do?” Hayden asked.

  The simulation was running on a loop, showing the QCT begin fluctuating wildly, speeding up until it appeared to be out of control before starting over.

  “It’s a denial of service attack,” Nitch said. “It’s ingenious.”

  “English?” Hayden replied.

  “A networking term,” Nitch explained. “Apropos considering how the Collective functions as a massively distributed network of organisms. A denial of service attack is basically when you feed a node on the network so much data it can’t handle it all and seizes up. Freezes in place. Overloaded.”

  “Thank you for confirming,” Rush said. “We think this overload will cause the Relyeh to break down completely. Render it unable to breathe, to think, even to stand.”

  “And you’re saying you think this math problem can force that to happen in a trife?”

  “It’s not as much a math problem as it is a command,” Caleb said. “And it won’t just happen to trife. It’ll happen to any Relyeh it can reach.”

  “Like through the interlink?”

  Caleb smiled. “Exactly.”

  Hayden’s heart started pounding with fresh excitement. Was this the miracle he had been hoping for since he had discovered the truth about Earth?

  “Interlink?” Nitch asked.

  “It’s a device our people on Earth created almost two hundred years ago,” Haeri said. “To communicate with the goliaths. But we abandoned it as a failed technology. The value of talking to goliaths was limited.”

  “That’s your opinion,” Hayden said. “It worked out great for us. Anyway, Nat repurposed it to use an ick to access the Relyeh Collective. But it doesn’t just let you in. It amplifies the signal strength. It makes you stronger there than you would be otherwise.”

  “And if we can amplify this command—” Rush said.

  “We can kill a lot of Relyeh,” Hayden finished.

  “What’s the downside?” Nitch asked.

  “It burns up the QCT that moderates the link. It can only take so much before it dies.”

  “So if we want a stronger signal, we need a stronger QCT,” Nitch said. “Makes sense.”

  “That’s one complication,” Caleb said. “There’s another.”

  “What kind of complication?” Haeri asked.

  “The Relyeh have learned to break the main network into subnetworks, essentially firewalled from one another. That’s the only reason the enemy doesn’t have any idea where I am right now.”

  “Firewalls can be circumvented,” Nitch said. “You just need to know how.”

  “Cal, didn’t you say there’s one Relyeh that can always get in?” Hayden asked.

  “Shub-nigu,” Caleb replied. “Yes. It’s like he has root access to every Relyeh.”

  “Root access. Another computer term?”

  Caleb smiled and nodded. “Pozz.”

  “We have three QCT scans here,” Nitch said. “Give me some time to go over them with Pete, and we’ll come back with something.”

  “Time isn’t a luxury we have in abundance,” Haeri said.

  Hayden leaned forward in his chair. “We aren’t going to be sitting here twiddling our thumbs while they’re working it out.”

  “We aren’t?” Haeri asked, surprised.

  “Nope. If we want a stronger signal, we need a stronger QCT. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want the strongest signal we can create. I want a signal that’ll blow all the Relyeh to hell, Vyte and his Q-net along with it. And I want Vyte. He’s the source of this. We can’t just let him walk away.”

  “For the good of humankind?” Haeri said.

  “Pozz,” Hayden replied. “And because he killed my family. I won’t deny it. I want vengeance, General.”

  “At what cost, Sheriff? Would you risk the success of the mission if it meant you could kill Vyte?”

  Hayden stared at Haeri, trying to answer the question in his own mind. “I can’t say I wouldn’t be tempted, but no. I won’t make humankind pay for what he did.”

  “Good. If that were the only reason to go after him, I would never approve. But you’re right. We need the most powerful QCT we can recover.”

  “Vyte has Nyarlath imprisoned on the damnation,” Caleb said. “You can’t get much stronger than her. The only question is if it’s worth the risk. Assuming Nathan recovered the interlink, we can use what we have right now to cripple the enemy before we need to confront them.”

  “With whose ick?” Hayden asked. “Ishek’s? He’s the strongest Relyeh we have access to.”

  “If it came to that, I would sacrifice both of us,” Caleb said.

  “What if it isn’t enough? Doc Rush said the affected Relyeh shuts down. But if they don’t stay shut down long enough, they won’t die. Isn’t that right, Doc?”

  “That’s definitely a possibility.”

  “We have to take the risk somewhere,” Hayden said. “I’d rather go after Vyte and Nyarlath. That gives us two potential wins. The smaller win against Vyte and his invasion, and the possible win against the entire Hunger. We have a chance to end this. All of it. We need to take it. For Nat and Hal and Ginny sure. But for everybody else too.” He turned his eyes to Haeri. “What do you say, General?”

  Haeri locked his gaze on Hayden’s, remaining still for a few heartbeats.

  Then he nodded.

  54

  Nathan

  Nathan stood at the top of the ridge, looking out in the direction Isaac told him the Relyeh ships were descending. He couldn’t see them yet. If he could, he would have already squeezed the trigger on the Dragon Claw launcher, sending another of the warheads racing toward a target. As it was, he kept the launcher balanced on his shoulder, pointing in the right direction and ready to unleash hell at a moment’s notice.

  The activity on the terrain below was frantic. Max ran back and forth, dropping shards of the quantum dimensional modulator at specific intervals. The shards were smaller than Nathan expected, barely the size of a grain of rice, but the Intellect was insistent they carried enough stored energy that unlocking them would create the needed force to blast the massive weight of rock off the top of the Pilgrim and free it to fly.

  Hundreds of deputies and volunteers were also organized into makeshift squads, handing out the guns Nathan had recovered from Tinker’s cache. Even with the updated weaponry, the militia wasn’t close to being intimidating. But looks could be deceiving, and the true measure was in the heart of the fighters, not in their tired faces or ragged clothes.

  They knew the stakes, and they were ready to fight.

  “General,” Isaac said on the comm. “I’ve got xaxluth heading for your position from the south.”

  “Roger,” Nathan replied. He had ordered Isaac south with the Parabellum to keep him clear of the Relyeh ships, at least until they touched down. The dropship was still a valuable asset he wasn’t ready to lose in the opening salvo. “You’re clear to fire at will. Keep an eye on your power levels. You don’t have the QDM to keep your tank full anymore.”

  “Yes, sir,” Isaac said.

  “Jesse, get Delta Platoon to the other side of the hill to defend. Don’t let them get to me before those ships come into range.”

  “Roger, General,” Jesse replied.

  Nathan could hear her voice barking orders nearby, and then watched the movement of the fighters as they reacted to those orders. Did the enemy see him as the biggest threat? Was that why the xaxkluth were coming at him from behind?

  He turned his head to look back over his shoulder and down the southern slope. He could see a second hill in the distance and the first of the xaxkluth climbing over it. The first creature paused then as if it knew he could see it. Three more crested the hill, staying tightly grouped with the first one.

  They were trying to draw his fire. To get him to use a missile before the ships got close. The enemy was guessing he had more of the projectiles that had destroyed the first of their ships.

  They weren’t wrong.

  But they also weren’t going to get him to shoot. He turned his head away as the Parabellum swept in toward the xaxkluth, plasma cannons sending hot bolts into their midst. Nathan’s tactical captured the action, showing the creatures spread from their group, joined by nearly a dozen more. Close to twenty xaxkluth in total moved down the hill. In Edenrise, they had struggled against three. In Sanisco, against a dozen. Would Tinker’s weapons be enough to slow this greater tide?

  That was the key. They didn’t need to stop the advance. They just needed to slow it while Max completed his work. The intellect had seeded a third of the field, but if he didn’t finish this would all be for nothing.

  He looked back to the sky. He would have preferred clear blue, having to settle for a mingling of dark, heavy clouds spotting it. He watched those clouds carefully, knowing the Relyeh would drop from cover. Vyte might have thought at first he could take Earth easily—maybe the hybrid still believed his victory was inevitable—but he was smart enough to remain cautious.

  Gunfire echoed at his back, the standard roar of MK machine guns joined by the softer, rhythmic thumping of coilguns. The xaxkluth began to groan, and a moment later the first of them died.

  Nathan watched his tactical. The xaxkluth continued to advance, charging into the defenses and closing the distance in a hurry. Another fell. Then another. There was a break in the density of fire as the platoon reloaded. Then they cut down two more.

  But they weren’t dying fast enough.

  “Hicks, move Bravo Platoon to the south,” Nathan ordered.

  “Roger,” Hicks replied.

  Bravo was positioned on the hill near Nathan. He watched as they turned and sprinted south, joining the defenses there. Nathan had to be careful not to commit too many units in one direction. He sensed that was exactly what the Relyeh wanted.

  Fresh gunfire rose behind him as Bravo entered the fight. Three more xaxkluth fell, succumbing to the overwhelming firepower of sixty guns, half of which were more powerful than anything humankind had ever thrown at them. The creatures were nearing the slope and closing to within a half-kilometer, but Nathan was confident they wouldn’t make it to the front of the defensive line, never mind all the way up to his position at the top.

  The Relyeh must have realized that too, because the ships suddenly came into view, dropping rapidly through the clouds on a vector for the terrain ahead of the hill, close to where Max was working.

  Nathan tapped on the trigger for the launcher, and a reticle appeared on his HUD. He shifted the weapon and held it steady on the first Relyeh ship until it offered a solid tone.

  Then he fired.

  The missile threw a burst of fire out the back, zipping away and popping as it cleared the sound barrier, screaming toward the ship. The enemy craft started firing at it, trying to knock it out of the sky. It came close, but then the projectile opened, revealing its payload of secondary missiles with guidance and vectoring systems of their own. They shot ahead, splitting apart and avoiding the point defense as they charged into the hull of the craft and exploded.

  One down.

  Nathan took the launcher off his shoulder, standing it straight up and turning to the two remaining rounds. His tactical showed six more Relyeh dropships heading for the field. If he could cut down two more, he would effectively kill a thousand enemy soldiers.

  He grabbed another missile, pivoting and dropping it into the top of the launcher. He tapped on the screen on the weapon’s side, entering the code to arm the gun.

  His HUD flashed as new marks appeared and a warning triggered, calling out the sudden appearance of targets overhead. Nathan looked up in time to see a group of winged, squid-faced creatures dropping toward him, their clawed feet extended and each clutching a pair of staffs in their four hands.

  The staffs began spitting energy, forcing Nathan to drop the launcher and dive out of the way. The volunteers in his unit started shooting back, cutting down three of the group as they swooped in. The Relyeh fighters redirected their aim.

  Humans started to die.

  “Spot, watch the sky,” Nathan shouted into the comm. “They’ve got airborne units.”

  “Roger, General.”

  “Naeven,” Max said. “One of Nyarlath’s creations. Hahaha. Haha.”

  Nathan rolled to his feet, bringing his rifle to bear. He fired a single supersonic round into the chest of one of the Naeven, the force nearly tearing it in half. He switched targets and fired again, killing another. “Max, you could have warned me about them before they got here.”

  “Apologies. I didn’t know they were present in this combat force.”

  “Are you almost done down there?”

  “Negation. I require five more minutes.”

  Nathan cursed silently, shooting down two more Naeven and moving toward the launcher.

  “General, we’ve got more xaxkluth on the way, from both the east and west,” Isaac warned.

  “Count?” he replied.

  “A hundred or more.”

  Shit. They couldn’t fight a hundred. “Max, can you go any faster?”

  “Not unless you want everyone to die, General,” Max replied.

  “Ike, ETA?”

  “Three minutes...maybe less.”

  Double shit. The enemy didn’t need to protect their ships to win the fight. Vyte was throwing everything he had at them.

  Of course he was. They had the interlink, and he wanted it back. It was that simple.

  Or was it?

  It was one thing to send a force guaranteed to succeed. Another to send one this size. It gave Nathan the impression Vyte was nervous about something.

  Sheriff Duke, maybe?

  A Naevan swooped down, claws reaching for the launcher. Nathan lunged forward and grabbed the thing’s extended leg. Using the additional powered strength of his new armor to yank it down, he stomped its face in, its skull crushing beneath his armored boot.

  Another Naeven hit him from behind, claws raking down his armored back without leaving so much as a mark. Nathan turned and threw a hard punch into its chest, breaking bones and dropping that one too.

  “General, two more ships are inbound,” Isaac reported.

  This was getting ridiculous. “Max, you need to go faster!”

  “Affirmation. Impossible. Hahaha. Haha.”

  “All units, you need to keep Max clear. He has to finish dropping the shards. Jesse, Hicks— redirect to the north.”

  “General, there are still xaxkluth coming from the south,” Hicks said.

  “And from the east and west,” Nathan replied. “We can’t stop them all. We have to focus on protecting Max.”

  The first of the Relyeh ships touched down, a ramp opening on the side. Norg began running out, their carefully organized columns moving in a mad rush into the open.

  The deputies and volunteers were there to meet them. They opened fire, tearing through the ranks and killing dozens of Relyeh in seconds. Nathan picked up the launcher, bringing it to his shoulder and activating the reticle. He targeted the next ship close to landing, achieved lock and fired.

  Three seconds later, the Relyeh ship exploded, raining debris across the terrain near where Max was working. Nathan turned the launcher on its end and grabbed the last round, dropping it into the breech and tapping in the activation code.

  “General, behind you!” Isaac warned.

  Nathan spun around, raising the launcher. Three xaxkluth were coming up the slope toward him. The remainder of his unit opened fire. The xaxkluth tried to shield their central masses with their limbs, howling as the rounds punched through their tentacles and impacted their vulnerable eyes and mouths. Tentacles whipped out, catching two of the volunteers and biting them in half. They barely had time to scream.

  The xaxkluth were almost on top of him. He’d just loaded a round to take out one more ship, but if he didn’t use it against these xaxkluth now, he wouldn’t live long enough to use it later.

  He didn’t wait for a lock. He aimed and fired.

  He flinched as a bright light flared in front of him, momentarily blinding him as the warhead separated and the smaller projectiles’ engines ignited. The missiles danced around the tentacles, each one hitting a xaxkluth square in the head and exploding.

  What was left of the creatures splattered on the ground at his feet, their tentacles flopping all around him.

  Too damn close.

  He whirled around, trying to take in the entire battlefield in an instant. Three more Relyeh ships had landed, Norg charging from them. The xaxkluth on either side were within visual range, approaching quickly. Four other ships had yet to touch down and release their payloads.

  And Max needed two more minutes.

  “Ike, time to join the fight,” Nathan said.

  “Roger, General,” Isaac replied.

  It wouldn’t be enough. Not even close to enough. It was too little, too late. Nathan knew it was over.

  But he was going to keep fighting until the last breath left his body.

  He threw the Dragon Claw launcher to the ground, dropped the used magazine from his coilgun, smacked a fresh one in, and found a spot on the battlefield where he would make his last stand.

  He paused then, eyes dropping to the dirt at his feet. Time seemed to stop as he stared at the individual motes, lifting and shaking as something in the distance disturbed the ground.

  Something big.

  55

  Nathan

  “Ike,” Nathan said. “Tell me you see what I think I see.”

  “Affirmative, General. I see them,” Isaac replied, practically laughing. “They’re chasing the xaxkluth.”

  Nathan turned to the west, looking past the xaxkluth closing on the area. A large, humanoid silhouette came into view behind them, flanked by three others.