Malaga, European federation, April 2035

Louis García looks every bit the Spaniard I had imagined. Standing at six feet tall, he has thick, dark black hair lightly streaked with silver, his eyes carry an intensity that seems to pierce through you but felt out of place due to their green tint. Despite his commanding presence, his warmth and generosity are immediately apparent.

We share a lively conversation about my travels in their living room, during which his wife joins us, adding her own charm to the discussion. Before she leaves, she kisses Louis goodbye, a gesture that feels both tender and familiar. With her departure, it’s just the two of us, and Louis starts the the subject of his time in the Spanish LRRP special forces team during the war.

“Didn’t have much of a say in the matter, but wandering around the German countryside was still better than being stuck in the meat grinder that was the North Rhine region. Before we were airdropped, we flew over the area. I’ll never forget it—tracers lighting up the night, artillery flashes, and so many fires burning that you’d think the electricity was still on. When it was our turn to jump, we were loaded down with so much ammunition, radio batteries, and targeting equipment that you needed one or two guys to help lift you up inside the plane. You’d waddle to the door like a penguin, waiting for the light to turn green before jumping into the darkness.” He pauses, his gaze distant.

“How long were you supposed to be in the field for?” I ask as he pours me another glass of wine.

“Two weeks, with one resupply drop in between. But we were told it could stretch to a month if ‘God willed it.’ We mostly stayed put at the farm we were assigned to. Our job was to monitor the fields east of Bonn—radioing in enemy movements, their fueling depots, and the ‘pens’ where their beetles rested.”

“What did they use those for?” I ask.

“The bull pens? That’s where those things would rest, and something in their pores turned the mud into their version of catnip. It was so toxic that it took years to burn and salt the earth where they’d been. We had limited non-nuclear ordnance to deal with them. Five to fifteen beetles lying together were as high-value as targets got. But piercing their skin was nearly impossible—it had to be an airburst, or else the two closest beetles would absorb most of the shock, leaving the rest unharmed.

That’s where ‘banderilla’ operations came in. From a distance, we’d laser-mark their heads, and the American AC-130s would rain artillery shells down on them. You know what ‘banderillas’ are, right? In bullfighting, they’re those decorated barbed sticks used to provoke the bull into charging. Well, if you hit four or five beetles just right—which was never a guarantee—and if the beetles were near a road the crabs used, you’d have those beetles go berserk. They’d attack anything in sight for days until the crabs finally took them out. They’d kill thousands.”

“How did they take them out?” I ask.

“Tripods. In fifteen LRRP operations, it was the same every time. They’d send in what we called the ‘toureiros’ squadrons. That’s how we knew the crabs weren’t just running on instinct—they had some kind of command structure. These specialized tripods, the toureiros, were sent in to deal with the rogue beetles. We could spot them by the red metal on their tripods. They were bigger, meaner, and had a higher rate of fire. Their lasers were more accurate, too. Honestly, I’m glad we never had to fight them directly.”

“Did you get into contact often?” I ask.

“Not often. Some operations went by without us engaging at all—just calling in airstrikes and artillery. We only moved at night. Before they figured out that pushing straight to the French border was smarter than trying to break through the Western forces defending the North Rhine and the Low Countries, we moved parallel to their advance, staying south of their axis. We’d track them, noting which ponds or rivers they used to rest in at night.”

“If we were unlucky enough to make contact, we’d eliminate whoever spotted us. We worked in ten-man teams. Two guys had silenced rifles, but almost everyone carried Minimi machine guns. Some even had silenced Minimis, plus one rocket launcher in case a tripod came looking for us. We’d take out the threat quickly and disappear before the tripods showed up. We had to be fast—those things were never far behind.”

“How did the tripods look for you at night?” I ask, leaning forward, intrigued.

He takes a slow sip of his wine, his expression darkening as he recalls the memories.

Stolen story; please report.

“They had this... eerie way of moving. You’d hear them first—a low, metallic hum, like the sound of power lines in the wind. Then you’d see their lights. Not like headlights or anything obvious, but these faint, glowing orbs that scanned the ground. They moved in patterns, methodical, almost like they were sweeping the area. And their legs—those damn legs—made this rhythmic clank-clank-clank as they stepped, like a clock ticking down to something terrible.”

He pauses, his voice dropping lower.

“The worst part was their sensors. They could detect heat, movement, even the slightest vibration in the ground. If you so much as shifted your weight wrong, they’d zero in on you. We had to stay perfectly still, sometimes for hours, buried under whatever cover we could find—mud, leaves, even the carcasses of dead animals. And even then, you’d feel their lights pass over you, like they were probing, searching. It was like being hunted by a machine that never slept.”

“Did they ever find you?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

He nods grimly.

“A few times. When they did, it was chaos. They’d come in fast, their lasers cutting through the darkness like lightning. If you were lucky, you’d hear the crack of their shots before they hit. If not... well, let’s just say there’s a reason we carried those rocket launchers. But even then, taking one down was a last resort. The moment you fired, every tripod in the area would come running. You had to hit it hard, hit it fast, and then disappear into the night before the others arrived.”

He leans back, his eyes distant.

“We called it ‘escondite inglés.’.”

“That’s why the moment we were spotted—whether by a lone crab that couldn’t find a pond to rest in or something worse—we’d call in close air support immediately. You needed something flying high to take out the tripods, or you were done for. You couldn’t rely on hiding under a dead, rotting cow with maggots crawling into your gear to save you. We lost too many LRRP teams that way. Fighting tripods was hard enough on the front lines, but out there, tens or even hundreds of kilometers ahead of any friendly riflemen or tanks? You and your squad didn’t stand a chance against even a small squadron of those things. Hell, if they knew your position and started firing their lasers from a distance, there was nothing you could do. The LAWs and other rocket launchers we carried couldn’t hit them at range, and even if they did, the damage was minimal. It was like throwing pebbles at a tank.”

He pauses, his voice heavy with the weight of memory.

“We were stationed in Strasbourg during the quieter stretches. When we were resting and knew a team was supposed to come back that night, almost everyone would stay awake, waiting for the sound of the helicopter bringing them home. If it didn’t show up, half the guys would gear up and head out to search for them at their last reported position. It was... grim work.

We’d set up in abandoned houses—make them our homes for a night or two. Normally, fighting against humans, we’d sleep in the worst places imaginable: dense forests, swamps, anywhere inhospitable. But the crabs loved those places, so instead, we were sleeping in the beds of some teenage German girl who’d fled with her family. It felt weird, but it was the only comfort we got. Honestly, it was the only good thing about that damn war. “That, and the explosions of their fuel ponds. Only cruise missiles or heavy artillery could take those out. No jets dared to get too close—those ponds were too well guarded. So once you spotted one, you’d call it in, then turn your back and wait. You’d hear the cruise missile before you saw it, flying low and fast. Then, the light—so bright it cast your shadow on the ground in front of you. You learned not to look directly at the explosion unless you wanted to be blind for days. Hell, it’s no wonder Aramco and Chevron were offering ten million dollars for a single jerrycan of that fuel. They were desperate to study it.”

“Did you ever try to grab some?” I ask.

He chuckles, shaking his head. “No one was crazy enough to try—not until our commanders ordered us to. Even then, we refused. It wasn’t until our battalion commander himself jumped out of the plane with us that we finally agreed. But let’s just say... you can probably guess why I now live in a four-bedroom house by the sea.” He smiles, a glint of pride in his eyes.

Half an hour later, we were outside, sitting under the warm Mediterranean sky with a fresh bottle of wine. Juan’s wife perched on his knees, her voice soft as she recounted stories of rationing during the war. Their three kids splashed in the pool behind us, their laughter carrying on the breeze.

I couldn’t help but notice Juan’s green eyes, sharp and piercing, even in the fading light. My gaze lingered a little too long, and he caught it, a knowing smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“You want to know about the eyes, don’t you?” he says, his voice low but amused.

“I’m surprised no one’s brought it up yet,” I reply, leaning back in my chair.

“Just gene mutations,” he says with a shrug, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. “Happened to tens of millions of people. Nothing to lose sleep over.”

“Well, I guess we’re lucky they didn’t infect us with some kind of space cancer,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.

He raises an eyebrow, a sarcastic smirk playing on his lips. “Oh, they didn’t?”

“What are you on about?” I ask, my curiosity piqued.

He leans forward, his green eyes locking onto mine. “You really think the only thing they left us with was a few odd eye colors? Tens of millions died, sure, but what about the rest of us? The mutations didn’t stop at green eyes. You’ve seen the kids of the Asian soldiers who fought here, right? Abnormal heights, growth spurts like nothing we’ve seen before. In ten years, I guarantee the average Chinese or Vietnamese teenager will be 1 meter 85. And don’t even get me started on the birth rates. People having four, five kids—you think that’s because of some European repopulation campaign? Please. You don’t suddenly decide to have five kids because the finance minister gave a speech. Wait till you get married—you’ll see what I mean.”

His words hang in the air, heavy with implication. I glance at his wife, who gives me a knowing look, then back at Juan. “It’s probably for the best they left out the part about genetic mutations in those victory speeches during the parades,” I say, shaking my head. “Can you imagine the panic if they’d had to explain that we were lucky not to be completely overwritten by their genomes? People were already on edge after everything that happened. Throwing that into the mix would’ve caused chaos.”

Juan nods, his expression thoughtful. “True. But it’s not like they could’ve hidden it forever. Sooner or later, people were going to notice the changes—the green eyes, the kids growing taller, the birth rates spiking. It’s all connected, whether they admit it or not. The war didn’t just change the world; it changed us. And not just in the ways you can see.”

He takes a sip of his wine, his gaze drifting toward the horizon.