Sickly-green lightning flashed, illuminating the roiling storm clouds that hung over the skyscrapers, blotting out the light from the suns. They were joined by the smoke from the fires that were raging all around the city. Great plumes of it rose into the air, burning embers floating on the wind, the acrid taste stinging Xipa’s tongue with each breath that she took.

The clouds parted as something massive descended, larger than any craft that should have been able to fly under its own power. Like a monster from a half-remembered nightmare, it was a mess of impossibly long, segmented limbs, all of them tucked beneath its bulbous belly like some kind of ocean-going crustacean. Along its flanks were engine nozzles, amalgams of organic and mechanical parts, spewing jets of emerald flame as they flexed and swiveled on their muscular mounts to keep the thing steady. Still shrouded in the smog, it was hard to make out any more of its features, but its sheer mass was oppressive. It must have been near a kilometer long and half as wide, bearing down on the city like a falling moon.

The backwash from the engines was incredible, tearing at Xipa’s uniform, blowing her feathers like a hurricane as their thunder deafened her. The gale whipped up clouds of dust from the street, stripping some of the nearby trees of their red leaves. Was it trying to land right on top of them?

A series of loud cracks rose over the roar, her eyes tracking a barrage of objects that launched from the near side of the behemoth, sailing over her head. They were teardrop-shaped, their surfaces a blend of off-green flesh and chitin, overlaid with protective plating that reflected the orange glow of the fires with a metallic sheen. As they arced towards the ground, membranous parachutes deployed from their tapered ends, catching the air to slow their descent. Still, they moved like missiles, Xipa watching one of them slam into the facade of a nearby skyscraper. It cratered into the side of the building, sending fragments of broken glass and twisted metal raining to the streets far below, the nearby onlookers letting out wails of dismay. Another of them came down directly on one of the raised maglev lines, glancing off it to land somewhere out of view, severing the magnetic rail. Some of the supports gave out, and it collapsed, keeling over with a sound of tearing metal as it dragged another few hundred meters of track along with it.

“Come on!” Nimi said, taking her by the arm. “We have to get out of here!”

Xipa turned to glance at her, the alarmed yellow hue of her feathery headdress snapping her out of her stupor. The rest of the flock was behind her, Chala and Noyo looking on in confusion. They were all wearing matching uniforms, the white and grey tones of the city guard contrasting with the greens of their scales.

There were civilians running all over the place in a blind panic, some retreating to the nearby buildings for cover, others standing with their jaws agape as they stared up at the unbelievable scene that was unfolding before them. It must be the same all over the city. How were they supposed to maintain order in a situation like this?

“Where are we supposed to go?” Noyo demanded, the trailing feather sheaths on her head and forearms erupting in a display of frustrated red. “The city is under siege!”

“What are these things?” Chala wailed, flinching as another salvo of pods was fired from the alien craft. “Why are they doing this?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Nimi insisted, steeling herself. “We have a job to do, so we’re going to do it. We can’t allow ourselves to be paralyzed by indecision right now.”

“W-we’re supposed to go back to the station when an emergency is declared,” Chala stammered. “Then, we wait for further instructions.”

“Our job is to get these people to safety,” Nimi corrected her, glancing at the gaggle of civilians that packed the street. “There are people who need our help right now. Half of the city is on fire.”

“We should make our way back to the station, but help whoever we can along the way,” Xipa finally said. Nimi released her arm, her feathers rustling in a show of approval. “We need to find out what’s going on. I can’t get a connection to the city’s servers,” she added, giving the touch panel that was built into the sleeve of her suit a frustrated tap with her three-fingered hand. “It’s not a radiation storm this time. The whole network is down.”

“What should we do about all these people?” Noyo added. “Should we tell them to take shelter in their homes?”

“That’s probably for the best,” Nimi replied with a nod. “At least if they’re inside, they won’t be hit by any falling debris.”

The rumble of an explosion made them all duck reflexively, the four women glancing up into the sky to see great bolts of green fire raining down from the spacecraft. A torrent of what looked like crackling energy was pouring through the cloud layer, hammering the city relentlessly, striking a target on the far side of the skyscrapers. All the while, more pods fell to the ground like shed scales, impacting all around them. The great vessel was extending its mass of spindly, insect-like legs now, spreading them out as though it intended to make landfall.

Nimi leapt up onto a nearby information kiosk, rising above the crowd as she fanned her arm-feathers to get their attention.

“You all need to return to your homes!” she yelled, her voice barely rising above the din. “Please stay inside until the city guard gives the all-clear!”

The rest of the flock did their best to help, trying to guide people off the street and into the nearby buildings.

“This way,” Xipa said, helping along a frightened male who had a baby bundled up in his arms. The child was barely old enough to be out of the incubator, its tail tightly wrapped around one of its father’s limbs, its little hands taking fistfuls of his tunic. Every time there was an explosion or a loud noise, it would let out a shrill yelp, its underdeveloped feathers flashing in displeasure. “Where is your flock?”

“They’re...they’re at work,” he replied, looking on in bewilderment as the crowd slowly began to disperse. “They’re hydroponic farmers, down in the industrial band. I tried to call them, but I couldn’t reach them. The networks are all down.”

“Try to get underground if you can,” Xipa advised. “Do you have a basement? It will be safer there.”

They were interrupted by another loud noise, looking up to see an aircraft doing a low pass between the towering buildings. It was a skimmer, its rounded hull painted white, held aloft by a rotor mounted atop the craft. They were short-range vehicles usually used for transport or as air ambulances. It was a relief to see that emergency services were responding. As Xipa watched, a green bolt lanced forth from the monstrous ship, striking the skimmer. It erupted into a ball of flame, practically disintegrating in the air. The burning hulk immediately began to fall, smoke and droplets of molten metal trailing in its wake, the wreck landing somewhere out of view.

“W-why did they do that!?” the male lamented, holding his child close. “That was an ambulance!”

“Get off the street!” Nimi called out again, Chala and Noyo hurrying people into whatever buildings were nearby. “Get off the street and stay under cover!”

“Come on,” Xipa said, steering the male into the door of a nearby restaurant. The patrons all had their scaly snouts pressed up against the long window that looked out onto the street, craning their necks to watch the spectacle. “All of you, get down into the cellar if you have one!” Xipa barked as she leaned through the doorway. “Take cover!”

Being yelled at by a city guard was enough to get them moving, and the owners of the establishment began to wave people towards the back of the room. Hopefully, they had some kind of underground storage area for their food.

Once everyone was off the street, the four guards turned tail, their boots pounding on the road as they ran past the neat rows of native trees that had been cultivated to provide shade. Whenever they encountered another group of confused civilians, they ordered them back inside, trying to get as many people to safety as they could.

The once pristine, white buildings rose up to either side of them, some of them so high that their peaks skirted the clouds. Each one of them was a work of architectural art in its own right, sporting ornate buttresses or flowing sculptures, ensuring that no two were alike. There were balconies and terraces on every floor, more curious citizens leaning out to get a look at the stormy sky. It was as though they didn’t understand the danger they were in, but Xipa had no way to reach them from the ground. Some of the skyscrapers further towards the city center were scarred by weapons fire now, the carbcrete melted like soft plastic where it had been struck, uncontrolled fires raging on the upper floors. The city was arranged into a series of concentric rings – residential, industrial, and cultural – each one separated by a band of parkland. There were no defenses save for the high perimeter wall at the outskirts, no anti-air guns, no landing strips for fighters. Why would there be? There hadn’t been a war on Valbara for generations, so why would their burgeoning colony have needed to be so heavily defended?

The four women tired quickly, ill-suited to traveling such distances on foot. They peeled off the street, taking refuge in an alley between two of the buildings, its far end blocked by fallen rubble. It was even gloomier here, but a nearby neon sign cast them in its glow, its pink hue hinting at the kind of entertainment it promised. It was hanging above a set of stairs that led down below street level, probably into an abandoned basement some city planner had overlooked, later converted into a lounge. It was the kind of establishment that a city guard might investigate under normal circumstances, but it was probably one of the safest places to be right now.

“We need to find a vehicle,” Noyo sighed as she locked her digitigrade legs, catching her breath. “We’ll never make it back to the station on foot.”

“Never a scooter rental around when you need one, right?” Chala chuckled bitterly.

“I wouldn’t trust the maglevs rights now,” Xipa added, fiddling with the panel on her wrist again. “There’s a terminal nearby, but one of those pod-things took out the line.” The screen displayed an error message, and she struck it angrily, making it waver for a moment. “Worthless thing!”

“Still nothing?” Nimi asked.

“They might be hitting the comms towers,” she replied, giving her flockmate an exasperated flurry of purple. “Maybe that’s why all the networks are down. What the fuck do they want?”

“I can’t believe something that big just appeared from thin air,” Nimi added. “Nobody heard anything before the network went down? No warnings at all?”

“I don’t have any missed alerts,” Xipa replied. “What is this? Are we at war with somebody? Are they aliens?”

“We’ve been living on this moon for twenty rotations, you’d think we’d notice if there were any aliens here,” Chala scoffed.

“You got a better explanation?” Nimi snapped. “There’s a giant crustacean the size of a spaceport terminal hovering over the city, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“But, why would they attack us?” Chala demanded. “We don’t even have a military, we don’t have any weapons. Why would a species with the technology and the resources to cross the stars bomb a city and shoot down hospital skimmers? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Is this it?” Noyo asked in disbelief. “Is this what first contact is like? Some giant ship appears over our population centers and turns them to rubble?”

“It doesn’t matter right now,” Nimi said, the other three turning to her. “We need to focus on getting back to the station and linking up with the rest of the guard. They’ll know more than we do by now.”

When they had caught their breath, they made their way out into the street again, their heads on a swivel as they took in the carnage. Most of the damage seemed to be far-off, but it was impossible to ignore the plumes of smoke on the horizon. They walked for a while longer, advising all of the civilians that they encountered to go back inside their homes. It wasn’t long before they came across a glass awning where two dozen scooters were parked in a rack – two-wheeled transports with a long handle that were favored for traveling longer distances in the city.

“Finally,” Nimi grumbled, tapping at the touch panel that would release the locks. It was mounted on one of the chrome pillars that held up the awning. When that didn’t work, she tried scanning her wrist computer across it, cocking her head in confusion.

“Network’s down,” Xipa explained. “The system can’t check in to authorize a rental.”

“Damn it,” Nimi sighed. “Hang on, maybe I can short it out,” she added as she popped a maintenance panel on the pillar.

As they waited, there was a sound of tearing metal, Xipa turning her head to see one of the misshapen pods glancing off the side of a building behind them. It impacted perhaps twenty floors up, tearing a deep groove in the material, skipping off it like a stone. The membranous parachute tore, and the thing began to arc towards them, Xipa yelling a warning. The four women darted for the safety of another nearby alley, but the pod sailed over their heads, cratering into the road ahead of them. It tore it up like a plow, leaving a deep furrow, finally coming to a rest.

Slowly, Xipa crept out onto the street, her flock following warily. The object was larger than it had first appeared, perhaps fifteen or twenty meters long. Its surface was covered in uneven, organic material that looked like mottled flesh, which was overlaid with plates of bone. That, too, was covered over with metal armor that was concentrated towards the rounded front of the thing. The tattered parachute was hanging from the tapered end by sinewy cables, the brown-colored, leathery fabric draped across the road.

Some civilians from the nearby buildings were starting to come out now, craning their necks to get a look, their feathers flashing in shades of curiosity and apprehension. Xipa sprang into action, waving them back, the strangers seeming relieved to see a city guard on the scene.

“Keep away from it!” she warned, putting herself between them and the object. She could feel the heat coming off it, even from a distance.

“What is it?” one of the braver females asked, her flock grouped up behind her.

“We don’t know,” Xipa replied, her companions helping to keep the onlookers at a safe distance.

“Could it be...unexploded munitions?” Nimi suggested, leaning closer to whisper so as not to cause a panic. “A bomb that hasn’t gone off?”

“I haven’t seen any of them explode yet,” Xipa said, keeping her voice low. “Whatever it is, it’s nothing good. We need to get these people out of here.”

Before Nimi could reply, a great chunk of the pod suddenly popped off, ejected into the air with a hiss of escaping gasses. The thirty or so onlookers darted back as it landed on the street with a metallic clang, bouncing off the asphalt before coming to a stop. It was a large, vaguely ovular piece of shell, its underside covered in what could only be described as wet meat. Xipa’s feathers flashed with fear as her eyes wandered up to the hole that it had left in the pod, a jagged wound revealing a fleshy interior, shrouded in shadow.

She reached for the stun gun on her belt reflexively, her fingers gripping the polymer handle as though it might provide her some comfort. It was a close-range weapon designed to incapacitate with an electric current, nothing more. Raising her other arm, she tried to ward the crowd back, but they were too transfixed by the odd sight to pay her any mind.

A glint of color caught the light, a vibrant, iridescent orange. It was a three-fingered hand, not so different from her own, gripping the lip of the orifice. It was covered in what looked like a hard shell, or maybe some kind of armored suit.

The crowd looked on with bated breath as a head rose into view. It was rounded, more like a helmet than a skull, a branching horn like that of a beetle sprouting from its forehead. It peered back at them with a pair of lens-like, compound eyes, each one as large as a balled fist. Instead of a mouth, it had what resembled a set of mandibles, little finger-like appendages that flexed and snapped.

“That’s a fucking alien!” Chala hissed, her eyes as wide as Xipa had ever seen them. The thing flinched as her feathers flashed yellow in surprise, Xipa gesturing for her to keep still.

“Don’t make any sudden movements!” she warned.

There was a low murmur from the crowd, some of them slowly retreating, others watching in fascination. The creature was oddly beautiful, its carapace catching the light to make it shine, the hues shifting subtly as it moved. More of them rose up behind it, each one with a different color. There were blues, reds, greens – every color of the rainbow.

“What do you think they’re doing?” Nimi whispered, sidling up beside Xipa.

“They’re probably as curious about us as we are of them,” she replied. Was it too much to hope that this whole attack might be some kind of misunderstanding? Slowly, she moved her hand away from her stun gun, raising her scaly palms to show that she wasn’t armed.

There was a sudden rush of movement, one of the aliens lifting a long, orange tube made from some kind of uneven resin. It pointed the thing into the crowd, a pair of metal rails on the near end crackling with arcs of green energy as the air filled with an electrical hum. The creature never gave any warning, never made any attempt to communicate what it wanted, it just started to fire.

Bolts of green energy poured into the crowd, burning whoever they touched like acid, the stench of charred flesh rising to Xipa’s nostrils as she watched people start to drop. It took a moment for panic to set in, as though nobody could process what was happening, then they began to run. The alien’s companions lifted themselves out of the pod, dropping to the shattered street below, Xipa getting a better view of the things. They were bipedal insects, with two digitigrade legs and four segmented arms, their gaunt bodies encased in a shining exoskeleton.

Xipa was frozen to the spot like a statue, even as the aliens raised their two-pronged pistols, shooting them at the fleeing citizens. Those crackling bolts burned through clothing and flesh like paper, sending their wailing victims skidding to the ground, writhing as their bodies cooked.

The insects still inside the pod were laying down covering fire as though it was necessary, as if their unarmed victims were firing back at them, but they weren’t. It didn’t make any sense…

She finally snapped out of her stupor as Nimi grabbed her by the arm, her feather sheath coiling around her limb like a tentacle as she dragged her away.

“Run!” she yelled, the flock joining the fleeing citizens. They darted back into the nearby alley, Xipa leaning out to get another glimpse of the aliens, her breath coming in ragged bursts. They were pouring out of the pod now, two or three dozen of them, popping shields made of wavering energy that were mounted on their forearms. They stalked between the bodies, their mandibles clicking as they examined the dead, fanning out into a wide formation to begin their advance down the street. They were still loosing off shots, the occasional screams of their victims making Chala cover her ears.

“T-they’re killing everyone!” she hissed, choking back her panic. “W-why?”

“They’re between us and the station,” Nimi said, checking the map that was stored on her wrist device’s memory. “We’ll have to find another way around.”

Xipa was glad of her strong nerves. Nimi always managed to keep the flock together when there was an emergency. She was their rock.

“Shouldn’t we try to do something?” Noyo protested. “All those people are-”

“Do what?” Nimi snapped. “We’re being invaded. That much is obvious now. We need to meet up with the rest of the city guard and pray that they have something better than fucking stun guns.”

“Oh, no, no!” Xipa squealed, covering her mouth to stifle her voice. Across the street, half a dozen of the aliens had separated from the group and were headed for a residential building. They lined up in a row as they prepared to breach it, one of them raising a pronged pistol to fire at the door. The metal slagged under the bolts of energy, melting inward, glowing red like it had been subjected to the heat of a cutting torch. The insects raced inside, the sound of screaming carrying across the street, flashes of green lighting up the dark interior.

“They’re going door to door!” Xipa gasped. “We told people to stay inside their homes, but they’re-”

“There’s nothing we can do!” Nimi insisted. “Back down the alley,” she added, waving them along hurriedly as she turned around. “Quickly! Those things are coming this way!”

Xipa couldn’t stand the thought of leaving all of those people to their fates, but Nimi was right. They were powerless to help. She turned to follow her flock as they made their way down the alley, exiting onto the adjacent street just as one of the creatures appeared at the other end. Its green eyes glowed in the shadows as it searched the narrow passage between the two buildings, then it continued on its way, a procession of them following behind it.

They had no choice but to press on, watching the skies for any sign of more pods. Those things had come down all over the city. Xipa had seen that giant ship fire dozens of them, hundreds. Nowhere was safe anymore.

They located another scooter rack, and Nimi was able to get this one open after some fiddling with the wires, the flock riding the two-wheeled vehicles down the street. More than once, they came across a road that had been blocked by fallen debris and even an empty pod that had already disgorged its troops, having to check the map to find a way around the obstacle. Whenever they came across survivors, they warned them to hide as best they could and to refrain from going outside. Xipa knew that it wouldn’t protect them if the alien soldiers came to their door, but there was nothing else they could do. Kerguela was a relatively peaceful moon, with no weather so severe that shelters were required. There was the occasional radiation storm from the gas giant, but those just made the comms a little fuzzy for a few days. There was no dedicated place where the citizens could take refuge – there had never been any need for one.

The guard station finally came into view, a squat, wide building that contrasted with the tall spires that surrounded it. More red and orange bushes were cultivated in planters along the paved path that led up to the door, an information kiosk sitting on the street just outside. Fortunately, there was no sign of any damage.

The flock pulled up nearby, leaving their scooters behind as they approached the building. Xipa could see movement beyond the two windows that looked out onto the road, the door sliding open as they approached, one of their fellow guards poking her head out with a flash of relieved green.

“Get inside,” she hissed, waving them in. The four women piled into the small lobby and were greeted by maybe fifteen of their colleagues, all of them wearing the same uniforms. Some of them were fully suited up, wearing gloves and boots, along with full-faced helmets. Their feather sheaths were slotted into long tubes that hung down from the backs of their heads, sensors translating the movements of their feathers into patterns on light panels that ran down their length. There was a single male, a receptionist who was standing behind a desk, his vibrant feathers puffed up in a display of perpetual unease as he repeatedly tapped at a touch panel on his desk.

“Some more stragglers,” the woman who had opened the door announced. “We’ve been hoping that more guards would make their way here,” she added, turning back to Xipa and her flock. “With all of the communication networks down, there’s no way to put out an alert.”

“We have to start evacuating people right now,” Nimi said, stepping forward. “There are...things out there, riding down in the pods. They’re killing everyone.”

“We know,” the woman replied solemnly. “Not all of us made it back to the station...”

“There should be enough of us now,” another of the guards said, her voice coming through tinny on her helmet speakers. The mirrored visor was closed, and she was pulling on her gloves. The suits could be sealed in an emergency, such as a fire or a gas leak, and they were equipped with air filters.

“Enough of us for what?” Xipa asked.

“The plan is to start evacuating the district,” the first guard began. “Tlazo rode the maglev down from the spaceport when that alien ship started firing,” she said, gesturing to a colleague with tan scales. “She says the Ensis and a lot of guards are already there, and they’re setting up a temporary HQ. There are shuttles in the hangars that can make orbit under their own power, enough to get us off this rock and up to a jump-capable ship. We figure the rest of the districts will probably come to the same conclusion, even if nobody can get word to them. We’d hoped to have more guards – there are a lot of people to move – but we can’t wait any longer. If we don’t act soon, there won’t be anyone left to evacuate, and all the ships will be gone.”

“We’re evacuating the city?” Xipa asked in disbelief.

“No, we’re evacuating the colony,” the guard replied solemnly. “The last report that the Ensis received from Kerguela control before the comms went down was that there were ships over several other cities. It’s not just happening here.”

“There’s no way there are enough shuttles to evacuate the entire city,” Chala said, but the stony face of the guard told her that she knew that fact all too well.

“Here,” one of the guards said, tossing a helmet to Xipa. “Suit up. We saw them using chemicals, flooding the street with some kind of poison gas.”

Xipa turned it over in her hands, then slotted her muscular sheaths into the two tubes, securing it over her head. She popped open the visor, opening it up like a pair of jaws, balling her fists to stop the trembling in her hands. She was a peacekeeper, not a soldier.

“Do you have a plan?” Nimi asked, taking another of the helmets from a nearby rack. There was a hermetic hiss as she sealed it to the collar of her suit. “What’s the consensus?”

“We’re responsible for our district,” one of the guards replied. “We have to get as many people out as we can, in as short a time as possible. No small feat, I know, but we have a narrow window here. We’re going to cover as much ground as we can, and have one of the flocks escort each group we find back to the station where it’s safe. We’re going to gather as many people as we can find, then try to lead them to the spaceport.”

“How are we supposed to fight those things?” Chala asked, brandishing her stun gun. “All we have are weapons designed to incapacitate. Who knows if they’ll even work on an alien? Those creatures were wearing some kind of...armor or shell, I don’t know.”

“Might as well gear up now,” another of the guards replied. She was an older woman with weathered scales in dull green, Xipa recognizing her as Commander Tepa, a member of the senior flock of their guard station. Her companions were also present, identifiable by the rank insignia on their green armbands. “Come on, we can’t wait around for any more guards to turn up.”

She led the group deeper into the building, turning to a set of stairs that led down to the basement level of the station. This was where the holding cells were, along with the contraband lockers. They were all empty right now, as crime was uncommon in the city. A guard’s duties were usually limited to responding to accidents and ensuring that city by-laws were followed. The only confrontation that Xipa could remember was an instance where a flock who had hit the hookah too hard had crashed their scooters and had resisted arrest in their inebriated state.

At the end of the white-painted corridor was a locked door with a keypad, the commander quickly tapping in a combination of some thirty numbers from memory. There was a click as what sounded like a heavy bolt slid back, the door swinging open on a set of hinges. The lights inside came on automatically as the group funneled through, Xipa’s eyes widening. The four walls were covered in racks, each one laden with weaponry. These weren’t stun guns. They had bulky, polymer housings in matte black, each one sporting a long barrel with a domed lens on the end. They were connected to battery packs via thick, insulated cables that were hanging from straps beside them.

“I never knew that the station had an armory,” Nimi marveled. She paused to examine one of the guns that was sitting on a nearby table, the weapon partially disassembled. The housing was open, revealing a mess of wires and capacitors. “These are...laser rifles. Military surplus from the homeworld. Why do we have these?”

“Nobody knew whether Kerguela would have predatory megafauna like Valbara,” the commander explained. “The colonists brought these here just in case any native wildlife tried to eat them. They’ve just been gathering dust ever since.”

“Do they still work?” another of the guards asked.

“They haven’t been fired in probably ten rotations,” the commander replied. “We just come down here every few seasons to make sure none of the batteries are swelling.”

“I’ll take whatever I can get,” Nimi said, reaching for one of the weapons. She pulled it from the rack, sliding her arms through the straps on the backpack, hefting the weapon in her hands.

“You know how to fire one of those?” the commander asked.

“I’ve seen movies,” she replied, raising the weapon to look down the telescopic sight that was mounted on top of it. “Just pull the trigger and keep the beam on target, right?”

“You won’t be firing at anything with no charge,” the commander added, pulling an extensible cable from the pack. She plugged it into a socket on the wall, a worrying electrical hum filling the room. “And don’t point these at anyone’s face, even when they’re turned off. These are neodymium lasers. You could burn out their retinas.”

“This thing isn’t going to explode, is it?” Nimi muttered as she gave the pack a worried glance over her shoulder.

The commander waved her feathers in a shrug, hauling another pack off the rack and handing it to the nearest guard, who sagged under its weight.

“Start charging them up,” she ordered, the rest of the group fanning out into the armory. “There’s no time to waste.”

***

The group of guards left the station, stepping out onto the street. Along with Xipa’s flock of four, their group was nineteen strong, each one equipped with one of the dusty laser rifles. Their weight was oppressive, the straps on the battery pack digging into Xipa’s shoulders through her suit, but it was a relief to not feel so powerless. She had never fired such a weapon before, but she had studied her people’s history in school, and war was not an entirely foreign concept to her. It had been assumed by philosophers and historians that any civilization advanced enough to develop jump technology would have no need to appropriate the resources of other species, and would have evolved beyond armed conflict as the Valbarans had. In a Galaxy of limitless resources and innumerable planets, why wage war? Clearly, their logic had been flawed.

Noyo stopped beside her, following her gaze to the hulking spacecraft above. It was still hovering there, the occasional burst of green fire from its guns raining down on the city. There were no more pods – it might have fired them all off by now. There could be thousands of troops on the ground already. As she watched, something else separated from the belly of the craft, dropping down from beneath its jointed legs. It looked like a bulbous insect, its six legs tucked beneath it. It had no wings, metallic thrusters that belched green jets of flame flaring as it righted itself, starting to fly away from where Xipa was standing. Two more followed after it, remarkably agile despite their lack of aerodynamics, taking up formation as they soared over the rising plumes of smoke.

“What do you think they want?” Noyo whispered.

“I can’t guess,” she replied, gripping the padded handguard beneath the barrel of her rifle more tightly. “The way they attacked everyone when they came out of their pod...it was like they expected to face resistance, like they didn’t even know the difference between someone who was firing back and someone who wasn’t. Whatever they want, I don’t think us being here is part of their plan.”

“Set your comms to local mode,” the commander said, gesturing to her helmet. “We’ll be able to keep in touch at a reasonable distance, even if the city’s network is shot.”

Commander Tepa and her flock of two took the lead, the rest of the guards following behind them in a loose column. Xipa just wanted to run as far away as she could, maybe hide in the forest in the hopes that the aliens would just leave when they were done with whatever they were doing, but she had a duty to the people of the city. They were the only ones who could do anything to help right now, and if they didn’t, then nobody would. Her mind kept wandering back to the male who had been clutching his baby in his arms. Could they make it all the way back to that restaurant, or was it already too late? There was no reason that her thoughts should linger on a single person when so many lives were at stake, but still…

The streets here had remained relatively untouched by the aliens, and they were mostly clear of debris. No pods had come down in the vicinity, so it was safe to have the nearby inhabitants proceed to the station on their own. The guards split into two groups, buzzing the doors on either side of the street and having those who answered head to safety. Xipa found it hard to explain that they had to leave all of their belongings behind, as nobody who hadn’t seen the aliens slaughtering people really grasped the gravity of the situation. Those who had were probably dead already.

As they proceeded deeper into the city, the damage became more apparent, the raging fires consuming entire buildings with no emergency services available to manage them. Xipa paused to gape at a skyscraper, a dozen of its upper floors billowing black smoke into the air, its facade covered in black marks where the ship had harried it with gunfire. Whatever their weapons were, they seemed to burn, like some kind of plasma. There was rubble strewn everywhere, the guards having to take a winding path between the structures, turning to alleys where the streets were cut off. They came across bodies, some blackened by weapons fire, others crushed beneath the debris. Xipa tried to keep her eyes off them.

Many citizens had already fled the area, and what few they could still find cowering in their homes were escorted back to the station. There were so few guards that they had no choice but to split up, the constant back-and-forth slowing their progress, but it was the only way to ensure the safety of their charges.

They found another group of survivors trapped in a residential building. The upper floors were burning, and fallen debris had blocked access to the main door from the street. Together, the guards were able to clear enough of the rubble to free them, another twenty people pouring out onto the street. Some of them were coughing, suffering from smoke inhalation, being supported by their flockmates. Another four of the guards peeled off to help guide them back to the station, coordinating over the short-range radios, the remaining fifteen continuing on their way.

As they exited another alleyway, turning onto one of the straight roads that radiated out from the city center, they came across a pod. Xipa bristled, shouldering her weapon, aiming the lens at the mass of metal and chitin. It had cratered into the street, knocking down a row of decorative trees like twigs, partially embedding itself into the wall of a building.

“It’s alright,” Nimi announced, gesturing to the piece of plating that was lying in the street. “The cap has been popped already.”

“They could still be close by,” Tepa added, waving them forward with a flash of red from a light panel on her sleeve. “Keep moving.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever walked this far in one day,” Chala panted, struggling to keep pace with the rest of the flock. “I can’t believe soldiers really used to march around with these things on their backs.”

“Can’t ride a scooter and hold a gun at the same time,” Nimi replied.

There was a cry from somewhere ahead, the guards bristling as a pair of women came racing out of an alley. A green bolt of energy shot out from behind them, catching one of them in the back, sending her skidding to the ground. The second paused to turn around, trying to help her companion, but a trio of shots followed up the first. They melted the road around her fallen friend, splashing against the asphalt like a liquid, one of them finding its mark. The survivor wheeled around again, her claws skidding as she made for the guards, a brief glimmer of hope in her violet eyes.

From the alley behind her emerged a procession of insects, their shells reflecting the glow of a pile of burning debris nearby, sparkling in its light. They were so colorful, their waxy carapaces gleaming as they turned their green, compound eyes in Xipa’s direction. She felt a swell of fear as they began to raise their strange, alien weapons, realizing that she was about to take part in a real firefight. This wasn’t a VR game, it wasn’t a movie, it was really happening.

Time seemed to slow down as she watched the woman stumble towards her, her arms outstretched, Xipa’s fear turning to resolve. How dare they. How dare these creatures slaughter innocent people. Before she knew it, she was bracing the stock of her rifle against her shoulder, feeling the resistance of the trigger on her finger as she squeezed it.

From the lens on the barrel of her gun lanced a brilliant beam of light, seeming to sparkle as the emerald laser refracted off motes of dust and droplets of moisture in the air, painting a burning line towards an alien that was raising its resin rifle.

The beam burned into its chest, melting its blue-green carapace like plastic exposed to a magnifying glass. The creature lurched back, its four arms flailing, smoke starting to rise from its charred innards as Xipa held the laser on it. The longer she kept the beam on target, the more it burned through the creature, whatever material its armor was made from starting to glow red-hot. Boiling alive in its shell, the thing fell twitching to the ground, smoke rising from its mandibles.

“Ha! They’re not invincible!” Commander Tepa shouted triumphantly.

What happened next was chaos, the guards scattering, moving to cover as they fired their laser rifles at the insects. The glittering beams danced through the air, burning their targets wherever they found their mark, painting scorched trails on the facades of the nearby buildings. One hit a tree behind the creatures, its leaves bursting into flames. The aliens returned fire, bolts of burning energy flying from the metal prongs of their weapons, sizzling as they shot past inches from Xipa’s head. She could feel their heat, even through her helmet, giving the aliens another few pulses from her rifle as she dove into the cover of a pile of rubble.

More of the creatures were pouring out of the alley, maybe twenty in total, all of them armed with the same orange handguns and rifles made from uneven resin. As another of their number was sent writhing to the ground by a burst of laser fire, they formed a phalanx, the projectors that they wore on their forearms erupting into wavering shields. Those at the front protected those at the rear, starting to advance down the street in lockstep, already a mere thirty meters away.

The distraction had been enough to get the civilian to safety, at least, Noyo pulling her into the cover of a nearby alley. She then leaned out, bracing her rifle before firing a long burst at one of the shielded aliens. The weapons were so easy to handle in spite of their weight – they had no recoil, no mechanical components. One simply had to keep them trained on the desired target.

As the laser hit one of the shields, it refracted, fraying like the end of a feather. The beams of splitting light danced across the insect’s chest piece, but they didn’t seem to have enough power to do any serious damage. Even if the shield wasn’t a physical barrier, its roiling surface was doing enough to interrupt the beam.

The fifteen guards were all firing now, peeking out of cover from behind the debris that littered the street. They were hiding behind collapsed walls, inside alleys, a couple taking refuge behind the very landing pod that their enemy had used to get here. It was like a light show, the bright beams waving back and forth, strobing the advancing aliens. Even with their shields, a few of the lasers managed to sneak through, burning legs and shoulders. As soon as one of the aliens stumbled, half a dozen beams would focus on it, its own boiling viscera leaking from the joints in its armor as it was burned alive. Xipa had no sympathy for these things, not after all that she had seen.

Even as three more of them dropped, the aliens kept advancing, not even sparing a glance at their dying comrades. They showed them just as much disregard as they had the civilians, stepping over their bodies. Some of the guards were moving back now, trying to keep their guns on the aliens, but they were closing in. Another ten seconds and they’d be fighting hand-to-hand.

“I got an idea!” Nimi shouted, Xipa hearing her voice crackle through in her helmet’s earpiece. She turned to see her flockmate disconnecting the thick cable that linked her weapon to its battery pack, tearing it from its socket on the rifle’s housing. She stepped out of cover from behind the landing pod, holding the pack by the straps, spinning around. It sailed through the air as she tossed it, landing harmlessly near the feet of the aliens, who paid it little mind as they kept advancing.

Xipa understood what she was trying to do, taking careful aim through the tube-like, holographic scope of her rifle. She fired between the legs of the lead aliens, holding the beam on the pack for a moment. Its housing immediately began to swell, the old battery bulging outwards, forming an ominous bubble the size of her head. Only when obscuring, grey smoke began to billow from it did the aliens react, their formation breaking apart as jets of flame shot from it. It didn’t explode in a spectacular fashion as Xipa had hoped, but it was enough to break the shield wall, stopping their advance.

The guards took the opportunity to press the attack, leaning out of their hiding places as their burning lasers felled two or three more of the aliens. One of them returned fire with its handgun, the metal rails that served as its barrel crackling with arcs of green electricity, a bolt of energy punching a hole in the swirling smoke. It hit one of the guards in the helmet, Xipa averting her eyes as the visor melted inward, the woman’s scream cut short before she had even hit the ground.

As the haze began to clear, more fire was exchanged, Xipa’s heart pounding in her ears as a bolt of energy splashed against the rubble she was hiding behind. The carbon-infused concrete melted as she watched, stone and steel turned to a molten slurry, the heat making her recoil even through her suit.

She steeled herself, rising to return fire, her laser melting through the face of one of the aliens. Whether it was a helmet or a skull, she wasn’t sure, but it went down all the same. They were actually winning against all odds, yet the aliens were still pressing the attack. They could have covered one another with their shields, retreating back to the safety of the alley – any sane person would have. Instead, they marched into the laser fire, seemingly more interested in killing than surviving the shootout.

Another of her fellow guards took a shot to the chest, a second hitting her as she stumbled out of cover, suit and scale melting away until there was almost nothing left. The aliens were close enough now that Xipa could see the individual lenses that made up their compound eyes, the creatures breaking into a run. They dropped their shields and drew daggers from molded sheaths on their thighs with their lower pairs of arms, the blades glinting, decorated with flowing patterns. Leaping over the rubble, they fell upon the nearest guard in a flurry of blades, dragging her to the ground as she kicked and fought.

There were only a handful of the insects left now, the remaining guards focusing their fire on them, retreating as they discharged their lasers. One by one, the aliens fell. The last one left standing raised its handgun as three beams lanced it, the creature firing off a bolt even as its ruby-red exoskeleton melted like wax. The shot hit Chala in the shoulder, the impact enough to knock her off her feet, her wail of pain carrying through the street.

Xipa didn’t even check if all of the aliens were indeed dead, rushing to her flockmate’s side, Nimi and Noyo joining her. She cradled Chala in her arms, lifting her upper body off the ground. As she popped open the visor on her helmet, the scent of charred flesh rose to her nostrils, the wound on Chala’s shoulder scorched black. It looked like overcooked meat, the suit melted to her body near the impact site. Painful didn’t even begin to describe it. Xipa averted her eyes, the sight of what might be exposed bone turning her stomach. The city guards underwent VR disaster training to simulate mass casualty incidents like earthquakes and spacecraft crashes, but it hadn’t prepared her for seeing real injuries like this.

Tears of frustration welled in her eyes as she helped Chala open her helmet up, letting her get a breath of fresh air. More than a friend, Chala was her flockmate – she was family. Xipa was relieved to see that she was still alert and aware, her needle-like teeth exposed in a grimace as her scaly lips pulled back.

“Fuck, fuck!” she wailed. She moved to cover the wound with her hand, then hesitated, too afraid to even touch it.

“Are you alright?” Xipa demanded, quickly realizing what a stupid question it was.

“Do I look alright to you?” she groaned through gritted teeth. “It feels like someone is stabbing a white-hot poker into my shoulder!”

“This isn’t a chemical burn,” Noyo said, crouching to examine the wound more closely. “This is...plasma, like what you’d find inside the reaction chamber of a fusion generator. How...how could they possibly scale that technology down to a handheld weapon?”

“That’s impossible, it’s not plasma,” Xipa scoffed. “Plasma is tens of thousands of degrees. You couldn’t fire that from a gun. You couldn’t get anywhere near it.”

“We need to move,” Commander Tepa said, rising from beside one of the fallen guards. Xipa couldn’t see her expression beneath her helmet, but she could hear the solemn tone in her voice. “We were lucky this time, but we won’t survive another firefight like that.”

“Wait,” one of the guards said, turning her helmeted head towards the heap of bodies nearby. “Where is...”

She darted over to a pile of dead insects, pulling them aside frantically. Two more guards broke off from the group to join her, presumably her flockmates. They dragged the limp aliens out of the way to reveal the guard who had fallen under the alien knives, another two of their number rushing to help. They dragged her out, revealing that her suit was perforated with stab wounds, stained with alien ichor that was a shade of sickly green. She was obviously dead, her companions dropping to their knees over her prone form, one of them shaking her in a futile attempt to wake her up. Their visors were closed, so Xipa couldn’t hear them, but she could tell from the way that their shoulders shook that they were sobbing.

More of the dozen remaining guards grieved over their fallen flockmates, one leaning against another’s shoulder as she wept. The sole civilian they had rescued tried to climb over the rubble to get to the body that was lying by the alley the insects had poured out of, but someone grabbed her arm to stop her.

Xipa was wracked by a sudden wave of guilt. Their flock of four was still intact – they hadn't yet lost a member. So many were stricken with grief, yet she had been relieved to see that Chala was only injured. She could do little more than cradle her flockmate as she watched in silence, waves of dismayed blue and angry red flashing along the color panels on their suits.

Flocks were not just friends, not just family units – they were parts of a whole. A flock of Valbarans assembled early in life and remained together until death, sharing everything, from dwellings to mates.

“They’re gone,” Tepa announced, turning back the way they had come. “This is over. We need to get back to the station and save what civilians we still can.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“But...what about the rest of the district?” Nimi protested. “We can’t just leave them to their fates!”

Her statement was punctuated by another barrage of fire from the alien ship that hovered above them, the ground shaking as it pounded a target just out of sight behind the nearby skyscrapers.

“If we die, nobody is making it to those shuttles,” Tepa replied.

“We have seniority,” one of Tepa’s flockmates added, stepping forward to support her.

“We can’t just leave Patlo here,” one of the guards sobbed, gesturing to a badly burned body that was lying in the rubble.

“We can’t carry them,” Tepa replied, her voice unwavering. Seeing that she was facing resistance from the group, she sighed, turning to whisper to her two flockmates for a moment. “We shall reach consensus,” she finally said. “Those who want to press on, make yourselves known.”

A handful of the guards raised their hands, their panels flashing red, Nimi included. Xipa considered, but thought better of it. All she wanted to do right now was get Chala to a doctor.

“Those who wish to turn back?” Tepa asked, counting the number of blue panels. “Very well, the majority has decided to return to the station.”

Xipa heard Nimi curse under her breath, but knew that she would respect the ruling. After all, was it not the Valbaran mantra that decisions were made wiser through consensus?

Still, Nimi left Chala’s side, walking over to one of the dead aliens. She turned it over with her boot, then leaned down to inspect it more closely. It was the first time that any of them had gotten a good look at the things.

“They’re insects,” she announced. “Maybe crustaceans? Hard exoskeleton, waxy,” she added as she reached down to brush her scaly fingertips against its torso. “Not as hard as it looks. Feels kind of like...firm plastic.”

Her eyes turned to one of the resin pistols, and she picked it up gingerly, weighing it in her hand as she examined it. The grip was surprisingly suitable for her three fingers, the resin casing shaped with two holes through which the user would slot their digits.

“Careful!” Noyo warned. “It could be dangerous!”

Nimi ignored her, extending her arm, aiming the weapon at an alien body that was further down the street. After a moment of fiddling, it shot off a bright green bolt of plasma, the projectile straying wide of its target. The follow-up shot hit it dead center, the creature’s carapace sizzling as it melted.

“The trigger mechanism is strange,” Nimi declared, firing a third shot with an electrical crack. “You squeeze the handle to make it shoot. Looks like the plasma is contained in this canister behind these metal prongs.”

“Are their weapons magnetic, maybe?” Noyo wondered. “How would they power something like that? It shouldn’t be possible. That entire weapon is smaller than our battery packs.”

“We should rearm while we have the opportunity,” Nimi said, stooping to pick up one of the alien knives and slotting it into her belt. “These things are probably going to work better than the laser rifles.”

A few of the guards muttered agreements, shedding their cumbersome packs to pick up alien substitutes. Xipa watched one of them heft a large, orange rifle in her hands, looking down a sight that was molded into its irregular housing. It looked far more fearsome than the handguns, the metal rails that ran down its barrel more than twice as long. While the technology that powered them was clearly hundreds or even thousands of rotations more advanced than anything the Valbarans had, there was something crude about their construction, almost organic. Xipa preferred to keep her rifle. It had served her well enough so far.

Nimi strode over to the civilian who was standing off to one side. She looked like she was in shock, her eyes wide, her feathers displaying hues of fear and loss. Nimi thrust one of the alien sidearms into her trembling hands, the woman glancing down at it in confusion.

“What’s your name?” Nimi asked, the woman blinking at her.

“It’s...it’s Chotza’tal’zohtla,” she replied. “W-why are you giving this to me? I work in s-shipping. I import consumer products from Valbara. I don’t know how to use a gun!”

“Consider yourself deputized, Chotza,” Nimi replied. “Just aim it and squeeze the handle.”

“But I-”

“We need all the help we can get right now,” Nimi insisted, leaving the bewildered woman holding the weapon. She returned to Xipa’s side, helping her lift Chala off the ground. Xipa slung Chala’s good arm over her shoulder, helping to support her.

“You good to walk?” Xipa asked.

“It’s my shoulder that’s melting, not my legs,” Chala grunted. “It actually...feels like it should hurt a lot more than it does. Why does that worry me?”

***

The group headed back the way they had come, surmising that it was probably their safest option. The going was tough, as none of them were accustomed to so much walking, and helping Chala along was making Xipa even more exhausted. They had emergency medical supplies back at the station, so perhaps they could lessen her pain, if nothing else. She kept complaining that she couldn’t feel her arm, which hung limply at her side.

They returned to find that the flock that had left to escort the civilians had arrived safely. The twenty or so people had been brought down into the mostly empty armory, which was being used as a stand-in bomb shelter.

The civilians were in varying stages of distress. Some were clinging to one another and crying, probably mourning lost loved ones, while others were staring blankly at the wall as though they couldn’t process what was happening. A few were coughing, still suffering from the effects of their smoke inhalation. A male wearing a green tunic and a pair of shorts rose to his feet when he saw Xipa helping Chala along, rushing to her side.

“Lie her down on one of the tables,” he said, Xipa giving him a skeptical look. “I’m a nurse,” he explained, his feathers flushing an indignant red. She did as he asked, helping Chala up onto one of the work surfaces that had once held weapon parts, stepping back as the nurse produced one of the guard station’s emergency medical kits. He examined the wound, trying to peel away a piece of her melted suit with a pair of tweezers, quickly relenting when she let out a cry of pain.

“How bad is it?” Noyo asked, leaning over his shoulder. “Is she going to be alright?”

“I can’t do much with the tools I have here,” he grumbled, tearing open the packaging on a hypodermic needle. He inserted it into her arm, injecting a clear substance, Chala’s breathing gradually slowing. Once that was done, he waved the rest of the flock over to the other side of the room, lowering his voice so that Chala couldn’t overhear them.

“I feel like you’re not about to give us good news,” Nimi muttered.

“She has fourth-degree burns,” the nurse replied, the flurry of purple in his headdress betraying his concern. “Whatever she was hit with has eaten down to the muscle and bone. The only reason she’s not in excruciating pain right now is because the nerves that would have transmitted those signals have been destroyed. She needs surgery to excise the dead tissue, and I’ll be honest, she’s probably going to lose the arm.”

“Fuck,” Xipa hissed under her breath, sparing a glance at her flockmate.

“I gave her a sedative, but that’s all I can do right now,” the nurse added. “Whatever weapons those things are using...they’re monstrous.”

“What should we do?” Nimi asked, always the first one to seek solutions.

“Get her to a hospital as soon as you can,” the nurse replied with a shrug.

“Easier said than done,” Xipa sighed.

Commander Tepa called for their attention, all eyes in the room turning to her and her flock.

“We have a plan to get everyone to safety,” she began, the civilians daring to exchange a few hopeful glances. “Our destination is the spaceport, where there are shuttles waiting to evacuate us to orbit. It’s too dangerous to take the roads with so many of those creatures stalking around, so we’re going to follow the maglev track. The route is shorter, even if we can’t ride the actual train, and it cuts across a large patch of open parkland. It’ll leave us more exposed, but we figure it’s safer than the streets. The aliens don’t have any reason to be searching for people out there.”

The armory filled with murmurs of approval, Xipa nodding to Nimi. It seemed like a solid plan.

“Why can’t we ride the maglev?” one of the civilians asked, raising her hand with a flutter of feathers to get their attention. “We could get there in a matter of minutes, even if it might attract more attention.”

“Because the aliens have brought down most of the lines,” Tepa explained. “The one that my flock rode in from the spaceport was destroyed, and I’ve seen a couple more collapsed rails. They seem to be attacking our infrastructure, destroying our means of transport and communication.”

“Doesn’t the city guard have any vehicles?” the same woman asked.

“Emergency services mostly use skimmers, and there aren’t enough scooters for everyone. It’s safer to remain as a group rather than split up.”

***

They moved out onto the street, the fifteen remaining guards flanking the group of around twenty civilians, Chala being helped along by one of their number. The woman they had rescued from the shootout with the insects took her place, wielding the alien pistol that Nimi had given her, looking no more sure of herself now.

Xipa glanced up at the sky, seeing the shadow of the alien spaceship looming over the city. The air was filled with those strange, insect-like aircraft now, flitting to and fro in loose groups that more resembled swarms than formations. Every now and then, they would swoop down out of view below the buildings, perhaps attacking targets on the ground. The skyline was even more jagged than before, partially collapsed buildings jutting into the air like broken teeth.

Tepa led them down the street until they arrived at a maglev terminal. It was little more than a glass awning that shielded a raised platform from the elements, a flight of steps leading up to it. No trains would be pulling into this station any time soon, not with the magnetic rail twisted and broken perhaps half a kilometer down the rail. It looked like a child’s drinking straw that had been discarded in the grass.

Before them stretched an open band of parkland, one of the rings of grass and trees that broke up the concentric circles of the city’s layout. There were no footpaths here, just a few kilometers of rust-colored grass, adapted to the blue light of the system’s suns. The clumps of carefully cultivated trees shared the same red hues. Xipa usually found the autumn colors appealing, but shrouded in the dark clouds of smog above, they reminded her more of blood and flames now.

In the absence of any paths, they followed the damaged rail, which would take them directly to the spaceport. It was located on one of the inner bands, out of view despite its proximity due to the clever way that the architects of the city had used the gentle rolling of the hills and the careful placement of the trees to obscure the buildings. One could almost pretend that they were in the wilderness here.

Tepa was right – they were very exposed here, but there was no reason for the insects to come looking for victims in the park.

“So far, so good,” Nimi said as she walked along beside Xipa with her alien sidearm clasped in her hand. “This might have been a pleasant evening walk if it wasn’t for the smell of smoke, and all the murder.”

“How do you do it, Nimi?” Xipa asked. Her flockmate turned her head, cocking it quizzically beneath her helmet.

“Do what?”

“How do you keep it together when the world is falling apart all around you? Whenever something goes wrong, you always know what to do. You’ve always been the glue that keeps the flock together.”

“One of us has to be the hardheaded one,” she chuckled, skirting around a bush. The vibrant reds and oranges of its leaves made it look like an explosion, its yellow, star-shaped flowers resembling sparks. “Chala’s the heart of our flock, the sentimental one. Noyo’s the nerd. And you?” she added, reaching out to give Xipa a pat on the shoulder. “You’re the one who keeps us organized.”

“Me?” she chuckled.

“Maybe you don’t see it, but if it wasn’t for you, I’d have nobody to keep me in check. I’m impulsive, I make hasty decisions without consensus, just like I did back there. Can’t believe I voted to keep going,” she said, a flicker of worried purple traveling down the panels on her suit. “We might all be dead by now if I’d had my way.”

“You have the heart of a Teth’rak, Nimi,” Xipa insisted. “That’s not something to be ashamed of. That’s what flocks are for, right? We all complement each other, we’re all stronger together.”

“We’ll get through this,” her companion replied, encouraged by her words. “We’ll get these people out of here in one piece.”

Xipa nodded, feeling the comforting weight of her laser rifle in her hands.

“Do you think Chala will be alright?” she asked, glancing over at their flockmate. Chala was being supported by one of the civilians, walking a little better after her sedative, her injured arm still hanging uselessly at her side.

“If she isn’t, we’ll take care of her,” Nimi replied with a confident flash of red. “Besides, I’ve been thinking of retiring from the force,” she added with a chuckle that made her helmet’s speakers fizz. “I think they owe us a hefty pension after this, maybe a beach house on the shore of a nice, warm ocean.”

Ahead of them, Tepa crouched at the top of a hill, scanning the area with her rifle for a moment before waving the group forward. The civilians were still a miserable bunch, but being able to work towards a goal had them looking a little perkier. Even Chotza – the woman who Nimi had deputized – was falling into her role as she kept an eye on her charges.

There was a sudden barrage of fire from the massive craft above, everyone ducking reflexively as a trio of glowing projectiles shot over their heads. If a single bolt from a handheld weapon could incinerate a person, what could those ship-mounted weapons do?

Cries of alarm emanated from the civilians as the ground beneath their feet shook, the leaves of the nearby trees rustling. A moment later, a roar like thunder carried over from the city center to their right, a shockwave tearing at their clothes. Xipa slowly stood up again, looking on in awe as a glowing arc of energy rose up into the sky behind the buildings. It looked like a solar flare erupting from the roiling surface of a star, a bright trail of fiery plasma bending along a magnetic field, moving with an unnaturally jerky motion. More of them erupted beside it, forming a shifting arch of flame, slowly sinking back down out of view.

“What the fuck was that?” Nimi gasped.

Noyo pushed through the crowd to join them, popping open the visor on her helmet, her eyes wide.

“That...I think that was the city’s fusion plant going up,” she explained breathlessly. “That was plasma breaching its containment chamber. They’re destroying all of our infrastructure.”

“They hit the fucking power plant?” Nimi asked in disbelief.

“My guess is they’ll probably hit anything that sends out a large enough energy signature,” Noyo continued. “They’re aliens – they probably don’t even know what any of it does. They see a strong radio signal, they attack it. They see a strong energy or heat signature, same deal.”

“Do you think they’ll work out what the spaceport is?” Xipa asked.

“Let’s hope not,” Noyo muttered. “All they have to do is destroy the runway, and none of the shuttles will be able to get off the ground.”

“Keep moving,” Tepa called out, waving them forward. “The sooner we get to the spaceport, the better.”

They pressed on, Xipa’s thighs burning as they trekked through the parkland. Stopping to rest wasn’t an option, not when a matter of minutes could be the difference between missing the last ride off-planet. As they emerged from a shady patch of trees, the sound of an engine screamed overhead, Xipa lifting her helmet to see a trio of those strange aircraft flying past. There were three of them in loose formation, jets of green flame shooting from vectoring nozzles arranged along their flanks. As she watched, one of them broke off, banking as it began to circle back around. It looked like a fly crossed with a freshwater crustacean, its rounded body covered in chitinous plating that was colored a vibrant orange, patterned with dark stripes. It didn’t have any real wings, just a pair of stubby fins on its back that seemed to angle themselves to help keep it stable in the air. As it turned towards them, the dozens of black eyes that covered its head glittering as they caught the light, a knot formed in Xipa’s stomach.

“G-get to cover!” she shouted, the civilians looking back at her in confusion. Some had already seen the craft coming, and began to scatter, the guards gesturing to the sky as they readied their weapons.

The thing ballooned as it approached, growing until it was maybe fifteen meters long, a pair of plasma weapons that were underslung beneath its bulbous head starting to crackle with arcs of green energy. Xipa was already diving to the grass as it let off a salvo, strafing their group with a rapid burst of gunfire. The foliage burst into flames where they landed, the impacts throwing up clods of earth, the blasts tossing a nearby civilian into the air like a ragdoll. Xipa felt the backwash from its engines as it roared over her, and she looked up to see it start to bank again, coming around for a second pass.

“Into the trees!” she heard Tepa shout, Xipa scrambling to her feet.

The craft was remarkably agile for something so grotesque, those mechanical thrusters pivoting to slow it, bringing it to a hover. It loosed another burst of gunfire, its twin-linked weapons tracking a handful of people who had retreated to the safety of a patch of forest. Flames erupted as it poured fire into them, the trees lighting up like torches, sending the civilians running. Xipa turned her eyes back to the craft, shouldering her laser rifle. A bright beam lanced out, dancing across the carapace on the thing’s nose. Unlike the shells of the foot soldiers, this material was more heavily armored, and the distance reduced the effectiveness of the weapon. It did little more than leave a black smear.

More of her companions joined her, a dozen beams painting it as it hovered maybe twenty meters off the ground, just hanging there in the air. Bolts of plasma accompanied the lasers, the guards who had picked up alien weapons joining the fray. The smaller projectiles splashed off its hull harmlessly, its antennae twitching, its stubby little fins flapping. What the hell was it? An animal? A machine? Some blend of both?

One of the limbs situated beneath the body of the thing descended, what was clearly a missile of some kind clutched in its grasp. A jet of flame erupted from behind the long tube, the projectile sliding free as the insect let it go, arching towards the defenders on a plume of smoke. It seemed to be self-guided, moving erratically, beady eyes and antennae selecting targets. It aimed itself at the ground in the midst of the guards, planting itself in the dirt with a thud. Xipa was sure that they were dead – that the missile was about to explode into a cloud of eviscerating shrapnel, but the motor slowly fizzled out.

Instead, compartments on its off-green, mottled casing split open, a hiss filling the air as a cloud of yellow gas began to pour from it.

“Chemicals!” Noyo yelled, slapping her visor shut. “Close your helmets!”

Xipa wasn’t even sure if a rebreather designed for firefighting and chemical spills was going to do the job against an alien bioweapon, but she kept her focus on the craft, loosing another burst of laser fire. This time, she aimed for its black eyes, strobing the beam across them. She finally got a reaction, the craft’s nozzles shifting as it evaded her.

“Go for the eyes!” she said, her helmet’s radio relaying her message to the other guards. More of them focused on it, the alien machine lurching as they burned its retinas. Xipa had no idea whether she was destroying cameras or blinding organic eyes, whether she was damaging a machine or hurting an animal, but it was working.

One of their plasma bolts scored a lucky hit, slagging a thruster, which let out a brief spurt of molten slag as the craft started to lose its balance. The thing shot off another missile, then extended its six insectoid legs, dropping out of view behind a nearby hill.

“We’ve forced it to the ground!” Tepa shouted, waving to her companions. “See to the civilians!”

In an uncommon stroke of luck, the wind was carrying the clouds of yellow mist away from the patch of woodland where most of them had taken refuge. Xipa looked around at the chaos, spotting a handful of casualties lying in the grass. A guard and a couple of civilians had been turned to charred husks by the plasma fire, rendered unrecognizable, and someone was lying motionless beneath the burning debris in the patch of forest. There was no time to attempt a rescue – they had to get out of here right now. That craft might be down, but it could have called for aid.

Corralling the frightened civilians, the guards shepherded them around the poison gas, giving it a wide berth as they continued on towards the spaceport. It wasn’t long before missing loved ones were noticed, but fear kept everyone moving at a brisk pace.

Xipa heard a thudding sound behind their group, turning her head to see something rising over the crest of the hill to their rear. It was the alien craft, now walking along the ground on its six spindly limbs, three-fingered claws covered in hooks tearing up the soil as it marched. It leveled its twin plasma cannons at them, firing before anyone had a chance to call out a warning. The burning projectiles cut a swathe through the group of refugees, Xipa’s stomach turning as she was sent tumbling down an incline.

When she found her bearings again, she was lying at the bottom of a hill, Xipa struggling to her feet as she clutched her rifle. The insulated cable that connected the pack to the weapon had come loose from its socket, and she spent a few frustrating moments fumbling with it before making her way back up the grassy slope.

Like a beast from beyond Valbara’s walls, the aircraft was rampaging through the park on its long legs, towering above the guards who were trying to bring it down. It shrugged off their weapons fire, harrying them with more salvos from its cannons, Xipa watching in silent horror as one of the women was turned to ash where she stood. The civilians had scattered, some of them trying to drag the injured clear of the thing’s stamping feet, others making for the nearby trees. It was like some giant insect straight out of a nightmare.

Noyo was behind the craft, holding her laser rifle steady, keeping the beam trained on something beneath its carapace. Xipa soon realized that it was one of the missiles that were clutched below its stubby arms, the back end of the green tube starting to glow red-hot. There was a sudden explosion that tore through the craft’s flank as the propellant ignited, ripping open a hole in its carapace. Pieces of shattered shell and green, mucous-like viscera rained to the grass as the thing lurched under the impact. It stumbled a few steps forwards, then the legs on the damaged side of its body gave out, sending it crashing to the ground.

A few of the surviving guards trained their weapons on it, even as it lay motionless, still wary of the thing. Everyone else began to check the bodies that were strewn about the field, each of them moving with a kind of desperate hope, praying that they weren’t about to find a flockmate among them.

“Where’s Chala?” Xipa asked, stumbling her way over to Nimi and Noyo. “I don’t see her.”

A lead weight settled in her stomach when they didn’t reply, and the three of them fanned out to search for their companion. Removing the helmets of the fallen guards was the worst part, never knowing who they might find beneath. Xipa located one of Tepa’s flockmates, waving her over, but she was remarkably stoic. Perhaps she was emotionally exhausted by now, far too tired to cry, too weary to grieve.

They eventually found Chala among the bodies, having been caught in one of the alien craft’s barrages. She was remarkably intact, the expression on her face oddly peaceful, perhaps eased along by the sedative that she had been given back at the station. Xipa, Nimi, and Noyo gathered around her to share a private moment together.

“We should bury her,” Nimi muttered, choking back her tears.

“There’s no time,” Noyo whispered, squeezing Xipa’s hand so hard that her fingers were going numb. “We have to move.”

Xipa turned to look at the group of guards and civilians who were reassembling nearby. They had lost maybe ten people, thinning their number from the twenty civilians and fifteen guards who had set out from the station. All of this just because one craft happened to notice them while flying overhead? It was like some cosmic joke. If they had set out five minutes earlier or later, Chala might still be alive right now.

Her dark thoughts were disturbed as the downed craft began to stir. The guards immediately formed a firing line, Xipa and Noyo retreating to join them. Nimi stood beside Chala’s body with her pistol in hand, staring down the hulking mass of smoking flesh and metal, ignoring the pleas from her flockmates to get clear of it.

Between the spindly legs of the craft, a split appeared, running along what could probably be considered its thorax. When it was a couple of meters long, it opened up, a glistening mass birthing from it like a newborn. It was large, maybe seven or eight feet tall, its two pairs of arms quickly identifying it as one of the insects. It was wearing the same iridescent armor or carapace as the soldiers they had encountered in the streets, its compound eyes glittering, the same ornate beetle horn rising from its head. It seemed stretched compared to its shorter counterparts, its limbs long and spindly. Its body was coated in some kind of slime, and it remained joined to the craft via a trio of thick, fleshy cables that resembled umbilical cords. As it rolled over on the grass, Xipa saw that they were connected directly to its spine, hooked into pink flesh that was visible between the breaks in its plates.

The thing struggled to its knees, dripping with clear mucous, then collapsed onto its side. It was weak, maybe injured. Could this be the pilot of the craft?

Nimi strode forward, popping open the visor of her helmet, ignoring the protests of the other guards. She approached the dying alien, the color panels on her suit flushing a deep crimson, the color of rage. Rather than finish it off with a shot from the plasma pistol, she reached for her belt, drawing the ceramic blade that she had taken from one of the dead soldiers. As Xipa watched in stunned silence, Nimi weighed it in her hand, the swirling patterns that covered the blade catching the light.

Nimi planted a boot on the thing’s chest, rolling it onto its back, the creature peering back at her through its compound eyes. It raised its lower pair of arms as if to protect itself, chittering as she lifted the dagger above her head, then plunged it into the alien’s chest. Its waxy carapace provided little resistance, orange ichor welling from the wound as Nimi buried her knife to the hilt. She withdrew it, then planted it again, peppering the thing with vicious stabs. Finally, her knife wet with alien fluids, Nimi stepped away. The deep red of her color panels slowly faded to a sad blue, and she wiped the knife on the leg of her suit before returning it to her belt.

Nobody made any comments as she returned to the group, Tepa and her one remaining flockmate leading them on. Xipa didn’t know what to say, how to comfort her. This was a side of Nimi that she had never seen before. She could be hot-tempered and impulsive, sure, but this was new. She was like a Commando from Valbara’s past, red in blade and claw.

Maybe the Valbarans weren’t as far removed from their warlike roots as they liked to tell themselves. There were still Commandos on the homeworld – military orders maintained more out of tradition than necessity. Would things have been different if they had garrisoned soldiers here, too?

As they crested another hill, the spaceport finally came into view. It was surrounded by a high wall, rows of carefully tended trees keeping it out of sight of the surrounding parkland. Several of the damaged maglev lines trailed inside, where they joined to more terminals. From here, they could see the control tower rising into the air, along with the sloping roofs of some of the spaceplane hangars. On the near side was a road that led up to a gate, where Xipa could spot a group of guards. There were bodies strewn about nearby, the colorful carapaces of the insects glinting, and the wall’s white material had been scarred by gunfire. It looked as though at least a couple of alien patrols had tried to fight their way through and had been repelled. There were no plumes of smoke coming from inside, which was encouraging.

The group made their way down to the gate, the city guards who were keeping it secure waving to them as they approached, one of them rushing inside presumably to alert whoever was in charge that they had more survivors on the way.

They were hurried through the checkpoint by the guards, Xipa having to step around a pile of dead aliens that had been haphazardly pushed to the side of the road to clear the way. The fighting had clearly been intense, but it seemed as though none had made it through the gate. It was unlikely that the guards had seen no casualties, but they would have treated them with far more respect.

Inside the walls were a pair of long runways for the spaceplanes that carried cargo and passengers to and from orbit, along with rows of hangars where the vehicles were stored. Many of them were empty already, and they were being used by the survivors as temporary shelters. There were maybe two hundred civilians between five empty hangars and perhaps half that number of guards standing watch. As Xipa had suspected, up against one wall of the nearest hangar were rows of bodies that had been covered over with the silver tarps that usually protected the shuttles. It seemed that the battle to defend the port had indeed been costly…

One of the guards came running up to Tepa, an alien rifle clutched in her hands.

“How many?” she asked breathlessly, obviously referring to the number of refugees. Tepa paused for a moment as she counted.

“Thirteen,” she replied, the guard nodding.

“Civilians, come with me,” the guard announced. “Guards, proceed to the hangar at the end of the runway. The Ensis will want to speak with you.”

Xipa and Noyo shared a glance. The Ensis were the leaders of the city, the flock that presided over the colony as part of the Council of Ensis.

The civilians broke off, following the guard, Xipa watching them leave. She was at once relieved that they had made it to relative safety and dismayed by how few of their original number had survived. Not ten minutes ago, there had been near twice as many. Chala, too, was lying dead in that field. She was distracted from her thoughts by Chotza, the straggler who they had rescued from the insects during the shootout in the street. She placed a hand on Xipa’s shoulder as she passed, the two sharing a brief moment.

“Thank you,” she said, the sincerity in her voice giving the words a weight that surprised Xipa. She didn’t know what to say, so she just watched her walk away, standing there with her rifle clutched in her hands.

“This way,” Tepa said, setting off towards the furthest hangar. When they arrived, they saw that it had been converted into a kind of forward operating base. There were guards running to and fro, sharing weapons and ammunition, swiping at portable computers that had been set up on the benches usually used for servicing spacecraft parts. Like Xipa’s own team, they were using a blend of surplus laser rifles and captured alien technology.

Standing among them were the Ensis, easily identifiable by their civilian clothing. They were a flock of older women, their scales weathered by age. One of them sported a covering of downy protofeathers, indicating that she hailed from the cold northern region of their homeworld. They were grey in places, contrasting with their otherwise rich brown.

Tepa flushed a salute of red as she announced herself, one of the Ensis looking up from her tablet computer to return the greeting with a flurry of crimson feathers.

“I’m told that you saved another dozen of our people,” she began, glancing at each of the remaining guards in turn as she spoke. “You are to be commended for your bravery, but that will have to come later. There is much to be done.”

“How can we help?” Nimi asked, the Ensi acknowledging her eagerness by tipping her snout in her direction.

“We still have around two hundred people waiting to be loaded onto the remaining shuttles,” she began, pacing back and forth with her eyes on her tablet. “We’ve managed to make contact with a jump-capable freighter up in orbit. There are still a few ships hanging back in the hopes of picking up survivors, and they’re putting themselves at enormous risk to do so. The plan is for them to remain in a low-power, zero-emissions state for as long as possible before powering back up and jumping out of the system once they’ve taken aboard as many people as they can carry. The aliens have destroyed several ships already, but they seem most attracted to large, conspicuous sources of energy and radio emissions. As long as they’re kept occupied on the ground, we believe there is still time to evacuate the rest of the refugees.”

“What’s the situation on the rest of the colony?” Noyo asked. “Have you heard from any of the other settlements?”

“As far as we can tell, it seems to be a coordinated attack,” the Ensi replied. “Several cities have been hit, and we’ve lost a dozen ships in orbit. There have been no demands from the aggressors, no attempts to communicate, and we have no reason to believe that they want anything other than our complete extermination.”

“Where do you need us?” Nimi asked, stepping forward.

“We could use some reinforcements at the gate,” the Ensi said, gesturing back the way they had come. “The last attack was costly. I fear that they’re eventually going to figure out where the most resistance is and send a larger force to root us out. Just do what you can to keep the things out while we prep the next shuttle for launch.”

“Can they even get off the ground with those attack ships flying around up there?” Noyo asked.

“We don’t have any choice other than to try,” the Ensi replied with a hint of irritation. “These shuttles are designed for carrying passengers and cargo. They’re not armed, and they’re not especially agile. They’re fast, though. They have to be to make orbit under their own power.”

“If the aliens really are attracted to powerful radio emissions, maybe we can rig up some kind of decoy,” Noyo suggested. “Something that would make a hell of a racket on the EM bands, maybe lead them away, or trick them into searching for a juicy target that isn’t there.”

“Do you have a suggestion?” the Ensi asked.

“I couldn’t help but notice that there’s a maglev train in that station over there,” she continued, turning to gesture across the compound. Docked to one of the raised platforms that were built into the wall was a row of three rounded, streamlined passenger cars, their white hulls lined with windows.

“The lines are all down,” the Ensi replied. “The aliens have been destroying them.”

“As long as it has a couple of kilometers of track left before it derails, it could lead the aliens away from the spaceport,” Noyo explained. “We could take one of those emergency comms terminals you’re using and put it in one of the cars, crank it up so it’s saturating every frequency with radio chatter. It might draw them away.”

“That...could work,” the Ensi admitted with a flurry of surprised yellow. “We would have to maximize its utility, maybe launch all of the shuttles in quick succession to make the most of the distraction. We have three left – two passenger shuttles and one cargo hauler.”

“It won’t require any special engineering,” Noyo continued. “Someone would just have to stand by and be ready to activate the train when the signal is given.”

“Very well. Do it,” the Ensi said with a nod. “The comms gear has outlived its usefulness anyway. The rest of you, keep those aliens from getting through the gate while we load the passengers.”

Noyo stayed behind to help the Ensi’s team with their equipment while Nimi and Xipa returned to the gate. Another fifteen of the guards joined them, and Xipa felt a little safer in the company of so many of her colleagues. They took up position outside the wall, using the colorful bodies of the dead aliens for cover like macabre sandbags. The terrain here wasn’t completely open, fortunately. Thanks to the city’s landscapers, rolling hills and patches of trees broke up the sightlines, ensuring that nobody had a clear view of the gate from any real distance. The design philosophy had been intended purely for beautification purposes, but it made the city a lot easier to defend.

What Xipa feared most wasn’t the insects, however. It was the silence. Now that she had a quiet moment to dwell on what had happened, thoughts of Chala began to flood her mind. It still hadn’t really hit her, not yet. If she didn’t keep herself occupied, she might break down.

“Nimi,” she whispered, glancing at her flockmate. She was crouched down beside her, her visor obscuring her face from view. “You okay?”

“I keep thinking that this is some kind of nightmare,” she replied, her voice crackling through the speakers on her helmet. “That I’m going to wake up soon to find Chala lying on the cushions beside me, and she’ll laugh when I tell her about my dream. None of this feels real.”

“We were supposed to be going to the lounge after work today,” Xipa muttered, feeling a tear sting her eye. “That boy we like works there, the one who always wears that top, the one that shows off his shoulders. I wonder if he...”

“Can’t think about that right now,” Nimi replied sternly, Xipa backing off. Nimi wasn’t being cruel, it was just too much for her to handle. Like usual, she would probably bottle up all of her emotions until she had some privacy, then she’d let them all out in one burst. The kindest thing Xipa could do for her right now was just to leave her alone and let her process things in her own way.

She was distracted as another formation of alien craft flew overhead, her hands gripping her rifle tightly, the roar of their engines bringing her right back to the field where Chala had died. To her relief, she looked up to see that they were traveling away from the port, heading deeper into the burning city. They had to get those shuttles off the ground. Every second they weren’t in the air was a gamble, and the odds were getting worse by the minute.

***

They waited maybe another half-hour, the guards making small talk that did little to alleviate any of the tension. The shuttles had been brought out of the hangars now, taxiing into position on the two runways. Two of them would be able to take off at the same time, while the third would have to wait a minute or two before it could follow behind them. Their streamlined hulls were twenty meters long, equipped with a pair of stubby, upturned wings that were used for gliding back to the ground during reentry. The heat tiles that lined their bellies and rounded noses were charred black, and their cockpits were raised high for visibility, their huge engine cones positioned at the rear. The surviving spaceport personnel were running the pre-flight checks now, testing the navigation systems, dragging snaking fuel lines across the tarmac.

The civilians were lining up in orderly rows, waiting for their turn to board as the injured, the children, and the males were helped up the steps by the attending guards. It wouldn’t be long now before they’d be ready to take off, and Xipa began to wonder when the rest of the defenders would be called to join them.

“Oh fuck,” Nimi hissed. “Here they come!”

Over the hill a hundred meters ahead of them marched an insect, its shining carapace reflecting the fires from the city beyond. More followed behind it, at least as many as Xipa and her flock had faced in their street battle, maybe more. The guards didn’t wait for them to take the first shot, a barrage of laser fire and plasma bolts greeting the aliens, sending half a dozen of them collapsing to the rust-colored grass before they’d even realized what was happening. Their shells slagged under the heat like melting plastic, the six-limbed creatures writhing as they rolled down the near side of the hill. Their companions activated their shields, refracting the laser beams, absorbing the plasma fire as they formed a protective phalanx.

Employing the same tactics that they had during the first encounter, the aliens began to march in lockstep, creating an impenetrable wall of glowing energy with their shields. Those behind them raised the barriers above their heads to account for the incline, making it difficult to slip any shots through the cracks.

Suddenly, one of the shields faltered. The energy began to glow brighter as several of the defenders focused their fire on it, pouring green bolts of plasma into the barrier. They were using captured alien weapons – the unwieldy rifles with the long metal prongs on the barrels. The shield collapsed under the sustained assault, the alien that was holding it succumbing to their fire, a dozen bolts turning it to a charred husk.

“The plasma!” Xipa yelled into her helmet mic. “The plasma overloads their shields! Focus your fire!”

The guards coordinated, more of the wavering barriers collapsing to expose the aliens behind them, lasers and plasma cutting a swathe through their tightly-packed ranks. The invaders returned fire as best they could, shooting back with their two-pronged pistols, but they were in no position to be accurate. Most of the bolts flew wide, either leaving scorch marks on the wall behind the guards or impacting the piles of bodies in front of them. A few nearby trees had already caught fire, their leaves igniting, bathing the scene in their orange glow.

From their entrenched position, and with their newfound ability to negate the shields, the guards were quickly turning the tide. The aliens could do little other than march straight at them, almost suicidal in their single-mindedness, perhaps hoping that numbers alone would win them the day. More kept coming, a seemingly endless procession of them pouring over the hills, three or four dozen at least. Maybe the Ensi had been right, and the aliens had sent a larger force to take the port.

The first squad of aliens finally broke under their relentless fire, the creatures scattering for the cover of nearby trees, cut down before they could reach them. As the guards focused their attention on the next group that was advancing down the footpath further to the left, something whizzed past Xipa’s visor. She turned her head to see the guard beside her thrown off her feet, her helmet sagging inward as it melted, dead before she had hit the ground. On the crest of the hill to their right, several of the colorful insects were lying prone, looking through the scopes of their resin rifles as they sighted the defenders. Another bright projectile came hissing towards them, a guard catching it in the shoulder, her helmet muffling her scream as she was thrown back. She clutched the wound as the superheated substance melted through her suit, the black material taking on the consistency of tar, her flesh visibly smoking.

One of her fellow guards hooked her muscular tail around her arm, dragging her back through the gate into the compound as she lay down covering fire with her laser rifle. The shooters on the hill were already being forced to retreat as the grass around them was set alight by a hail of projectiles, one of them catching a laser to the face, punching a molten hole through its head.

“These things aren’t so tough,” Nimi growled, taking careful aim with her handgun before loosing off another shot. “Not so fucking easy when your victims are shooting back, is it?”

“Watch the right!” Tepa yelled, wheeling around to aim her rifle further down the wall. “They’re trying to climb over!”

Xipa turned her head to see a handful of the aliens scaling a tree maybe two hundred meters away, trying to use it to get over the barrier. They were met by another barrage of gunfire, the leaves igniting, the creatures toppling back to the grass as they were torn apart. There was no end in sight – they just kept coming. At this rate, the guards would be overwhelmed no matter how bravely they fought.

“The Ensi says the shuttles are fueled!” Tepa shouted over the din of gunfire, ducking as a bolt splashed against the wall behind her. “Keep them back!”

Xipa could hear the rumble of the engines powering up beyond the wall, the shuttles prepping for takeoff. She rose above the pile of bodies again, sweeping her laser across an approaching alien’s thorax, sending it twitching to the ground. There were so many dead insects now that they had to climb over their fallen comrades to get closer, but they weren’t relenting. It was like they didn’t feel fear at all.

There was a dull thunk as something sailed over the defenses, implanting itself in the soil nearby. It was some kind of shell, maybe a mortar, panels on its sides splitting open to disgorge yellow gas just like the missile that the alien craft had fired.

“Chemicals!” Nimi yelled, darting clear of the smoking canister. “Make sure your helmets are sealed!”

The wind carried the obscuring cloud through the group of guards, hanging low to the grass like a mist. Everyone had sealed their helmets, all save for one guard, who must have lost hers at some point. She tried to run, but there was no way she could outpace the smoke. She scratched at her throat with her clawed fingers as she began to choke, falling to the ground with alarming speed, where she lay twitching.

“Get her clear!” Tepa ordered, moving to cover a pair of rescuers as they hauled her limp body back towards the gate.

The creatures were closing in now, nearing the defensive line, drawing their blades with their lower pairs of arms. There was a sea of the things, at least four or five dozen now, rolling over the hills like a tide of multicolored chitin. One of them darted at Xipa, but she was too fast for it, melting a hole in its face as it tried to scale the heap of its dead comrades. There was a cry as someone was pulled over the barrier to her right, Xipa watching as the aliens fell upon her with their knives, even as the other guards rushed to her aid. The insects were so single-minded, prioritizing killing the poor woman even over saving themselves as the defenders poured fire into them, continuing to harry her with their daggers even as their very flesh cooked in their shells.

“We have to pull back into the compound!” Nimi shouted, shooting an alien point-blank in the head with her pistol as it reached for her. It was knocked back by the green flash, a smoking crater where its face had once been. “We’ll get overrun if we try to stay out here!”

“Pull back!” Tepa confirmed, the guards starting to cede ground as they withdrew. The aliens pressed the attack, the yellow gas swirling about their feet as they marched through it, more of the poison canisters landing nearby.

Two more of the defenders fell to their plasma weapons as they moved out of cover, but the guards kept up the suppressive fire, keeping the aliens at bay until they made it through the gate. Xipa felt a momentary wave of relief wash over her as the high wall was put between them and the horde of insects. She chanced a glance behind her, seeing that the three shuttles were lined up on the dual runways. The guards who had remained behind were loading the last of the civilians, helping them up the narrow stairs and into the open hatches about halfway down their hulls. The cargo shuttle was at the rear, the large ramp that led to its bay open on the tarmac.

The defenders formed a firing line behind a row of crates that had been dragged out to serve as makeshift cover, taking advantage of the bottleneck created by the gate’s relatively narrow aperture to kill scores of the aliens as they tried to pile in. There were so many dead that it was creating a blockage, but they merely climbed over and pushed through, almost desperate in their attempts to reach their enemy. More of the gas canisters sailed over the wall, bouncing off the runway, rolling along as they spewed their lethal payload into the air. By this point, the hatches on the passenger shuttles were closing, protecting their occupants from the chemicals. The cargo shuttle was the exception, but it was far enough away to be clear.

Further down the wall, Xipa spotted some of the colorful insects climbing over, leaping down the near side. She redirected her laser in their direction, some of the other guards following suit, quickly dispatching them. As the aliens returned fire, some of their plasma bolts went wide, splashing against the hull of the nearest shuttle. The heat tiles seemed to do a decent job of dissipating the energy, but they weren’t combat vessels, and they couldn’t stand too much sustained fire. It was down to the wire now. They had to get those shuttles off the ground before it was too late.

A familiar sound made Xipa’s blood run cold, and she looked up to see a formation of alien fighters soaring overhead. There were three of them, one of them breaking off, swooping down towards the spaceport. The guards heard it coming, scattering as it lined up for a strafing run. There was no cover on the open runway save for the shuttles, and guiding its fire towards them was the last thing they wanted to do, so they darted in every which direction in an attempt to throw off the craft’s aim.

Green flame pouring from its thrusters, the alien vessel fired off a long burst of gunfire, a stream of crackling bolts melting the tarmac wherever they landed. It left a river of molten tar in its wake, pulling up and banking away as it circled around for another pass.

Xipa picked herself up, looking back to see that three of the guards had been turned to blackened husks by the deadly projectiles. She turned her eyes to the sky, watching the craft’s vibrant shell glint as it lined up for a second run, framed by the burning skyscrapers in the distance.

Suddenly, it jerked off-course, abruptly switching targets. A maglev train was leaving the station near the wall at high speed, racing away along its magnetic line with an electrical hum. The other two craft that were circling overhead gave chase, the train traveling fast enough that they had to burn hard in an attempt to catch it, completely abandoning their attack on the port. It was Noyo – her plan had worked! The radio chatter was drawing them away.

“This is our chance!” the voice of one of the Ensis crackled over their helmet radios. “Go, go! Launch the shuttles now!”

The two passenger shuttles ignited their engines, jets of bright flame shooting from their conical exhausts as they slowly began to pick up speed. They weren’t out of the woods yet, though. The aliens were starting to push through the gate now, more of them finding ways over the wall, breaching the compound. There was only a few hundred meters between them and the shuttles, the line of guards the only thing standing between them.

“We have to keep them away from the ships,” Nimi hissed, her panels flashing a vibrant red. “They’ll tear them apart if they reach them.”

“Is this it?” Xipa panted, checking the readout on her laser rifle to see that it was flashing a low battery warning. “Is this how we die?”

“Fighting to save hundreds of lives?” Nimi asked, reaching over to give her an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “That’s a hell of a way to go out.”

Xipa’s own color panels flushed red now, the involuntary movements of her feather sheaths translated by the suit’s computers.

“Not one of those bastards is getting past us.”

“That’s the spirit,” Nimi growled, gripping her alien pistol with both hands. “We do this together.”

“Nobody boards that last transport until the two passenger shuttles are in the air!” Tepa ordered over their helmet radios. “Hold your ground! When you became guards, you swore an oath to protect the people of this city, and the time has come to make good on that promise!”

The line of defenders lit up in vibrant red, her words spurring them on. The shuttles were accelerating down the runway now, the handheld weapons of the aliens peppering their hulls. The creatures were pouring into the perimeter by the dozen, each one that was felled by the withering gunfire replaced by another, bolts of energy melting the metal crates where they impacted the makeshift defenses. More gas canisters rained from the sky, bouncing off the runway, shrouding the port in a haze of yellow fog.

Like ghosts emerging from the mist, the aliens came marching through, the bursts of green plasma from their weapons illuminating their shining carapaces in brief flashes. From their entrenched position, the guards cut them down, littering the ground with their bodies. They took casualties of their own, one of the guards lifted off her feet as a bolt from one of the long rifles caught her in the chest, melting through her suit like acid. Another took a hit to her battery pack, a jet of flame engulfing her as it cooked off, the nearby defenders leaping clear.

They had lost maybe a third of their number by now, but still they held, refusing to give an inch to the aliens. The wind was carrying away the gas now, revealing the seething mass of insects. They couldn’t hold out any longer, not against so many. They would be overwhelmed by their sheer numbers.

Xipa turned her head to see the first shuttle’s wheels leave the runway, followed by the second, their engines blazing as they began their steep climb. The giant alien mothership still dominated the sky, and with a pang of apprehension, she remembered how it had fired on the hospital skimmer. If it shot at them with that giant plasma weapon, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Fortunately, it seemed to be focusing its attention elsewhere, pouring its fire deeper into the city. Perhaps it, too, was chasing Noyo’s train.

“Get back to the cargo shuttle!” Tepa shouted over their helmet radios. “Everyone, fall back!”

Her heart pounding in her ears, Xipa began to back up, the guards abandoning their fortifications as the insects swarmed over them. The shuttle was close, but turning tail now would ensure their deaths. The guards had to make a strategic retreat, keeping the enemy suppressed, covering each other as they went. In the open, they made even easier targets, however. Xipa saw another of her companions fall, a guard trying to drag her along with her tail while she kept her rifle shouldered.

“Noyo!” Xipa shouted, hoping against hope that she was listening. “Come on, Noyo! We’re leaving!”

“Move your tail, Noyo!” Nimi added as she knocked back an alien with a vicious kick.

Xipa glanced over at the maglev platform, seeing her flockmate standing there alone, the open ground between them packed with aliens. There were dozens, far too many to fight through. Xipa’s heart sank into her stomach as she watched her flockmate raise a hand to wave to her.

“It’s alright,” she replied, her tone reassuring as it hissed through the radio. “We got those people out. That’s what matters.”

“No!” Xipa protested, distracted as another alien came at her with a pair of knives. It melted under her sustained beam, skidding to the ground. “There’s still time, Noyo! Don’t give up!”

“One life for two hundred. It was worth it.”

“Damn it, Noyo!” Nimi snarled as she choked back tears. “I’ll come get you myself if I have to!”

“All I want now is to see you two on that shuttle,” she said, her voice paradoxically steady. “Do me that one last favor.”

The wall over by the hangars to their left suddenly exploded inward, a huge mass shouldering its way through the debris. As the dust cleared, Xipa saw that it was a monstrous creature, a hulking beast of chitin that stood at least twelve feet tall. It had a similar body plan to the smaller insects, but its upper arms were thicker around than a Valbaran’s torso, a pair of scissor-like claws tipping each one. Its spiny carapace was heavily armored, colored a dull blue, its eyes more resembling slatted visors than anything organic. There were mechanical components nestled among the layered plates of its carapace, thick cables and glowing lights, the thing a grotesque chimera of metal and flesh. Its vicious mandibles flexed in what might be anticipation as it turned its head in their direction, its clawed feet digging furrows in the earth with each step. Even more soldiers poured through the breach behind it, their weapons in hand as they raced to reinforce their comrades.

The surviving guards were nearing the shuttle’s cargo ramp now, the craft already starting to move, the metal sparking as it dragged along the runway. Those nearest piled inside, helping their companions up onto the ramp, laying down covering fire as the aliens peppered the area with plasma. The burning projectiles weren’t doing much to the hull, but if one of those bolts hit the landing gear or an engine cone, it could spell disaster.

Nimi and another straggler were locked in hand-to-hand combat with a handful of the insects that had run ahead of the group, the aliens coming at them with their knives as they finally closed the gap. Nimi tried to fight them off, firing her pistol into the melee as the other woman was dragged to the ground.

Xipa glanced between the shuttle and her flockmate, then growled into her helmet, rushing to Nimi’s aid.

“Get out of here!” Nimi demanded, but Xipa ignored her. With a couple of well-placed shots from her laser rifle, she took down two of the nearest aliens, giving Nimi the room she needed to finish off the third.

“I’m not losing anyone else,” she insisted, Nimi giving her an appreciative nod. The shuttle was pulling away now, gradually accelerating, the guards in the cargo bay shouting for them to run over the roar of the engines.

“Come on!” Xipa continued, firing as she retreated. “We have to-”

Another of the aliens stepped through the yellow fog, raising a two-pronged pistol in its upper hand, only a few paces away. There was a blinding flash of green, then a searing pain like nothing Xipa had ever felt before, the smell of her own burning flesh filling her nostrils. She felt her battery pack dig into her back as she fell to the ground, fighting to get her helmet off as it turned to slag, burning her hands in the process. The chaos around her ceased to exist, the immediate agony of molten metal bonding to her face all that she could focus on. Finally, she managed to tear it off, sending it clattering across the runway. Only able to open one eye, she looked up at her assailant as it raised the pistol again, the rails crackling with energy.

From its right, Nimi tackled the thing, knocking it off its feet. Through the haze of pain and confusion, Xipa saw them scuffle, their movements a blur as their blades flashed. When it was over, they both lay still.

She struggled to her feet, stumbling over to where Nimi lay. Through her bleary vision, she could see that she was clutching her belly, red blood staining the front of her suit. One of the alien knives was embedded deep in her stomach, its handle jutting into the air.

“Go,” she sputtered, popping open her visor. “There’s no time.”

Xipa looked back at the taxiing shuttle, then at the horde of advancing aliens, what remained of her feathery headdress flashing purple with dismay. She knelt, gripping the hilt of the blade, then tugging it loose. Nimi groaned in pain, coughing up blood.

“I’ll carry you,” Xipa grunted, ignoring the white-hot pain in her hands as she tried to drag her. She stumbled, falling to the ground, her strength leaving her.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Nimi chuckled, wincing as the motion hurt her. “You’ll miss your ride. One of us has to survive this, or it’ll all be for nothing.”

“But-”

“Promise me that you’ll warn them,” she said urgently, Xipa starting to back away as the alien reinforcements drew nearer. “Don’t let this happen on Valbara too.”

“I-I’ll warn them,” she stammered. “I’ll make sure they’re ready.”

Nimi nodded, Xipa tearing herself away from her, shrugging off her pack. Mustering the last of her willpower, she sprinted for the shuttle, ignoring the searing pain in her face and the burning in her muscles. Bolts of plasma whistled over her head, some flying close enough that she could feel them singe her suit, the aliens hot on her heels. As she neared the ramp, one of the guards wrapped her tail around one of the pneumatic pistons, leaning out to grab her. Xipa gritted her teeth as she took her by the hand, hauling her up into the cargo bay.

The ramp began to close, Xipa hooking her arm through some nearby cargo netting as acceleration tugged at her, the craft rising into the sky. There were few seats in the bay, and most of the remaining guards were hanging on to whatever was in reach, clutching their injured comrades to prevent them from sliding away. The deck shook, turbulence buffeting its occupants, a loose crate tumbling away to smash against the ramp. Xipa could feel the G-forces tugging at her, the blend of pain and exhaustion threatening to make her pass out. It seemed to drag on forever, until finally, weightlessness gripped her. Everything that wasn’t nailed down began to float, Xipa coiling her tail through the netting to anchor herself.

She felt something in her hand, looking down to see that she still had a death grip on the knife that she had pulled from Nimi’s belly. The ceramic blade was decorated with ornate patterns, the crimson blood seeming to follow the swirling channels, droplets of it floating into the air.

“Are you alright?” someone asked, snapping her out of her stupor. With her one good eye, she saw Tepa floating over to her, pushing herself off the deck. “Your face...”

“I think...I’m alright,” she mumbled, finding that the stiffness in her burned cheek made it a chore to speak. “Can’t really...see out of my right eye.”

“Just stay here, we’ll get you some help,” she insisted. “Someone get a medkit over here!”

Xipa didn’t really care about her injuries – the pain seemed so distant. All she could think about was Nimi, Noyo, Chala. They were gone, and she was still here. Why? She wasn’t smarter than Noyo, she wasn’t braver than Nimi, she wasn’t more compassionate than Chala. Why had she alone been chosen to go on?

She floated there in silence as one of the guards applied a dressing to her face, the cooling burn gel soothing her wounds. It didn’t hurt much anymore. Like Chala, had all of her nerves been seared away?

For what must have been an hour, the shuttle coasted along, making small course corrections with its thrusters. There were no windows, no way to see outside, only the microgravity serving as proof that they had made it to orbit.

“The other two shuttles are safe,” Tepa finally said, floating in through the dividing door that led to the cockpit. There were some muted sighs of relief from the other guards, a few of them daring to congratulate each other. Even so, the mood remained dour. It was unlikely that even a single flock was still intact. “There’s a cargo hauler getting ready to jump out of the system as soon as we get close enough,” she continued. “We’re not docking – they don’t have the room, and we don’t have the time – so brace yourselves for a superlight jump. If you can find something to bite down on, do it.”

When they neared the hauler, Tepa began to call out a countdown, Xipa cutting off a piece of the netting with the alien knife. She placed the strip of fabric between her teeth, preparing her beleaguered body for one last ordeal. As the arcane energies of the jump drive enveloped their little shuttle, she welcomed the loss of consciousness that followed.