They must go to the ship.
Irving speculated that they kept her on the planet because it would be too risky to have consistent troop transport—even if the technology worked after the EMPs. But they didn’t consider that the ship was mechanically attached to the Queen. The filaments must be how they fed her. How they kept her contained and communicated with her. Bred her.
She was tethered.
It was cruel.
Suddenly, she stilled, her entire body coiling. That long tail began to twitch, slithering out from under her. Her muscles bunched, the sliding plates skittered across her skin as she slowly lifted her head. She twisted, huffing the air twice before dropping her head to look right at them.
Blake saw himself reflected in her goggles. He looked terrified.
Queen Dolly’s bifurcated jaws parted, the thin skin between the four hooks trembling as she screeched.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
The ship cast a shadow across three streets. Gabriel squinted up at it as he peered out from the Metro substation. It was massive. So big it was a lot like the time his fifth-grade class went to the Natural History Museum, and he saw a replica blue whale suspended from wires hanging from the ceiling. He could vividly remember standing directly under one of its fins, mouth open, as he tried to process how something that big could exist.
Spaceships were bigger.
He leaned back against the wall and tried to find some kind of identifying mark, something different from the other hundreds of times he’d stared up at it—not unlike that tween with braces on his teeth in the shadow of a fiberglass fin. Except this time, he had a gun. He wished that made him feel better.
Flying saucers were a Hollywood creation, apparently. Because this thing was a giant, black sphere. There were no shuttle doors or tractor beams. There wasn’t even a windshield. He couldn’t find the seam from the long guns, either. The last time he’d seen them was when they threatened to shoot Victoria down when she came screaming in her F-35.
Why?
That was what bothered him more than anything.Knowledge is power,Irving said. Unfortunately, knowledge was the one thing they didn’t have. He’d faced factions he didn’t understand before. But they were still inherently human. Their strengths, weaknesses, hell, even their motivations weren’t a mystery. But these aliens? They punched through the atmosphere, picked off precise military targets, and then nothing.
From every tactical standpoint, it didn’t make sense. Why deploy ground troops when you had control of the air? When you could simply erase entire cities without risking a single soldier?
Presumably, the Monkey Cat’s guns were disabled by the EMPs—something they’d planned for with their biological clone army. But they hadn’t hesitated to use Zappy Balls on the city. So why didn’t the Off Formers?
Something else had to be at play. Gabriel knew Irving was working on it. Taking every scrap of information, spending hours talking to Gabriel, trying to ‘get his perspective’ as Irving put it. Gabriel chose to think he meant as a soldier and not as someone of a lower IQ, but Irving never specified, and he didn’t ask.
His theory stayed the same: The Off Formers were trying to mitigate damage.
Gabriel looked around the street. It was littered with metal, pieces of rebar, aluminum sheets, and metal light poles. Cars had been shoved to the side, tires lining up the side of the streets as an emergency safe zone. But no matter how much damage the humans did to make this street a trap, it was nothing compared to what the aliens did.
If he looked closely enough, he could see dry blood flaking between the cracks in the asphalt. Buildings ripped apart, crumbling in on themselves. Cars were cut in half. Bodieslingered in the peripheral, respectfully set aside or covered in ripped sheets, clothes, or even plywood. There was no part of the city that was untouched. It didn’t seem possible that this was the Off Formers showing restraint.
But how else could he explain the Off Formers immediately destroying military targets and leaving the civilian cities to be invaded?
If Gabriel was being chased by an equal, if not superior force, and he had to hunker down in a place with hostile locals, that’s what he’d do. Eliminate one threat to avoid fighting a war on two fronts.
He scrubbed his face and glanced up at the sky, judging shadows. It had been about an hour. Any minute now, the Ground Team would start lighting the city up. His attention slid a half mile down the street. He could just barely make out the Queen’s building.
Biting down on his cheek, he tried to push back the urge to go to Blake. To make sure he was safe. To pluck the syringes from his hand and shoutlet me do it. Let me take the pain.
But that was Gabriel thinking. Now he needed to be Commander Lennox. And Commander Lennox wouldn’t waste an asset. He would let his people do what they needed to do, what the mission needed. He would let Phin make the decisions to keep them safe. He would trust.
Gabriel hated that guy.
Turning on his heel, he descended the concrete steps into the dark of the station, trying not to wince as his ribs screamed. He didn’t think anything was broken, but he was getting too damn old to be thrown around like that.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and he didn’t bother to turn on the flashlight weighing down his pocket. They only had so many analog ones, and he didn’t want to waste it when Tommy and Judd might need it.
He followed the stairs by feel, hand running along the railing and counting steps. The substation they were using was off a smaller transit stop. It didn’t have much except an open waiting area, a few benches, and the signage for the drop-off where the tracks ran ten feet down. Gabriel hopped down, landing with a foot on either side of the tracks. From there, he followed the quiet cursing.
