A targeting rectangle appeared on the landscape. The pilot pulled his trigger.

The heavy rhythmic sound of a chain gun thrummed through the plane. Tao could see muzzle burst out ahead of the nose, could see their rounds ripping into the structure, as the pilot systematically worked his gun over it, sending decimeter long, three-centimeter thick, nearly kilogram heavy rounds through anything that stood in their way.

Down there, Tao thought, soldiers were dying.

Better them than him.

Better them than his brothers.

The second plane came on station, hovered at its own angle, ninety degrees off their starboard, opened up with its own gun.

“Movement!” the pilot yelled.

A figure in the doorway of the building, still up, somehow, still alive!

There was something on his shoulder. Missile launcher.

Red streak. Fired!

Chain gun rounds ripped the shooter in half.

Missile, en route to Griffon Two!

Tao tracked with his eyes, tried to get ahead of it. Griffon Two was turning, vectoring thrust, trying to twist out of the path of the shoulder-launched heat seeker.

But they were so close!

Flares fired out of its belly in the last instant.

The missile slammed into its port engine in a burst of flame.

Griffon Two spun, wildly.

It was spinning at them, coming this way as its human pilot tried to take control.

Tao grabbed the copilot’s controls of their own craft, faster than the human pilot could react, pushed hard to the right. The plane slid, tilted, twisted. He caught a glimpse of Griffon Two looming huge, fire where the engine should be, then the cockpit as it spun, alarm on the human pilot’s face, and his brother.

His brother Sung. His face calm. His hands on the co-pilot’s controls, trying to get the plane under control.

Then the plane was past, still spinning. And as they twisted themselves he saw Griffon Two’s wingtip touch the ground, and then the whole plane tumbled, slammed to the ground.

And a huge explosion ripped through the night as brothers died.

Tao moved through the building twenty minutes later, weapon at the ready, his mind grim.

Dead brothers.

Dead brothers.

What was worth dead brothers?

They met no resistance inside the outpost.

Dead men were everywhere, their bodies blasted and blown apart. Equipment had slumped and collapsed under the onslaught of the chain gun. Cabinets and tables and electronics had exploded. Walls had exploded. Beams had come down. Debris was everywhere.

There was no resistance remaining.

Tao tapped the radio at his throat. “Send in the politician.”

“I am Sun Liu,” the human said, his hands on full palm scanners, tens of meters below surface level. “Member of the Politburo Standing Committee, Minister of Science and Technology. Requesting access to the archive.”

Tao watched as lasers scanned the man’s retinas. Behind the wall he imagined processors analyzing speech patterns, vocal stress response, and so much more.