A collective gasp cut him off. Both men looked back just in time to see something low and long-limbed racing out of the cloud. It crawled forward with incredible bursts of speed, like a desert lizard. It jumped and caught one of the helicopters from underneath. It clung there pounding and tearing at it. The helicopter stayed in the air a few frantic seconds, then it tilted and then fell like a rock. It hit the earth and became an instant ball of fire. Rotors chopped into the ground until they broke apart. Bits and pieces of them sliced through the air. Some of the debris hit the next nearest helicopter, which swerved wildly, trailing a billow of black smoke. It turned and retreated. It managed a crash landing, but creatures were on it the moment it touched down. The whole line of other helicopters turned, presumably on some order, and tried to pull back. The first few made it, but others began to teeter and weave. They fell one after the other. Some crashed. Some landed only to be overcome by the raging horde.

“No,” Marcus whispered. Just like that, the hope he’d clung to vanished. It got worse.

One of the jets flew too far. It disappeared into the cloud. It carved out of it a moment later and turned back toward the Cosmodrome, skimming just over the heads of the nearest creatures. The plane wobbled, its nose dove and then righted. Dipped again, tilted over to one side. It looked like a dead thing, a wedge of steel limp in the air instead of propelled by its engines. It went down a little ways out from the barricades. It tore a trench through the ground, collided with a tank and spun end over end until it crashed into the earthwork barricades, ripped through fencing and barbed wire. It exploded. Everyone on the roof hit the deck. The building shook with the force of the blast. Marcus stayed down until the cloud of debris that rained down on them lessened, then he rose up on his coils to survey the damage. It was bad. The jet had cut a jagged route right through all their defenses.

“Shit,” Bugsy said. “We just left the front door open.” He shouted, “Ana! Close the door, please!”

A woman—one of the other Committee members judging by her matching headset and mouthpiece—shouted back, “I need to get nearer. To see the ground better.”

“IBT,” Bugsy said, “help her. She’s Earth Witch.”

For the first time since coming up to the roof, Marcus realized he could do something other than just watch. With liquid, muscular speed, he slipped through the crowd. He swept the woman up, and as she cried out, he flowed over the railing and off the roof. It took all his strength to curve out of the plummet smooth, hitting the ground and churning forward with everything he had. He deposited Earth Witch near the trench.