I had ridden a ten-foot section of the overhang into the gardens. Chunks of concrete with broken bits of rebar sticking out of them were all around me. There was broken glass everywhere. It was a miracle that I hadn’t been impaled or crushed to death. I wiped my stinging eyes. My glove came away red with blood. It was streaming from a deep cut on my forehead.

Everything hurt, but I couldn’t tell how badly I’d been injured. I got to my hands and knees, crawled a couple of feet, but was too dizzy, and face-planted into the mud. There was another person just ahead. I hadn’t been the only one caught in the collapse, but they hadn’t been as lucky. Half of their torso had been caught beneath the sliding debris and crushed. I was too disoriented to even tell who it was.

There was another roar, and this one wasn’t the wind. Gunfire erupted above as Hunters began firing into the alien hurricane. They were shooting out into the garden at something just ahead of me. Someone up there was shouting orders, struggling to be heard, trying to direct the innocent toward safety. Another flaming comet, smaller than the first, streaked across the gray sky and hit the building. The entire world shook under the explosive impact, and flaming bits rained down around me. The Hunters above me were driven back.

Raising my head, I could make out brightly colored shapes moving in the garden, some orange, some red, just quick flashes as the things maneuvered through the thrashing bushes. There was the briefest glimpse of an oddly shaped head and weird multiple eyes before the creature took cover. There was a terrifyingly familiar whistling noise as a cloud of projectiles was launched from the garden against the breach in the wall. Inside, humans cried out in agony as they struck.

I tried to stand, but a lightning bolt shot up the nerves of my leg and I went back down. Something was screwed up with my foot. There was movement to my side. Another survivor of the crash had staggered upright. It was a female Hunter that I’d seen, but never spoken to. She was shell-shocked, staring out into the mist, only her wide eyes visible through a mask of blood and dust. She turned to look up at where we’d just been standing. I shouted for her to take cover, but either she couldn’t hear me or no sound actually came out of my throat. I wasn’t sure. There was another whistling noise, a thud, and she lurched forward and fell.