ERIC WESTON SPLASHED cold water across his face, barely smudging the dirt that he’d somehow picked up over the last few days. Most of it was dried sweat and friction rub off the interior of his armor, he supposed, but it stuck to his skin like superglue and he didn’t have time to wash up properly.

Thirty days. I can’t believe we’re still alive.

Clearing New York had taken three days, by the end of which they’d faced over a hundred times more drones than had actually landed in the original assault and lost fifteen tanks, one hundred twelve Guardsmen, eight of his own squad, and, as much as he detested himself for saying it, even more damaging, eight irreplaceable suits of enhancing armor. The armor issued to the crew of the Odyssey had been the height of technical development, and few suits were ever issued to field teams. The few that were had went to teams stationed in global hotspots, none of which were near the U.S., and all of which had their own problems that simply could not be ignored.

That meant that he was down a total of eight from his previous forty-one, leaving thirty-three effectives in the field. Thirty-three men and women who were by now experts in the use of enhancing armor and whose loss in combat would be even more shattering to morale and field effectiveness than the armor itself.

“Sir? The President is online and asking for you.”

Shit. Eric scrubbed at his face a little more before giving it up as a lost cause. He straightened up, slicked his hair back so it looked halfway presentable, and left the bathroom. They were using an old mall on the outskirts of Detroit as their current base of operations, since the city itself was fundamentally uninhabitable at the moment.

All major centers of population had been slammed hard by the Drasin, but after the first few days their focus had moved inland from New York. Detroit and the surrounding areas got hit especially hard, so when the National Guard was overrun two weeks later, the President asked Eric to take his company in. They had to fight almost every step of the way but, now joined by a division of mechanized infantry and some serious SAM capability, they could hold their own against orbital bombardment and reinforcement.

That still left the Drasin infestation in Detroit, however, and Eric already knew it was going to be a bitch to clean out.

“Captain.”

“Mr. President,” he said, taking a seat in front of the computer display. “Good to hear from you, sir.”

“Likewise,” Connor said. “Have you had a chance to reconnoiter Detroit yet?”

“Yes sir,” Eric nodded. “Scouts, drones, and eyes on.”

“What’s the situation?”

“Not good.”