The cement was popping and cracking under the heat of the blast, and all she could think of really, was whether it was radioactive or not, oddly enough. She had just about made up her mind to make a break for it, forlorn hope that it was, when an explosion tore through the air above her and she looked up in both shock and awe.

She wasn’t the only one. She heard the weapon blast falter. The eerie thudding of the alien beasties’ heavy shod feet stopped as they too looked up.

About halfway up the curve of the Odyssey’s habitat cylinder, almost a hundred feet off the roadway, a hole had been blown clear out of the hull. As the smoke slowly blew clear, Lyssa spotted a figure stepping out into the open. She watched as he paused, seemed to look down at her and then out at the park beyond, and vanished for a moment.

Lyssa didn’t know what to think, but before she could do much of that anyway the figure reappeared, this time with a large object resting on his shoulder.

“Oh shit,” she muttered just before the figure triggered the MLARS—Multiple Launch Advanced Rocket System—sending twenty MilSpec Hi-Ex rockets into the park.

Eric flipped the MLARS forward as it launched, not bothering to see what he’d hit. The weapon was fire and forget. Either he’d nailed his targets or he hadn’t. There wasn’t much more he could do. He dropped the disposable launcher, letting it tumble clear of the impromptu door he’d blown in his ship’s hull with a breaching charge, and picked up the Priminae GWIZ as he keyed into the local military channels.

“Strykers, Strykers, have fire mission request. Central Park West. Will laze targets,” he called. “I say again, fire mission. Central Park West. Will laze.”

“Who is this? There are no assets reporting from CPW. Identify yourself.”

“Captain Eric Stanton Weston. Commanding, North American Confederacy Starship Odyssey,” he said, before taking a deep breath. “Make that formerly commanding.”

There was a long pause on the network before the voice came back. “Confirm Ident. Handshake sent.”

Eric responded to the security check with the countersign as he finished preparing his kit, knowing that it would only take a few seconds.

“Identity confirmed . . . Captain Weston, you have a fire mission?”

“Roger that. Request air support at my location. Will laze targets.”

“Wilco. Air support inbound.”

“Hoo-rah,” Eric said, keying several pocket drones online and tossing them out of the ship. The tiny flyers buzzed off, flitting through the air above Central Park West as they each painted the targets he’d assigned them. “Targets lazed. Light them up.”

“Find cover, Captain. Hell is coming.”

“No, son,” Eric said in the clear, his voice booming over his armored suit’s speakers as well as the radio, “hell is already here.”