They were met by a small army of support crew, fire crew, and cargo movers by the time the transport shuddered to a stop on the tarmac. Eric got his people off and clear of the jet fuel and nuclear materials before he let anyone start unloading, and then headed for the tower to find out just what was going on.

He was greeted halfway there by a three-star who looked as harried as he’d ever seen a man.

“Weston?”

“Yes sir,” Eric answered, saluting. “Do you have orders for me?”

“Not yet,” the general answered. “Just real glad to see your cargo.”

Eric looked up, trails of smoke and flame still defining the skies above them as distant shock waves shattered over their position. “Might be a moot point, now. Looks like they’ve decided to drop everything they’ve got on us.”

“You don’t know the half of it, Captain. Walk with me.”

Eric nodded curtly and the general led him back to the building complex, both men ignoring the distant flashes and rolling thunder shaking the very ground upon which they walked.

“This is going down all over the world, Captain. We’re hammering them everywhere we can, but there’s more than anyone expected.”

Not more than I expected. Just later arrivals, Eric thought grimly. “Understood. They’ve stopped targeting population centers then?”

“Looks like,” the general confirmed. “Hard to tell though. Some of them are certainly coming down in uninhabited regions, however. We can’t cover every square inch. It’s just a miracle that they’re not splashing down in the oceans.”

“I doubt they can handle the pressure differential,” Eric answered. “They’re tougher than humans, sure, but they’re still susceptible to overpressure waves. They may not be able to handle the temperature conductivity of water either.”

“Pardon?”

“You can get hypothermia off the coast of California in summer, General,” Eric answered. “These things have much higher body temperatures, and they need to maintain that heat by all accounts. Water may actually be lethal to them in very short order.”

“I thought they could operate in space?”

Eric chuckled. “It’s a bit of a misconception that space is cold, General. Space isn’t hot or cold, it just is. Objects in space can be hot or cold, depending on their nature and location. There’s also a difference in radiated heat loss compared to conductive heat loss.”

The general just shook his head. “I’ll take your word for it, Captain.”

“Also, I wouldn’t say that they operate in space, exactly.” Eric scowled a bit, thinking about it. “They just take longer to die than a human would.”

“Fabulous.”

Eric chuckled. “What kind of intel do we have here?”

“We’re linked into the entire DARPA net system, including the new patchwork mini-satellites they’ve been launching since the assault.”

“Good. Show me your tac-room, General, if you will.”