“Good idea. Go ahead.”

Two whirring aircraft lifted from the back of the tank, leaning forward and racing off to the west. One stayed low, barely flitting over the tops of cars, while the other went high and climbed for some altitude above the buildings.

Garibaldi watched the mushroom cloud show up on the top drone’s camera and shook his head. “Holy shit. Someone nuked Central Park.”

“Place had it coming, if you ask me,” Tate told him wryly. “Last time I was there I swear I almost got mugged three times before I got out.”

“Any of the muggers carry a tactical nuke?”

“Not that I saw, but I wouldn’t have put it past some of them.” Tate snorted, but he scowled as he noted something. “I think we’re missing something here.”

“Such as?”

“The rads, LT,” Tate answered. “I’m getting clean readings.”

“Huh.” Garibaldi looked over the scans himself. “You’re right.”

“Some kind of alien super weapon, you think?” Tate asked.

“I have no idea. Edge us forward some more. I can’t get a satellite signal here and the local control link is breaking up.”

“Right. I’ll tuck us into the trees just off the transverse there,” Tate offered. “Park her and put the camo on.”

“Sounds about right. Do it.”

The lead tank of third platoon rumbled across Fifth Avenue and took a right as they started into the park. Tate guided his hundred-ton behemoth under a copse of trees and let the motor die as he activated the vehicle’s cam-plates to match to local environment. In a few seconds the tank had disappeared, all save the makeshift steel cowcatcher bolted to the front, which seemed to hang out in midair for no apparent reason.

Inside the tank the crew crossed their fingers and hoped real hard that the enemy wouldn’t take notice of that particular oddity.

“Why did you stop?”

Eric glanced back, noting that the woman wasn’t winded. That was impressive, given that she was keeping up with him and he was in enhancing armor. Okay, he wasn’t going all out by a longshot, but even so.

“See the spy drones there?” He nodded up.

Lyssa looked for a moment, then finally caught one of them as it banked and a glint of sun flicked off one of the propellers. “Yeah.”

“Short range, probably launched from a tank,” he said. “In a city like this you don’t need line of sight, but it’s close unless you’ve got a good uplink, and I’m pretty sure they don’t have that.”

“Oh? How come?”

“’Cause I don’t have one,” he said with a grin, which vanished quickly. “Probably because the enemy took out the bird.”

“Oh.” She grimaced. “So where are they?”

“At a guess? Camouflaged,” he said. “Probably tucked in between those buildings up there, or maybe in the tree line. I don’t want to surprise the gunner, though. That could get ugly.”