THE CITY WAS so thickly populated that even after millions escaped, there were still a hundred million people within the danger area as the alien menace tore through the eclectic mix of old slums and new high-rises that marked New Delhi’s skyline.

Tens of thousands had died in the initial impacts, conservatively estimating the numbers. A hundred thousand more in the hours since, but the fighting raged heavier in this place than anywhere else on Earth. Few had the weapons needed to make a real impact on the aliens, however, and with each passing minute ten thousand more lives were ended.

The Block military tried to move in, but if a city like New York had congested traffic then New Delhi lived life at a standstill. Even with tanks plowing through the mess, they were literally being stopped as the number of cars being pushed aside came to rest against the next few abandoned cars behind them, eventually forming a bank of wrecked vehicles that had to be pulled down with winches.

So instead they had men running ahead, moving the cars out of the way one by one to let the tanks through. It was slow, tedious work, and they had miles to go before they even reached the hottest points in the battle.

The Block Air Force was already on site, and airborne troops were dropping into the city from all sides. They had only light weapons at the moment and little enough ammunition that for the immediate future they provided a minimal threat to their foe.

The City of New Delhi was burning as it was being eaten slowly from within.

For Gaia the experience of invasion was sickening, somewhat like being down with a particularly virulent infection she supposed. At the moment it was light, merely the beginnings of what was to come. She didn’t feel sick the way humans did, never had, but were she human she supposed that she would now be feeling chills and light-headedness.

Instead, all she really felt was disgust.

CHAPTER FIVE

“SO THAT’S THE Odyssey, is it?”

Out across the sound from where they stood was a slab of metal, steel blue with white lettering, sticking out of the water like a sword rising from the lake. This sword, however, would never be drawn again, and that made the scene a pitiable one.

“It used to be,” Eric told his companion soberly, only half paying attention to the conversation.

The wreckage of the Odyssey was in better shape than he’d expected, though he knew from the data ping he’d gotten that significant parts of it had to have survived. He knew that the only way the ship could be in the shape he was seeing was if the counter-mass generators had survived right to the moment of impact.