Approximately 20 kilometers to the north a tank commander stared out of his windows.

  He had a Skill that made looking out of the small rectangles the same as if he had been standing in front of a floor to ceiling and wall to wall window. The kind in fancy mansions and penthouses he had seen when a general or a politician had feted him on account of one of the many medals he had earned over the long years.

  The old M1A2’s engine rumbled, but thanks to his driver’s Skill it might as well have been an old compact’s tiny 4-cylinder instead of the monster 1500 horsepower turbine.

  They hid inside the hollowed out remains of a large house.

  One they had hollowed out themselves by backing into it.

  Colonel B.J. Blackstone was an old, old man.

  In the old world when he had been a much younger man an officer his age would’ve been long retired or higher ranked and sitting behind a desk.

  He certainly wouldn’t have held his current rank at his age while sitting in a tank.

  Skills compensated for things like arthritis and weaker bones.

  They also made the ride more comfortable.

  At least enough that it wouldn’t kill him.

  Although, he could feel the cold, bony fingers tickling his old ticker.

  He let his crew converse in low whispers.

  Young men and— he sighed— women.

  Like grandkids had he decided to remarry after losing his beloved wife on the night the spires ruined the world.

  Even across the decades that memory remained clear.

  It was a punch in the dick that the happy ones slipped from his grasp one by one while that didn’t.

  “I’m just saying that if a Level 32 oracle says we should be here then you should stop over-thinking it,” Pfc. Wilkins said.

  The young woman fidgeted in her seat.

  She had performed well-above his minimum standards in five operations since she had joined his tank, but this was a big one.

  “Prophecy is inherently unreliable. Every individual action, no matter the slightest, can change even a high-level prognosticator’s projections,” Sgt. Sanders said.

  The gunner wasn’t much older than Wilkins, but he was the longest serving member of the four ma— sigh— person crew and had proved himself repeatedly over the last three years.

  “I heard if the enemy’s got oracles doing their thing too then it fucks it all up,” Spc. Rucka said over the comms.

  The driver had the most comfortable seat, reclining in his own compartment away from the odors of the main one.

  Sanders was a good shot, but he passed gas like a fat boar and he had chili for dinner.

  A sudden tingling at the base of his spine woke him from his remembrances.

  It was a constant struggle to remember the happy times with his wife.

  “Quiet. I got a tingle on my danger sense.” One didn’t live to his age in active combat duty without developing a set of Skills to make that so. “Anyone else?”

  Negatives.

  His crew was too low level compared to him.

  “Enhance Radar.”

  He spoke his Skill for the benefit of his crew.

  They sprang into action, which made him smile on the inside.

  There wasn’t much pleasure for him in recent years beyond the satisfaction of a well-drilled tank crew.

  Even that brought on a pang.

  The Abrams of decades ago was nothing like the melding of magic, technology and Skills around him.

  The magic crystal set into the side of his periscope projected a small radar map centered on his tank.

  “Activating active counter measures,” Pfc. Wilkins said. “Shield is ready to go.”

  “Main gun ready. Whistling Hive ready,” Sgt. Sanders said.

  “Boost ready,” Spc. Rucka said.

  Brisk and calm tones.

  Just the way he liked them.

  The tingle had crawled up to about the middle of his spine.

  He watched the radar sweep.

  “Wilkins, ready signal flares.”

  They were radio silent with the artillery group they were defending.

  He wanted to laugh bitterly.

  Two Paladins, a handful of Humvees and a couple of trucks with extra shells was a sorry number compared to the old days.

  Damn flying asshole destroying their equipment!

  “Tell them incoming. From the sky.”

  “Yessir!” Her fingers tapped away on her control console.

  He did the same. “Sanders, I want flak— Predict Enemy Flight Path— here.” He sent the coordinates and elevation to his gunner. “Then, on a two count, place the swarm here.”

  “Yessir. Locking in target coordinates.”

  “Rucka, reposition to B the second the swarm is away. At all haste.”

  The tingling reached the base of his skull a split-second before the radar beeped.

  “Engage.”

  …

  “Sisters! The Earthian humans believe they are soon to be attacked!” Qasona of Frozen Peak chirped.

  The wing leader’s exquisite crown of midnight blue and dark gray feathers fanned and shook with excitement.

  “Yes!” Ayrie of Falkite hissed.

  Falrie of Falkite, her clutch-sister trilled. “Finally! I’ve grown stiff sitting on my talons.”

  Ayrie laughed. “You sound like a withered matron… an especially barren one.” She arched a feathered brow.

  “I feel like one. After all, I’ve done nothing but pick dirt and insects out of your feathers for hours.”

  Indeed, ethereal mage hands groomed Ayrie’s dark gray wings.

  Like the two clutch-sisters, the rest of the nine sister wing huddled together in the shadow of the tallest building in the encounter challenge.

  Ayrie had learned that the entire area had been a place of learning for Earthian humans on the cusp of adulthood before the spires had gifted their world.

  Their allies had provided a large camouflaged covering of their strange fabric that was not a fabric.

  Ayrie hadn’t understood the difference, nor cared to understand.

  Kayata of Skytooth was the one that fluttered all over the strange objects like a young girl that had just learned to fly and had discovered shiny things.

  “Prepare yourselves, sisters! The sky and battle calls!”

  “I’ve been prepared.” Falrie rolled her eyes. “I’ve been wearing my armor since yesterday. And I’ve developed an itch that no amount of scratching has stopped.”

  Ayrie grinned like a hungry forest stalker. “Perhaps, it is not an itch, but a parasite.”

  Her clutch-sister flicked her on the nose with a mage hand.

  “It’s not parasites.” Falrie tiled her head back to look down her nose at Ayrie. “I am clean. If I recall, it is I who must ever remind you to take care of your hygiene. Ever since we were in the nest.”

  Not that long ago as her people reckoned things.

  Perhaps, ten turnings of their world around its solar life giver.

  “How long have we been on this world, clutch-sister?”

  Falrie closed her eyes. “1025— no! 1026 counting today. Yes. 1026 turnings.”

  Ayrie scratched an itch at the base of her crown feathers with the small spike at the end of her first wingarm bone.

  “Stop that!” Falrie slapped it away with a mage hand. “Use your magic! We don’t want to accidentally draw blood and attract monsters.” She gazed to the sky. “Those are stormwing clouds, if I’m a judge of it.”

  Thick dark clouds gathered unnaturally at the edge of Ayrie’s exceptional vision.

  “They are moving too fast,” she agreed. “Perhaps, we should let the stormwing hunt our enemies?”

  “And get even stiffer in our bubble of silence?” Falrie scoffed. “I think not! We didn’t come to this world to do anything other than earn glory for our Gods.”

  …

  “Listen up, Cupcakes!” Lark barked. “New contract!”

  Her crew cheered.

  They had just completed a handful battling American ground forces and artillery east of their employer’s base.

  All the way to the 605 and into the hills north of Whittier.

  They had backtracked to a neighborhood just south of Whittier Blvd and hid Steel Cupcake inside an abandoned house.

  Had to partially destroy the house, but that was okay since they needed a bit of time to reload, recharge and repair while avoiding harpy attacks on account that they were a bit low on their anti-air stuff.

  “Same deal. Search and destroy. Enemy artillery likely to be somewhere in the vicinity of the Huntington, CIT and PCC.”

  “Uh… boss, not to point this out—”

  “That’s literally what you’re about to do, Veracruz.” She snorted.

  “You’re the one from around here, so, like, we don’t know what all those names and abbreviations mean.”

  “Here!” She punched the coordinates into her console and sent it to their helmets. “Hey, ninjas in the back! You got the new quest?”

  “Yeah, Commander Lark. We’re sticking with you till this is done, remember?”

  The young woman’s voice had a snappish tone.

  Lark figured they didn’t like working with contractors and her crew was, admittedly, a lot more wheeling and dealing like degenerate gamblers than Cruces’ full-time people.

  “Ninjas,” she snorted. “Weird.”

  They weren’t the black pajama-clad ninjas she knew. She had never been into nerd-ass anime shit back in the day. Still wasn’t, but Veracruz made them all watch for ‘research’ purposes. He claimed it was a good idea to understand the capabilities of the people they were working with. She humored him. So, they watched a few episodes. Then she made her crew watch her employer’s fighters do their actual training.

  “Bellaire!” She pounded the crew compartment wall behind Steel Cupcake’s driver for no real reason beyond habit.

  “Jeez, Lark! You don’t have to yell!”

  Technically, true.

  The helmets her employer had given them were so much nicer than their old comms system.

  Crystal clear and they didn’t have to fiddle with a throat mic.

  “Take Rosemead north. Then west on the eastbound side of the 210.”

  “Um…”

  “Turn left on the 210, but stay on the left side.” She sighed. “I want to see if we can catch them with their asses hanging out.” She patted the painted steel interior wall and whispered. “After this, we’ll take a break, girl. I’d say we’ve earned one with how much American ass we’ve kicked.”

  Red 5 had the low position in his squadron’s vertical diamond formation.

  “Stay low and fast. Do not engage harpies. We’ll hit the artillery and use our climb advantage to lose possible pursuit,” Red 1 said.

  “Copy.”

  They stayed subsonic, but 20 kilometers still went by in a flash.

  “Scanning for targets—”

  Incoming fire alerts in Red 5’s HUD shut Red 1 up.

  No time to shout for evasive maneuvers.

  Not that it was necessary.

  Dark smoke bloomed in their path.

  Red 1 had no choice to go through the flak with shields flashing.

  Red 13 had the high position, so he peeled right, while Red 2 in the trailing position went left.

  Red 5 hit the deck, skimming close enough to reach out and touch the power lines if his limbs weren’t locked into optimal flight position by his suit’s exoskeleton.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Monsters on the street snapped their attention toward him, but he was gone before they could even think to leap or spit or shoot spines or whatever.

  “Watch out! Something else is incoming!” Red 1 said.

  “Is that a beehive?” Red 13 said.

  Red 5 looked up and zoomed in.

  An object spun in the dark sky.

  It did resemble a large bee hive.

  Except translucent.

  “There’s stuff inside!” he warned.

  “Could you be more— holy shit!” Red 13 yelped.

  The hive-like object burst open with a series of disorienting light flashes, like a party strobe.

  “It’s bees!”

  Red 5 refined the zoom.

  Less bees and more like wasps.

  A spreading swarm of brass and clockwork wasps.

  “I don’t like the look of that glow in their thorax,” Red 13 said.

  “Abdomens,” Red 2 corrected.

  “Their headed your way, Red 13,” Red 1 said.

  “It’s fine. I’ll use my ice cone gem.” Red 13 opened his flight suit’s wings to full extension, cutting flight speed and straightening to bring the magic gems embedded in his body armor to bear.

  Red 5 watched the white cone fire, catching the swarm and sending many plummeting to the street.

  “Got some! Going up for a pass.” Red 13’s engine whined as he gained altitude.

  “Stay low, Red 13!” Red 1 warned.

  “Right after I take care of the r—”

  Red 13 vanished into red mist a split-second before they heard the loud crack.

  “What was that!” Red 2 screamed.

  Red 5 caught a glint in the street light.

  One of Red 13’s straight wings lay on the ground, scorched and blackened on one end.

  “Touch street!”

  Red 5 swept his wings back to turn himself into a dagger cutting through the air as he dived even lower.

  “They’re on me!” Red 2 cried. “Activating electric field! Shit! Ineffective! Oh god! They’re cutting through my suit!”

  Her shriek cut through Red 5.

  Red 1’s voice cut calmly through the sound of agony.

  “Red 5 are you clear of Red 2.”

  “Yes!”

  “Red 2, use your EMP.”

  “I did! It didn’t work! Oh god! I can feel them drilling into me!”

  “Use anti-magic burst.”

  Red 2 shrieked the words.

  He kept one eye on her erratic flight path and one eye on his HUD for more enemy shots.

  “Wasps are dropping. You’re fine, Red 2.” Red 1 was a cool as the other side of the pillow. “Can you still feel them moving?”

  “I— I don’t think so.”

  “Status report.”

  Red 2 hyperventilated.

  “I’ve got metal wasps inside my legs. Lost all my magic systems.” She cursed. “I really don’t want to use the healing gel.”

  She had a fair point.

  It would’ve sealed the wasps in and healed around them. Would be a pain to cut them out again after she returned to base.

  “You need to do it, Red 2. You’re bleeding out.”

  That was a better point.

  “Fuck! Okay!” Red 2 gasped with relief. “There. Let’s get back on mission.”

  They approached the city college with frightening quickness.

  Luckily, no more follow up attacks by whomever took out Red 13.

  Red 5 thought about his squad mate's family before punching it out of his thoughts.

  Distraction killed.

  “Targets detected.”

  Red 1 divided the three self-propelled artillery vehicle.

  One for each of them.

  Red 5 swept his suit’s wings forward to give him more maneuverability to skim the sides of the college’s large buildings.

  His radar caught his biggest threats before he saw them.

  Harpies dived from the rooftops with barely the sound of ruffled feathers.

  They opened up with razor feathers, then followed with attack spells.

  Their version of magic missile, which was a flock of glowing birds in a rainbow of colors with elemental and other other aspects.

  He took hits on his shields, keeping an eye on the rapidly draining bar in the corner of his HUD.

  “Dead Air.”

  “Silent Vortex.”

  “Turbulence Sphere.”

  Spells or Skills?

  He couldn’t tell not that it mattered which they were.

  They had him dead to rights.

  “I Fly As Steady As My Nerves.”

  He cut through their shit with barely a wobble.

  Take that chirping birds! He thought. Made you waste them!

  He cleared a parking structure and sighted his target.

  “Target locked. Firing.”

  Minimissiles kicked out from the slim launcher pods that hugged the outside contours of his lower legs.

  The size of foot-long hot dogs.

  Their thrusters glowed bright in his vision.

  Air to ground.

  Armor-piercing tip to deliver the high explosive payload inside a hard target.

  He had fired all 12.

  Six for the self-propelled artillery vehicle.

  Six split among the escorting Humvees.

  Wings swept back and he flashed over the enemy in a split-second, leaving burning wrecks in his wake.

  Too far to see the soldiers that somehow survived crawl or fall out of their burning tombs only to die on the asphalt.

  “Target down!” He failed to keep the exhilaration out of his voice. How many soldiers had he just killed? “Harpies on my six. I count five.”

  “Missed mine.” Red 2 sounded on the verge of tears. “Anti-air defenses too strong. I took damage. Had to pull away.”

  “Target down,” Red 1 said. “I’ll circle around to yours, Red 2. Provide cover. Then we’ll swing around to deal with the harpies.”

  Red 5 ate ground fast, finding himself near the freeway to the north.

  Sudden tentacles lashed out from the shadows of an alley!

  They tore, but not before fouling his flight.

  He rolled and scraped the street with the back of his flight pack, which contained the main power source and thruster engine.

  Rolling again he pushed off the street with more sparks from his armored gloves.

  Loss of speed, loss of life.

  The harpies caught up without having to use their speed spells and Skills.

  He fired chaff as he approached the freeway and went into the shadowed underpass.

  Glowing eyes surrounded him as he swept his suit’s wings to its maximum forward position and unlocked his legs in order to sweep them forward.

  Boot thrusters fired and he executed a nearly complete stop 180 with minimal stress on the suit and moderate stress on his insides despite the safety systems, like the inertial dampener and active compression.

  The harpies squawked in anger as they flew over the freeway and didn’t notice he was headed back toward the college until he was halfway there.

  He laughed.

  Birdbrains hadn’t seen that coming.

  “Target down,” Red 13 said.

  “Nice, Red Leader! I’m bringing the party back to you.”

  “Take this flight path.”

  Red 5 raised his brows at the projection Red 1 had sent to his HUD.

  “Do not deviate a centimeter. You don’t want to even skim the Kynnro Sphere.”

  Yeah, no shit.

  “That’s really, really close to the roof. If there are any obstacles you haven’t accounted for…”

  “Red 2 scanned it. Stick to the flight path and you’ll be fine.”

  “Copy that.” He failed to inject even a modicum of enthusiasm into his response.

  Hits on his shields sounded like sharp rain on a metal roof.

  The bar in his HUD kept dropping.

  An air conditioning unit blew up, showering him with shrapnel.

  A pair of streaks high above zoomed by as he hit the edge of the roof.

  Red 5 cut his thrust, pitched his body forward until he looked straight to the ground and engaged thrust.

  He rolled to his back, swept his wings forward and skimmed the ground.

  Glittering stars filled the space over the buildings edge from one side to the other.

  In the center a hand-sized ball spun, spitting red lines of light that bounced back and forth between the hundreds of tiny mirrors.

  It always amazed him how the tech worked so that none of the lasers fired outside of the sphere.

  The lead harpies were too close to change flight path.

  One appeared to use a Skill that killed her speed, but momentum carried her through the Kynnro Sphere.

  Two plowed straight through the laser net.

  Magic shields and body Skills made them last longer than he expected, but only chunks and red rain made it out the other side.

  He dodged harpy pieces.

  Part of a head clipped his boots.

  Sparks flew as he scraped the asphalt.

  Three harpies remained, winging their way around the dying laser sphere.

  “Watch out.”

  Red 5 cleared the corner of a building into a buzzsaw of glowing talons and razor-edged feathers at the same time as Red 1’s warning reached him.

  The harpy sunk her talons into his chest armor and one thigh.

  It felt like hot pincers crushing his leg past armor and padding.

  She had bypassed his shield.

  Skill or magic?

  It didn’t really matter much to him, did it?

  Thin, flexible armor on his limbs was a necessity to save weight and give him a better thrust-to-weight ratio in exchange for weaker protection.

  Large black eyes peered down at him through helmet eye holes.

  Sharp, white teeth flashed through the narrow, vertical helmet slit.

  She looked a lot closer to human from up close and in person.

  “Wind Boost!”

  His systems minimized the sudden lurch and crushing G-forces as the harpy shot straight up like a launched rocket with a single mighty flap.

  He saw the harpies waiting high in the sky.

  The rest of their wing.

  They were going to tear him apart like a soft, furry mammal.

  He activated the force gem, shoving the harpy off him.

  Pain flashed as her talons ripped from his flesh.

  The gem’s faint, inner light died.

  One shot.

  Bad news on his HUD.

  The harpies talons had destroyed most of the attack gems embedded in his chest armor.

  Massive blood loss from his thigh. Possible artery damage.

  Healing gel filled the holes.

  His vision dimmed.

  His head spun.

  “Pull up, Red 5,” Red 1 said.

  Dark sky, dark ground.

  Each kept popping up in his vision.

  “Automatic Stabilization,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Assigning targets. Bogeys one through eight,” Red 1 said.

  “Copy,” Red 2 replied.

  “Red 5, you have to climb so that we can get out here.”

  “Trying.”

  His HUD showed two harpies on his six above him and one coming in high and hot from dead ahead.

  A rain of razor feathers joined the brewing storm.

  The shield bar continued to shrink.

  “Lay chaff, Red 2. Shackle Switch.”

  “Missiles out! Splash one!”

  “Shields at 35%.”

  The dogfight was punctuated by short, clipped tones and words.

  Economical communication was all they had time for.

  Bright colored flashes lit up the dark night.

  “Ready Kynnro sphere.”

  “Copy.”

  “Shackle Switch.”

  Red 5 liked to think he could smell the stench of burning feathers to accompany the red flash in the distance.

  “Hitting them with the ice. Missed. Follow me, Red 2. Immelmann. Then inverted stall turn. You break left.”

  “Copy!”

  The harpies had used speed boosts to keep up with the superior climbing speed of the flight suits. They couldn’t cut their boosts to avoid overshooting.

  Red 2 unlocked her arm from flight position and fired a burst of projectiles from her arm-mounted recoilless gun.

  “Splash another! Bogey 3 down!”

  Red 1’s tracking magic missiles knocked out Bogey 7’s magic shields.

  He finished her off with a burst from his recoilless gun.

  “Splash one. Link up. Let’s help Red 5 while we’ve got distance from the rest.”

  “Copy. Moving to your—” Red 2 screamed.

  Lightning flashed to reveal her plummeting.

  A harpy ripped talons into her flight pack while slashing razor-sharp feathers across her wings.

  “Help!”

  “Missiles away.”

  Goddamn!

  Red 1 was one cool bastard.

  Inflection hadn’t changed once.

  The harpy vanished within a blooming fireball.

  “Status, Red 2?”

  Her breaths came in rapid gasps.

  “Suit’s dead! No power! I’m going down.”

  “Breathe, pilot. You still have wings. Point yourself south and glide for as long as you can. You will not go down out here.”

  The fight had taken them far over the San Gabriel Mountains. A yawning expanse of black that hid monsters and mutant animals.

  “Remember your training. Evade and hide. Rescue will come get you.”

  “Copy.”

  “Good. I’ll keep them off you.”

  Red 5 slipped the harpy trap at the cost of his shield power.

  “Red Leader. I’m headed your way. Bringing three to the party.”

  “Looks like the guest of honor decided to finally show up.”

  “What?”

  Red 1 sent coordinates to his HUD.

  Enhanced visual modes in their helmets cut through the dark cloud to reveal a huge shape headed toward them fast.

  “That just sucks.”

  Harpies to the south.

  A thunderbird to the north.

  At least the wild drakes and other monsters that lived in the mountains hadn’t decided to join the party.

  He supposed it made sense with what was on its way.

  “Follow me and ready your lightning sinks.”

  Red 1 shot straight into the clouds toward the thunderbird.

  Red 5 stayed within the envelope of his leader’s air wake to avoid turbulence.

  There was already enough from the whipping wind.

  Rain fell like bullets on his helmet’s lenses.

  “The storm’s already this bad and it’s still a ways off.”

  “Not that far at our closing speeds.” Red 1 sounded like he was strolling through the park on a warm, sunny morning. “My radar’s malfunctioning. Too much interference in the storm.”

  “Same here.”

  “Can you get a visual on our pursuers?”

  Red 5 looked down.

  “Got eyes on three.”

  It was hard even with all his visual aids.

  “We’ll level off at 3000 meters and head for the thunderbird. Adjusting as necessary.”

  The giant bird monsters tended to fly anywhere from that altitude to more than double when they cruised or brought their storms to attack stationary targets.

  “When it starts shooting I’ll launch the first lightning sink. You get the next. We alternate until we’re out or in attack position. I’ll distract it while you put your Kynnro Sphere across its face. Twin scissors. Understand?”

  “Copy that.”

  “Now, get level on my three and put your wings in max speed mode. Going supersonic.”

  Main thrusters screamed along with boot thrusters.

  The air boomed in their wake.

  Red 5 loved this part of flying more than anything else.