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  She nodded, still pouting, “I know.”

  Pitr closed his eyes, a little relieved that he’d managed to deflect from her more bratty persona this time. To call Tessa bi-polar would be massively underestimating how many ‘polarities’ she had, but sometimes knowing that was enough to allow him to redirect her emotional swings.

  Most times, however, it was not.

  “Come on, let’s get Malcolm and find a few of the others, see what they’ve been up too tonight.” Pitr said, gesturing as another tear opened in the air.

  “OK.”

  He held the portal for her, then stepped through behind her and closed it behind them, leaving an empty room behind for the owners to return to whenever.

  *****

  Chapter 12

  It was time.

  Everything was in place, the permissions given, and the experiment complete.

  The chaos was now amusing, a way to pass the time, but there were more important things to accomplish. The probe checked the final calculations again, just to be thorough, before it began the last operation it would make on this blighted world.

  The world communications were indicating another upswing in violence and chaos, this time projected to climb higher than the previous peak that had been dampened by the odd dual edged nature of the fighting. That was good, and should be indicative of a long term trend if everything had been calculated properly.

  There may be dips in the climb, but so long as the peaks continued to grow, the effect would be the same as an even projected increase.

  The probe felt almost… reluctant about ending the experiment.

  So much fascinating information had been gleaned here on this unimportant world, information that would be used to annihilate life across the galaxy. The convocation ironically now owed something of a debt of gratitude to the infection that existed here.

  It was a pity to stop experimenting, to stop learning what could be found out here, but that was the nature of the duty.

  The life infection had to be destroyed, wherever it might be.

  Every day wasted here was another day that the infection could take hold and perhaps doom another stellar system as this one had been.

  So, the probe initiated the final operation and began to leave its position.

  *****

  USSOCOM Bunker, Virginia

  The NRO analysts paled as he saw the numbers, his fingers dancing on the keyboard in front of him as he tried to confirm or deny as quickly as he could.

  “Sirs! Ma’am!” He called a few seconds later. “We have a problem!”

  Pierson crossed the room so fast that she might as well have had super powers, at his side like she’d teleported there.

  “What is it, did we find the teleporters?” She demanded.

  “No Ma’am, but it looks like the target is moving.”

  She flinched, eyes darting to the screen that was tracking the interference pattern put out by their target. Suer enough, it was doing exactly what the analyst had said. It was moving.

  “Not good,” She ground out. “ETA on the Blackbird?”

  “They’re slowing to refuel over the channel,” He said, “That procedure will take twenty minutes, minimum.”

  “How much do they have in their tanks?” The Air Force General asked from the side.

  He checked quickly, “A little under forty thousand pounds, Sir.”

  “Half a load.”

  “About that, yes.”

  “Alright, put me on with them,” The General said, “I’m going to authorize that they skip fueling. Pierson, get your man up to speed.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  *****

  Berlin

  “Hale.”

  The Marine paused in mid-air, tapping his earpiece.

  “You got me, Pierson. What’s up?”

  “Mission specs just changed. The target is on the move.”

  Hale swore, eyes sweeping the empty skies automatically.

  “What do you need?”

  “Sled is inbound, they’re skipping the last refuel point,” Pierson said, “but we need to delay the move if possible. I don’t know, honestly, you’re on site, so do what you can.”

  “Do what I…?” Hale trailed off, slightly disbelieving. “I can’t even see the damn thing, Colonel. I don’t know what the hell I could possibly do.”

  He didn’t, either. The situation was one of those where he had little to no idea what he could do, and that just chafed him all wrong. He normally always had at least some idea of options, even if they were all bad options.

  Hale growled, “Do we have a position?”

  “It’s still directly overhead, but beginning to move to the North.”

  Hale looked up, turning slightly to the North, considering the options he could think of. None of them were bad exactly, but only because they were too stupid to be considered.

  Oh, fuck it.

  “Alright, one delaying action coming right up,” Hale said, reaching up to kill the channel.

  “Captain? Hale! What do you-”

  He killed the channel, there was really no amount of explaining that was going to make this remotely sensible anyway.

  *****

  USSOCOM Bunker, Virginia

  “Damn it, Hale!” Pierson swore as she set down her phone, eyes drifting to the video stream that had the Captain front and center.

  Apparently more than one of the cameras in the area had been tasked with just following the Marine whenever at all possible, and they had several good shots of him from different angles as he just floated there over the city.

  Because of the delay, Pierson watched him pause and answer her call. There was no sound to speak of, of course, but she knew the conversation anyway and could follow it. When he killed the channel and looked up, she had a sinking feeling.

  His fists tightened at his sides as he seemed to focus on something she knew he couldn’t see, then he lifted them out ahead of him and abruptly vanished in a literal puff of smoke or, in this case, a vapor cone.

  The Cameras tilted up, trying in vain to follow him, but the night sky was dark enough that for a long moment there was no sign… and then a flash of white light erupted, turning night into day and blinding the cameras while their software fought hard to keep up with the changing light.

  A delayed crack of a sonic boom followed, then an earsplitting explosion that shook everything in Berlin, including the cameras.

  “Shit,” She swore. “Better tell the Sled Drivers, General, the enemy has been engaged.”

  God damn Marines.

  *****

  Berlin

  Slamming into an invisible object while moving hypersonic was… unpleasant.

  Hale bounced, though not nearly as much as he’d been half afraid he would, a blinding flash of light accompanying the sound of his impact. He freefell a couple thousand feet before he got his vision fully back, then pulled out of the fall and looked up again.

  Yes!

  He could actually see the results of the attack, which meant that he could see the target. Now he’d like to see that damn thing try to get away from him. At least he could actually give chase, if it came to that.

  Hale started flying upward again, intent on hitting it a second time, when the cloaking field or whatever the hell was hiding the thing faded suddenly away.

  It looked like little more than a giant jellyfish, complete with tentacles that he now could see swinging in his direction.

  Hale dodged one, looping under another, then accelerated up again only to be blocked by a third.

  The damn thing is way faster than it looks.

  Faster, in fact, than something that size had any damn right to be.

  Hale was struck by a very surreal feeling as he looped around a swinging tentacle, working his way upwards as fast as he could.

  He was over Berlin, fighting a giant tentacle monster, while neo-nazi and Islamic gangs rioted in the streets below.

  If it weren’t for the fact that I
don’t have an imagination anywhere near this screwed up, I’d think I was dreaming.

  He worked his way closer to the iridescent… hull? Body? Honestly, he wasn’t sure what it was, but he didn’t really care either. Once he got close enough, well he didn’t have any weapons to use so he balled up his fists and started wailing on the thing as hard as he could.

  Every punch was accompanied by a paired set of sounds, first the crack of his fists shattering the sound barrier, and then the utterly incomparable sound of his flesh and bone striking… whatever it was made of.

  He was having trouble with that too, since it didn’t feel like metal or anything he’d imagined it might, but it wasn’t as soft as it might have been either given the jellyfish looks. There was give to the surface, but not like anything he’d ever touched. It was alien in a way he couldn’t describe, and knew he would never, ever, forget.

  Focused on hammering away at the thing, Hale missed the tentacle swinging up to wrap itself around him.

  A blast of… electricity maybe? Something else possibly, he wasn’t sure, but it felt like he’d stuck his tongue in a thunder cloud while calling Zeus a pussy. Then he was flying free as the tentacle slung him away into the night.

  Ow.

  *****

  Blue Solar HQ, London

  The Whiskey glass was cracked, resting on the floor where Wesley had dropped it after he cut his hand on the shards. His assistant was wrapping a bandage around the cut, but he wasn’t paying any attention. His focus was entirely on the screen.

  It was back.

  He knew it would be, of course. Nothing and no one put as much investment into whatever the hell that was as they clearly had and just used it once, but seeing it again was like being dunked in ice water.

  Wesley could feel the same helplessness that had near drowned him in Hong Kong, it swept over him again, everything he could do… everything could buy… none of it meant a damn thing. As he watched the screen, everything was on the shoulders of a single man he’d never even heard of until a short time ago… and he was forced to put his trust in that unknown, hoping against hope that everything would turn out.

  That was unconscionable!

  “Sir, you probably need stitches…”

  “Call a nurse in, I’m not going anywhere,” Wesley said, eyes still on the screen.

  “Yes sir.”

  The announcers and talking heads were going insane on every channel and feed he could find. None of them had anything worthwhile to say, however, so he killed the volume and just watched the feeds.

  God that thing is fast.

  He knew the Marine was capable of hypersonic flight, and acceleration that was almost certainly measured in the tens, if not hundreds, of gravities. He seemed to go from zero to flat out almost instantly, though there were few real metrics available to judge it by and the available video was insufficient to properly measure it.

  The important thing was that Wesley was well aware that the Marine was fast as hell, but this thing was keeping up while playing defense and even landing some return blows.

  Wesley grimaced as the Marine was wrapped in one of the tentacles, then tossed absently away in an arc that the cameras followed until it intersected with a building in Berlin. The Marine slammed through one of the upper floors and vanished from sight within.

  That had to hurt, I don’t care who you are.

  Wesley hoped that wasn’t the entirety of the defense they had against whatever that thing was, because if it was then they were all screwed.

  *****

  Berlin

  Hale lifted the bathtub off himself, shifting it to one side as he got to his knees.

  “That sucked.” He groaned.

  His ears were ringing, but he could hear someone speaking as though from a long way off. Blinking dust from his eyes, he saw a woman in the door of the bathroom, screaming something while holding a plunger.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Hale groaned, “Really sorry.”

  He slowly got to his feet, feeling a little wobbly as his hearing returned, and he leaned slightly to look at the hole he’d just come through that lead out into a hallway from the looks of it, then through another apartment on the other side. He could see the dark of the night sky at the end of the passage he’d made.

  I really hope I didn’t hit anyone on the way through.

  He lifted off the ground slightly, causing another screaming session that he ignored as he flew out through the hole in the wall into the hall, getting looks from people who’d come out to see what the hell had just happened. He didn’t have time to deal with them, though, so he continued out the way he’d come in, holding his speed down until he got outside.

  Once he was far enough from the building, Hale accelerated back to hypersonic and threw himself back into the fight.

  The target was still moving North, and gaining altitude, but that was fine. He didn’t want to keep it over Berlin, he just wanted to keep it within strike range long enough.

  Just… long enough.

  *****

  The attack came as a surprise.

  The probe was confused, that was twice that it’s cloaking field had been seen through somehow. The first might have been an accident of sorts, a fluke perhaps due to the sheer number of parameters being jungled during that observation.

  This time, however, it seemed like a single entity had somehow discovered it and decided it was a threat. In that one attack, it had caused more damage than all of the weapons launched on it in the previous incident.

  That would bear consideration.

  This species was dangerous enough before it’s changes were implemented, but somehow the changes allowed them to tap far more power than calculations had indicated. This was a net positive for the experiment, but it did place the probe in a certain degree of danger while it remained within the reach of the inhabitants of the infected world.

  Calculations were made. A decision was reached.

  The experiment was concluded, it was time to deploy the final component and leave. Small observer relays would be placed to ensure that the world did not become a threat to the convocation before an elimination fleet could be dispatched.

  In the meantime, the probe would take satisfaction from new data acquired and an successful experiment brought to it’s ultimate conclusion. Uncountable lifeforms would meet their end in large part to what had been learned here.

  It was a good operation.

  The probe’s thoughts were jarred by another attack from below, rocking the entire mass of the probe.

  It twisted its perception, finding that the same being had struck it again.

  That was… annoying.

  It should have been disabled for much longer, at the very least, even if the last attack had not been sufficient to eliminate the individual.

  Initiate Countermeasures. Level Two.

  *****

  Hale rocketed back, avoiding swipes of the tentacles as he tried to judge the effectiveness of his attacks.

  It was hard to judge, the thing didn’t seem to have any actual fuselage or a hull or anything. The iridescent structure that made up the body of the target had some give to it that absorbed his blows, but he felt like he was causing some damage. It seemed that it probably wouldn’t be so intent on smacking him away if he hadn’t, though he couldn’t tell if he were doing something on the order of a kinetic missile… or a mosquito.

  It didn’t matter, however. If he were a mosquito, well then he was going to buzz in that things ear until he drove it completely insane.

  Hale was preparing for another pass when one of the tentacles suddenly glowed and every instinct in his mind screamed dodge!.

  So he did.

  A crackling beam of blue green energy tore through the air he had been occupying, and scorched down on the city below. The destruction made Hale blanch as he realized that hundreds had just died, at a minimum. He twisted to look at the target again, fists balling up at his side, and then in a flicker of motion that left a c
ondensation cone behind him, he was on the attack again.

  *****

  Chapter 13

  Berlin

  Tess bolted upright, shaken out of her angry funk by the entire world seeming to rumble around her.

  “What the hell was that!?” She swore, looking around.

  Pitr checked the window, but didn’t see anything really strange.

  “I don’t know,” He said, walking back to the TV. “Let’s see what the news has to say.”

  The major network channel was focusing on the Marine, of course, so he started to flip over to something more local when the image shifted slightly and he froze, a cold chill going through him.

  “What the fuck…”

  “What? What is it?”

  Pitr ignored Tessa’s question, tossing the remote on the bed and rushed back to the window. This time he stuck his head out and turned to look up.

  “Oh sweet jesus…”

  “What is… the fuck?” Tessa trailed off as she stared at the TV. “Are you seeing this?”

  “Seeing it? It’s right above us!”

  Tessa snapped around, “It’s What?”

  “Right above us, Fraulein,” Pitr confirmed grimly as he backed away from the window.

  “Roof, now.”

  Pitr grimaced, but gestured to open a portal to the roof of the building. The pair moved through, automatically looking up as they stepped into the open air. The great big thing was just floating there, like it somehow didn’t violate every law of nature imaginable.

  There were flashes, visible to the naked eye but only just such that they couldn’t make out the source. Pitr scowled, gesturing impatiently to open another tear. It appeared in front of them, and through it they examined the creature up close.

  “Nothing human built that, Pitr,” Tessa said with certainty.

  That was a point that Pitr had no response for, it was a patently obvious statement in his opinion. Through the portal they watched as the Marine engaged the… creature? Machine? Neither seemed quite right, yet both were closer to than felt comfortable. In any case, the American was throwing quite a beating at the thing, right up until it flung him through a building.