Thariel hadn’t moved in at least five minutes, since President Carthage began exchanging words with him. Thariel didn’t shift his weight at all. He didn’t gesture. He was like a statue of war.

  The air grew colder. The wind howled restlessly through the evacuated streets stuffed with murmuring soldiers. Everything felt wrong. John’s instincts frayed from a dozen battlefield encounters across four different planets. Sometimes instinct leaches to you like an inescapable feeling. Once it reared its ugly and evil head, there was no unlearning it. Those close counters, all the tension, the frantic eyes, the screams, he felt the same energy—that bad feeling.

  President Carthage craned his neck to speak with the titan. Thariel exchanged some words which rang out, unclear and distorted from that distance. They debated something. Thariel raised his voice. President Carthage stomped his foot. It didn’t feel like a negotiation. It felt like an argument.

  That’s the moment it all fell apart.

  Figures emerged in the sky behind Thariel. One black mechanoid appeared. Then another. The nine black armored Hyperions descended like war dogs stationing themselves for a raid. Each Hyperion touched down in Central Park behind their leader. Their armor shimmered black. The mist dissipated against their weapons, giant cannons like from a battleship. The grass beneath their thruster packs blackened into ash. Trees nearby cracked at the roots. Every marine surrounding the park raised their weapons, but nobody fired—not yet.

  Thariel’s voice boomed with unsettling clarity. Everyone in New York City would have heard it. And because of the journalistic drones, everyone in the solar system heard it, too. The sound made John and about half the soldiers in the park drop their perfect stance and cover their ears.

  “Submit,” Thariel said. “Offer your bodies. Serve your role in rebirth. Sacrifice for your gain…for your survival.”

  President Carthage said something. He dropped his head low.

  Thariel’s voice boomed. “Then you choose war.”

  President Carthage stumbled and fell backwards from the intensity of his voice.

  Thariel shifted.

  John’s vision tunneled. His hand found his sidearm. Now. Now. Run. Kill.

  Thariel’s movements were instantaneous.

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  In a flash, he grabbed the hilt of the giant sword on his back, unsheathed it, and then brought the blade down hard.

  “No!” John yelled. He surged forward. He didn’t think. He just moved. He sprinted across the grass. His lungs burned. Bootsteps pounded like war drums in his ears. He raised his 9mm and fired. Pop. Pop. Pop-pop-pop.

  The bullets struck Thariel’s torso and vanished like pebbles in the ocean. His shots had no effect. Thariel didn’t even acknowledge them. There was just pure emptiness in his expression.

  John couldn’t make it to President Carthage in time.

  Thariel’s sword smashed into the earth.

  BOOM.

  A shockwave tore through the ground. Soil exploded in a ring around Thariel. Trees bent. Buildings trembled. Windows shattered. Soldiers screamed and dodged falling debris. John’s feet lifted off the ground. His body slammed backward. The air tore from his lungs. His earpiece exploded with static. He hit the earth like a ragdoll.

  John blinked through dust and pain. His fingers twitched. He still clutched his useless pistol.

  Humanity’s final hour began.

  The Hyperions moved with an infuriating grace. They were deliberate, curious, and devastating. They never registered John’s resistance.

  The order came from somewhere—shouted into radios, screamed over comms. It may have been shouted by God. “Open fire!”

  Chaos erupted in Central Park.

  Tanks roared. The ground shook with the recoil of heavy cannon fire. Artillery shells arced from the edge of the park and struck the Hyperions dead-center. Flashes of orange fire bloomed like desperate flowers. A storm of missiles screamed down from circling attack helicopters. Gunships buzzed low and spat tungsten rounds in furious bursts.

  The Hyperions remained standing and unfazed and unscratched.

  Another round of explosions engulfed the Hyperions in rolling fire and shrapnel as John hastily crawled across the lawn careful not to rise. Shrapnel soared overhead.

  The smoke cleared.

  The Hyperions stood. Untouched.

  One of the Hyperions in the back tilted its head, almost amused.

  Thariel stepped forward.

  John tried standing, but his back screamed with pain and dust filled his lungs. He collapsed and rolled onto his side. Blood oozed from his lip where he’d bitten on impact.

  He watched as one of the Hyperions raised its cannon. The tip of its barrel pulsed with a bright green light. It vaporized fifty soldiers.

  “No…” John whispered.

  The Hyperions unfolded their blades. They moved in perfect synchronicity. They could have used their cannons…and then John realized…this was fun to them. Earth and its colonies became their apocalyptic playground. And John Drayton lay in the center of it all, completely helpless and doomed.