The sirens didn't scream, they shrieked, ripping through the camp like blades.
Aiden was halfway through pulling on his boots when the ground trembled.
Mess kits clattered off tables.
The tents shook as if something massive had landed nearby.
At first, no one moved.
No one understood.
Then the loudspeaker crackled.
"ALERT. ALERT. ENEMY UNITS APPROACHING. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. REPEAT — THIS IS NOT A DRILL."
The world snapped into chaos.
Recruits shoved out of their tents, half-dressed, half-awake, fully terrified.
Some carried rifles.
Some didn't.
Some ran barefoot.
Aiden grabbed his rifle, heart pounding, hands trembling as he slammed in the magazine.
A drill sergeant stormed into the clearing, face contorted with fury and fear.
"LINE UP! RIFLES UP! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!"
"What's happening?!" Sarah cried, stumbling beside Aiden.
"They're here," Parker whispered, voice breaking.
Ellis stared at the sky, eyes wide. "Oh God… they're really here…"
The sergeant's roar shook the air.
"SHUT UP AND FOLLOW ORDERS! YOU WANT TO LIVE? DO WHAT I SAY!"
More tremors.
Then a sound like metal screaming across stone.
Aiden felt the hair rise on his neck.
Something was coming.
Something wrong.
The first alien drone burst over the ridge like a metallic wasp the size of a motorcycle.
It hovered, scanning a red sensor sweeping across the camp.
Someone shouted, "DRONE! DRONE!"
Aiden saw it locking onto the cluster of recruits.
It aimed.
Everything slowed.
Aiden raised his rifle out of instinct, though it was hopeless.
But before the drone could fire...
a burst of machine-gun fire shredded the air.
Two instructors appeared from behind a barricade, unloading their LMGs in a furious hail.
The drone exploded mid-air, raining burning shards across the camp.
The sergeant screamed, "THAT'S ONE! MORE INCOMING!"
And the hillside lit up.
Four drones.
Then eight.
Then more dozens, swarming like a storm of steel.
One instructor shouted into a radio.
"Command, this is Fort Carson Training Sector! We are under—GET DOWN!"
A beam sliced clean through his chest.
He fell without a sound.
Sarah screamed.
Parker dropped to his knees, paralyzed.
Aiden grabbed him by the vest and pulled him behind a sandbag wall as another beam lit the ground where Parker had been.
"MOVE!" Aiden shouted. "YOU WANT TO LIVE?! MOVE!"
The System flickered violently.
[Combat-triggered response activated.]
[Neural acceleration increasing—]
[DANGER. DANGER. EVASIVE ACTION REQUIRED.]
Aiden barely understood the words.
He just moved.
He shoved Parker and Ellis ahead, firing blindly over the barricade.
Bullets pinged uselessly off a drone's armor.
The drone turned toward him, charging a shot.
Aiden froze—
Then something slammed into the drone from the side a Humvee, barreling out of nowhere, flipping the drone and skidding into a tent.
Smoke erupted.
The vehicle burned.
Aiden's ears rang from the explosion.
He scrambled to his feet, dragging the others.
Sergeants screamed orders over gunfire:
"SPREAD OUT! DON'T CLUMP!"
"MOVE TO SECONDARY COVER!"
"IF YOU FREEZE, YOU DIE!"
Recruits scattered in every direction.
Some ran.
Some fired wildly.
Some just cowered.
One recruit bolted past Aiden, sprinting into the open.
A drone tracked him instantly.
The beam hit him center mass.
He disintegrated in a flash of red.
Sarah vomited where she stood.
Ellis screamed, "OH GOD—OH GOD—" before Aiden tackled him behind a crate.
"DON'T LOOK!" Aiden shouted. "DON'T LOOK AT ANYTHING!"
But he'd seen it.
They all had.
And the drones kept coming.
A group of alien infantry emerged from the treeline tall, armored, moving with terrible precision.
One raised its rifle toward a cluster of recruits...
A drill sergeant leapt from behind a vehicle firing a shotgun straight into its helmet.
The alien staggered but didn't fall.
The sergeant pumped another round the alien collapsed.
He turned to the recruits.
"YOU WANT TO LIVE? SHOOT SMART! AIM FOR JOINTS AND NECK! STAY LOW!"
A beam pierced his shoulder, spinning him sideways.
He roared in pain but kept firing.
The recruits followed him, shaking, terrified, but firing.
Aiden raised his rifle, sights shaking as he tried to track an alien drone.
His breath was ragged, his heart in his throat.
The System buzzed hard.
[Adjust grip.]
[Steady breath.]
[Compensate for recoil—NOW.]
Aiden squeezed the trigger.
One bullet hit nothing.
Second bullet grazed the drone's side.
The third..
Sparked off a joint.
The drone jerkingly fell, crashing into the mud.
Aiden stared numbly.
He'd actually hit it.
He didn't get to process it.
Because a beam scorched the ground inches from his hand.
He rolled instinctively, landing on his shoulder. Pain shot through him like lightning.
Behind him, Ellis wasn't fast enough.
A drone shot him in the back the blast tore him open.
"ELLIS!" Sarah screamed, crawling toward him.
Aiden grabbed her by the arm. "NO! NO! HE'S GONE! MOVE!"
"He's breathing—he's—"
Ellis wasn't breathing.
He wouldn't ever breathe again.
Sarah sobbed violently but Aiden dragged her behind the ruined Humvee as another beam incinerated the spot where they'd been.
More instructors arrived, firing coordinated bursts.
Missiles launched from the main compound.
Machine guns thundered from mounted turrets.
Slowly, painfully, the alien drones started dropping.
But not without taking lives.
The ground was littered with bodies human and alien alike.
Recruits huddled behind debris, shaking uncontrollably.
When the final drone fell, the battlefield went silent except for the crackle of fires and the choked sobbing of the young recruits.
Aiden sank to his knees, trembling.
His hands were shaking too hard to hold his rifle.
Blood not his streaked across his arms.
The System spoke softly.
[User performance exceeded baseline expectations.]
[Adrenal overload decaying.]
[Recommend rest… if possible.]
Aiden didn't answer.
Parker dropped beside him, staring at the remains of Ellis, face pale, horrified.
"We're not ready…" he whispered. "We're not ready for this…"
Aiden swallowed hard.
"No," he said hoarsely. "We're not."
He looked out at the smoking battlefield the broken tents, the dead instructors, the burned bodies of people who'd been alive minutes ago.
"But we have to be."
He forced himself to stand, body shaking, tears burning in his eyes.
Sarah sobbed uncontrollably, but Aiden pulled her into a hug, holding her as she shook.
The camp was half-destroyed.
The recruits were traumatized.
The instructors were dead or bleeding.
This wasn't a warning.
This was a message.
The aliens had found them.
And they wanted to break them before humanity could stand.
Aiden looked at the bodies.
At the terrified recruits.
At the burning hills.
At the sky where more drones might be watching.
And something inside him hardened.
"We fight," he whispered. "No matter what."
The System flickered.
[Phase Three will unlock soon.]
[Condition: Survive one more engagement.]
Aiden's jaw clenched.
"Then bring it," he whispered.
Distant explosions rang across the horizon.
Night was coming.
And so were the aliens.