We estimated it would take six hours to reach Bayonne. Technically we could get there in half that time, but we were being careful. It was gray and overcast as we left Freetown, but grew sunnier the further we went.

Crew 3 had a terrifying moment about a third of the way there. We lived only because of good fortune and quick thinking.

The autopilot took us across a hilly area with steep, cascading drops a little ways off to the right; Beanpole later wondered if it was an ancient quarry grown over with grass. Jan, Miguel, and I were watching for trouble.

The Tripods ahead of us didn't come near any of the cliff tops, but even so, their footsteps made one of the cliffs crumble and fall after they passed. Jan realized the cliffs were not as strong as they looked, and our path cut nearer to them than the others had. He hit the stop switch and told the walkers, "Stay sharp! We might have bad footing."

He was almost in time. Even though we were fifty feet from the cliff, the soft ground began to crumble beneath our middle foot, and the land started sliding to the right. It was happening in slow motion, but we all knew it was about to get very, very fast.

The walkers tried to back up, but we hadn't practiced that! Their feet were out of synchronization. The land beneath us slid away faster, and we started to tilt. It was the end.

But we didn't fall. The rear view screen showed Tripod 1 with two tentacles wrapped around our upper legs.

"Toward us, left leg first, then right, then middle!" came Fritz's amplified voice. "Now!"

Our walkers didn't hesitate. Moving our feet in that pattern backward and to the side, we stepped away from the cliff before it fell completely. Showing superb control, the walkers of Tripod 1 backed up in synchronization while still holding on to us.

We were back on firm ground.

Tripod 1 withdrew its tentacles. His hand shaking, Jan activated the microphone and said, "Thanks, guys."

"Any time," Fritz said. "You need a moment?"

"Yeah." Jan nodded, and looked at the rest of us. "I think we do."

Once we calmed down and gathered ourselves, we resumed, watching ahead more keenly than ever.

 

In some ways, the trip didn't seem to take long at all. In other ways, it took forever. When at last we reached the outskirts of Bayonne, the tension knotted in my stomach.

We proceeded to the center of Bayonne, down empty streets built by the ancients, past their shops with exotic merchandise, past their cars rotted with a century of rust. There was no verbal communication between Tripods; it was loudspeaker silence from this point on.

Tripod 1 lowered a single tentacle, waved it around once, and halted. The rest of us hit our stop switches.

Each crew deployed all tentacles so we could bring them out instantly, but bunched them up beneath and behind the dome so we wouldn't arouse suspicion. We activated all cameras and began recording.

Jan placed a piece of paper on the console and poised to write on it. He held his watch in front of his face and looked out the porthole.

Crews 2 and 5 dropped one tentacle each. These tentacles made slow whipping motions in near synchronization. When they reached the count of five, Jan wrote the time.

Tripods 2 and 5 continued to act in synchronization. Each opened both hatches. Using a tentacle, each crew transferred the bomb they had just armed from their control room to their human room. Each crew closed their control room hatch, while their human room hatch remained opened with their tentacle wrapped around the bomb inside.

We had exactly five minutes from the moment those bombs were armed until detonation.

The next phase was all up to Fritz. He would worry about the time; the rest of us would simply follow his lead. But all captains would still monitor the time, in case anything happened to Tripod 1.

Fritz led us toward the enemy. He moved somewhat slowly, carefully controlling our pace so that we would catch our first sight of the sentry about twenty to thirty seconds before detonation.

The minutes passed. I knew everyone else was as tense as I was.

Four minutes and 34 seconds after the bombs were armed, we rounded a building and there it was: the sentry. It stood between two other buildings, about 250 meters away, exactly as Stefan had drawn it.

Jan activated the radio, lowered his voice, and spoke a single guttural, alien word into it. It was a word Gregory had taught him very carefully. It was supposedly a greeting, but one which carried a connotation roughly equivalent to, Oh good, there you are, we finally found you.

Back in the city, Gregory heard this word and instantly played his recording. We couldn't hear it because our volume was still down, but we had faith it was happening. Right now, the enemy Tripods would be hearing radio chatter greeting them in their own language.

We approached. Tripods 1 and 3 were in the lead, with 2 and 5 just behind and to one side. Tripod 6 brought up the rear. Miguel, Eloise, and I held our sleeves ready. Eloise held the left sleeve; I had the middle.

Two hundred meters to go.

We could now see the activity of the other five enemy Tripods behind the sentry. They were all turning to face us, their bright welding lights fading as they stopped work.

The platform was massive! It was mostly gray, but black in places. I saw the cranes and the blocky protrusions along the top as Stefan had drawn it, but now there were also large rectangular indentations scattered along its hull. These indentations were different sizes and seemed to have been placed randomly.

I didn't have time to notice anything further, as I had to concentrate on the sentry. I couldn't afford to mess this up. One hundred meters.

The sentry still didn't react. Fifty meters. Twenty-five.

Fritz timed it perfectly. Four minutes and 56 seconds after the bombs were armed, we arrived. Jan said, "Now!"

Crews 1 and 3 lashed out with our tentacles and grabbed all three of the sentry's legs near its feet, while crews 2 and 5 pulled the bombs out of their human rooms and flung them over the sentry at the other five Tripods. As the bombs sailed through the air, we pulled on the sentry's legs as hard as we could. It toppled backward.

This had been Crew 2's marvelous idea. They had always been so deft at throwing objects, they reasoned we should put it to use. Crew 6 couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and were just as likely to kill us as to help us, and the rest of us were only mediocre. But Crews 2 and 5 were good enough to pull it off.

The irony is that Crew 2, always so accurate, were the ones who missed! Their bomb went off on a tangent and didn't do any damage. The bomb launched from Tripod 5, however, detonated right next to one of the enemy Tripod domes. It disappeared in an explosion of metal and green air. The bombs blew at the same moment the sentry crashed to the ground, its dome splitting open and green air gushing out of it.

We now outnumbered them five to four. We charged.

They must have been stunned, because it took them a moment to react, during which a couple of our Tripods almost reached the waterfront. But once the enemy recovered their senses, they closed with us, and they were fast. So fast! They'd been using Tripods for decades, whereas we had been using them for two weeks with disadvantages. Their tentacles flew out and tried to grab our legs.

We were ready for that, as that was the obvious attack. We fended their tentacles off, or grabbed their legs, also, so neither could pull the other down.

One enemy Tripod came at Tripod 3 and grabbed our legs faster than we could counter. I whirled my sleeve around my left arm to instruct my tentacle to grab one of their legs in return, and hauled upward as hard as I could. But they had the better angle and we were slowly going down. Eloise and Miguel tried to pull the enemy's tentacles off our legs, but they couldn't get a firm hold because the enemy's third tentacle ran interference.

The enemy Tripod actually kicked at us, and we went down further, and backward, with our portholes starting to point at the sky. My hold on the enemy's leg was the only thing preventing us from plummeting to our deaths. Inside our Tripod, we were at risk of falling onto the back wall, and we had to hop off our crates as they slid backward. Several people went ahead and slid to the back wall safely, but Eloise, Miguel, and I didn't have that luxury.

Eloise's tentacle grabbed another of the enemy's legs up high, which again prevented us from falling too quickly, but we were tilting backward even more now, and accelerating a bit.

Then Tripod 3's legs went out from under us completely and we went horizontal. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jan hit the back wall hard, and Francois crawl to help him.

Miguel, Eloise, and I hung onto our sleeves to keep from falling, hoping they wouldn't pop out of the console. Miguel had not formed a hold with his tentacle so he simply held on. Eloise and I, however, had crucial holds on the enemy's legs and we absolutely could not afford to let those go, so the loops around our arms suddenly took our full weight. The sleeves cut our circulation like tourniquets and hurt like fire, but we grit our teeth and held them in place. We had to.

Our dome was maybe twenty feet off the ground when the enemy raised its foot and brought it down on us. Our holds on the enemy's legs saved Tripod 3 from being slammed into the ground at speed, but our dome was still slowly forced to the ground. It hit somewhat hard. The middle porthole cracked and the console came inward as the enemy's foot started to crush us.

As the enemy ground its foot in our collective face, it actually forced our dome to roll left a little, and I'll always be grateful for that because it allowed Eloise and I to get our feet on the pool between us and the hatch. The insane pressure on our guide arms eased as we took the weight off.

The pool was too far for Miguel, who had nothing but a twenty foot drop if he let go. He could have slid down the sleeve's entire length and dropped the rest of the way safely, but then he'd be out of the fight. I knew he was desperately hoping for a chance to use the sleeve again somehow, because our tentacles were all we had left.

The enemy raised its foot and stomped on us. The impact was stunningly loud and rattled us around, but we hung on.

"Pull their feet!" Eloise said.

We let go of the enemy's upper legs, for there was no more point in hanging on there, and tried to move our tentacles to their feet in an effort to topple them. But we didn't have a proper view of their feet, either through the porthole or through the camera on the underside of the dome. We had to estimate where those feet were, and the enemy, seeing what we were doing, used their tentacles to deny our attempts with ridiculous ease.

The foot that had stomped us descended again. I tried to wrap a tentacle around it, hoping to pull it off target, but an enemy tentacle deflected me without even trying.

That foot slammed into our dome and crushed it further. The porthole above us popped inward and hit Eloise on the head, and her head accidentally protected mine. The porthole bounced off Eloise, brushed the top of my head while pivoting over me, and came at Miguel. He threw up his arm to fend it off, and fell. I caught Eloise with my left arm while hanging onto the sleeve with my right hand, my feet still braced against the pool. Below us, Johann caught Miguel reasonably well while Sebastian slapped the falling porthole out of his way in a spectacular athletic move.

The enemy's foot went up again. Eloise blinked, shaking her head. There was blood in her eyes. "Guillaume," she whispered.

I looked at her head wound, and saw that her cap had partially protected her. Even in the moment, I appreciated the irony.

I looked up. Through the empty porthole, I saw that foot come at us again, and I was powerless to do anything about it. Even if we could open the hatch at this point, which was doubtful, there was nowhere to run. Our rapidly diminishing dome was our only protection. Our human room was probably demolished by now.

Wham! The enemy's foot crushed our Tripod further. The controls were shoved downward. The front of our dome was actually holding together reasonably well; it was the sides that were the problem. They were buckling, and clearly about to split. One more hit, two at the most, was all we could take. The only upside was that my footing on the side of the pool was now more firm precisely because the controls were closer.

Eloise wiped the blood from her eyes, looked around frantically, and called out, "H!"

Heloise, crouching on the back wall and shielding herself from falling debris, looked at her.

"My stake!" Eloise pointed.

Eloise had spotted one of her metal stakes by Heloise. Heloise reached out and flung it to her.

Wham! We all screamed at the shock of it. Another crushing blow. We were almost finished.

Eloise caught the stake, fumbled it, held on. I looked up. The enemy foot, just meters away, began rising for another blow.

"Guillaume! Lift me through the porthole as high as you can!" She wiped more blood from her eyes and gathered the entire left sleeve into her arms.

I shifted down and wrapped my left arm around her legs, then hoisted her roughly onto my shoulder. Above, the enemy's foot neared its apex.

I bent my knees and shoved upward off the pool, pulling on my sleeve as hard as I could and hoping it didn't pop out. With this lift, I strained every muscle in my body and shoved Eloise upward, through the porthole. She raised her arms.

Our left tentacle lifted off the ground and went as high as it could go.

The enemy's foot reached its apex and began its final downward plunge.

Eloise used the stake to shape the end of the sleeve into a spear and, grunting, stabbed her tentacle right through the enemy's center porthole.

The foot stopped.

Eloise hooked the tip, and with a primal scream which came from her soul, ripped that porthole out. Green air exploded from the enemy Tripod.

We fell back into the control room. This time I couldn't hold us. Luckily, because the control room had been crushed, there wasn't as far to go. Johann and Sebastian caught us both.

The enemy's foot descended one final time, but only to come to rest. It crushed our dome a bit further, but not much.

Eloise fell back, sobbing. I held her. She again tried to wipe blood from her eyes but was having trouble concentrating. It was delayed shock.

"Guillaume," she managed to get out. "Help someone else."

I actually laughed at that. So very Eloise.

The hatch was badly buckled, but it was still flush with the frame because they had buckled together. It had no handle on the outside for a tentacle to grab, so we wouldn't be leaving that way.

The rear view screen showed nothing, of course, but the camera on the underside of the dome still worked. It showed what was happening outside.

 

I only know what happened inside the other Tripods because my friends told me later.

As Crew 2 rushed forward, they veered and took the enemy Tripod on the right. They clashed and grappled. Crew 2's walkers had their feet full keeping them upright, but the enemy slowly worked and pushed them back toward the sixteen-story building which had formed part of the sentry's protection.

The enemy Tripod suddenly stepped in close. It pushed Tripod 2's dome back with two tentacles while using its third to grab Tripod 2's front leg. The enemy wrenched and pulled on the leg, while pushing Tripod 2 back further still, into the building. Slabs of brick and mortar fell to the ground far below, where they smashed to pieces.

Crew 2 tried to get their tentacles low enough to grab the enemy's legs, but the enemy was so close they couldn't see its legs well enough.

One of Crew 2's tentacle operators then tried to form a spear to attack their portholes, but the enemy Tripod contemptuously swatted it away. At the same time, with a horrible grinding noise, the enemy twisted Tripod 2's front leg partially off at the base. It hung there, useless.

The enemy gave Tripod 2 one final shove, forcing it another ten feet into the building and knocking Crew 2 off their feet.

Knowing they were no longer a threat, the enemy left them there, searching for other targets worthy of their attention. Crew 2 took several moments to regain their senses, by which time the enemy was out of reach. With no front leg, leaning back, and stuck in a building, they could do nothing but watch. They didn't even have anything they could throw.

 

When we rushed forward, each enemy Tripod had closed with one of ours. But we outnumbered them, and Crew 6 was the one left alone by the enemy, so they had their pick of targets.

Crew 5 had actually charged almost all the way to the water, but the enemy Tripod flailing away on Tripod 5 was giving it a severe pummeling. Crew 5 valiantly tried to hold them off and got one of their tentacles around the enemy's middle leg. But the enemy got its tentacles around all of Tripod 5's legs and tilted Tripod 5 out over the water.

Tripod 5's dome hit the platform and stopped. Inside, almost everyone, including Henry, was flung to the right. Tripod 5 stayed there, tilted precariously. One person manning his tentacle desperately held onto the enemy Tripod's leg, but it was really the platform which kept them from falling.

Crew 6 rushed to their aid. They simply charged and head-butted the enemy Tripod as hard as they could. I'll never know whether that was bravery, recklessness, or both. Either way, it actually worked, for they knocked the enemy Tripod off its feet. It fell sideways and landed along the waterfront, its dome hitting the side of the platform and splitting open, spewing green air.

Crew 6 started to pull Tripod 5 back to safety, which is why they never saw the other enemy Tripod coming. Or maybe they saw it on the rear screen but couldn't react in time, for it was fast.

The enemy Tripod which had shoved Tripod 2 into a building and was seeking new targets found an easy one here, facing the wrong way. Crew 2 couldn't warn them because they were still picking themselves up off the floor. Crew 5's captain tried to warn them, but the enemy was so fast that by the time he triggered the microphone it was too late.

The enemy ran up behind Tripod 6, whipped their tentacles around its upper legs, and savagely threw it to the ground, with great force and speed. The poor souls inside never had a chance. All of Crew 6 died instantly.

Tripod 5, still leaning on the platform, latched onto this enemy Tripod with two tentacles, which got its attention. It turned toward them, raised its free leg, and brought it down hard on Tripod 5, forcing it down with a screech of metal on metal. Inside, Crew 5 was thrown back again, dazed, but only slightly. For a split second, no one was at the controls. The tentacles fell away.

Pure luck saved Tripod 5, for the enemy's kick had forced it into a comical sitting position, firmly wedged between the waterfront and the platform, facing land. Its left and right legs were bent double and hard up against the waterfront, forming part of the wedge. Only its middle leg was free, its knee pointing up, its foot swinging a little at the joint.

Convinced that Tripod 5 was out of the fight just like Tripod 2, the enemy once more turned away to seek a new target...and Henry saw his chance.

He lunged for the middle pedal, swung it up, and kicked forward, right into the enemy Tripod's left leg. The enemy staggered and fell back onto one knee, toward Tripod 5. For just a moment, it was helpless.

And in that moment, Henry saw the enemy dome right in his sights, for falling to one knee had brought it within reach.

"For Crew 6!" he screamed, and kicked upward as hard as he could. With a resounding crunch, Tripod 5's foot connected with the enemy dome.

"For torturing my team in America!" he shouted, and kicked it again.

The enemy tried to push themselves upright, but Henry kicked their leg again, sending them right back to one knee, then kicked their dome again.

The enemy got a tentacle around the leg Henry was using, but it didn't have the angle to arrest the leg's up and down motion, so it did no good. Henry then felt them pull on the leg, which mitigated the force of his kicks a little, but not much. Screaming, Henry kicked their dome again and again, smashing the underside of it every time. When the enemy tried to stand a second time, he paused long enough to kick their leg again and bring them right back down, then resumed kicking their dome.

The enemy's tentacle desperately pulled on Tripod 5's middle leg so hard its knee started to screech, but their efforts were too late.

Henry's ninth kick snapped the enemy dome off its mount entirely. It flipped and crashed to the ground next to Tripod 6. Its control room burst and green air billowed out. Its legs, with no central point to connect them, fell in three directions.

 

Like Crew 5, Crew 1 charged almost all the way to the waterfront before clashing with an enemy. But Crew 1 had gone more to the left, and were maybe a hundred meters away from the action being waged by Crews 5 and 6.

Crew 1 was probably our best all-around crew, but they had chosen a vicious and skilled opponent. And a very fast opponent.

While Crew 1 went for the enemy's legs, the enemy wrapped one tentacle around Tripod 1's neck. With its other two tentacles, it pulled one of Tripod 1's tentacles off its legs with the greatest of ease, but it couldn't dislodge the other.

Because Tripod 1 still had ahold of the enemy's right leg, the enemy knew they couldn't just throw it down. So the enemy lifted Tripod 1 by the neck about ten feet off the ground and swung it around into the platform. Hard.

Everyone inside Tripod 1 staggered and fell. A walker and the tentacle operator who had been holding onto the enemy's leg struck the rear wall with their heads, and were badly stunned. Tripod 1's last hold on the enemy fell away.

Beanpole knew what that meant. The enemy's next move would be to throw them to the ground.

He lunged for the nearest sleeve and quickly wrapped one tentacle high around the enemy's right leg again. This would save them from a drop, so that immediate crisis was averted.

Still holding Tripod 1 off the ground and against the platform, the enemy used its other tentacles to try to dislodge the one Beanpole had wrapped around them. But Beanpole held on for all he was worth, knowing he and Crew 1 would die instantly if he failed.

So the enemy simply pulled Tripod 1 back toward itself, then slammed it into the platform again. And again. And again. The human room was taking all the damage, rather than the control room, but everyone inside was being thrown around, which made it almost impossible to retaliate. Beanpole held on by leaning back and bracing his feet against the console.

Then Fritz was beside him. He grabbed a sleeve, copied Beanpole's stance, and tried to stab the enemy porthole. But the enemy was too quick to see that danger and slapped it aside. So Fritz wrapped his tentacle around the enemy's middle leg and pulled, but it had little effect.

The enemy slammed them into the platform again.

Beanpole knew they were in a losing position and simply delaying the inevitable. He looked out the porthole to see if any help would come. There was none. He looked all around, then up...and saw the end of one of the huge cranes which pointed away from the platform at 90-degree angles. It was slightly to the right but within reach, and it was about twenty feet tall.

"Keep hold of the leg!" he told Fritz. He loosened his own tentacle and sent it up and back to the platform. He couldn't see the base of the crane, but that scientist brain of his knew where it would be based on the part he could see. The enemy slammed Tripod 1 into the platform again, throwing him around and forcing him to start over.

Seeing what Beanpole was doing, Fritz commanded, "Everyone help Beanpole stay on his feet!"

Two crew members quickly staggered to Beanpole and placed their hands on his back while crouching and bracing their feet far behind them, lowering their center of gravity. In the moment of freedom during which the enemy pulled them forward, Beanpole wrapped his tentacle around the base of the crane, and pulled out and down as hard as he could.

The enemy shoved them into the platform again. Metal behind them popped and screeched, for Tripod 1 was coming apart. Beanpole was tossed around a bit, but thanks to the people supporting him, he lost neither his position nor his grip. With a yell, he made sure that tentacle stayed tight, and pulled.

With a tearing of metal, the base of the crane started to rip away from the platform. It sagged, then broke off completely. Beanpole pushed it away from the platform so it would fall farther out, as if he was stabbing a gigantic knife out and down, and guided it left.

Just before the enemy slammed them into platform one more time, the crane skewered the enemy Tripod's control room right down the middle. Green air jetted out of the ruptures above and below.

The enemy's grip around their neck gave way, so Tripod 1 dropped back to the ground. Their front leg was over land, but their side legs were still over the water. Their front foot hit the ground with an ear-splitting crunch. Beanpole and Crew 1 staggered, and their Tripod tilted backward.

Fritz's tentacle still held the enemy's leg. This slowed their backward fall, but also began to pull the dead Tripod with them.

"Move us forward!" Fritz shouted. The two remaining walkers rushed to the pedals and frantically stretched Tripod 1's legs toward solid ground.

Beanpole and another crew member quickly joined Fritz and used their remaining tentacles to anchor themselves to the dead Tripod. "Pull us up, then shove it left!" Fritz told them.

They pulled on the dead Tripod hard. This brought it toward them faster, but also pulled them toward it, leveraging themselves upright again. This allowed the walkers to get their feet back on land.

"We're good!" one of the walkers called. Instantly, the tentacle operators shoved the dead Tripod hard left, moments before it would have hit them. It fell in a colossal heap while Tripod 1 walked past it onto solid ground.

Panting, their hearts pounding, Beanpole and Crew 1 collected themselves.

They surveyed the battlefield, and realized their Tripod was the only one still mobile.

 

The Battle of Bayonne was over. That's what we saw on the screen.

At the other end of the control room, Sebastian checked on Jan. "How is he?" I asked.

Sebastian looked up. "I think he'll live, but he looks really bad."

Francois asked, "Anyone else dead or critically hurt?" Everyone signaled they were fine.

At the sound of Eloise's gasp, I knelt beside her. "Are you dying?" I asked, trying to stay light-hearted.

She chuckled once. "Not today, Guillaume. Not today." She struggled into a sitting position. "But...I do have a complaint. You let me down."

My heart caught in my throat. That was almost the worst thing I could ever hear. "Really?" I asked weakly.

She took my hand. "Because...if this is your idea of a honeymoon...you need to work on your romance skills."

We laughed until we cried.

On the screen, we saw Tripod 1 approach. I helped Eloise to her feet. Moments later, the enemy Tripod which had almost killed us was pulled away. It fell to one side.

Most of us looked up through the empty porthole and waved.

Fritz's voice came over the loudspeaker. "Jan, wave twice if you want us to pull your Tripod back up."

I waved my arms across each other a few times and pointed to the side, trying to tell Fritz that Jan was not available.

"All right, Will, you make the call," Fritz said.

Johann and I nodded to each other. We figured Tripod 3 could still stand, and even if it never moved again, we'd rather be able to use its controls. I looked up and gave Fritz two big waves over my head.

Tripod 1's tentacles slowly raised Tripod 3 into a standing position. Sebastian took care of Jan as we walked back onto the proper floor. Our control room was half the size it used to be. Our pedals were partially mangled, but they were functional. With a little difficulty, we set our Tripod's feet firmly beneath us. Crew 1 let go when they saw we were stable.

Johann turned up the radio's volume, no doubt intending to use it to thank Fritz, but Fritz was already talking.

"Fritz Eger calling Freetown. Freetown, do you read? Over."

Julius answered. "This is Freetown. We read you. Over."

"Mission successful," Fritz said, with a note of satisfaction and relief in his voice. "We lost Crew 6, although their Tripod is probably still functional. Crew 1 is alive but with two bad head injuries and other minor injuries, our Tripod functional despite major damage. Other crews, check in."

"Crew 2," came another voice. "No casualties, no real injuries, just shame. Stuck in a damned building! Tripod not functional. We can't walk!"

Johann activated the microphone. "Crew 3, no casualties, but Jan is hurt badly, perhaps critically. A few other injuries. Tripod functional, technically, but we wouldn't dare try to walk it, and the porthole is now our only exit."

"Crew 5," another person chimed in. "No casualties, minor injuries, two serious head injuries. And Henry says his voice is going to be hoarse soon."

"I didn't say I needed you to tell them that!" came Henry's voice in the background.

"Tripod 5 might be functional, we honestly don't know," the voice continued. "We're stuck, too."

Fritz said, "Sir, I highly recommend not using these Tripods any further. We're all pretty beat up, and they may have sustained damage we don't yet know about. We're abandoning them and will wait for the ships."

"Roger, Commander Eger," Julius responded. "Excellent work. My highest commendations to each and every one of you."

Another voice joined the conversation. Deep, cold, and unfeeling. "Another victory, Julius," it said. "Congratulations."

"Thank you, Canku," Julius responded. "Will you leave, now?"

Canku ignored the question. "Although a primitive, your ingenuity is entertaining. I look forward to observing your more intelligent members in a laboratory."

"I would hope our ingenuity would challenge your opinion of your superiority," Julius countered. Even now, he was perfectly calm. I marveled at the man.

"You are an outlier of your species," Canku said. "This battle is merely what happens when anomalies occur."

Eloise lunged toward the radio, staggering, her head still bleeding. I instinctively followed. She hit the microphone switch.

"No," she said with cold ferocity. "This is what happens when you put the wrong girl in a cage."

"Who is that?" Canku asked.

I spoke into the microphone, and my voice was quiet, deliberate rage. "The one person you should never have capped."

Silence. It stretched on, and eventually we judged that Canku had nothing more to say.

 

We said our farewells to Tripod 3. We grabbed our food and water, and Crew 1 lifted us out through the empty porthole. From the outside, our Tripod was a fantastic wreck.

Then Crew 1 went to help Crew 5. Only when we saw the back of Tripod 1 did we see the horrible damage inflicted upon it.

Crew 1 pulled Crew 5 out of their Tripod, then pulled Tripod 5 back onto land. Fritz took one look at its mangled front knee and declared that Tripod 5 wasn't going anywhere.

Crew 1 also pulled fully onto land the enemy Tripod which had been head-butted by Crew 6. The platform was the only thing keeping it from falling into the water, and Fritz didn't want it sinking.

Crew 2 had been astronomically lucky. Their foe had beaten them handily and shoved them hard, but they were unharmed because a tall building had caught and held them. They opened their hatch and found it blocked by debris and rubble. Using tentacles and their own hands, they cleared it, and found they could hop down into the building's fifteenth floor and simply walk down the stairs. And that was how we learned that this building was a seaside hotel with luxury suites on its top two floors.

This section of the city was mostly hard ground as far as the eye could see (Beanpole called it concrete), but the front of the hotel – the side opposite the battle – had a large green space in front. It had no doubt once been a decorative lawn or garden; now it was overgrown with high grass, shrubs, and a few large trees. This patch of natural ground meant we had a place to bury Crew 6.

Tripod 6's dome had split open, so Crew 1 used their tentacles to rip it open further and gently pull out the bodies of our friends. Crew 1 then walked their Tripod around the hotel and used their tentacles to clear a patch of brush and dig a large, deep grave. With heavy hearts and some tears, we laid our friends in their final resting place, beside a battlefield they had never asked for but had gone to anyway.

We found no remains of the scout teams who had been killed here almost two weeks earlier. They had no doubt long since been scavenged by wild animals.

When no one needed any more help, Crew 1 dug out a space in the top corner of the hotel, placed their dome into that space, and walked into the building. They, too, simply headed down the stairs.

And despite being drivable, there Tripod 1 would stay. In fact, there all the Tripods would stay, ours and the enemy's, exactly as we left them. Forever. After the war, the entire location became a perfectly preserved monument to our victory, and to the lives some gave here so Earth could be free. Crew 6's burial site became a beautiful cemetery with a large stone obelisk commemorating their sacrifice. The enemy Tripods were cleaned out and the remains disposed of. Tourists could touch the Tripods, and walk inside any of them except Tripod 3, which was the only one still standing away from a building. Plaques listed the names of each crew. Other plaques listed the names of the scouts who had risked their lives, or lost their lives, discovering the enemy's activity here. Over the years, rain started to wash away the orange dye, so our numbers were repainted with more permanent paint in exactly the same way, to preserve the history. The hotel was part of the monument, and when engineers determined it was still structurally sound, its undamaged sections were reopened for business. Visitors could stay on site, and go to the fifteenth floor to tour the insides of Tripods 1 and 2, or go to a special room to view videos of the battle recorded by all the Tripods' cameras.

We gathered some distance from the battle. We could have congregated in the hotel, but because a Tripod had slammed into it, we didn't know how stable it was. Even if that had not been the case, we felt a deep communal need for campfires away from the horrors of that battlefield. The trees in front of the hotel provided plenty of firewood, and the spring evening was pleasant.

We had nothing to do now but wait. It would be at least a day before the first ships arrived.

The tentacle operator of Crew 2 who had thrown the bomb was inconsolable. He was convinced Crew 6 would still be alive if he hadn't missed. Many of us spoke with him, letting him know that war was like that; that in battle, death was completely random. We told him he hadn't killed Crew 6, the enemy had. Fritz also reminded him that it was his idea to throw the bombs in the first place, and the fact that one bomb found a target was clearly the difference in the victory, so he should know that he actually saved all our lives with his ingenuity. I'm not sure any of our words helped, but I hope they did. I know Crew 6 would never have blamed him, nor would any of the rest of us if it had been our time to go.

As night fell, Jan regained consciousness, but did not remember the fifteen minutes before he struck his head. His last memory was approaching Bayonne; now here he was lying on the ground by a fire as the sun went down. He was extremely upset to be so disoriented.

Beanpole, Henry, Eloise, and I, with several others, sat around one of the fires. After using the radio in Tripod 1 to check in with Freetown one more time, Fritz joined us.

"Captain Curtis and the Orion will be the first to arrive," he said. "About sundown tomorrow."

"We're two for two, Fritz," I said. "Three for three if you count our spying days."

He gave a tiny smile. For him, that was being perfectly jovial. He poked a stick into the fire and simply said, "I will celebrate when we are four for four."

"You were the leader every time," Eloise said. "You can take a bow!"

"I was not the leader in Asia," Fritz said. "Although we do not know our Eastern compatriots well, let us never forget them, for their victory is just as crucial. So as a united worldwide group, we already have four victories."

"Looking forward to number five!" Henry said happily.

"I can't believe it's only been a month since we destroyed the city," I said.

"And what a month!" Beanpole said. "Look at everything that's happened, and all we have accomplished in such a short time."

I glanced at Eloise, her face glowing in the firelight. "Look at all the miracles," I said softly, and she smiled back.

"Yes, we have been blessed with several miracles, lately," Fritz said.

"And discovered even more miracles we never knew were there," I said, thinking of the alignment of miracles which allowed me, Beanpole, and Henry to escape the Tripod on the way to the White Mountains.

"A month of miracles," Eloise said, then looked up. "One of them was yours, Henry! A moment of triumph for you!" She beamed at him.

He breathed deeply, and nodded. "Finally...a solid win! I'm so glad I got back in time to be part of this."

"Me, too," I said.

"But it wasn't just me," Henry said to Eloise. "You had your moment, as well!"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "We expressed our desires about this just a few days ago, and here we are. We finally got to hit them, and hit them hard! Beanpole, too!" She grinned at him.

Beanpole gave a smile in return, but his was more wistful. "I wish none of this had happened, of course," he said. "But since it had to happen...I am happy to fulfill my selfish desire. I wanted just one moment to strike them directly, to hit them with my own fist, instead of just advising from the side. I have now done that."

"So, more battles for you, then?" Henry asked with a grin.

Beanpole laughed. "No, I think I've actually had my fill. In future, I will leave the action and heroics to the rest of you. Somehow..." He grew thoughtful. "Somehow, it doesn't feel like I thought it would."

"Yes," Eloise said, picking up his mood and growing wistful. "It feels satisfying, yet at the same time, hollow. I do not know why."

"Because in the end, it's still violence and hatred," Fritz said, gazing into the fire. "If the aliens had simply contacted us in friendship and peace..."

To my astonishment, a single tear drifted down his face.

"...that would have been the best miracle of all," he whispered.