The footsteps stopped just outside the storefront.
Ethan held his breath without meaning to.
His chest burned almost immediately.
He forced himself to breathe shallow, slow.
The three soldiers beside him did the same, crouched behind a counter that had once sold something small and harmless.
Glass crunched.
A shadow passed across the broken display window.
Then another.
The first alien entered without hesitation, stepping through the collapsed frame as if it had already calculated the angle.
Its weapon came up in one smooth motion.
Ethan fired first.
The shot hit the alien's shoulder joint.
The arm jerked, weapon discharging into the ceiling instead of the room.
Plaster and sparks rained down.
The second alien reacted instantly, pivoting toward Ethan.
A beam tore through the counter, carving a glowing line inches from Ethan's face.
One of the soldiers beside him short, stocky, screamed and fell backward, clutching his leg.
The beam had caught him mid-thigh.
There was too much blood.
"No—no—no—" the man gasped, hands slick and useless.
Ethan didn't look at the wound.
He couldn't afford to.
He rolled to the side, came up behind a toppled shelf, and fired again.
The first alien collapsed fully this time, armor smoking.
The second advanced.
It didn't rush.
It didn't fire wildly.
It stepped forward, adjusting its aim with every movement, learning the room in real time.
The third soldier tall, shaking, eyes too wide broke.
He stood up and ran for the back door.
The alien didn't even turn fully.
A beam punched through the man's torso and pinned him to the wall behind him.
He slid down slowly, leaving a dark smear on the cracked tile.
Ethan's vision tunneled.
Don't freeze.
He threw his last grenade.
It bounced once, twice, rolled under the alien's feet.
The explosion filled the room with fire and pressure, blowing out what remained of the windows and knocking Ethan flat.
His head rang so violently he thought he might black out.
When he dragged himself upright, there was nothing left of the alien but twisted armor and scorched flesh.
The room was silent except for the wounded man's gasping.
Ethan crawled over, tore open his med kit with shaking hands.
The wound was catastrophic.
He knew it the moment he saw it.
The man looked at him, eyes glassy. "Am I—?"
Ethan didn't lie.
He didn't say anything.
The man nodded, like he'd expected that answer.
"Don't leave me alone," he whispered.
Ethan stayed.
The man died quietly, breath hitching once, then stopping.
Ethan closed his eyes and sat there for a second too long.
Outside, the battle continued without them.
They moved again when the building started to burn.
Flames licked through the back rooms, smoke pouring into the storefront.
Ethan stumbled out into the street with two others he'd picked up along the way faces unfamiliar, ranks unclear. It didn't matter.
They joined a ragged defensive line forming behind a collapsed bus.
Someone was shouting about an armored unit pushing through from the west.
Someone else was calling for air support that wasn't coming.
Ethan dropped to a knee and fired.
His rifle bucked, then clicked empty.
That sound felt louder than any explosion.
He dropped the weapon and grabbed the sidearm from his thigh.
The pistol felt wrong in his hands too light, too small but it fired when he pulled the trigger, and that was enough.
An alien leapt onto the bus, claws digging into metal.
It tore through the roof and dropped inside where civilians had been sheltering minutes earlier.
Screams followed.
Ethan and two others rushed forward without talking about it.
They fired into the bus, bullets punching through thin metal.
The alien burst out the other side, armor riddled, movements erratic.
It swung blindly, catching one soldier across the chest and sending him skidding across the pavement.
He didn't move again.
Ethan emptied the pistol into the alien's back at point-blank range.
The alien collapsed, twitching.
Inside the bus, there were bodies everywhere.
Civilians.
Children.
Ethan stared for half a second too long.
A hand grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back as a beam scorched the space where his head had been.
"MOVE!" someone screamed.
They moved.
They always moved.
By the time the sun should have been setting,
Ethan had lost all sense of direction.
Every street looked the same burned, broken, soaked in blood and coolant.
Every building felt temporary.
They fell back again, and again, and again.
Not routed.
Consumed.
At one intersection, a lieutenant tried to organize a stand.
"We hold here," he said, voice hoarse. "If we lose this—"
He never finished.
A drone dropped from above and detonated.
When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of him but a crater.
No one replaced him.
They held anyway.
Ethan fired until his pistol ran dry.
He drew his knife.
An alien came through the smoke, weapon raised.
Ethan charged without thinking, screaming something he didn't remember later.
They collided hard.
Ethan stabbed.
The alien struck him across the ribs, cracking something inside his chest.
Pain exploded through him.
He stabbed again.
The blade sank deep.
The alien fell.
Ethan collapsed beside it, gasping, vision darkening at the edges.
He thought, distantly, This is where I die.
Then hands grabbed him and dragged him backward.
"You're not done," someone growled. "Not yet."
Ethan coughed, blood splattering the ground.
He was hauled behind cover and propped against a wall.
A medic knelt beside him, face grim. "You can breathe?"
"Yeah," Ethan rasped. "Hurts."
"Good," the medic said. "Means it's not collapsed. Probably cracked ribs."
"Probably," Ethan echoed.
The medic was already moving on.
Ethan sat there, clutching his chest, knife still in his hand.
Around him, the fight continued.
Endless.
Relentless.
The ground shook again as another wave came in.
Ethan forced himself to his feet, pain screaming through his body.
He picked up a fallen rifle from the ground, checked the magazine.
Half full.
Enough.
He took his place in the line again, shoulder to shoulder with strangers, all of them too exhausted to be afraid anymore.
The war pressed forward.
And Ethan stayed where he was.