The battalion had been obscured by the buildings but Shane could see a few of the probes up over them in the air now. As he watched, a building collapsed and he couldn’t figure out why until he realized the damned things were ripping the rebar right out of the concrete walls.

Nails. Wiring. Cars. It was all going into those damned probes. Every damned scrap of metal. They didn’t seem to be killing people except as a byproduct. But they would. Metal was civilization. And… one… three… more were headed for them.

“Pull over and unass!” Shane yelled, dropping into the Humvee and opening his door. He was rolling on the road before it was at a full halt.

So was the master sergeant, as it turned out, and the Humvee continued forward, still in drive, as five of the probes came up with a thunder of air. The Humvee began to shake and tear apart and the master sergeant let out a curse as he was jerked into the air. The seam on the seat of his pants ripped and his boots came apart as the eyelets were ripped out. Then he dropped through the air to land hard on the asphalt.

“Son of a BITCH!” Cady snarled, looking up at the probe, which was hovering not much above head height. His wallet was firmly attached to the underside.

As Shane watched, the wallet ripped apart and a bit of metal was briefly visible, then the wallet dropped through the air, just another scrap of useless garbage to the probe.

“My COIN!” the master sergeant raged. He looked around for a weapon and finally settled on a timber by the side of the road. “That was my battalion coin you BASTARDS!”

The master sergeant hefted the heavy construction timber and jumped in the air as the hovering probes drifted over them, apparently searching for more scraps of metal. The four by four hit the surface, hard, and rebounded leaving a large dent. The master sergeant cried out in pain as the timber vibrated in his hand and he dropped it.

The probe, however, shuddered for a moment, then drifted sideways. It shuddered again and then there was a brief burst of sparks and it dropped out of the air.

“Congratulations,” Shane said, getting up from his crouch and examining the fallen probe with interest. “You’ve proven they can be killed.”

As the master sergeant hefted the timber again, the remaining four descended on their fallen brethren. Before he could get in another whack they lifted it, whole, into the air and began to strip it apart. Shane could see bits flying off towards the other four probes but as they approached them the bits seemed to dwindle and then disappear. One thing he noticed was that the probes seemed to be getting… fatter. They were sleek boomerang wing shapes but as the fallen probe was disassembled they seemed to be getting more material on their surface.

As soon as the wounded wing was fully disassembled three of them flew away. The last one, however, continued to hover at about ten meters off the ground and Shane watched as it seemed to change shape. The center got thicker, the metal appearing to move inward from the wings towards its middle. Then a dimple appeared and the thing began to twin, joined wings stretching out from the middle, which got flatter and flatter. Finally, all that was left was a small joining between two of the probes and then that separated.

As soon as it did, the two flew away, ducking down to rip apart Shane’s boots and shoulder pocket in passing. The stone from the ring dropped to the ground about fifty meters away, carried in a ballistic arc as the things accelerated to cruising speed in an instant.

“Bastards,” Shane said, walking over to the stone. It was a synthetic ruby, all he could afford on graduation. He buffed it and pocketed it in thought. Rubies were nothing more than pretty aluminum dioxide. Either they didn’t like aluminum or unformed metal… There was a thought there, but he wasn’t sure what it meant.

“You were saying you had a plan for getting out of here?” Shane asked Cady distractedly.

“Well, I was planning on driving back to the airbase at Le Havre,” Cady replied, tossing the four by four back to the roadside. He’d been holding onto it in case the damned things got lower. “But as a last ditch, it’s all lost, go to hell plan, we’re about five miles from where the Channel Tunnel comes out on this side. I figure that might be why they put us here; to defend the tunnel. If they’re not to England, yet, we can run the thirty or so miles from one side to the other. Better than swimming.”

Shane thought about the long tunnel, then about the things eating the very metal out of the walls. Flooding. Refugees. On the other hand…

“I don’t have a better idea,” Shane said. “Where’s this tunnel entrance?”

Chapter 15

The Army standard for the five-mile run is forty minutes. Shane figured it had probably taken them somewhat less than thirty to reach the massive entrance. And that was with a stop at a devastated town to pick through a store for running shoes. Ones with no metal in them.