We didn’t have anyone other than Sofia with Enhanced Eyesight, but I was delighted to find that we did have someone else with Mental Speech: a nonverbal autistic seventeen-year-old named Colin who’d taken the ability in the early days of the apocalypse. His family hadn’t joined a combat group or cataloged their abilities, but they’d come forward at the news the Shop might be at risk.

Colin’s mental “voice” was odd. Hard to distinguish from my own thoughts. The words weren’t unemotional so much as pure, like water. He conveyed exactly the concepts he wanted to convey with no extra color or timbre. He had picked up the habit of preceding anything he sent with the word “Message” to limit people’s confusion, and while his style was a little odd, it was perfectly understandable in its own way.

His mother had wanted him to flee with the other kids, but he’d firmly refused.

“We’ll do our best to keep him safe,” I told his mom.

Message: You do not need to coddle me. I know what I am doing.

I turned to him. “I’m not coddling you. You’re our only means of distant communication besides Colonel Zwerinski. You’re a vital strategic asset that we can’t risk.”

Message: Alright. That is acceptable.

I could see his mom over his shoulder mouthing thank you, but I’d told Colin nothing less than God’s honest truth. I hadn’t thought we’d have anyone else with Mental Speech at all. I kept him with me for the time being, although I found someone with Force Shield and assigned them purely to Colin Protection Duty.

I turned to the others waiting in our driveway. “Alright, you guys have some of our most important abilities. The scaled people attacking - they call themselves Dragons - all appear to be very strong. It’s going to be difficult to take them down with physical violence. It’s your job to give the rest of our neighbors the time to do that. Those of you with Telekinesis, forget attacking - I want you to drop sacks on their heads, tie their legs together, pour mud on their faces, undo the clasps on their belts. Your job is to make it hard for these elites to attack while the rest of us take them down. I’m not sure how easy it will be to harm them, but I'm sure you can slow them down and confuse them. Spread out with your Combat Groups, but keep your priorities in mind!”

I wanted to put people in local command at each barricade and at the Shop, so there was authority for people to turn to even if I was elsewhere. At the Shop was easy - I left Tamara in charge - but I was struggling to find people to put in charge of the groups guarding the approaches. A lot of the people I would have gone to - George, Darryl, or Carlos, for example - were accompanying the rescue force. I didn’t have a lot of time, so I ended up picking the first two people I recognized: Dog Guy Scott would lead Russet if I wasn’t there and Alexandra would take command at the Azure berm. Alexandra accepted the duty with at least outward aplomb, but Scott wasn’t eager to agree.

“No. Absolutely no way I want to be in charge of people.”

“You led all those people to the meetup at the playground.”

“They just followed me. I didn’t make them listen!”

“All I really need from you is to get everyone to retreat if and when we send word,” I told them both. “You head to Russet. I’ll try to be there to take command, but I need backup in case I need to be somewhere else. The Dragons are on their way. They could be in our neighborhood already. We don’t have time to argue about this, please just go!”

Scott grimaced, but didn’t argue further. Colin sent them each a brief message, so they’d be familiar with his unique form of communication.

It wasn’t long after that that I received a message from Colonel Zwerinski.

The Dragons crossed County Line Road a minute ago. They entered the neighborhood and turned toward Russet.

I admit I’d been having errant hopes that the Dragons had been misleading the colonel, that they weren’t heading for us, after all. It hadn’t been a sensible hope - what were they going to do, attack the rescue group? Maybe if they’d left their captives behind, but they hadn’t. Nearly three-quarters of their people had no loyalty to them, and would rebel the instant that they knew the hostages had been freed. They certainly wouldn’t help attack the rescue group.

Stupid or sensible, those hopes were now dead. I left Tamara to handle any newcomers and jogged toward the corner of Lavender Lane and Russet. Colin, his mother, and his newly-assigned bodyguard followed close behind.

We couldn’t see all the way to the end of Russet. The street was wide and straight, but like much of northern Alabama, our neighborhood rose and fell in gentle hills, and darkness added questions even to sights that ought to have been clear. The moon was nearly full tonight, but the sky was full of hazy clouds that dimmed its light. There were patches of brightness, rises in the road that reflected nearly white, reflections off of house numbers and car lights and fenders, but there were many more areas of shadow.

I could see people moving down the road toward us, but details about them were hard to make out. I thought the Dragons should still be too far-off to see, but…

Someone, jittery, loosed a fireball at a group of approaching people, who screamed and scattered. The bright flare of the missile ruined my night vision, and I cursed loudly, blinking to try to clear the searing streak that now painted my field of view.

“Cut that out!” I shouted. “Those are probably friendlies. We’ve still got a few minutes before the Dragons reach us. Actually, um, wait for my order to attack! We still aren’t sure the Dragons are even hostile to us. We may be able to talk this out. If we do need to fight, we have cover here, so we’ll engage them at range. Keep an ear out for my order to retreat! We’ll continue to fire at them as we move back to the Shop. We’ll make our stand there, with everyone else.”

I winced at my unprofessional, disorganized speech. I wasn’t used to command, and while I couldn’t make out faces well with the darkness and protective gear, I could see people’s uneasiness and uncertainty in the way they moved.

I did think we still had time. The Dragons could probably move pretty fast, but they’d have reluctant troops with them, right? They couldn’t be in range just yet.

I climbed up on the earthen berm, projecting my voice to its maximum. “Is everyone alright out there?”

I couldn’t make out the shouts that returned, but the tone didn’t lead me to worry. They were probably okay, and I hoped my outreach had convinced them they’d be safe to continue approaching. Staying still, or - God forbid - turning around, would leave a small group like theirs in horrible danger from our invaders.

We needed better information. It was too hard to see. “Scott! Get me a Telekinetic and someone with Fire Bolt or Conjure Flame! Back in a second!”

I sprinted to the side and yanked at a fenceboard. Half of it came away in my hand, so I repeated the process, giving myself two half-boards.

“Set these on fire, and then I want them moved as far down the road as we can reach! Try to keep them on the pavement, if possible.”

The Fire Bolt guy didn’t target the boards directly, not wanting to pulverize them, I suppose, and it took a few hits to get them to light, but he managed. The woman with Telekinesis moved them down the road gently, trying not to let the young and fragile flames extinguish. It was agonizingly slow, but I resisted my urge to hurry her.

The fires might ruin our night vision, such as it was, but it would do the same for the enemy, and it would hopefully let us know for certain whether approaching groups were friend or foe.

“Colonel! Please let us know when the Dragons get near” I said, and repeated the message every few seconds until I got a response.

Roger that. Will comply. They’re still moving up Russet. You’ve probably got about five minutes until they enter your range.

“That’s more than I expected. Are they… have they fought anyone yet?”

Some individuals opened fire on them. The Dragons paused their advance to hunt those people down. Some made it away.

Unspoken, unnecessary, was the corollary to that: if some had made it away, some hadn’t. They’d died, nearly uselessly, ignoring the colonel’s orders and spending their lives only to briefly slow the enemy.

“Did they do any damage to the Dragons?”

Some, but it was remedied quickly. Healing Touch seems common among the Dragons, and they shared the burden of returning their injured members to full health. I cannot even be sure the effort tired them.

“So… we’re at war for certain, now.” My quiet pronouncement caused a stir. A few people started to ask me questions, but I held up a hand while I continued to speak to the colonel.

Yes. Our odds of negotiation weren’t high before; they’re not in a position where it benefits them to let us talk. But if there was any chance, it’s gone now.

“Have you heard from the rescue group yet?”

Not yet.

I shuddered, nervousness filling me, as I mentally ran down the plans I’d made. The first order of business was clear.

I climbed up on the berm and raised my voice. “The approaching force is confirmed hostile. A few people attempted to harass the Dragons on their way in, and the Dragons counterattacked. Lethally.”

My words set off a cacophony. I heard prayers and panic, fear, anger against the Dragons and fury against the people who’d attacked prematurely.

“It doesn’t matter,” I yelled. “Fault doesn’t matter! It will matter tomorrow, hopefully, but today we’ve got a group that’s willing to kill heading right toward us. Get your shit together!”

I hopped off the dirt pile, not waiting to try to convince people further. “Colin! Be ready to send a command to Alexandra when we engage. If the Dragons don’t turn, the Azure group needs to fall back and defend the Shop directly. Then send one to Tamara to fill her in.”

Message: Alright. I will do so.

I waited, staring at the road. Five minutes minutes sounded so short, but the seconds stretched out interminably. “How many people are gathered at the other barricade?”

Message: I do not know. I can only send messages, not watch from afar or read thoughts.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Of course. I knew that. Thoughtless of me. Uh, tell Tamara to get ready to cover our retreat.”

I’d had about forty-five fighters here when I arrived, but in minutes we’d stood waiting, we’d gathered another twenty more, some from Combat groups, some solo fighters who’d nonetheless mobilized to help defend the Shop. We ought to outnumber the Dragons, from everything I knew, but I still had no intention of standing to fight them here. Many of the people with me had only one or two abilities, which was probably only slightly weaker than the Dragon’s unwilling army, but the Dragons themselves were another story. I’d bet an irreplaceable case of soda that all of them had five abilities, minimum.

That… worried me. There were only one or two others at the barricade with me that were so strong, but there was one other thing we knew about the Dragons: they seemed hugely focused on Biological Augments. I was hoping that would make them more melee-oriented. If we could hit them from range and make a fighting retreat as they approached, we might be able to do damage to them almost for free.

We’d have cover; they wouldn’t. We’d be able to see them when they neared the fires we’d lit; we should simply be silhouettes in the darkness, if that.

It was the most favorable terms of engagement I could imagine, but I was still scared.

A large group entered the aura of firelight, and I held my breath. They looked like normal humans. It could be another group from our neighborhood… but there were so many of them. I watched carefully, then gulped as I saw a toga draped over red scales, followed by an orange-scaled individual covered in spines.

This was it.

This was them.

“Focus on the scaly ones, and be ready to retreat. FIRE!”