Morning settled over the Outpost beneath the strange brightness that had replaced true twilight since the stars broke. The sky carried a pale glow even through the thin clouds drifting overhead, as though something far beyond the atmosphere continued to burn.

  Inside the walls, the day began with quiet efficiency.

  Rail crews rotated into the tower platforms and began warming the guns. Ammunition belts were fed into housings and locked into place with practiced hands. Along the inner perimeter road, spider walkers rolled out from their hangars and spread across the wall sectors. Their massive legs struck the reinforced concrete with steady metallic impacts that echoed along the structure.

  Civilians stayed inside the interior sectors of the Outpost. Many still slept where exhaustion had finally claimed them. Others sat near the water stations or along the inner barricades, watching soldiers move through their routines.

  People had learned quickly.

  When the sky began to streak, the safest place to be was out of the way.

  Dorian stood on the northern wall beside one of the rail towers. The metal platform hummed faintly beneath his boots as the weapon’s capacitors built charge.

  Beyond the wall, farmland stretched for miles in every direction. Roads, barns, and scattered structures sat half-buried beneath gray dust and the scars of recent impacts.

  Kesi leaned against the tower railing nearby, his eyes moving slowly along the horizon.

  “You can almost pretend it’s normal,” he said.

  Dorian looked west where the particle field extender relay pylons stood at regular intervals beyond the perimeter. Tall emitters anchored deep into the ground, their systems maintaining the invisible lattice that guarded the Outpost from falling meteors.

  “Normal ended a week ago,” Dorian replied.

  High above the Outpost, the pale sky carried the first thin streak of fire.

  The towers reacted immediately.

  Railguns fired in disciplined rhythm along the wall.

  Each discharge cracked across the farmland like a hammer striking steel. Bright slugs crossed the sky and tore into falling Starspawn before they reached the ground. Ash scattered across the fields in long drifting clouds.

  A meteor struck the particle field above the western farmland.

  The air flashed with a brief ripple. The burning mass glanced away from the barrier and skipped across the sky before crashing into the dirt miles from the wall.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Another followed.

  Then three more.

  The towers tracked and fired with calm precision. Impacts burst across the landscape in distant flashes while Dormant Starspawn clawed their way out of craters and ran for the walls.

  Most never made it halfway.

  Below the northern tower, a spider walker moved along the interior road.

  The machine was massive, its armored hull as large as a tank. Eight jointed legs carried it across the concrete with mechanical speed that did not match its weight. Each step struck the ground with a heavy metallic thud.

  Outside the wall, a Dormant Fiend had survived its fall.

  It broke through the dust cloud at a sprint, claws digging into the dirt as it closed on the perimeter barricade.

  The spider walker lowered its body and rotated its forward turret.

  The weapon fired in a rapid, thunderous burst.

  A dense spread of high-velocity shot hammered across the open ground. The Fiend twisted sideways in a sudden dodge, but the walker adjusted instantly. The second burst caught it mid-step.

  Fragments of armor and ash blasted outward as the impact shredded through its torso. The creature collapsed and disintegrated before it could take another stride.

  The walker pivoted and continued its patrol as if nothing had happened.

  On the wall above, Dorian watched the farmland beyond the perimeter. ‘It feels almost…wasteful. To kill them like this.’

  Dormant Starspawn continued to rise from smoking craters across the fields. Railgun fire eliminated them one by one. The Outpost had turned the Wave into a controlled massacre.

  A voice cut across the tower radio.

  “Recon Seven to command. I’ve got movement west of the impact grid.”

  The drone feed appeared inside the command room.

  A camera view skimmed low over the farmland.

  Dust trails stretched across the open ground.

  Commander Hale stepped closer to the screen.

  “How many?”

  The operator zoomed in.

  Shapes sharpened in the feed.

  “Ten contacts,” the operator said. “Ground movement. High speed.”

  On the northern wall, the tower radio snapped in.

  “Wall stations, command confirms incoming ground targets west of the field.”

  Dorian’s head was already turned toward the west before the radio barked.

  A line of dust rolled across the farmland.

  Then shaped emerged from it.

  Ten figures sprinted through open terrain, long strides carrying them over broken ground at unnatural speed. Their bodies glowed faintly with orange light that flickered around them like heat shimmering above asphalt.

  Kesi stepped away from the railing beside Dorian.

  “They’ve been feeding,” he said quietly, remembering a large town existed once in that direction.

  The tower gunner locked his scope onto the lead figure and fired.

  The rail slug crossed the distance in an instant.

  It struck the orange glow around the creature and ricocheted away at a sharp angle, ripping a trench through the soil beside it.

  The Kindled kept running.

  Another shot followed.

  The projectile struck the same barrier and skidded off again, sparks flashing where the impact forced the field outward.

  Dorian watched the shimmer around their bodies pulse with each strike.

  “Will,” he said.

  The tower opened fire in quick succession.

  Other railguns joined in across the wall. Slugs hammered the advancing pack from multiple angles. Every impact met the same resistance. Orange light flashed around the creatures and projectiles deflected away from their bodies.

  Dirt and debris erupted cross the farmland while the Kindled sprinted through the barrage.

  They were slowly weakening but showed no sign of hesitation.

  Kesi studied the distance they were closing.

  “Ten of them,” he said.

  Dorian nodded once.

  “Sound the interior line.”

  Sirens began to rise along the wall as Railguns continued their relentless fire.

  The pack never slowed.

  Ten Kindled Starspawn ran straight for the Outpost.