Granby, Canada — June 2037

Nathan Côté, a Montreal native, is making his rounds in the town of Granby this morning. We meet over lunch at a local restaurant, where he explains that his current job as a carbon auditor isn't something he, or anyone in his old platoon, would have ever imagined for him. Still, I get the sense that when you're inspecting factories, farms, and lumberyards often tucked far off the main roads, it helps to be a 6'1" former Canadian infantryman with a Glock on his hip.

"Sergeant yelled, 'Prepare to dismount!' like we hadn't been ready for the past half hour. I'd just turned on my Peltors. The noise canceling was good enough to dull the roar of the LAV III engine and let me half make sense of whatever the hell Gauthier was rambling about. Something about doubling his pay with a lucky bet. Didn't matter to him that we were about to step into hell. Julliette infront of me had that stare in her eyes that made me wonder if we would have to drag her out of the LAV once the rear door opened. She had signed up as a navy technician and there she was in the back of that tin can. The Crabs had broken their backs that month, and we managed to push all the way to Frankfurt AH Main. Yet they apparently were fighting tooth and nail for a neighbourhood north of the town.

"30 SECONDES! DISEMBARK LEFT!" guy yelled again. He was off the mark, the vehicle stopped and we heard the cannon fire its 25mm at something, followed by the rear door opening.

"You couldn't find one wheat field that wasn't filled with broken cement bricks, glass, debris everywhere. The fighting when the Crabs first reached Frankfurt, when we tried to hold the town, when we retreated, and now as we tried to take it back, had been so fierce that there was nothing left. Nearly all the buildings were demolished beyond repair. As if they had been skinned alive. Windows were broken. Facades were gone. Doors hung sideways off their hinges. Nothing but wreckage, all of it cluttering the ground.

I nearly broke my ankle on a loose brick while sprinting toward the building the brass expected us to capture and hold. It didn't matter that the Argentinians had already tried and failed twice that morning. Huan was kneeling beside the entrance with his GPMG, laying belt fire down the street like the LAV's cannon wasn't already shredding it. I darted inside. The sergeant was already in there, peeking out like he was making sure nobody decided to stay in the vehicle.

He didn't know his ass from his elbow. Always had that dumb look on his face, those square glasses. We used to call him Captain America. I swear, back when we were rotated off the front for a bit of rest, he woke me up shaking my tent. I poked my head out and he asked if I had any razors because the battalion commander was visiting in the morning. My shoulder clipped his face as I ran in, half on purpose. I went straight for the stairs. Unlike him, I had a job to do.

We started taking ordnance as I climbed. Crabs were way too close for comfort. Juliette was behind me, doing her best to keep up while carrying five rounds for my Carl Gustav on her back. You couldn't hear anything but the shooting. C7s from our guys, machine gunners laying down bursts, blaster rounds slamming into the building or whizzing by way too close. We made it up to the third floor. The place was still under construction before everything happened, there were stacks of bricks piled up and construction equipment scattered all around. As if there weren't enough of those. From where we stood, you could see the highway to the north and the avenue right next to the building. The neighborhood looked more like Gaza than Germany, rubble everywhere, streets cracked and abandoned. On that damn highway, there were destroyed vehicles dumped like trash,a burned-out Marder, some destroyed jeeps and trucks here and there, twisted, burned and broken. Perfect spot to keep an eye on things, but damn, it was a mess.

As I set up my Carl Gustav, I was glad to be up here and not a floor below. People out there were yelling over each other; Québécois, English, and Huan with his usual Vietnamese insults whenever his machine gun jammed. I slung the Carl Gustav over my shoulder and let Juliette handle the rest. She loaded a high explosive round into it and squeezed my shoulder. She didn't say much, which was a good thing with everyone shouting. The only time it wasn't was few weeks back when she saw those three Crabs sneaking down an alley. She froze for half a minute before yelling at us and opening fire.

I carefully set the weapon on the floor. I'd need it later.

"Drink," I told her. As if on cue, she grabbed the tube from her Camelback and started drinking while I peeked over the half-built wall. I couldn't see much except rubble, artillery landing far off, and clouds dropping rain even farther away.

Across the street, maybe four or five houses away, I saw the blaster turn red for just a second. That was my cue. I threw myself down on Juliette as the blaster round slammed into a wall just feet away, sending a shower of bricks and dust into the air. The shockwave rattled the half-built building, and the acrid smell of burnt gunpowder filled my nostrils. For a moment, everything was chaos—shouts, distant explosions, and the steady drumming of artillery.

Slung that Carl Gustav back on my shoulder.

"C'est bon, backblast clear!" Juliette yelled. Didn't need to check behind me. I planted my feet hard and used every ounce of strength in my legs to peak up over the wall.

The barrel of the Carl Gustav swung toward the building where the blaster fire had come from. I fired fast, the rocket launching with a roar before I even fully lined up the shot.

The rocket screamed out, tearing through the air with a low roar. It hit the target just above a shattered window and exploded instantly. The blast rocked the building, sending a cloud of even more debris and bricks cascading down like rain. Dust filled the air, and a few muffled screams echoed from inside.

Hadn't realized the rest of my squad downstairs had been shooting at the same building. I only noticed when cheers and whistles came up from below. The blaster and gunfire kept going, and so did the yelling.

"Prêt!" Juliette yelled as she loaded the next round. We were supposed to use those against Beetles, but entrenched Crabs were fair game too. She had to know how to reload blindfolded, so I made her do it every time the situation allowed. If I went down, she'd be the one taking over.

"What are you guys doing?" the sergeant yelled from the staircase. I turned around.

"Took out a floor of Crabs down the street—the ones shooting at us earlier!" Juliette shot back.

He looked at us without saying a word. Guess he was looking for a reason to yell, but we'd done what we were supposed to.

"Good. Yeah, I would've done the same!" he said, waiting for us to praise him for that.

"Fils de chienne, go back downstairs and do your job instead of worrying about us!" I yelled.

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"Fils de pute!" my number two, the France native, muttered as she grabbed her rifle.

Later, Huan and Gauthier joined us. They were setting up the GPMG down the street. We were supposed to hold the position for half an hour. Reinforcements would come and take over, and bets were off on whether we'd be asked to stay, fall back, or push further.

Heard that Tripod a mile away. You could hear their engine over everything else inside the cities. They had to stay low, below roof level. That came with its own set of problems. They were not good at staying hidden.

Juliette was peeking out, just one eye and the top of her helmet showing above the wall, waiting to give me the signal once that thing rolled in. Class One. Modified to carry heavier blasters instead of heat rays. You would think that made them easier to deal with. It didn't. The Crabs had their own version of a gatling gun. A rotating cannon with six heavy blasters. That thing could bring down a whole building in under a minute, and everyone in it would go with it. You had to be ready.

I heard it. She turned around and nodded. Slid out from under my gun so I could take her place.

I started counting to ten.

Sweat ran into my eyes. It burned, but I ignored it. Just count. Ten seconds. Be ready.

I stood up. Felt like I was facing a bull in that instant. Everything had gone quiet. No yelling, no gunfire. Just me and that thing, staring at each other.

Just me and that thing, staring at each other. Like it was trying to figure out what had just dared to stand up and look back at it from the third floor of a building under construction.

Missing was not an option. If I missed, we would all be cooked. Minced meat.

I pulled the trigger. Watched the round glide through the air, smooth and steady, across the hundred or so meters toward the Tripod. It hit it straight on, frontal. The red eye vanished in an instant.

It reeled back from the impact, standing up straighter as if it had just been punched in the chest. Probably killed every one of those grey little bastards inside. It spun wildly for a second, legs twitching, then collapsed into the side of a building.

Cheers erupted from downstairs. Juliette tapped my shoulder and started reloading. Opened the rear compartment and slid in another shell like we were just keeping tempo.

I pulled out my sharpie and drew another line.

Fifth Tripod kill.

Made a mental note to tell Juliette to draw her best impression of an ace on the rocket once this was over.

An hour later I had lost that bet from earlier. I was trudging through a hallway, stepping over broken ceiling tiles, kicking debris out of the way. Second floor of some ruined building. The basement had Crabs in it, and we had lost three guys who had gone down to evacuate a wounded. Gauthier. Nothing was left of his left leg, so I knew—before anyone told us—that he would die of shock before he even saw a dirty, overcrowded field hospital.

"Côté. Downstairs. Now." That cursed sergeant's voice cut through everything.

It took me forever to make it past the hallway. And then I learned I had to go back the way I came, all the way to the staircase again. Easier said than done with a twenty-two pound recoilless weapon strapped to my back. At one point, I was using my C7 rifle like a wooden staff, trying to keep my balance. I stepped on a collapsed wardrobe, lost my footing. If it hadn't been for the rifle and Juliette grabbing the back of my plate carrier, I would have landed face first.

Would have been a shame for a face this beautiful.

I yelled at Huan on my way there, part frustration, part because he was sitting on his ass. He had the heaviest, most powerful weapon in the section and still looked like he was waiting for room service.

As I made my way down the stairs, I heard something hit the floor near the basement entrance. Something about the sound cut through the rest of the noise. I do not know why, but I knew it was a grenade.

I didn't look. That saved me.

In an instant, the room filled with dust. I saw the bursts of the explosion like a dozen cigarettes lighting up at once. The air turned orange for a second, then black. My Peltors did what they could to protect my hearing, but the overpressure alone would have killed a lesser man.

Everything felt like it stopped. Just me in that deafening haze, holding on.

Snapped out of it when I saw Juliette firing her rifle down toward the basement. The sharp sound of her C7 cut through the fog in my brain. Crabs didn't have grenades. That was one of ours. Lobbed down by some idiot who either didn't care or didn't know we were already halfway down the stairs.

The blast had pushed us back. We scrambled upstairs, onto the same floor we had just cleared.

Juliette and Huan were already hurling insults at the guys below. Loud, angry, half in Vietnamese, half in French. I stood still, trying to get my bearings.

I looked down at my gloves. Scratched, covered in dust, but no blood. Checked my arms. Nothing.

I rubbed around my neck, hard. Looked at the gloves again. Still no blood. Thank God.

Then I shoved them down my pants. From my private parts all the way to where the sun never shines.

Needed to be sure. Checked my legs, nothing. Sounds crazy I know. But with the adrenaline, you could take a nasty cut and not feel it until it was too late.

Juliette looked at me. I caught her eyes.

"Not going to do it for you," I told her.

"You wish," she said with a smile, then looked down and started inspecting her gloves. I chuckled.

Later, a fist to the face of the sergeant who had thrown that grenade. A few more grenades tossed into the basement just to be sure. I left my Carl Gustav by the wall, grabbed my C7, and me and Huan went in.

We didn't bother clearing it slow. Shot into blind spots without checking. Anything that moved or looked like it could was getting lit up.

Two dead Crabs.

Put a few more rounds into them for good measure. Huan followed with a burst from the hip, chewing through their chests.

Then we were back upstairs. Simple as that.

Those two in the basement had been holding up the entire neighborhood from being cleared and deemed secure by the brass.

All that for two corpses in the dark.

That was the reality of it.

But two dead Crabs someone had mistaken for alive was better than the alternative. We had all learned that lesson the hard way. Sometimes we spent minutes emptying magazines into a dark, empty room because someone swore they saw movement. A coat rack, a broken chair, a shadow leaning the wrong way. That was enough.

I once watched three guys fire a full burst each into what turned out to be a torn curtain and a ceiling fan swinging loose from the shockwaves. We all laughed later, but at the time we were convinced we had just caught a whole scout team mid-infiltration.

And then there were the doors.

If a shell hit nearby and slammed a door shut somewhere, every last one of us would go rigid. Guys would be yelling that they heard Crabs behind it. Swore they could hear the sound of their chittering, that soft metallic rasp we had all come to hate. Someone would lob a grenade just to be sure. Sometimes it was nothing. Sometimes it wasn't.

That was urban combat. Nothing made sense. Rooms repeated themselves. Floors felt like mazes. You forgot if you were clearing or holding. At one point we had to mark walls with spray paint because no one could remember which hallway we had already passed through. Worst was when you peaked something only to come up face to face with someone rifle lifted towards you.

And through it all, the shouting. Always shouting. Don't get me started when you havce to do it with other militaries involved. That's why it was often one battalion a neighbourhood. Couldn't trust mixing companies from different countries together. Especially not when it came to liberating cities. Commands, insults, prayers. Someone screaming because they thought they saw a Crab jump from a window. Someone else yelling because they had jammed. Or because they thought they were about to die. Sometimes they were right.

Slipping on blankets, artillery and tank shots down the avenue reverberated against every wall and made your entire spine shake.

I saw Juliette last weekend. Our kids had a play date. She told me about something I wasn't around to see. An Abrams was clearing an avenue all by itself. Infantry was on the side, but even then, the tank was blind as a bat. Good luck spotting anything on time through periscopes or the remote-controlled weapon system.

That metal brick took a high-explosive blaster right to the lower front plate. The crew opened the hatches—not because they were cooked alive, but because the overpressure nearly killed them. They threw themselves out, concussed, vomiting their guts out. Couldn't even talk to them. Their eardrums were ruptured.

We thought infantry had it rough, but tanks barely lasted more than an hour in the thick of it. Too many alleyways, too many windows and rooftops Crabs could peek out from.

That's why we had to move block by block, house by house, room by room. Not for nothing that the liberation of Frankfurt is a holiday in Europe. Too many folks lost in that city. Entire neighbourhoods gone, the few skyscrapers they did have just pig piles of rubble. We were making progress but at the cost of gallons of blood and tears for every street.

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