Brussels, European Federation – November 2035

  Clara Alma, visiting Brussels, joins me in my kitchen as we prepare dinner. We talk about everything and nothing, our conversation meandering through time until it circles back to the winter of 2027—the battle for the Storeb?lt.

  The "Great Belt," as the Danes call it, is the strait that separates the islands of Funen and Zealand—the latter home to Copenhagen, the last northern stronghold before the Crabs could have surged into the rest of the Nordic countries. If not for the brutal November cold, one of the harshest in decades, and the desperate stand of Scandinavian and allied forces, the tide of war might have turned irreversibly.

  "Damn Crabs couldn’t swim—they walked. Took us months to figure that out.

  We always knew their tripods could wade through shallow waters, or walk in the sea floor but what we didn’t realize—what cost us dearly—was that with enough preparation, the Crabs could walk the deep. They didn’t need to breathe like us, and as long as they didn’t linger too long, they could march right across the ocean floor.

  It took them a year of brutal fighting to reach that conclusion. We knew it wasn’t something they’d always been capable of—it was something they learned. We knew because the reports kept pouring in: waterways we had thought impassable, suddenly crawling with Crabs rising from the depths. Sure they couldn't cross long distances like this, only a few kilometers. But that was enough for the Funen islands to fall. Along with allot of frontlines separating humans from crabs with rivers. If they could, tripods would establish a beach head, cause enough ruckus to neutralize our reinforcement lines and the fortifications along the beaches. Then the crabs would come waddling out of the water."

  As we finish our meal and pour ourselves more wine, the conversation drifts back to the tripods.

  "Still don’t have a clue what took out my ship," Clara says, swirling her glass. "Best guess? A tripod hitting one of our navy’s underwater mines. We weren’t supposed to be sailing there, but the infantry on the beaches and the rear guard holding the Great Belt Bridge needed support. Figured our ship was too light to trigger a mine, so we fought all day—rearming, refueling, then heading right back into the storm of deafening gunfire from our 25mm cannons and MK19 grenade launchers."

  She pauses, taking a slow sip. "Thank God we were near Zealand when we went belly up. Must’ve hit my head—helmet or not, I blacked out instantly. Woke up to freezing water. If I hadn’t been wearing that damn helmet..." She exhales, leaning back on the sofa. "Well, I wouldn’t be here, sipping wine in your living room."

  "The water was calm enough, but the cold jolted me back to reality, even through the daze. I didn’t see any of the other ships in our squadron. Didn’t see my two crewmen either. And I sure as hell didn’t feel like freezing to death, so I bolted for the coast.

  My ears were ringing. It was early morning—maybe 7 a.m.—but the sky was nothing but thick, churning darkness. Fallout, wildfires, debris—enough to blot out the sun for the rest of winter. By the time I dragged myself onto shore, I thought I was done for. The temperature shift should’ve helped, but when the wind hit my soaked uniform, it was like knives tearing through me. My body didn’t know whether to collapse or run. My knees gave out first.

  Then, without thinking, I lit the flare.

  I don’t even know why. Maybe so no one on the beach—or what was left of our fleet—would mistake me for a Crab and shoot. Maybe just to see something other than endless gray. Maybe for the heat, even if it wouldn’t make a difference. I just remember the red light burning into my retinas as I held it close. Snow was falling, and beyond 200 meters? Nothing but white and silence."

  "The fighting had stopped. Now and then, I’d catch the faint streak of a tracer round from the bridge, but that was it. Nothing else. The snow, the mist, the thick clouds—it swallowed everything.

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  But I heard it coming.

  At first, just background noise. Distant. Easy to miss. But then—metallic legs crashing against the waves. A rhythm. Steady. Relentless. Getting closer. My chest tightened, panic creeping in before I even understood why. I couldn’t see it. But I knew it was there, somewhere beyond the fog, marching straight out of the sea.

  Then I saw it.

  The largest tripod anyone had ever laid eyes on—Tier Three, maybe Four. We’d only ever seen those in this theater of war. And lucky me, I got to see one up close. Maybe my flare had lured it in. Maybe it was just sheer, cosmic bad luck.

  It was massive. At least a hundred meters tall, each leg the width of a house. Its three glowing eyes locked onto me. And then it started moving.

  A leg came down, slamming into the beach just fifty meters away, snapping me out of my trance. My hands moved on instinct—I smothered the flare in the sand, rolled onto my back, and went still. Playing dead. Holding my breath. Watching.

  It moved like a goddamn titan, slow and deliberate. A cloud of birds erupted from its frame, so many they looked like smoke. Every time one of its legs crashed into the earth, the impact sent a shockwave through my body, lifting me off the ground. My bones rattled. My heart pounded. And all I could do was lie there, waiting to see if I would live or die.

  It stopped just before reaching the beach. Towering over me. Silent, calculating. Its three glowing eyes scanned the landscape—left, right, up—then finally, down. Right at me.

  I lay there, frozen, barely breathing. Its long, spindly arms—fifteen at least—moved in a slow, eerie dance, shifting like feelers searching for prey. There was no outrunning it. No escaping. If I so much as twitched, it would vaporize me before I even got to my feet. I closed my eyes and made my peace with God.

  Then, instead of fire, I heard it—

  One. Two. Three. Then a fourth explosion.

  Each impact was deafening, the shockwaves ripping through the air, more violent than even the tripod’s massive steps. 155mm artillery shells, fired point-blank from Archer systems. They weren’t using indirect fire—not anymore. Fighting had become too desperate. They’d parked those artillery trucks right in the warzone, firing straight into the tripods at near-horizontal angles.

  I saw it take the first shell. The second. It barely flinched. But the third and fourth—those punched through.

  The explosion started from within, a firestorm erupting inside its armored frame. Its entire body shuddered, metal twisting and groaning. It spun wildly, its massive legs struggling to find balance, moving like a headless, dying beast. Smoke and fire spewed from its core, its limbs flailing, carving deep trenches in the sand. Then, with a final metallic wail, it began to fall.

  It crashed straight into the shallow water, the impact sending massive waves surging hundreds of meters inland. I barely had time to react before the freezing sea slammed into me again, knocking the breath from my lungs, dragging me back into the cold embrace of the water. But I was still alive. And the tripod was not.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the fallen tripod, watching the waves crash against it, but then I heard it. The low rumble in the distance, like thunder building on the horizon. My gaze snapped to the Great Belt Bridge.

  First, there was a flash—a bright white burst that lit up the dark sky for a split second. Then, another. And another. Detonations, one by one, spaced about a hundred meters apart, each explosion a pulse of light that seemed to tear the air itself. The bridge was collapsing, piece by piece, the sound of each blast reverberating through my chest, shaking the ground beneath me.

  The explosions weren't random. They were controlled, precise. The army had set charges, placed them in key sections, and were systematically bringing the entire structure down. The first few blasts took out the support pillars, the ones closest to the shore. The whole bridge trembled like a dying beast. I could see it—the massive steel framework twisting, bending, groaning under the strain. Another explosion rocked the center, sending huge chunks of concrete and twisted metal flying into the air.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I just hoped everyone had made their way on the good side of the strait before they blew it.

  Another blast hit, this time further out, near the middle span. The bridge buckled violently, then sagged in on itself as though the earth had opened up beneath it. Huge chunks of debris plunged into the water, sending shockwaves through the ocean. It wasn’t just the noise—the explosions were so intense that I could feel them in my bones, as though each detonation was a warning shot for the entire world to hear.

  And then, the final explosion. The one that sent the bridge into its death throes. The entire span seemed to collapse inward, folding into itself like a crumpled piece of paper. The sea swallowed the remnants, and the bridge was gone. All that remained was a plume of smoke rising into the cold sky. More dust to choke the air. I didn’t see or hear the two infantrymen sprinting from the wood line, grabbing me by the collar. They had an entire company and a Leopard platoon watching the beach, yet I hadn’t seen any of them. I barely made it into the civilian ambulance before they opened fire on the first crabs emerging from the water.