Old songs flowed from his flute. He had played these songs as a boy, a shepherd on a distant world with a golden sky, fighting the wolves in the grass. He had played these songs as a youth, a conscript in the Peacekeepers Corps, a musician sent to fight alien rebels and thieves. He had played these songs as a man, a broken soul in the ashes, watching the countless perish in the gulock, fighting to free those he still could, to still defend his sheep from the wolves.
They were songs of Earth. They had always been songs of Earth. Songs of green hills. Blue skies. Golden fields.
And now finally, Tom Shepherd played these songs where they had been written. Where they had always been meant to be heard.
He was no longer a boy. Or a youth. Or even a young man. He was in his mid-forties now, but he looked older. His long years of war and privation had left his face lined. It was a long face. Haggard. A face the color of bronze or old cracked suede. His hair was silver now, the jet black strands of his youth forgotten. For a long time in the dark forests of exile, he had let that hair grow long, let a beard cover his cheeks. Today he kept that hair cropped short, his cheeks shaved, and wrinkles be damned.
Today I am a soldier, he thought. And I carry a rifle along with my flute.
He gazed at the colony below.
I will defend you. I vow this. I feel old. I feel weak. But with whatever strength is still in me, I will fight for you, my people. He lowered his head. I only wish you could have been here to see this, my wife. My friends. My Ayumi.
He lowered his flute.
His music died.
So many gone.
The scorpions had butchered them. He had watched it happen. He had seen so many die, so many who dreamed of Earth. He had failed to protect his flock from the wolves. The scorpions were dead, but their claws were still inside Tom, clutching his heart.
He gripped his rifle. His hand shook around it, and his knuckles whitened.
He looked at his hands. One holding a rifle. One holding a flute. Soldier and shepherd. One and the same.
"You know," rose a voice behind him, "I could hear you from a kilometer away. Not too smart. That means any basilisks chancing by would hear you too."
Tom stiffened. He leaped to his feet and spun around. He saw no one. For years, he had listened in the grasslands for the wolves. For years afterward, he had tracked the scorpions in the dark forests of Morbus. His ears were sharp, but he had not heard anyone approach.
"Clearly they wouldn't hear you," he said, not knowing where to direct his words.
Finally some branches rustled, and a woman emerged from behind a tree. She gave Tom a crooked smile. "I've trained for many years to move like a ghost. A little tip: Not playing the flute helps."
She was a woman of about thirty, tall, with the lithe-yet-muscular build of a soldier. A mane of dark brown curls cascaded across her shoulders. She wore tall muddy boots, and a rifle hung across her back. Her trousers were brown, her vest blue, and brass insignia topped her shoulders. Three stars on each shoulder. Here stood a commodore, among the highest ranks in the fleet.
Tom slung his own rifle across his back, tucked his flute into his belt, and gave her the Inheritor's Salute, slamming his left fist into his right palm.
"You must be Commodore Leona Ben-Ari. The famous Steel Lioness."
"The Iron Lioness, they call me," she said. "I do like the sound of Steel Lioness, though. Hmm, steel. That's stronger than iron, isn't it?"
Tom allowed himself to relax—slightly.
"Well, if you want to go for pure strength, how about the Diamond Lioness?"
Leona grimaced. "No thanks. Diamonds are a girl's best friend, but I'm a woman. Iron Lioness it is. Or just Leona." She reached out her hand for him to shake.
Tom took it. Her grip was strong.
"Lieutenant Commodore Tom Shepherd," he said.
She nodded. "I know. I've heard all about you. You yourself are something of a legend. The Shepherd, they call you. Almost as good as my nickname. They tell your tales in the colony. The man who survived Morbus Gulock. Who escaped the camp. Who rose to lead a rebellion called Earth's Light. Who defended the famous Ayumi the Weaver. Who saved humanity."
The pain returned. "I failed to defend Ayumi. She died."
He wanted to say more. How Ayumi had been like a daughter to him. How his wife had been pregnant when the scorpions killed her. How the grief never left him. But he could bring none of that to his lips. Not here. Not anywhere. Not to anyone.
I must be strong. I must defend whoever I still can.
Leona placed a hand on his shoulder. She looked at him. And Tom saw haunting ghosts in her own eyes, old grief and loss—but strength too.
"We have more people to defend, Tom Shepherd," she said. "Seventeen thousand humans now live in Port Addison. According to our best estimates, between five to seven million still live in space, refugees and gulock survivors, seeking a way home. The scorpions are gone, but the basilisks are not. And those basilisks aren't just threatening Earth; they threaten the life of humans in space too. I need you with us. I don't just mean at the colony." She placed her hand over his heart. "I need to know you're with us."
He stared steadily into her eyes. "Always, Leona. Until my last breath. I lost everything in the fires of war. My family. My very soul. But I did not lose Earth." He made a fist. "We will never lose Earth. So long as my heart beats, I will fight for this world. My life means nothing else. It is dedicated to our homeworld."
Leona smiled, but there was a sadness in her eyes. "Good. We need a guy like you. Just . . . don't play your flute out here again. It can attract snakes."
Tom nodded. "Or, with my playing, it might drive them away."
Leona laughed, all her intensity vanishing. "From what I heard, it's beautiful. I'd love to hear more—in the colony! Walk me home?"
"I might not move as quietly as you," Tom said, "but I'll try to—"
The trees rustled.
Tom froze and stared.
Leona raised her rifle.
A smell wafted from the forest, wet and oily.
A hiss rose.
That was enough for them. Tom and Leona opened fire.
The basilisk leaped from the forest into the hailstorm of bullets, screeching.
The bullet shattered its fangs, its eyes, its jaw. But still the beast lunged, tail flapping, and slammed into the two Inheritors.
The beast wrapped around them, body thick and coated with black scales. What remained of its jaws gummed Tom's arm, toothless and unable to hurt him. But the tightening body was a different matter. The basilisk pressed Tom against Leona, crushing their backpacks, nearly snapping their bones. Leona screamed, arms pinned to her sides. Tom tried to raise his rifle, could not. The weapon was digging into his side.
But his right arm could still move. He drew his flute.
The basilisk hissed at him, jaw shattered, eyes gone.
Tom thrust the silver flute like a dagger, sinking it into the basilisk's eye socket—and deep into the brain.
The basilisk loosened around them. Leona and Tom climbed out from the scaly bundle.
"Got it." Tom nodded. "No more flute."
"Fine, fine! Unless it's to stab basilisks in the eyes." Leona took a shaky breath. "Thanks for saving my ass."
Tom frowned.
His heart pounded.
"Do you hear that?" he whispered.
Leona glanced at him, then inhaled sharply.
Hissing. A lot of hissing.
Tom ran toward an oak and climbed. Leona climbed after him. They stuck their heads out of the canopy of leaves and stared north.
"Ra above," Tom whispered.
"Muck!" Leona cursed.
The forest was shaking. A hissing symphony rose. Between the trees, they saw scales.
There were hundreds of snakes slithering toward them. Maybe thousands.
Tom looked back south toward Port Addison.
More snakes were crawling down other hills and mountains, moving towar
d the settlement.
"It's a coordinated attack on Port Addison." Tom reached into his pocket for his comm. "We gotta warn the colony! We—"
A basilisk leaped out of a nearby tree, slammed into Tom, and he fell.
He crashed through branches, shouting, and thudded onto a pile of leaves. The basilisk landed atop him, screeching, biting, clawing.
More basilisks emerged from the forest all around, closing in.
Tom tried to rise, but the basilisk pinned him down. The creature was easily twice his weight, large enough to swallow him whole. It was wrapping around him, trying to get a good grip. Tom struggled free and scuttled back, but another basilisk slammed into him, then a third. Another alien coiled around him, and he saw more in the trees. The damn basilisks were everywhere.
The snake engulfed Tom, pinned his arm to his sides. The scaly head rose before him, and the jaws opened wide, revealing fangs and quivering strings of saliva.
"A nice, tasty morsel," the basilisk hissed. "I will enjoy eating your—"
The basilisk's head exploded.
"Eat lead," Leona said, her rifle smoking. She kicked the dead basilisk off Tom and yanked him up. "Be useful and fire your gun!"
He loaded his rifle. They stood back to back, and they fired.
Their bullets hit basilisks all around them. Blood, scales, and chips of wood flew through the forest.
"They've got more snakes than we've got bullets!" Tom shouted over the cacophony.
Leona nodded. "Run!"
"We'll never make it to the camp," Tom said.
She tugged him. "Yes we will. Come on!"
They ran down the mountainside. Behind them, the shrieks rose. When Tom glanced over his shoulder, he saw them erupting from the forest. Countless basilisks. Some were black, others green, some yellow or crimson. All had murder in their eyes.
"They're not wearing armor!" Tom said as they ran. "Or carrying weapons. The basilisks in space had weapons."
"Good!" Leona said.
They leaped over a fallen log and kept racing down the mountainside. The slope was so steep Tom nearly fell.
"These aren't soldier basilisks," Tom said. "This isn't an army. It's the locals. The civilian snakes. They're rebelling against us."
"I don't give a damn who they are!" Leona said. "They want to kill humans. We have to defend ourselves."
A basilisk burst out from a bush before them. Tom and Leona didn't lose a beat. They fired their rifles, tore the creature apart, then leaped over its flailing body. But the colony was still kilometers away. Tom had spent too many years close to starvation, living off beetles and worms on the brutal world of Corpus. He was still weak, still too thin, could not run that entire distance. Perhaps Leona could reach Port Addison at a run. But Tom would slow down, have to stop before the end.
He glanced behind him. The basilisks covered the mountainside. A multitude.
Seventeen thousand humans in Port Addison, Tom thought. And we're outnumbered.
They were near the valley now. Grasslands spanned the distance from here to the colony. Already basilisks were reaching the valley and crawling toward the settlement.
"I'm slowing you down. Run, Leona!" Tom stopped running, breathing raggedly, and spun back toward the mountainside, toward the countless swarming basilisks. "I'll hold them off. Run!"
He opened fire, spraying bullets. Perhaps he could deter them, kill a few, slow the swarm just enough to let Leona make it.
She gripped his collar and pulled. "Noble—but unnecessary. I have a motorcycle. Ride with me!"
She pulled him toward a patch of bushes. She fired her rifle, knocking back a basilisk, then parted the foliage, revealing a motorcycle. Tom covered her, taking potshots at the serpents, while Leona wheeled the motorcycle into the open.
"Know how to drive one of these things?" Leona said.
Tom nodded. "Used to drive something similar in the Peacekeeper Corps."
"Good. You drive, I fire." She flashed him a grin. "I'm a better shot."
They roared off—Tom driving, Leona sitting behind him, firing her rifle. They tore across the plains at blistering speed, raising clumps of grass and soil. This machine had power. It rumbled under Tom, and the handlebars thrummed in his hands. Insects and clumps of dirt hit his face, and he rode squinting, nearly blind. But he could still see the serpents everywhere—in his rearview mirrors, at his sides, flowing across the fields.
"Fire in the hole!" Leona shouted.
"What—" Tom began, then saw her in the rearview mirror, hurling a grenade.
He winced and shoved down the throttle.
The grenade burst behind them.
The shock wave pounded into their backs, shoving the motorcycle forward. They nearly overturned. Behind them, the explosion rocked the land. Chunks of soil and dead basilisks flew. Scales pattered the burnt earth. The bomb had taken out several basilisks, but hundreds of aliens raced over the corpses, unfazed.
Leona hurled grenade after grenade. As the motorcycle roared toward Port Addison, the colonists joined the fight. Guards were firing railguns from atop Port Addison's wooden walls, and bullets slammed into serpents. Several guards had grenade launchers, and more grenades were soon tearing basilisks apart.
A cannon stood atop a hill inside the colony. It fired, and a shell soared over the walls, then plowed into the basilisks behind Tom and Leona.
This explosion made the grenades seem like popcorn. The blast was deafening. The motorcycle swerved madly, nearly falling. Tom roared, tugging the handlebars, and managed to steady the metal beast. They rode onward, ripping up grass.
The colony was only a kilometer away now. They would be there within seconds.
Then Tom saw them.
They rose from the grass ahead. A hundred or more basilisks.
"Serpents ahead!" he shouted.
The creatures leaped toward them.
Tom raised his rifle. He steered with one hand, fired with the other. Leona slung her barrel over his shoulder and fired too.
Their bullets took down three basilisks.
But one basilisk crashed into their motorcycle.
They flew through the air.
Tom screamed.
The world seemed to move in slow motion.
In midair, Tom fired his rifle. Leona flew beside him, screaming, firing her own gun.
They slammed into the grass.
Instantly, Tom flattered himself over Leona, shielding her with his body.
The motorcycle drove across his back, ripping his jacket and skin, and Tom bellowed.
The machine skidded off him, tore across the field, flipped several times, then careened into a boulder.
Tom groaned in pain. Below him, Leona screamed.
"Leona!" He pushed himself up.
She tried to rise too, screamed again, and fell. Her leg was twisted—broken.
All around them, the basilisks were moving in. Surrounding them. A few hundred meters away, more basilisks were assaulting the colony walls.
Tom stood alone in a sea of them. Leona lay at his feet, drenched in sweat, trembling in pain.
"Run," Leona whispered. Fingers shaking, she struggled to load another magazine. "I'll . . . hold them … off."
He grabbed her. He slung her across his shoulder.
"Commodore?" he said. "Shut up."
Tom began to run.
He held Leona with one hand. He fired with the other. Even with her broken leg, Leona fired her own rifle.
Tom gained speed.
He raced across the grasslands toward the wooden walls. Bullets tore a path through the basilisks before him.
It was only a couple hundred meters.
It was the distance to the stars.
As Tom ran here, he was running again through the gulock. Around him were not the basilisks but his dying people. His friends. His family. Thousands reaching out from the inferno, begging for salvation. Faces twisting. Skin burning. Eyes begging. And Tom ran. And he left them behind.
&
nbsp; Perhaps he had been running from them ever since. Fleeing their eyes. Fleeing his shame.
And so he ran now—but not into shadow.
He ran toward the colony. Toward the light of humanity. Not away from the dying but toward the living.
The wooden gates opened before him.
Inheritors emerged, guns blazing. Tom recognized them. Rowan was there, firing Lullaby. Bay stood by her, firing Lawless. Coral the weaver stood there too, firing aether from her runeblade. Emet stood on the wall, firing Thunder with one hand, Lightning with the other. A dozen others. Brave warriors. Free humans.
His new family.
I lost so much, Tom thought. But I have them. I'm not alone.
As basilisks died around him, Tom leaped through the gateway, entering Port Addison. At once, they shoved the gate shut, sealing the beasts outside.
Inside the colony, Tom laid Leona down, then fell to his knees.
For the first time, he noticed that his legs were lacerated. The basilisks had torn into him, and blood dripped around his feet.
But I made it. I ran. I survived. I kept Leona safe.
"Get a medic over here!" Emet shouted, standing above them. "Doc! Patch them up. Then get them on that damn wall."
Tom heard them.
The basilisks slamming at the walls.
The prisoners scratching at the gulock fences.
Gunfire rang all around him. The medics worked on him, bandaged his wounds, wanted to send him to the infirmary. But Tom struggled onto the wall. Before him they spread into the distance, the hordes of attacking basilisks. Tom fired his rifle, holding them back. Leona fought beside him, her broken leg in a splint. Hundreds of warriors stood with them, firing machine guns and light artillery.
The dream cannot end here, Tom thought. We did not lose so much to fall now.
Vaguely, he realized his flute was gone. He had lost it somewhere between the mountains and colony. For now, the music was silent, and the cannons roared.
CHAPTER TEN
"ISS Jerusalem! Come in, Jerusalem! Damn it, Ramses, where are you?"
Emet stared at his comm in disgust. The damn thing seemed to be working. His words were transmitting. But no response was coming from his fleet above.
"Ramses, can you hear me?" Emet tried again. "Where the hell are you? We need air support!"
The War for Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 4) Page 7