He was the first to encounter the global defensive network the Bugs had installed around their homeworld.
118.
LUCY’S REACTIONS were far faster than any of the others but she lacked the raw power of Fatty’s lightspeed-capable engines. As the plasma blasts from the turrets flashed in her direction, she spun the controls, twitching them minutely, enough to avoid the blast and control her line to the defensive perimeter.
The Bug homeworld was, in fact, not their real homeworld. As she’d learned from the little history they had on the species, a small neighboring planet was where they had really come from, although this was debatable too, as the Bugs had long ago discovered ancient cave paintings on an otherwise unknown moon. Perhaps they had no real homeworld.
This world was huge and described by Earth scientists as a super-Earth—ten times the size of their own homeworld but with the same, if slightly alien, conditions. The seas outlined vast continents, home to a dominant species not indigenous to it. And like all things not personally owned, it had been poorly taken care of.
Another bolt of plasma, coming in too fast for Lucy to avoid. She thrust a fist of drones at it, and a handful absorbed the blast. Lucy also had the greatest control of her drones and organized them into a revolving sphere around her craft, a writhing extra shield to deflect the fire coming her way.
She could already see the powerful weapons firing at Fatty as he zipped toward the planet’s surface. As she herself came within range of the second level of the defense system, she spun the controls, sending herself and her drones into a controlled spinning freefall.
The defense system would likely be controlled by artificial intelligence capable of predicting her next move. She would do everything she could to be unpredictable. It was going to be a wild ride.
119.
JAMIE’S GATEWAY put him somewhere high above the poles. Lucy probably put him in the safest place she could but he doubted the defensive line would be any weaker here. The Bugs were unlikely to make it easy for an enemy to sneak up and get in behind them.
He was right.
The light from the sun caused the near-invisible network of space-bound turrets and laser weapons to glimmer like a vast spiderweb across the surface. They had a hell of a task ahead of them.
The turrets opened fire the moment he came within range. Jamie turned his controls left, to avoid as many of the blows as possible. His drones fell away, absorbing the worst of the fire. A small number of blasts struck his own shields but not enough to be of concern. Yet.
120.
A MASSIVE gateway opened up to Donny’s right, and for a moment, he thought perhaps the Covenant had already picked up on their plight and had come to rescue them. But a glance out his window revealed that to be a false interpretation.
The ships that emerged were in the same style as the extermination ship they’d earlier destroyed. These were Bug ships. No doubt about it. And they were moving forward, opening fire. On him and the others.
121.
ISABELLE WITNESSED the gateways opening up too, and even more Bug ships—doubtless from their stationed positions across the galaxy—filing through. Clearly, the Bugs had alerted their military of the encroachment and their own forces had been sent here to destroy it at any cost.
The Bug ships, so big and bulky, were finding it difficult to destroy the much smaller ones. They had been built for battle, for war, for defending themselves against a real threat. Not for sniper activity.
The humans had inadvertently discovered the Bug force’s weakness. The Bug ships were too powerful and expected an antagonistic force to equal them, to attempt to destroy them with big, powerful ships, not for a small number to assault them.
This was their chance.
122.
FATTY SMILED to himself. This was turning out to be a lot easier than the levels on the game. He was in first place and had passed the Bug’s second defensive shell. The turrets turned inwards, continuing their endless rapid fire upon Fatty’s ship.
123.
DONNY WASN’T the best pilot. He was slow to react and virtually forgot about the drones around his ship, acting as a barrier. But he had something the other nodes did not.
“Computer,” he said. “Target the defensive network and fire at will.”
“Confirmed,” Computer said.
Donny was riding the ship’s greatest weapons arsenal. The weapons fired in a spray, targeting the floating turrets and destroying them. He couldn’t have even spotted them if he was in charge of the controls but Computer could sense things he could not, able to identify the turrets by their direction of fire and the rate at which they shot. His weapons punched a hole in the system. Get through that, and the Covenant defensive line wasn’t far beyond.
And then something strange happened.
The turrets in the global defensive system began to shift, moving from one place to another, filling the gaps created by their fallen brothers in arms. The only way to take down the defensive system was by taking out so many that they were spaced too far apart and their targets would be out of range. But there were millions of them. No way he was going to break them apart. Still, each one he took out meant one less shooting not only at him but the others too. It was like destroying a spiderweb one strand at a time.
BLAM!
Something struck his ship from the side, knocking him off course. A powerful laser from one of the Bug frigate ships. An ion cannon, according to his monitor.
“Let’s try not to get hit by any more of those, shall we?” Donny said.
The single blast had scythed ten percent off his shields with a single glancing blow. These things were damn powerful.
124.
JAMIE HAD the most powerful shield defense system amongst all the nodes. It was just as well. He had apparently been dumped in the most chaotic—not the safest—part of the entire defensive network.
Plasma fire and lasers flew at him from every angle. It was difficult to avoid any of them. Thankfully, his shield regenerated fast. No sooner had he been struck than the system began healing itself. It was still too slow, the shields maintaining a constant downward spiral but it was slow, hard work for the Bugs to destroy him.
All it would take was one critical hit and he would be done for.
Jamie understood he was not in a race that demanded speed but longevity. The longer he could survive, the more likely he was to get to the end zone.
125.
THE BUG airspace teamed with Bug ships. Their earlier reticence at firing down in the general direction of their own homeworld had apparently been forgotten, and they were openly releasing bolts and lasers, strafing and often missing their targets, showering their own home planet with fire from above.
The very air crackled with energy, burning bright white.
126.
ZAP!
Fatty’s ship was slapped from the sky. His former decent shield level of twenty-seven percent was suddenly reduced to zero. The blow from the frigates chasing him had been powerful, blasting through his node and straight on through to the ground below, cutting a dangerous line.
Fatty’s monitors flashed, warning of impending danger. His drones were dead and he was falling, falling, falling downwards, toward the Bug planet.
“Hull integrity compromised,” Computer said. “Ejecting now.”
“No, wait!” Fatty said.
But Computer was under strict orders from Mother. The command centre was ejected into space, a small marble glinting in the sun.
One frigate projected a beam of light that somehow latched onto Fatty’s escape pod. As the frigates that had delivered the final blow pulled up and targeted another ship, they dragged Fatty behind them. The finish line was now drifting farther and farther away.
Sorry guys.
He was out of the game.
127.
FATTY WASN’T the only crew member to have been swatted from the sky. Donny followed soon after, followed by Isabelle. She had already altered
her settings so Humperdinck would be ejected into space with her. She wasn’t about to let him die. Not alone, in any case. They were caught in a pair of tractor beams and taken away.
128.
ONLY JAMIE and Lucy remained. Jamie was still far from passing through the defense system. He pulled on the controls sharply. The ship suddenly bucked against his hands and he felt the ship already beginning to break apart. He would maintain his grip on the controls for as long as he could.
“Hull integrity compromised,” Computer said. “Ejecting now.”
Jamie caught sight of his node exploding as he was hurled into the Bug’s atmosphere inside his glass ball and then snatched up by a bright beam of light.
Lucy, he thought. She’s our only chance.
He couldn’t help but smile. Hadn’t she always been?
129.
EVERY REMAINING Bug ship and defensive gun turret within range turned on Lucy and fired.
Lucy’s ship turned, spun, and bounced left to right. When she needed to bank harder, she used her drones like a pair of hands to cushion and nudge her in the direction she wished to go. She was travelling fast, wicked fast. Her ship was by far the smallest, and therefore the hardest to strike. Lucy maintained her feverish momentum downwards, the Bug ships trailing her, firing wildly, madly.
Plugged directly into Computer, she analyzed the data in flashes of a nano-second, allowing herself to get struck by one blow in order to avoid another. She acted with lightning fast reactions, her decisions made ahead of time. She broke Fatty’s record and continued to gain momentum, sailing faster and faster downward.
She would not quit. She could not quit. She had to keep going.
On the monitors, Lucy couldn’t even see the individual lasers and plasma bolts. The air sung with energy, glowed furious and white. Her shield was depleting rapidly, her drones in the single digits. She was doomed.
But not before she reached the endgame, not before she reached the tripwire that would bring the Covenant down upon them.
Just. . . Up. . . Ahead. . .
“Hull integrity compromised,” Computer said. “Ejecting—”
“No,” Lucy said, overriding her own order.
I’m almost there. . .
The roof of the command centre exploded, torn off by heat and unimaginable flames. Lucy was protected by her glass tank, by the thick liquid that kept her cool. For now.
Her ship was being torn apart around her, fragments shorn off and disintegrating in the atmosphere. She couldn’t even see her target now but she knew it was there.
Then, with a single jarring lurch, she came to a stop.
The defensive line was there. Just there. A few yards from the tip of her pod. She was held, suspended in a tractor beam.
130.
LUCY’S POD floated in an endless circle, never coming to a stop. She heard a voice in her head, chittering, clicking that was automatically run through Computer’s translator. Then an image popped up in her mind screen. It was another pod—identical to Lucy’s own. It was stationed on board the giant ship that had ensnared her. She couldn’t see through the thick liquid but she could somehow sense him there.
“YOU CANNOT DEFEAT US,” the Bug Father said. “WE ARE ALL-POWERFUL.”
His voice was deafening in Lucy’s head.
“You’re right,” Lucy said. “We cannot beat you. But there are others who can.”
“THE COVENANT,” the Bug Father said. “BUT THEY WILL NEVER HEAR WHAT YOU DID TODAY. YOUR SPECIES IS WEAK AND SHALL BE WIPED FROM ALL MEMORY. YOU ACHIEVED NOTHING. AND NOW, YOU WILL WATCH AS WE KILL YOUR FRIENDS.”
The Bug Father pushed his face forward to the glass of his own pod, allowing her to see his mandibles quivering with joy. He turned and issued his order.
“KILL THEM!” the Bug Father said. “NOW!”
Out of view, offscreen, were some noises. Shrieks, chitters. Groans. Something Lucy had heard before but never so far away from Earth.
The Bug Father pulled back inside the safety of his pod as three large Bugs with seeping blue blood and snapped limbs set to smashing the pod open. The thick green liquid spilled out through the cracks and the Bug’s own Father hung limply from the mainframe. He screamed at the back of his throat as the Bugs tore into him.
“NO!” the Bug Father screamed. “NO! NO!”
Lucy didn’t understand what was going on. The Bugs were turning on each other. They looked familiar. Like Rages back on Earth. She didn’t care what was happening. This was her chance.
She ran through the procedure, knowing what needed to be done. The thick goo seeped out from the glass jar, massing globules like a lava lamp squirted into the cosmos. Lucy took a deep breath—the liquid was what fed her oxygen. She shut her eyes and, as the glass jar was about to crack open, exposing her to harsh elements of the universe, she emptied her lungs and pushed off the platform.
With her eyes shut and nothing to hear, floating in space, she felt very much like she was still inside her Mother pod. Calm, serene and at peace. She was floating inch by inch toward the Covenant signal defensive line. She couldn’t see it, couldn’t hear it, couldn’t sense it. But she knew she must have already crossed it.
She imagined the alien lifeforms appearing in their huge ships from across the galaxy to aid the Bugs but would instead find them with their pants down.
The future of the human race was in the Covenant’s hands now. There really was nothing more they could do.
Lucy smiled inwardly as she lost consciousness.
131.
LUCY OPENED her eyes. She lay in a cool, comfortable bed with a sheet over her. She moved slowly, gently with herself. She peered at her surroundings. She was in a room she recognized. It was the dorm she and the others had used during their stay in Dr. Beck’s City. The other beds were empty, blankets hastily tossed aside and unmade. It was about the last place she’d expected to find herself upon waking.
A figure stood with their back to her, busy organizing items on the other side of the room. The figure turned around. It was Isabelle. Her mouth fell open and she dropped the clothes she’d been stacking.
“Lucy!” she said, moving to her bedside. “You’re awake!”
She held Lucy’s hand in her own and checked her forehead for fever. She typed a message into the pager attached to her waist.
“Where are the others?” Lucy said. “Are they okay?”
“They’re fine,” Isabelle said. “Some of us got a few cuts and bruises, knocked around a bit but we’re in good shape.”
“How did we end up here?” Lucy said. “We’re in the City?”
“Yes,” Isabelle said. “Relax. Everything is going to be fine.”
But it was no good, Lucy had to know the answers.
“What happened with the Covenant?” Lucy said. “Did they help us?”
Isabelle grinned. “Oh yes. They helped us all right.”
Heavy footsteps outside the door as someone came running in their direction. When they’d left the City, Rages had taken over. Were they rushing toward them now?
The doors swung open. It was Fatty.
“I got here first!” he said. “Yes! In your face!”
Donny pushed him aside and stepped into the room.
“You’re second,” he said. “Not first.”
“I got here first!” Fatty said.
“You were too busy celebrating to step inside,” Donny said.
They were spoiling for another fight. Lucy smiled. Things were back to normal.
“How are you doing, Lucy?” Donny said.
“Fine,” Lucy said. “How about you guys?”
“Better now you’re okay,” Fatty said. “We weren’t sure you were going to pull through. It was hard even for the aliens to bring you back. You were floating around in space a long time.”
“The aliens?” Lucy said.
“Not those aliens,” Fatty said. “The good aliens. The Covenant.”
Jamie appeared in the doorway. The other
s stepped aside, letting him through. He didn’t say anything and simply looked at Lucy lying in bed. Lucy smiled back at him with her beautiful smile. He approached and wrapped his arms around her.
“We did it, Luce,” he said. “We beat them. It’s over—really over—this time.”
132.
LUCY GOT washed, dressed, and joined the others in the food court. She ate so much she thought she was going to explode. Fatty had spent the past couple of days experimenting with every ingredient combination he could think of, creating a whole new raft of meals no one had ever tried before.
“So, what happened to the Rages that were here?” Lucy said. “This place was infested.”
“The aliens took care of them,” Jamie said, spooning a mouthful of vinegar peas into his mouth.
His mouth curled and he shook his head in Fatty’s direction, who made notes of the best and worst flavours.
“They’re removing the Rages across the whole planet too, cleaning up the Bugs’ mess,” Jamie said.
“I got in touch with the commune,” Donny said. “Theresa’s in charge there now. They’re packing their things and will join us here. It took some convincing to make her believe everything we told her was the truth! You can’t really blame her, right? She wouldn’t believe it until she saw it with her own eyes.”
“That’s great,” Lucy said.
After the Fall- The Complete series Box Set Page 62