These battles rage across the continent, Rowan thought. Many colonies are already gone. But I can still save our home.
She began typing on the cannon's control panel. But not before loosening Lullaby in its holster.
The cannon was calibrated. Rowan took a deep breath and lifted her minicom.
"Pancake, you ready?"
Bay's voice came all the way from Pluto. "Ready to rock."
Rowan took a deep breath. "Giddy up."
She flipped a switch.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Rowan frowned. Had she missed a number? Was the cannon faulty? Or—
There!
A digit moved on her monitor. Just a single 0 turning into a 1. But it was the most exciting thing Rowan had ever seen. She bit her lip, watching with bated breath.
Another digit changed.
The cannon began to thrum. A lavender glow gathered around the muzzle. Rowan bit her lip and wrung her hands.
Come on, come on …
A purple beam blasted out from the cannon, soaring skyward. Rowan gasped and stumbled back a pace.
"Holy shit," she whispered.
The beam crackled and buzzed, splitting the sky.
From two other silos across the city, two more beams emerged.
The three pillars met a kilometer above the city, forming a glowing sphere. From the tip of the triangle, a central beam blasted upward, reaching toward the stars.
Around the three lower beams—the triangular foundation of the wormhole—reality was morphing. Starlight streaked toward the central pillar. Clouds were sucked up, then thrust upward. The light bent, distorting Rowan's perception of the ruins. Across the ground, pebbles thrummed, and a boulder cracked. Earth was shaking.
I'm bending spacetime, the very fabric of the universe, she thought. Oh God. Oh God above, what have I done?
"Bay!" she cried into her comm.
"I see the portal!" he replied. "We're flying the first shuttle through! This one has refugees. Weapons later."
Rowan stood, waiting, chewing her lip. She gazed up at the glowing sphere in the sky, the intersection of the three beams.
Come on …
And from the sphere, it emerged.
A shuttle.
Rowan leaped and yipped in triumph.
"It worked! It worked!" She danced a jig. "Bay, it worked!"
The shuttle descended and landed amid the ruins. The hatch opened, and refugees emerged. They fell to their knees on the soil of Earth, laughing and weeping. It was their first time home. Soldiers raced toward them, wrapped them in cloaks, and guided them into the tunnels.
Within hours, Rowan knew, they would be fed, clothed—and ready to fight.
Another shuttle flew through the wormhole.
A third.
A fourth.
From each emerged fifty refugees. They were hungry, some starving. Many wore only rags. Many were wounded. They all had tales of trauma, Rowan knew. They had all lost loved ones. They had all survived the cruelty of space—the scorpion gulocks, the basilisk assaults, the generations of trauma. And Rowan had brought them here for more conflict, for more pain and loss.
But this was their home. And every refugee who stepped onto Earth laughed or wept with joy.
The fifth shuttle carried weapons.
Rowan ran over, calling for a squad of infantrymen. The soldiers arranged themselves in a defensive ring around the shuttle, guns pointing outward. Other soldiers—these members of the logistics corps—began pulling crates out of the shuttle. They cracked open one crate, revealing piles of rifles. Another crate held bullets. A third crate contained artillery shells. Dozens of crates filled the shuttle.
"Christmas came early," Rowan said, patting a crate.
Then another shuttle arrived through the portal, carrying more crates of weapons and ammunition.
"Row, you there?" Bay's voice emerged through the minicom. "We're running low on shuttles. Can you start sending back the empties?"
"Will do," she said. "Thanks for the goodies. Better than flowers and chocolates. Guns, bullets, and bombs! You sure know how to woo a lady."
"You deserve it, babe."
The empty shuttles rose. More shuttles descended, ferrying refugees and weapons. For several hours, they worked, bringing in more refugees and weapons. By dawn, they had smuggled only a small portion down to Earth. But hope filled Rowan.
I did it, she thought. We did it. We bypassed the blockade. We built hope.
She was walking back to her cannon, ready to check the calibration, when the basilisks swarmed.
There were a dozen at least. They came scurrying across the ruins, heading toward the Talaria cannons.
"Basilisks!" Rowan shouted, knelt, and fired her gun.
Lullaby's recoil pressed hard against her arms, hurling bullets at the aliens. One basilisk fell. The others raced toward the cannon.
"Soldiers!" Rowan cried, firing. "Protect the cannon!"
One basilisk reached the cannon controls. Rowan ran, leaped, and slammed herself into the beast.
They hit the ground and tumbled over the edge of the silo. Rowan grabbed the rim, screaming. The serpent fell into the pit, and the technicians below cried out. More basilisks lunged, wrapping around the cannon's bore.
Gripping the silo's edge with one hand, Rowan fired with the other. She hit the basilisk below, but her bullets skipped and shattered a monitor. The basilisk reared in the pit, tearing into technicians, ripping flesh. Rowan fired three more bullets, finally hitting the alien in the face, shattering its jaws and eyes. It slumped down dead, burying a dead soldier.
Rowan leaped back into the ruins. Three basilisks were wrapping around the cannon, tugging it down. Soldiers were firing on them from all sides, cracking through scales. Rowan stumbled forward, bleeding, gasping for air. A basilisk slithered toward her, and Rowan fell to her stomach, aimed, and took out its eye. The alien thumped down dead, centimeters away from her.
Rowan flipped onto her back and gazed upward.
The cannon was still working, but the basilisks had tilted it. The purple beam was crooked. The wormhole's foundations were no longer triangulated. A shuttle was streaming down the tunnel, wobbling, madly careening toward the portal, and—
A basilisk grabbed the winch and spun the beam aside.
The corridor of spacetime shattered like a broken limb.
A kilometer above, the shuttle exploded.
It was an ammunition shuttle. Shells. Bullets. Grenades. They were all bursting above.
The explosion was deafening. Shock waves slammed into soldiers and aliens below. The night sky lit up, as bright as noon.
Two more shuttles came diving down and crashed into the explosion.
These were shuttles full of refugees, and Rowan watched, tears in her eyes, as fire and death spread across the sky.
"Stop all shuttles," she whispered into her minicom. "Bay. Bay, stop sending them." Her voice trembled. "Stop. Please."
More explosions boomed above. Thousands of weapons were lighting the sky. Chunks of metal hailed down. With them rained body parts. Blood. Human remains.
And the spacetime beams were still firing.
The Talaria cannons were thrumming. The earth was shaking. Cracks raced across the ground. Pebbles and stones began to levitate, to swirl around the beams.
And Rowan realized with horror: We're bending spacetime wrong. We're bending the ground.
"Shut them down!" she shouted, racing to the control panel. "Shut the beams! Shut them all down! Shut them d—"
The ground below her feet trembled and cracked. The purple light of azoth filled the cracks, bending the ground, bending reality.
Rowan leaped over a crevice, grabbed the control panel, and shut down her beam. A kilometer away, the second beam shut down. The third still rose, and Rowan saw basilisks attacking it in the distance, and—
An earthquake shook the ruins.
A massive sinkhole tore open, a hundred meters wide.
Boulders and soil rained into bunkers below—crushing refugees.
The third beam finally shut down. And Rowan wept. Because she had heard the screams—briefly, so briefly. Then silence.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry."
For a moment—Rowan could only lie on the ground, tears in her eyes.
Then she tightened her lips, rose to her feet, and ran.
She worked for hours, helping dig out the rubble, helping find survivors. But mostly bodies. The cave in had killed tens of people. Maybe over a hundred. A hundred more had died in the shuttle explosions.
As she worked, Rowan couldn't stop feeling it. The eyes staring at her. Judging her.
It's my fault. She kept digging, pulling out stones, seeking survivors in the rubble. I'm so sorry.
She toiled all day, refused to stop working until Emet himself arrived and pulled her away. The president held her arm, silent, face expressionless. He guided her to his own bunker, and Rowan stood before him, head lowered, tears on her cheeks.
For a long moment, Emet stared at her in silence.
Rowan's tears fell around her feet.
Finally she could bear the silence no longer. She blurted out, "Sir, I take full responsibility for what happened." She raised her chin and stared into his eyes, even as tears flowed down her cheeks. "It was my fault. My scientists warned me this could happen. That we needed more time to test the technology. But I thought I knew better. That I, a twenty-year-old girl, was wiser than they are. I insisted we launch Project Talaria too soon. And now two hundred people are dead." She let out a sob. "And it's my fault. Sir, I resign my position. Please strip me of my commission. I don't deserve to be an officer. I can fight in the trenches as a private. Or if you sentence me to the brig, I deserve it. I—"
"Rowan."
Emet's voice was soft and low.
She rubbed tears from her eyes. "Sir?"
The orphans who shared his bunker were in the mess hall now, eating with the other children. Emet stared at their empty beds, at the homemade teddy bears and building blocks. He spoke softly as if lost in memory.
"These children who share my bunker … I killed their parents."
Rowan gasped. She remained silent, not sure what to say.
Emet continued. "It was during the Battle of Helios. Just after Jade captured you. I was mad with fear and fury. So I launched an assault on an imperial dreadnought. I led a platoon on a suicide mission, maybe wanting to die myself. I felt hopeless. I thought we would die in glory. The mission succeeded. We commandeered the dreadnought, and we used it to destroy many scorpion warships. Yes, a military success. But one with little strategic importance. The scorpion empire barely noticed the losses. But our losses …" Emet exhaled slowly. "I lost most of my platoon that day. I nearly lost my life. I survived, but my soldiers never came home. I could have avoided the mission. We needed our soldiers more than the scorpions needed theirs. I made a mistake. And it cost the lives of forty soldiers. Men and women who had families. Who left children behind. I remember the fallen, every one. Their names and faces are carved into my memory. And every day, I feel the weight of their loss."
Rowan lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry, sir."
"I've been fighting for nearly half a century now, Rowan," Emet said. "For decades, I've been leading humanity. And I've led many young men and women to death. Countless thousands. Some lives were worthy sacrifices that helped our goal. But some deaths could have been avoided. Were mistakes. Miscalculations. Deaths because of my pride, arrogance, or short-sightedness. And every one is a scar inside me."
"You don't have to tell me this, sir," Rowan whispered.
He looked into her eyes. "I do, Rowan. Because you are a leader now. And you will be a leader for many years. Maybe after I'm gone, you—or Leona, or Tom, or somebody else—will even lead Earth. And people will die on your watch. This is something you must learn to accept, to understand."
Rowan blinked tears out of her eyes. "So you won't demote me, sir? You won't court-martial me for manslaughter?"
"I'm going to give you a list, Rowan. The names of the people who died. Their photographs. You don't have to read the names. You don't have to look at the faces. But you will keep the list. And that is far worse punishment than a demotion or the brig."
Fresh tears flowed. Rowan nodded. "Yes, sir."
"I don't do this because I'm cruel, Rowan," Emet said. "But because I want you to learn the value of life. To learn caution. I want you to become a better leader than I am."
"Sir, I can never do what you do. You brought humanity home. You led us through the darkness. We followed your pillar of fire through the night, and you took us to the holy land. Who am I? Nobody but the girl from the ducts. Nobody but a broken woman."
"Steel is hardened in fire," Emet said. "Right now, you are going through the fire. Yes, you are breaking. So that you can be reforged, stronger than before. You are more than the girl from the ducts. You are the officer who defeated Sin Kra. You are the leader who heads Antikythera Institute. You are a woman I am proud of. A woman I love as a fellow warrior. And as a daughter."
Now a great sob escaped Rowan, and she embraced him. "I love you too, Emet. I barely remember my father. But you're like a father to me."
He held her in his wide arms, his callused hands on her back, and her tears wet his beard of silver and gold.
"Rowan, I want you to continue the Talaria Project."
She gasped and stepped back. "Sir! Even after what happened?"
"What you did, Rowan, was careless, and it resulted in two hundred deaths. But it was also brilliant. You invented something new. You did something that has never been done. Something that can become our most valuable asset. Going forward, you will do it right. You will move the Talaria cannons outside the city, where they cannot damage our tunnels. You will build high walls around them, and defend them with gun turrets, preventing any further sabotage from basilisks. You will wait until the system is ready and secure. And then, Rowan … the Talaria Project will win us this war."
She returned to her bunker. She curled up in her bed, which she used to share with Bay. He was still up in space, far away at Pluto, and Rowan felt very alone and afraid.
On her minicom was the list. The names and photos of the died. Those who had left families behind. And every name was a weight on her shoulders. Every photo was a scar on her soul. Rowan did not know how she would bear it, how she could live after so many had died.
She pulled out her minicom. But instead of looking at the list, she called Bay.
This time, she initiated a video call. And as soon as his face appeared on the monitor, Rowan couldn't help it. She burst into tears. Not just silent tears like at Emet's bunker, but ugly weeping. Her entire body shook.
"I wish you were here, Bay," she said between sobs. "But you're stuck out there in space. Because of me. I wish you could hold me."
"I wish I could too," Bay said. "I'm billions of kilometers away. And I can't hold you. But I'm here with you, and I love you."
"Bay," she whispered, "am I a bad person?"
"Rowan, you are the kindest person I know. You have a good heart. I knew that from the moment I met you."
She smiled softly and wiped away her tears. "Can you believe it's been five years? Five years since that day you came to Paradise Lost, since we met in the ducts … How things have changed. How we've changed."
"But we're still the same old geeks at heart," Bay said. "Remember our first date? Watching The Lord of the Rings in the ducts?"
She gave a weak laugh. "That was a date?"
He nodded. "Damn straight. What say you? Another round of Lord of the Rings? For old time's sake? We can just watch half an hour together—me on my minicom, you on yours—before bed."
"More than half an hour," Rowan said.
He nodded. "As much as you'd like."
They streamed the movie together, and talked while watching, and Rowan almost felt like he was here with her. And she
knew that she had to bring him home. That she had to bring everyone home. That she had killed hundreds, so she would have to save millions.
At dawn, she got to work.
She moved out of the city. And she dug new silos. And she fought the war. And she kept the list in her pocket, knowing that every name would forever be with her. A weight of death. But also a sacred promise to fight for life.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Come, Ram. Poker game. Now! I'm going to kick your ass."
Mairead grabbed him and began pulling him down the tunnel.
"Hey, Firebug, lay off!" The Pharaoh squirmed, trying to free himself. "I was in the middle of cleaning my rifle."
She sneered, tightened her grip, and kept pulling him. "What are you, a cleaning lady? Let's play poker, man! Come on. Or are you chicken?"
As she mocked him, there was something hard in her throat. Something tight in her chest. Something that stung her eyes.
Shadows stirred in the tunnel above.
Wings creaked.
Mairead gritted her teeth, banishing the visions, and tightened her grip on Ramses's hand. She kept pulling him down the hall.
They entered her bunker, which she shared with Rowan and a few other officers. The others were away now, fighting the war. But Mairead needed an hour off. Just an hour, damn it! Just an hour away from fighting. Away from killing. Away from monsters in the shadows, and her face on hybrid bats, and a decaying city where her daughters—
Enough. Mairead shoved clothes and guns off the table.
"Deal," she said to Ramses. "Sit down and deal!"
She slapped a deck of cards onto the tabletop.
Ramses sat. He looked at her for a moment in silence. Then he spoke softly.
"There are only two of us here, Mairead."
The Song of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 5) Page 16