Mairead bristled. "And what am I, chopped liver?"
Rowan laughed. "You're more like me. I mean—we're nothing alike. You're a fierce warrior, and I'm a geek. You're a beautiful redhead, and I'm a mousy little hobbit. But we're both the young ones. Both joined the army as kids, rose too quickly in the ranks. And we both love baby animals!"
Mairead grinned. "See? You have a friend. You have me." She held out her fist. "Best friends, buddy."
Rowan fist-bumped her. "Really? Best friends?
"Hell yeah!" Mairead said. "You're mucking awesome, Row. I'm proud to have you as my best buddy. You teach me about baby animals, and I'll teach you how to beat Ramses at poker."
"Deal," Rowan said. "I mean—it's a deal. Don't actually deal poker cards now. We have a war to fight."
Mairead mussed her hair. "You're such a silly little thing. And yes, we really are best friends. I've never had a girlfriend before. I've always been one of the guys. I'd hang out with Ramses and the other boys, gamble with them, drink with them, wrestle with them. I was born in space, you know. Born right in the Inheritor fleet, grew up with soldiers. I was born with a gun in one hand, a Firebird joystick in the other, and a stick of TNT in my mouth. You're the first friend I can be a girl with. Look at animal buddies with." She wiped her eyes. "Ah, Ra damn it, got me all teary-eyed."
Rowan embraced her. "We'll be friends forever. Best friends."
Mairead kissed her cheek. "Ack, you're mucking adorable. You're like a human baby animal. Now come on, buddy!" She leaped up and pulled Rowan to her feet. "Time for your brains and my brawn to join up—and kick some basilisk butt."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The starling fleet flew through space. A thousand starships of every kind. The fleet of the misfits. The horde of the lost.
For the first time in history, they flew united. For Earth.
Bay stood on the bridge of the New Orleans, his gunrunning freighter. They were getting closer now. Closer to war.
Itching for the fight, Bay unsheathed his new weapons: two laser-blades. He had bought them from Starflare yesterday. At a glance, they looked like typical daggers. But when Bay pressed buttons on the hilts, the blades ignited. Lasers shone along the steel, red and crackling hot. He imagined sinking them into Xerka's face. Bay turned them off. On again. Off again. On again.
"Kid, cut that out," Luther said. "You're making me nervous."
Bay sighed, shut off the lasers, and sheathed them.
"We're almost home." Bay turned toward the porthole. "I can see Sol. She's so close I feel like I could reach out and grab her."
"Ain't no other star like her," Luther said, sitting nearby, strumming a guitar. "Our good ole' sun."
Our sun, Bay thought. He said our sun. Not your sun. Our.
The old starling had eyes like the stars. Pupils shaped as sunbursts. Small horns. A ridge of spikes along his back—Bay had seen them one time when Luther was settling down to bed.
He's part alien, Bay thought. But Earth is still his home. He looked out the porthole at the thousand ships, large and small, that Luther's people flew. It's home to them all.
Luther began to strum his guitar. He sang with a raspy voice.
Been ramblin' on in darkness, baby
Ain't got no food or bed
It's evil out there, woman
With no roof above my head
Got a long road to travel
Out here in the dark
That's why I got the starling blues, baby
Like a dog who lost his bark
Ain't got no world to call my own
Ain't got no flag to fly
Ain't got no woman to warm my bones
Ain't got no place to die
I got the starling blues, baby
Lost out here in space
But someday, yeah, I'll find a home
I'll finally find my place
Till then I got the starling blues
Rambling on through space
"That's beautiful," Bay said when the song ended. "Muck, man, I wish I could play and sing like you."
"I tell ya, kid, you just need practice." Luther lit a cigarette and offered Bay the pack.
Bay shook his head. He had quit smoking five years ago, along with the grog and drugs. Instead, he popped a piece of gum into his mouth.
"As beautiful as that song is," Bay said, "I hope it'll soon be irrelevant, that you'll find your home on Earth. No longer lost. All of you."
Luther puffed on his cigarette. "All of us. You too, kid. I know you humans have been lost for a long time too. We humans and starlings—we're the same, kid. The most miserable lot in the world. Hurts the damn soul. But good for the blues." He strummed a chord.
Bay looked out at Sol. Earth's star. They were only hours away now.
Hours away from war.
From death.
From Rowan.
Ra, I miss you, Row. I miss you so damn much. I can't wait for this war to end so I can marry you. So we can be happy forever.
He turned back toward Luther, who was strumming again.
"You never told me much about where you're from, Luth," Bay said. "Where were you born? Were you ever married? Do you have kids?"
Luther barked a laugh. "Yeah, I've been married, kid. Five damn times." He snorted. "Got kids all over the galaxy. A few of them flying in this fleet!"
Bay's eyes widened. "You never told me."
"Don't much like talking 'bout myself, I suppose," Luther said. "Never had a human wife, though. Starlings only. Mostly like myself, ones born human. Ones who changed."
"Will you ever tell me what changed you?" Bay said, voice softer now.
"Was a woman who did it," Luther said. "I fell in love with her. A human woman too! I asked her to marry me, but she said I was no good. No job. No scryl to my name. No home of my own, only a rusty, beat-up starship, barely larger than a guitar case. She told me to make something of myself. So, well, I decided to go on a quest. Like some knight from the old stories. Can you believe it?"
"I think I can," Bay said. "I've done some crazy shit for women."
"Yeah, they're wonderful creatures, they are. Beautiful. Kind. Better than us men in many ways. They'll drive ya mad. I flew off to find some legendary jewel they said lay in an abandoned space station outside the galaxy."
Bay's eyes widened. "Outside the galaxy?"
"Nor far into intergalactic space," Luther said. "Just a few light-years outside the Milky Way. A few steps into the vast empty ocean. Still took me five years to fly there, can you believe it? Five years of eating out of tin cans and sleeping in a tin can. Taught myself the guitar on that flight to keep my sanity. Flew right out there into darkness, hoping to find the most beautiful jewel in the cosmos. I figured if I could give it to the woman, she'd come around and marry me. Ha! I was a fool."
"So your plan didn't work," Bay said.
Luther scratched his stubbly chin. "Met some strange folk out there. Aliens, I suppose. But not like any that live here in the Milky Way. I still can't describe them, even after all these long years. I was half starving, half mad by the time they found me. Lost out there in the dark. Isolation does that to ya, you know. Digs deep into your soul. Breaks something inside. I had built myself friends from whatever I could find, damn dolls and robots that couldn't even speak. But I spoke to them. And oh, I was hearing voices by the end."
Bay winced. "Sounds horrible. I spent ten years flying around in Brooklyn, a tiny shuttle. But never for more than a week or two straight. Hell, after a week, I'd be climbing the bulkheads. I'd have to stop somewhere, spend a few days in a space station or gambling world."
"Yeah, well, ain't no casinos outside the galaxy." Luther barked a laugh. "I can tell you that much. But there's more than emptiness. There's strange things out there, kid. Things that'll make your skin crawl, make your eyes pop from their sockets."
"I quite like my eyes in their sockets," Bay said.
"Can't say I blame you. My eyes used to be norma
l. Human eyes. Like yours. But after I looked at what's out there, well … my eyes changed. Burned with intergalactic light. The beings I met there … They took me to their ship. No, not a ship. More like a strange dream. They did things to me. Not bad things, mind you. No damn probes, if that's what you're thinking. They had women too. I think they were women. Females, in any case. Soft. Woven of light. Comforting, you know? Made ya feel good, talked to ya. Took away your worries." A sigh rolled through Luther, creaking his joints. "But they changed me. Took a part of me. And I took a part of them. Came back with horns on my head, spines on my back, and eyes that can see past and future."
Bay gasped. "You can see through time?"
"Not like you think," Luther said. "Don't ask me to choose you any lottery numbers. It's on a cosmic level. I see the orbit of stars trailing behind them like strands of light. I look at you, and I see you as a baby, and I see you as an old man. Those beings I met? They live in four dimensions. They live in time as well as space. And I took a bit of that back with me."
Bay thought for a moment. "Can you see if we'll win the war?"
Luther leaned forward in his chair and patted Bay's shoulder. "It don't work like that, kid. The universe has a whole lotta time. Our old universe is mostly empty space and time, you know. Not much of anything else. Billions of light-years of empty space. Billions of years of time. This war? Ain't nothing but a bleep for our good old universe. Nothing but a speck of dust. I can't see its outcome any more than I could make out a single grain of sand on a beach."
Bay frowned. "So what use is your power?"
"Power?" Luther laughed. "You want powers, kid, go read a comic book." He snorted. "Power! I'll be …"
He got back to strumming.
Bay returned to the viewport, gazing out at Sol. Behind him, Luther sang his song again.
Someday, yeah, I'll find a home
I'll finally find my place
Till then I got the blues real bad
Rambling on through space
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Mairead beckoned from the Firebird's cockpit.
"Come on, Row, get your little ass in here!"
"One sec!" Rowan cried from the hangar floor. "I just got to adjust my spacesuit. The damn thing is way too big." She yanked on the legs and sleeves.
Mairead groaned. "It doesn't have to fit, it just has to cover your ass. Move it! Ass in cockpit!"
"Why are you so obsessed with my ass?" Rowan cried back. "Fine, fine. God! You're a mucking slave driver."
Rowan pulled on her helmet and walked toward the Firebird. Around her, an army of technicians, computer programmers, and generals filled the underground hangar. Workstations were set up along every wall. Operation Troy, the mission to infect the enemy fleet with Rowan's virus, was about to launch.
"Major Emery!"
Emet was walking toward her. The president of Earth still wore his old uniform—the blue overcoat, the black cowboy hat. He was limping. There were bandages bulging beneath his clothes. He had been fighting in the trenches again, insisting on leading from the vanguard like in the old days. Rowan wasn't sure if she admired him for that, or thought he was an idiot.
"Sir?" she said, stopping two steps from the Firebird.
Emet came to stand before her. His beard had grown longer during the siege. There was barely any blond hair left. His mane was nearly entirely white now.
He's starting to look less like a lion and more like Gandalf, Rowan thought. I approve.
"Are you sure you want to go up there?" Emet said. "I can send somebody else with Mairead."
"Thank you, sir, but I have to do this," Rowan said. "It's my software. I need to be up there with a minicom, ready to monitor and debug. Nobody else can do this." She took a deep breath. "I just hope my fingers don't shake too badly."
Emet saluted her—the old Inheritor salute, one fist in the other palm. Even now. Even here on Earth.
"Godspeed, Major Emery," he said.
She returned the salute, then climbed into the Firebird.
The mechanics had modified the starfighter, adding a second seat. Rowan sat in the cockpit behind Mairead, who would do the flying. It was a tight squeeze, and Rowan was thankful for her short legs. She had one minicom in her pocket. A second computer was mounted onto the back of Mairead's seat, centimeters away from Rowan's nose.
I just hope there's a good in-flight movie, Rowan thought.
Mairead spun around and peered over her seat. She had her helmet on, the words Hell's Princess scrawled in red between skulls.
"Ready, little buddy?" the pilot said.
Rowan nodded. "You fly, I code."
Mairead grinned. "Great, I got the easy job."
"Flying at ten thousand enemy starships is easy?" Rowan said.
She snorted. "Compared to coding? Piece of cake. Well, not baking cake. But I'm certainly good at eating it."
Banter. That was good. But Rowan saw the fear in Mairead's green eyes. The tightness to her smile.
She's terrified, Rowan thought. And trying to hide it behind humor and bravado. And I am too.
Rowan wished she could have launched the Troy virus from the ground. But the enemy was blocking all their signals. She wished she still had a Copperhead starfighter, a way to infiltrate the basilisk fleet. But their captured Copperheads had all burned in the war.
So it's up to us, Rowan thought. Mairead and me in a Firebird. We must save the world.
The bunker hatch opened above.
Mairead fired up the engines. Ancient hard rock filled the cockpit—a favorite of Mairead's. They soared.
Rowan looked at the devastation below. She barely recognized her beloved Earth. Port Addison lay in ruins. Most of the trenches had been claimed; they were crawling with aliens. The guard towers were gone. The enemy armies stretched into the distance. Not just basilisks but aliens of many species. Aelonian generals stood on a hill, robes billowing in the ashy wind. Hellwolves growled among the ruins, searching for human flesh. Blobs dragged themselves across the dirt, sucking up corpses. Monsters swam in the river. Serpents filled every pit and cranny.
The aliens spotted the Firebird. Several aimed cannons and opened fire. Mairead yanked the yoke, and they barrel rolled, dodging the attacks. They kept soaring, leaving the ruins far below, rising out of range.
From so high up, Rowan could see for thousands of kilometers. Individual aliens, even armies, were now invisible. But she could see patches of ash, plumes of smoke, and many craters. Battles were raging around the globe. Thanks to the influx of refugees and weapons, Earth's army now numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Every refugee that landed was immediately given a gun and sent to fight. They were fighting the aliens on every continent, struggling for every mountain, lake, and valley. Along the Western coast of North America, Rowan could still see the crater from the nuclear explosion—all that remained of Santa de la Rosa.
"I wonder if Earth can ever be beautiful again," Rowan said softly.
"It's still beautiful," Mairead said. "It's hard to see from here. Hard to see through the ashes and enemies. But it's still there. Our Earth. And we'll cleanse it."
The tone was unusually somber for Mairead. But Rowan remembered that Mairead had gone through hell this past year.
The Firebug died in New York City, Rowan thought. A new woman emerged.
She looked down at New York. She could just make out the metropolis from here. It was the largest city on Earth, home to millions of basilisks. Prince Naja lived there. Maybe Xerka herself.
Are you down there, Xerka? Or up with your fleet? Waiting for me?
Rowan had to push the thought aside. They emerged from the atmosphere, and they flew toward the enemy fleet.
Rowan looked up and gulped. Thousands upon thousands of alien warships were still orbiting Earth. Even after the onslaught of Earth's fireships, the enemy armada was massive. Half the ships belonged to basilisks, tubular vessels coated with scales, both the full-sized Rattlers and the smaller Copper
heads. The rest had come from other alien worlds, just as mighty. Blobby, sticky ships with no regular form. Fungal pods filled with spores. Spiky ships, sprouting jagged blades like great urchins of the depths. Silvery ships like daggers to slice through worlds. Spherical metal ships filled with water and venom. Bulbous ships bristly with cannons and warts.
"You brought seven alien fleets with you, Xerka," Rowan whispered. "And that will be your undoing."
The enemy warships were turning toward the Firebird. For now, they were not firing. Before taking off, Rowan had painted words on the fuselage:
WE SURRENDER
"All right, Mairead, that's close enough," Rowan said. "If we fly any closer, they'll suspect we're a fireship, and they'll blast us away."
Mairead placed the Firebird in low orbit. They hovered only four hundred kilometers above Earth now—just above the sky, and still a good distance from the enemy ships farther out.
They floated in space, waiting, letting the enemy read the words painted on their fuselage. For days now, Rowan had been trying to contact the enemy from Earth. Their firewalls kept shutting down every signal.
Mairead turned off the music. Rowan hailed the basilisk fleet again.
Her call went out.
They waited.
"Come on, Xerka," Rowan muttered, her fingers fluttering over her minicom. "Answer me. I just need you to pick up … and I've got you."
The call kept broadcasting.
Silence.
The enemy ships hovered above, still.
"Come on, baby," Rowan whispered. "Answer me. I just need an open line—and
I can send you my little surprise."
Nothing.
"Muck!" Mairead blurted out. "They know it's a trap."
"Give 'em time," Rowan said.
Her finger hovered over the button. The instant a basilisk warship answered the call, Rowan could transmit her virus—and hopefully infect the entire fleet.
The Song of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 5) Page 24