"Sir," Marco said, "I asked Lieutenant Ben-Ari for a transfer. I told her that I didn't want this mission. She refused to let me leave, but now I see that there's no other way. There's no retreat. We must win. I don't know how strong I am, how brave I am. But I don't doubt my determination."
"That is the best quality a soldier can have," said Bryan. "Strength can falter. Courage can wane. But a determined soldier marches on." He gave Marco a sly look. "And apparently sneaks into a highly secure, sensitive chamber and tosses a shirt over a security camera."
Marco's cheeks flushed. He knew it. He knew that's why he was here! "I'm sorry, sir. I couldn't help myself. I accept full responsibility and whatever punishment you see fit, I—"
But Admiral Bryan was laughing. "It's all right, Marco! I think that in today's military, we forgot too much about mirth, about bending the rules now and then. Not something you expect to hear an admiral say, is it? No, Marco, you're not here to be disciplined. You're here because you remind me of myself fifty years ago." He looked out at the stars. "I never wanted to be a pilot. I never wanted to fight. But damn it, the scum had killed five billion of us. And so I flew out. I watched my friends die. I watched two hundred lights—toward the end, we only had two hundred fighter jets—blink out around me. And I watched the devastation my bombs unleashed on Abaddon, the death of millions of scum. They told me they're only arthropods. That they feel no pain. That they have no emotions. But still, that act—the killing of millions—still weighs on me."
"They said you disappeared after the war," said Marco.
"I did. For many years, I worked in silence. I still spend most of my days here in the Dome, rather than walking among the troops. Few back on Earth even realize I'm still alive." He smiled wryly. "Perhaps you were among them."
"Most days, I'm surprised I myself am still alive, sir," Marco replied.
Bryan's eyes saddened, and he placed a hand on Marco's shoulder. "This will all be over soon, son. But first we must fly through Hell. You must keep Lailani strong. You must give her comfort, laughter, love. That's why we chose you for this mission. That's why Ben-Ari wouldn't let you go. Because we need Lailani, and she needs you. She loves you very much, Marco."
His eyes stung. He looked away, ashamed of his tears. "And I love her, sir. I'm so scared of losing her."
Bryan stared in silence for long moments at the stars. "The curse of the general is in the numbers. We deal in life and death. I am sentencing thousands, maybe millions to die in this invasion, in my effort to save billions. And perhaps I will save those billions, but every light that goes out will haunt me. I'm old, Marco. I'm old, and much grief and guilt already fill me, and I will accept more of this burden. Perhaps someday you will be as I am now. An old man, looking out into space, burdened with so much guilt. But what comforts me, Marco, what gives me that determination, is a dream for your children. For the generation after yours. This invasion means suffering for us but peace for them. Tomorrow, for the generation not yet born, we will fly. We will fight. And we must win."
CHAPTER TEN
The Spearhead Platoon—fifty warriors in black—stood in the departure gate of Space Station One, staring at a massive chunk of space debris floating toward them.
Marco cringed. "Commander, incoming!" He pointed.
Addy ducked. "There's a giant piece of garbage flying our way!"
The tall, beefy Sergeant Jones grumbled. "Very funny, soldiers. That piece of garbage is going to be your home for the rest of the war, so you better learn to love it. She's ugly, all right." He looked out the viewport. "Don't doubt that. But that's just why we want you in her."
Wincing, Marco looked back out the viewport. No. It wasn't a giant pile of junk after all. It was a starship—or at least, a rusty pile of bolts that functioned somewhat like a starship. The hull was craggy, rusted, dented. The design was just a big, irregular sphere. But Marco saw engines' exhaust pipes, a slat of metal that looked like a hangar door, and cannons that thrust out like spikes all around the hull. It reminded him of a mechanical sea urchin, puffed up and bristling. It didn't surprise Marco when he saw the letters painted with flaking paint onto the hull: HDFS Urchin.
"The HDFS Urchin?" Addy said. "Looks more like the HDFS Shithouse, if you ask me." She glanced at Jones. "Commander, any chance we could officially change her name to Shithouse?"
Lailani nodded. "I'm game. I want to fly to war in a Shithouse."
"You two will fly to war in the brig!" rumbled the NCO. "Silence! Show some respect for a vessel in humanity's fleet."
Marco looked away from the Urchin and gazed longingly at the rest of the fleet gathering outside the space station. There were all manner of ships mustering there. The smallest, the Firebird fighter jets, were flying back and forth in squadrons, aerodynamic and winged, able to fly both in space and atmosphere. Larger bombers, the size of buses, were docked at stations, soldiers busy loading explosives into their hulls. Cargo hulls hovered, boxy and functional, carrying many tons of munitions, everything from bullets and bombs to battle rations. Medical ships were gathering here too, their white hulls painted with red crosses, crescents, and Stars of David, ready to heal the inevitable wounded of the war. Warships loomed, hundreds of feet long, their cannons large enough to flatten entire towns, vessels that carried thousands of warriors. There were ships for engineers, for military intelligence, for logistics, for all other noncombatants from computer programmers to janitors.
Largest of all loomed the jet carriers, starships the size of skyscrapers, carrying entire marine brigades and flights of Firebirds. The largest of the jet carriers, the HDFS Terra, was visible in the distance, silvery and glimmering, the flagship of the fleet. Admiral Evan Bryan, they said, was flying on the Terra, would be leading this army to war.
Any one of those other ships was in better condition than the Urchin.
"Sergeant Jones," Marco said, glancing around to make sure no other units were nearby. "We were told our platoon would undertake the most important mission in this war. So why do we get the worst ship?"
A voice spoke from behind them, and Marco turned to see Ben-Ari walking toward them.
"Precisely because we're so important," she said. The commander of the Spearhead Platoon wore black battle fatigues, like her troops, and heavy black boots. Her plasma rifle hung across her back, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. "The scum will attack our fleet. They will hit us hard. They won't bother wasting energy on a hunk of junk like the Urchin. This ship, soldiers, is the safest in this fleet."
Addy sighed. "So we're camouflaging ourselves as a latrine. Lovely. I'd rather die in battle than live in a toilet."
"Not me," Marco said. "In the army, the toilet is the only place you get to read."
He hoped he would find time to read and write on the Urchin. Abaddon was still many light-years away. It would take the fleet days to get there, even flying in hyperspace at many times the speed of light. Marco had been working on Loggerhead in every stolen moment since arriving at Nightwall, and he was more than halfway through the novel now.
He didn't know what fate awaited him on Abaddon. He wanted to complete his novel before he died, even if it died with him.
The Urchin reached the space station. It had no automatic docking system. It hovered fifty meters out, and the station sent out an expanding bridge to lock with its hatch. As the platoon walked down the bridge, Marco got a closer look at the Urchin's hull. It wasn't only dented and scratched and rusty. Somebody had somehow managed to spray rude graffiti across it, mimicking the nude man and woman from the Pioneer Plaque, symbol of Space Territorial Command. Only these figures looked quite a bit . . . better endowed than the originals.
"Oh my," Marco said.
"They seem nice," Addy said, looking at the graffiti couple.
They entered the starship, and Sergeant Jones gave them the grand tour. On the inside, the ship wasn't in much better shape. It looked fifty years old at least, maybe older, a relic of the Cataclysm. But desp
ite its age and poor conditions, Marco thought it comfortable and roomy enough. There was a small kitchen stocked with food, a mess hall, a lounge, a hangar with three large shuttles, an officer's quarters, and three large bunks with fifteen beds in each. There were also gun turrets, twelve of them bulging from the ship, with heavy cannons and crates full of shells.
"These are old cannons," Sergeant Jones said, tapping one. "The kind used back in the Cataclysm. Antiques. But they're damn effective, and they'll punch through even the biggest scum ship. You'll man these cannons in shifts, two soldiers in each turret. I don't want to ever see a cannon without a pair of gunners at the ready."
The last stop on their tour was the bridge, a semicircular room with a viewport that stretched across the curved outer wall, affording a view of the fleet, the space station, and the dark planet below.
A pilot sat at the controls, wearing a navy blue service uniform with bright cuff links. Her hair was smooth, platinum-colored, and cut to the length of her chin. She rose from her seat, turned toward the platoon, and regarded them with lavender eyes. She smiled.
"Hello, masters!" She gave a little bow. "I am Osiris, all-purpose android, built by Chrysopoeia Corp for HDF service. Happy to serve you!"
Addy's eyes widened. "Osiris! You're with us too? You were transferred here from the Miyari?"
The android's smile widened. "You must have met one of my sisters, serial number T2353ac, serving aboard the HDFS Miyari. I am serial number T1143fd, normally serving aboard the Sagan, today serving you aboard the Urchin. Pleased to meet you! Would you like to hear a joke?"
"Oh God no," Marco said.
"Don't worry, master, I am a more advanced model than the Osiris you met aboard the Miyari," said the new Osiris. "My humor algorithms have been greatly revamped and strengthened. Why did the brain cell walk from one side of the brain to the other? I don't know. It hasn't really crossed my mind. It's funny because I'm an android and don't have brain cells."
"Yes, I can see your humor has vastly improved," said Marco.
"Thank you, master!" The android beamed. "Would you like to hear another?"
"I think you better save the rest for later," Marco said.
"That's all right, master. My new databases contain over thirty thousand, two hundred and—"
"Osiris, why don't you fly us off the dock for now?" Ben-Ari interjected. "The rest of the fleet is taking formation."
Osiris turned toward the viewport, and her eyes widened. She rushed back to her seat at the controls. "Of course, ma'am."
Marco stood on the bridge, watching through the viewport as the Urchin detached from the space station. As it floated across space, the bucket of bolts creaked and clattered, sounding like some old knight in a rusty suit of armor. The rest of the fleet was arranging a massive formation in space, thruster engines gently guiding every vessel into position. The HDFS Terra took the lead, two thousand feet long. The warships arranged themselves in V-shapes behind, and around them hovered smaller battleships, and around those flew the even smaller Firebirds. There were thousands of ships here, and thousands more would be joining them from other bases across the frontier.
"It's the largest army ever assembled in one place," Marco said softly, gazing out the viewport. "Larger than any invasion in human history."
"This is a war between worlds, old boy." Addy patted his back. "Maybe you'll write a book about it someday. That is, after you're done writing Jarhead."
"Loggerhead, Addy. Loggerhead."
If I live that long, Marco thought. If any of us do. If humanity itself can survive this. In this war, we show the cosmos that we're here to stay . . . or our species falls.
* * * * *
On the sixth of June, fifty years to the day the scum had first attacked the Earth, humanity's hope crossed the frontier into the depths of enemy territory.
The flagship, the HDFS Terra, crossed the border first. The silver jet carrier left that area of space humanity had claimed for itself, entering the vast darkness of the scum's empire. On her deck flew Admiral Evan Bryan, the first man to have dealt the scum a devastating blow, the man now leading the invasion to finish the work of his youth. On his ship served a full brigade, five thousand warriors, and upon her hull shone a great golden phoenix, symbol of the Human Defense Force, in many ways a symbol of Earth, of humanity rising from the ashes, strong and bright again.
For a few moments, the Terra flew alone. She was a large ship—the largest in the fleet—but in the depth of space, she seemed fragile, a tiny shard of metal and light floating into the abyss. Those watching from behind waited with bated breath, perhaps worried that the enemy should swarm from all sides, that the beacon of humanity should extinguish as fast as it had kindled.
When the Terra floated onward into the darkness, the other ships followed.
Hundreds. Then thousands. Then tens of thousands. Then the full might of the fleet: a hundred thousand ships, ranging from vast cruisers to single-man jets. They sailed among the stars, the ships of Earth, following their flagship to war.
There were bulky, fortified warships, their cannons the size of redwoods, great artillery vessels that could blast cities from orbit. There were hulking cargo ships, great boxes of metal, transporting munitions and myriads of marines. There were small, quick patrol ships, some no larger than city buses, circling the larger vessels, defending their charges from any enemy that should appear. There were the massive jet carriers, terrifying pieces of technology, each the size of Earth's tallest skyscrapers. Only a few of them flew here, but each was like a floating army, and in their hangars waited hundreds of Firebirds, all ready for war. Thousands of the single-pilot fighters constantly patrolled around the fleet, forming a sphere of defense like the Iron Sphere that now encircled Earth.
But Earth now floated far behind, invisible from this distance, her sun too distant to see. Earth would have to survive on her own, to stand strong, to resist any fire that should strike her. Here, hundreds of light-years away, flew the might of the planet. Here—all that humanity could accomplish, all her determination, her hope for life, her valor. The labor of a species. The sword of a civilization.
Marco stood by the viewport, watching the fleet around him. He wished he could have flown on the flagship, the mighty Terra. Maybe on the Sagan, the newest jet carrier in the fleet, carrying many of humanity's best pilots. Or perhaps on the heavy, terrifying battle cruisers, predators of space. Yet should the scum attack, those mighty ships would be their most coveted prize. Marco and his platoon, the Spearhead, were too valuable to fly on a ship that would draw scum like rotting meat draws flies.
Their ship, the Urchin, clunked and clattered along, coughing out smoke and leaving a trail of screws and bolts. Older than the Cataclysm, it seemed ready to collapse should Marco just lean against the wall. To the scum, it would appear as little more than space debris. The Urchin is what the faded painted letters on its hull called it. Within the ship, the platoon still called it the Shithouse.
"At least we're safe here," Addy said. "No scum would waste time destroying this hunk of junk." She pounded on the viewport. "Hey, you fucking scum! You hear me? We're coming to kill you!"
"Careful!" Marco winced as bolts fell from the ceiling. "Never pound anything here. You'll do the scum's work for them."
They stood on the bridge, a room that looked more like a warehouse, all cluttered with metal crates and pipes. The semicircular viewport afforded a view of the fleet and the stars. A few of the platoon's warriors were manning the gun turrets that rose around the hull. The others crowded together here, watching the invasion begin. Osiris—the new Osiris, identical in every way to the old one—sat at the controls, flying the ship.
Addy ignored Marco. She waved her fist at the viewport. "Yeah, I know you're out there, scum! I'm going to stick my foot up your asses!"
"Thoraxes, Addy," Marco said.
"Up your thoraxes!" She hefted her gun. "I got me a Fyre gun now, scum. I'm going to roast your hides."
> The louder Addy boasted of her battle prowess, the more Marco knew she was afraid, trying to hide her fear, to drown it under bravado and humor. For many soldiers, this method worked. To combat the stress and terror, they joked, bragged, threatened the enemy with whatever creative punishments they could imagine.
Lailani, however, stood very still and very close to the viewport. Her face was blank, and she spoke in a soft voice. "They're out there. They know we're coming. They are angry. They are so angry."
A tense silence fell across the bridge. Addy glanced around, face pale, then scoffed.
"Well, good," Addy said. "I like getting 'em angry. Makes 'em funner to kill."
Marco thought back to his training, to the endless hours in his virtual reality helmet, running across rocky terrain under the blinding sun, delving into the hives, battling creatures in underground caverns. He didn't think killing even the most enraged scum was fun. He didn't want to be here, didn't want to fight. But Admiral Bryan's words returned to him.
Lailani needs you. She loves you.
Marco stepped closer to Lailani. They stood side by side, close enough for their fingertips to touch, and stared together out at the fleet.
"You can feel them?" he said softly.
She winced. "So much. So much, Marco. It's like a room full of shouting people and blaring music and chainsaws and trucks and endless noise. Only completely silent. Just feelings."
He slipped his hand into hers. "I'm here with you, Lailani. When it gets too much, just focus on me. Come back into this world. You don't need to always be in the hive."
"But I'm always in it," she said. "And it's so strong here. It's bugs inside my skull. I can feel them inside."
"Then we'll kill them," Marco said. "We'll kill them all, like Addy said."
She squeezed his hand, and her eyes dampened. "I hate them. I hate this part of me. We will kill them."
The speakers on the ships crackled to life. From them emerged a familiar voice. The platoon all stood still, listening.
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