They all knew my father, Ben-Ari thought, flying in the Urchin. They will all fight for his memory. And for peace in this galaxy.
Humanity had flown here with a hundred thousand starships, had lost a quarter along the way. Now thousands of new starships joined them. Starships of crystal, of metal, of stone, of light. Starships from across the galaxy.
Humanity still led this fight. Humanity still formed the bulk of this fleet. But for the first time in this war, humanity did not fight alone.
The Alliance of Free Civilizations flew on, moving closer every day to Abaddon, to evil, to the greatest battle of their time.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
He sat in the engine room of the Urchin, and he wrote in his notebook: "The End."
For long moments, Marco stared at the notebook.
The End.
He had always imagined that, when he finished writing Loggerhead, he would cry, or maybe dance, or maybe just sleep for hours. Instead, he just sat, staring, not knowing how to feel.
"Well," he said. "It's done."
Lailani had been curled up in a nearby nook by a window, watching the stars. She rose and padded toward him, barefoot, wearing her fatigue pants and a white tank top. She stood behind him, leaned her chin on his shoulder, and looked at the notebook with him.
"The end," she read from the page. "You finished your book!"
He nodded. "The last few chapters only took a couple of weeks. Lots of time here on the Shithouse as we fly to battle. Also, the novel is told via the letters of a mentally challenged man, so I wanted to leave in lots of spelling and grammatical errors. Made it faster to write."
"A man who's writing letters to a turtle," Lailani said. "I remember. He was in a car crash."
"The reader doesn't know that at first," Marco said. "I guess I shouldn't have spoiled the book for you. At first we just see the letters of a homeless, mentally challenged man who places his letters in a bottle, then tosses them into the sea, addressing them to a loggerhead turtle. But later, when a woman visits him on the beach, claiming to be his daughter, we learn about the car crash that broke him, how he used to be a doctor, and . . . Well, now I'm really spoiling it." He closed the notebook and placed his hand on the binding. "It feels so strange to finally be done. To have finally completed this book I've been thinking about for years."
Lailani grinned. "Can I read it?"
She reached for the notebook, but Marco pulled it away. "I don't know. I'm still not sure I got it right."
"Oh, I'll love it anyway." She hopped around him. "I feel like I'm almost a coauthor, what with watching you write it so often."
Marco thought for a moment, looking out the window. "You know, there's a good chance that we're not coming home."
Lailani tilted her head. "Way to sour the mood, Emery."
He looked down at his notebook. "I'm happy that I completed this novel. But I worry that I'll die in this war, that nobody will ever read it, that it'll die with me."
"Then somebody at least should read it," Lailani said, reaching for the notebook. "Give it here!"
She took the notebook from him, and he handed over six other notebooks—the entire novel. She curled up in the nook again by the window, and she opened the first notebook.
As the fleet streamed outside, Lailani read. Sometimes she gasped. Other times she laughed. For a long while, she simply lay curled up, reading silently. Halfway through, tears filled her eyes, dampening the notebook. That night, as Marco slept, Lailani stayed up late, reading, and she kept reading the next day, notebook after notebook, even reading during their meals in the mess.
Finally, in the evening, she approached Marco. He was sitting in the engine room again, back in the same nook, watching the stars. She hopped into the nook with him, pulled her knees to her chin, and hugged her legs.
"I finished reading," she said.
Marco was suddenly afraid that she had hated it. Or worse—that she had found something of him, of his soul, in the novel, and that it disturbed her, even disgusted her.
"Thank you for reading," he simply said, voice soft, dreading the worst.
Lailani tightened her lips, tilted her head, and thought for a moment. She looked into his eyes. "Marco, it's beautiful. It's so sad, and . . . and just sad, mainly. But a sort of bittersweet, beautiful kind of sad, like rain in a distant field when you're all alone. I wish I were good with words like you so that I could describe how I feel." She shuffled closer to him, wrapped her arms around him, and kissed his cheek. "Thank you for writing it. The whole world, the whole galaxy, needs to read this book." She tapped her chin. "Well, maybe not the scum. Not sure they're quite the literary types."
"Thank you for reading," he said again, and now these were words of relief, of true gratitude, of love.
She leaned her head against him. "We just need to make it back home now. To make sure the novel is published. So no dying on Abaddon, all right? Deal?"
"Deal," he said.
She stretched out her legs, pressing her feet against the edge of the nook, and they looked out at the stars together.
"Marco, when we go home to Earth, can I live with you?"
"You want to move in together?" He smiled.
She nodded. "I do. I don't have a home on Earth. I was homeless before the army. Maybe I can live in your apartment, above the library, the place you told me about. I'll work for room and board. But mainly I think it can be nice to live together."
Marco wrapped his arms around her and kissed her cheek. When he had first met Lailani, she had joined the army to die in battle—a sort of grand, heroic suicide attempt, following her failed attempt when slashing her wrists. Hearing her speak of a future meant more to him than her praise for his book.
"When we're back on Earth, you'll live with me. In my home in Canada. Addy and my dad live there too."
"Will they mind me being there?" Lailani said.
"Addy loves you, and my dad will too," Marco said.
"And someday, when your book makes you rich and famous, you can buy us a giant big house," Lailani said. "I'm just kidding, you know. I don't need a big house. Even a little apartment is fine, if it's near some trees and water. And if you're there with me. And if you write more books for me to read."
He mussed her hair. "Any more conditions?"
"Just one," she said. "That once we're in Canada, we never speak of this. Of the army. Of the scum. Of what happened in the mines. We can speak of our friends that we lost. But only to remember the good times, the times Elvis sang, and how Beast talked about Russia, and how Caveman loved flowers. But not about how they died. Not about the bad things. Promise me that."
"I promise," he said.
Lailani chewed her lip. "Maybe Lieutenant Ben-Ari can live with us too. She's homeless too, you know. She grew up on military bases. And Sergeant Stumpy too. We can pick him up from Nightwall on the way back."
"I think that it's getting rather crowded in our apartment," Marco said.
"I like it crowded," Lailani said. "The worst thing in the world is loneliness."
They held each other, watching the stars in silence for long moments. Marco noticed that tears were flowing down Lailani's cheeks.
"Lailani," he said. "What's wrong?"
Her tears dampened his shirt. "I'm happy," she whispered, voice shaking. "I'm happy like this with you. I don't want this to end. I don't want us to reach Abaddon. I don't want us to fight. I just want to stay like this, with you holding me."
"Soon this war will be over," he said. "And we'll spend our days in the library, talking about books. And we'll walk in the park and along the beach, and we won't be afraid anymore, because there will be no more monsters. The world will be good again, and we'll be happy. Happy to just live together, to remember our friends, to grow old together. And once we're there, once we're in that world, I'll never let you go."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
"I'll fight for that." Lailani wiped her eyes. "When I first joined the army,
I had nothing to fight for. Only hatred of the scum. Of myself. But I'll fight for that, Marco. To grow old with you. To see people read your book. For this moment when we sat together watching the stars." She stuck her tongue out at him. "Also, we'll make adorable mixed-race babies."
Marco nodded. "Yep. Apartment definitely getting crowded."
Lailani closed her eyes, and they sat together as the fleet streamed through space. Toward fire. Toward death. Toward a hope for a better tomorrow.
* * * * *
"No, Addy, look," Marco said. "The dragon moves diagonally, like this."
Addy sat, biting her lip, squinting at the counter squares board. "Is this the dragon?" She lifted a piece.
Marco groaned. "Addy! That's a griffin. And that's my griffin. Remember, you're the white pieces."
"I want to be black," she said, reaching for one of his knights.
"Hands off!" He slapped her hand away. "Addy, take this seriously please. Counter squares is serious business."
They were sitting in the Urchin's lounge, a cluttered chamber above the engine room. The floor rattled as they flew through hyperspace, making the pieces vibrate on the board. A few other soldiers sat in the chamber, some playing cards, others gazing out the viewports at the rest of the fleet.
Addy finally lifted one of her pieces—a white cannon—and moved it a few squares forward, only for Marco to capture it with his elephant.
"Fuck this shit!" Addy shouted, leaping to her feet. "This game is fucking stupid."
"I wasn't very good at first either," Marco said. "But it's hardly stupid. It's an ancient game of skill, strategy, and—"
"Want to play hockey, nerd?" Addy said. "Because I'll kick your ass. All those times you were playing this even nerdier version of chess as a kid, I was on the ice." She rolled up her sleeve, showing off her tattoo of a blue maple leaf, logo of her favorite team. "This is a game."
"Well, until Ben-Ari decides to install an ice rink on the Urchin, counter squares is what we have," Marco said. "Your turn. Just give it one more try."
Addy groaned, sat back down, and spat. She moved her wyvern three squares forward, capturing Marco's fortress. "There! I killed you."
Marco responded by advancing his catapult, capturing her wyvern.
Addy stared at the board for a second. Then she stood up and pointed her rifle at the board.
"Whoa, whoa!" soldiers across the lounge said, leaping toward Addy and pulling her back.
"I'm going to blow a hole through this goddamn fucking board!" Addy was screaming. "Come on, Marco. Let's settle this with a good old fistfight."
Marco shook his head sadly. "All brawn, no brains, that one."
A few soldiers dragged Addy off to cool down. Marco sighed and reset the counter squares board. All his life, he had suffered Addy's temper. Even before she had moved into his home, he had experienced her rage at school. He still remembered that day in first grade when she had wrestled him at recess. She had been so fierce they had rolled across the yard, then onto the rusted old metal hatch of a bomb shelter. The hatch had crashed open, and Addy and Marco had fallen six feet onto a hard concrete floor. The hatch had then shut above them, raining rust, sealing them in the dark chamber. Only by a miracle had they not broken any bones. But even after the shock of the fall, Addy—in a rage over some minor slight—had continued to wrestle Marco right there in the bomb shelter. It had taken an hour for her to calm down, another hour of calling for help before a teacher had found them there and pulled them out.
He was so lost in thought he barely noticed Gunnery Sergeant Jones approach. The huge man—he stood halfway between six and seven feet, and he must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds—sat down at the table in front of Marco, taking Addy's seat. The chair creaked. Marco looked up at the Spearhead Platoon's second-in-command, and his heart twisted, expecting trouble. Jones had a giant bald head, mahogany skin, and a cheek scarred from an old battle. He looked every inch a warrior, capable of snapping even Addy in two with his bare hands.
"So you think you're good at counter squares?" the NCO said.
"Better than Addy, at least, Commander," Marco said.
Jones gave a small smile. "Let's play." He moved a pawn. "Your move."
Marco moved a pawn of his own. Jones responded by bringing out his dragon early—a classic Crane Gambit. Marco responded with the typical defense, moving his fortress out to block the attack. But Jones didn't respond with the usual second move of the gambit, instead opting to bring out another pawn, then another, then finally advance with both his cannons. Marco frowned at the board. This was more opposition than he had faced from Addy, no doubt. After a few moments of playing, Marco lost his dragon, his wyvern, and his elephant. By the time Jones had trapped his griffin, it was all over.
"The boys and I used to play all the time," Jones said. "Back when we served on Titan. Play again?"
They played two more times, Jones winning those games too, though Marco put up a strong defense in the third game and nearly forced a draw.
"You see," said Jones, "many people make a classic mistake with counter squares. They think that to win the game, you need a long-term plan, executed masterfully step-by-step."
"That's what I try to do," Marco said.
"I know," said Jones. "And I was able to quickly see your plan each time and thwart it. Meanwhile, you were trying to see if I had a plan, but you couldn't figure it out, correct?"
"Correct," Marco said. "I thought you were attempting a Crane maneuver at first, but you changed it."
"Winning counter squares isn't about having a complicated plan," Jones said. "It's about playing by basic principles. Controlling the center of the board. Creating strong defenses. Bringing out offensive pieces when the moment is right. With every move I make, I ask myself: Does this strengthen my position on the board? Does this adhere to the basic principles of the game? I don't try to think more than two or three moves ahead. I just try to strengthen my position with every move and gradually advance toward final victory."
Marco understood. "So you improvise."
"In a sense," said Jones. "But only because I can judge every new board and decide if it's in my favor." The NCO looked out the viewport at the fleet. "War is like that too, as I see it. Admirals and generals come up with end goals, but if their plans are too rigid, they will fail. The best soldiers improvise in the field, just trying to strengthen their position with every move."
"Even life is like that," Marco said. "Life has a way of messing up your plans." He thought of his plan to work in the archives back on Earth, to live a life with Kemi. "You try to make the best of each day as you find it. Which isn't always easy. Not on the bad days. Days when you lose people."
Jones nodded. "It's easy to win at life when everything goes right. When things fall apart, when loved ones die, when the world burns, when it seems like there's no path to victory—that's when we must look carefully at our board, make one move at a time, and just keep fighting."
Marco wondered how many friends, how many loved ones, Sergeant Jones had lost. Marco thought about the friends he had left behind. Of Beast, Elvis, Jackass, Caveman, Sheriff. Of his commanders, his mentors—Corporal Webb, Corporal Diaz, Sergeant Singh. Every day, Marco missed them, wished they could be flying here too. Every day, as the fleet drew closer to Abaddon, it was harder to find hope, to believe there could be victory.
And every day, the fear grew that he would lose others. Lailani. Addy.
That night, Marco lay awake in his bunk for a long time. The others in his squad slept around him, fifteen warriors in the shadows. Tomorrow Marco expected to spend long hours at the cannon, firing at any scum who approached. Scum sorties had been attacking every day, chipping away at the fleet. But no sleep found Marco. As they drew nearer to Abaddon, his dread grew. In the rattling of the floorboards and humming of the engines, Marco had begun to hear a voice, deep, rumbling, but the words were too muffled to understand. In his dreams, though, that voice spoke clearly to him�
�the voice of the scum emperor, welcoming him into his lair, sawing Marco open and stitching him into a new creature. Marco could barely sleep more than an hour straight most nights.
A shadow rose before him.
Claws stretched out.
Marco lay in bed, unable to move, just to stare. He tried to kick. He tried to reach for the gun under his pillow. His arms were paralyzed. He wanted to scream. Scum on the ship, scum on the ship! His lips wouldn't move.
"Poet?" The scum jabbed his shoulder. "Poet, you asleep?"
His mind reconnected with his body. Marco could breathe again. It was only Addy standing above him, wearing her pajamas.
"Addy, fucking hell, I thought you were a scum. What are you doing—" He frowned and fell silent. There were tears on her cheeks.
She sat down on the bed beside him, then lay down. "Marco, I'm sorry I got angry at you before," she said. "With your stupid game."
"It's all right," he said.
She touched his arm. "And I'm sorry about all the other times too. How I'd tease you a lot back home. How I'd wrestle with you. How I was a huge pain in the ass."
"You definitely kept my life interesting," Marco said.
Addy buried her face against his chest. "I'm scared, Marco. I'm scared that I'll lose this war like I lost the game. I'm scared that I'll lose you. I'm not even scared of dying. I'm scared of living, Marco. Of living on without you, without Lailani, without Ben-Ari, without those we lost already."
"Me too," Marco said quietly.
Addy looked at him with damp eyes. "I know we're not supposed to talk about it. I know we're supposed to forget it ever happened. But I liked having sex with you. I usually just had sex with big tough guys, and you're my friend. You're my best friend. And that's why it was good. And I'll remember it. Even if you're with Lailani, even if people die. It's something good that happened. Never think otherwise. I really love you. Even when I'm a pain in the ass."
"We're going to survive this," Marco said. "Both of us. We'll go back home together when this is all over. We'll live above the library, and I'll play counter squares with Dad, and you'll play hockey. Sometimes I'll even watch the games with you, and we'll eat wings and drink beer. We'll talk about the war sometimes, but only the good memories, the funny parts, like when we pissed into milk cartons in the tent, or when we smuggled candy out of the vending machine. And we'll laugh and be happy, and in a few years, we'll realize that all the good times outweighed the bad. There will be no more war at home. No more gas masks or bomb shelters. No more kids going into the army. There will be books, family, friends, laughter, love." He kissed her cheek. "Because I love you too, you stinky pain in the butt."
Earth Rising (Earthrise Book 3) Page 14