Across from him, Bucky passed out. She hung from her harness like a limp strip of meat.
Somebody else vomited.
George groaned, and then his head hit his chin. Unconscious.
The shuttle kept roaring, rattling, soaring higher and higher. There was a little porthole above the harnesses, and Jon glimpsed blazing fire and smoke. He clenched his jaw, swallowed hard, and desperately clung to consciousness.
I guess this is why they didn't feed us today, he thought.
He was thankful for his helmet. His head banged against the wall again and again. The bones in his neck rattled. The shuttle jerked, and he bit his tongue and tasted blood.
They kept soaring.
Etty gripped his hand.
The g-force grew stronger, stronger, and Jon was blind, and everything was blackness and fire, and—
It ended.
The fire died.
The rattling eased.
The g-force released him.
The shuttle was flying through space. The narrow porthole revealed the stars. Jon slumped in his straps.
"I hate space already," he moaned.
Etty released his hand. "Sorry if I crushed every bone in your hand."
"It's okay," Jon said. "The ride up almost crushed every bone in my spine, so what's a hand?"
Those who had passed out were slowly coming to. Without gravity, only the harnesses kept the recruits in place. A pair of glasses, a wallet, and blob of vomit floated through the cabin.
"Well, would you look at that," Etty said, face pressed up against the porthole.
"Make room!" Jon said.
He looked out the porthole with her. And he couldn't help it. Even here, crammed into a metal can with thugs and floating vomit, every bone in his body aching, farther than he'd ever been from home… even here, he felt a moment of awe.
"A space station," he whispered. "It's an actual space station."
It was orbiting Earth—a metallic cylinder. It looked like a pipe floating in space, engines and antennae sticking out from its ends. Jon couldn't estimate its size. But he saw several other shuttles approaching the space station. They seemed like specks in comparison.
"It must be the size of a skyscraper," Jon said.
"Almost as big as George!" Etty said.
The cylinder was rolling along its axis, he realized. It was like a giant rolling pin in space. One side blazed with sunlight. The other was cloaked in shadows. As the station rotated, it revealed letters painted across the rounded hull, each letter larger than a house.
ROMA STATION: BASIC COMBAT TRAINING
"That's where we learn how to kill," George said. The giant shuddered.
"And how to die," Etty said softly.
The shuttle flew toward the station. Roma grew larger and larger ahead, soon blocking their view of the stars.
"My friends," Jon said, "welcome to hell."
Chapter Ten
Maria's Work
When Maria came to, the forest was full of smoke. Beams of red light fell through a charred canopy. She coughed, groaned, and pushed herself to her feet. Smoke coiled around her like serpents, and ash rained from the sky, filling her hair.
"Crisanto?" she whispered, but her luminous friend wasn't there. "I must have fallen asleep."
She rubbed her eyes. How long had she been out? She had held a dreamtoad. He had done something to her mind. Maybe his glowing organs had cast a spell. The animal had given her a warning, perhaps a prophecy. She had forgotten his words.
She blinked, trying to remember, and suddenly it all flowed back.
The planes.
The explosions.
Maria's heart stopped in her chest.
"Nanay! Tatay!" she cried and burst into a run.
Mother! Father!
She had been lost before, but now it was easy to find her way. Many branches had burned away, allowing Maria to see far ahead. Blackened vines, once lush with leaves, now hung like knotted strands of hair. Maria ran over dead mourning monks, their claws still clasping fallen branches. A gust of wind blew charred feathers off dead birds. A shard of twisting metal lay among cracked roots, half sunken into the ground, radiating heat.
Finally Maria exited the forest. She stood atop a hill looked toward the village in the valley.
San Luna was gone.
The huts. The trees. The people.
All had burned to ash.
She walked across the rice terraces. The water was gone. Her feet stepped on dry, burnt seeds. Bones lay around her. At first she thought them more animal bones. But then the realization sunk in.
They were her fellow farmers. Friends. Cousins. Nothing but bones in the dirt.
She walked among smoldering banana trees and into the village.
My parents.
"Nanay?" she whispered. "Tatay?"
Her feet scattered ashes. The wind billowed her hair, scented of burnt meat. Skulls gaped from the dirt, their eye sockets accusing. Wings fluttered and a black feather fell. A crow gave a sudden caw, landed on Maria's shoulder, then flew off, perhaps disappointed to find her still living. The carrion bird landed on a corpse and began to peck the blackened skin.
Maria kept walking. Feeling empty. Feeling hollow.
It was just a dream. Just a vision the toad was showing her. She was still asleep in the jungle. Had to be.
She walked toward an impact crater. Inside were shards of metal. The remains of bombs.
"Earthlings," Maria said. "Earthlings did this. Their flying machines did this. We killed one of theirs. So they butchered us all."
She walked between charred bamboo husks, and she saw it ahead.
Her home.
Her little bamboo house.
In her memory, it was beautiful, flowers blooming in the windows, the wind rustling the thatch roof, and the palm tree shading the yard. Her parents stood outside, waving to her, welcoming her home.
But the memory faded. Before her rose a lump of burnt bamboo. Two corpses lay in the yard, black and red, their faces gone. An arm stretched out, hand open, trying to reach Maria even from beyond death. Maria didn't know if it was her mother or father.
And then she saw it.
On one of the skeletons. Hanging from loose strands of a belt.
The knife. Her father's knife.
And the toad's words bolted through her.
You must use his knife.
She did not know what destiny this knife had. But the toad had spoken. And her father lay dead before her. This was his last legacy. Everything was burnt and destroyed, but the knife was whole. A knife with an antler hilt.
Tend to my work while I'm gone, Ernesto had told her before leaving to join the Kalayaan. But now Maria had work of her own. And she toiled for hours, digging the graves. Burying her parents.
Finally she stood before two graves. She had made crude crosses from branches, and she had carved their names onto stones.
The only world I've ever known is gone, Maria thought. The Earthlings took everything from me. She clenched her hand around her knife. So I will take everything from them.
She left the village, the wind fluttering her hair and blowing ashes around her, kissing her with the remnants of the dead. She held her knife, and her heart lay shattered in her chest like the bones beneath her feet.
Chapter Eleven
Roma Station
The shuttle approached the space station. It was like a minnow swimming toward a barracuda.
Roma Station loomed ahead. It was massive, dwarfing the shuttle. The giant cylinder blinked with lights, slowly spinning like a rolling pin. Earth shone in the distance, painting the space station blue.
For a moment, watching from the shuttle, Jon felt disoriented. Which side of the station was up or down? Was this a towering structure like a skyscraper? Or maybe a horizontal structure like an oil tanker? He did not know. There was no up or down in space. It was all a matter of perspective.
One thing was certain. The station was huge, and h
is shuttle was small, and they were coming in fast. Jon cringed.
A hatch opened on the space station like a hungry mouth, surrounded by flashing white lights like teeth.
Jon winced as the shuttle flew into the gaping maw.
He couldn't see much through the narrow porthole. But the shuttle seemed to be floating down a white tunnel, perhaps an airlock. They passed through another set of doors, and Jon glimpsed a strange, dizzying view through the porthole. Soldiers stood far above him, covering the ceiling like moths. More soldiers stood along the space station walls. Jon tilted his head.
"What the hell?" His brain could not interpret the view. "Are you seeing this, George?"
The giant squinted through the porthole. "Why are they upside down? What—"
With a thud, the space shuttle landed. Everyone jerked in their harnesses. Gravity once more was tugging them. The glasses, wallet, and blob of vomit hit the deck. The engines died. Scattered applause sounded throughout the shuttle.
"Hey, I never got my peanuts!" Etty said.
Nobody laughed. Maybe they were all too afraid.
The shuttle hatch opened. The recruits stepped outside.
Everyone tilted their heads back and gasped.
"Damn," Jon whispered.
They were standing inside an enormous tube. Jon felt like an ant inside a paper towel roll. He could barely make out the far end. There were no portholes. Just a metal cylinder as long as a city street, flooded with stark white light.
The walls were curved, and soldiers stood across the entire inner surface. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands. They stood on the walls. They stood on the ceiling. Wherever they stood, gravity pulled their feet down onto the surface.
Another shuttle entered, perhaps from another recruitment center. It landed far above him, all the way on the ceiling. Soldiers emerged, standing upside down. A few looked down at Jon and pointed. To them, he was on the ceiling.
"What the hell is going on?" George muttered.
Jon understood. "The entire space station is rotating. We're like a rolling pin."
"I don't feel us spinning," George said.
"You do, kind of," Jon said. "It's creating the illusion of gravity. The reason our feet are sticking to the surface? It's not actually gravity. It's centrifugal force. Ever try waving a bucket of water in circles around you?"
"Why would anyone do that?" George said.
"Well, imagine you did," Jon said. "The water wouldn't spill out. The centrifugal force would keep it stuck to the bottom of the bucket. Same principle here."
George nodded. "So we're inside a giant, rolling tube, sticking to the walls because it's spinning so fast." He frowned. "Hey, don't spaceships today have graviton plates anyway? My uncle worked on a mining ship once. He told me they had gravity. Real gravity. Something about the deck generating tiny gravity particles that pull your feet down."
"Graviton plates are expensive," Jon said. "They save those for the fancy starships. We're just cannon fodder."
A platoon of soldiers marched along the curving wall at their side. Their footfalls thudded through the station. Another platoon took formation on the ceiling. Their voices rang out. "Yes, Commander!"
Those platoons were quite far from Jon. It was an enormous space station, after all. The ceiling was distant, and the soldiers above seemed as small as ants. But every sound echoed in this gargantuan tube, eerily magnified.
"Listen up, maggots! Form rank now, or I'll blast your asses out the airlock!"
That voice was closer and louder. Jon started. He looked toward its source.
A young woman was sauntering toward the recruits. She was every inch a predator. Her golden braid swung like a lioness's tail. Her eyes shone with blue fire. An assault rifle hung across her back, and a whip hung from her hip, curled up like a serpent. Her skin tight battlesuit hugged feline curves. Three chevrons shone on the sleeves.
A sergeant, Jon realized. He recognized that insignia. My brother was a sergeant when he died. He had three chevrons on his sleeves too.
The sergeant halted before the recruits. Her right hand rested on her hip. Her left hand raised a cigar to her mouth.
Her hand is a prosthetic, Jon realized.
The fingers holding the cigar were metallic. Robotic fingers, tipped with claws. Had she lost her real hand on Bahay?
The sergeant took a long, slow drag on her cigar, then puffed smoke at the recruits. A few of them coughed. The sergeant looked them over. Her lips curled into a crooked smile, and she snorted.
"Well, you maggots?" she suddenly shouted. "What the hell are you waiting for? Form rank!"
The recruits glanced at one another, uncertain what to do.
"Fifteen fireteams!" the sergeant shouted, raising a stopwatch. "Go, go!"
Jon glanced at his friends. "What—"
Etty grabbed him and George. "Come, we'll form a fireteam. Three soldiers standing single file. Basic military structure. Jon, you take the lead position. I'll take the rear. George? You play center."
Jon's brother had never taught him any of this. But Etty seemed to know her stuff.
All right then.
They stood single file—Jon, George, and Etty. A single fireteam.
At their sides, other recruits formed their own fireteams. The trios arranged themselves side by side, eventually forming a unit fifteen soldiers wide, three soldiers deep.
The one-armed sergeant lowered her stopwatch and spat. "Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic! I should blast you out the airlock. At attention! Backs straight, shoulders squared! Dammit, stand like soldiers!"
A few scattered voices rose from the platoon.
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Yes, sergeant!"
"Yes, sir!"
"It's Commander!" barked the sergeant. "Louder! Do you understand?"
"Yes, Commander!" they all shouted together. Even Jon.
The sergeant nodded. "Better. You're still losers, but maybe I'll delay your execution. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Sergeant Lizzy Pascal. My friends call me Sergeant Lizzy. To you, I am Commander. Never ma'am, never sir—I'm not an officer. Commander. Is that understood? Louder this time!"
"Yes, Commander!" they all shouted.
Sergeant Lizzy snorted. "I was told you're a platoon. But I see only a bunch of baby-faced morons. I'm supposed to train you. To turn you into killers. Are you killers, soldiers?"
"Yes, Commander!"
"Bullshit!" Lizzy spat. "You ain't killers. You're maggots who should be fed into the station's engines for fuel. You're worthless chunks of shit scraped off the surface of Earth. But when I'm done with you, ah…" She smiled and puffed her cigar. "Then you'll be killers."
It's a show, Jon thought. The cursing, the shouting, the intimidation. Just a show. I've seen it in a million movies. In real life, she's probably a sweetheart.
The sergeant walked among the troops. She stood before George. She was a tall woman, but George dwarfed her. Just to see his face, Lizzy had to tilt her head back.
"My, my, you're a big one." She nodded. "I bet your parents fed you goddamn steroids for breakfast, didn't they?"
"No, ma'am!" George said. Despite his size, his voice emerged meek and soft.
"Dammit, soldier, I'm not an officer!" Lizzy snarled. "You call me Commander, is that understood?"
"Yes, Commander!" He saluted her.
"Get your goddamn paw down, I'm not an officer."
"Yes, Comma—" George began.
"Louder!" Lizzy shouted.
"Yes, Co—"
"Louder!" the sergeant roared. "Dammit, soldier, a giant your size must have balls like watermelons. Let me hear that you got a pair!"
"Yes, Commander!" George shouted, cheeks flushed.
To be honest, even that attempt wasn't particularly loud, and George seemed close to tears.
Lizzy shook her head. "Pathetic." She turned toward Etty next. "And what do we have here? My God, your eyes are green and buggy. You look like a goddamn swamp creature."
/> The two women could not have looked more different. Etty Ettinger was short, slender, and dark. Sergeant Lizzy was tall, muscular, and blond. But the little Israeli recruit refused to cower before the Viking princess. She raised her chin high.
"Yes, Commander!" she howled. Far louder than George.
"You are?" Lizzy shouted. "A swamp creature?"
"No, Commander! I just look like one, Commander! If you say so, Commander!"
Lizzy snorted. "And if I say you're a good-for-nothing little bug who'll never kill a slit, will you agree with me then too, bug-eyes?"
"No, Commander!" Etty cried. "I'm a good soldier, Commander! My dad was infantry, and my mom was—"
"I don't give a shit who your parents are!" Lizzy said. With her metallic hand, the sergeant grasped Etty's neck. "I'm your mom now. I'm your dad now. I'm your god now. You have no family but me! You are nothing! You are worthless! You are a worm until I say you're anything else, is that understood!"
"Yes, Commander!" Etty cried hoarsely, her neck caught in the metal grip.
The sergeant nodded and released the girl. Etty coughed and rubbed her neck.
Lizzy moved on to Jon. She stood before him, sizing him up.
"You!" Lizzy barked. "Why are you here?"
Jon considered. "I was, um… drafted, Commander?"
Scattered laughter rose in the platoon.
The sergeant stepped closer. So close their noses almost touched. She narrowed her eyes, and her lip peeled back.
"If that's true," Lizzy said softly, "if you're only here because you were drafted, you're not going to last a day in the jungle."
A hush fell over the platoon. Jon felt everyone staring at him.
"So answer me again, recruit," Sergeant Lizzy continued, voice barely more than a whisper. "Why are you here?"
Jon raised his chin. "To fight, Commander. For Earth."
Her whisper became a scream. "Who are you going to fight?!"
"The slits!" he shouted.
"Who are you going to kill?" she shouted.
"The goddamn slits!" he cried.
"You're a killer, aren't you, recruit?"
"Yes, Commander!"
A snicker sounded in the platoon.
The Earthling (Soldiers of Earthrise Book 1) Page 9