Today the Porter was crammed full.
Today she carried millions of refugees.
But not humans.
And not to Earth.
When she had visited Oridia Gamma three days ago, Leona had not found the peaceful green planet she had known. Gone were the pristine beaches and rustling forests. That paradise world, where Leona and Tom had once found refuge, had turned into hell.
She had returned to Oridia Gamma and found desolation.
A year ago, the ants had sheltered Tom and Leona. Had built them a crude spacecraft. And Xerka had punished Oridians for that sin.
The basilisk fleets had burned the forests, poisoned the oceans, dried the rivers. Gone were the cities of intricate wooden towers, rope ladders, and parks of flowers and fireflies. Instead, Leona had found the ants cowering in the wilderness, hungry and afraid, many starving.
And all of them angry.
Leona looked over her shoulder. She saw them there. Filling the Porter. Piling up.
The Oridians.
Ants the size of coyotes. Intelligent. Loyal. Friends to humanity.
She returned her gaze forward, flying toward Sskarsses.
"This better work, Rowan," Leona muttered, reaching for the control panel.
Before Leona had departed from the fleet, Rowan had installed a crude talaria rig aboard the Porter. It was the only starship in the fleet large enough to support an entire wormhole generator on its own. Three talaria cannons were mounted onto the Porter's enormous prow, forming a triangle.
Leona fired them up.
Three beams blasted out from the Porter, intersecting several kilometers ahead.
A blob of light formed at the tip of the triangle.
The wormhole appeared.
"Hold on!" Leona shouted and flew her ship through.
The mighty Porter, hundreds of meters long, flowed down the tunnel of light.
As Leona leaned back, tugging the yoke, she couldn't help it.
She laughed.
She was flying a starship the size of a skyscraper filled with ants. She could barely believe she was doing this. She had never been more scared and exhilarated.
She charged down the tunnel, pulling the yoke with all her strength, steadying the gargantuan cruise ship. The hull grazed the wormhole walls, nearly tearing through. Leona nudged the Porter back along its course. They streamed forth at a hundred times the speed of light.
The tunnel ended.
The Porter emerged into the orbit of Sskarsses and plowed into several Rattlers.
Leona shouted wordlessly, pulling the yoke, increasing power to the engines.
They kept storming forward, slamming into more and more Rattlers. With its sheer mass, the Porter knocked even these dreaded warships aside. The surface of Sskarsses spread below, cloaked in shadows and mist.
The Rattlers opened fire. Blasts slammed into the Porter, jolting the starship. Leona responded by firing her side cannons, spraying the enemies with plasma, knocking them aside.
She kept flying forward, charging toward the atmosphere. A swarm of Copperheads rose toward her. She barreled through them like a truck through mosquitoes.
Lasers kept hitting the Porter. The beams sheared off several shields. They carved open a deck. They shattered several cannons.
Leona narrowed her eyes, bared her teeth, and kept flying.
"I am Leona Ben-Ari!" she cried, broadcasting her words across the sky. "I am the Iron Lioness! I am a daughter of Earth, and with me are the children of Oridia Gamma. The Basilisk Empire will fall! We will rise!"
She fired her cannons, slamming several Rattlers aside, and plunged into the atmosphere with a cloud of fire.
The Porter, like all large starships, had been built in space, was never meant to fly in an atmosphere.
But right now, Leona flew her into the gray sky of Sskarsses. The cruise ship plunged through flame and doused herself in clouds and mist.
The ship began falling apart. The wind whipped them, ripping off shields, tearing open a hull. But the Oridians clung together, limbs braided. The ants were smaller than humans, but each had the strength of many men. They did not fall.
The Porter kept flying, plunging downward at several times the speed of sound. The ground was a hundred kilometers away. They would impact in moments.
Leona leaned back, placed her boots against the dashboard, and struggled to pull back the yoke, to raise their prow. Several Oridians scuttled forward, formed a chain of ants, and helped her pull.
The prow rose.
They were flying almost horizontally now, storming across the landscape.
"There!" Leona said. "The mountain!"
She saw it on the horizon. The towering Krahsstss mountain. Home of Xerka. A mountain that could dwarf Everest.
The Porter kept roaring toward it. Fifty kilometers from the surface now. Then forty.
The air thickened.
The Porter was crumbling under the pressure. The last shields tore off. The cannons fell. Chunks of hull bent, tore off, flew into the wind. The viewports shattered. The Porter was falling apart.
It was almost time.
Leona flew onward, willing the starship to survive for just a few more seconds.
She stormed over the canyons and hills, shedding pieces of her starship with every kilometer.
Then she was there. Flying over the mountain. She tugged the yoke, pulling the remains of the Porter into a spin. The engines roared, leaving a spiral of fire across the sky. The Porter circled the jagged black peaks.
Leona could see them below. Her fellow humans. The remains of her army.
So few, she thought. So few remain.
The last human divisions had their backs to the wall, desperate to hold back an assault of a million serpents.
"Let's see you snakes handle a million ants."
Leona grabbed a lever. She pulled it back with all her strength.
Hatches opened at the bottom of the Porter.
The wind roared into the ship.
Several basilisks below raised their cannons. They fired skyward. The Porter was too large to evade them. Blasts hit the massive cruise ship, tearing through the decks.
But it was too late to stop things now.
The ants were deploying.
The Oridians leaped out from the Porter. Thousands and thousands of them. Leona kept flying the crumbling starship, circling the mountaintop, scattering the ants across the peaks and slopes. The Oridians rained from the sky.
Leona smiled thinly.
"Sorry about this, Brooklyn," she said, knowing her friend was below—and probably about to faint.
The Oridians had lost everything to the basilisk assault—their cities, their farms, their loved ones. They were hungry. They were homeless. And they were mad as hell.
Leona kept circling the mountain, deploying the ants, emptying her ship. A million of the Oridians were landing and charging into battle.
Another blast hit the Porter.
The ship was tearing open.
It was time to fly.
Leona raced off the bridge as it crumbled around her. She ran across the hold. Shells kept pounding the ship. Shrapnel slammed into her, denting her armored jumpsuit. Leona leaped toward the hatch. Along with the last ants, Leona dived out of the Porter.
More shells slammed into the starship.
The Porter, the pride of Earth's fleet, finally tore apart.
Leona activated her jetpack, streaming away on a tail of fire. Behind her, the Porter broke into countless pieces. The main chunk, engines still roaring, flew and slammed into a mountaintop. A ball of fire roared across the mountain, boulders cascaded, and a mighty plume of smoke rose skyward.
* * * * *
"There better not be any ants on this planet!" Brooklyn said. She spun from side to side, her gun raised, scanning the rocky mountaintop.
Bay patted her head. "I promise you, Brook. Sskarsses has giant, man-eating basilisks, a psychotic snake-woman goddess who devours her
enemies whole, and probably a few fire-breathing hydras. But no ants."
"Phew." Brooklyn wiped her forehead. "Because I won't abide ants. I'm telling you, if I find a single tiny ant here, I'm turning around and flying back to Earth."
A squeaking sounded above.
A lot of squeaking.
Brooklyn and Bay looked at the sky.
A million of them were raining down. Ants. Giant ants the size of dogs.
The insects landed on the mountain all around, raised their mandibles, and chirped for war.
Brooklyn stared, silent for a moment. She rubbed her eyes. She looked at Bay.
Her eyes rolled back, and Bay caught her as she fainted.
"Sorry, Brook." Bay winced. "Leona and I should have warned you."
The ants raced toward battle. Bay slung Brooklyn over his shoulder and ran with them.
* * * * *
Leona circled the mountaintop with her jetpack, dodging shells that flew her way. Flying a hundred meters aboveground, she fired Arondight. She didn't even have to aim. The basilisks were everywhere, emerging from holes across the mountains, rising from the misty valleys, swarming over every peak and slope.
Earth's forces seemed so small.
But as Leona watched, the ants took assault formation—and attacked.
Flying above, Leona watched in wonder.
She knew the ants were strong. She had seen them lift items many times their weight. But she had never seen them fight.
They fought with a fury the mightiest mercenary would envy.
They hurled themselves onto the basilisks, lifting the snakes overhead, tossing them down, ripping off their scales with their powerful mandibles. They formed links, limbs entwined. They whipped the enemy with a chain of their bodies, sending basilisks flying. The basilisk cannons tore through the ant formations, slaying countless, mowing them down. But the ants kept reforming, kept charging, knowing no fear. More and more chains of ants lashed the enemy. If a shell destroyed a hundred ants, another hundred replaced them. And they kept attacking.
The ants had no armor. They had no weapons. They had no military training.
But they were strong. They were fearless. They had nothing to lose.
They tore through the basilisk lines like acid through flesh.
Leona spiraled down, dodging another shell. She approached the human host, steadied her flight, and landed by her family.
"Late as usual, Leona!" Bay said, firing his gun at the oncoming basilisks.
"Hello to you too, brother!" Leona knelt, aimed Arondight, and tore through a leaping serpent.
The ants were flowing down a nearby mountain slope, hammering the basilisk lines, relieving the pressure on the human infantry. More ants were bustling among the misty valleys below, battling the snakes.
"Jesus, Leona!" Rowan said, firing her pistol. "Do you have to fly in and save the world every damn war?"
Leona winked at her friend. "I didn't come to save this world, Row. I came to defeat this world."
Leona looked around, seeking him. And there he was. Tom Shepherd stood on a mountainside a hundred meters away, leading a company of soldiers. They were firing on the basilisks, holding them back. As he fought, Tom looked at her.
Leona met his gaze across the distance.
Tom nodded at her. He seemed to smile.
A basilisk below reared, aimed his cannon, and fired a shell toward Tom.
Instantly, Leona activated her time-twister.
Time slowed to a crawl.
Leona stared. The battle seemed frozen around her. The humans, basilisks, ants—all were moving at a crawl.
The bullets and shells, however, were moving significantly faster.
Leona looked at the explosive flying toward Tom. Toward her fiance. The father of the child in her womb. The man she loved.
She remembered herself fifteen years ago, a girl of seventeen. A girl on her wedding day, weeping over the corpse of her husband, as the blood of her miscarriage spilled down her thighs.
Not today, she thought. Never again.
She aimed her rifle. She fired.
The railgun thrummed in her hand. Her bullet flew. It was only slightly faster than the shell. At this angle, that was good enough. It hit the shell in midair. The explosive detonated far from Tom, raining shrapnel onto basilisks below.
Leona released her time-twister, which always felt like a jackhammer in her skull. Tom looked at her, head tilted, confused for a moment. But he nodded. He understood.
You're the father of my child, Tom, she thought. I'm not letting you die today.
Rumbling sounded behind her. Leona turned and saw that the artillery division had finally arrived. Men were straining, rolling cannons forward. Soon the massive guns were firing, pounding the basilisks, slaying dozens with every shell. Deafening booms shook the mountainside. The inferno cut craters into the stone, clearing a path forward.
Ahead, Leona saw the holes in the mountain—probably the work of the Godhammer rods. She could peer into the mountain, see a network of tunnels and dens.
Emet stood ahead, rifle in one hand, pistol in the other. Both muzzles were smoking. The Old Lion stared ahead at the path of devastation, then back at his troops.
He nodded and raised his rifle.
"We go into the mountain!" he said. "Let's end this."
Guns booming, they ran toward the abyss.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Ansible messages were coming in from Earth, flooding Emet's comm.
The Firebirds had succeeded.
They had repelled Xerka's attack, saving the planet.
But most had been lost in the battle. Only a handful of Firebirds still flew. Earth had survived for now. But it would not withstand another attack.
Here on Sskarsses, not on Earth, we must win the war, Emet knew. Here on this alien world we must save our home. Or humanity goes extinct.
He walked at the head of his infantry, leading thousands of troops across the jagged landscape. As the ants and snakes battled aboveground, the human infantry prepared to enter Krahsstss Mountain.
They were a simple army. They had no fancy, armored mech-suits, only crude body armor for some of the officers. Only a handful of armored vehicles. Only limited artillery. They were mostly just light infantry—thousands of refugees in shabby uniforms, given humble rifles of wood and iron, sent to kill and die.
And here, far from home, we'll have to save Earth, Emet thought.
The soldiers approached the hole. The opening was wide, far wider than the tungsten rods that had carved it. A Firebird could have flown down this shaft. The tunnel delved into the mountain like a wormhole to hell. Basilisk corpses surrounded the rim, torn apart by the shelling.
"Fire in the hole!" Bay cried, lobbing the first grenade into the pit.
The other soldiers followed his lead. A hundred grenades flew into the mountain.
The soldiers flattened themselves on the mountainside as booms exploded inside the pit.
Emet rose and peered over the edge. He could see nothing but smoke and charred stone. A few tunnels. A few emptied dens. No snakes.
But he knew they were waiting.
He knew she was waiting.
"You're down there, Xerka," Emet said softly, gazing into the pit. "I know you're there. We'll soon meet again."
The queen who had nuked Earth. Who had slain so many humans. Who had murdered Ramses, Mairead, and so many of Emet's loved ones.
Rage filled him. He tightened his grip on his weapons.
Yes, this was about saving Earth. But it was also personal.
He pulled a rope from his backpack. He tied one end around a boulder, then tossed the rope into the pit. Soldiers tossed hundreds of other ropes.
"Dad." Bay approached him, splashed with basilisk blood. "Are you sure we shouldn't just lob some nukes into the hole?"
"We'd likely kill every soldier atop the mountain," Emet said. "And Xerka is deep. Too deep for even a nuke to reach. Nukes? They're great at
causing damage aboveground. Not for digging through rock and soil. Xerka would just burrow deeper, hiding from the radiation, only to rise again, to regroup her forces, to continue to strike us. No, we have to make sure she's dead. We have to see her. To put a bullet through her head. We go in."
"Dad." Bay grabbed his arm. "We might all die in there. You didn't see New York."
His son paled. Emet had seen a new fear in his eyes since the battle in that city.
"Bay." Emet placed his hand on his son's shoulder. "Over the past few years, I've watched you grow from boy to man. I've watched you become a proud officer, a leader of men. I'm proud of you, Bay. I love you. I don't think we'll die today. Today is a day of victory."
Bay seemed unconvinced. But he nodded.
"All right, Dad. Let's go kill the bitch."
Emet slung his legs over the rim and began to rappel down.
The others followed.
Hundreds of soldiers climbed down the ropes, heading into the darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
As Rowan rappelled down the rope, entering the mountain, she thought of her days in Paradise Lost.
She had learned to climb there. She had spent so much of her childhood scampering up and down shafts, often using cables instead of ropes. She had been miserable those days. She remembered so many tears, so much anxiety and pain, pounding the walls of the ducts, wishing she could be anywhere else.
Those days seemed so simple now.
Rowan almost wished she were back there. Back in the ducts. Curling up with Fillister, watching movies on the Earthstone, reading books, listening to K-pop, escaping into ancient Earth.
She looked around her.
Bay was rappelling nearby—the man she loved.
Leona was climbing at her other side—a woman Rowan admired, a true heroine.
Brooklyn was here too, living inside her cloned body—Rowan's best friend.
So many others. Emet. Tom. Soldiers and leaders. Heroes and friends. People she loved.
The Legacy of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 6) Page 22