by Rachel Caine
As for Earth, Luna Colony, and Mars Colony Roma, between the three settlements, billions of lives were at stake. From this distance, Earth was a small blue orb swirled with greens and browns. Mars blazed red, smaller still. We buzzed Luna Colony, coming fast, and our comm lit up with chatter as soon as we got close.
“Unidentified Leviathan, this is Fort Copernicus.” That was the name of the military base that existed alongside the country club–like resort they’d built on the moon. “We have you in our sights. Please declare your intentions.”
I glanced at Bea, who gestured at me. Great, I’d been elected spokesperson when I might still be registered as a wanted felon. “Who am I talking to?”
“This is Lieutenant Colonel Atticus Boyd with First Space Division Bravo, and I have command. I repeat, identify yourselves immediately or we will have no choice but to judge you hostile. And believe you me, I have got enough on my plate today.” When we entered vid range, the screen crackled to life, and he looked about like I’d have expected: a middle-aged white man with permanent sunburn in his cheeks and on his nose, pale blue eyes, a freckled forehead, and thinning hair.
He seemed sincere, and I couldn’t waste time trying to figure out where he stood on the whole corruption of the Honors Committee issue. “My name is Zara Cole. I’m accompanied by Beatriz Teixeira and we’re on board the Leviathan known as Nadim.”
“Hell, girl. You’ve got the whole damn planet looking for you. Honors drama is well outside my jurisdiction, even if I was inclined to give a damn, and I truly am not. I’ve got hostiles coming in fast and hot, so I just need to know—are you with or against us?”
I had to laugh. “I’m not here to conquer Earth, so it’s safe to say we came to help. We know something about the enemies incoming, and you will be hard pressed. Get the planetary guns online. I think we have one on Mars Colony. Is there one on Luna too?”
“That there is. I’ve already starting calibrating.”
“Focus your offense on the big bad. We’ll do our best to take out the shock troops that surround him. Nadim, send all the data we have on Lifekiller and the Phage to the lieutenant colonel. It’s a lot to take in, but maybe it’ll help.”
“Already sending, Zara.”
“Christ on a cracker,” the LC said as the terabytes started popping on his terminal.
“Don’t you have an AI to analyze quickly and give you the highlights?” EMITU could do that much for us, if he wasn’t in a mood or busy with Japanese arts and crafts.
He cursed beneath his breath and snapped some orders too fast for me to catch since he was facing away. “Done. Now you tell me what you can in thirty seconds or less.”
“Your main threat is a damn near unstoppable space Cthulhu, more or less. Normal weapons don’t do much, and it eats energy like candy.”
Boyd let out such a sharp breath that it made a hoo sound. “You sure know how to ruin somebody’s day.”
“We’ve been fighting it for weeks,” I snapped. “Imagine how we feel.”
Unlike with the council on Greenheld, I didn’t tell the lieutenant colonel about how we’d raided a tomb and woken the damn thing up. Complete honesty wouldn’t get me anywhere with an army man. In old vids, they were always talking about “need to know” and clearly he didn’t.
“Point taken. We’ll try to hold it off if we can’t kill it.” He ran a hand over his already tousled hair, and I could see that he didn’t seem hopeful, based on what I’d said and what some lower ranking dude was whispering in his ear.
Yeah, Lifekiller’s close.
But even I wasn’t ready when he rose over Luna Colony, practically blotting out the stars on his own. I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes since we drove him off at Greenheld, although we’d been chasing his tail ever since. I hadn’t let myself think too long about what form that stasis might have unlocked, but now . . . now, my blood chilled in my veins.
Lifekiller was like a Leviathan and a dragon had had hate sex until they fused. When I’d called him space Cthulhu a second ago, I had no damn idea how accurate it was. The amorphous shadow he had been had coalesced into a great and terrible shape, dark as obsidian with razor-sharp fins but also thin, ropy tentacles snaking out from his head and neck. And the size . . . it looked like he could almost wrap up the moon and crush it into lunar dust.
“May God have mercy on us all,” Boyd breathed, reminding me that we were still on a live channel.
Into this hellish mess came another emergency, a cluster of Elaszi ships, too far to fire on us yet but close enough to hail. Our comm popped with angry audio, no visual yet. “Zara Cole, you have cheated us! We demand satisfaction!”
I couldn’t help it; I started laughing. Did the blobs get paid extra to be a pain in my ass? They’d said they were cool and were changing their minds at the worst possible moment.
“Can’t you tell I’m busy? You can have me if I survive this, but I’m warning you, the odds aren’t good. Unless you want to help us fight? That way, you get first dibs on salvage. I hear the Phage break down into some valuable parts. You’re damned hard to kill, so chances are you’ll be around afterward to grab the good stuff. It should make up for the drones you lost. Ours took off too, by the way. Bacia robbed us both.”
A brief silence, then: “You bargain like an Elaszi.”
Was that grudging respect in the blob’s voice? Either way, I couldn’t waste time or energy on this. To get to me, they would have to pass through the swarm and get by Lifekiller; that wouldn’t be easy, and they’d take damage from trying. The Phage surged after their changed god, filling the horizon with their legion of darkness. They split in unison and swarmed toward us. I sensed Typhon nearby, silent and icy with loss.
“We agree, Zara Cole. We fight for salvage rights! If it’s not enough, we’ll take the balance from your carcass after the battle.”
Normally that threat would have Nadim growling, but he was distracted by the Phage swimming ever closer. I did a truncated version of the lizard victory dance. Of all possible outcomes, I never could’ve imagined recruiting the blobs to defend Earth.
“The cousins are here!” Nadim called, and there was bright music in his voice.
“Ophelia and Quell?”
That made sense. They had been on the way to Earth to return Derry’s body and to let Jury take care of unfinished business. If they’d left, they couldn’t have gotten far without hearing the terrifying screech of the hungry Phage swarm alongside Lifekiller’s endless, voracious hunger. It was like the Leviathan to sign on for a fight they couldn’t win. After all, the Elders had been battling quietly behind our backs for years.
Nadim listened to songs I couldn’t hear. I was attuned to Typhon after the way I’d seduced him, but I didn’t have a default ability to connect with all Singers. “Yes. Ophelia sings. She is with us. Quell will defend Luna Colony.”
I tapped the comm to broadcast my message to everyone in range. “You know what’s at stake here, and we can’t lose billions of lives. Use every weapon, every trick at your disposal. The fight ends here, one way or another.” Someone else—Suncross, for instance—might have had better words, a rallying cry, but I had never been good at that. Hopefully what I could offer was enough. I felt a sharp stab of longing for the Bruqvisz, for their sheer bloody joy in battle. Ghostwalk stood alone now. No joy in that.
Yusuf popped on screen just long enough to say, “Power at eighty-seven percent. We have two sonic shots before Typhon goes dark. I’ll make them count.”
Starcurrent stood behind Yusuf and ze did a weird move with zis face tendrils that struck me like a salute. Maybe I was reading it wrong, but I returned the gesture, saluting zim back like I had some rank to speak of. Bea touched my shoulder lightly. I didn’t kiss her, or I might not have had the resolve remaining to break formation.
“Nadim, engage the enemy.”
There, I said it. No going back now.
He jumped, like an aerial leap that I’d admired in some long-ago dolphin
show. Without me asking, he slid into a dark run. My Leviathan knew strategy now, didn’t need me to spell it out for him. This was part of the learning exchange that made the Honors program so magical: we taught them; they taught us. And if that was to continue, we had to save it. Save everyone.
The Phage nearest us flailed, seeking Leviathan song, and they found only Typhon. Nadim appeared behind them—classic pincer move—and we unloaded with all guns. Ghostwalk was on weapons, taking revenge for his fallen, while Yusuf dropped the first sonic boom. The Phage between our two live ships fucking melted, organic matter shaken into revolting liquid that froze into crystal chunks.
There were so many more, too many.
And I knew how much power our ships could bring to bear. I registered the sound of the planetary guns laying into Lifekiller, but the shots bounced off, like he was made of some impenetrable material. Maybe all the minerals he’d consumed had created inorganic chitin, grown bio-armor that shielded the flesh beneath. He’d gone after heavy metals. In the right combinations, they could create almost unbreakable shields.
With all my heart, I wished Suncross was here. I could use a glimpse of him waving with all four arms and shouting about our glorious triumph right about now. By contrast, Ghostwalk was silent and furious, working Nadim’s weapons until they glowed white-hot.
“Ease up,” I said.
The Bruqvisz survivor shot me a look that a child could’ve read. “Why? You said to use everything. This is our last stand, Zeerakull. This is no time for moderation.”
True, but I could feel Nadim weakening as the lasers and rail guns drained his reserves. Soon that power expenditure would become physical pain, and then he’d become too weak to dark run. Too weak to fight. Maybe I shouldn’t care about that anymore, since we were all fifteen minutes away from a glorious death.
Quell had lost weapons in the fight with us, no chance for new installations, so she was fighting the Phage physically, and I could see them crawling all over her hull and ripping into her flesh. Burrowing in. Typhon let out a wordless call, full of wrath and horror. He hit her with full strength and she rolled, end over end until I thought maybe she was out of the fight for good. The Elder radiated uncontrollable violence, and I knew I wasn’t imagining his icy determination.
Typhon would rather kill his cousins himself than let the Phage take them.
I couldn’t see what the blobs were doing, but I’d been on the receiving end of their dirty tricks before. About time they turned all that evil cunning on Lifekiller and the Phage. Maybe their help would be enough to turn the tide.
Shields went up on Luna Colony and Mars, but Earth didn’t have anything like that. We’d trusted the Leviathan to protect us and now so many of them were dead, casualties of a war humans didn’t even know was raging until it showed up at their door. Nadim’s pain surged through me.
“Phage! We’ve got potential boarders,” I shouted to Bea. “Do we have enough juice to shock them?”
“Two shocks, maybe three,” she answered. “We won’t have a lot more, probably not enough for another round of laser fire afterward.”
“We don’t have the means to repel them inside.” And Nadim didn’t have the sheer bloody nerve to withstand an infestation while Bea and I went hand to hand. I couldn’t imagine what a nightmare that would be for him, feeling us die, feeling himself eaten from within and cored hollow.
That could not happen.
Lifekiller pushed closer to Earth. That was his primary target, and I couldn’t help but think—maybe a little egotistically—that he’d done this to punish me. We’d woken him, and then we’d hurt him.
I pulled my gaze away and checked our reserves. The dark run and weapon use were burning through Nadim’s energy. Soon Bea and I would have to bond to keep him going.
Nadim lurched and I hit the floor, rolling almost all the way to the wall. My mouth tasted like copper: split lip or bitten tongue. Either way, it wasn’t bad enough for me to seek medical attention in the middle of a battle. Out the view screen, I got a glimpse of Typhon’s barbed tail, and a bunch of Phage free-floating, dead and broken in vacuum.
“He’s coming around for another hit,” Bea reported.
“Fire up the shock field before he strikes.” I didn’t want Nadim being hurt again by Typhon, though I was sure the electricity didn’t feel great.
Bea popped the button and a tremor ran through Nadim, not pain exactly, but discomfort that I felt through my shoes, vibrating into my bones. Reflexively, I opened to him, not leaving my Zara-self but opening my senses to the greater battle. Bea joined us, less than Bezardim but a trinity of perception that encompassed everything at once. Ophelia sang of despair and battles lost, even as she dove among the Phage, fighting with everything she had, while Quell bucked and slapped at them. She and Jon Anderson weren’t out of the fight yet, which made me like them a whole lot more.
These Leviathan could run—they had no real link to this world; they didn’t need to die for it. But I sensed that for them too, this was their final battle. If something didn’t change, we would lose. It was only a matter of time.
Lifekiller spewed some kind of—well, I could only think of it as some poison—out into Earth’s atmosphere. Darkness spread over the anterior portion. Where is that? Australia? New Zealand? Were people dying in that impenetrable cloud?
“Our guns aren’t working!” That was the lieutenant colonel shouting at me from the comm, but I couldn’t spare any attention for his struggles, not with us already in the thick of it with the Phage.
“Critical mass of Phage on our armor.” Bea’s voice trembled and I made the call so she wouldn’t have to. I hit the button that time for the second shock. The lights dimmed and for a few seconds didn’t come back up. Ghostwalk turned from the console. “I have no more power to continue the offensive, Zeerakull. What should I do now?”
“Head for the supply room and gear up. Skinsuit, any weapons you can find. We need to be ready.” I didn’t say in case of breach, but Ghostwalk didn’t need it spelled out for him.
I felt short of breath, and small and inadequate to this day, this moment. I was nothing that was needed, and I was all there was.
“Zara, I’m having containment issues. I think you need to—” But before EMITU could finish that sentence, the sound of banging and a crash terminated the connection.
Bea gave me a shove. “Go. I’ll do what I can here. But you cannot hesitate this time. If C-X has gone rogue, end this. We can’t let her . . .” She paused, reframed her sentence with a set expression. “Well, you know what I mean, I’m sure.”
In the middle of the fight, Chao-Xyll? Really? It sounded like she had gone after the med bot, and I did not have time to be putting out extraneous fires. Yet instead of looking for Lifekiller’s weakness or helping to destroy the Phage, I was sprinting to Medbay, trying not to think about Marko or what I might have to do to my friend when I got there.
If it comes down to it, you have to pull the trigger. You can’t hesitate. Not this time.
That was the shittiest pep talk I had ever given myself, and it didn’t help that when I rounded the corner, I saw EMITU sprawled in the corridor on his side, treads whirring and trying to push himself up with a crooked extensor. Banging sounds came from within Medbay. As I drew closer, I guessed it must be C-X slamming repeatedly into the blast door.
It took all my strength to lever EMITU upright, and he started running diagnostics as soon as he went vertical. “She tried to escape?” I guessed.
“She threw me like a discus, but I managed to activate lockdown as I hit the wall.”
There was a serious chunk out of Nadim, and I could have happily shot C-X for adding to his miseries. “Sedatives aren’t working at all anymore?”
“There is no human medicine that retains any efficacy whatsoever. Likewise, the chemicals I was using to treat the alien Xyll do not seem effective either. If my patient was not so volatile, this would be quite interesting. I do not enjoy being damage
d, however. Look, my extensor is bent!”
Part of me was tempted to leave the situation like this. If we opened the blast door, I’d have to shoot her, judging by how agitated she sounded.
“Something must be done,” EMITU said. “If she cannot come out the door, I fear she may go through the wall—perhaps multiple walls—to attain freedom, and that would be extremely painful for Nadim.”
Shit. To say the least. I couldn’t let that happen either. My choices were bad and worse, and I hated that it had come down to this. The lights flickered again, and Nadim made a pained sound, sort of all around me. He didn’t have much left to give, and his fear messed with my head. There were Phage crawling on him again, seeking to eat their way inside. C-X was as much of a threat.
Suddenly, the pounding stopped, a few seconds of respite, then Chao-Xyll said, “We know you are there, Zara.”
We? Whoa, that was new.
Her—their?—voice was different, complex harmonies that raised the hair on my arms because it sounded like I was hearing in two different frequencies. Like a human voice with alien reverb. Her throat should not be able to speak in stereo, yet it was, and I had icy chills that wouldn’t quit. She wasn’t using the translator now. This was straight-up language. She’d changed even more.
“Does that register for you?” I asked EMITU in a whisper.
“Yes. Fascinating. I wish I could catalog the changes in greater detail but my ability to observe is obscured by the door. Should I write a haiku to commemorate the occasion?”
“Save it for later.” Louder, I added, “I’m here. What’s going on?”
“You must let me out. You must. It is our only hope.” She sounded calm enough, but if she snapped again, she could take out Bea or me, hurt Nadim or break Ghostwalk’s neck like she had Marko’s. No matter what she said, it didn’t seem like a smart move.
“I can’t do that, C-X. It would help so much if you’d calm down and let—”