Earth Fire (Earthrise Book 4)

by Daniel Arenson

  "Lieutenant, stand down—" began an MP.

  The air rippled again, and the third policeman crashed down. The admiral drew his pistol, aimed it down the hallway . . .

  Ben-Ari leaped out from the Augury. She kicked, knocking the pistol from the admiral's hand. An instant later, another ripple of air slammed into Komagata. He crashed down among the three MPs, unconscious.

  Kemi stood in the corridor, panting, her mechanical hand raised. An opening in her palm clattered shut.

  "I had a stunner installed into the palm, Captain," she whispered. "I never thought that . . . Oh God." Kemi stared down. "I knocked out the admiral." She looked into Ben-Ari's eyes. "They'll hang us for this."

  "If what I saw in the Augury is true, we're all going to hang," Ben-Ari said. "And it'll be by spiderwebs rather than ropes. Come, Lieutenant. Follow me."

  They began running down the corridor, leaving the unconscious men behind.

  "Where are we going, Captain?" Kemi said, panting as she ran, undoubtedly still woozy from losing her hand only days ago.

  "To find more information. To fight like we've always fought." Ben-Ari flashed her lieutenant a smile. "Ever steal a starship, Lieutenant?"

  Kemi groaned. "We already stole military secrets, resisted arrest, and knocked an admiral unconscious. Yeah, I think I can handle stealing a starship."

  They raced through the space station, heading toward the docking bay. Her lieutenant perhaps was worried about military law, but Ben-Ari only thought about the fleet of ravagers, the marauder smiling at her, and those words that would not leave her mind.

  The nightmares are coming.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  They arrived at the library early in the morning to find police barricades, a small army of construction workers, and their apartment's contents dumped on the snowy street.

  "At least the protesters are gone," Marco said, giving Addy an uneasy smile.

  They ran toward the barricades. A couple policemen were guarding the place, sipping steaming coffee, their breath frosting. They turned toward Addy and Marco, who were busy climbing over the barricades.

  "Sir, ma'am, halt!"

  "That's our stuff!" Addy shouted. "We live here."

  She and Marco leaped over the barricades and hurried toward their things. The apartment above the library had been emptied out. Mattresses, the couch, the television, tables and chairs, piles of clothes—all lay on the street, covered in snow and mud.

  "My hockey trophies!" Addy said, pulling them out from the snow. "My favorite jeans!"

  They began fishing items from the sludge. Marco found a bundle of papers with his old short stories and his Loggerhead manuscript; they were sopping wet, the ink washing away. Cringing, he stuffed them into his jacket. His photographs were scattered across the sidewalk. He raced after them, collecting muddy photos of his parents, of himself as a baby, of Kemi. When he found a photo of himself and Lailani, posing with silly faces on an army base, he hesitated, then grabbed it and stuffed it into his jacket too.

  "Addy, look for the old coffee tin," he said.

  Addy stood a few feet away, holding their war trophies. In one hand, she held the can of Spam she had stolen from an army kitchen. In the other hand, she held a scum claw the size of a sword. Her eyes widened, and she nodded.

  "Civilians, move back!" boomed a policeman's voice through a megaphone. "This building is being demolished. Move behind the barricade!"

  "This is our home!" Addy shouted. "You'd know that if you waited six to eight weeks for our paperwork to process!"

  Ignoring the voices calling them back, they finally found it: a dented tin can labeled Colonel Coffee, emblazoned with a cartoon of a smiling colonel drinking from a steaming mug. Marco peeked inside, nodded, and closed the lid again. He stuffed the can into his coat pocket, where it barely fit.

  "All right, kids, you've had your fun." A policeman grabbed them. "Behind the barricades."

  "We haven't had time to collect all our things," Marco said.

  "We posted a notice on the front door months ago," the policeman said.

  "We were off in the military!" Addy said. "Protecting Earth! We didn't see your fucking notice until a few days ago, and those fucking goddamn commies and Nazis were blocking us, and—"

  "Watch your tongue, citizen," said the cop, "unless you want to spend the night in a jail cell."

  Addy fell silent, but Marco wondered if a jail cell might be an upgrade from Steve's apartment.

  Clutching whatever they had salvaged, they stepped back toward the barricade, but they did not climb back to the street. Construction crews were bustling around the library. A man in an armored suit emerged onto the sidewalk, then stepped back, reeling out a cable.

  "Ten minutes to detonation!" somebody boomed through a megaphone.

  "What about the books in the library?" Marco asked, turning toward the policeman, but the man only shrugged and kept sipping his coffee. Marco ran toward the construction crew. "There are still books in the library! Who's the foreman here?"

  A potbellied, mustached man in a hardhat approached. "Look, kids, I know you're war heroes and all, but you're going to have to step back and let us do our work."

  Marco found rare fury inside him. "There are books in there. Thousands of books. Tens of thousands. You'll just bury them?"

  The man shrugged. "We tried, kid. We asked around. There are no other libraries in this city. We sold some of them on the street last month, if that makes you feel better. The romance, thrillers, the dragon stuff, that went fast. Got a few for my wife. Whatever's left inside is what nobody wants to read. Besides, barely anyone reads paper books anymore."

  "I do," Marco said.

  "Not anymore," said the foreman.

  Addy fumed. "Fuck. This. Shit." She grabbed Marco's hand. "Come on, Poet. We faced the scum in battle. We can defeat a few construction workers. Let's save your stories."

  She was about to pull him into the library when a voice rang out behind them.

  "Marco Emery? Addy Linden?"

  They spun around. A man wearing a suit, expensive shoes, and a woolen overcoat was approaching them, holding a bundle of papers. A Rolex shone on his wrist.

  "Who the fuck are you?" Addy said. "Are you funding these goons?"

  The man reached out his hand to shake. Neither Marco nor Addy took it. The man never lost his smile.

  "Name's Ben Bradley, attorney at law. My clients, the nonprofit organization Never War, have raised some concerns about your involvement with human supremacist groups, as well as possible war crimes perpetrated against alien lifeforms." Smile sparkling, he handed Marco the bundle of papers. "Here is the summons for your trial. It's set to begin tomorrow morning, address and time on your papers. Please be on time."

  "What the fuck?" Addy grabbed the papers, stared at them, then tossed them into the snow. "Fuck this! The trial is in Never War's headquarters, not a proper court. And you're just a goddamn lawyer, not some sheriff, and can't give us summons. This isn't how it works. I know! My dad was in jail enough times that I learned the stuff."

  Bradley's smile never faltered. "Things have changed around here, Linden. The war changed everything. We must be a bit more . . . efficient these days. Never War is in the process of legitimizing all its courts, in accordance with the Civilian Duty laws passed last year. Rest assured that these documents are legally binding, as supervised by the Government of the North American Alliance, as well as Chrysopoeia Corporation, owners of all correctional facilities on the continent. If you cannot afford a lawyer of your own, you will have the opportunity to defend yourselves at your trial." He nodded. "See you tomorrow morning. Sir, ma'am."

  "You'll see my foot in your ass!" Addy shouted as the lawyer walked away. "Fuck you and your kangaroo court! And—"

  A rumble sounded behind them.

  Marco and Addy spun back toward the library.

  The building fell with clouds of dust, with crumbling stone, with dying memories. The jets screeched overhea
d. The landing craft stormed down toward the alien world. The missiles rained and the corpses of men and bugs flew. The starships fell like a thousand comets from the sky, burning, crashing into the desert, raising storms of sand and fire and smoke. Before him, as his home collapsed, the war flared, and the dust painted him, and his wounds howled with agony.

  It only took a few moments. It lasted for years. The library fell and the apartment seemed to stand for an instant above it, resting on a cloud, until it too fell and vanished and all that remained was stone, dust, an old life. Gone.

  "I never even took my mother's paintings," Marco said softly, staring.

  Addy placed her arms around him. They stood together, embracing, staring at the debris for a long time.

  "Fuck it," Addy finally said, voice choked. "Fuck them all. Let's go get drunk and watch Robot Wrestling. We'll fight them all tomorrow."

  Yet as they walked away, eyes damp, Marco didn't know how to fight this, didn't know how to fight a war with legal forms, with lawyers, with words. He couldn't just raise his gun here, couldn't blast aliens away with a hailstorm of bullets.

  Maybe that's all I am now, Marco thought. A brainless killer. Maybe the only way I can fight is with a gun. But this too is a war. This too is a battle I must fight. But I don't know how. And I'm losing.

  The snow kept falling, scented of dust and burning metal.

  CHAPTER NINE

  There she stood in the hangar. The HDFS Saint Brendan.

  My starship, Ben-Ari thought.

  She paused, just for an instant, gazing at her. Across Nightwall, they would be hunting her. The admiral was probably waking up around now. The military police would be deployed, and soon the fleet. But for just that instant, Ben-Ari had to stop. She had to stare. She had to look at the ship that meant everything to her.

  "Look what they did to my girl," she said.

  Ben-Ari had worked hard since the war to earn this, a ship under her own command. After the Battle of Abaddon, she had left the infantry, had served on other ships—some massive warships with a crew of thousands, others smaller ships with a couple hundred soldiers aboard. And for four years, she had watched ship after ship decommissioned, too costly to maintain with a ravaged, crumbling Earth needing to be rebuilt. For four years, she had served loyally, relying on her skills of command rather than kissing the right asses, a route many of her fellow officers took. And finally, only months ago, she had earned this.

  The Saint Brendan. A ship of her own.

  She was a small ship, large enough for a crew of fifteen, no more. She was still only a captain, a junior officer; majors and colonels commanded the larger vessels, and only generals could command the mighty starfighter carriers with their complement of thousands. Ben-Ari was still young, only twenty-five, but she was smart, she was eager, and she had dedicated her life to the military.

  The Saint Brendan was more than just a stealth ship. It was her new home, her house, her treasure.

  And today, sitting here in a hangar aboard Space Station One, the Saint Brendan was hurt. Maybe badly. The ship looked like a beat-up tin can. A mechanic stood on a ladder, working on replacing an exhaust coil. He had already sealed the large crack exposing the crew quarters, and it looked like the exhaust was almost done, but the hull was still dented. That would hurt the ship's stealth capability, its most valuable asset. When Ben-Ari had taken command of the Brendan only a few months ago, she had been slick, beautiful, a black shard of night, as graceful as a midnight horse galloping under the moon. She was ugly now.

  But you will still fly, Ben-Ari thought. Because you're my ship. And we need you. We all need you.

  "Ma'am, we have to move," Kemi said, standing at her side. The lieutenant panted, still weak from her injury. She clenched her good hand, and her new prosthetic hung at her side. Only hours ago, she had lain in a hospital bed, recovering from the surgery to attach her new metal hand.

  Ben-Ari nodded and turned toward the mechanic.

  "Sergeant, we're taking her out," she said. "Now."

  The mechanic stepped back from the ship. He wore a white jumpsuit, heavy boots, a hardhat, and a tool belt.

  "Pardon, ma'am," he said, "but the ship isn't space-worthy. The exhaust still needs work. She—"

  "We're flying now," Ben-Ari said. "Step back."

  She stepped toward the ship and reached for the doors.

  "Ma'am, I must object," said the mechanic, letting harshness fill his voice. "She won't be ready for days. I'm going to ask you to step back now." He moved to block the ship's airlock.

  Ben-Ari glared at him. "I'm carrying out orders from high above. The information is above your security clearance. Stand aside and prepare to open the hangar doors. That is an order, Sergeant."

  "Ma'am, with all due respect, I don't take my orders from you," the mechanic said. "I'm happy to ring my commanding officer, and you can discuss this with him, but right now, you're not stepping onto this ship, and—"

  An alarm blared across the hangar. Voices emerged from speakers.

  "Security alert. All hangar bays to shut down across Space Station One. Any soldier or officer with information on the whereabouts of Captain Einav Ben-Ari to report at once."

  The mechanic reached for his communicator.

  A funnel of air burst forward and slammed into the mechanic. He cried out, struggling to stay standing. A second blast from Kemi's metal hand hit his chest. The mechanic fell, banging his head against the exhaust pipe on his way to the floor.

  "Looks like he's exhausted," Kemi said, pointing at the unconscious mechanic. "Get it? Exhausted?"

  Ben-Ari sighed. "Hurry up, Lieutenant. Into the ship."

  The alarms kept blaring. The hangar doors opened, and armed military policemen entered.

  Kemi blasted out a funnel, knocking down a man, then leaped into the ship. Ben-Ari followed.

  My military career is over, Ben-Ari knew as she ran through the ship. All my years of work, my family legacy—over. She clenched her fists. But if the marauders invade, it's over for everyone.

  She raced onto the bridge and leaped into her captain's chair. Kemi sat down beside her at the controls.

  "Officers, halt!" boomed a voice through a megaphone. "Halt now or we will fire!"

  "Kemi, get us out of here!" Ben-Ari shouted.

  The ship turned around, creaking, toward the hangar airlock. Kemi hit buttons madly, but the doors remained closed.

  "It's locked!" she cried. "I can't open it by remote! I'll have to get out and open it manually, and—"

  "Fire!" shouted a soldier outside, and bullets slammed into the Saint Brendan.

  Ben-Ari hit her control panel. Photon bolts blasted out from the Saint Brendan's front cannon, slamming into the airlock hatch.

  The hatch shattered open, exposing the vacuum of space.

  Kemi shoved down on the throttle.

  As the fleeing air caught the military policemen, tugging them toward the breach, the Saint Brendan roared out into space.

  Space Station One floated behind them. The dark planet of Nightwall spread below. Dozens of Space Territorial Command warships hovered ahead. For an instant, Ben-Ari was struck by the madness of it. She had dedicated her life to the military. For generations, her family had served. Now, like this, within an instant, she was tossing a military dynasty away. She was fleeing her post. She was a traitor to be captured and killed. And she had to do it. She had to reach Earth. If the high command of Nightwall was hiding the marauder threat, Ben-Ari had to make this threat public. Humanity had to know, had to prepare for the oncoming storm.

  Or we're dead. All of us.

  Ahead, a hangar bay opened on a massive warship. A squadron of Firebird starfighters emerged.

  "Lieutenant—" Ben-Ari began.

  "I see them," Kemi replied, tugging the joystick. The Saint Brendan veered upward, moving farther from the dark planet below. The Firebirds followed, splitting into two groups, seven starfighters in each.

  Damn it. Damn it! They we
re still too close to the planet for warp speed; its gravity and radiation wouldn't let their azoth engine bend spacetime properly. Would they make it far enough?

  "They're too fast!" Ben-Ari said.

  "I know Firebirds," Kemi said. "I flew them for five years. And I know how to escape them."

  Speakers crackled to life on the bridge. A voice emerged.

  "HDFS Saint Brendan! Cease your flight now, or we will open fire. Do you copy, Saint Brendan?"

  Kemi spun the ship around, facing the pursuing starfighters.

  Ben-Ari cringed. "Lieutenant . . ."

  "Trust me, ma'am."

  The Firebirds stormed toward them. Behind them hovered several warships. Farther back loomed Space Station One, a massive structure, roughly shaped like a mushroom. Its rounded top supported a smaller bulb—the Dome where Ben-Ari had first met the admiral.

  "Saint Brendan, you have five seconds to shut off your engines or we will open fire!" rose the voice from the Firebird squadron.

  "Hold on, Captain!" Kemi said, yanking the joystick back.

  Ben-Ari gripped her seat.

  Missiles flew from the Firebirds.

  The Brendan veered upward, and Kemi hit a button, releasing a hundred whizzing lures.

  The missiles slammed into the lures, attracted by their heat. Explosions lit space, rocking the Saint Brendan.

  "Add more lures to our shopping list!" Kemi said.

  "And a new pair of underwear!" Ben-Ari said, clutching her armrests.

  They flew back toward the space station. The starless planet spun ahead, its black surface dotted with military bases, all powered by nuclear reactors built deep within the rocky world. Behind the Saint Brendan, the Firebirds kept pursuing.

  "They can't fire on us with the station ahead," Kemi said. "Just . . . need . . . to . . ."

  Cannons blasted from the space station.

  Wincing, Ben-Ari fired the Brendan's guns, hitting the missiles flying their way. Plasma and shards of metal flew through space. Shrapnel scraped their hull.