Earth Fire (Earthrise Book 4)

by Daniel Arenson

  "Orders, sir?" Osiris said. The android sat at the helm.

  "Full speed ahead," Petty said. "Tear through their lines. Get us closer to Earth and fire our torpedoes!"

  To her credit, the android was quick to respond. "Full speed ahead, sir!"

  The Minotaur—old, creaky, heaviest in the fleet—charged forth like a bull roused from slumber, gathering speed and bellowing in fury.

  As they flew, the ravagers—each was several times the size of a Firebird—slammed into the Minotaur.

  The ship shook. The ravager claws slammed into the carrier, digging, denting the hull.

  "Deck C-a breached!" Osiris cried.

  "Seal it off and fire those torpedoes!" Petty roared.

  The ship's cannons fired.

  More ravagers streamed toward them.

  Torpedoes flew, massive missiles larger than men.

  The ravagers roared out their fire.

  The torpedoes tore through them. One of the missiles slammed into a ravager's side and exploded, and claws flew out, hitting ravagers alongside it, slicing across the Minotaur. Alarms blared and the ship jolted. Another torpedo flew between extended claws into the flaming center of a ravager, and the ship exploded, showering shrapnel.

  "Keep flying forward!" Petty said. "Fire all guns! Firebirds, stay near us and tear down those ravagers. We're heading into Earth's orbit."

  They kept barreling forth. Thousands of ravagers flew all around. Fire washed across them. Another deck shattered, and Petty saw soldiers—his own crew—spilling out into space. A ravager slammed into a hangar bay, burrowing into the ship. Explosions rocked the Minotaur, and the artificial gravity petered out again before coming back and knocking them down.

  "We're breached!" rose a cry through the speakers. "Marauders aboard!"

  Petty clutched a control panel with both hands. The ship jolted. Through the viewports ahead he still saw the thousands of ravagers flying in, their cannons blasting. Earth swayed in the distance.

  "Marine Company Talos!" Petty barked into his communicator. "Head to Hangar 17. Kill the invaders."

  The ship rocked as they kept barreling forward, ripping through clouds of ravagers, a bull tearing through a swarm of hornets. And the enemy stung them. Cracks, scars, and dents flowed across their hull. Around them, ships shattered. The mighty HDFS Argos, a warship nearly as large as the Minotaur, tore apart, its shards flying everywhere, slamming into Firebirds. Starfighter after starfighter collapsed. Debris filled space, peppering the Minotaur, tearing into smaller vessels, and raining toward Earth.

  They finally reached orbit. Around them, the defensive satellites were firing—and falling fast. Swarm after swarm of ravagers spun around Earth, slamming into satellites, shattering them. More of the enemy ships kept emerging from warped space. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Two human warships, all guns blazing, slammed into each other. The ravagers tore through a starfighter carrier, splitting the mighty vessel in half. It plunged toward the planet, breaking apart in the atmosphere, raining onto the world. Below on the surface, fires blazed. Cities burned. Firebirds were falling like sparks from a campfire.

  Petty stared in horror as his ship shook.

  It's over. We can't defeat them.

  He sneered.

  But I'm not dead yet.

  "Keep plowing through them, Osiris," he said. "Our armor can withstand them a little longer. Divert more power to our shields." He spoke into his communicator. "Marine Company Talos? How is that hangar doing?"

  Only screams came through the communicator.

  Then the screams rose from behind in the corridors.

  Human screams . . . and alien shrieks.

  "Marauders in the corridors!" rose a voice. "Marauders aboard!"

  Gunfire. Gunfire was rattling through his ship.

  Petty gritted his teeth. He spun away from the viewports. He took a single step toward the corridor . . . and he saw it there.

  A marauder.

  The creature was the size of a horse. It moved on six clawed legs, insect-like. Its jaws opened in a howl, large enough to rip through trees, lined with teeth like swords, human flesh dangling between them. Skulls topped its back like a suit of armor. Marines stood behind the alien, firing, but the bullets glanced off, barely denting the creature.

  And then the marauder spoke.

  Its voice was impossibly deep. Demonic. Echoing.

  "Who . . . leads . . . this ship?"

  The bridge crew stared in horror.

  Petty raised his pistol.

  "I am Brigadier-General James Petty, and I want your corpse off my ship."

  The marauder shrieked and leaped toward him.

  Petty never flinched. He fired his gun four times as the creature vaulted.

  Three bullets hit three eyes.

  The fourth missed.

  The creature slammed into him, squealing, blood gushing from its dead eyes. Its teeth sliced Petty's shoulder. He growled and fired another bullet, hitting the last eye.

  He shoved the creature off, rose to his feet, and spat onto its carcass. It stank.

  He turned back to the viewport. His officers—pale and trembling but still performing their duty—were flying the ship and firing all cannons. But every second the Minotaur shook as another ravager slammed into it. Another deck fell, cracked open by the claws.

  And worse—everywhere the other human ships were falling.

  Petty had never seen such carnage. Thousands of Firebirds—burning, falling. Hundreds of warships—collapsing. And still more ravagers were emerging, spinning madly around the planet like insects, tearing through the last defenses. Another warship crashed. A hundred more starfighters winked out.

  "Sir, more ravagers are landing on Earth, sir!" Osiris said. "Thousands of them are landing, mostly in the large cities, sir. Chicago, Mexico City, Lagos, Rome, New Delhi, Saint Petersburg . . . they're all falling, sir."

  Another warship blew apart.

  More Firebirds crashed into the wilderness and oceans.

  The Minotaur shook, and the lights died, then blinked back on, dimmer than before, as the backup generators kicked in. Monitors flashed scenes from across the ship: burning hangars, dying marines, another marauder on board. The ship jolted as a ravager slammed into her starboard, and another deck cracked open. Another warship exploded below them and its shrapnel plunged toward Eurasia.

  Earth is lost, Petty knew. All that we fought for. All that we built. Wiped out within an hour.

  "Petty." The voice came from behind him, soft. "General Petty."

  He turned to see Katson there. The president had entered the bridge. Her navy blue suit was splattered with black marauder blood. A gash bled on her arm. She gazed out the viewports as more ships collapsed, as the swarm of ravagers tore through them, as the aliens landed on the planet.

  "You should be in the ship's bunker, Madam President," he said.

  "Petty," she whispered. "We have to leave. We have to leave now."

  The ship rocked again. The cannons kept firing.

  "We've just fired our last torpedo, sir!" Osiris cried.

  "Sir, another deck is breached!"

  The ship trembled. Smoke flared. More gunfire rang from deeper in the Minotaur.

  "Sir, we're tearing apart!" an officer shouted.

  Katson stared at him. "We must flee."

  He clenched his fists. "No. I will not leave Earth. We keep fighting. We will go down with the planet if we must." He turned toward his officers. "Fire everything we still have. Keep tearing through them, damn it, full speed ahead!"

  Katson placed a hand on his shoulder. "James. We have to go. Earth is lost. We have to flee now. To survive now. To regroup—all the ships that still fly. We must live to fight another day."

  Outside, only a handful of warships remained. Petty watched as a hundred ravagers moved as one, slammed into a warship, and the vessel exploded over Africa. The lands below burned. Thousands of ravagers kept swooping toward the surface.

&nbs
p; "We can't help Earth by dying now, James," the president said. "Order the fleet away. You are the most senior general still alive. You command our fleet now. Order a full retreat."

  He stared at her. "Madam President, we have a duty to defend Earth, to—"

  "I am the president of Earth," she said. "I am your commander-in-chief. And that is my command. All ships. A full retreat. Now, James. Now."

  He stared at her.

  He stared at the battle outside.

  He stared at his battered, cracking bridge.

  How can I leave? How can I betray my duty? How can I run from battle?

  He stared at his president. He knew that he could disobey. He could overthrow her—here as the world burned. He could ignore his commander-in-chief, seize control, keep fighting . . .

  Yet how could I live with myself as a usurper, a tyrant?

  "Now, James." Katson's voice was soft, sad . . . but determined. "Now."

  Duty to Earth. Obedience to his chain of command. The terrors battled inside him as the ship shook, as more ships fell outside, as the enemy regrouped for another assault on the Minotaur—an assault that would likely destroy it.

  Petty lowered his head. He clenched his fists. His voice shook as he spoke into his communicator.

  "All Firebirds. This is Brigadier-General Petty. All Firebirds, back into your hangars. If your warship is lost, make your way to the Minotaur. We have a hangar for you."

  Guns blazing, they fled.

  The last ships of humanity—they blasted away from Earth, battered, cracked, limping through space.

  The HDFS Minotaur. Five other warships. A handful of cargo vessels. That was all. From a vast fleet—a handful.

  Behind them, Earth burned.

  They flew through space. They flew to the edge of the solar system. And as they flew, Petty's shame grew.

  "You did well, James." President Katson touched his arm. "You did the right thing."

  "I should have died there," he said. "I should have gone down with them. What did you make me do?"

  Past the orbit of Pluto, they emerged from warped space to lick their wounds, to tend to their wounded, to bury their dead in the cosmic sea. The screams of the dying filled the Minotaur, and engineers bustled across the ships, welding cracked hulls, and smoke rose and debris floated.

  "Sir, three hundred and seventeen are dead aboard the Minotaur," Osiris said. "Three decks were lost and eighty-seven Firebirds never came home. Should I tell a joke to ease the tension, sir?"

  He stared at the android. A machine. Devoid of emotion. Feeling no terror. No unbearable shame. He envied her.

  "You have the bridge, Osiris."

  He walked away.

  He walked through the ravaged ship, past men who lay wounded, who screamed, burnt, sliced open with marauder claws. He walked past the twitching corpse of one of the aliens. He walked by what might have been a man, now a pile of rags and flesh and shattered bones.

  He returned to his chambers.

  Once inside, Petty fell to his knees and clutched his chest. The old ache returned. The old dead spot in his heart.

  I'm having another heart attack, he thought. I'm dying. I'm dying a coward.

  He took a deep breath.

  No.

  He gripped his table.

  Stand up.

  He pulled himself to his feet.

  The battle is lost. The war—not yet.

  He stared at the framed photograph of his daughter on her graduation day. Bright-eyed. Smiling. A day of light and life.

  I will not abandon Earth to shadow. You did not die in vain, Colleen.

  "Sir!" Osiris raced into his quarters, holding an envelope. "Sir, I forgot!"

  He spun toward her, growling. "Damn it, Osiris, I told you not to barge in here without knocking."

  The android nodded. "Yes, sir! But my memory threads were temporarily demoted to a lower-priority processing thread, sir, what with the battle." He frowned. "It's all coming back to me now." She raced back to the door and knocked. "Osiris here, repor—"

  "Damn it, Osiris, what do you want?" Petty's hands trembled. He desperately needed a touch of the booze—just a sip.

  She rushed back toward him. "A letter, sir! It came over the highest priority security channel—during the battle. I printed it and permanently deleted its records. According to protocol, sir, I must incinerate this letter as soon as you read it. Would you like me to fetch a lighter or perhaps build a small fire? Maybe we can roast marshmallows, and I can tell jokes. I heard a cracker of a joke just yesterday, and—"

  He took the envelope from her. "That'll be all, Osiris."

  She smoothed her uniform, squared her shoulders, and cleared her throat. "What did one hat say to the other hat? You stay here. I'll go on a head. It's funny because hats can't talk."

  Petty pointed at the door. "Out."

  When she left, Petty stood alone by the porthole. The remains of the human fleet—five other warships and a few cargo hulls—hovered outside, badly scarred. Petty opened the envelope and pulled out the letter.

  To Brigadier-General James Petty, it began.

  His eyes scanned down to the bottom.

  Yours, with hope and prayer, Captain Einav Ben-Ari.

  He returned his eyes to the top. He read the letter. He reread it.

  He folded it and placed it into his pocket beside his daughter's tags.

  He looked back out the porthole.

  "Hope," he whispered.

  He left his quarters. He returned to the bridge. There was a lot of work to do.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Around Marco, the colony of Haven crumbled.

  War. Invasion. Another Cataclysm.

  Through the storm and fire and blood, he ran.

  "Addy!" he shouted. "Addy, where are you?"

  He didn't know her address. She had left their apartment in anger, renting a place of her own. He only knew her neighborhood, no more. He ran through it, shouting her name. And everywhere, down every alley and along every road, the war raged.

  The monsters descended from the sky, crawling down webs. They leaped from rooftops. They scuttled down roads. Beasts the size of horses, moving on six legs, skulls clattering on their backs. Their jaws tore into people, severing limbs, ripping flesh apart. The soldiers of Haven fired guns, but their bullets could not penetrate the creatures' hardened skin. They too fell to the claws and fangs.

  War.

  Marco ran around the corpse of a mother huddling over her child.

  Death.

  A baby's stroller burned beside him, a charred skeleton inside.

  Genocide.

  A skyscraper collapsed in the distance, raining shards of glass and metal and roiling the storm.

  Through the inferno, Marco kept running. He knew these creatures. He had seen them drawn in Kemi's leaked reports.

  Marauders.

  In true life, they were more hideous than anything Marco had read about, had seen in drawings. Creatures of endless hunger and malice. Demons of retribution. Terrors from the darkest pits of space. And they were everywhere. And they fed upon the dead.

  For years now, memories of war had haunted Marco. For years, in army bases, in subways and elevators, in hives of desks and phones, he had remembered the hives of the scum. A ringing telephone, the screech of a subway's wheels, the cries of a baby—all would set him shaking, sweating, overwhelmed with terror.

  Now, as true war flared around him, his legs did not shake. His head did not spin. Now, as war returned to his life, his old training kicked in. The strength Ben-Ari, Sergeant Singh, and Corporal Diaz had given him returned. Once more, running through desolation, he was a soldier.

  "Civilian, I need you to stand back!" shouted a soldier ahead of Marco, firing an assault rifle at a marauder on a balcony.

  "I'm a staff sergeant in the reserves!" Marco said, running toward the man. "I'm looking for my friend! A tall woman, blond, with a—"

  The marauder on the balcony squealed, hammered
with bullets, and leaped down toward them.

  The soldier cursed, firing in automatic, and emptied his magazine. The marauder landed on the man, and its jaws dug deep. The soldier fell apart, gobbets of flesh thumping onto the ground. His rifle clattered across the road.

  As the marauder fed, cracking open the skull, Marco knelt and lifted the weapon.

  A T57. The same assault rifle he had used in the war.

  A second magazine was strapped to the rifle's side. Marco inserted it, loaded, aimed.

  The marauder turned toward him, fangs bloody. Bits of the soldier's skull and brains coated its tongue.

  No fear. You are a soldier.

  Marco fired.

  A bullet slammed into the creature, doing it no harm. It bounded forward, and he fired again, stepped back, fired a hailstorm of bullets.

  The marauder slammed into him.

  Marco fell. He raised his assault rifle, jamming it into the marauder's mouth, keeping its jaws open. He fired again, and the bullet rang out, and he grimaced. The creature spat the rifle out, laughed, and slammed a leg against Marco. Its nostrils flared. It inhaled and trembled as if savoring the scent.

  And the creature spoke.

  Its voice was deep, grumbling, unearthly, each word blasting out the stench of rotten meat.

  "I smell your fear . . . I will enjoy your—"

  Bullets rang.

  One of the marauder's eyes exploded.

  The creature squealed, a sound so loud Marco's ears rang.

  He freed himself, grabbed his fallen rifle, and fired again. Another eye burst. He kept firing, and more bullets came from the shadows. The marauder screamed.

  Finally, when Marco's magazine was empty, the alien fell down dead.

  A voice rose from the clouds of dust.

  "You have to shoot them in the eyes, Poet. Only way to kill the fuckers."

  She stepped out from the swirling dust—Addy, pistol in hand, wearing her security guard uniform.

  "Addy!" He ran toward her. "God damn it, Addy, it's a fucking alien invasion."

  "Captain Obvious saves the day again!" She grabbed his hand. "Now come on! We're sitting ducks out here, you idiot. Come with me if you want to live."

  He winced. She had spoken those words before—fourteen years ago, when they had been children, when she had pulled him away from his mother's corpse.