Earth Eternal (Earthrise Book 9)
Page 16
She wiped her eyes.
"I was just remembering old friends," she said.
HOBBS halted before her. He placed a metal hand on her shoulder. His hand was so large it engulfed most of her upper arm. Epimetheus nestled her.
"You have new friends, mistress," HOBBS said. "Friends who love you."
Lailani embraced him. She laid her cheek against his wide, cold chest.
"Thank you, HOBBS." She smiled up at him. "And I told you—you don't have to call me mistress. Just Lailani or Captain if you must."
HOBBS nodded. "Yes, Captain Lailani."
She snorted out a laugh. "That works too."
Epimetheus sniffed at her fallen locks of hair, then jumped up, placed his paws on Lailani's chest, and began licking the stubble on her head. She laughed and mussed his droopy ears.
She was about to seek out some battle rations when the rumbles came from outside, and the church trembled.
Lailani inhaled sharply and grabbed her rifle.
"The grays," she whispered.
She ran across the church nave. The other soldiers ran with her. They burst outside into the searing sunlight.
The ancient city of Jerusalem spread around them—at least what was left of it. It was here that the scum had first struck Earth sixty-two years ago. It was here that the first great alien battles had been fought. Every last soul in Jerusalem had perished or fled that day. Yet destruction was nothing new to Jerusalem; the city had been sacked by the Crusaders, the Romans, the Babylonians, by many others going back thousands of years. Like a phoenix, it had risen again and again from the ashes. Here was a microcosm for Earth.
All around her, the city spread across the mountaintop. Orphaned archways of craggy bricks, the walls around them long fallen. A few scattered palm trees growing from rubble. A handful of stray camels snorting and chewing their cud by wells. Old domes and minarets. The remains of ancient churches, synagogues, and mosques, some of them thousands of years old. Every brick was the same limestone, craggy and large, the stone's color either white, beige, or gold depending on how the light hit it. Beyond the city walls spread the desert—dry hills rolling toward dunes and a hazy horizon.
A city in ruins. But there was new life here now.
Thousands of soldiers filled the ruins. They watched from guard towers. Their tanks stood at the city gates. Their cannons lined the walls. Beneath the city, thousands of other soldiers worked in bunkers. Here was the great central command of the war. Here they were set up to await the grays.
The grays would attack again. They all knew that. They were all waiting for a doomed battle.
The rumbles sounded again.
The city shook. Bricks rolled. Pebbles danced. An archway cracked. The sky seemed to open, and the vessels emerged.
Lailani sneered and raised her gun, for an instant sure the grays were attacking. But no. Those were not saucers that emerged from the sky, engines rumbling. They were round, boxy shuttles, each the size of a bus. They were alien, had to be alien; Lailani had never seen shuttles of such a design, boxes that could fly with no wings. Yet the phoenixes of the Human Defense Force were painted on their sides.
The shuttles landed in the city with thuds. One shuttle landed only meters away from Lailani.
She kept her rifle in her hands, staring.
A hatch opened on the shuttle before her. Across the city, soldiers stared at other shuttles, guns pointed and loaded.
A ramp extended from the shuttle, and out stepped Ben-Ari.
Lailani gasped.
Ben-Ari wore the uniform of HOPE rather than the HDF—it was navy blue with brass buttons. Her ranks shone on her shoulders, denoting her a captain of HOPE, humanity's premier space agency. In the military, a captain was only a junior officer; it was the rank Lailani herself now had. But in HOPE, a captain was a senior rank, equivalent to an HDF colonel. Einav Ben-Ari had come a long way from the young ensign Lailani had met over a decade ago; she was now among Earth's greatest leaders.
Lailani knew she should salute. She knew she should show deference and respect to her commanding officer, to her heroine.
Instead she ran up the ramp, leaped onto Ben-Ari, wrapped all four limbs around her, and squeezed her in a crushing embrace.
"Captain!" Lailani said. "I mean—Major! I mean—Ben-Ari, you're back!"
Lailani was probably breaking every rule of decorum in the book. Another officer might have court-martialed her. But Ben-Ari only smiled, hugged her back, and kissed her cheek.
"Hello, Lailani."
From inside the shuttle, she heard metal clanking. And they began to emerge.
Robots. Hundreds of robots. Ben-Ari and Lailani rushed down the ramp, and the robots marched out after them. More robots were emerging from shuttles across the city. Each one looked even deadlier than HOBBS. They were like humanoid tanks. Guns were mounted onto their forearms and shoulders, and their feet shook the earth. They took formation across the ruins.
More shuttles kept landing. More robots kept emerging. Thousands soon covered the ruins.
"Wha—?" Lailani blinked, rubbed her eyes, and stared around her. "How—?"
"I went shopping," Ben-Ari said.
President Petty marched up toward them, surrounded by security. He had finally removed his business suit and wore a leather bomber jacket and a helmet. Ben-Ari and Lailani stood at attention and saluted.
Petty stared at the robotic troops, then back at Ben-Ari. He returned the salute.
"God bless you, Einav Ben-Ari," he said.
Ben-Ari spent a while describing her ordeal, how she had found the Galactic Alliance headquarters, how she had secured junior membership, how she had purchased weapons on credit. The scum, the marauders, and the grays had destroyed humanity's fleet. But now, Ben-Ari said, ten thousand new warships were orbiting Earth. Now the world was defended. Now they were ready to face the grays.
As they stood in the dusty ruins, Lailani listened carefully to all this. And as she listened, dread grew in her.
Petty was saying how his scientists had detected irregularities in spacetime, how the attack was near. Ben-Ari recommended troop placements. The gray invasion was only days, maybe only hours away, they were saying. The great, final battle of this war. The battle in which Nefitis unleashed all her fury upon Earth. The battle in which Earth stood or forever fell.
And as she listened, Lailani remembered the hourglass, the sand trickling out and burning away, leaving an empty bulb.
"Mister President?" Lailani said. "Major Ben-Ari?"
They turned toward her.
She wanted to look down at her feet. To clasp her hands behind her back. Instead she met the president's gaze, then stared into Ben-Ari's eyes.
"All this talk of war against the grays. Of a great invasion coming. Of a doomsday battle. This is all just a backup plan, right? Only in case, for whatever reason, Addy and Marco fail? Because if they kill the Tick-Tock King, the grays can't reach us. Right? So all this . . ." She swept her arm across the ruins. "It's just precautions. Because Addy and Marco are going to make it, right?"
Ben-Ari and Petty shared a quick glance.
Ben-Ari looked back at Lailani. She held her hand.
"Lailani, you understand that the chance of Addy and Marco succeeding is small."
Lailani stared up into her commander's eyes. "But they still have a chance."
"A small chance," Ben-Ari said, voice soft. "Maybe a fool's chance. But yes, a chance. And we all hope and pray for them."
Lailani pulled her hand back.
"You're lying!" she said. She pointed at Petty, her finger shaking. "You sent them there to die! You—"
"Lailani!" Ben-Ari said.
"Don't you silence me!" Lailani said. "Do you know what he did, Ben-Ari? What Petty did? He calculated how much sand was left in the hourglass. He knew there was only enough for a one-way trip. That we could send Marco and Addy to the future, but not open a portal to bring them back home. He knew!" She pointed at the president
again, her eyes wet. Her voice shook. "You sent my friends to die."
Petty stared at her. His eyes were hard. His face was stone. Ben-Ari stared at them both, shock filling her blue eyes.
Finally Petty spoke.
"Yes." His voice was a low grumble. "Yes. I sent them to die."
Tears ran down Lailani's cheeks. "Why?" she whispered.
"Why?" Petty rumbled. "Why? For the same reason I sent tens of thousands to die in the scum and marauder wars. Hundreds of thousands." His voice rose. "So that others may live! I sacrificed Emery and Linden, knowing they can never come back, knowing that if they can infiltrate that pyramid and slay the terror within, we can all live. The billions of us still left on Earth. And I would send them again. I would kill them with my own bare hands if that could save the world. And you would too."
Lailani stood, trembling. She turned toward Ben-Ari, expecting some aid, some hope.
"But we can still save them, right, ma'am?" Lailani said. "We can build a time machine, or create more sand for the hourglass, or . . ."
But she saw the answer in Ben-Ari's eyes.
"Lailani—" she began, reaching out to her.
Lailani took a step back. "How could you?" she whispered. "You knew too. Addy and Marco. Our friends. You knew. You sent them to die."
Lailani was sobbing now. She turned. She ran.
Epimetheus met her at the foothills. She embraced him, crying into his fur.
She had lost her friends.
"Lailani?" A concerned voice sounded ahead. "Lailani! What's wrong?"
She looked up. Through her tears she saw Elvis approach. She stepped toward him and all but fell into his arms. He held her. They stood together among the ruins, holding each other, as the troops marched around them, as the warships rumbled above, as this ancient city and young planet waited for war.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They trudged through the ashes of a dead world.
The desolation of Black Earth spread around Marco and Addy. Soot covered the rocky fields, swirling around their boots. Canyons carved up the land, scarred pits filled with tar. Mountains rose in the distance, jagged, pitiless, burning with scattered fires where bitumen seeped out. A stream flowed across the land, but the water had gone black with filth, and no life could survive within it. Marco walked with his helmet on, breathing from his oxygen tank. His air would run out by tomorrow; he was not looking forward to breathing this foul miasma.
They had been marching for a full day now. Marco was exhausted. His feet were blistering. His legs ached. His lower back cried out in protest. He had taken long marches before, especially during boot camp. But he had been eighteen then. Now, a month shy of thirty, he was starting to slow down. And this landscape was harsher than Earth's deserts by far. If only he could have seen a patch of blue sky or a star, it would have lifted his spirits. But there was no sky over Black Earth, just a veil of smog.
"Poet," Addy said, panting at his side.
He groaned. It hurt to talk. "What?"
"Can you carry me?"
"No, Addy."
She pouted. "But I'm tired!" She jumped onto his back. "Give me a piggyback ride."
"Addy, for Chrissake!" He shoved her off. "You're the famous Addison Linden, the legendary warrior who raised Earth in rebellion against the marauders. You don't need piggyback rides."
She groaned. "I don't want to be a heroine with you. You're Poet. You're my best friend. I want to be myself."
"Yourself is bloody annoying!" Marco said.
She crossed her arms and stuck her tongue out at him. "Well, if you can't carry me, you're just a weakling."
He sighed. "Fine, Addy. Let's rest if you're so weak and tired that you can't walk anymore."
There was no use seeking a comfortable place to rest. They ended up camping on a rocky hillside. Their spacesuits perhaps were hardened, able to resist bullets, but they could still feel the sharp rocks beneath them. Marco had neglected to take any battle rations when boarding the enemy saucer, but Addy always thought with her belly. She had stuffed her backpack with food packets. They were just powders, meant to mix with water into a fluffy paste, and a couple of boxes of granola bars. It would do.
To eat they had to open their visors. The instant he breathed in the air, Marco nearly gagged.
"Ugh! It's like wrapping your mouth around a car's exhaust pipe." He coughed.
Addy sniffed and grimaced. "Gross! It smells like a dead, rotting skunk that fell into the sewer outside an ashtray factory."
Marco inhaled again and nearly fainted. "It smells like an army latrine after a scum used it."
"Let's eat quickly, then visors down."
Addy tore open one pouch of powder. When mixed with water, it supposedly turned into meat loaf. They had no water. Addy spilled the powder into her mouth, swallowed, and shuddered. Marco tossed down powdered chicken casserole. It tasted like sand. With relief, they closed their visors and breathed from their oxygen tanks for a while.
"Great," Addy said. "The stink is inside my helmet now."
"That's just your breath," Marco said.
"Ha ha, very funny." She punched him. "Any more wise talk from you, I'll smash your visor and you'll have to breathe this air constantly."
He sighed. "Soon enough, we'll both run out of oxygen. Then it'll be this lovely aroma for both of us." He rose to his feet. "Come on, let's keep walking."
They kept trudging across the barren wilderness. Marco kept checking his compass. At least he hadn't forgotten to bring that. In their commandeered saucer, Marco had fled the pursuers west. He wasn't sure how far he had traveled, but he figured that if they walked straight eastward, they'd arrive in Gehenna, the city of the grays. Geographically, it rose over the ruins of Jerusalem.
It was strange, he thought, that Jerusalem should be a nexus of such great events in human history—the birthplace of Abrahamic religions, the center of so many human wars, the place where the scum had first struck Earth, and now the lair of the grays. Perhaps the location had some cosmic importance, a spring of energy science had not yet detected. Perhaps the grays had realized its significance. Perhaps it was merely a coincidence.
Jerusalem is now called Gehenna, Marco thought. The ancient Hebrew word for Hell. The holy city has become cursed.
He had told Addy that they might be a thousand kilometers off course. He hoped he was wrong. With the saucer crashing through the atmosphere, falling apart in midair, who's to say how far they were from Gehenna? Maybe they were a hundred kilometers away, could be at Gehenna within two or three days. He let a little optimism fill him.
"Poet, it's getting darker," Addy said. "I think the sun is setting."
They couldn't see the sun through the smog, but Addy was right. Black Earth was always dark, but now the darkness was deepening fast. One side of the sky turned pitch-black, the other pale gray as the sun set beyond the veil.
"Let's keep walking until it's totally dark," Marco said. "Then we'll rest again."
They took a few steps, pebbles crunching beneath their boots.
Add frowned. "Hey, Poet?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you know that in the future the sun sets in the east?"
He froze. He stared.
"Fuck."
Addy groaned. "Poet! You don't mean . . ."
He had to sit down. "Oh fuck." He stared at the direction they had been walking all day. At the setting sun. "We've been walking west all this time."
Addy yowled. "Poet! But you said Gehenna is in the east!"
"It is!" Marco said. "And my compass pointed us east!" He raised his compass. "Look, Addy! Look. The needle's pointing east, and—" He blinked. "Of course. Oh shit, of course. It's a million years in the future. Earth's magnetic pole must have shifted."
Addy tilted her head. "Earth's what now?"
"Earth is a giant magnet," Marco said. "Back in our time, the north pole is, well, in the north. But every few hundred thousand years, the pole flips. Suddenly north is south, south is no
rth, east is west, west is—"
"I get it, Poet. So your compass is fucked-up."
"Well, my compass is just built for the twenty-second century. Over here, it works in reverse. We have to travel west now, not east." He sighed. "We wasted a day. A day of air. A day of food. A day of energy. I'm sorry, Ads."
"Aww, it's not your fault." She patted his helmet. "Your compass was broken."
"Actually, I just forgot that—" He bit down on his words. "Yep. You're right, Addy. Compass is broken. But we'll go the right way from now on. Let's rest until dawn. There are too many canyons and holes in this landscape to be walking in darkness."
They were just about to lie down when it began to storm.
Gray, acidic rain sizzled across their spacesuits, melting the phoenix logos printed on them. Wind gusted, thick with black sand and pebbles. They could, perhaps, have slept through even this, but then the lightning began. Bolts slammed down onto boulders around them. One blast cracked a boulder in half.
"We need to find shelter!" Marco shouted.
"Save me, Captain Obvious!" Addy cried back.
They trudged through the storm. The sun vanished but bursts of lightning kept illuminating the world. Cliffs loomed ahead. They struggled toward them, hoping to find shelter between walls of stone. Lightning slammed into a boulder ahead. The wind gusted, shrieking, deafening, so powerful it lifted Marco and Addy off their feet. They flew and hit the ground, struggling for purchase, and pulled themselves up. The rain kept lashing them, each drop like a bullet. Mud tugged their feet like the claws of buried demons.
A shadow lurched ahead.
Marco started.
"Addy, I saw something! A shadow."
She grabbed his hand and pulled him along. "This whole planet is a fucking shadow. Come on."
They kept struggling toward the cliff. Lightning flashed every second. Thunder boomed. Every step was a war. And there! Marco saw it again. A shadow loping in the rain. Lightning flashed. White eyes glared, and a jaw hissed. The darkness fell, and when lightning flashed again, the creature was gone.