But Lailani stepped closer, sat beside her on the bed.
"Ma'am, it's all right to cry," Lailani said softly. "You told me that once, remember? I cry almost every night. Kemi cries. I even saw Marco crying in his bunk the other night, but that might be because I stepped on his sausage when climbing toward the upper shelf."
Ben-Ari laughed weakly. "I could go for a nice big sausage now. I mean—to eat a sausage. I mean—you know what I mean." She frowned. "Stop having such dirty ears."
Lailani grinned—a huge grin that showed sparkling white teeth. "Even officers need to get laid."
Ben-Ari groaned. "Soldiers generally do not tell their officers they need to get laid."
Yet perhaps there was some truth to Lailani's words. Art. Music. Books. Yes, she had taken all those things from Earth. Yet what of the other needs all humans had, even officers? Oh, in her younger days, she had been as wild as anyone, she supposed. Ben-Ari had never forgotten her first sexual experience, a tender, giggly, awkward night with a female friend at age fourteen, another military brat at some forgotten base at the end of the world. There had been a few others after that, all of them older boys, secret romances when her father had been away in space.
Then she had joined the army. She had become an officer. And she had placed all thoughts of romance and love aside. Oh, there was the odd romance novel perhaps, the odd fantasy, but sex?
"My God," Ben-Ari found herself whispering. "I've turned into a spinster."
Lailani laughed. "You're too young and pretty to be a spinster, ma'am."
"I'm twenty-eight!" Ben-Ari said. "That's almost thirty." She sighed. "And while I thank you for the compliment, I'm hardly a heartbreaker. You've said so yourself."
Lailani looked at her lap, and her cheeks flushed. She bit her lip, then looked back up at Ben-Ari.
"I had a massive crush on you at boot camp," Lailani said. "When I first saw you, I thought you were so beautiful. So strong and wise, while I was so weak and stupid. I had a fantasy that on Sunday, you'd call me into your trailer, that you'd order me onto your bed, and then you'd—" She gasped and covered her mouth. "Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. I didn't just say that, did I?"
Ben-Ari stared at her, jaw hanging open. "But—what? Sergeant!"
"I'm sorry!" Lailani covered her face. "I'm so embarrassed." She peeked between her fingers. "It's just . . . I never had anyone strong in my life. My mother died when I was very young. I have no older sisters. And I guess . . . I was attracted to that. To a stronger, older woman. A sort of guardian figure." She laughed awkwardly. "But then Marco put on the moves." She lowered her gaze again and twisted her fingers in her lap. She trembled. "I still think you're pretty. And I still have a crush on you. But I'm silly. I get silly crushes on everyone. Even on Marco. You don't hate me now, do you?"
Ben-Ari sighed. "No, de la Rosa. I don't hate you."
Lailani still wouldn't raise her eyes. "I'm embarrassed. I'm so stupid."
Ben-Ari placed a finger under Lailani's chin and raised the little sergeant's head. She looked into her eyes. "You're not stupid. You're sweet. And intelligent. And capable. And kind. You're my soldier, and I'm proud of you. Always."
Lailani smiled, eyes damp. She reached out, caressed Ben-Ari's hair, then quickly pulled her hand back. She looked away. She spoke softly, hands clasped in her lap. "I want to make love to you now. While Marco and Kemi are away." She took a deep breath, looked back into Ben-Ari's eyes, and took her hand. "You're a good officer. A good warrior. A good leader. But I'm good at this. I'm a good lover. And I want to make you feel good. I want to make you feel less alone. Just say yes, ma'am. You don't need to say anything else to me. You don't have to ever talk to me about it again, even remember it after today, or ever do it again. But today, say yes."
Ben-Ari regarded the young sergeant. Lailani's fingers were trembling, but her eyes were earnest. Hesitantly, she reached out to caress Lailani's cheek, trailing her fingers down to her lips. Her skin was soft, olive toned, her features delicate, her cheek damp from a trailing tear. Ben-Ari thought back to that time in her youth, a time of giddy, nervous lovemaking. She thought of her years of loneliness—an officer, a prisoner, a leader tasked with saving the world. So many years alone. So many years without the warmth, the comfort of a lover. All the cosmos might end tomorrow. All their lives might be lost. Was this place, this world, just a fantasy? Was this just a dream?
Then let it be a good dream, Ben-Ari thought, and tears filled her eyes. For once, let things be good.
She took Lailani into her arms.
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes."
Yes, perhaps just a dream. Perhaps just a fever dream in an impossible world. But it felt real. And it felt good. And afterward, when Ben-Ari held her little soldier in her arms, she never wanted this moment to end.
Yet her communicator buzzed. Marco and Kemi were on the way back—with food. Time continued. There were more battles to fight, more struggles to face. And the dream ended.
As Ben-Ari worked outside the ship again, she was calmer, her head clearer, and when she glanced at Lailani, the little sergeant quickly looked away, smiling a small smile. Ben-Ari knew the dream would never return. She knew they would never speak of it again. But perhaps, like her music, her poems, and her artwork, this too could be a warmth to Ben-Ari in the cold. A little memory she could take out when necessary, admire its beauty, then tuck it away for another cold night. It wasn't much. It wasn't the comfort of a spouse, the security of a home. But it was a little light for the darkness that she knew still lay ahead.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The rebels ran through the forest, firing their guns, falling one by one.
The marauders were everywhere.
The dawn revealed more and more of them. Their webs coated the snowy trees. They leaped above. They ran in the snow. They slashed their claws. Their jaws closed around humans, ripping bodies apart, and they laughed as they fed.
"Fight them!" Addy shouted, running through the bloody snow. "Rebels, rally here! Fight them! Aim for their eyes!"
She ran toward the piny hill, toward the tents hidden there in the brush. A handful of rebels ran with her. Steve panted, his leg still sore. Pinky raced on his prosthetics. Angela leaped through the snow, her hair a fiery banner. Even Jethro ran with them, his peg leg thumping. Across the forest, dozens of other rebels were firing their guns. Were dying.
"To the hill!" Addy shouted.
A marauder leaped down before them and bellowed. They fired, peppering it with bullets, shattering its eyes. They kept running. A web shot down from a treetop, grabbed Angela, and yanked her into the air. Addy fired, severing the strand a second before the marauder in the tree could devour Angela. The girl fell into the snow and fired upward, screaming, killing the marauder above.
The rebels reached the hill, pulled back the snowy tarp, and revealed them there: the snowmobiles.
Addy leaped onto one and kick-started the engine. She roared downhill, the snowmobile roaring and thrumming beneath her. The Resistance had mounted machine guns onto the snowmobiles, welding them between the handlebars. Addy fired hers, spraying bullets. Marauders shrieked, falling back from the onslaught.
"Snowmobiles, follow me!" Addy shouted. "Head to the lake!"
She remembered the marauder from the other day. The one who had chased her onto the river, who had slipped on the ice. If she could reach the frozen lake . . .
The other snowmobiles roared behind her. Marauders leaped from all sides, and their bullets sang. Riding beside her, Steve hurled a grenade, and it exploded between the trees, knocking down an oak. A marauder crashed into the snow, and bullets slammed into the beast. Addy lobbed a grenade too, tearing down another tree, knocking down the marauder in the canopy. She kept firing her machine gun, plowing a path through the enemies.
A marauder raced toward her, screeching, claws reaching out. She fired her machine gun, tearing through its eyes. The alien collapsed a second before it could reach her. Her snowmobile h
it the corpse, flew into the air, and she fired more bullets at a marauder swinging on a web. She slammed back down into the snow and kept driving.
The trees blurred at her sides. More rebels ran among them, firing guns. Dozens, then hundreds. The marauders were flushing them out from every cave and tent, and corpses filled the forest.
They heard us, Addy thought. Damn! They heard our communications. They triangulated our location. Fuck fuck fuck.
"Fight them!" she shouted, firing her guns, roaring forth on her snowmobile. "Never surrender!"
A marauder howled in a tree and shot down a web. A strand caught Addy's snowmobile and lifted one corner. She drew her sword—the sword with the blade made from Orcus's tooth. She slashed through the strand, and her snowmobile fell back onto the snow and kept racing. She lobbed a grenade at the leaping marauder, then ducked her head. She grimaced as the shockwave hit her snowmobile.
Ahead she saw it: the frozen lake.
Hundreds of marauders surrounded it.
Winter was ending. The ice would be thin. But Addy had no time to hesitate. She roared down the hillside, all guns blazing. The enemy leaped from all sides. With a hailstorm of bullets and the burst of grenades, Addy plowed her way through. She shouted, drove her snowmobile over a snowdrift, and flew through the air. She fired bullets at the marauders leaping her way, severing their webs.
She slammed down onto the frozen lake.
A crack raced across the ice.
Addy winced, sure the ice would shatter, but she kept driving across the lake. She spun around to see the other snowmobiles leap over the snowdrift, then slam onto the ice with her. Other rebels raced afoot, vaulting between the marauders, guns blazing. Some fell. Others landed on the ice and scurried away from the bank.
More cracks spread.
This is going to get ugly fast, Addy thought.
The marauders surrounded the lake.
From the beaches, they stared.
"Come on!" Addy shouted, gun raised. "Come and get us, assholes!" The aliens did not move. "Come on!"
The marauders sneered. They drooled. Their eyes blazed. More and more kept emerging from among the trees. Addy and her comrades—twenty rebels on snowmobiles, a couple dozen afoot—stood in the center of the lake.
Come on, onto the ice, Addy thought. We can fight you on the ice . . .
The marauders did not move.
Addy fired her gun.
A bullet hit a marauder on the lakefront. It howled. The other rebels fired too. They stood back to back, bullets blazing, hitting trees around the lake, hitting marauders, killing a few. But the aliens were too many, too distant to accurately hit in the eyes.
The marauders grabbed oaks and maples around the lake. These trees had grown here for hundreds of years, and their roots ran deep into the frozen soil. Yet the marauders uprooted these mighty trees as if they were spring saplings. Staring at Addy, licking their lips, the marauders slammed the trees onto the ice.
More cracks spread.
Addy stared.
The marauders smiled at her—horrible, twisting grins full of bloody teeth.
They slammed the trees down again like hammers.
The cracks raced toward the rebels, and the ice shattered.
The water engulfed Addy.
She couldn't breathe. Her heart could barely beat. The cold was terrifying, indistinguishable from heat. She was burning in an inferno. She had fallen into the sun. Agony—pure agony, screeching, biting, searing her—spread across her skin and invaded her innards.
The snowmobile was pulling her under. She kicked, desperate to free herself. Her foot tangled in a strap. She could barely move. Her muscles were stiffening. Around her, she saw others sinking, some already dead.
She gave a wild kick, freed herself, and the snowmobile sank below her. She kicked again, pain exploding with every movement.
Her head burst above the surface.
"Swim!" she shouted. Barely any voice emerged. "To the river!"
Around the river, she saw the marauders. Laughing. Watching her slowly die. Rebels floundered in the lake, trying to grab slabs of ice, falling back under.
"To the river!" she cried. "Swim!"
She swam.
She swam through hellfire.
She swam through the deadly ice.
She kicked off her boots, her jacket, her pants, remaining in her underclothes. Ice was crawling across her skin
But she kept swimming.
The marauders cast their strands into the water. They fished out some rebels, yanked them to land, and tore them apart. Addy swam in zigzags, dodging webs. Steve, Jethro, Angela, and a handful of others swam with her. Pinky was struggling, his metal legs built for running on land, not swimming—let alone in a frozen lake. Addy grabbed the snaggletoothed soldier and yanked him along with her.
"Leave me, Maple!" Pinky sputtered. "I'll slow you down."
Fuck you, Pinky, she thought, not bothering to respond. She kept dragging him. I'll save your ass, but I'm not wasting breath on you.
The marauders raced along the trunks of floating trees. They thrust out webs, grabbed rebels, and pulled them into their jaws. Dragging Pinky through the water, Addy dodged one web. Steve slashed his knife, severing a strand that flew his way.
A web caught Jethro.
The one-legged survivalist shouted.
"Jethro!" Addy cried, reaching toward him.
"Addy, swim on!" he shouted as the web pulled him toward the marauders.
"Jethro, no!" Addy began swimming toward him, dragging Pinky with her. "Jethro!"
The marauders grabbed the bearded man. They wrapped him with webs. His blood spurted. Addy screamed.
"Addy, come on!" His face ghostly white, Steve grabbed her. Chunks of ice floated around them. "We have to keep going!"
Damn it. Damn it! She had to save Jethro. He was like a father to her. But more marauders were casting their webs. And she was still holding Pinky. And Steve was tugging her away.
"He's already gone, Addy!" Steve shouted, lips purple as he swam in the water. "We have to go!"
"I'm sorry, Jethro," she whispered. "I'm sorry."
She swam, leaving Jethro behind in the enemy claws.
As marauders screeched, a handful of surviving rebels reached the river. It was a mix of ice, slush, and water, and Addy managed to climb onto a patch of ice and hobble forward. The other rebels emerged onto floating ice around her. They were all shivering, freezing, dying of the cold.
We need fire, she thought. Or within moments, we're dead.
The marauders howled and raced along the riverbanks. More webs blasted out.
Addy tried to fire her assault rifle. The damn thing jammed, filled with ice crystals. She tossed her last grenade, and it burst on the riverbank, shattering marauders.
"Run!" she shouted, running off the frozen river. She leaped between the alien corpses and raced through the forest. She had only minutes to live, she knew, unless she found fire. She had removed her frozen clothes in the lake, remaining in her underwear. Her skin was corpse-white, her fingers blue. She kept running. The others ran behind her.
Some brazen marauders raced onto the icy river, only to slip and fall into the water, where they quickly sank. Others still lurked in the trees.
Finally Addy saw it ahead: the lookout on the hilltop. The place where they had raised their antenna.
There would be tents there. Supplies. Big guns. And a campfire.
Wearing only her underclothes, coated with ice, she made her way up the hill. She was nearly dead once she reached the top. Several rebels were here, already dead, marauders feasting upon their corpses. Steve and Pinky fired their rifles—theirs were still working—destroying the beasts.
They leaped behind the sandbags that surrounded the outpost. Three heavy cannons rose here along with several machine guns.
The marauders were racing up the hills around them.
"I'll build a fire," Addy said, barely shoving the words through frozen
lips. Her teeth chattered. Every breath, she knew, might be her last. "Steve, help me. The rest of you—fire those guns!"
A handful of rebels manned the weapons, and the air shook as shells blasted down. Explosions rocked the valleys, tearing up trees, sinking craters into the land. Marauders tore apart. Shell after shell flew, raising clouds of snow, frozen soil, trees, and dead aliens, leaving holes that could swallow tanks.
Addy let the others fight. She had a more important task—building that fire. Cold would kill them just as quickly as marauders. The outpost had firewood, and her fingers kept shaking, and she couldn't light the logs. Finally she found gasoline, doused the wood, and a fire roared to life.
Finally, heat warmed her, staving off cold death.
Another minute without heat, and the marauders would have enjoyed a lovely meal of meat Popsicles, she thought.
For hours, they fought, the fire roaring behind them. Marauders kept climbing the slopes, only for the shells and bullets to knock them down. Trees kept shattering. The land shook.
It was afternoon by the time the western chapter of the rebellion arrived, bringing with them the tanks and helicopters. It was dawn again by the time the marauders all lay dead.
Among them, strewn across the forest for many kilometers, lay hundreds of human corpses.
For two days they toiled, salvaging ammo and weapons, re-establishing lines of communication, treating the wounded, and burning the dead. As winter lashed them with its final fury, they mustered in a valley beneath a forested escarpment. They abandoned their caves, their lookouts, their shacks. They all came here, rallying around Addy. The Northern Resistance in all its might: a few thousand ragged souls. A few hundred vehicles. A handful of aircraft. Soldiers. Rebels. Survivors. Humans in a fallen world.
From atop the escarpment, Addy gazed at the thousands in the valley below. She sat astride a horse, one of a hundred the Resistance owned. She raised her banner high, and it caught the wind, unfurled, and displayed its symbol: a blue circle on a black field. Symbol of Earth.
"I am Addy Linden!" she cried, loud enough for them all to hear. "I fought the scum on Corpus and Abaddon! I fight the marauders now! Will you fight with me?"
Earth Valor (Earthrise Book 6) Page 6