And now Marco felt like shit.
And now guilt filled him.
And now he wanted to apologize, but he remained silent, torn between shame and pain.
He nodded. "I understand. It's all right." He attempted a smile, but it came out sour. "Hey, what say we head back to the Marilyn? I kind of miss sleeping on a real bed."
She nodded. "Me too."
They walked through the forest in silence. They reached the alien airlock. They signaled the Marilyn, and Kemi flew toward the soulship and entered its hangar.
As the Marilyn floated back into space, Marco looked through a porthole at the fleet outside. Thousands of circular, luminous soulships flew all around, each with forests inside them. Ships of beauty, of war, and of memory.
We fly to Earth, he thought. We fly to the greatest battle our species has ever known. And yet I'm like some lovesick boy, jealous, caught in a love triangle. Who has time for such nonsense when the fate of humanity is on the line?
And yet thoughts of Lailani, of Kemi, of Anisha, of the other women in his life still filled him. That ancient, intrinsic need to find a partner. To belong. To feel safe. Even with humanity crumbling, he could not stop feeling it.
Because if I'm not fighting for love, what the hell am I fighting for?
He entered the crew quarters. Kemi was already there, asleep on her cot. She opened her eyes as he entered, gave him a sleepy smile, waved, then fell back asleep.
Marco climbed into his bed beside her. He looked at her serene face, so beautiful in the shadows, then out the porthole. He watched the stars.
For Lailani, he thought. For Kemi. For Ben-Ari. Because I love all of them. Because I love Earth. Because I love books. Because I love trees and tarsiers and Oreos and milkshakes. Because even if I'm confused, even if I'm broken, I can heal. And Earth can heal. And I don't want to die in the dark.
He closed his eyes.
I don't want any one of us to die.
Memories flashed through him. The laboratory back on Corpus. The scum experimenting, creating hybrids, half human, half centipede. Tying Kemi to a table. Preparing to deform her. The ball of skin Marco had found, the one that grew his face, that screamed when Addy killed it. The thousands of scum scurrying through the tunnels. And his slain friends—Elvis, Beast, Diaz, the others—resurrected, half human, half centipede, and him killing them, and—
He took a deep breath.
No. He could not fall down that hole again.
Instead, he brought to mind Addy's face.
Addy. His best friend. Smiling, laughing, shouting, crying, always a torrent of emotion, always brave, always strong. Always dear to him. He remembered their good times together—children having snowball fights, youths laughing in boot camp, adults who had formed a deep bond, one that no hardship or distance could break.
I will find you, Addy. I promise. I fight for Earth. But I also fight for you.
Finally he drifted off to sleep, and he dreamed that Addy was with him again.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ben-Ari sat in the commander's seat aboard the Marilyn, gazing into the darkness. They were halfway home. In a few weeks, she would see Earth in the distance. She had done what she had promised. She had found the Ghost Fleet. She was returning with aid. Yet the thought of coming home terrified Ben-Ari.
When I reach Earth, what will I find?
Would humanity still exist? Had the marauders kept humans alive as food, or had they extinguished the species during her quest?
And even should she save the world, what awaited her? Her soldiers still acknowledged her command, but her superiors had demoted her to private, had sentenced her to death. Would her crimes be forgiven now, or would they return her to her cell to await execution?
And even if I save the world, she thought, and even if I'm forgiven, what life is there for me? The life of a soldier? I've seen too much death, too much war. A life as a civilian? I don't know what that means. I wouldn't know how to live such a life. What do I have on Earth? Nothing. My career is over. My country was destroyed. What do I have in this cosmos aside from this ship, from its crew? From Marco, Kemi . . . Lailani?
She looked at her little sergeant. Lailani sat nearby, fiddling with her instruments.
Ben-Ari looked away. Her cheeks burned. Damn her pale cheeks! Whenever she blushed she turned into a tomato.
First of all, Einav, what you did is illegal, she told herself. You're her commanding officer. You're an authority figure. You cannot just do . . . what you did. She cringed. Second, you need to focus on the mission. Nothing else. Not on such matters. You're not Marco, for God's sake. That boy would hump an android if there was no woman within ten meters, but you're a commander of a starship.
She sighed. She knew all that. Yet she had been unable to resist that day. She had been scared, angry . . . and lonely. She was almost thirty, and she had gone nearly a decade without sex before her encounter with Lailani, not since those flings in her youth, those wild boys on the beach, acts of rebellion against her father. Did she not deserve to fill a basic human need? Was she not human, just because she commanded a starship? Did she not deserve to hold someone, to feel loved?
It happened one time, Ben-Ari thought. It won't happen again. But . . . I'm grateful, Lailani. She looked at her sergeant, then quickly looked away, praying the girl didn't see her blushing cheeks. I'll remember it fondly.
Ben-Ari checked the monitor readouts for the umpteenth time. Perhaps she should count the ammunition stores again. Or maybe double check the engine repairs, or—
No. Damn it. She was too nervous. The ship was on autopilot, everything was fine, and she needed to relax.
She pulled out a dog-eared paperback copy of The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, translated from Spanish. It was a novel she reread every couple years. She put on headphones and browsed through her library of music. She considered La Boheme, one of her favorite operas, but thought the singing might distract from her reading. She chose instead Brahm's Symphony No. 2; it was hefty enough to ground her during her more turbulent moods. All she was missing was a glass of wine—a strong Cabernet would match the music—but she settled for a juice box from the ship's stash. Grape. A cartoon vampire on the box boasted of seven essential nutrients, most of them probably sugar.
She opened her book, took a sip of juice, and cranked up the volume.
This isn't so bad, she thought. I'm in my own ship. With friends. With music and literature. With a fleet of thousands around me. I can relax for an hour. I can—
The alarms blared.
Of course.
Of course they did.
She slammed the book shut and yanked off her headphones.
Another time, Isabel, Johannes, and Count Grapeula.
"Captain!" Kemi burst onto the bridge. "Captain, ravagers approaching!"
Ben-Ari nodded. "I know, Lieutenant. Take the helm. Take us out of autopilot." She switched on the ship's speakers. "Sergeant Emery, report to the gun turret. Hold fire until an order from me." She turned to Lailani. "Sergeant de la Rosa, how many ravagers are you reading?"
Lailani stared at her monitors, cringing. "All of them, I think." She loosened her collar.
Only moments ago, Ben-Ari had cursed the blood that had rushed to her cheeks. Now she felt that blood drain from her face.
"How is this possible?" she said. "We're still light-years away from their territory."
"Well, ma'am, they've never really been ones to respect borders, have they?" Lailani said. "They'll be here in moments."
Ben-Ari reached to the crystal the yurei had given her. She tapped and tilted it, trying to get it to work. Finally Eldest's reflection appeared in one facet. The yurei gazed at Ben-Ari through the holes in her wooden mask.
"Eldest, do you see them?" Ben-Ari said. "Enemy ships! Ravagers! Thousands of them approach."
"We see them, child of Earth," said the yurei, and her voice hardened. "They are wretched. They are destroyers. They are evil. For the fi
rst time in many eras, the yurei will fight."
Ben-Ari nodded. "We're going to engage the enemy with you. We'll get out of your way but do our best to assist."
She placed aside the crystal. She stared through the central viewport. She saw them now. Thousands of them. Dark, clawed, living ships, roaring forth. The claws bloomed open. The plasma roiled.
Ben-Ari turned toward Lailani. "Sergeant, open a communication channel."
"Captain?"
"Do it."
Lailani nodded. "Yes, ma'am, communication channel opened, broadcasting on marauder wavelength."
Ben-Ari spoke into her communicator. "Marauder fleet! We are flying in neutral space. Close your claws, hide your fire, and disengage from our flight path. If you continue your aggression, we will—"
Before she could complete her sentence, the enemy blasted forth streams of plasma.
Kemi yelped and tugged on the joystick, dodging jet after jet. The Marilyn rocked.
"Emery," Ben-Ari spoke into her communicator, "choose a target and fire."
Marco sat at the elevated gunner's station. He hit buttons, and a missile flew.
A few seconds later, the missile exploded in the open jaws of a ravager, and the ship collapsed.
The thousands of other ravagers charged.
The plasma blasted out.
Kemi whipped the ship from side to side, but one jet streamed against their shields, knocking them into a tailspin. Alarms blared. All around them, plasma slammed into yurei soulships. Explosions rocked the larger vessels. Some of the smaller yurei ships, even smaller than the Marilyn, careened and crashed into one another, and explosions rocked the armada.
Ben-Ari stared in horror.
The yurei ships—they were falling apart!
She had imagined them to be nearly invincible, ancient gods of war, powerful beyond measure. Yet the ravager fire was melting their hulls, destroying their fighters.
Terror filled her.
The Marilyn still spun madly. Another blast hit their port side. They jolted, careened, too unsteady for Marco to keep firing.
The ravagers stormed closer, instants away from ramming into the Marilyn and the Ghost Fleet.
And then the yurei sent forth their wrath.
The light along the soulships' central disks grew brighter, coalescing into points, thrumming, beaming like stars . . . then blasting out searing, furious beams.
The streams of light slammed into ravagers. Where they hit, they melted metal. They bored holes into the living starships. Ravagers tore apart, claws flying.
Kemi managed to steady her flight. She had to dip to dodge one of the yurei beams that blasted overhead, bathing the Marilyn with radiation.
"Emery?" Ben-Ari said.
He nodded, perched up at the gunner's station. "Continuing fire, ma'am."
Shell after shell flew from the Marilyn, pounding the ravagers ahead.
But thousands of the ravagers still charged toward them, moving closer, closer . . .
"Hold on!" Kemi shouted.
"Full power to shields!" Ben-Ari cried.
With the fury of collapsing worlds, the two fleets slammed together.
Fire and light flowed over the battle like a supernova.
Everywhere around them, the yurei light beamed, slamming into enemy vessels, criss-crossing space. The claws of the enemy tore into soulships, gripping, shattering, cracking open holes and filling them with plasma.
Kemi flew in a frenzy, dodging light, fire, and flying shrapnel. Ahead of them, a ravager tore apart, scattering claws the size of oaks. Three other ravagers slammed into a soulship, and their claws tore it open. Air, trees, and yurei flew out from the breach, and the ravagers filled the ship with plasma. Everywhere, ships large and small were battling. Thousands of yurei starfighters, disks the size of merry-go-rounds, spun madly, blasting out beams of light, tearing ravagers apart. Other ravagers fought back, grabbing the disks, cracking them, burning them. High above, one of the massive yurei soulships—kilometers wide—cracked open. Explosions rocked it, and its disks shattered, showering flame and metal and light, destroying a hundred ships—both yurei starfighters and ravagers—that flew around it.
"Shouldn't this be easier?" Kemi shouted over the din of battle. "I thought the Ghost Fleet is invincible! Like the Army of the Dead that Aragorn raised at Dunharrow."
Ben-Ari raised an eyebrow. "Lord of the Rings? Never pegged you as a fan."
Kemi groaned. "I shared a ship for two years with Noodles, remember?"
"Just focus on flying," Ben-Ari said. "De la Rosa, divert more power to our engines, shields, and cannons—give us everything you've got from all power sources, primary and backup. Emery, keep our guns blasting, damn it!"
As the Marilyn whizzed through the battle, firing its weapons, Ben-Ari's nervousness grew. Kemi was right. This should have been easier. It seemed that for every ravager they destroyed, a soulship collapsed. Ben-Ari too had imagined an invincible fleet, ghost warriors that no enemy could destroy. The yurei were capable fighters—their beams were deadly, and they were searing many ravagers—but they were far from unstoppable gods of war.
This better be enough, she thought. Or we summoned a paper tiger.
A mob of ravagers—a hundred or more—slammed into another massive soulship, tearing at its glowing central disk. Half the ravagers shattered in the beams of light, but the others tore into the ship. The central disk exploded, blasting out white light like a supernova, pulverizing the ravagers around it.
Kemi swooped hard. Chunks of metal slammed into the top of the Marilyn. Marco cried out from the gun turret.
"Our cannon is blasted!"
"Fire our photon guns!" Ben-Ari said. "But only when you see an opening into the mouth of a ravager. Don't waste ammo on their metal hulls. De la Rosa, divert more power to Emery. Take it from life-support everywhere but the bridge. And keep our shields up!"
"Full power to shields, guns, and engines all at once?" Lailani muttered. "For the next battle, we'll install hamster wheels instead of chairs, so we can generate more power as we fly."
While power was at a premium, there was no shortage of ravagers to fire on. The living ships were everywhere. Three charged toward the Marilyn, claws opening to reveal their flaming gullets. Marco fired the photon guns, and one ravager exploded. The two others blasted their plasma. Kemi dodged one jet, but the second stream washed across their starboard.
The lights shut down on the Marilyn.
They listed, helpless in the sky.
"De la Rosa, get us backup power!" Ben-Ari shouted.
"I—" Lailani began when a ravager slammed into them.
They all screamed.
Claws slammed against the shields, tearing, ripping.
Air shrieked.
"Our cargo bay is breached!" Lailani shouted.
Ben-Ari cursed and hit a button. Deeper in the ship, a door slammed shut, sealing off the cargo bay. She could see their supplies—food, water, medical kits, fuel cells—hurtling out into space.
Damn.
"Got it!" Lailani said, hitting controls, and power came back on. "I'm routing power from the cargo bay's shields. We don't need them anymore, and—"
The claws slammed into them again.
"Kemi!" Ben-Ari shouted.
"Got it!" The pilot gripped the joystick, snarling, pulling them upward. "Marco, get ready!"
The Marilyn swooped toward the ravager below. It opened its claws to blow fire.
Marco filled its mouth with bullets.
Kemi yanked the stick, and they flew through raining debris and roaring fire.
The battle lasted for hours. The Marilyn soon exhausted its missiles, then its bullets, leaving it only with photon blasters.
When the dust settled, a victor emerged.
The yurei fleet glided through a cloud of shattered ravagers.
"We won." Kemi slumped back in her seat. "We beat them."
"But at a heavy cost," Ben-Ari said, looking out at the devas
tation.
She couldn't count how many soulships had fallen. But it was hundreds. Maybe thousands.
Some of the round vessels floated, dead, their hulls cracked open. Others had shattered into countless pieces. Some of the disks had torn off, cracked in half, and were floating away. Among the wreckage floated dead trees and dead yurei.
Ben-Ari gazed at the fallen, eyes damp.
"We roused them after a million years of sleep," Lailani whispered. "Now so many have died."
Ben-Ari forced herself to raise her chin, to square her shoulders. "But thousands of their ships still fly. The Ghost Fleet is still strong."
But Lailani only covered her face, trembling. Kemi lowered her head and said nothing. Ben-Ari knew what they were feeling. She felt it too, overwhelming her.
Guilt.
They died for our war. So many—dead. Because of us.
The surviving soulships floated in place, no longer advancing toward Earth.
Ben-Ari pulled out the crystal Eldest had given her.
"Eldest of the yurei," she said to the crystal. "This is Captain Ben-Ari. My crew and I are here to offer any assistance you need. We can provide medical care and engineering services. Please let me know how we can help."
No reply came.
The crystal reflected her own face back at her.
For a long time, they floated in silence, waiting for some communication from the yurei. As they hovered here in the battlefield, Lailani and Marco both donned spacesuits and began repairing the damaged hull, soldering the cracks. Most of their supplies were gone, but a few—a crate of food, some more ammunition, and some battery packs—they found floating among the wreckage.
Still the soulships floated around them, answering no communications, making no move. Thousands of those ships were still functional—their central disks were glowing—but they might as well have been more floating wreckage.
Ben-Ari was dozing off on the bridge—she was so tired—when Kemi hopped in her seat.
"Captain, look!" The pilot pointed. "The dead yurei!"
Ben-Ari blinked and rubbed her eyes, embarrassed that she had fallen asleep. She stared outside and gasped, her sleepiness instantly vanishing.
Thousands of dead yurei still floated through space, most too small to see without the viewport's magnification. All across the battlefield, wispy light was now rising from the dead. Each fallen yurei seemed like a seed, sending out luminous sprouts. The glowing strands coiled toward the soulships that still flew. They flowed into the central disks, adding to their glow.
Earth Valor (Earthrise Book 6) Page 15