The Minotaur's fleet of Firebirds was doing some damage, but barely any remained.
Soon the war would end. And the marauders would reign supreme upon the world.
And Petty knew his path.
"Osiris, are you with me?" he said.
The android lay on the floor, torn in two. Her legs twitched in the corner. Her upper half lay slumped nearby, spilling out cables and electronics. Around her, several bridge officers lay dead.
"I . . . am here . . ." The android blinked at him, voice staticky. "I . . . malfunction."
Petty guided his ship down, closer to Earth, cannons firing at the ravagers around him. "Osiris, I need you to interface with the Minotaur. I need your help. We're going to attempt a Samson Maneuver."
Osiris blinked at him. "Sir! There's no recovering from a Samson Maneuver! The Minotaur can enter the atmosphere, but she'll never rise into space again."
Petty nodded, flying closer to Earth. "Yes, Osiris. This is our last stand. Last flight of the Minotaur." He smiled softly. "She had a good run."
A Samson Maneuver. In theory, it should work. In practice, it had never been attempted.
We won't go down as scrap metal, he thought. We go down in a blaze of glory.
"Yes, sir. Interfacing with the ship now, sir." Osiris nodded from the floor, unable to move but able to reach the controls wirelessly. "Should I guide her down, sir?"
He shook his head. "I'll fly her, Osiris. You keep controlling the shields, the engines, the cannons. When I give the order, I want you to launch our landing craft and send our marines to the surface." He gripped the controls. "No offense, but it takes a human touch for this."
He increased speed.
"All marines!" he boomed into his communicator. "Into your exoframes and into your landing craft. Prepare for launch!"
He kept diving.
The Minotaur—her hull cracked and dented, her shields nearly gone, her wounds leaking smoke—plunged toward Earth.
Ravagers rose to meet them. The ship barreled through them. The cannons kept firing. They dived into the atmosphere like a whale into the ocean.
Air shrieked around them. Fire roared. The ship creaked. Shields tore off the hull and flew. The ship rocked madly and control panels rattled.
"She's falling apart, sir!" Osiris cried.
"Do what you can to keep her together! Seal the leaking decks! All power to the shields!"
It was only a minute. It couldn't have been longer. But that minute of entering the atmosphere, flying a ship the size of a skyscraper, was the longest minute of Petty's life.
The ship rattled.
More shielding tore free.
Fire blazed across the ship.
An entire deck collapsed.
Flames engulfed them.
They plunged down, crashing through the clouds of ravagers, cannons carving a path before them. From below, they must have appeared as a massive asteroid, falling with the vengeance of the gods, heralding extinction.
He could see Toronto below. He guided the ship toward the ruins.
Twenty kilometers above the surface, he cried out, "All marines! Deploy, deploy!"
Hatches opened on the Minotaur's belly. The landing craft emerged, one by one, firing their guns. Each held a platoon of space marines, the deadliest warriors in the Human Defense Force, each fighter encased in an exoframe. Their vessels swooped, mighty warships in their own right, blasting their cannons.
From the ruins of the city, the ravagers rose to meet them.
Hundreds of these living starships flew upward.
Then thousands.
The landing craft blasted their cannons, trying to carve a way through. Ravagers slammed into one vessel, tearing it apart. Plasma washed over a second landing craft. Their marines ejected, plunging toward the surface in their exoframes.
But most of the ravagers were attacking the Minotaur, biting at it like piranhas at a charging whale.
Petty gritted his teeth and kept flying, the yoke wheel threatening to rip from his hands.
He leveled off a kilometer above the city, raising their nose. The swarm intensified. Ravagers shattered their hull. They slammed into the bridge, shattering another viewport. Claws tore through the metal only meters away from Petty. Air shrieked through the holes.
"Sir!" Osiris screamed.
"Keep us firing." He bared his teeth. "Empty our arsenal down to one percent."
Their cannons blasted.
Their last missiles, bullets, photons bolts, and lasers—all fired in a storm.
Ravagers fell below them.
"More power to the engines!" Petty said.
They increased speed. They skimmed the skyscrapers of the city—a massive ship as large as the crumbling buildings below. They drove through the swarm of ravagers, knocking hundreds back, snapping their claws. Explosions filled the sky. Metal hailed onto the ruins.
The Minotaur roared.
The last flight of an ancient ship. The last cry of a legend.
Below, the Resistance was struggling to cross the last few hundred meters to the city. A swarm of marauders still covered the ground, forming a living wall of claws and fangs around the ruins. The human tanks and infantry could not advance.
"Osiris," said Petty, gliding the ship downward, "would you like to tell one last joke?"
"Why did the android cry, sir?" she said, tears in her eyes. Her engineers had actually given her tears. "Because it was an honor to serve her commander. Goodbye, sir. I am proud."
He flew lower, his cannons blasting the marauders on the ground, slaying hundreds.
The creatures tried to flee.
Petty emptied the ship's last reserves of ammunition, tearing through their lines.
He took a deep breath.
He slammed down onto the army of marauders.
Hundreds shattered below him.
The Minotaur kept plowing forward, digging ruts through the earth outside the city, tearing up marauders, scattering aliens like a plow driving through a field of insects.
Fire filled the bridge.
The walls shattered.
The engines tore off, rolled, and exploded.
Cannons detached and tumbled into the crowds of aliens, crushing them.
The hull cracked open.
Hundreds, maybe thousands of marauders tore apart.
They kept driving forward, too fast to stop, and slammed into buildings, knocking them down, digging up streets, scattering houses. And with every meter, they crushed more marauders.
A steel beam slammed onto Petty. Shards of metal leaped up from the floor. The ceiling collapsed above him. His instruments exploded, showering him with glass and metal and silicon. Fire raged.
Finally, in the heart of downtown Toronto, countless marauders around them, the Minotaur came to a halt.
Petty lay on the floor.
Debris covered him.
He groaned, reached out, struggling to rise. Osiris reached out to him, trapped under a metal beam. Their hands clasped.
From outside, he heard the screeches of a thousand marauders racing toward them, ready to feed.
But I killed many, Petty thought. I did my part. I went down with pride. A warrior. He pulled his daughter's tags from his pocket and clutched them as the marauders advanced. I'll be with you soon, daughter.
With his other hand, he pulled out his pistol.
The marauders leaped in.
Petty fired his gun.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Addy stood atop the tank, banner raised.
"Forward!" she cried hoarsely. "Into the city!"
Her tank roared forth beneath her. Thousands of other vehicles—tanks, Humvees, bulldozers, sand tigers, motorcycles, even mechanical horses—followed. Thousands of infantry soldiers ran.
The massive warship had plunged from the sky, had plowed a road through the ruins. The Resistance now charged down this path of hot metal and uprooted asphalt. Lines of tanks, several deep, formed the flanks, holding back
the marauders that still lived. The infantry ran between them. Addy rode at the vanguard, rifle in one hand, banner in the other.
After so long at war, so many battles, so many scars, she entered her city.
Toronto was not an old city. It had never survived ancient wars like Jerusalem, falling and rising again, time after time. It had never been the center of the world like Rome or Athens or New York City. It had never kick-started revolutions like Paris, never seen empires conquer and crumble. It was a city in the far northern corner of the world, a city not used to great deeds or monumental events. A city that had never been of much importance. Yet to Addy, it was the most important city in the world. It was her home.
Not, she supposed, that much was left of it.
As the tanks rumbled into the city, she saw only ruins. Half of the buildings had fallen. The others were punched full of holes, burnt, crumbling. The marauder webs were everywhere, draping over buildings, burning on the streets, and some still held corpses. It was eerily quiet. Only sporadic gunfire sounded, and they saw only a handful of marauders that quickly fled before them.
Addy stood atop her tank, speaking to its driver through her communicator, leading the army through the city. Lord Malphas, they said, had taken residence atop the ruined library. He had chosen her house to build his hive. Addy took the old roads home.
The city lay in ruins, but here was still her home, and tears filled her eyes as she rode. She passed by a Firebird burning in a smoldering yard, a place where she had once played soccer. An old factory where she had worked one summer, assembling shells for the war, lay in a pile of rubble, and corpses—both human and marauder—lay atop it. The street where she had been born was gone, just a pile of ash strewn with corpses.
As she traveled down the streets, the army behind her, Addy saw two cities superimposed. She saw the ruins, the devastation, the death. But like ghosts, translucent patches of color, she saw her memories overlaying the city. Children playing. Trees rustling. Families laughing. Her and Marco. Her life. Her youth.
"We will rebuild," she whispered, tasting her tears. "This city will rise again. It will be good again. I will be happy again. And you'll be back here, Marco. You have to come back."
Thousands of tanks and soldiers were in the city now, traveling down the highway, heading toward the library. Still they saw barely any marauders, only a handful that scurried away from their advance.
The tank's hatch opened behind her, and Steve climbed onto the roof with her. He stared around him in amazement.
"Fuck me," he said. "The city is empty. The buggers all spilled out of Toronto to face us on the field. We won this war."
Addy bit her lip. Her fingers tightened around her gun. A marauder stared at her from a rooftop, hissed, then fled. But she had seen no fear in its eyes.
"No," she said. "This is too easy. They're planning something."
The tanks rumbled onward down the street. Addy raised her assault rifle, staring from side to side. They traveled deeper. She lifted her communicator and hailed the back of the line.
"How are we doing back there?"
One of her officers answered from several kilometers behind. "There are still several thousand marauders in the field, but they seem beat. They're barely putting up a fight. We're bringing the last few troops into the city now."
Addy breathed heavily. The marauders in the field—barely fighting anymore. The marauders in the city—fleeing before them. There were a few ravagers that still flew above, but they seemed disjointed, not even blowing fire.
Her heart pounded, and cold sweat washed her.
"It's a trap," she whispered, then spoke into her communicator. "Keep a brigade of tanks and infantry outside the city! Don't let anyone else in! We—"
Shrieks and screams flowed over the communicator.
"What's going on?" Addy shouted.
The officer on the other end cursed. "They're raising walls! The marauders! They're raising walls of metal and stone! They're blocking the roads!"
"They're trapping us in the city," Addy whispered, then shouted, "Turn back! Blast open those barricades! We have to get out, we—"
From the roofs and alleyways around her, countless marauders shrieked and pounced.
From the sky above, thousands of ravagers swooped, spewing fire.
The trap is sprung.
For an instant, Addy could only stare in horror.
They herded us into our graveyard.
Then she screamed and fired her gun.
Then I die fighting.
The marauders were everywhere. The swarm rose from the sewers, emerged from windows, and coated the city. The ravagers hid the sky. Steve tried to leap back into the tank, to pull Addy in with him, when three marauders slammed into the tank, grabbed the caterpillar tracks, and lifted the vehicle. They overturned the tank as if it were a mere sedan. Addy and Steve leaped, landed on their backs on the pavement, and fired their guns as the enemy drove in from all sides.
All across the road, soldiers screamed.
Addy crawled, huddled by the overturned tank, fired her gun, and stared.
A few meters away, a tank burned. Burning soldiers emerged from inside. Another tank rolled, hit a building, and marauders tore it apart. Everywhere, the infantry soldiers were running, fighting, falling, dying. A horse ran through the battlefield, burning, wailing. The ravagers kept roaring along the highway, only several meters overhead, raining down their inferno. Addy pushed herself against the overturned tank, cringing, the fire licking her boots.
All down the road, they burned. Soldiers. Men. Women. Boys and girls. Some barely even teenagers. Living torches, they ran, screaming. A few meters away, a marauder was tugging out a soldier's entrails, cackling as the boy wept, as he called for his mother. Beside them, a marauder carved open the skull of a screaming woman, picked out her brain, and tossed the corpse aside. A war dog wandered the battlefield, his jaw ripped off.
"Break out," Addy whispered into her communicator. Her hand shook. "You have to break out of the city."
She heard only screams.
Then static.
She rose to her feet. She took a step, dazed. The highway curved upward to the north, back toward the countryside. She gazed along a road of death.
A hundred thousand soldiers or more covered that highway.
And they were falling. They were dying.
The ravagers swooped in wave after wave, blasting their plasma. The soldiers tried to flee onto side roads, only for marauders to cut them down. They were trapped along this artery. Some tried to retreat out of the city, only to hit the barricades the marauders had raised. And still more of the creatures were emerging from every hole in the city, screeching, laughing, feasting.
"We should never have come here," Addy whispered as soldiers died around her. "After all this, to fail, to die, so close to home . . ." She lowered her head. "I'm sorry, Marco. I'm sorry, Earth. I failed."
She fired her last bullet.
The marauders were moving in from all sides.
Addy reached out and clasped Steve's hand. He pulled her against him, wincing. The ravagers descended from above, fire gathering.
"I love you, Addy," Steve whispered.
"I love you, Steve." She held him tightly, waiting for the fire.
Light.
Light flared above her.
Addy cringed, expecting the agony of fire.
But it was a soft light. A white light. Not the furious red light of plasma.
She blinked and stared up.
A beam, pure and white as moonlight, slammed into a ravager and knocked the ship back.
More beams flared, hitting other ravagers, destroying the ships.
Light flowed across the street, blast after blast, searing through marauders like sunlight through a magnifying glass burning ants.
Addy stared upward, squinting, and she saw them there.
Starships.
Thousands of starships.
They were circular, sh
aped like three disks, the outer disks metallic, the central ones glowing with light. The beams were blasting out from those central disks, tearing into the ravagers, burning marauders, filling the sky with light.
Addy gazed up at the ships, and tears flowed down her cheeks.
"The Ghost Fleet," she whispered. "You did it, Marco. You did it."
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Finally, he was home.
Finally, he was flying over Toronto.
Finally, the great last battle was here.
The Ghost Fleet had come to fight.
Marco sat in the gun turret of the Marilyn, flying over the ruins of his city, firing the cannons. All around him flew thousands of soulships, small fighter vessels, no larger than his own ship. As he fired the cannons, the yurei ships blasted out beams of light, tearing into the thousands of ravagers that flew over Toronto, burning the countless marauders that still scuttled below.
"We got here too late," Marco said as he fought, shelling the enemy. "The city has fallen."
From the bridge behind him, Ben-Ari answered. "No. We're not too late. Humanity still fights."
The Marilyn swerved and flew lower, gliding over a highway. Marco stared down and lost his breath.
"The Resistance," he whispered.
They had received signals from the Resistance on the outskirts of the solar system, had thought them already lost. But some still fought. Some soldiers still lived. They were trapped on a highway, ravagers above, marauders at their sides. Many lay dead across the road, and tanks burned.
But some still lived.
Marco's eyes watered.
"Addy, are you here?" he whispered.
A ravager flew toward them. Marco fired, and photon blasts hit the living ship, ripping it apart. A dozen other ravagers charged in formation. Soulships spun toward them, beaming out their rays, burning the enemy. The ravagers crashed into buildings below.
"Can anyone see her?" Marco said, struggling to keep his voice calm. "Can anyone see Addy?"
"I can't see her!" rose Kemi's voice from the helm.
"I can try to zoom in on soldiers below," said Lailani, sitting at the engineering station, "but—"
Ben-Ari interrupted them, voice harsh. "Abasi, you keep flying. Emery, keep those guns firing!"
Earth Valor (Earthrise Book 6) Page 21