His eyes widened. "You have a—"
"Shush!" She glared at him. "Not yet. Tonight."
He looked around, saw the marauders lifting more prisoners onto the web, then looked back at her. He leaned in close and whispered, "So let me get this straight. Are you sure there's no Chinese buffet?"
Addy groaned. "Where's Stooge?"
Steve's eyes darkened. "He's not himself."
"You mean he's standing upright, figured out he has opposable thumbs, that kind of thing?"
"Very funny." Steve pulled her through the crowd. "When those fucking spiders invaded, he took it hard. He hasn't said a word since."
"Steve, I've known Stooge since high school, and I've never heard him say a word."
"But he always spoke with his eyes," Steve insisted. "Granted, usually his eyes just said: I want more weed. Or: Got any munchies? But now they just look dead. And not the good kind of dead like after he smoked a few. The bad kind of dead."
The bad kind of dead, Addy thought. That seemed to be a recurring theme in this slaughterhouse.
They reached Stooge. Addy barely recognized him. She had never truly seen his face; he had sported a shaggy beard and long hair since high school. The marauders had shaved all that off. A pudgy, bald man sat in the dirt, head lowered. Thankfully, cobwebs hung across him, hiding his nakedness.
"Come on, Stooge, buddy, get up," Steve said, then looked back at Addy. "See? He's been like this for days, ever since the spiders arrived."
"Marauders," Addy said. "They're not spiders. Spiders have eight legs." She paused. "Fuck, I'm sounding like Poet."
"Whatever the fuck they are, they're vicious sons of bitches," Steve said. "I miss the scum."
"I was just thinking that," said Addy.
Steve sighed. "I missed you too, Ads. Fuck, I missed you. Why did you run off? I loved those days we had in my place. Why did you leave?"
"Steve, those hippies from Never War wanted to toss me into prison, and those Nazis from Earth Power wanted to make me their figurehead. What was I supposed to do? Stay on Earth and either become a prisoner or a skinhead?" Addy passed her hand over her bald head. "Well, I suppose that last one came true."
"You could have hidden in my apartment." Steve's eyes were suddenly red. "But you chose Marco."
She snorted. "Chose Marco? The little dude's like my little brother. I just . . . had to look after him, all right? I had to protect him."
"And did you?" Steve looked around. "Is he here? Is he . . ." He gulped.
He left without me, Addy wanted to say. He got on a spaceship with Ben-Ari and Kemi and Lailani. And they all left without me. I'm about to be brain food, and they're off gallivanting across the galaxy. Probably eating hot dogs too.
"He's off finding help," she said instead. "With my friends. Finding help to defeat these asshole bugs."
"And they didn't take you?" Steve's eyes hardened, and he clenched his fists. "I'll pound them all! I'll—"
"They needed me here," Addy said, pulling down his fists. "Because I have a plan. Steve, we're going to—"
"Silence!" A voice rumbled, and a marauder trundled toward them, shoving people aside. Crimson horns grew from his warty head, and blood stained his serrated teeth. "No talking, scum!"
"Actually, we're humans," Addy said to the creature. "The scum are giant centipedes. You know, the aliens we humans killed? We're very good at killing aliens."
The marauder's eyes blazed. He snapped his jaws at her, assailing Addy with rancid breath. His claws reached out, grabbed Addy, and wrapped her in webs. She winced, keeping her hand pressed to her hip, hiding her ivory blade. She was tempted to fight now, to kill this beast, to kill them all, to die in glory. That would be a good kind of death.
But no. Her time to die was not now. Not here. She didn't just want to fight. She wanted to win. And that meant patience.
It took three marauders, shrieking with fury, to knock down Steve and wrap him with webs. All the while, the hulking hockey hooligan shouted, kicked, spat, even managed to dent a marauder's horn. Finally the aliens cocooned the beefy man, and all three marauders worked together, carrying up the bundle. Stooge, meanwhile, barely put up a fight as the aliens trussed him up.
The marauders climbed the poles, carrying their prisoners. They crawled over humans already in the web—mothers, fathers, children, all crying out in despair.
"Stay strong, friends," Addy whispered to those she passed. "Believe in Earth."
"Earth has fallen!" an old man said.
"We survived the scum," Addy answered, hanging in a marauder's grip. "We will survive the marauders."
"They are stronger than the scum!" cried out a woman, dangling from the web.
"Then we will be stronger than we ever were," said Addy.
The marauders took her higher, so high that the air thinned out, and she could see the entire slaughterhouse and the wilderness beyond. The lines of new arrivals were still streaming in. The assembly lines were still chugging along, the humans being butchered, then carved up, the meat and organs packaged and crated. Addy could almost sympathize with her hot dogs.
If I ever get out of here, she thought, I swear, Great Hot Dog in the Sky, I will only eat veggie dogs.
They climbed even higher, and she stared beyond the slaughterhouse at the distant city. Toronto lay in ruin. She wondered how many people were still there, whether anyone was still fighting, whether there was still a Human Defense Force, still a resistance to the marauders.
If the HDF fell, it's up to you, Marco. And to me.
The marauders left her at the top of the web. Steve hung at her side, still shouting curses down at the aliens. Stooge hung beside them, soon snoring. As the marauders kept carrying up prisoners from below, Addy wrapped her fingers around her hidden tooth.
"Why don't they just kill us already?" Steve said, head hanging low. Blood dripped from his lip.
"We're just here waiting our turn," Addy said. "They have only so many assembly lines and butchers. They'll get us soon. Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. And then we're off to Marauder-Mart's meat aisle. So do you want to turn into a steak or a sausage?"
Steve strained against the webs, unable to break them, then hung limply. "So it's come to this. We don't die at war. We die being turned into marauder Spam."
"I don't intend to die here," Addy said. "We wait until tonight, until it's dark . . . and then we'll show these assholes human pride."
CHAPTER EIGHT
"So we have no food," Ben-Ari said. "We have no fire. We're slower than the enemy. And within a day, twenty ravagers will catch us. Did I get that right?"
The crew of the Anansi sat on the bridge, dour and still. Kemi was piloting the wounded, living ship—a female marauder, all her fire spilled out into space. Marco and Lailani sat beside the pilot, stomachs grumbling. They had been living on whatever scraps they had found in their backpacks: a few protein bars, some candy, a box of crackers, and packets of condiments. It was all gone now, and the hunger was growing. Soon they would be reduced to eating the charred baby marauders in the bowels of the ship—not a prospect that excited anyone.
Ben-Ari paced the confined space. She had finally changed out of her prison jumpsuit into a uniform. The HDF had stripped her of her rank, and she no longer wore golden bars on her shoulders, but nobody here doubted her command. To them, she was still Captain Einav Ben-Ari, the officer who had led them to defeat the scum, who now led them on this new mission. But was this quest doomed?
"If we can still find the Saint Brendan," Kemi said, voice weary, "I have some new ideas for repairing the stealth cloak, and—"
"The Saint Brendan is long gone," Ben-Ari said. "She's light-years away by now, and even if we could find her, she's set to self-destruct when the airlock opens. No. Think again. Another plan."
"We find a friendly species," Lailani said. "Other aliens must hate the marauders. They'll feed us and help us fight. We'll find help on the way."
Ben-Ari shook her head. "We're deep in
marauder territory. According to every map I looked at, this is their empire. Any world we land on, we'd find them there."
Marco stood up, walked toward the wall, and lowered his head. Guilt filled him. He had forgotten the food aboard the Saint Brendan. He had shot this ravager in her plasma reserves, destroying any chance of battling the enemy. This was all his fault. He would have to think of a way out.
"What we need," Marco said slowly, "is another ship."
"No kidding," Lailani said. "Ideally a cargo barge, one stocked with tacos." She patted her belly and winced. "It's official now. My stomach is touching my back."
Marco paced the bridge, frowning, nodding. "Another ravager. We need to swap ravagers."
"We already tried swapping ships," Lailani said. "Remember? We hopped from the Saint Brendan here, and the enemy still knew to follow us."
"Because they're smart," Marco said. "They figured we'd take the Anansi—a faster, larger, more powerful vessel. And they've been tracking the Anansi since. But what if we could sneak into another ravager? Secretly this time. And then we'll send the Anansi out on her own—and let the marauders chase an empty ravager."
"But how?" Lailani rolled her eyes. "Do you see any other ravagers here? Oh wait! I see twenty more. Twenty chasing us, ready to kill us!"
"Wait." Ben-Ari walked up to them. "I think I know what Sergeant Emery is thinking." She turned toward Lailani. "Bring up the star maps again, the ones we were looking at earlier."
Lailani sighed. "All right, Captain, but I'm telling you. Nothing but marauder planets for light-years around."
The little sergeant pulled down a hanging monitor, hit a few buttons, and pulled up a chart of systems within a few hours' flight. The closest star had several planets, all gas giants, one with a single forested moon.
"That's the only habitable world nearby," Lailani said, tapping the screen. "And our records show the marauders conquered it a year ago."
Marco nodded. "So that's where we'll find our second ravager."
Lailani stared at him as if he had grown horns. "So let me get this straight. Facing twenty ravagers in space isn't enough for you. You want to land on an entire world full of marauders?"
Marco nodded. "A forested world, yes. A world where, under cover of trees, we'll make a swap. We just need to find another ravager on the surface, hidden in the forest. Take it over. Then send the Anansi back out into space. We can build a rig, a remote control to tug the right strands and fly her out—maybe not with Kemi's finesse, but enough to get her going. With any luck, our pursuers will keep chasing the Anansi—an empty ship."
They all turned toward Ben-Ari, waiting for her decision.
She stared back, silent for long moments.
She looks older than her years, Marco thought. She's only twenty-seven, but her eyes are ancient, tired.
And it wasn't just the hunger, just the wounds, just the exhaustion, Marco knew. It was what they were all feeling. What had driven him to the roof on Haven. The endless anxiety, the lingering pain. The shell shock and the continuing trauma, and never a moment to catch their breath. Marco saw the same weight on Ben-Ari that he himself had been carrying since the war against the scum.
We've all been having nightmares, Marco thought. We're all still so hurt.
But still Ben-Ari stood tall, and still her shoulders were squared. And though Marco still fostered rage that she had left Addy behind, at that moment, he loved his captain. She was, as she had always been, his pillar of strength, his anchor in a crumbling galaxy.
Ben-Ari nodded. "We need food. We need another ship. We'll travel to this forested moon, and we'll find both. And then we'll blast off to find this Ghost Fleet and save the galaxy."
"And eat lots of tacos!" Lailani said. Her stomach growled in agreement.
"I might just be able to build us that remote control rig," Kemi said. "Do we still have the cyber-wrenches from the Saint Brendan? They extend and contract on command. I used them all the time as a Firebird pilot when we needed to repair things outside the ship. You can control them remotely from a tablet. I'll attach wrenches to the right strands here in the Anansi's bridge. Just seven or eight should give me the functions I need, along with a camera mounted above them. I can probably set it all up within a few hours, and then I can pilot the Anansi from afar. Once we're safe on the moon, I can send her off into space and let our friends follow an empty ship."
"I'll work on scanning the forest moon," Lailani said. "I learned a lot about scanning for distant signatures while stationed at the Oort Cloud. I'll see if I can find us an isolated ravager down there, something hidden in the forest, and we can make the swap. Assuming we can blast whatever marauders we find inside."
Ben-Ari smiled thinly—her first smile in days. "Blasting them will be up to Marco and me." She turned toward Marco. "Sergeant Emery, you and I will form the vanguard. Into your battle fatigues. Grab your weapons. Apply your war paint. Then we'll run some simulations in the Anansi, practicing clearing out a ravager. Once more, we go to war."
And suddenly Marco was back there. A kid again, just a scared teenager, following a twenty-year-old ensign to battle against the scum. Once more, he was with his friends. And if his eyes dampened, it was not in fear but in memory of lost times that could never return. Of friendships that still warmed him. He saluted her—his officer, his sister-in-arms, his captain. She returned the salute, and now the smile extended to her eyes.
They changed course, heading toward the nearby star system.
Behind them, the twenty ravagers followed.
For the first time in years, Marco prepared for war. They had brought several Human Defense Force uniforms with them, and pulling on the old olive drab felt as familiar as coming home. He bloused his pants over his boots. He buttoned his shirt. He had kept his army dog tags in his wallet—he never parted from them—and slipped them back around his neck. When he was ready, he looked at his reflection in a dark monitor.
A helmet topped his head. A T57 assault rifle, the same model he had carried for years, hung across his back. War paint covered his face. He no longer saw the twenty-five-year-old veteran, shell-shocked, withering away in a cage. He saw the teenage soldier again. That both comforted and terrified him.
The hours flowed by. They drew closer to the nearby star system, and the pursuing ravagers kept following, slowly shrinking the gap. Marco spent the last hour working with Kemi, putting together a remote control rig for the Anansi. The cyber-wrenches were expandable, comprised of many joints, used to repair starships via remote control. It took some tweaking—adjusting lengths, fastening pieces with cable ties, removing and tightening bolts. Finally they attached wrench by wrench to the alien strands, then linked them wirelessly to a tablet control panel.
As the two worked, the tools spread out around them, Marco found himself looking up at Kemi too often, then quickly looking away. She didn't seem to notice. The young pilot's brow was furrowed with concentration, and she stuck out her tongue, screwing two hydraulic arms together. Her curly hair kept falling across her eyes, and she kept blowing it back.
Being here with Kemi again, after years apart, also felt so familiar. And once more, as when putting on his uniform, it seemed to Marco that they were teenagers again. That none of the past seven years—going to war, losing their souls—had happened. That he could go over to Kemi right now, hug her, kiss her, laugh with her, that they could cuddle in bed and watch old Space Galaxy episodes, make love, cook breakfast in their sweatpants and spend the day walking the city. That none of these bad things had happened, had scarred them.
But no. Kemi was different now too. Her left hand was missing, replaced with a mechanical prosthetic. She was still beautiful—devastatingly so, Marco thought—but this was no longer the beauty of an innocent girl. Kemi now shone with the beauty of a woman who had fought, loved, lost, the beauty of wisdom and courage.
"This stupid . . ." Kemi groaned and pushed back her hair. "I can't . . ." She twisted her wrench mightily, but t
he bolt wouldn't nudge, and she tossed down the tool. She looked up at Marco. "Thing is stuck."
"Let me try." Marco moved closer to her, took hold of the wrench, and they twisted it together. Finally the bolt loosened, and Kemi fell onto her back, then pushed herself back up, smiling thinly.
"Thank you," she said, looking up at him between her fallen curls.
Marco reached out, tucked her hair behind her ear, then quickly pulled his hand back, worried that he had gone too far. But Kemi's smile only widened.
"Too much hair," she said.
They were sitting uncomfortably close now, closer than they had been in years. Marco thought back to that day seven years ago, the first—the only—time they had made love. It had been both the best and worst day of his life. The day they had broken up. The day before going to war.
"Do you ever wonder what might have happened," he said softly, "if the scum had never invaded? If we had never been drafted? We might be back now in your apartment or mine, solving puzzles instead of building rigs."
She laughed. "When did we ever solve puzzles?"
"That one time!" Marco said. "The puzzle of Big Ben, remember? We hung it up in the library."
She gasped. "Yes! I remember that! I forgot . . . It rained that day, and we spent it indoors. The power was out again, and we lit candles everywhere . . ." Suddenly she looked away, eyes damp. "But that was a long time ago."
Marco nodded, turning his head away. A long time ago. Before he had fallen in love with Lailani. Before the girls on Haven. Before Anisha. Before the wars had taken Kemi's hand, had broken Marco's soul. Perhaps those times could never come back. Perhaps they could never be those two kids again, innocent, in love, happy. Perhaps those feelings were just ghosts, as fleeting as the Ghost Fleet they sought.
"We'll find good times again," Marco said. "We'll emerge from this shadow. We'll save Earth and fly back home. I've been thinking. Once the war is over, we can buy a house. All of us. You, me, Addy . . . Lailani and Ben-Ari too, if they want to join. A big mansion on the beach. We'll light candles at night, and build campfires on the sand, and tell old stories. Just the good, funny ones. I think after everything, we deserve that. To retire somewhere on the water." He lowered his head, his cheeks suddenly hot. "Anyway, it was just an idea."
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