Earth Lost (Earthrise Book 2)

by Daniel Arenson

  "Is that true, soldier?" Petty said. "Is that what she said?"

  "Yes, ma'am!" Marco said, silently cursing Addy.

  Captain Petty sneered. "This isn't Earth anymore, soldiers. I don't know what kind of lax discipline you learned on the planet, but if you ever speak out of turn again here in space, I will have you court-martialed." She pointed at the floor. "Now drop down. Both of you. Give me thirty."

  Marco and Addy glanced at each other. Drop and do push-ups like a recruit? Soldiers past basic training were never given this punishment. Ranked soldiers could be given extra guard duty, sent to the brig, denied leave, even discharged, but push-ups were punishment given to recruits, not warriors with confirmed kills. It was like a boss sending her employee to stand in the corner.

  Lieutenant Ben-Ari was obviously thinking the same thing. She stepped forward and addressed her captain. "Ma'am, I will discipline them later." She turned to glare at Marco and Addy. "Harshly."

  Captain Petty scowled at the lieutenant. "Are you contradicting my orders, Lieutenant? Do you want to drop and give me thirty too?"

  Marco couldn't help but gasp. To publicly discipline privates was bad enough, but to chastise an actual commissioned officer—in front of her troops, no less? Marco hadn't been in the military very long, but this seemed unthinkable. And he could see the red splotches of rage blooming across Ben-Ari's face.

  "Now drop!" said Petty, turning back toward Marco and Addy.

  Dutifully, Marco and Addy dropped and gave a push-up.

  "Count them," said Petty.

  "One, ma'am! Two, ma'am!" They counted until thirty, then rose, red-faced.

  Captain Petty nodded, a thin smile on her lips. "Good. No chow for the rest of today. Next mealtime, you two take empty trays, empty plates, empty mugs. If anyone asks you why, you tell them that you don't deserve to eat. Then you clean every other soldier's dish, all two hundred of them."

  "Captain Petty!" said Lieutenant Ben-Ari, those red splotches growing. "These are battle-hardened soldiers. They fought at Fort Djemila. They have many kills between them. They—"

  "Lieutenant, this is your final warning," said Captain Petty. "If you ever contradict me in public again, you will be court-martialed here on the Miyari and, if you're lucky, emerge with a dishonorable discharge. We do things differently here in space." Petty raised her voice for the entire platoon to hear. "Some of you killed scum on Earth. Some of you might even consider yourselves heroes. You are no heroes here! You are worms. Your salad days in the sun are over. You belong to the STC now. You will obey. You will fight like machines. Or by God, I will blast you out of the airlock." She turned toward the twins. "Sergeants, show them all to the showers. I want them disinfected before we blast into warp drive."

  The sergeants saluted. Captain Petty left the chamber, not bothering to return the salute.

  Marco glanced toward Addy. She made a silly face and gave a tiny yap. Marco sighed. He already missed Earth.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "She really is a Chihuahua," Addy said, staring glumly at her empty plate. "You thought so too! Admit it."

  Marco glared at her. "Shh! Do you want to end up scum food?" He glanced around him. "Keep your voice low."

  "So no yapping?" Addy said.

  Marco looked around him, hoping nobody was listening. He and Addy sat in the Miyari's mess hall, both with empty plates and mugs. The soldiers of their platoon sat around them, still in their olive fatigues, tucking into their meals. Marco glanced at their plates with envy. The chow here certainly smelled and looked better than the glop and Spam from Fort Djemila. There was canned fruit here, bread and butter, synthetic chicken, and mac and cheese. The delicious aromas spun Marco's head, but thanks to Addy, he wouldn't be enjoying any of it until tomorrow. Already his stomach was growling.

  He looked around him. Three other platoons filled the mess, all in the navy blue uniforms of Space Territorial Command. The two forces did not mingle. The blues kept glancing toward the greens, snorting, and muttering under their breath.

  "Land-leggers," one of them mumbled.

  "Fucking earthlings," another said.

  "I'd rather serve with scum," said a woman across the hall, loud enough for her voice to carry everywhere, and her friends laughed.

  Addy rose to her feet. "Oh yeah?" She wielded a fork like a knife. "I actually fought scum face to face, not just sat on a ship and pressed buttons while—"

  "Addy!" Marco grabbed her and pulled her down. "Shut up!"

  Wincing, he glanced toward the officers' table. Lieutenant Ben-Ari was there, along with several officers in navy blue. Thankfully, Captain Petty wasn't here, perhaps preferring to dine privately in her quarters. Everyone at the officers' table turned to look at Marco and Addy. Lieutenant Ben-Ari leaped in to the rescue, touching one officer's shoulder and continued a story she had been telling. As the officers turned back toward her, the lieutenant shot Addy a glare.

  "Addy, you really do need to learn how to keep your big mouth shut," Marco said.

  Addy snorted, fork still clutched in her hand. "Nonsense. Back in the hockey rink, we talked smack all the time, and I still kicked ass."

  "You're not a hockey player anymore. You're a soldier. A soldier who's heading toward a space station light-years away from any hockey rink, where you'll be integrated into the STC."

  Addy gasped. "They don't have hockey rinks?"

  Marco glanced toward the wall where a screen showed the countdown: "2:59 to hyperspace." In just under three hours, the warp engines would be ready, and the HDFS Miyari would leave the solar system, blasting off toward distant stars. Then Earth wouldn't even be a blue marble out the viewport; it would be lost in darkness.

  "Hey, Poet." Elvis reached across the table and tapped Marco's arm. "You're a librarian, right?"

  "I was," Marco said.

  Elvis nodded. "Good enough. That means you're smart, right?"

  Marco shrugged. "Compared to who?"

  "Oh, he's smart!" Addy wrapped her arms around him and kissed his cheek. "He's writing a book, you know. Jarhead!"

  Marco sighed. "Loggerhead, Addy. I told you that a thousand times."

  "Enough, you two lovebirds." Elvis pointed at the clock on the wall. "What's this hyperspace thing?"

  Addy guffawed. "You don't know what hyperspace is?"

  Elvis shrugged and popped an entire boiled egg into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. "I'm a musician, babe, not a genius like Poet here. Do you even know what hyperspace is?"

  Addy bristled. "Of course I do! Everyone knows what hyperspace is."

  "Well, what is it then?" Elvis asked. He placed his elbows on the table, leaned forward, and stared at Addy.

  "Well . . ." Addy shifted in her seat. "It's space. That's hyper. It's all hypered-up." She elbowed Marco hard beneath the ribs. "Tell him, Poet. You have to dumb it down for him."

  Marco rubbed his side. "Ow, stop that." He looked at Elvis's plate, where two other hardboiled eggs had been carefully peeled. "Slip those under the table to us, and I'll tell you."

  Elvis widened his eyes. "My precious eggs!"

  Addy kicked him under the table. "Hand them over, or I'll kick your other pair of precious eggs."

  Once Marco and Addy had secretly eaten the eggs, Marco spoke. "See, Elvis, my boy, right now the HDFS Miyari is floating through regular spacetime."

  "Space-what-now?" Elvis said.

  "Spacetime." Marco patted the table. "Spacetime is sort of like this tablecloth."

  "You mean it's covered with crumbs and Addy is chewing on it?" Elvis said.

  "I'm still hungry!" Addy said through a mouthful of linen.

  "Addy, stop!" Marco tugged the tablecloth out of her mouth, ignoring her cries of protest, and smoothed it across the table. "Look. Spacetime is a flat surface, that's what I mean. Well, no, it's not actually flat at all, but for our purposes, pretend it's flat. And pretend you want to fly between my plate and the saltshaker. Well, you just have to travel straight from A to B." He mo
ved his finger across the tablecloth. "But across regular space, we can't travel very fast. Theoretically, the fastest you can go is the speed of light, though realistically, no starship can travel anywhere near that fast. Flying through regular spacetime is fine to reach planets within our solar system. It's pretty easy to fly through regular spacetime from Earth to Mars, say. That only takes a few weeks with a good nuclear engine. But to travel through interstellar space, to reach other stars? The distances are vast. Regular spaceflight would require thousands of years to reach even the nearest star."

  Elvis shuddered. "Thousands of years with Captain Chihuahua? No thanks."

  Addy grinned. "See, Poet? See? She is a Chihuahua, and everyone knows it."

  Marco scowled. "Stop calling her that. She probably has ears growing under the tabletop. Anyway." He pulled the tablecloth up, bunching several folds of fabric together, pulling the saltshaker close to his plate. "Hyperspace sort of works like this. We bend spacetime. Now the distance between the two points is smaller. Spacetime itself, the fabric of the universe, is bunched up. Well . . . it's not really like this at all. The math is beyond me. But it's the best analogy I have unless somebody wants to bring me a bedsheet."

  Elvis nodded. "Ah, I see. So the giant hand of a celestial librarian comes down from the firmaments and bends space."

  "Sort of," Marco said. "Only it's an azoth engine that does it."

  "A sloth?" Elvis said.

  "Ooh, I like sloths!" said Addy, licking her lips. "I could go for one now."

  "Azoth." Marco rolled his eyes. "How can you know the word firmaments but not azoth? You know, only the most precious material in the universe, mined in the colonies?"

  "You can buy me an azoth ring someday," Addy said. "I'll bend spacetime whenever I punch my enemies."

  Marco brushed a few crumbs of yoke off her shirt. "I wouldn't even buy you an onion ring. In any case, azoth engines take a while to warm up. That's why there's still some time left on the clock, counting down. Once they're primed, get ready for craziness. The universe itself will bend all around us, and we'll zip toward the frontier. We won't be moving faster than normal. But we'll bend spacetime into a far smaller distance. It doesn't break any law of physics. In a sense, we're just taking a shortcut."

  For a long moment, the entire table—their squad of fifteen soldiers—was silent, even Addy. Marco knew what they were all thinking. The frontier. The front line. What awaited them there? Back on Earth, soldiers heard little of the battles in space where humanity's finest clashed against the scum. And they said there were other alien civilizations out there too, some benevolent, others demonic. Almost every bit of information from the frontier was classified. Marco knew they were heading toward a colony called Nightwall, but he knew nothing more about it. Would he undergo more training there? Or would they simply dump him straight into a battlefield on some desolate planet in no-man's-land?

  He glanced at the clock. Two and half hours until hyperspace. Two and a half hours until he left not only Earth but his entire solar system behind.

  Marco rose from his seat, walked between the mess tables—careful to avoid the ones where the STC soldiers sat—and approached a viewport. He stared out into space. In the distance, he could just make out the earth, that blue dot among countless distant stars. The rocket that had brought him here was already returning home, a silver cylinder growing smaller, smaller, soon vanishing.

  Earth. His father was back there. Kemi was back there—the woman he had loved, who had broken his heart. All his life, memories, dreams, ambitions—all on that pale blue dot which would soon vanish in the darkness. Marco didn't know much about the STC, but he knew this: Most STC soldiers never came home. He pressed his hand against the viewport, saying goodbye.

  "Goodbye, Father," he whispered. "Goodbye, Kemi."

  Yes—goodbye to Kemi too. They had parted ways, had "broken up" as they called it. She had joined Julius Military Academy. He was an enlisted private. Her service would be a decade long, if not longer. His might be cut short on the frontier. And Marco had found new love in the army, had found Lailani—new joy in his life.

  But he still thought about Kemi. A lot. Her bright smile. Her kind, intelligent eyes. The years they had spent together, boyfriend and girlfriend in a city crumbling under war—but also a city of light, laughter, love. Marco had spent too many years loving her to simply forget her here, even with Lailani in his life. Back on Earth, he had run into Kemi briefly during his service, had hoped for more such encounters. But now, he knew, he was truly leaving her behind. Forever. He moved his hand on the viewport, shielding Earth behind his palm. This was farewell.

  Marco frowned.

  He peered into the distance.

  A vessel was flying toward the Miyari.

  It was smaller than the rocket that had taken the Ravens Platoon here. It seemed barely larger than a car. As it flew closer, he saw the logo painted onto it—a golden laurel. Symbol of Julius Military Academy. The vehicle came to hover alongside the Miyari just outside the window where Marco stood. A jet bridge stretched out from the Miyari, like the one Marco had floated through, and connected with the small spacecraft. In the craft's window, Marco glimpsed a mane of black curls and dark eyes that looked up, that met his gaze.

  Marco lost his gravity legs. He nearly collapsed.

  Oh God.

  He turned and ran.

  He ran between the tables of the mess hall, heading toward the door.

  "Bad egg, Poet?" Addy called after him.

  "Private Emery!" said Sergeant Singh.

  But Marco kept running, leaving the mess hall to the sound of laughter and jokes about his digestion.

  He barged into the entrance room, the place where he had first met Captain Petty, in time to see the door open, to see her enter the Miyari.

  She wore the white uniform of a cadet, a golden laurel pinned to her lapel. Her black curls spilled out from under her cap. She still wore the pi pendant he had given her. She looked at Marco, and her eyes dampened, and she gave him her old crooked smile.

  "Hi, Marco."

  "Kemi," he whispered.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "Marco." Kemi took a hesitant step toward him, then hugged him. "Hello again." She pulled back, still holding his shoulders, and gave him a huge, goofy grin. "You just can't get rid of me, can you?"

  "Kemi!" He laughed and shook his head in bewilderment. "How? How is this possible? Did you graduate already from the academy so quickly, or . . ."

  He let his voice trail away, and icy guilt filled him.

  Lailani. Lailani is here. Kemi and Lailani don't know about each other.

  "No, silly." Kemi laughed and held his hand. "I've only been a cadet for a couple of months. But sometimes, even in the first year, they let us cadets go on missions, to shadow officers in the field. Or in space, in this case." Her smile widened. "My parents pulled some strings. They found out that you're here, serving under Lieutenant Ben-Ari, and I requested to shadow her for my field assignment."

  "Kemi." He held her hands, serious now. "We're heading to the front lines. It's dangerous."

  She gave the slightest pout. "You don't want me here? You seem almost . . . worried? I wanted us to be together again. To be close. Even in the army." She lowered her head. "When we parted—before your enlistment—it broke my heart. I thought our relationship was ruined. That we wouldn't see each other for a decade. And it broke my heart, Marco. It broke it." She wiped away tears. "But I'm here now. You see? We're together again, even if it's not for long. We're together."

  Marco's head spun. Suddenly anger filled him.

  Your heart was broken? Your heart? You dumped me! I wanted us to stay together even at a distance. You told me no. Now you come to me here, just as I found another woman, just as—

  "Ma'am!" Kemi suddenly pulled back from him, stiffened, and saluted. "Cadet Kemi Abasi, reporting for my assignment, ma'am!"

  Marco turned to see Lieutenant Ben-Ari enter the room.

 
Ben-Ari looked at Kemi, then at Marco, letting her gaze linger, and Marco wondered how much the lieutenant had heard, how much she knew. Then she turned toward Kemi.

  "Welcome to the HDFS Miyari, Cadet Abasi," Ben-Ari said. "Have you eaten? There are still a few minutes of chow time left. Come, we'll get acquainted."

  Kemi nodded, eyes filling with awe. "Thank you, ma'am. And may I just say right away: I've heard many tales of your family. Your father was legendary! We studied about him at Julius. And your own courage in battle is inspiring. I'm honored to shadow you on this mission. I look forward to assisting you and learning from you."

  There were classes about Ben-Ari's family? Marco knew they were famous, but he hadn't known they were that famous. What had her father achieved to make him a legend? Suddenly Marco felt woefully ignorant about his commanding officer, a woman Kemi seemed to know far more about. As the two women walked back toward the mess hall, Ben-Ari looked over her shoulder at him.

  "Emery, get back to your seat."

  He nodded. "Yes, ma'am." He followed them back into the mess hall and sat back down with his squad. Kemi, meanwhile, joined the officers at their own table. When Marco gazed toward her, Kemi smiled at him, gave a little wave, then turned her attention back toward Ben-Ari and the STC officers.

  Addy was still sitting here among the enlisted. She gaped at Kemi across the mess hall, then at Marco who sat beside her, then at Kemi again. She rubbed her eyes.

  "Is that . . ." Addy frowned, gaped at the officers' table, then spun toward Marco. "Is that Kemi Fucking Abasi? From school?"

  Marco nodded. "It is. She's shadowing Ben-Ari."

  Addy's jaw nearly hit the tabletop. "Fuck me."

  Marco glanced toward Lailani. She sat across the table, busy arguing with Beast—something about whether Russia manufactured better starships than the Miyari, a position Beast was vehemently defending. Lailani glanced toward Marco only once, met his eyes for a split second, then turned her attention back to Beast.

  "This is just cheap American material." Beast pounded his boot against the floor. "Looks pretty, yes, but weak. In Russia, we build real spaceships. You know, we put first satellite in orbit. First man in space. First dog in space too."