And there were plenty of hiding places for scum here on Corpus. Here was a landscape of canyons, cracks, boulders, hills, valleys, and mesas. The rocks and soil were black or charcoal, and a sickly red light shone on everything, reflecting off the gas giant above. Marco kept seeking some hint of blue or black sky, but Indrani was too large, hundreds of times larger than Corpus. They were like a speck of dust hovering around a bloated head.
Lailani walked on the other side of the squad, nearly vanishing beneath her pile of weapons and supplies, and her helmet covered her head like a pot. She looked like a little boy who had dressed in his father's uniform. Marco walked toward her. He wanted to speak to her, to make amends. He had not spoken to her alone since Kemi's arrival. Lailani had been avoiding him since, and he knew that she was hurt.
I want to apologize for all this, Marco thought. To tell you I love you, Lailani.
Before he could reach her, Addy rushed up to block his way.
"Hey, Poet," she said. "How many scum you reckon you can kill? I bet I can kill more."
"I'm sure you can." He tried to walk past her.
Addy skipped forward, blocking his way again. "Come, on, Poet, show some spirit! Try to compete. We'll count our kills." She snarled. "Come on, show me your war face!"
He sighed. "Addy, I'm a drafted librarian. I don't have a war face."
"Sure you do! Try it. Like this." She snarled, her entire face going into it, and raised her fists. "Roar!"
She was scared, Marco knew. She always resorted to bravado when scared.
"Addy, Beast was saying how Russian girls can kill more scum than Canadian girls."
Her eyes widened. "What? He did not!" She barreled past him and marched toward the hulking Russian. "Beast, you idiot!"
As the company kept walking toward Corpus City in the distance, Marco moved to finally walk by Lailani. She trudged onward, staring ahead, not turning to look at him.
"Hey, de la Rosa," he said.
"Emery." Still she didn't look at him.
He had so much to say. He wanted to tell her that he still loved her. That he was confused. That he was sorry. But he could say none of it. He wasn't ready to toss Kemi aside either, not after she had come here for him. He wasn't ready to deal with any of this—not with war looming only a few kilometers away. But he wanted peace with Lailani. He wanted them to be friends again, even if they could no longer be lovers.
"So, beautiful red sky here in Corpus, right?" he said, his lame attempt at small talk. "Sort of like an eternal sunset, right? When we get back to Earth, we should—"
"I don't feel like talking," Lailani said.
Marco exhaled slowly. "Lailani, look. I didn't know that Kemi would show up. I don't want this to change anything between us. I—"
"Marco, stop." Finally she looked at him. "You're a sweet guy. But . . . I'm broken inside. All right? I would just break your heart. I will die in this war. I know it. And it would only hurt you. I joined this military to die."
"Don't talk like that." He shook his head. "You don't have to be that person. I saw light in you. I saw happiness. Why don't—"
"Leave me alone." Lailani turned away. "You're annoying me."
She walked off, going to walk alone at the edge of the squad, leaving Marco feeling very alone himself. There was such pain, such darkness inside Lailani, but he had seen a different side to her. Back at Fort Djemila, if only for a few days, he had seen the kind, loving, sweet person within her armor. Now that suit of armor was sealed up again, leaving the true Lailani hidden inside. Her softness was buried. Now she was only blades that cut him.
I must focus on our task for now, Marco thought. On getting off this moon. I'm a soldier now. That's all I must be.
"Look!" Addy said, pointing. "A spaceport. Ships!"
They all followed her gaze. They saw it in the distance. A small spaceport surrounded by a fence, their first sign of civilization since crashing. The company walked toward it, and Marco dared to hope they'd find an operating starship, a way to leave this moon. But his hopes were dashed as they drew nearer. Three orbital rockets lay fallen here, burnt and shattered. There was certainly nothing resembling an interstellar starship like the Miyari.
The company all stared in silence.
"What did this?" Addy said. "Scum?"
"Must have been," Beast said.
The soldiers advanced slowly, rifles raised, and walked among the wreckage of the rockets. No scum. No humans, dead or alive. Nothing but shattered rockets and wisps of dust. They found the ashes of old fires, but they were cold. For all they knew, these rockets could have shattered years ago. They found no other vessels, not even shuttles. If there had ever been ships here beyond these rockets, they were long gone.
"Great," Elvis muttered. "We're trapped here. We just couldn't crash land on some nice tropical beach full of hula girls, right?"
"We're not trapped if we can fix the Miyari," Marco said.
Elvis sighed. "And the piece we need to fix it is buried in some haunted mine. Of course it is. I need a vacation."
The company walked onward across the rocky landscape, leaving the ravaged spaceport behind. Marco turned his attention toward the city ahead.
Corpus City loomed in the distance. Chimneys, skyscrapers, and electrical towers rose toward the red sky, black and jagged. Myriads of people lived here, according to their briefing, but there were no lights, no sounds. Marco saw no glowing windows, no flitting vehicles, no flashing neon signs. He heard no hum of engines or generators, only the wind that rushed from the city across the plains. Nothing but those black towers against the red horizon like the charred ribs of a skeleton in a bloody battlefield.
Marco shivered. It reminded him of some ruined city from an old fantasy novel, perhaps once beautiful, now full of ghosts and demons lurking in the depths. As they drew closer, movement caught his eye, and he saw a shadow rising from the city, fluttering against the red sky, rising higher and higher until it was but a speck, barely perceptible against the gurgling tapestry of Indrani. It must have just been a scrap of cloth on the wind, yet Marco couldn't shake the feeling that it was a bird, a black vulture that was watching them, waiting to feed upon them.
After an hour of walking, the company reached a concrete wall that encircled the city. The wall rose several times the height of a man, topped with barbed wire and guard towers. Marco saw no guards, and when he pointed his flashlight, he saw graffiti sprayed across the concrete: Welcome to Hell.
He shuddered. "Not the friendliest greeting I've seen," he muttered to Addy.
She pointed her flashlight at another section of the wall. "I like that one better. Look! It's Kilroy!"
This second graffiti showed a cartoon figure, bald and long-nosed, peering over a wall. Words appeared beneath the figure: Kilroy died here.
"Adorable," Marco said.
The company advanced until they reached the gates of the city. Two deserted guard towers rose here. Metal bars rose between them, forming a corridor like a cage. Three barred revolving doors filled the tunnel. The company paused outside the gates, weapons raised. At a silent signal from Captain Petty, they inched closer, then froze, staring.
No scum.
No humans.
For a long moment they stared, and the only sound came from the wind. It moaned through the city like a living thing, creaking the revolving doors. Another scrap of cloth fluttered high above, and a caw sounded, the hoarse sound of a bird or perhaps bending metal in the wind.
Captain Petty was staring at him, Marco realized. Her voice crackled to life inside his earbud.
"Private Emery, enter the gateway. Walk through the revolving doors into the city."
Marco cringed. So he would be the canary in the coal mine. He wanted to refuse, but he had a feeling that disobeying Captain Petty meant a swift court-martial. He decided to take his chances with the gateway. He nodded and spoke into the microphone that protruded from his helmet. "Yes, ma'am."
"Go kick their asses!" Addy w
hispered to him, giving him an encouraging pat on the backside.
Marco groaned. "Addy, I told you, it's thoraxes."
Leaving his squad behind, he walked toward the gates, raising his assault rifle. A magazine was already loaded, and he kept one hand on the charging hammer, ready to load a bullet into the chamber. He walked between the guard towers. Their turrets gazed down at him like eyes, like two sphinxes under the sanguine sky, judging him, condemning him, welcoming him into their domain. Welcome to Hell, the graffiti had said. They're dying to get in.
The cage-like tunnel stretched before him, the metallic gullet of a beast, filled with the revolving doors. Marco took a deep breath, then pushed one revolving door. It gave a horrible shriek, so loud that he froze halfway through and winced. Slowly, he pushed his way through, the door creaking, the sound almost organic, almost demonic. Marco walked onward down the tunnel. Metal bars rose alongside and above him, as if he were walking through one of those cages divers used when swimming with sharks. Concrete pillboxes rose at his sides, full of slits for guns, but still Marco saw no guards.
It was a clever configuration. Should any scum land outside the city and try to enter, they'd have to pass through this gauntlet, soldiers firing from both sides. Except Marco saw no soldiers here now. The city was undefended.
He made his way past the second revolving door when he heard the caw again. He raised his eyes, and there! He saw it above! A black vulture, huge, the size of a man, and it had a human face. A red face with black eyes. But then he looked again, and it was only another scrap of cloth, rising in the wind and falling somewhere in the distance. Marco shuddered. His mind was playing tricks on him.
Calm yourself, Marco, he thought. Stay cool. Be like the Fonz.
Finally he made it through the third and final revolving door—and into Hell.
Marco stared ahead, grimaced, and raised his gun.
If you're up there, Flying Spaghetti Monster, help us.
Corpus City lay in ruins. Windows were shattered. An entire building had fallen and lay in piles of bricks and metal bars, blocking two roads and filling an intersection. Many buildings still stood, soaring toward the sky, some a hundred stories tall, but their windows too were shattered, and wind moaned through them like ghosts playing stone flutes. The city didn't seem destroyed so much as decayed, like the innards of a giant after a long illness, rotting away in a tomb. Marco saw no signs of life. No humans. No scum. Even the vulture apparitions were gone. But the sky seemed alive. Indrani, that gas giant, that goddess, roiled and grumbled above, a storm on its surface like a great yellow eye, peering down upon the desolation of Corpus City. Suddenly Marco was filled with the horrible feeling that Indrani was alive, was indeed gazing right at him, that it wasn't a planet but a massive life-form. He could almost hear words in its grumbles, though he couldn't make out their meaning.
"Emery." The voice emerged from his earbud, snapping Marco out of his paralysis. "Emery, are you all right?"
Thankfully, it was Lieutenant Ben-Ari speaking now, not Captain Chihuahua.
"I'm fine, ma'am," he said. "There's nobody here. All the buildings and roads I can see from here—they all seem empty."
"Are there corpses?" Ben-Ari asked.
"I don't see any," Marco said. "But it seems safe to enter. The air's a bit smoky, but I don't smell any miasma. Or death."
"We'll be right there. Sit tight."
The rest of the company entered the city, one by one, and reformed into squads and platoons. The buildings soared around them, black and jagged, dwarfing the soldiers. Scraps of cloth fluttered across the dark roads, and a sign on an abandoned building creaked in the wind. A child's bicycle rolled forward in the wind, then tilted over and clattered down.
"They're all gone," Addy said. "The colonists fucking left. This is a ghost town."
Ben-Ari hushed her with a glare. She spoke into her helmet. "Spread out and check the perimeter. Squad One, head down that road. Squad Two, Squad Three—check those ruins."
The other platoons were breaking up into squads too and spreading out. Corporal Diaz, commander of the Ravens platoon's first squad, ran at a crouch, gun pointed before him. Marco and the rest of the squad followed, guns pointing to their sides. Lailani brought up the rear, regularly spinning around to check for enemies behind them. They reached the road and walked between tall, narrow buildings. These were homes, Marco realized. Rows of family homes, some still with Halloween skeletons hanging in the windows. On one concrete patio a family had raised fake tombstones complete with cobwebs.
"Hey, Addy," Marco whispered. "Do you know why they keep building more cemeteries?"
"Because we keep killing scum," Addy said.
Marco shook his head. "Because people are dying to get in."
"I like my answer better."
"Your answer makes no sense," Marco said. "They don't bury scum."
"So why would they need cemeteries?" Addy asked.
Corporal Diaz hushed them. He pointed at a few doorways. "Check the homes. A fireteam here, a fireteam there, and into that one too."
The squad quickly formed fireteams of three. Marco found himself with Addy and Elvis. He glanced over at Lailani, saw that she was careful to choose a fireteam far from him.
Marco approached one home and was prepared to kick the door open when a thought occurred to him. He grabbed the doorknob. The house was unlocked.
"They left in a rush," Marco said. "Didn't even lock the door."
"Or they're dead," said Addy, standing at the doorway with him.
"I don't smell anything," Elvis said. "The dead stink. Let's take a look."
They burst into the house, guns raised, prepared to fire at any scum that should happen to leap their way. They saw nothing. They raised their flashlights, but the beams fell on a vacant home. Marco saw furniture, a child's doll, and an empty crib. Dirty dishes were still in the sink. No humans. No scum.
A creak sounded upstairs.
All three soldiers raised their guns.
They stood frozen. They didn't hear the sound again.
Marco pointed upstairs, and his companions nodded.
He crept up the staircase, rifle held before him. Shadows danced around him like demons. Elvis and Addy walked behind him, adding their flashlight beams to his.
A creak sounded again.
Marco froze for a moment, then inhaled deeply. He charged his weapon, switched off the safety, and placed his finger on the trigger. He reached a hallway on the second floor, saw a corridor with three doors. A wheezing sounded ahead, inhuman.
Scum, he thought.
He crept forward, paused outside one room, then burst inside, gun raised. Nothing. Nothing but an empty bed, unmade.
Wait.
A figure sat on a shelf—a human child! Marco's heart kicked into a gallop, and when he shone his light on the figure, a doll burst into mechanical laughter.
"Fucking hell, damn thing is haunted," Addy whispered, pointing her gun at the doll. Marco pushed down her muzzle and shook his head.
They left the room, walked down the hallway, and approached a second doorway. Marco heard it again now. That low wheezing. A scratching on the floor. Claws.
Marco looked at Addy and Elvis. They looked back, nodded. All three burst into the room together.
"Die, scum!" Addy shouted . . . then froze.
A dog barked, tail stretched out in a line. Its face was flat like a bulldog's, but it was smaller, perhaps a Boston Terrier or a Frenchie.
"That explains the wheezing," Marco said and lowered his rifle. The dog approached and licked his fingers.
They left the house, dog in tow, and regrouped with their squad on the street.
"Nothing," said Beast, emerging from another house. "Still dishes on table. Still food in oven. No people. Not alive or dead."
The other fireteams reported the same result. They continued down the street, checking a few more houses, but it was the same everywhere. No corpses. No scum.
Fin
ally in one house—
"Blood," Marco said, leaning down. He illuminated stains on the tiles. "Old blood."
In another house, a fireteam reported bloodstains on a wall. In a local shop they found signs of a struggle too: toppled shelves, bullet holes in a wall, bloodstains by the cash register, but again—no corpses, not of humans or scum.
They left the road, returning to the city gates, where they regrouped with the rest of the company.
"We checked that tower and that one," reported one of the other platoons. "There was violence here, but no corpses anywhere. And no survivors."
The third platoon reported the same result. A few stains of blood. A bullet hole. No corpses, no survivors.
The officers huddled together and conferred amongst themselves as the enlisted soldiers waited. Something tugged Marco's leg, and he smiled to see that the Boston Terrier had followed him. He knelt and patted the dog.
"Where did you find that mutt?" Sergeant Singh asked him.
"In one of the houses, Commander," Marco said. "It was the only living soul we found." He scratched the dog behind the ear. "If only he could talk."
Singh knelt too and patted the dog's head, and his eyes softened. "Poor little pup. Missing his tail too."
Addy patted the dog's head. "We should call him Sergeant Stumpy, on account of his missing tail. He can be the platoon's mascot."
"I think he should be a private," said Sergeant Singh, smiling behind his black beard.
Addy shook her head. "That won't work, Commander. It's not a . . . Poet, what's it called when two words start with the same letter?"
"Alliteration," Marco replied.
Addy nodded. "That's it. Obliteration. Sergeant Stumpy it is. Sorry, Sergeant Singh, but you two will just have to have similar names."
A buzzing in their earbuds interrupted the conversation. Ben-Ari's voice emerged, speaking into all their ears.
"We move deeper into the city to keep exploring," said the lieutenant. "All soldiers, keep your magazines in your guns. If you see the scum, open fire at once. If you find survivors, report to your squad leaders at once."
Earth Lost (Earthrise Book 2) Page 9