Several kilometers farther out, the tombstones gave way to mass graves. These pits had once been covered with soil, perhaps, but the flood had washed the coating away. The bones were now exposed to all. Crabs and fish lived among them. Once this place must have fed countless bottom-feeders. Today only the old bones remained. The bodies were humanoid, but the skulls were feline, long of fang. The skeletons wore rusty armor. They held what might have been guns. Countless soldiers lay below in the pits, crumbling away. In a few years, perhaps, they would be nothing but dust.
Past the mass graves, the land sloped downward. As they descended, the water pressure grew, creaking the hull. The light dimmed, and the sun was a distant sparkle above. Stranger fish swam here, glowing bulbs dangling from their barbels. Their bodies were blobby to survive the greater pressure, and they had faces like grumpy old men, noses bulbous, lips fat and pendulous.
"This is how you'll look in thirty years, Poet," Addy said, pointing at a blobfish.
Marco pointed at something resembling a manatee floating nearby. "That one's you."
She punched him. "You did not just compare me to a manatee!"
"Look at it!" Marco said. "With a blond wig? Come on!"
"You'll be having sex with the manatee tonight if you don't watch out." She raised her fist.
Marco felt it best to change the topic. "Look, Ads. Down there in the valley." He squinted and increased the brightness on their headlights. "That looks like the spaceport."
They flew closer. The husks of starships lay below them, rusted and cracked. Some starships were barely larger than the Thunder Road. Others were warships the length of several city blocks. Barnacles and moss now covered them, and fish flitted in and out from holes. Eels nested in the barrels of cannons, and an octopus's tentacles emerged from an exhaust pipe. Coral grew atop the ships, tipped with glowing stalks.
"Death gave way to new life," Marco said. "One civilization fell. But a new society rose here."
Addy licked her lips. "A delicious society. Can we go fishing?"
"Can you stop thinking about your belly for a second?"
She shook her head. "Nope. I'm like a fish. Always hungry."
"Tell me something I don't know," he muttered.
"Did you know that you look like a blobfish, and I look like a beautiful mermaid?"
"You need a tail to be a mermaid. I'm well familiar with your big feet. They keep kicking me in my sleep."
She gasped. "My feet aren't big! They're petite and delicate and smell like roses." She glanced down at her bare feet, which rested on the dashboard, and gasped. "Ooh, there's a potato chip between my toes!" She plucked it out and ate it.
Marco nearly gagged.
The Thunder Road glided between a tilted control tower and a ravaged warship coated with starfish. Skeletons still sat in the ancient warship's cockpit. Fish nested in the empty eye sockets of skulls. They passed by warship after warship, dozens of them lying on the seabed, half-buried in sand. Many were shattered. Marco couldn't tell if they had been blasted from the sky or had simply disintegrated over time. He supposed that much of humanity's fleet looked the same now, scattered across the galaxy or sunken in Earth's oceans after years of war.
We barely have any ships left, he thought. We need those mechas. We need those weapons.
"These ships look horrible," Addy said. "All cracked and full of holes. Even if we do find the mechas, won't they be a mess, rusty and filled with snails?"
"Maybe," Marco said. "We're about to find out." He pointed. "Look."
Ahead, they could just make them out. They were still distant, kilometers away. Two dark pillars rising from the seabed, so tall they nearly reached the ocean surface.
Addy gasped. "The mechas?"
Let's take a closer look." He gently increased the Thunder Road's speed.
They thrummed over the ruined port, heading toward the two towers, when the starship rose before them in the water.
Marco hit the brakes."
The ship ahead was ten times their size, bulky and cracked and covered with barnacles. At first Marco thought that some Taolians must have survived, were piloting a starship here underwater. Then he saw the tentacles. One huge tentacle, large as a bus, reached out from an exhaust pipe. Another tentacle, coated with suckers the size of manhole covers, emerged through the airlock. Two claws, large enough to crush the Thunder Road, thrust out from cracks in the hull. Stalks peeked from the ship's shattered bridge, topped with eyes.
"Fascinating," Marco said. "It's like a giant hermit crab. But instead of finding shelter in a discarded shell, it's using a starship."
"And it's coming our way!" Addy said. "Poet, blast that thing!"
The crablike creature charged toward them, tentacles propelling itself through the water. Its claws extended. Marco grimaced. He didn't want to kill this wonderful animal, but he had no time to turn and flee. He fired the cannon.
A bolt flew toward the crab.
The creature retracted its tentacles, eyes, and claws into its starship shell.
The blast hit the starship's armored hull, doing it no harm.
The tentacles reemerged, and the creature leaped toward the Thunder Road. The claws snapped.
Marco yanked the joystick, and the Thunder Road veered aside. The claws—they were as large as the starship—clattered shut, missing them by centimeters.
Marco drove the Thunder Road upward. The claws snapped beneath them. Again. Again. The creature swam after them, and the claws grazed the starship. Marco cursed, barrel-rolled, spun the ship downward, and released a volley of photon bolts. The blasts slammed into the enemy hull, barely denting it. Marco aimed at the tender parts—the tentacles and stalks emerging from the ancient starship—but the creature withdrew into its shell again. The instant Marco lay off the cannons, the creature reemerged and attacked.
"Marco, aim at the tentacles!" Addy said.
"I'm trying!" He fired again. Again. The tentacles kept pulling back, then reemerging. One tentacle slammed into the Thunder Road, and the small starship rolled through the water. A claw clanked shut, grabbed their wing, and shattered it.
"Poet!" Addy screamed.
"I know, I know!"
"We need that wing to fly out of here!"
"I know!" He fired. His blasts hit the enemy hull. Its armored plates took the punishment with ease.
A tentacle hit the Thunder Road again. The ship careened through the water and slammed into a coral reef, shattering its azure tubes.
"We're getting out of here!" Marco said.
He pushed down on the throttle, trying to escape. They would have to find another route to the mechas, one not passing through this creature's territory. Yet the massive hermit crab chased them. The claws grabbed their exhaust pipe, cracking it.
"Poet, damn it!" Addy cried.
He struggled to spin the Thunder Road around. He managed to face the crab, to fire. He tried to aim at the holes, to get a blast inside the ship. Twice he managed to shoot through holes in the hull, but the creature squirmed within, hiding from his bullets like a magician's apprentice contorting in a box of swords.
"Here, grab the wheel!" Marco said, hopping out of his seat.
"Finally!" Addy grabbed the controls. She released another volley, but the bullets slammed against the enemy hull, barely even leaving a dent. "Poet! Hey, Poet, where are you going?"
"I'm going out there!" he cried from the Thunder Road's hold. "Try not to shoot me."
"You're what?" Addy said, but Marco ignored her. He grabbed a spacesuit from their closet and tugged it on so quickly he placed both feet into one pant leg at first. It was an agonizing few moments to strap everything on, suit and boots and gloves and helmet. All the while, the Thunder Road shook. A tentacle thrashed them, and Marco crashed down. He shoved himself up. He grabbed his rifle.
"Addy, keep it busy!" Marco cried.
"Poet, what the fuck are you doing?" she shouted from the cockpit, firing the cannons at the creature.
&nb
sp; He leaped into the airlock and shut the door. He opened the outer door, and water flowed in, thick with sand and fish, slamming him against the inner door. He hadn't even paused to consider the pressure down here. He just hoped his suit could withstand it.
He swam out of the Thunder Road, rifle in hand.
Damn.
From out here, the creature seemed even larger.
The rusty old starship loomed ahead, the size of a jumbo jet. The tentacles and claws thrust out, flailing. Marco watched the claws grab the Thunder Road and dent the roof, only for Addy to release a volley, sending the creature back into its shell. Before Addy could retreat, the tentacles reemerged from the starship and grabbed the Thunder Road.
Marco swam through the dark, dense water. The surface was far above, the sunlight dim. Most of the light now came from the Thunder Road's remaining headlight; the giant crab had already smashed the second light.
Marco swam toward the alien starship. One of the tentacles reached for him. Marco fired his rifle. The bullets thrummed through the water, but the pressure slowed them down. The bullets thumped into the tentacle, doing it no harm. That tentacle—it was the width of an oak—slammed into him.
Marco careened through the water, the breath knocked out of him.
He righted himself. He swam back toward the alien crab. It had grabbed the Thunder Road in its claws, was squeezing, crushing, denting the hull. He glimpsed Addy screaming inside.
He reached the alien.
A tentacle reached toward him, extending through the Taolian starship's exhaust pipe.
Addy fired the Thunder Road's cannons.
The tentacle retreated into the starship, and Marco swam in after it.
He swam through the exhaust pipe, a cavernous tube. The tentacle writhed inside. Before it could shoot outward again, Marco pressed himself against the rounded wall. The tentacle shot past him, its suckers larger than his head. Marco swam deeper, the flashlight on his helmet illuminating his way. He swam into the Taolian starship's engine room. The engines had rusted away eons ago. The giant hermit crab's body now filled the cavern. Marco kept swimming, pressing himself against the wall, moving deeper into the dark ship.
The crab's body filled the place, clinging to the ceiling and floor. On the outside, the tentacles were coated with hard skin, the claws in shell. But on the inside, the creature was gelatinous. It was no wonder it had taken up residence in the armored starship.
Marco swam deeper.
"Poet!" Addy's voice emerged through his communicator. "Poet, it's crushing me! I can't break the ship free!"
"Get into a spacesuit!" Marco shouted.
"But you took the good one! You left the ugly pink one. I hate pink!"
"Just do it!"
He swam up a staircase and into a cavernous chamber—perhaps once a mess hall. The skeletons of Taolians lay here, fused into the walls, coated with barnacles. There, in the center of the chamber, Marco saw it. A bulbous, quivering mound rising through the floor, taller than Marco.
The crab's head.
He swam closer. The head had no skull, only translucent skin. It jiggled inside—the creature's brain.
"I'm sorry, buddy," Marco said softly. "You're truly a marvelous animal."
He placed his rifle against the creature's head.
The brain inside quivered. An eye opened within it and stared at Marco. It filled with fear.
Marco fired.
His bullets tore through the brain, tore through the eye in its center, and the entire head shattered.
Chunks of brain and flesh flew everywhere.
Grimacing, Marco swam, making his way back through the engine room. The tentacles twitched, then fell still.
Marco reemerged back into the open water.
Behind him, the massive creature sank to the seabed. The starship, its shell, tilted over and was still.
I'm sorry, friend, he thought.
He spun back toward the Thunder Road and grimaced.
The small starship was crushed. Its engines had fallen out. Its cockpit was shattered. It would never fly again.
"Addy?" he whispered, dread leaping inside him.
"Poet! Poet, you stupid idiot!" She came swimming toward him, wearing a pink spacesuit. "I look like a goddamn Disney princess."
"Oh thank God." Marco exhaled in relief and swam to meet her. He clasped her hands. "Thank God you're all right."
"Give me your spacesuit!" She began tugging at it. "That one's mine! You know I like the white one."
"Addy!" He shoved her away. "Lay off. You look fine. You don't look like a Disney princess."
"No?"
He shook his head. "You look more like Miss Piggy."
"That does it!" She began karate chopping him. "Hi-yah!"
"We have more pressing concerns than the colors of our spacesuits." He watched the Thunder Road's wreckage sink to the seabed. "You smashed our ride."
"I'm going to smash your skull." She pounded his helmet. "But don't worry, little dude. We have a better ride." She pointed at the distance. "See those two giant sea-dicks ahead? Those are our mechas. And our new rides."
Marco stared toward the distant, murky towers, able to make out no details. Were those indeed the mechas? He hoped Addy was right. Otherwise it would be a slow, agonizing death here underwater. They had only enough oxygen in their tanks for another couple of hours. Panic began to rise in him. Two hours—to find air. Two hours—to find hope for Earth. Two hours—and their homeworld could become just another desolate planet. He began to pant. His head spun.
He breathed.
Remember the tower of stones.
He pulled himself into the lowest level, into awareness, like a crab retreating into its shell.
From there, he observed his panic. It hovered above like a storm cloud. It no longer controlled him.
He and Addy swam, leaving the ruined Thunder Road behind, heading toward the distant towers.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Earth's orbit burned.
Hundreds of humanity's starships shattered.
Thousands of Earth's missiles slammed into the enemy, filling space with fire and metal.
And the enemy kept storming forth.
Saucers flew everywhere—large and dark, small and red, spinning and spraying out plasma bolts. Death filled space.
Ben-Ari stood on the Lodestar's bridge as her ship shuddered, cracked, burned, and she knew that she would die this day.
But so long as she lived, she would fight as if she were immortal.
"You will live!" she shouted to her fleet. "You will live, warriors of Earth! They will die! Cast them back into the darkness!"
The last human ships fought. Only a hundred left. Then fifty. Then a mere handful.
Perhaps it is our lot to forever fight, Ben-Ari thought. Perhaps it is humanity's fate to forever live by the sword. My family has known this for generations. If I am the last Ben-Ari to raise a sword, I will swing it well. If I am the last human to rise up in rebellion against the darkness, I will shine bright.
As the bridge shook around her, as monitors shattered, as officers fell, Ben-Ari kept fighting. Aurora fell to the floor, her boneless body crushed under a fallen beam, but she reached out her tentacles and still piloted the ship. Fish stood at a doorway, battling a gray invader that had made it aboard. The professor desperately raced between three workstations, sealing breached hulls, diverting power to life-support systems. Their new security officer lay dead, pierced by gray claws, and Ben-Ari stood over his corpse, manning the cannons, firing from port, starboard, and prow. They stormed through the enemy lines, taking more fire, crashing gray formations, ramming into saucers. All around them, the last Firebirds burned. The shells from Earth exploded around them, a blast every second.
"There are too many!" Fish shouted after finally slaying the gray.
"They're going down to Earth, Captain!" the professor warned.
She knew. She knew! Through the viewports she saw them. A hundred saucers or mor
e descending toward the planet.
"Earth, keep those missiles flying!" Ben-Ari said. "I'm feeding you coordinates. Blast those bastards out of the sky!"
If Earth was short on starships, she was well stocked with missiles. Rockets kept soaring from below and slammed into the descending saucers. The ground-to-air artillery caught the saucers in the stratosphere, and fire filled Earth's blue sky. The descending saucers shattered, but a hundred more were soon swooping toward the planet. A barrage of missiles rose to meet them. Saucers exploded, but several made it through and streamed toward the surface.
Ben-Ari looked around her, surveying the battle. All around her, the missiles were slamming into saucers, barely able to dent the enemy fleet; thousands of saucers still flew. Barely any human ships remained. The Lodestar. The Sparta. A handful of Firebirds. That was all.
And Abyzou's ship was still flying.
The gargantuan saucer, several times the Lodestar's size, came barreling forth. Missiles from Earth slammed into it, barely denting the dark hull. The mothership unleashed its fury, a hailstorm of shells, thrusting hundreds of missiles into the Sparta.
Ben-Ari watched, chest tight, as the mighty Sparta—the flagship of humanity—shattered.
"Petty!" she cried out.
Before her, the Sparta—a ship the size of the Empire State Building—split in two. One half still hovered. The other dipped down toward Earth and began plunging toward the Pacific. Missiles from below slammed into the collapsing remains, desperate to break them into smaller chunks. Humans—some still alive—leaped out from the wreckage of the Sparta, only to die in flames or careen into the depths of space.
"Aurora, charge!" Ben-Ari cried. "To Abyzou's ship! Take it head on! Ram it! Now!"
The Lodestar charged.
Around them, hundreds of saucers were making their way down to the surface. Ben-Ari ignored them. The ground forces would have to handle them now. Her target was one: Abyzou.
She shoved down the throttle. The Lodestar thrummed. Her crew stared ahead, eyes narrowed.
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