Mira looked at Dane, standing in front of the hundred or so White Helix Doyen, and she could see in their eyes they were just as impatient as Conner. The only difference was they were probably hoping it was a trap.
“I think we should go for it,” Dane said. “You see how tight and cramped it is, with all the machinery? Any walkers that show up won’t be able to maneuver down there; we’ll swarm them before they get a shot off. It’s probably why they aren’t there, they know this position isn’t defensible for them.”
Guardian, wait …
Mira pushed Ambassador and the others away. If Dane was confident, shouldn’t she be too? Was it just her fear at attending more funerals like she had last night? Dane was right, she had to get over the desperate desire not to lose any more people, to not feel the guilt weigh on her, because it would happen, over and over again. That was her path now.
Everyone waited for her answer. Mira nodded. “Do it.”
Dane turned to the Doyen, began giving orders. Dresden and Conner and the other captains nearby radioed their crews. Flags of different colors waved in patterns in the crow’s nests of the Landships, sending the signal to the ships behind them.
Mira nudged Max with her foot. He woke up with an annoyed look, but followed after her as she walked with Dresden back toward the Wind Shear. The vessel sat sixth in a line of eleven, squarely in the middle. Mira wasn’t sure if that was a good place to be or not.
“You’re worried,” Dresden observed.
“It’s too easy.”
He didn’t say anything to indicate whether he agreed. Nemo sat lounging on the rail of the Wind Shear, waiting for them to return, and Max barked and shot up the gangplank toward the orange cat, but Nemo barely budged. He knew the dog couldn’t reach him there, and Mira was convinced he enjoyed taunting Max. She liked that cat more every day.
Within twenty minutes the entire fleet was moving toward the rail yard, each line of a dozen or more ships snaking off toward its entry point into the labyrinth of old trains and tracks. Mira was on the helm deck with Dresden, watching as the artifact handler, Jennifer, and the helmsman, Hamilton, as well as Parker coordinated the movement of the ship. It seemed to take a lot more work to move a Landship slowly rather than fast, more critical balancing of the Chinook, the crew constantly alternating the sails between slack and tight, and all the while, Hamilton had to keep an eye on the ships in the line with them, while he maneuvered through the trains and the tracks toward their bridge.
They were making good time, though. All five lines were now in the middle of the yard, about halfway to their bridges. It was starting to look like everything was going to be okay, which, as usual, was the time when everything went wrong.
From one end of the yard, Mira heard a strange, high-pitched whirring sound.
When she looked, she saw a small, spherical-shaped object whiz upward into the air. It was too far away to make out any detail, but by the strange sounds it made and its perfect trajectory into the sky, it could only be one thing: something technological. Mira felt her heart sink.
“Dane,” Dresden shouted to the Helix leader, whose eyes were already following the object. “That something of yours?”
Dane just shook his head.
From the end of the yard came a brief strobe of light as the object exploded in a harsh flash.
Lightning crackled in the sky, so bright, even in the daylight, Mira winced. A sound, like a thunderclap, echoed around them, and then the air ripped apart. That was the only way she could describe it. A huge hole of pure light shuddered into existence and everyone on the ship gasped.
“Focus!” Parker yelled. “No matter what happens!”
Hamilton guided the Wind Shear slowly forward while the crew kept working, but everyone kept their eyes on that hole. Mira knew what it had to be almost immediately. She’d made holes like that before, but she’d done it with artifact combinations called Portals. She was pretty sure what she was looking at was the same thing. Gateways, from some other place to this one.
Seconds later, Mira’s suspicions were confirmed.
A large, cigar-shaped craft began to slowly push through the gateway, streaks of lightning crackling around it. As more and more of it was revealed, Mira could see it was some kind of large aircraft—and, most striking, it was painted in a color pattern she had never seen before, bold combinations of yellow and black that flared down its thick, metallic fuselage.
Ambassador had been right. The other clans had come to support the blue and whites.
Guardian, Ambassador projected to her, miles away. What transpires?
Instinctively, Mira opened her mind to the alien as she watched the ship push completely out of the gateway, hovering in place at the end of the rail yard. It just sat there, unmoving.
Mas’Rousha, Ambassador answered, and there was a notable sense of disgust in its projection.
“Doesn’t look that tough, really,” Dresden observed unconvincingly. “I mean … there’s only one of them.”
A mass of blackness erupted out of the sides of the ship, streaming into the sky. The sounds of electronic buzzing filled the air.
As they watched, the swarming cloud divided into two, one moving toward the front of the lines of Landships, while the other moved for the rear. The buzzing intensified, and Mira could see the clouds were each comprised of thousands of smaller objects. Max growled low.
“What are they doing?” Mira asked.
“It’s a Pincher move,” Dane said grimly from behind her. His eyes were following the swarms darting toward the Landships. “They’ll destroy the ships on either end of the lines, and then—”
“We’ll be trapped in the middle,” Dresden finished for him. He, Mira, and Dane shared pretty much the same look. All the weaknesses Dane had pointed out earlier, the lack of mobility, a susceptibility to being swarmed, all of it suddenly now applied to them.
“What do we do?” Parker asked.
“We fight,” Mira said without hesitation, not because of any bravado, but because it was the only real answer. She looked at Dane and Dresden. They nodded back.
Dane tapped the radio on his belt and talked into his headset, “All Arcs deploy, spread out and cover as many ships as…” His voice faded away as he moved off, his Arc raising the masks up and over their mouths and noses.
We come, Ambassador projected.
Clearly, it intended to teleport in, but Mira shook her head. No! It’s too tight for walkers. They have the advantage. She felt a great deal of guilt at the realization. It had been a trap. And she had given the order to walk right into it.
“Signal all stop, all ships, fire at will!” Dresden yelled to the flagman in the crow’s nest, and he started waving the colored flags in patterns. Mira watched the action spread and the giant crafts came to a stop, surrounded by the rusting hulks of old freight trains.
Then explosions flared up at the front of their line of Landships.
The swarm of strange objects completely enveloped the front of each line. Their sails shredded and fell to the decks, she saw kids falling from the topmasts, others leaping off in droves. Antimatter crystals shot upward into the sky, both from Lancets and Landship cannons, and they left trails of flame as they burst through the cloud of machines, but there were just too many.
More explosions from behind as two more ships shuddered and collapsed. Mira wasn’t sure exactly what those machines were doing; they weren’t firing any weapons she could see, but regardless, they were doing just as Dane said they would. In seconds, every Landship at the front and back of the five lines was burning.
The Wind Shear shuddered to a stop. They were trapped.
The White Helix on the Wind Shear leapt into the air in flashes of yellow, spreading out on the tops of the old trains. The other Arcs were doing the same. Loud harmonic pings burst to life as the cannons on the ships opened fire. The swarms buzzed toward one another now, sweeping up and down the lines.
Nemo hissed and leapt off the
railing, running toward the lower decks. Mira turned to Dresden.
“We have to get out of here and into the train cars!” she yelled. “They’re metal. This ship is wood.”
Dresden gave her a severe look. “I’m not leaving my ship.”
“As noble as the ‘going down with the ship’ thing is, you’re being a horse’s—”
More explosions ripped through the ships on either side of them.
They both watched as the swarm overtook them, finally meeting in the middle and converging into one gigantic, buzzing mass of small machines. Mira could see them now. Flying metallic discs, colored either yellow or black, each about the size of a Frisbee. The buzzing came from their outer halves, which spun in blurs.
Three of them slammed into the deck of the Wind Shear, burrowing straight into it in torrents of sawdust. Seconds later … they exploded in fireballs that sent the crew flying, leaving gaping holes in the deck. The things were basically exploding, flying saw blades, Mira realized in horror, and there were thousands of them.
Mira and Dresden hit the deck as they swarmed past, almost taking their heads off. Max barked violently, trying to leap after the things, but Mira grabbed him and held him down.
“Damn it!” Dresden yelled in agony as the beautiful, colored patchwork sails of his ship fell apart. The ship rocked again and flame shot out the sides, more of Dresden’s crew fell.
Mira stared at him pointedly. “We have to—”
“I know!” he shouted back, and there was pain in his eyes. “I know.”
He turned to Parker. “Get the wire crew out of the masts, and order abandon ship. Take cover in the train cars.”
Parker looked just as sick as Dresden, but he didn’t argue. He shouted orders, and the crew started leaping off the ship; the kids in the masts slid down what was left of the guy wires and just in time too.
Two more discs burrowed into a mast … then exploded.
The whole thing collapsed, the wires running between it and the secondary mast pulling both of the structures crashing onto the deck.
Dresden grabbed Hamilton and Jennifer, shoved them toward the edge of the ship. Mira grabbed Max … but the dog pulled loose and darted away, running like he had a purpose.
“Max!” Mira started moving for him, then felt Dresden’s hands yank her back.
“That dog’ll outlive all of us,” he yelled. The discs were everywhere, buzzing through the air, and they seemed to be thickening. She had a pretty good idea what would happen if one of them hit her, and she pushed away the image of her head flying off her shoulders.
They all leapt and landed on the ground, and Mira felt her ankle almost break. She groaned, limped forward, and Hamilton pulled her into one of the old cargo cars with Dresden and Jennifer.
The car was rusting and dusty, but empty, except for about four White Helix at each door, firing their Lancets into the air. Dane was with them, yelling orders into his radio.
She could see Antimatter crystals streaking through the air, blowing apart a dozen discs each, but it made no real difference. White Helix weapons were meant for big targets. This was a swarm, and Mira had never seen anything like it.
To make matters worse, Mira could see the “mother ship,” the one that had come in through the gateway. Some of the Antimatter crystals fired in its direction, and every time they were deflected away as some kind of sparkling, wavering energy field burst to life around the thing.
The ship was shielded, just like Ambassador’s Brute walkers.
She slammed her back against the wall of the car as more Landships buckled and collapsed on either side of it.
Guardian, Ambassador’s “voice” filled her mind again. What transpires?
More explosions, more screams. She peered out the door. Some of the braver White Helix were spinning and jumping through the swarm, cutting the machines down as they moved, but not making any real dent. As she watched, one of the discs sliced right through the center of a warrior’s Lancet, splitting it in half, and he fell out of sight. Mira winced as an explosion flared up where he fell.
All is not lost, Ambassador projected back, sensing her emotions.
What can we do?
The mother ship, Ambassador projected. Its reactor. It lies in the center.
Mira watched more Antimatter crystals bouncing off the ship’s energy field. But we can’t get through the shield!
Another can. Look.
Mira watched again, concentrated as more explosions rocked the ground. Two of the drones buzzed into their train car, and the Helix inside dispatched them before they could explode. In the sky, the mother ship still hovered, still pouring out more and more of the deadly drones, the area becoming saturated with them.
Then she saw it. The shield flickered, for a microsecond, every time one of them was launched. The drones could pass through the shield. Her eyes widened, it must be what Ambassador meant, but she had no real idea what to do with the information.
“What is it telling you?” Dane asked as he took cover next to her, a blue crystal flying back through the door of the train car onto the end of his Lancet. He must have guessed she was communicating with Ambassador.
“We have to take out the ship,” she told him, shuddering as more explosions shook the train.
“How?”
Outside, Mira saw two more Landships crumple to the ground, saw more Helix fall, saw more Wind Trader crews engulfed in fire. This was a nightmare, this was—
“Mira!” Dane’s voice snapped her back. “How?”
She told him, about the center of the ship, the shield, the drones, and with every word the same idea formed in her mind as did in Dane’s. She saw the same solution as him, and a feeling of dread filled her. There was no fear in his eyes, however, no regret. There was nothing really, because he’d accepted it. Perhaps he had accepted it long ago. “I understand.”
“Dane…” she said, the dread and the fear building. “Please don’t do this.”
Another explosion, they both saw his men dying outside.
“Who else can?” he asked, with a gentle smile. “One of my Arc? Should I ask them?” He would never do that, she knew. He held her gaze with strength and resolve. “Tell Avril…” he began, then stopped. The smile faded. “No. She’ll know.”
“Please,” Mira begged him. Her voice was desperate, her throat ached. “I need you, Dane. I can’t do this…”
His hand gripped her shoulder, but she didn’t feel it. She only felt a cold numbness spreading through her. “Yes, you can, Mira Toombs. Yes, you can.”
He held her gaze a moment more, then turned away, to what remained of his Arc in the train car.
“Defend this position with your lives,” he told them. “Obey Mira Toombs. She is your Shuhan now.”
The other Helix stared at Dane in shock … then he leapt out the steel door of the train car into the air in a flash of yellow.
Mira stood in the center of that door, explosions and shrapnel flying everywhere, but she didn’t notice. She watched Dane puncture a drone with one end of his Lancet, spin through the air, and lance another. The drones sparked and died, stuck on the ends of his weapon like speared fish. Then he leapt again, up toward the ship.
She felt Dresden tackle her, force her down to the rotted floor of the car, but still she stared after Dane, watching as the shield around the mother ship flickered and let him fly through, the drones fooling it. She watched as he grabbed onto the underside of the ship, watched as he fired both ends of his Lancet straight up into its center, watched them explode in blue and green flame out the top of the craft.
The ship exploded. Violently. A concussion blast rocked the train yard and everyone around her was blown down. The flaming debris of the ship tumbled out of the sky and crashed with a sound like thunder into the ground.
The buzzing all around them silenced. The drones began to fall, thousands of them, slamming into the train cars and what was left of the Landships like a hailstorm.
And the
n, finally, it was over.
The drones were gone. The Assembly had been beaten. The fleet was saved. But at what cost?
Mira rolled over. Dresden looked down at her, his eyes full not just of shock, but of remorse.
The train car shook as something jumped inside. It was Max, she saw, and he had an orange ball of fur in his mouth: Nemo, hissing and scratching, completely unappreciative, but alive. When Max let him down, the cat ran and jumped onto Dresden’s shoulders.
Dresden and Mira stared at one another, the smoke and the dust filling the air outside, and then pushing into the car, filling everything, mercifully drowning the sight of what had happened in a thick smog of gray.
23. TONOPAH
THERE WERE MORE THAN FIVE HUNDRED DEAD. Their pyres stretched almost out of sight in the rail yard. The Helix had insisted on performing the ceremony here, it was preferred to cremate the remains at the sight of a battle. It was ironic, really. There were more dead in this White Helix funeral than any other, but it lasted the least amount of time. Mira wasn’t sure if that was because there was so little to say … or because they were just getting good at it.
She stood next to Dane’s pyre. They’d found his body near where the wreckage of the mother ship had fallen, and a charred length of wood that was his Lancet. Only the crystals remained unscathed, glowing in blue and green. She held the brittle staff in her hands, and it had made them black, covered in soot. His Arc had asked her to stand by his pyre. In a way, it was appropriate. It was because of her he was dead. In all fairness, she should be standing next to every one of these pyres.
Manny, Carter, Pershing, Amanda …
There was no way to remember all their names, it was just too many, so Mira settled for memorizing the ones she had known. It was a very long list regardless.
Five hundred. Mira felt sick.
The Wind Traders had piled onto their Landships to watch, the ones that weren’t burning or lying in heaps. The funeral was quiet, no one had spoken since they assembled, the White Helix standing in a half circle around the pyres. Each one was staring at her, but they weren’t looks of hatred or pain, it was merely as if they were waiting.
Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) Page 22