Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series)

by J. Barton Mitchell

  “And I’ll tell you something else,” Isaac continued, “and it goes for all the Regiment, I don’t have to ask them. We won’t fight with those Assembly you brought. We’ve lost too many people to their kind, and so have you. Frankly, I find it disgusting.”

  Mira looked back at Isaac, not with impatience or hostility, but with understanding. As much as his words might sting, she held the crippled boy’s gaze.

  “Since the invasion, we’ve done incredible things,” she said. “The Landships outside. Midnight City. The rings on a White Helix’s fingers. There’s an artifact combination out there, maybe the most complicated I ever built, and I thought it was something horrible, but it’s keeping us all alive right this second. All of them are amazing in their own ways, but … if we had put all that energy and creativity into fighting the way you have, maybe the world would be different right now. We’re all guilty. You’re right, we weren’t here. But we’re here now.”

  The words seemed to calm Isaac, allowed the rational side to reemerge. He sighed wearily. “Push forward for what?”

  Mira looked at Holt. She shouldn’t have to bear the brunt of what was coming, she’d done more than her share already. So Holt was the one who told Isaac the whole story. About finding Zoey, the way the Assembly hunted her, her powers, what she had done at the Severed Tower, what the Librarian and Gideon believed, that she was the key to both the Assembly’s agenda on the planet and to stopping them.

  With every word he spoke, the Phantom Regiment looked more and more skeptical. Isaac, however, just listened, thinking it through. When Holt was done, Isaac was silent a long time.

  “Boss, you can’t be buying this,” Shue said. “A little girl?”

  “Would a little girl be any less strange a savior than all the things the Freebooter just rattled off the top of her head? She’s right, the world’s a strange place now, and a lot of it fits, if you think about it. All the new Assembly that are here? If what they’re saying is true, they showed up the same time this Zoey did. The blue and whites are consolidating power, they moved all their pieces to protect the Citadel. It means two things. One, they’re worried. Two … we’re in the endgame.”

  “What are we supposed to do, then? Make a suicide run for the Citadel?”

  “In the end, what does it matter?” It was Dresden. He stood with the other Landship Captains, near Mira and Olive. He’d changed too, Holt could tell. The mischievous glint was still in his eye, but it was muted now. Whatever had happened along the way, he’d become a believer, and that was no small feat. “You’re in the same boat we all are. The lives we used to know are gone, there’s no going back. Most people here have been to hell and back for this, done the kinds of things you don’t do if you’re not sure about them. You don’t strike me much different. Maybe it is a suicide run … but at least we get to stick it to those bastards for real. No guerrilla tactics, no hitting and running. We take it straight at them.”

  The words seemed to resonate with the Regiment, the idea of really hurting the Assembly for a change. Even Shue smiled slightly. Clearly, they had a lot of payback coming.

  “There’s moves we could make, with all the assets you’ve got,” Isaac stated. “But all it’s going to do is get you guys to the Citadel. After that … the clock starts ticking.”

  “To what?” Mira asked.

  Isaac and Shue studied her intently. “You haven’t seen, have you? I keep forgetting, it was dark when you got here. Come on.”

  The kid wheeled his buggy around and headed for the other end of the factory. Everyone followed, until he reached the homemade lift attached to the old smokestack. Holt, Mira, Dresden, Avril, and a few other Doyen climbed on board with him, and it rattled as it started to climb, shaking and moving upward, passing through the metal ceiling into the early morning air outside.

  The sun was rising in the east, casting its rays over the giant ruins that stretched to the ocean. Urban streets sat eerily clean of debris, buildings stood empty, crumbling and falling apart. Holt could see the Assembly Presidium across the bay, near the warped remains of the Golden Gate Bridge, where it had landed years ago. And he could see something else too, something much more massive.

  The giant, twisting, black monolith of the Citadel. It climbed so high into the sky, clouds circled around the top, and a giant beam of swirling energy shot from it into the air. Surrounding it, in the streets, was movement. Thousands upon thousands of Assembly walkers of all kinds, aircraft swirling through the air in groups so thick they darkened the sky. Holt understood now what Isaac had meant.

  “That’s where you’re headed,” Isaac said once everyone had absorbed the sight. “Like I said, once you get there, the clock starts ticking. No one going there’s coming back.”

  Everyone stared, stunned, at the opposition ahead of them.

  “The truth is, we may not be going anywhere,” a voice said from below. Smitty and Caspira stood on a walkway that wound up the smokestack, independent of the lift. They were both bloodied and exhausted, and they both looked very worried.

  43. SACRIFICE

  SOUNDS OF BATTLE echoed around them, just blocks away now. Most of the silver Assembly were fighting at the perimeter with the Helix and Menagerie. The Osprey dropships were nearby, next to the Landships, and there were a few Mantises there as well, standing guard.

  Move back, Mira projected as they approached. Isaac and the other Regiment were following, there wasn’t a need to antagonize them, or force the issue, at least not yet.

  Guardian … The Mantises stepped toward the Ospreys, farther out of sight. As usual, Mira felt no hostility or insult from them, it didn’t seem to bother them one way or another.

  When Mira saw the train, however, all thoughts of Assembly and battles vanished. Everyone stared at Sorcerer’s locomotives. The lead one had a blackened hole bored completely through it, and debris littered the ground where the engine had exploded. The second had detached from the first, completely off the tracks, its engine just as blackened and charred.

  Mira shut her eyes tight. It was clear, even to her, that Sorcerer would never move from this spot, and the entire endeavor had just died. Without the train, they couldn’t move forward, because the effect from Mira’s artifact couldn’t be amplified. She remembered the sight of all those walkers and gunships, the impossible numbers of them. There was no way to reach the Citadel now.

  “So much for the suicide run,” Isaac stated.

  “There has to be a way,” Holt said behind her. Mira could hear the desperation in his voice. Like her, he’d come a long way. “We could use the tunnels.”

  Isaac shook his head. “That’s for a small force, not something like what you have, thousands of pieces on the board.”

  “There’s still the Landships,” Dresden said. “We could load everyone on—”

  “You’ll be cut down in seconds,” Shue replied, “then it’s gonna be a slog through the streets with whoever survives, building to building. Be lucky if you made it there with a tenth of—”

  “Well, we have to do something!” Holt yelled at him. “I’ll head there myself if no one else has the guts for it.”

  The comment stirred indignation in everyone, and it all disintegrated into argument, people yelling, some for giving up, some for moving forward, no one agreeing on any one thing.

  Mira pushed past the crowd, ignoring all of it, her eyes on the train, the names written up and down its length. Each was a reminder to her. Before, there was a chance their loss could mean something. Not anymore.

  Tears formed and she made no attempt to stop them, just moved down the cars, reading each name.

  Guardian … On the other side of the train came a blast of static as Ambassador teleported in. She could see it standing there, through the gap between two cars, and she stepped over the train connections toward it. Everyone behind her was still arguing.

  Ambassador’s armor was dented and burned, it had taken hits, and given many of its own. Still, the presence insid
e the machine seemed … dimmer. Its colors less vibrant. It didn’t have much time left, but, then again, neither did any of them now.

  The contrivance. Unusable? Ambassador asked. It meant Sorcerer.

  Yes, she projected.

  Mira looked back to the train, to the names. She could almost feel the eyes of their owners staring at her.

  There was a piece of pipe on the ground. Mira grabbed it, feeling the emotions building. She swung it like a bat into the side of the train. It hit hard and bounced off. The Mantises stepped forward, next to Ambassador, curious. The anger that had been building, one defeat after another, finally boiled over. She swung again. Again. Trying to knock the names off the side, to make them disappear, but they stayed right where they were.

  She thought of everything she’d lost. She saw Dane leaping up into the drone ship. Saw Landships disintegrating. Saw the pyres of fallen Helix burning in the night. Saw the tattoo on Holt’s wrist, fully formed and completed now.

  Mira looked through two of the cars, to where the crowd argued. Holt was there, yelling at Dasha, desperate, angry. God, she was weak. Right then, she just wanted him to hold her. Wanted it to be like it had been, all that time ago. With Holt, with Zoey, even with the stupid, smelly—

  There was a whine next to her. Mira looked down. Max stared up at her, head cocked.

  The sight disarmed everything. She almost laughed at the sight of him, then wiped the tears away and reached out to pet the dog’s ears. He didn’t stop her. “So what do you think, huh?”

  Max had no comment, but if he did, Mira knew what it would be, and she agreed. She would go on alone, like Holt had said. She looked west, to where the Citadel towered over the ruins, could see the thousands of gunships swarming around it. It was so close.

  They would never make it, of course, but they would have tried. They knew, back in Bismarck, after the Tower, that this was a one-way trip. Holt said as much, and she accepted it.

  From behind her, the sensations from the Mantises and Ambassador washed over her. They felt her pain. Her desire to sacrifice everything for the Scion, and indirectly or not, for them. She felt stirrings of emotion she had never felt from Assembly before, and she turned to face them.

  Guardian … the Mantises projected. We believe.

  She studied them quizzically. “What is there to believe in now?”

  All is not lost, Ambassador told her.

  Mira jolted as three more Brutes teleported back into the factory ground, their armor just as dented. They came from the battle, summoned here. But why?

  The Mantises moved toward her and the train, and as they did, images and thoughts filled her mind. She saw what they intended, felt what they felt, and she understood, grimly, what it meant.

  Hope filled her … and so did guilt, for so quickly being relieved at their intentions.

  “I can’t ask you to…”

  You say … sacrifice? Ambassador asked, and Mira nodded. It was foreign. To us. Before you.

  Her stare moved from Ambassador to the two Mantises, staring into their colorful eyes. Tenderly, she reached out and touched each machine, felt their fading presences fill her with light.

  We believe, they told her.

  Mira felt more tears forming, but these she pushed back. “You need my help?”

  As a conduit.

  Mira understood. The entities were too far gone now, they couldn’t exist outside their machines. If they were going to do what they meant to, the only choice was go through her, and it would be their very last gesture.

  Mira studied the Mantises. They had no names to memorize, so she tried to remember their colors in her mind. She turned and moved to the gap between the two locomotives, placing one hand on each.

  There will be pain, Ambassador told her.

  Mira nodded. “So what’s new?”

  The Mantises moved close. Mira looked and saw Holt, amid the arguing crowd. His eyes were on hers now, and she could see the worry there. He knew her very well. Holt started to push through toward her.

  “Do it,” she said.

  Her vision went pure white as the entities inside the Mantises passed out of their shells and into her body. The pain was searing, even worse than being ripped apart by the Vortex. It felt like every atom in her body was on fire.

  Distantly, she heard herself scream. She wasn’t sure if she was still standing; the pain had overpowered everything, and it felt like it lasted forever, the two entities flowing through her … and into the two ruined locomotives, filling them with their energy.

  As they did, she could feel them spread into the train’s hydraulics and mechanics, felt power restored to its systems. She could feel every inch of the locomotives, and in spite of the pain, it felt amazing.

  Then it was over. The white became black. She fell.

  When she opened her eyes, Holt was cradling her in his arms. His concern and fear were palpable. People surrounded her on all sides, staring down in shock.

  “What did you do?” Holt asked, aghast.

  “What I had to…” she answered.

  “Holy God,” Smitty exclaimed, stunned. “They’re … working…”

  Mira weakly looked up at the locomotives. The lights on them flickered. Their engines rumbled.

  She saw the big Brute walkers move forward and ram into the second engine, using their powerful legs and frames to slowly push it back onto the tracks.

  When it was over, the crowd stared, mesmerized, Isaac and the Regiment among them. The shells of the two Mantises lay dark behind Mira.

  “The Assembly did this?” Isaac asked from his buggy. His voice was confused and … unsure now.

  “They did,” Mira said weakly, sinking into Holt’s lap.

  Isaac looked at her, and she could see it in his gaze. He was way too smart not to understand that a sacrifice had been made. He looked away from her, to Ambassador, and the big machine rumbled uncertainly.

  “Then let’s make it worth it,” he announced. “Get your leaders, we need to talk.” Isaac’s buggy backed up clear of the crowd, and then spun away, his men following. As he did, he shouted over his shoulder, “One of the silver ones should be there too.”

  Mira looked back up at Holt, and he stared back as the train engines rumbled beside them. His look was a mixture of emotions: relief they could go forward, yet horror at the risk she’d taken. He’d lost so much, she knew. Lost her even, once, and she had almost added to that weight again.

  She reached up and touched his face. “I’m sorry.”

  Holt said nothing, just held her tighter.

  44. INFERNO

  MIRA STOOD ON THE OBSERVATION DECK, staring out over the ruins. Clouds were moving in from the sea, grayish ones that blocked out the afternoon sun, but she could still see the battle to hold the perimeter around the factory. The White Helix leaping from building to building, the Menagerie firing from windows, and Ambassador’s forces on the ground engaging the Assembly directly.

  It was not going well.

  Plumes of smoke rose into the air as buildings burned and fell, and while her artifact kept them at bay, the Assembly were pouring more assets into the fight. Those that had the unlucky task of engaging them were quickly being wiped out. The bulk of their forces had pulled back, in preparation for the final attack. The ones that remained, it was understood, would sacrifice their lives to buy the rest time.

  It was horrible, knowing that, and it was why she made herself watch. She never wanted to forget.

  Below, plans had been made and, Mira had to admit, it was a great strategy. Even with the Regiment crippled, Isaac’s tactics were worth just as much. All the plan had to do was get them to the Citadel … but how many more would die for what she needed?

  Zoey was their cause too, she reminded herself, but as always, the thought seemed hollow.

  After the meeting, Mira spoke with Olive, and it had been good to see her. The Captain filled her in on the events at Faust, and the story was … stunning. As bad as it had been
for Mira, Holt seemed to have gone through something just as bad, and it made her heart hurt. They still hadn’t spoken, not in depth, but it was coming, and a part of her dreaded it.

  “Grim view, isn’t it?” It was Avril, staring over Mira’s shoulder at the battle below. Mira hadn’t heard her approach, but that was one trait of the Helix she’d gotten used to.

  Looking at Avril, though, it was unclear if she still was White Helix. She didn’t wear their black and gray colors. She was dressed in the strict black of Menagerie, and Mira noted there were tattoos on her wrists now. On the right, a red phoenix, streaking up toward her arm. On the left, the eight-pointed star, with all of its points colored in. Mira stared at that star and all it represented. It meant she had made a choice.

  “You ever see the Heisenberg Fountain when you were in the Strange Lands?” Avril asked.

  The Fountain was a stable anomaly in the third ring, a strange one that rested in the middle of a massive field of glass. The Fountain itself was invisible, radiating a constant tachyon stream that superheated everything under it, fusing it all into a glasslike material.

  “Twice, I think,” Mira replied, remembering the sight, the shiny, smooth ground that reflected the sky and the clouds. Pretty as it was, the “glass” was deadly. It smoldered at a constant one thousand degrees centigrade.

  “This place reminds me of it,” Avril said. “The orderly environment, clean and precise, contrasted with death. I always felt it was beautiful.”

  “And do you feel the same about this place?”

  “Yes,” Avril stated simply, her voice lowering. Mira could hear the eagerness in it. “Maybe that’s wrong, but I do. This is what we were made for. This was Gideon’s vision, and we’re here now. Thanks to you.”

  Mira felt a chill at the words. “I’m not sure how comforting that is.”

  Avril stared out over the ruins a moment more, then looked at her. “I came to talk about Dane.”

  Mira nodded. It was what she’d been expecting, though not looking forward to. Dane had become a friend, and she never would have made it without him. Any words she spoke would fall short of describing how she really felt.