by M. R. Forbes
Earth was in bad shape. It was overrun with aliens, its people scattered and struggling and in some cases turning to the worst sides of themselves to survive. It was a planet that tried to kill him and the ones he loved almost daily. A planet that was a hard place to stay alive in the best of times.
But damn it, Earth was his fucking planet.
His home. His responsibility. Animal was right that he had to do something.
With Bennett dead, he wasn’t about to send a message to Proxima Command. Not when they were the same Command who had abandoned the planet to the trife and then called its inhabitants savages. The same Command who had been using Earth as a science experiment for the last two hundred years, and the same Command the Trust had already infiltrated at the highest level.
He didn’t know all that much about Proxima, beyond Bennett and Rico and the other Spacers he had recently met like Animal and Danethi. But he still knew people, and he could still put two and two together. He didn’t trust Proxima Command. He also didn’t trust the Trust. Without Bennett, there was no one from humankind’s distant settlement that he believed in.
No one except Nathan Stacker.
Chapter 5
They reached the end of the next alley, which dumped them out at the edge of a wide street, cratered, broken, battered, and dark by the passage of time. Cars were haphazardly thrown around the visible length of it, dented and rusted or reduced to pieces, cast off by what Hayden guessed had been a series of bombs dropped in the area by the United States military forces centuries earlier.
The area was brighter than he expected, illuminated not only by the stars above but also by a series of lights that ran along a large mass on the other side of the crossing nearly four hundred meters away. The lights were reflecting against a body of water that stretched ahead of them, twinkling in the soft current. They had also revealed more trife nearby, gathering along the roadside and heading in the direction of the gunfire.
“The river,” Rhonna said. “It was called the Hudson. The mainland is on the other side. It’s too dark to see it.”
“What about those lights?”
“An old military ship. The legend is that it was piloted by a Navy captain who defied the orders to keep the island quarantined. He docked the ship there to pick up survivors from the military’s attacks against the trife and wound up letting the trife get on board. He managed to shut down the reactors, but him and his whole crew died. So did the people who were trying to escape.”
“But the lights are on,” Hayden said.
“Yeah. Margie said a bunch of people started moving in after it got too cold for the trife. They tried to board up the entrances, and they figured out how to turn the reactor back on. It didn’t work out so well for them.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t alive for any of that. The trife live on the ship now.”
“They must have a nest inside,” Hayden said. “That’s why there are still so many of them on the island.”
“You seem to know a lot about them.”
“More than I ever wanted to,” Hayden replied. “We can talk more about it later. We can’t linger. The soldiers are still out there.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Who?”
“Nathan. Is he dead?”
“No. He’s alive. At least, he was the last time I saw him.”
“You were trying to kill him, back at the hospital.”
“I was trying to arrest him. Now I’m not. We came to an understanding. We really don’t have time to talk about this right now.”
As if to emphasize his point, a fresh beam of light hit the ground a hundred meters back. Hayden found the helicopter there, the armored soldier back on board and the light on his shoulder pouring out at the ground, replacing the shot-out searchlight. The trife saw him too, and they stopped to look at the vessel, hissing and scattering to escape it.
“Shit,” Rhonna said. “How are we supposed to lose him?”
The helicopter was static while the soldier shifted, guiding the light ever closer to them.
“I have an idea,” Hayden said. “You aren’t going to like it.”
“If it gets us away from that thing, I’m all for it.”
“Then follow me. Run as fast as you can.”
Hayden didn’t wait for her to respond. He sprinted away, rushing headlong in the direction of the old Navy ship, watching the ground as he did. One wrong step, one slip, one fall, and he was as good as dead.
The terrain was tricky. The concrete was broken and cracked, dipped and uneven and filled with debris. Old car parts, garbage, and clothes were the main sources of litter. The weeds were thick too, with narrow vines that threatened to get between his feet and his ankles and trip him up. Still, he managed to dash across at a decent clip, more familiar with this kind of destruction than he ever would have wanted.
He could hear Rhonna running behind him, her breathing ragged as she tried to keep up. He risked a glance back, finding her closer than he thought, and then looking past her to the enemy aircraft further behind. The light hadn’t found them, and the passengers hadn’t figured out they weren’t trife. At least, not yet.
He made it to one of the rusted, burned up old cars. He stopped on the other side of it, putting out his good hand to catch Rhonna as she tried to slow. He pulled her back behind it, and they ducked there together.
The helicopter started slowly moving forward, the soldier sweeping his shoulder light back and forth across the road.
“Where… are… we going?” Rhonna asked between heaves.
Hayden pointed toward the Navy ship.
“What? Are you... fucking crazy?”
Hayden put a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”
“We won’t last ten.... seconds in there.”
“We won’t last ten seconds against that ship. Like you said, I have a lot of experience with the trife. I like our chances better in there than out here.”
She stared at him wide-eyed but didn’t reply. He kept watching the helicopter. They were still a quarter-klick from the ship, and there were more than a few trife between them and their destination. He had to time it just right.
“What are we waiting for?” Rhonna asked.
Hayden reached out and took her wrist in his hand. “When I go, you go. Don’t hesitate.”
“Okay.”
He waited a few more seconds, for the helicopter to get a little closer. Then he rose and tugged Rhonna with him. “Let’s go!”
He ran again, this time keeping a grip on her arm, forcing her to match his pace. The light hit them a few seconds later, and he looked back to see the helicopter speeding up and sliding forward.
A trife hissed from a dozen meters away, throwing itself at them from behind a car. Hayden let go of Rhonna long enough to slam the creature in the side of the head, pummeling it into the ground. A second came at them from the other side, and he quickly grabbed his revolver and fired, shooting it in the chest and knocking it down.
One round left.
He holstered it again, grabbing Rhonna’s arm as they continued to run. He glanced back over his shoulder. The armored soldier had perched at the edge of the open side. He bent his legs and jumped out of the aircraft.
“Move!” Hayden said, finding more speed. The trife’s interest in them was increasing, and the group nearest the ship was breaking for them, coming at them from up ahead.
He yanked Rhonna to the side as they passed an old car, getting them behind it to hind from the soldier. The weight of his armor caused the ground to shake slightly when he hit, and then he started shooting, his rifle peppering the car with rounds. He stopped after a short burst, and then Hayden could hear his heavy armored feet running along the pavement at their backs.
The armor made him fast. Too damn fast. They were getting closer to the ship and the trife. The lead creature pulled up right in front of Hayden, slashing with its claws. He used his dead hand to block the attack, driving a punch into the creatures stomach that broke its bones and se
nt it tumbling back.
The soldier started shooting again. Not at them this time, but at the trife. The demons hissed as they were cut to ribbons by his rifle, knocked down before they could give him trouble.
The ship was looming overhead, the ramp from shore to the deck visible in its running lights. A mass of trife poured from it and down the ramp, a dark slick of living oil that spread when it hit the bottom.
Hayden found another wreck nearby, directing Rhonna toward it. The soldier was still shooting at the trife, cutting them down in rapid succession. The helicopter was there, too. Did it have another of the powerful weapons that destroyed the Kiev on board? Hayden had a hunch it didn’t. The man in the armor seemed to be the only extra passenger on the craft.
They ducked behind the twisted metal. The trife were close, and a pair of them hopped onto the top of the wreck, hissing down at them.
Hayden grabbed his revolver, holding it up where they could see it and throwing it to the ground a couple of meters away. The trife turned from them, charging at the soldier. From the volume gunfire that followed, he shot them all down in a matter of seconds.
“What the hell?” Rhonna said, confused by the surrender of his weapon.
Hayden didn’t get to answer. The metal groaned, and then it rose from its position, thrown aside by the armored soldier.
Hayden took a few steps back, pushing Rhonna behind him. The soldier was big, almost the same size as Stacker, the armor making him bigger still. He took a heavy step toward Hayden.
Hayden glanced back. The trife were regrouping. He looked up at the soldier, whose hand balled and shot forward, trying to hit him in the chest. He caught it with his replacement, catching the fist and slowing it to a stop.
They remained fixed in place, neither one moving as they pushed against one another, power armor against enhanced synthetic musculature. It was only a second or two before Hayden realized he couldn’t match the strength of the hand.
But he only needed a second or two.
Then the trife arrived, an entire mass of them lunging at the soldier in the powered armor, determining that he, not Hayden or Rhonna, posed the greatest threat. He drew back from Hayden as the demons hit him, latching onto his armor and slashing at it with teeth and claws. He grabbed one and crushed it in his hand, kicked another away, and bashed a third against the old wreck. Three more took their place at once, even as Hayden grabbed Rhonna’s arm again and started backing away.
The trife ignored them, focused on the soldier, who started backing away, trying to put some distance between himself and them so he could grab his rifle from his back and start shooting. The helicopter swooped in behind him, dropping low.
Hayden continued to lead Rhonna back, clearing the group of trife and making it to the ramp up into the old ship. There were no creatures left in the area, all of them having gone to attack the soldier.
“You knew?” Rhonna said as they ascended.
Hayden nodded. “This isn’t my first tangle with the trife.”
They reached the deck of the ship. Hayden kept his good hand up, ready to defend them as they crossed to the open doorway leading inside. They stepped in, and he grabbed the heavy metal door and swung it closed, turning the lock to seal it.
“You just locked us in here with them?” Rhonna said.
“I just locked most of them out,” Hayden replied. “The rest are probably busy reproducing.”
He scanned the inside, looking for stairs leading up to the bridge and heading over to them.
“Are you going to tell me you know how to drive this thing, too?” Rhonna asked.
“I have no idea how to drive it. Maybe between the two of us, we can figure it out. In any case, as long as that soldier doesn’t come back with something bigger and more powerful, we should be safe for a while.”
“What about the trife?”
“What about them? They’re too busy making babies to care about us, at least for now.”
He started climbing. Rhonna stayed behind him.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Chapter 6
Hayden and Rhonna made it up to the bridge. It was filthy and covered in dust, but it was mostly intact. The crew stations were all powered and active, the lights on, the displays showing different readings that probably hadn’t changed much at all in the last hundred years. A pair of corpses were resting in the corner, a male and female, their throats torn, their bodies decomposing. Aged blood stained the floor around them.
Rhonna gasped at the sight of them, and at the smell that permeated the space. They were the first people to enter since the couple had died. She turned away from them, face pale, and walked over to one of the screens, using her sleeve to wipe away a layer of dust. It left a smudge of dirt, a terminal cursor visible beneath it.
Hayden went back to the hatch leading onto the bridge, shoving it closed despite its complaints and making sure to lock it. Rhonna had spun back around to face him by then, and he held out his good hand toward her.
“Duke. Sheriff Hayden Duke,” he said, giving her the best smile he could manage. He was sure he looked like hell.
She took his hand in hers. “Rhonna Johnson,” she said. “Are you sure we’re safe in here?” She looked out the forward glass, eyes scanning the darkness. “From the soldiers, I mean.”
“For now,” Hayden replied. “That’s not to say they won’t decide to sink this boat, but we weren’t exactly swimming in alternatives. Besides, it’s possible the soldier didn’t see us board. He was a little busy with the trife.”
“Swimming?” Rhonna asked. “I’m glad someone here has a sense of humor.”
Hayden smiled. “What else am I going to do? We’re here, and nothing’s going to change that. You don’t happen to know who the soldier was, do you?”
“No. I’ve never seen him before tonight. That group that attacked us, they were Tinker’s Liberators. I’d bet my life on it. Do you think they found Nathan?”
“I don’t know. I hope not.” Hayden slumped to the ground, leaning back against the sealed door. It had been a long night. A night that had seen every member of the squad he had arrived with killed. “Thanks for helping Animal and me out back there. I have to be honest; you’re the last person I would have expected to come to our rescue.” The Spacer had died a hero’s death. It was another reason to carry on. To make sure it wasn’t for nothing.
“I wasn’t helping you,” Rhonna replied. “I thought maybe you had Nathan.” She shook her head, as though she had the worst luck in the world. “I was trying to help him, the way he helped me.”
“Well, thank you anyway. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”
“And I’d be dead a few times over if it weren’t for you.” She rubbed at her temples with her fingertips. “This has been the worst few days of my life. Ever since Nathan showed up.” She looked at him. “You aren’t like them, are you? What did Nathan call them? Centurions? You don’t have the same accent, and you don’t carry yourself the same way. You look, I don’t know. More weathered. More real.”
Hayden laughed. “You mean old?”
“No. Weathered. Experienced. Like you’ve been through a lot. You know more about the trife than anyone I’ve ever met. You’re an Earther, aren’t you?”
Hayden nodded. “Yes. From the other side of what used to be the United States. We have some territory there. Three cities. About six hundred square kilometers and growing. We call it the United Western Territories.”
“Six hundred?” She looked at him disbelievingly. “How do you keep the trife away?”
“We’ve worked hard to destroy the nests in the area and keep them from building new ones. That’s not to say it’s safe or easy, but we manage.”
“But you came here with the Centurions?”
He nodded again. “Nathan told you about Centurions? About Proxima?”
“He did. He said the people on Proxima don’t know about us. They don’t know what happened here.”
“
A lot of the history of the trife and the war has been erased. Forgotten. They say it’s to protect people. To keep them safe.”
“Do you believe that bullshit?”
“No. Neither did Sergeant Bennett. The Spacer who brought me here with him.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
Rhonna bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”
“He was a good soldier and a better friend. He helped me save my people when they were in trouble, even though it wasn’t in his superiors’ best interests. He convinced them to give us a chance to prove we aren’t the devolved savages they think we are. Now that he’s gone, I don’t know what’s going to happen to our agreements, to my settlement, or to Earth.” He paused for a moment, considering the statement. It seemed like such a distant worry considering where they were right now.
“You’ll manage,” Rhonna replied. “We always do.”
Hayden smiled. “I have a wife and daughter back home. I want to see them again.”
“I have a feeling you will.”
Hayden held up his limp, broken hand. “I’m not so sure. I’m not in the best shape right now.”
“You’re still alive. We both are. Honestly, I didn’t think that would be true four hours ago.”
“I met Margie,” Hayden said. “She told me some of what happened.”
“She told you where to find me?”
“No. Lonnie.”
“That little shit.” She laughed sardonically. “The funny thing is, if you hadn’t shown up when you did, I think Nathan and I would both have been killed.”
“What else did Nathan tell you about himself. Did you know why we were chasing him?”
She nodded. “Yeah. He said he was framed by some group called the Trust for murdering his wife. She hid something in her wedding ring. Something they want real bad.”