Earthlings (Soldiers of Earthrise Book 2)

by Daniel Arenson

"And me, don't forget my place!"

  "I just live above the Bottoms Up bar," said a girl. "My room is very loud most of the night. You can hear the music from downstairs, and the Earthlings grunting in the other rooms. But you can stay anytime. Just bring cotton for your ears!"

  Everyone offered their place for a night or two.

  Warmth filled Maria. She sniffed and wiped her eyes. "Thank you so much, sisters."

  Charlie pulled her into an embrace. "The Bargirl Bureau is a sisterhood. We don't abandon one of our own. So it's settled! You'll move from one place to another. You'll never spend more than one night in one place. Ernesto won't find you this way."

  "And if he does—" Pippi stood up, voice booming, then glanced around nervously. The priest was gone, and she continued. "—we'll cut off his titi!"

  Everyone laughed.

  "So long as we're armed," Maria said. "We don't have guns. But we can pilfer knives from the clubs."

  "We can pilfer guns too," Charlie said. "God knows enough Earthling soldiers pass out drunk between my legs. They have guns that can conveniently disappear."

  "The putes have guns like their titis," Pippi said. "They're big and hard and shoot their loads into Bahayans, and we bargirls can always get our hands on them. I'll steal some guns too."

  Maria nodded. "The Bargirl Bureau will be armed."

  When Ernesto came to me in the club, I hid behind Jon, she thought. When he came to me in the shantytown, I was helpless. But now I will defend myself. I know how to kill.

  And suddenly—the memories were back. Flashing before her.

  Her time in the Kalayaan, fighting in the jungles.

  Her knife sliced a man's throat, and blood washed her.

  Her gun boomed, and a man fell.

  Yes. I've killed before. I sit in a church, a cross hanging from my neck, but my hands are bloodstained. I'm a murderer.

  "Maria!" Charlie stroked her hair. "Are you alright? You're trembling."

  Tears flowed down Maria's cheeks. She looked up at the crucifix above the altar, at the tortured figure hanging there. And for a moment, she did not see her savior on the cross. She saw David, a young soldier from Earth, chained in a tunnel, calling Maria's name as Ernesto burned him with his iron.

  "Forgive me," she whispered, and knelt before the altar. "Forgive us all."

  The bargirls knelt in prayer, and suddenly many were crying, perhaps remembering their own unspeakable sins. All but Charlie. She stood apart, arms crossed, staring aside.

  * * * * *

  The next day, the bargirls gathered in the graveyard.

  It was a cluttered place with no tree, no flower, nor blade of grass. Dead from many generations were buried here, resting deep in cold soil. But the earth had run out of room. In recent years, the people of Mindao had begun to intern their dead aboveground. Crude sarcophagi filled the cemetery, stacked one atop the other, forming a city of stone. The cemetery was only a few blocks wide, but it was a city of its own, a hidden realm in the heart of Mindao, home to countless lost souls.

  This is where we all end up, Maria thought.

  She stood between the stacks of stone coffins. The dead were below her. The dead surrounded her. And someday she would find her eternal home among them.

  It was a cluttered place, perhaps haunted with ghosts, but Maria found it peaceful. The sarcophagi were crude, but stone was better than rotting particle board or rusty corrugated iron. Ironically, these were better constructions than the shanties. The dead were frightening, but the orphans who filled the rest of Mindao broke her heart. There was no trash in the cemetery, no despair, and the only rot hid within stone. The cemetery soothed Maria. It was a quiet place. A good place. A place to remember. But also a place to forget.

  The other bargirls gathered around her. Most still wore their miniskirts, halter tops, and high heels. Pippi was an exception, draped in black, even a veil.

  "Pippi, why are you dressed like a giant garbage bag?" Charlie nudged her. "We're here for a Bargirl Bureau meeting, not a funeral."

  Pippi glared from behind her veil. At least it seemed so. It was hard to see her face. "I have respect, Charlie! I'm not like you, parading around the dead with my dibdibs sticking out."

  The veiled bargirl reached for Charlie's breasts, only for the older woman to shove her hand away.

  "Look, don't touch!" Charlie said. "These puppies cost two hundred pesos to squeeze."

  "Do you have them?" Maria said. "Do you have the guns?"

  Charlie adjusted her breasts. "I sure do."

  The girls tittered.

  "Girls!" Maria rolled her eyes.

  "Yeah, yeah, I got 'em," Pippi said. "Why do you think I'm really wearing this stupid big black robe?"

  She pulled her robe open.

  Maria's eyes widened. Everyone oohed and aahed.

  Pippi had a dozen pistols hanging inside her coat, like some sleazy salesman selling counterfeit watches.

  "How did you get all those in one night?" Charlie said. "I only got one, and I had to drug the damn pute to get him to sleep. Did you fuck the whole tenth division last night?"

  Pippi raised her chin, pigtails swinging. "Hey, don't hate me because the putes like me more." She snorted. "And don't ask too many questions. You know me, Tita Charlie. I have ways. I can get you anything."

  "You're going to get the syphilis at this rate," Charlie said, smacking Pippi on the head.

  "Hey, don't you mess my hair!" Pippi adjusted her brightly-dyed pigtails.

  The girls each took a gun. Maria chose an Albion, a lightweight pistol made by Oakeshott Industries on Earth. It was a small gun, but when Maria held it, she felt powerful. She felt safe.

  If you come to me again, Ernesto, I'll put another bullet in your head. This time in the center.

  Pippi cleared her throat. "And, ladies, for the pièce de résistance… I got two new cameras!" Pippi pulled them from her purse. "Check out these babies! Not too shabby, huh? Not the best cameras on the market. But it's all I could get on such short notice."

  Charlie rolled her eyes. "What, if we gave you another day, you would get us a whole film crew? A Hollywood director for our movies?"

  Pippi puffed out her chest. "I'd get you goddamn Ensign Earth to act in them too! Hell, I'll pull Charlie Chaplin from the grave and revive his career. I can get anything. You know me. Whatever you need, you come to Pippi. I always get the job done."

  "That's what the Earthling soldiers all say about you," Charlie muttered.

  A bell clanged. The sound reverberated through the cemetery.

  Birds fled. The girls turned toward the sound.

  The bell clanged again.

  A Latin chant rose, deep and beautiful, rolling like thunder over the cemetery. Monks were walking among the stacked coffins, chanting. They wore dusty robes and hoods, and the monk at their lead clanged his bell again. It made a deep, reverberating sound like the birth of some primordial giant crying out in a subterranean lake.

  The monks were wheeling forth several wooden carts, and inside lay the dead.

  They were youths. Sons and daughters of Bahay. They were so young. Many seemed barely older than ten. But crimson scarves were tied around their arms, denoting their status. Here were warriors. Martyrs of the Kalayaan.

  Some of the bodies were burnt and mangled. They had no limbs, no faces, sometimes no skin. But other bodies seemed unhurt, almost beautiful, the dark skin of Bahay become milky white in death, pale and pure as the moonlight. They had been child soldiers. They were as fallen angels, eyes finally closed to the horrors of the world.

  The monks had scattered flower petals upon the bodies, and they swung thuribles of incense. The sweet scents mingled with the stench of death. As the monks chanted, pushing the carts forward, mourners walked behind them. Grieving mothers, still reaching for their fallen children. Weeping widows, tearing at their clothes, calling for their husbands.

  The procession moved on through the graveyard and passed the Bargirl Bureau.

>   "Let us pay our respects," Maria said to her friends, "and let us mourn the fallen sons and daughters of Bahay."

  She was no friend to the Kalayaan. Ernesto still wore the crimson scarf, hunting Maria's husband. But still, these dead were her brothers and sisters. They had been proud patriots, fighting for freedom. Perhaps lied to. Perhaps led by cruel men. Perhaps plunging Bahay into deeper pits of despair. But they were her brothers and sisters, nonetheless. And Maria mourned them.

  The bargirls followed the mourners. They walked on high heels. They wore miniskirts and halter tops. They wore too much makeup to hide the bruises and weariness. Some had teeth stained with shabu, eyes that darted nervously. And they too were fighters, and they too were martyrs, and they too mourned.

  In the heart of the cemetery, by a statue of a weeping angel, the monks halted the procession. The bell stopped clanging. A solitary monk sang a plaintive requiem. Maria could not understand the Latin, but the melody spoke to her. She understood the sound of grief and loss. It was the sound of rending hearts. It was the sound of planes flying overhead, and fire raining onto villages. It was the sound of children plucked too soon from the ephemeral luminosity of life. It was the sound of girls beaten in alleyways and bars, forced to spread their legs for the strangers who butchered their sons and brothers. It was the sound Maria's own heart had made as San Luna had burned. It was the song of Bahay.

  Sarcophagi rose everywhere, scattered like so many dominoes, some piled four or five high. The monks began pulling off stone lids, revealing the skeletons inside.

  Maria gasped. Some coffins held two, even three or four skeletons.

  One monk arranged and lit bowls of incense, and aromatic smoke wafted, doing little to disguise the smell of the dead. The other monks carried the fallen youths from the carts, then placed them into coffins. The skeletons creaked beneath the weight of fresh bodies. The dead were small. Maybe even smaller than Maria. They could easily share their eternal beds of stone.

  "Why are they sharing?" Pippi whispered, watching with wide eyes. Among the bargirls, she was the only one dressed appropriately.

  "The cemetery is like the rest of the city," Maria said. "Overpopulated."

  Pippi clutched Maria's hand. "When we die, let's share. I don't want to end up in a grave with some stranger." She turned her head. "Hey, Charlie, you want to share with us?"

  Charlie snorted. "With how often you bang the putes, the syphilis will kill you in a year. I intend to live a long life." She looked at the sky. "And when I die someday, at the age of ninety-nine, I will be on Earth. With my new Earthling husband, who is twenty-three years old, and who bought me a big house with a spiraling staircase. Like in the movies from Earth that the soldiers watch."

  Pippi leaned against her. "I hope it comes true for you, Charlie. And that you let me live under your staircase."

  Charlie laughed and wiped tears away. "It's only a dream. If any one of us ever reaches Earth, it will be Maria. She has a real Earthling husband. Mister Jon will buy her that house. Then the rest of us will live under her stairs."

  Maria looked up at the sky, trying to imagine it. Earth. The world from the stories. She had heard so many tales of Earth, even seen Earth in the old movies the theaters played, the ones the Earthlings had brought with them. Earth. The cradle of humanity. A place of peace and prosperity. A world where everyone lived in a house like a palace, not a shanty. Where you could buy any food you wanted for almost no cost at all, and people were never hungry.

  "It's funny," Maria said. "We're fighting Earth, yet we all want to live there."

  A voice cried out in terror, filling the cemetery, startling the bargirls.

  Maria spun around, already reaching for her gun.

  A monk had just pulled the lid off a sarcophagus. He stumbled back, dropping the stone lid, which cracked and shattered.

  "A multo!" the monk whispered, face pale. Ghost.

  Maria approached the sarcophagus. A man inside the coffin rose, blinking and brushing dust off his hair.

  "A ghost!" Pippi cried and drew her gun.

  Maria waved her down. "It's all right!" She turned back to the man in the coffin. "Are you okay?"

  The dusty man looked around, dazed. "I was just sleeping. Why did you interrupt me?" He rubbed his head. "A piece of stone hit me on the noggin."

  Maria tilted her head. "Why were you sleeping inside a coffin?"

  "There's nowhere else to go," the man said. "I don't want to live on the landfills. Squatters line the train tracks. The countryside is full of fire and poison. The cemetery is quiet, and a stone box is better than a rotten shanty. Now leave me alone. This is my home."

  Maria looked inside the coffin. She could see old bones below. "Who's that?"

  The man shrugged. "How should I know? I only live here."

  The monk was still clutching his chest in fright. But he managed to swing his thurible like a mace. "Leave this place and beg God for forgiveness, sinner!"

  "Sinner?" The dusty man bristled. "Who do you think maintains the cemetery? Who do you think prays for the dead every morning and night? Who keeps the place clean and scares off the animals? We do. The people of the graves."

  Another coffin lid slid off, and a woman crept out, slender and dusty, her hair wild. "I scare away the rats every day. Sometimes they make off with a finger bone." She cackled. "Thankfully, never mine."

  Another coffin lid creaked open nearby. A bearded man emerged. "I clean the dead. I make sure they have nice places to rest. In return, they let me stay here."

  More and more gravedwellers rose.

  "I was a farmer once," said a man.

  "I was a fishwife."

  "I was a soldier."

  "I was a hunter."

  "Now we're all gravedwellers. The living hurt us. So we dwell with the dead."

  Maria listened to their stories. And as they spoke, she kept her new camera rolling. They shared stories of war, of woe, and Maria captured every word.

  As they spoke, two things became clear to Maria.

  First—the Bargirl Bureau was back in business.

  Second—she would not endanger the girls by living in their homes. Not after what Ernesto had done to Charlie's house.

  Maria had just found her new home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dead Boy's Soul

  Clutching his rifle, Jon walked with his platoon through the black city.

  Basilica. Capital of North Bahay. A city of death.

  "Where are they?" Jon whispered, eyes darting.

  "Are they all dead?" George whispered, his rifle shaking. It looked barely larger than a pistol in his mighty hands.

  "Hush, you two!" Etty whispered. "The enemy will hear you."

  George rolled his eyes. "Ettinger, we have tanks rolling with us. They can already hear us. Trust me."

  "Your footsteps are louder than tanks," Etty said. "Because you weigh more."

  "Yeah, well, you weigh as much as my sweaty underwear," George said. "Especially your brain!"

  Jon tried to ignore his friends. They were bickering because they were scared. Banter was how they clung to normalcy in hell.

  He looked around and shuddered.

  Basilica was a city of walls. They lined every street. Surrounded every tower and well. Some walls were thick and towering, topped with battlements. Others were squat and crude. Some had fallen. Others withstood the bombardment. All were built of basalt. All were birthed from this very volcano. A black city. A city spewed from the belly of Bahay, taking twisting forms.

  It's a labyrinth, Jon thought. Or maybe it's a jungle. A new kind of jungle. Not one of trees and roots, but a jungle of hardened magma, just as wild and dangerous as the jungles we burned.

  A tank rumbled ahead of them. An armacar rumbled behind. But most of the troops were walking. A hundred thousand soldiers had come to assault this city. Many had fallen upon the mountain. But most were still alive. Wounded, haunted, covered in blood and dust—but still ready to fight. They spr
ead out through the labyrinth.

  Their orders were simple.

  Sweep through every street in this city. Find the enemy. And kill them.

  Yet as Jon and his friends walked along the cobbled street, they saw no sign of that enemy. Of any Bahayans at all, civilians or soldiers.

  Did they all flee north? he thought. Did they all die on the mountainsides? Do we just need to pluck this city like a ripe fruit?

  He was a soldier in a vast army. But here in this stone alleyway, he could only see his own platoon. The labyrinth of Basilica had segmented the grand Human Defense Force into small units. A squad here. A platoon there. Jon could barely even hear the rest of his army. He knew that hundreds of tanks and armacars were traversing the streets, but the basalt walls muffled the sounds. When the tank ahead rounded a corner and trundled off, the city became almost silent.

  Jon shivered.

  He looked up at the cathedral on the mountaintop. It was all he could see from down here.

  It was larger than he had thought. It loomed. Larger than Earth's famous Notre Dame. Pitch black. Its gargoyles hunched over, leering, tongues sticking out. Its towers rose toward the red sky. Smoke still wafted over the city. The tower perched like a demon lord, spreading ashy wings.

  Nobody knew who ruled North Bahay. They said that a cardinal lived in that cathedral. The Red Cardinal, his robes woven from Christ's shroud, still stained red with ancient blood. They said that the Red Cardinal ruled this world. That he was only half human. That he had changed. Become something greater than mere man.

  But no Earthling had seen him. There were no photographs of the Red Cardinal. Only stories.

  "Is he in there?" Jon said. "Watching us?"

  It seemed to him, from this distance, that he saw a shadow moving in the cathedral's windows. But it was still so far. Perhaps just a trick of his imagination.

  They entered a courtyard, a black well in its center. Dour basalt buildings glared from all sides with windows like eyes. A tower had fallen here, and bricks littered the cobblestones. A Bahayan corpse sprawled atop the bricks, her long black hair strewn around her head like a puddle. She gazed with blank eyes toward the smoky sky.