All Lizzy had left was her rage.
And so she walked, and other veterans walked with her, medals clinking. Behind them walked a million souls. Raising banners. Singing songs. Chanting to end the war. To bring the sons and daughters of Earth home.
But the veterans did not sing, did not cheer. They walked with grim, silent purpose. Some on crutches. Some leaning on friends. And in their memories, they were walking again through the jungles of Bahay.
The palace rose before them, dominating Central Park. It was built in Neo-Nouveau style, all soaring white lines, pale arches, and crests of gold. During Ben-Ari's reign, Earth had risen from the ashes of the Cataclysm, defeated its alien enemies, and become a local power in the galaxy. The Golden Lioness had ushered in a golden age. Across the world rose grand structures, emulating the roaring 1920s a few centuries earlier, boasting of new optimism and prosperity. Ward Palace took Neo-Nouveau architecture to the extreme, forging a shining beacon, perhaps the grandest palace on Earth.
It was nothing like the humble little house on the hills of Jerusalem. Ben-Ari had been like Moses, shepherding her people through the desert to the promised land. Ward was a decadent king, grown fat on inherited wealth.
And we, the soldiers, are the hosts of Joshua, Lizzy thought. We were given a land of milk and honey, and we smite our enemies with ruthless abandon.
She reached the palace gates. Metal bars sealed off the palace from the rest of the park. Armed guards stood here, wearing riot gear, rifles in hand. An attack helicopter hovered above, guns unfurled.
A few of the protesters hurled cans, bottles, and stones at the guards.
"Break through the fence!" somebody cried.
"Tear down the walls!" somebody shouted.
More shouts rose.
"Break into the palace!"
"Drag Ward out!"
The guards stiffened. A few raised their guns. Lizzy turned toward the crowd. She lifted a megaphone.
"Do not use violence here!" she said. "I am Sergeant Lizzy Pascal. I fought and killed and watched men die on Bahay. I've had enough of violence. Do not fight the guards, friends! Sing instead! Sing and chant and make your voices heard!"
The procession halted at the palace gates. The million people spread across the park, covering its paths and lawns. And they all chanted together. They sang songs of protest. They did not back down even as the military helicopter flew right above them, rotor blades blasting them with air. Their voices only grew stronger. And Lizzy remembered the helicopters and planes flying over Bahay. Soldiers leaning out the sides to strafe villagers. Mister Weird raining his poison. Fire spreading.
She turned toward the palace and raised her megaphone. She spoke to the palace. She knew President Ward could hear.
"I am Sergeant Lizzy Pascal from New Mexico! I served two tours in Bahay."
People in the crowd roared. Some seemed to boo, perhaps scornful of her service, scornful of all veterans. Others cheered, perhaps supporting her courage to come here.
Lizzy continued speaking.
"I won a Silver Star medal for gallantry in action during the Battle of New Cebu."
She pulled the medal off her chest, showing it to the crowd. Tears filled her eyes. She remembered that battle. Her first battle. She had killed two men. She had watched friends die.
"I won this medal for killing peasants who dared rise up against me. I won this medal for killing two honest men defending their home. President Ward—take it back!"
Her tears flowed. Lizzy hurled the medal—between the gate bars and onto the palace lawn.
A cheer rose from the crowd.
Lizzy ripped another medal off her coat. She held it overhead.
"I won this Purple Heart for being captured in Bahay. Tortured. Burned. For losing my hand." She raised the medal higher, showing it to the crowd—and the prosthetic hand holding it. "Take it back!"
She tossed the medal at the palace.
Everyone was still cheering. Many had tears on their cheeks.
She pulled off another medal. "I won a second Purple Heart for being shot in the chest. Take it back!"
She threw it at the palace.
People surrounded her. They lifted her overhead. She rose above the crowd, nearly as high as the fence around the palace. Drones flew above, and Lizzy cringed, expecting them to fire. But these were media drones. Their cameras rolled, and the world was watching.
She took her last medal off her coat.
"I won this Golden Heart, a medal of Distinguished Service, the highest honor bestowed upon soldiers." Her voice was choked. Her eyes were red. "Only a handful of soldiers have ever been awarded a Golden Heart. You approved this medal yourself, President Ward. You pinned it on my chest with your own bloodstained hands." She let out a hoarse cry. "Take it back!"
She tossed her last medal at the palace.
The crowd cheered and wept.
Across the park, other veterans tore off their medals. Medals earned with courage under fire. With blood and tears spilled on Bahay. Medals that came with bloodstained hands and shattered souls. Medals for unyielding bravery and unspeakable horrors.
And they all threw them.
"Take them back!" they cried.
Hundreds of medals flew and clattered around the palace walls.
New helicopters rumbled and began to spray gas.
Lizzy coughed. Her eyes watered and stung. People bent over, vomiting.
Tear gas, Lizzy knew.
Through her tearing eyes, she saw troops marching into Central Park, all in riot gear. They held large shields, and gas masks hid their faces. There were hundreds.
Lizzy could not fight them. Even if she could—she would not. She had shed too much blood.
She gazed toward the palace, struggling to keep her burning eyes open. On the balcony, she saw him. A tall man with a tanned face and white hair. With cold dark eyes. President Ward was looking right at her. And she thought that he was smiling.
Then she collapsed, coughing, vomiting. Policemen twisted her arms, handcuffed her wrists behind her back, kicked her, beat her with batons. They were beating everyone, and blood splattered the grass.
Lizzy ended that night in jail, sitting beside Kaelyn and handful of other bruised, battered protesters.
"We lost," Kaelyn said, one eye swollen shut, lip bruised.
Lizzy shook her head. "No. We did not lose. The world saw. The world heard. We won this battle. And the war is just beginning."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
An Old Friend
They were gone.
All of them.
The Bargirl Bureau—destroyed.
Maria had not seen the others since the military police raid.
She wandered the city in a daze, her dress in tatters, her hair scraggly and wet. She had visited the clubs. The alleyways. The sleazy strip bars.
"Have you seen Charlie? Have you seen Pippi?"
She showed them photos. She had some on her camera. But everybody turned away, pale.
"I don't know!" said one club owner, going pale. "I've never seen them. Go away! Go now."
"Never heard of them!" barked a bartender, and his hands shook. "Leave now. Go! You bring trouble."
Wherever she went, faces turned away. She felt like a leper. But it was not a disease that clung to her. It was the specter of the military police.
She had been Holy Maria, the blessed saint of the slums. She had become a pariah.
After long hours, exploring the city, she had to admit it to herself. Nobody else from the Bargirl Bureau had escaped the raid. The girls were probably rotting in an Earthling prison—or buried in a mass grave.
They might as well have never existed at all.
When finally she dared visit the Go Go Cowgirl, the Magic Man did not rail at her, did not strike her, did not try to force her back into service. Instead, he seemed almost mournful.
"You're in trouble, Maria," the pimp told her. "The MPs are looking for you. They were here this morni
ng, asking about you. You must hide. You must never come back here again." He slumped into a seat and covered his face. "I'm ruined. Ruined! All my best princesses are gone. Oh, I curse the day I ever let Holy Maria into my home!"
She left the club.
She wandered the city in despair, feeling like a ghost. When she placed her hand on her belly, she could feel the child kick inside. She feared the day he would emerge into this nightmare.
Finally she returned to the cemetery. She had nowhere else to go. She was like the dead already. She climbed into a stone coffin, curled up among bones, and closed her eyes.
* * * * *
"It's you. It's really you, isn't it? Holy Maria."
The soldier walked through the cemetery, towering in the shadows, an assault rifle hanging at his side.
Maria's heart pounded. She leaped back, slamming into a stack of coffins. They tilted, nearly falling over. A skeleton spilled out and clattered to the ground.
Maria couldn't see much in the darkness, and shadows cloaked the moons. With shaking hands, she drew her gun and aimed it.
"Stand back!"
"Whoa, whoa!" The soldier raised his hands. "I'm not going to hurt you. It's me." Suddenly his voice was choked, as if struggling through tears. "It's David."
Maria frowned. David…
She stepped closer between the tombstones. He stood before her, more than a foot taller but so thin. The clouds parted, and Bahay's two moons shone. She could see his face now, gaunt and honest. He gave her a shaky smile, and his eyes were damp.
Maria gasped.
It was him.
The memories pounded through her.
Her war in the jungle last year. Fighting with the Kalayaan. The battle at the Earthling base.
Slitting a man's throat.
Shooting a man in the chest.
The coppery smell of hot blood.
And him—David. An Earthling soldier. So much taller and stronger than Maria. The man she had taken captive, despite being a third his size. The man Ernesto had tortured. The man she had freed.
And there he was again, nearly a year later, standing before her. David. The reason she had left the Kalayaan and ended up here in this city of tears.
"David," she whispered. "Is it really you?"
"It's me, Maria. I—" His cheeks flushed. "Can I hug you?"
She leaped onto him and embraced him tightly, nearly crushing him. He wrapped his arms around her. For a long moment, they merely stood together, holding each other.
"David. I'm so happy to see you." She caressed his cheek, then realized the cheek was still scarred. A scar shaped like a clothing iron. The scar Ernesto had given him.
"It doesn't hurt," he said. "It hurt for a long time. I'm no longer in pain. I'm just ugly now." He winked.
She shook her head. "No. You're not ugly. You're very handsome. You look good."
She remembered the last time she had seen him. A bleeding, burnt wreck of a man.
"Maria." He held her hands. "You saved my life that night. They sent me back to Earth. I spent a while in a hospital. They said I could remain on Earth for the rest of the war, get an office job, even leave the army early. But I had to come back. I volunteered for another tour of duty. All so I could see you again. So I could thank you."
Maria couldn't help but laugh, even as tears stung her eyes. "You could have written me a letter!"
But David remained somber. He looked into her eyes. "I had to come back, Maria. Because I knew it was you. When the videos appeared in protests. When they began popping up everywhere online. When people spoke of Holy Maria walking through Mindao, recording stories. I knew it was you, the girl who saved my life. I had to come back. I had to see you. To thank you for saving me—and for sharing the stories of this world."
She smiled sadly and wiped away her tears. "The videos I took?" More tears flowed. "They really reached Earth? I was never sure…"
David nodded. "They reached Earth, Maria. And millions of people saw them."
And suddenly Maria could not help it.
She began to weep.
"Maria!" David held her hands. "Are you all right?"
She wiped her damp eyes. "They're tears of relief. All that work I did. The people who suffered for our cause. I never knew if it made a difference."
All she had been through. Seeing, hearing, living all this suffering. The long days and nights, moving through the city of despair, recording her stories. The long hours at the Goodbye Kisses booth, kissing the soldiers who had killed so many of her people, slipping secret codechips into their clothes. The other bargirls—arrested, vanished.
I thought it was for nothing.
"Some of them watched," she whispered, tears on her lips. "Some of the soldiers watched my videos. And they shared them." She let out a sob. "They shared them with Earth."
"They're everywhere now," David said. "Across Earth. Hale is trying to crack down, to hide the videos. But they're spreading like wildfire, fueling an anti-war movement. Sergeant Lizzy Pascal has been leading the protests. You know her, I think."
Maria gasped. "Yes! She drank at the Go Go Cowgirl a few times. She was shot there. I didn't know she survived."
"She survived all right," David said. "And she's stronger than ever. She used to fight against Bahay. Now she's fighting for it. And she's a serious fighter."
A flicker of hope filled Maria, faint yet blessed like a Santelmo in the dark.
"Will it be enough?" she whispered. "To sway hearts and minds? To bring President Hale down?"
David sat on a coffin, and his shoulders slumped. "President Hale is still strong. The anti-war movement is growing, yes, but Hale is arresting protesters. Dismissing the videos. Calling it alien propaganda. Some people believe Lizzy, others believe Hale. There is slow change. It will take time. Maybe years." David lowered his head. "According to the polls, Hale is expected to win the upcoming election and secure another term. And the war will continue."
Maria felt weak. She nearly collapsed. She managed to sit down beside David, but the weight of Earth itself seemed to crush her.
"So this was all for nothing," she whispered.
"It's a beginning," David said. "An important first step. Hearts and minds can't be changed overnight. We just need more time."
Maria placed a hand on her belly. She wasn't showing yet. But she felt the child growing inside. Jon's child.
I don't have more time.
She stood up and paced between the sarcophagi. "Bahay can't survive another term of Hale in power. We probably can't even survive another year. Earth is too powerful. They're killing too many. Millions are dying. If we can't stop Earth soon, nothing will be left of Bahay but poison and bones."
And my child will be born into a world of ruin.
David paced beside her. "I know. But there are billions of people on Earth. It has over a thousand times the population of Bahay. To change their minds, to show them the war is wrong—we'll do that! Video by video. Story by story. We—"
"No." Maria shook her head, despair clutching her chest. "Not step by step. This will not be a war of attrition." She clenched her fist. "I must deliver a blow straight to Earth's heart."
She began to walk between the tombstones.
David hurried to follow. Even with his long legs, he struggled to keep up. "Maria, where are you going?"
She narrowed her eyes. "To end this war."
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The Madman is King
He lurked in the dark waters.
He waited for his prey.
He was a reptile, a monster of the rivers, ravenous but patient. Stalking. His hunger a ticking bomb.
Ernesto Santos had been stalking for a long time. Still as a stone. Deadly as a crocodile's bite. And now, finally, he approached his prey.
There she was. Walking down the alleyways of Mindao. A beautiful young woman, her hair black and smooth, her figure graceful. The most beautiful woman in the world.
His woman.
His betrothed.
His prey.
"Maria," he hissed.
He had been in the shadows for too long. Hiding in the rivers. Huddling in the urban warrens and burrows. He had needed this time. To let his rage fester. To let his wound heal. The metal plate was now bolted into his skull. It hurt. It never stopped hurting. The pain fueled him.
For weeks, he had hunted smaller prey. Becoming faster. Stronger. Perfecting the art. He caught mutated fish that swam beneath the rivers of trash. He caught rats that scurried among the shanties. He caught children and practiced twisting their necks until they snapped. He feasted upon some of those he hunted. He absorbed their power, and now Ernesto was stronger than he had ever been.
He was no longer the same man. Not the villager from San Luna, that burnt piece of seared memories. Not even the Kalayaan warrior, a guerrilla of the jungles.
The bullet had changed that.
Jon had changed that.
A piece of my mind was lost that day, Ernesto thought. Jon's bullet took a part of me. The weaker part. The human part. I am now pure hunter. A predator of the urban jungle.
Perhaps he had gone mad.
Perhaps that was a good thing.
War is madness, he thought. In an insane world, the madman is king.
He slunk through the river. It flowed beside the street, polluted, filled with floating debris. Only his head rose above the surface. Maria walked along the bank, graceful as a gazelle, unaware of the crocodile stalking her.
A fish swam before him.
Ernesto reached out. Grabbed it. Tore into it. His teeth ripped through scales and flesh and guts. The heart popped like a cherry tomato in his mouth, squirting juices. He devoured his prey. Growing even stronger. And he kept swimming.
He knew that Maria was carrying a gun. But he was bulletproof. He had survived a bullet to the head—and he still hunted. Maria had burned him before. But he was fireproof. He had passed through fire and risen stronger.
I have become immortal. A god of Bahay.
Maria turned away from the river. Sweet, graceful prey. She walked down a dark alleyway, as innocent as a fawn.
Earthlings (Soldiers of Earthrise Book 2) Page 27