Earthlings (Soldiers of Earthrise Book 2)

by Daniel Arenson

  Ernesto licked his lips. What a delectable morsel.

  He paddled toward the riverbank. He rose from the water, dripping pollution, algae, and strands of plastic. A grin spread across his face. Maria had still not noticed him. She was walking down the alley, a dark place, with only children and stray cats between the narrow walls.

  A perfect place to attack.

  He stalked her, shedding moss, dripping oil. His arms spread out. He filled the alleyway like a demon risen from the depths. Cats and orphans fled before him.

  Halfway down the alleyway, Maria froze.

  She spun around, gun raised.

  She fired.

  Ernesto swerved left.

  Her bullet flew over his right shoulder, missing his head.

  Stupid girl. Aiming for the head instead of the larger torso. She would pay for that mistake.

  Ernesto pounced.

  He knocked Maria down. He pinned her to the ground. She screamed, and Ernesto sank his teeth into her flesh.

  Chapter Forty

  The Luminous Army

  So here I am, Jon thought. The proud warrior, defending a priceless strategic asset.

  By strategic asset, he meant a useless, godforsaken hill in the middle of the jungle.

  By defending, he meant sitting in a wooden guard tower, leafing through a dog-eared paperback.

  "Go Earth!" he muttered.

  Jon sighed.

  The book was an old Western, not particularly good. It was full of cliches, stilted dialog, and Tom Swifties. But the previous guard had left only two paperbacks behind, and Cowboys of Atlantis seemed preferable. It was that or Alien Temptresses: Pinups from the Stars!

  The rainforest rustled below the tower, a green sea spreading toward haze. The real sea glimmered along the eastern horizon, a strip of blue under Bahay's two suns. Jon was deep in the northern wilderness. The war was flaring. It burned hotter than ever across this woeful planet. But it was hard to be anxious here. The land was just too beautiful.

  Most of Bahay was ugly now. Earth's starships had bombed the land. Her planes had poisoned forests and fields. Her soldiers had swept through villages, burning and killing. But standing here, Jon saw the real Bahay. The world that had been. The planet's wild beauty spread around him, the last remnant of a dying world.

  It hurt to see. Jon did not know how much longer this beauty would last.

  He returned his eyes to his book, needing some escape. He read a few more pages in Cowboys of Atlantis. The cowboys had found a race of giant seahorses a few pages ago. They were now riding them to battle against an evil kraken, hoping to free a buxom mermaid from its grip. When bandits appeared on shark-back, Jon put the book down and glanced at Alien Temptresses. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all.

  He flipped to the first page of Temptresses. It featured a garish illustration. A reptilian woman gazed seductively from the page, her three breasts bare. The artist had lovingly painted her lounging over a pile of alien corpses. Jon wasn't sure why a reptile would need breasts, but the artist had clearly thought three of them were necessary.

  He closed the book and yawned. It was boring up here. Guard duty was mostly boring. Hell, war itself was mostly boring. At least when it wasn't utterly terrifying. War was full of horror and battles and blood and death. But a lot of it, even most of it, was just like this. Sitting in some godforsaken tower, guarding some godforsaken hill, trying not to go mad with boredom.

  Jon glanced down toward the camp. They were just a squad of soldiers here on the hill. No officers. No NCOs. Just a handful of privates and corporals. A few were sleeping under the trees. Others were brewing coffee over a campfire. George sat on a log, whittling a chunk of wood. Despite his enormous hands, George had become an accomplished whittler in the army, carving figurines of Bahayan animals. Jon leaned from the guard tower, focused his binoculars, and looked down at his friend's work. George seemed to be sculpting an ungoy, a local monkey with several tails arranged in a ring.

  Three junglers parked beside the squad. Jon had to admit—they were sweet rides. Especially after months in a damn jeep. Only scouts and guards in the farthest outposts got junglers. Most of the HDF's vehicles on Bahay were old; many had seen service during the Ganymede Uprising twenty years ago. Junglers were newer and sleeker, built specifically for the Bahay War. Unlike armacars, tanks, and jeeps, they didn't require deforestation. Mister Weird's services were not required here, thank you very much. And unlike planes or starfighters, junglers weren't ridiculously expensive, and they didn't require years of training. Even a dumb grunt like Jon could fly a jungler.

  They were essentially glorified hovercraft, designed to float over the jungle canopy—at insane speeds. They were silent, aerodynamic, and painted with camouflage patterns, making them quite stealthy. A jungler could glide over the rainforest like a hawk, barely disturbing the leaves below.

  Flying a jungler here, the wind in his hair, had actually been kind of fun. And fun was hard to come by in this war. Jon was looking forward to flying one back to Camp Apollo in five days. Then another squad would fly up here, and let them suffer through Alien Temptresses.

  "Hey guys!" Jon called down to his squad. "My shift's almost over. Who's next?"

  They looked up at him. A few soldiers flipped him off.

  "You still got twenty minutes up there, dipshit!" George called up.

  Jon sighed. Up here on the guard tower, twenty minutes felt like a year. He was going mad with boredom.

  But no, he realized. It wasn't the boredom that was bothering him.

  There was another feeling inside him. Cold and gray. Almost a physical sensation, growing from his belly like a tumor, spreading icy tendrils through his body. Fear? Guilt? Grief? It was a bit of all those things. The best way Jon could describe it was despair.

  It was the memory of the people he had killed.

  It was the lingering horror from the Santa Rosa massacre.

  It was missing Etty, who had gone AWOL, and missing Maria, who was probably still a bargirl far south. It was missing home.

  It was the tense wait for the battles ahead.

  It was the knowledge that he might never return to Earth.

  It was shell shock. And in the loneliness of this guard tower, without his friends to distract him, it expanded inside him, claiming every cell.

  Jon forced himself to take deep breaths.

  "This will be over soon," he whispered. "This whole damn war. And I'll be with you again, Maria. I'll take you to Earth with me. We'll all gather in Lindenville. George will play his drums, and Etty promised she'll learn to play bass. You and Kaelyn will sing. We'll make music together and we'll be happy. We'll be far from all this pain. Just a little bit longer, Maria, and we'll—"

  A distant horn sounded, barely audible.

  Jon frowned and stared north.

  He lost his breath.

  "Holy shit," he blurted out.

  * * * * *

  Jon leaned over the guard tower's wooden railing. He squinted, trying to see more clearly.

  "My God," he whispered.

  They were rising over the horizon. Enormous vessels. Bloated and silvery. Floating over the forest.

  Jon raised his binoculars and a chill flooded him.

  A dozen gargantuan ships were sailing through the sky. They looked like blimps, but they spread out many slender tentacles. They reminded Jon of jellyfish, and he wondered if they were living beings. But no—they were machines. He could make out exhaust pipes, headlights, and cannons.

  Smaller vessels flew beneath the blimps. A hundred or more. They were long, aerodynamic, and silvery, slicing the sky like arrowheads. They were smaller than the blimps, perhaps the size of fighter jets.

  Those must be balisongs, Jon thought.

  He had heard of balisongs, which meant "butterfly knives" in Tagalog. They were supposedly the fighter jets of the Luminous Air Force, appearing in North Bahayan propaganda reels. But no Earthling had ever seen one in real life. The Human Defens
e Force considered them a myth. Well, here flew a bunch of myths.

  Farther down, trudging through the jungle, came the strangest vehicles Jon had ever seen. They had round bodies and spindly legs. They looked like spiders with wonky proportions, the legs ridiculously long and thin. From a distance, the legs barely seemed wider than ropes, and they swayed every which way. Yet those legs were strong enough to propel the vehicles forward. Jon adjusted his binoculars, zooming in on one spiderlike machine. He saw a round, silvery hull lined with windows. Men stood inside.

  The hulls were painted with red inverted crosses. Sigil of the Red Cardinal.

  "The Luminous Army," Jon whispered. "His army."

  But that was impossible! The Lumis barely even had jeeps and planes, let alone tech like this! Hell, even Earth didn't have anything this advanced.

  And then Jon saw it.

  Glowing orbs. They floated among the machinery. More and more rose from behind the horizon, a thousand little sunrises.

  Santelmos.

  Santelmos and Bahayans—working together. A joint army—sweeping south. Right toward Jon.

  For long, critical seconds, Jon could just stare in stunned silence. Then horns blared, shattering his paralysis. War horns. Luminous Army horns. Hundreds of horns sang, calling for victory.

  Jon spun around. He leaned over the guard tower, facing the squad below.

  "Enemy incoming!" he shouted.

  The troops were already standing, clutching their rifles. They had heard the horns too.

  "How many?" George shouted from the forest floor.

  "All of them!" Jon cried. "I'll stream your binoculars the data."

  George and the other soldiers lifted their binoculars. Jon hit a button on his, transmitting a live stream from the tower. The enemy was even closer now. The soldiers below cursed.

  "Jon, get your ass down here!" George yelled. "We're flying back to base."

  "Excellent idea," Jon said, trying to control the tremor in his voice. "Let me just broadcast Camp Apollo a warning."

  He looked again at the incoming army. Damn, they were moving fast. Those blimps, planes, and arachnid walkers were swallowing the distance. Cursing, Jon reached for his radio, began to dial Camp Apollo, which was located a hundred kilometers south.

  "Hello, Apollo?" he spoke into the receiver. "This is—"

  Beams of light flared from the incoming army.

  The light blazed over Jon, blinding and hot. The pain seared through him like a thousand suns.

  He screamed.

  It lasted for only a few seconds. When the light dimmed, the pain vanished. Jon was surprised to find himself alive.

  The radio had no such luck. The controls were fried. Jon's electronic binoculars were just as dead. Some kind of EMP attack?

  "Jon!" George shouted from below. "Hurry!"

  Jon shuddered. The enemy kept coming closer. They would reach him within mere minutes.

  He scrambled down the guard tower, thumped onto the mossy hilltop, and ran toward his squad.

  The other soldiers were already in their junglers, ready to take off. Jon hopped into the middle jungler. George was squeezed into the cockpit, barely fitting, his knees pulled to his chest. Jon took the gunnery station behind the giant. He sat inside a bubble turret, which could swivel in every direction.

  The three slender, camouflaged junglers leaped into the air.

  Jon rattled in his seat. His helmet wobbled on his head. He clutched the machine gun as the jungler stormed forward, skimming the jungle canopy. Normally junglers were a smooth ride. But George, understandably nervous, was flying erratically. The jungler kept dipping down, cracking branches, and lurching like a drunk bird. The trees bent and creaked below. Leaves tore free from branches, spraying everywhere like confetti.

  "George, are you drunk?" Jon shouted.

  "Stop backseat driving!" the giant replied from the cockpit.

  The three junglers streaked south, gliding just above the canopy. They had no wings. They could not rise higher. They glided on a carpet of air, moving at breakneck speed. Jon clenched his jaw and struggled not to pass out. It was like riding the world's fastest motorboat, skimming over green water.

  The junglers tightened their formation. Apollo Base was still too far to see.

  Dammit, we'll never make it, Jon thought.

  He tugged a lever. He swiveled the gun turret around, facing backwards.

  Good. He breathed a sigh of relief. He could no longer see the enemy. The Luminous Army was behind the horizon.

  "At least we're faster than you guys," Jon muttered.

  But his relief didn't last long.

  Over the hill, they rose—a dozen enemy balisongs. The dreaded butterfly fighter jets.

  Far away, so small Jon could barely see it, rose the guard tower on the hill. The same tower Jon had manned just moments ago. A balisong smashed through it. The jet kept flying, leaving a pile of rubble.

  Goodbye, Cowboys of Atlantis, Jon thought.

  The balisongs thundered through the air, moving with terrifying speed. They flew without wings, leaving trails of white light. This had to be Santelmo tech. But when Jon squinted, he could make out humans in the cockpits. Bahayan pilots.

  Jon grimaced.

  We bombed the Santelmos who dwelled in Basilica, he thought. Now they will spare no effort to arm our enemy. We awoke a sleeping giant.

  The balisongs roared closer.

  Jon decided to take the first shot. He aimed the jungler's rotary cannon. He pulled the trigger, unleashing his fury.

  He hit. A perfect hit! His bullets sparked against a balisong. Hope leaped in Jon's heart.

  The two other junglers opened fire too, peppering the enemy.

  But the bullets did not penetrate the silvery hulls. And the balisongs returned fire.

  Beams of searing white light blazed.

  "George!" Jon shouted.

  His friend was already swerving the jungler.

  A beam just missed them. It hit trees below. The forest crumbled. Another beam shot just overhead, missing the jungler by a mere foot or two. It was so hot Jon thought his helmet would melt.

  Beside them, a beam hit a jungler.

  It exploded.

  Jon clenched his jaw. He had known the three soldiers inside. They were friends.

  That left two junglers. Both kept firing at the balisongs. Jon held down his trigger, ripping through ammunition belts, pounding the enemy.

  One balisong crashed into the forest.

  Jon grunted in satisfaction. Good. So the bastards weren't invincible.

  But ten or more balisongs were still pursuing the two junglers. And countless still flew beyond the horizon.

  "George, faster!" Jon shouted.

  "The pedal's to the metal!" the giant roared. "Hold them off!"

  The silvery balisongs rose toward the sun. Jon could barely see them. More searing beams rained down.

  George swerved, but a beam hit the side of their jungler. A section of hull melted. The jungler spun madly. Jon screamed. George wrestled the yoke, struggling to steady the careening vehicle. Trees caught fire below.

  More beams flew. Beside them, the second jungler crashed and burned.

  It was only Jon and George now.

  They raced onward.

  Jon couldn't see Camp Apollo yet.

  They wouldn't last another minute in the air.

  "George, into the forest!" Jon cried.

  "Junglers are meant to fly above the forest!"

  "Dammit, George, now!"

  George shoved the yoke forward. The jungler plunged down. Jon's stomach lurched. They dropped through the canopy, and suddenly they were flying inside the jungle. The tree trunks rose all around.

  Beams blazed from the heavens. Trees burned. Holes tore into the ground. But the enemy couldn't see them here. The beams were all missing.

  "George, watch it!" Jon shouted.

  They were racing toward an enormous tree—it was the size of a Redwood. George tugge
d the yoke. They swerved, narrowly dodging the trunk. A second later, George had to swerve the other way, avoiding another tree.

  "I told you, stop backseat driving!" George said. "I got this!"

  They zigzagged through the forest. Beams blasted downward with the fury of gods. Boulders cracked open like eggs. Trees burst into flame.

  One beam grazed the jungler.

  They jerked sideways, glanced off a tree, careened forward. Chunks of bark flew. Jon nearly tumbled from the turret. He clung to the machine gun, inadvertently releasing a hailstorm of bullets.

  And then balisongs were plunging through the canopy, shattering branches, and storming through the forest.

  "Copycats!" George shouted.

  Jon sneered and opened fire.

  He hit a balisong. His bullets pinged off the hull, not penetrating it. But it was enough to knock the balisong into a tree. The silver jet exploded. The tree crashed down, crushing another balisong.

  "Good job, buddy!" George said.

  "Two butterflies with one stone," Jon muttered.

  He fired again and again. The forest burned. Branches crashed down. George kept zigzagging around trees. Jon jerked from side to side in the turret, firing all the while.

  Beams blazed above. Below. Everywhere. One grazed Jon's gun turret, searing off a chunk of chassis. The silica canopy cracked, and wind roared into the jungler, thick with leaves and dirt and slivers of bark.

  More balisongs descended into the forest.

  More beams flew, searing all in their path.

  Trees collapsed. Birds crashed down dead. Jon waited for the end.

  Then he saw it ahead.

  Between the trees, down in a valley—wooden palisades topped with barbed wire. Beyond them—rows of tents.

  Camp Apollo.

  "Hold on!" George shouted, and their jungler soared, smashed through branches, and emerged into open sky.

  The balisongs followed.

  The lone jungler flew toward the camp, almost there…

  Another beam hit them.

  An engine caught fire.

  They weren't going to make it.

  I'm sorry, Maria. I'm sorry.