by M. R. Forbes
“She doesn’t know. But we have the coordinates. If we can get into a position to use it…”
“We don’t have any proof the portals are still functional,” Tsi said. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“It’s a possibility,” Caleb said. “Look, if the colonists stay in here and things go south, they’ll be trapped with nowhere to go but back to space with an eight-hundred-year trip to look forward to with the high probability the ship will fail on the way. If they run into the jungle, they can scatter. Then all we need to do is win one of two battles. It’s a smaller-scale, and I believe we can do it.”
“Isn’t the jungle dangerous?” Stone asked.
“It’s full of trife,” Caleb replied. “However many survived when the Intellect triggered its kill switch.” He glanced through the broken door of the building to the street, where the queen and her brood were waiting. “And I think we can get that under control.”
“How?” Stone asked.
“They should respond to a queen,” Washington said. “Sarge, you should know, the Seeker has trife on board. Some pretty nasty ones. They killed Paige.”
“Are they contained?”
“Yeah, for now.”
“Okay. Thanks for the heads up.”
“You’re talking like I’ve already agreed to your plan,” Stone said.
“I’m talking like you’re about to agree to it,” Caleb replied. “Because unless you haven’t heard a word I just said, you know it’s the better option.” Caleb looked at Tsi. “I assume the fact that you’re here alone means the Free Inahri won’t commit?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Which makes the Seeker even more important. We can’t let either group of Inahri have the ship, Governor. They’ll draw attention to this part of space that we don’t want.”
Governor Stone stared at him for a moment before lowering his head. He sighed heavily. “Okay, Sergeant. You win. It’s hard for me to give up control over things. I always believe I’m making the right decision.”
“You just did,” Caleb replied. “We need to get this organized in a hurry. Wash, I want you to be in charge of the colony’s defense.”
“Me?” Washington said, surprised. “Are you sure?”
“I know it’s going to be dangerous. But you’re the best candidate for the job.”
“It’s not that. I mean. I’m honored by your faith in me, Sarge.”
“I know you’ll get it done. Tsi, can you pick out our best recruits? I want them running interference into the jungle with the colonists, and I want you leading them.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Tsi said. She smiled. “Though I think we should be calling you General. Or Colonel at least.”
“I second that,” Governor Stone said. “You’re in charge of the entire military here, as of right now. I’m all for naming you General of the Deliverance Defense Force.”
“You can call me whatever you want if we win,” Caleb said. “Right now, rank is meaningless, and I might not survive long enough to enjoy it. I’ll be leading the assault on the Seeker.”
“I figured you would,” Stone said. “How many soldiers do you need?”
“None.”
The entire conversation stopped cold. The others in the room stared at him.
“None?” Washington said.
“Without Inahri tech a small task force is as good as nothing. We need every able-bodied fighter here, defending the colonists. We have to get as many of them into the jungle as we can.”
“How are you going to take an entire ship with no soldiers?” Tsi asked. “We sent most of our forward assault units in and were forced to retreat.”
“But Wash finished his mission,” Caleb said. “I’m going to take the Relyeh ships I brought in with me.” He turned and pointed to the trife queen. “And her.”
“I don’t know if she’ll follow you, Sergeant,” Governor Stone said. “She’s pretty attached to me.”
He sounded proud of himself for the fact. The Governor was doing a good job trying to be humble, but it didn’t come naturally to him.
She’ll follow you. But that doesn’t mean she should.
“She will,” Caleb said, welcoming Ishek’s corroboration. “I’m sure of it.”
“No soldiers?” Stone asked again. “Are you sure?”
“No, but if the Free Inahri couldn’t capture the Seeker, our people won’t be able to either.”
“But you can?”
This is a bad idea, Caleb. It isn’t going to work.
This time he ignored Ishek. “I believe I can,”
“How?”
You’re strong, but I don’t know if you’re strong enough.
“I’ve got an ace up my sleeve.”
Chapter 52
Caleb stood in front of the microphone. His heart was racing, his nerves fraying at the prospect of making a public address. It was stupid, he knew. He could wade into an army of trife alone and use his fear as strength. But public speaking? It had never been his thing.
All of the soldiers still in Metro were gathered across the park ahead of him, along with a number of the non-conscripted civilians. Men, women, and children had all been quickly gathered to hear him speak, while loudspeakers would carry his voice to the rest of the city.
He knew what he was going to say. Short and simple and right to the point. He had been in Metro for almost twenty minutes. There wasn’t time for anything else.
He tapped on the microphone, the sound resonating through the speakers. He glanced to his left, where Washington and Tsi were standing, and then to his right, where Governor Stone sat.
“People of Metro,” he said. “My name is Caleb Card, General of the Deliverance Defense Force. You might have heard of me. Before that, I was a Marine Raider, and one of the Guardians who spent the last two hundred years trying to protect you from harm. Today, that job, that mission becomes the hardest it has ever been.
“The enemy is on its way here. Their goal isn’t to kill you. It’s to integrate you into their society, the same society I just escaped from. Believe me when I tell you that you do not want to be part of it. Their leader is from an ancient race known as the Relyeh, and he feeds on the weak. He literally devours them as his kind devours intelligent life from across the universe. It was the Relyeh who sent the trife to Earth and sent us fleeing from our home. We cannot let them defeat us here.
“For your safety, we’ve decided to send you into the jungle to hide. We’ve already arranged a caravan of sorts, with soldiers to help lead you outside. We have less than thirty minutes to evacuate as much of the city as we can. Please, if you’re listening to this, gather your children. Take nothing else. Head to South Park immediately. There is no time to waste.”
He stepped away from the microphone, turning to Tsi and Washington. “Sergeant, you know what to do.”
Tsi bowed to him. “Yes, General.”
The colonists were already reacting, talking among themselves and surging toward the exit. Two platoons of soldiers were there to greet them, forcing them into single file and pointing them onward. There were a dozen checkpoints on the way to the two lander tubes that would carry them out, helping to guide them on the route.
“Good hunting, Caleb,” she said, bowing again.
“You too, Tsi. Keep my people alive.”
“I will.”
She jumped off the truck and ran to the colonists, shouting instructions. She was projecting Beth Stone, giving them someone they recognized to follow.
“Good speech,” Washington said.
“Shut up,” Caleb replied, smiling. “You know I hate public speaking.”
“Big, bad General Card,” Washington laughed.
“Be safe, Sergeant,” Caleb said. “And kick their asses.”
“You know I will.”
They saluted one another, and then bumped fists.
“Don’t die out there, Cal. You’re the only family I got left.”
“Same goes for you.”
Then Caleb turned and rushed back to Governor Stone, while Washington dropped from the truck and headed for Deputy Klahanie and a squad of soldiers. Washington wasn’t going to be in the thick of things, not this time. He would be directing traffic from the bridge, using the army’s ATCS to coordinate the fight.
“Governor, you should go with the civilians,” Caleb said. “They could use your presence.”
“A wheelchair in a jungle, General?” Stone replied, shaking his head. “My place is here. I’ll roll out the red carpet for the bastards if they make it into the city.”
“I can’t change your mind?”
“I’m the Governor of Metro, not Tarzan.”
“Yes, sir.” Caleb offered his hand. The Governor shook it.
“Take care of my pet alien,” Stone said. “She’s a good girl.”
“Roger that. I’ll send word when the Seeker is ours. Have the transports ready.”
“They’ll be ready.”
Exchanging nods, they split, with Caleb jumping from the platform. He covered the ground to Law in a hurry, rushing through the corridor and quickly scaling the ladder down to the armory. He headed for the server room, where the queen and her brood had retreated to refuel on the heat of the machines.
She looked up at him as he entered. He stared back. It was hard for him to accept the trife as an ally after everything their kind had done to Earth. But they weren’t the real enemy. They were tools. Weapons. They were his weapons now.
“Ishek?” Caleb said.
The Advocate was the bridge that would link his mind to the queen’s. Caleb closed his eyes, sensing the shift and reminding himself this was just like the Kuu. He had to stay in control of his emotions. And his thoughts.
“I need your help,” Caleb said to her, the words echoing as sensation through their linked minds. “The Governor needs your help. We need to recover the energy unit.” He showed her an image of the modulator in his head. She reacted to that, raising her eyes and hissing. “That’s right. You’re a queen. You’re going to help me get it back. First, we need to raise an army. Are you ready?”
He felt a light pressure in his mind. Her response.
She was ready.
“Then let’s do this.”
Chapter 53
Caleb took the path from the armory out to the main hangar, through the seal Riley had left open when she fled the ship with Sergeant Harai.
The trife followed him, a line of them a hundred strong moving in unison with their queen. They went to the main hangar, where Caleb had to fortify himself to grab the larger trife around the neck and climb onto her back, holding on while she scaled the side of the Deliverance and dropped to the ground below.
He jumped off her and quickly scanned the field. The first of the escaping colonists were already moving into the trees, slightly ahead of him. A line continued from the lander tubes, guided by soldiers in combat armor waving the people forward. A pair of Daggers streaked across the sky, banking at the outer perimeter and returning, joining the drones in their watch. The Relyeh would arrive any minute now, appearing out over the horizon in the direction of the sea.
The Earthers would be ready.
Caleb hurried to the Relyeh ship he had taken and climbed in, jumping into the frontmost seat. He closed his eyes.
He would start with only one of the fighters. He needed his concentration for other things. His vision shifted to the control mind, and with a thought the craft began to lift from the ground and then accelerate away.
“Guardian One is up,” he announced through the comm channel connected to both the Daggers and the bridge of the Deliverance.
“Roger, Guardian One,” Washington said. “Good hunting, General.”
Caleb hated being called General, but Stone had insisted. He didn’t have time to argue. He checked the Relyeh ship’s display. The outer marker was in the area where Dagger Squadron had come to his rescue, still too distant for the ship’s sensors.
“Deliverance, this is Dagger One.” Caleb’s heart jolted at the the sound of the squadron leader’s young voice. The pilots were all too young for this. “I’ve got contact at the outer marker. Repeat, I have contact at outer marker.”
“Dagger One, this is Deliverance Actual,” Washington replied. “Try to get me a count and then retreat to the inner marker.”
“Will do, Deliverance Actual. Dagger One, out.”
I hunger, Caleb.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get your chance soon,” Caleb replied.
He angled the Relyeh ship over the jungle canopy, keeping an eye on the trife below. The queen had rushed forward into the jungle with her brood, surprising the fleeing colonists on her way past. Caleb couldn’t see her, but he could sense her through Ishek’s link. She moved faster than any human could have through the dense foliage, as at home in the thick as she had been in the ship’s server room.
He kept the fighter on course, his thrust as low as he could keep it without falling from the sky.
“Deliverance Actual, this is Dagger One. Count thirty-six transports, twenty-four fighters and four larger unidentified craft.”
“Dagger One, Deliverance Actual—this is Vulture One. They’re transports, carrying in heavy ordnance.”
“Copy that, Vulture One.”
“Dagger Squadron, this is Deliverance Actual. I want all Daggers in the air ASAP. Form up and target the larger transports. Do not let them get to the ship. Do you hear me? Don’t let them reach us.”
“Roger, Deliverance Actual.”
Caleb looked down and back. A Dagger emerged from the hangar bay at the bow of the ship, followed by another, and another.
It was starting. “Good hunting, Wash,” Caleb said to himself. He couldn’t worry about this part of the fight. He had his own mission to complete, or it wouldn’t matter what happened here.
He looked below. The queen and her brood were still on the move through the jungle, heading for the mountains and over them, looking to find more trife on the way. “Come on, mamma,” he whispered. “Find some foster kids for daddy.”
The Intellect’s kill signal couldn’t have reached all of them.
Could it?
Maybe Ishek could help him spot them?
They’re too heavily engineered. They don’t respond through the Relyeh Collective.
That was probably a smart move by the Axon.
“Deliverance, this is Dagger One. All Daggers are airborne, in formation, and en route to the outer marker.”
“Roger, Dagger One. You’re clear to engage.”
“Yes, sir. Dagger Squadron, we’re clear to engage. Target the larger transports and fire at will!”
Caleb wished he could go back to lend his ship and the others still on the ground, but he was going to need them where he was going.
He turned his focus back to the trife queen. She had stopped moving, and he could sense the inaudible signals she was sending out into the jungle.
She had found the lost trife and was calling them to her.
Caleb smiled. At least something was going right. He sent one last command, giving her the position of the Seeker and telling her what to do. Then he returned his will to the remaining Relyeh fighters, ordering them to activate and join him in the air.
He had his army.
It was time to use it.
Chapter 54
John’s eyes trailed across the large display at the head of the bridge, pausing at each of the feeds coming from the squadron of Daggers and the groups of drones in the sky around the Deliverance.
Through them, he could watch the pilots engage the Relyeh forces, getting a personal look at each fighter’s maneuvers during the battle. While the Relyeh transports didn’t have the agility of the Daggers, they were clad in dense alloy and heavily resistant to the Earther weapons.
It didn’t stop the Daggers from trying and succeeding in limited cases. The first large transport went down pretty quickly, hit hard by multiple rockets targeting the front of th
e ship. The detonations made it through the forward transparency and killed the pilot, sending the vessel into a sudden dive, ending with it smashing through the jungle canopy on the opposite side of the river.
“Drone Seven,” Washington said. “Break off and head over to the crash site.”
“Roger,” the pilot replied.
The drone pilots weren’t on the bridge but rather positioned in Block One, in the part of the Governor’s housing designated as the Deliverance Defense Force’s command center. John could have run the mission from there, but he wouldn’t have access to the comms equipment on the bridge, which he would need to receive Caleb’s signal that the Seeker was his.
John still could hardly believe the change in Caleb since the Relyeh had captured them. It wasn’t only because of the creature attached to his arm. He had always been confident in everything he did. It came with the territory. But there was a new strength in him that John hadn’t seen before. A calm power that made him almost frightening.
He supposed standing up to an ancient alien god could have that effect on someone.
He kept sweeping the feeds. The transports were getting closer to the Deliverance with each passing second, and the Daggers were working hard to get as many shots on them as they could. The Relyeh fighters weren’t as quick as the Daggers, but they had the numbers to make things difficult.
Radio chatter filled the bridge around John, the pilots coordinating with one another and setting up attack runs. Dagger squadron was split into four groups of five, with a few ships left to float and cover the others. Their first run on the second large transport had done some damage but failed to bring it down. Now all four were heading back for the second round.
He watched from Dagger One’s feed. The fighters were angling down toward the transport. They would pull up right in front of it, release their ordnance, and then zoom past. The enemy fire started as Dagger One leveled out ahead of the transport, thick ion bolts on a direct course for the fighter. The Dagger banked aside, staying away from the blasts until unleashing a rocket over the vessel, the hull of the enemy ship a blur through the feed as the Dagger passed over it.
