Nearby, Rowan was leading her company in the same formation. The Rabblers were forming their own wheel of fire. They rolled forward like a burning Ferris wheel fallen off its axis. Basilisks fell before them, curling up, burning in the jetpack's flaming jets.
"Rowan, you copycat!" Bay shouted.
Even as she spun in her ring of marines, she flipped him off. "You didn't invent the maelstrom formation, butthead."
We can do it, Bay thought, gripping the thrumming handles of his jetpack. We can tear our way through.
He gazed ahead at Earth.
And he saw the Rattlers.
The warships were flying toward him. Their cannons were cold; they would fire no more lasers. But new weapons extended from their prows—long, metal rams tipped with spikes.
The Rattlers roared toward the human marines.
Bay stared in frozen horror.
They'll rip through us.
One of the Rattlers raced toward his company. Its portholes blazed red with wrath. Its ram stretched out, black and jagged and thirsty for blood.
"Scatter, scatter!" Bay shouted. "Soldiers, sca—"
The enemy warship plowed into the human formation.
The ram ripped through men.
The enemy hull slammed into marines, shattering their bones, casting them aside.
Bay flew, desperate to flee, and just managed to dodge the rams, but the hull was rising before him at impossible speed, and—
The Rattler slammed into him.
Bay tumbled.
He couldn't breathe, couldn't scream.
He spun through space, pain blazing at his side.
The battle swirled around him. He saw another Rattler plow through Rowan's company. Her soldiers scattered like broken teeth. Farther back, the Inheritor fleet was trying to break through, but the Rattlers were ramming into them too, knocking them back, burning them with more lasers.
From Earth, more basilisk ships were rising. These ones were small starfighters. They soared toward Bay and the remains of his company, and he knew the end was here.
He would die above Earth's sky.
The basilisk starfighters streaked toward him, and Bay aimed Lawless, prepared to fight and die.
The starfighters soared over him.
They continued flying toward the hulking Rattlers.
The small, scaly starfighters opened fire—on their larger brethren.
The Rattlers had not expected the attack. The warships' engines, their Achilles' Heels, were exposed. The basilisk starfighters hammered the engines with a barrage of green lasers.
Explosions rocked the mighty Rattlers.
The colossal warships cracked open, bleeding fire. The light washed over Bay. He watched, eyes wide, as the small ships kept firing on the larger ones, blasting their engines, tearing the warships apart.
They're fighting one another! Bay thought. They—
Then he understood.
"Leona!" he whispered.
His comm crackled, and she spoke in his helmet.
"Hello, Bay!" One of the basilisk starfighters looped around him, and Bay saw his sister in the cockpit. "Need help, baby brother?"
"Ra damn, Leona!" Bay said. "You nearly gave me a heart attack!"
"Your gratitude is overwhelming as always, little brother."
"What the hell took you so long?" he said.
Leona snorted. "You think we don't have battles of our own down on Earth?" She charged back toward the enemy. "Now get back into a ship, damn you. No more of your free-flying stunts, hotshot."
Bay nodded. He turned back toward the human fleet—or what remained of it. Several ships were burning and listing. Others were completely gone. But the mighty Jerusalem, the flagship of humanity, still flew. She was damaged. Holes peppered her hull. But this legendary warship, the beacon of hope to humanity, was raising a pillar of fire. She was still leading them onward.
"Lions Company!" Bay said. "Fall back! Back to the Jerusalem."
Nearby, Rowan was shouting orders at her own marines. "Rabblers, back to the Jerusalem!"
They flew back through the battle, swerving around the smoldering hulks of dead Rattlers. Basilisk corpses floated amid the debris. Some serpents still lived, hunting in the black. The marines fired on them, picking them off one by one. With the Rattler formations broken, the human warships were decimating the enemy.
And the Rattlers were turning to flee.
"Yeah, that's right!" Rowan shouted, waving her fist as she flew through space. "You better run!"
Bay made his way back through the Jerusalem's airlock. Rowan and the others followed.
Once the airlock door was closed, Bay pulled off his helmet and took a deep breath. As his chest expanded, he winced in pain. His fellow warriors pulled off their helmets too, some panting, other grimacing. A sergeant fell to the deck, clutching a wound. Medics rushed into the hangar and began treating the wounded.
A small soldier, easily the smallest in the army, ran across the deck toward Bay. Her helmet hid her face, but Bay recognized her by her size. Rowan wasn't even five feet tall, and she was twig-thin. But Bay knew she was the bravest soldier in the fleet.
She reached him, pulled off her helmet, and grinned. Her cheeks were flushed and her short hair clung to her forehead with sweat.
"Did you see that, Bay?" She hopped in excitement. "Leona arriving in stolen basilisk ships! And wheels of fire! And mirrors! It was bitchin'!" She leaped onto him and wrapped him in a crushing embrace. "Oh, you were wonderful out there, Bay. A hero!"
He grimaced. "Ouch ouch ouch." He gently pulled her off. "I think I cracked a rib."
She gasped. "Oh no!"
He nodded. "I know. It hurts real bad. I'm going to need lots of pampering, and—"
"Your arm!" She pointed at the prosthetic. "Your beautiful steampunk arm! It's cracked and bent. The gears are crooked, and the power source I installed is dying." She touched it gingerly, then glanced back at his face. "What's this about ribs now?"
He groaned. "Never mind."
She hugged him again, very gently this time, then stood on her tiptoes and kissed his lips.
"I love you, Captain Bay Ben-Ari."
He stroked her cheek. "And I love you, little hobbit. Even though you steal my pancakes."
They approached a porthole and gazed out into space. The battle was wrapping up. The last Rattlers were fleeing. The human starships were seeing them off with bursts of artillery. Ambulance shuttles were moving through the wreckage, collecting wounded marines. Soon, Bay knew, they would return to collect the dead.
On the hangar wall, speakers crackled to life.
A voice emerged.
"Good morning, humans! Welcome to Earth! This is Commodore Leona Ben-Ari speaking, welcoming you home. It's a lovely twenty-three degrees Celsius in the plains of Ontario, where a cozy colony is awaiting you. I'm the one flying the hijacked basilisk starfighter with the blue stripes on the hull. Please avoid blasting me out of space. Now, if you'll follow me, I'll escort you to a planet slightly overrun with giant man-eating snakes, but otherwise quite lovely." Her voice turned sober. "Welcome, Heirs of Earth. Welcome home."
Through the porthole, Bay saw his sister's scaly ship turn back toward Earth.
The human fleet followed.
Bay was in pain. His shoulder was still bleeding, and every breath hurt his ribs. The Harmonians in his system were helping, but they weren't enough. He knew he had to see a medic.
But he didn't want to miss this.
He stood at the porthole, holding Rowan's hand. They stared together, silent, watching their world grow larger.
Earth grew from a blue marble to a shimmering world of splendor. The fleet entered orbit, gliding a hundred kilometers above the sky. Across the hangar, and in every cabin on every starship, humans approached the portholes and stared. Awed silence fell.
Bay saw the Nile, a strand of green through the desert. He recognized the Italian boot, the green isles of Britain, the shimmering Atlanti
c. The places from the stories. From the legends. Mythical places from the mists of history—here before him. Beautiful. So beautiful.
Rowan squeezed his hand, and tears flowed down her cheeks.
"We're home," she whispered. "And it's beautiful."
Bay looked at her. The blue light of Earth shone on her young, eager face. She was so young, only nineteen, but Bay knew she had lived through so much. Rowan had survived so many battles, known so much loss. They both had.
"We made it, Row," he said.
She smiled, tears on her lips. "I wish Jade could have seen this."
He kissed her again. A long, soft kiss in the light of Earth.
"Bay Ben-Ari!" The voice rolled across the hangar. "Get over here, boy. Move it! You're bleeding half to death, and instead of seeing me in the medical bay, you're here snogging!"
Bay detached from Rowan, not without a feeling of loss, and stifled a smile. He turned to see Nurse Cindy marching across the hangar. The Heirs' Chief Nurse was a tall, striking woman in her forties, her hair jet-black, her eyes green and fierce.
She's fiercer than any alien out there, Bay thought.
"But—" he began. "Earth—"
"Earth has been waiting for two thousand years, and it'll wait a few moments longer." Cindy pulled him away from Rowan. "Now come! You're going to need stitches. Behave, and I'll consider using anesthetics."
Bay cringed as she pulled him across the deck. "Can't we do this on Earth?"
"Rubbish!" Cindy said. "It'll take days to ferry everyone down in the shuttles, and I'm not granting you shore leave until you're healed." The nurse paused and pointed at Rowan. "You, little one! You come too. Your leg is bleeding."
"Tis but a scratch," Rowan said.
The nurse glowered. "Must I drag you by the ear?"
"Coming, coming!" Rowan hurried after them.
Within an hour, they were both bandaged up and walking toward the shuttle bay. The first shuttles were filling with humans. Bay's insides trembled, and he held Rowan's hand tight.
For thousands of years, we were lost, he thought, stepping into a shuttle. It's time to go home.
CHAPTER SIX
Rowan opened the shuttle hatch, breathed in the air of Earth, and hesitated.
Her homeworld lay before her.
She was not the first human here. She saw hundreds of humans already in Port Addison, the first colony on Earth. Some, the new arrivals, were praying, laughing, or weeping. Others—the colonists Leona had led here last year—were simply going about their business, tending to gardens, cooking meals, raising tents.
There was no novelty in the step Rowan was about to take. She would not go down in history alongside Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, Elon Musk, first man on Mars, or Leona Ben-Ari, first woman to set foot on Earth since the exile.
And yet Rowan stood frozen at the hatch, daring not step outside. Not yet.
To history, her step bore no import. But to her, it was the most monumental step she would ever take.
She gazed out at the colony. Grass and trees rustled in a warm breeze. Birds sang in a blue sky. Piers stretched into a river, and fishing boats swayed gently. Humans were moving back and forth between huts and tents. The air smelled sweet; Rowan had never smelled anything so fresh and lovely.
"We evolved here," she said softly. "We spent two thousand years in exile, but that's nothing for evolution. For billions of years, we evolved to find this planet beautiful. And it is. It's so beautiful."
Bay came to stand behind her. "Are you going to step out? Or stay inside the shuttle and talk about evolution? Ooh, maybe we can discuss string theory next!"
She nudged him hard with her elbow. "Oh, hush. Give a girl a moment. When I'm ready."
She placed one foot outside the shuttle, but paused, her foot in midair.
She curled up in a duct, shivering and shedding tears, an orphan, so afraid.
She pounded on the duct walls, shouting and weeping, a teenager, so confused, so angry.
She fought in a great war, watching friends die all around.
She faced the crimson scorpion in the field, and her body shattered.
She turned around and looked at Bay. He looked back, eyes soft.
"Whenever you're ready," he said, and smiled. "Hopefully not another two thousand years."
She returned the smile.
She was an officer, proud and strong.
She was a woman in love.
And she was ready.
Rowan stepped out of the shuttle and onto Earth.
For a long time, she walked through the colony. Bay walked with her, but both were silent. Rowan knelt and touched the rustling grass, marveling at its softness. She spent a while watching chickens in a coop, smiling at the baby chicks. She watched in wonder as a monarch butterfly fluttered by. She inhaled the sweet scents of maple and elm trees.
Okay, there's also the smell of chicken shit, Rowan thought. But right now, I'll take it over the stale smell of a starship.
But mostly, Rowan marveled at the humans around her. At the original colonists drawing water from wells, tending to fields, hanging laundry. Their skin was tanned—actually tanned!—not pale from lifetimes on space stations and starships. She looked at guards who stood on the colony's wooden walls, rifles in hand—not frightened exiles, but humans defending their own soil.
"We're a different breed here," she said to Bay. "We're not pests. We're proud. We're home."
For years, the Heirs of Earth had worn blue, symbolizing the sky of their homeworld. Now the true sky spread above her. Rowan unbuttoned her blue vest and hung it on a branch, remaining in her white buttoned shirt. She rolled up the sleeves in the warm sunlight.
Here, I'm not Rowan the refugee or pest. I'm an Earthling.
She considered for a moment, then held out her arm, hoping that a few bluebirds would land on her. No such luck. Turns out Disney lied.
"So, Earth," she said. "Lovely place! Bit too many giant snakes around, and there hasn't been an IHOPs for a couple thousand years, but no place is perfect. Hey, Bay, what should we do first? Build a pancake house? Film Dinosaur Island?" She sidled closer. "And tonight, we're going to find a tent and christen this place properly." She waggled her eyebrows, then frowned. "Bay, you all right?"
His head was lowered. He looked up at her and nodded. "Yeah. I was just thinking about … all those who couldn't make it. Those we left behind."
Rowan lost her smile. She nodded and caressed his cheek. "I think about them too. Every day. My family. Your mom. Ayumi. And Seohyun too. Don't look so shocked! I know you loved her once. Before you met me. I'm not jealous. I wish she were here too." She sighed. "Sometimes I wish I could believe. That they're up there in heaven, looking down at us. I'm not religious. I don't really believe. And that's hard sometimes. I have no words of comfort. We lost so many people. Five million of us died in the war, almost half of humanity. And we'll lose more in the days ahead. The basilisks are not yet defeated. They will attack us again."
They stood in silence.
Finally Bay said, "I'm waiting for you to say 'but' and finish your speech on an optimistic note."
She smiled sadly. "I wish I could, Bay. There's no silver lining to the tragedies we suffered. Other than this." She swept her arm around her. "This colony. This beautiful world. It's thanks to their sacrifice that we're here. So let's cherish it. Let's defend it. Let's make sure that Earth does not fall again."
He nodded. "I like that. That works for me. Oh, and … about christening this planet." He grinned. "I want to hear more about that."
She leaned closer and bit her lip. "Oh, Bay B, I'll show you. I have new tricks to try out. And in the morning—you're making me pancakes!"
He scoffed. "Now who's the snack whore?"
She gasped. "Pancakes are no snack! They're a major food group." She grabbed his hand and tugged him. "Now come on. Stop thinking about sex and food. We've got trenches to dig, walls to build, a planet to defend. Those snakes are on the
move. I'll bet my life on it. When they arrive, we're going to be ready."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Emet stood on the bridge of the Jerusalem, gazing through the viewport, watching the shuttles glide down to Earth.
He stood alone.
A thousand starships orbited Earth. Shuttle after shuttle flew from hangars, ferrying humanity home. Officers. Soldiers. Refugees. People who had fought so many battles, who had known unspeakable horrors. For eighty generations, they had suffered in exile. Cowering in hiding. Screaming in the gulocks. Burning in the fires of war.
They were the start of a new generation. Yet their home here was old. Earth's children had returned from the stars.
Emet watched from the bridge as the first shuttles landed, as they rose again, returning to ferry another batch of survivors.
They were fewer than twenty thousand humans here in this fleet. Many others still lived among the stars. Over the past few years, the scorpions had butchered millions of humans. But several million still lived, scattered across the galaxy. It was only a small fraction of the billions of humans who had once lived. But it was something. It was new hope. A new seed. Emet knew now that he could find the survivors, bring them here, rebuild their ancient civilization.
"We did it, Alexis," Emet said softly, remembering his fallen wife. "We brought them home."
Some days, Emet struggled to remember her face. Alexis had been gone for twenty years. But today she surfaced with perfect clarity in his memory, as beautiful and vibrant as ever. Smiling. Not screaming in pain like on that last day. Smiling that beautiful smile. At peace. Proud.
Emet turned to look at a dark porthole, and he saw himself reflected there.
Decades of war had not been kind.
He was almost sixty, and every year of struggle was carved across his face. As a young man, they had called him the Lion of Earth. They referred to his surname, Ben-Ari, which meant son of lion in an ancient Earth tongue. But also to his mane of golden hair, thick beard, and green feline eyes. Today this lion was aging. There was little gold remaining in this once-proud mane. His hair and beard were mostly silver now, shaggy when once they had been thick and lustrous. His famous green eyes, eyes said to echo those of his warrior ancestors, drooped now, peering from nests of wrinkles. He had been fighting all his life. The ghosts still haunted those eyes.
The War for Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 4) Page 5
