"This is weird," Brooklyn said, speaking through one dropship's computer.
"I can almost feel the other me," Fillister said, speaking from a shuttle.
Rowan couldn't help but shudder. She had revived the two AIs multiple times, moving them between the Jerusalem, the Byzantium, and her own minicom, but that had been different. She had merely resurrected the dead, so to speak. Now she was cloning them.
They were just computer programs, of course. Both Brooklyn and Fillister were essentially just lines of code. They had no brains, no physical bodies. Rowan tried to comfort herself with that thought. They wouldn't actually die up there in space, would they? How could lines of code die?
Yet clearly, both Brooklyn and Fillister were conscious. Both had unique personalities. Memories. Mannerisms. Feelings. Or at least, they had the illusions of these things. And that entire package reappeared in each clone.
Do they have souls? Rowan wondered. Am I sending living beings to die true deaths?
She wasn't sure what a soul was. What it meant to have a "self," to be an individual. Yes, robots were merely machines. But weren't humans also machines? Machines of meat instead of metal? Their own code ran in the brain, formed from synapses instead of circuits. Yet that did not make a human death less tragic. Perhaps souls were mere illusions, whether a human or robot souls. Some lines of code. Some memories. Some identity, maybe just the illusion of an identity, of a self.
But surely consciousness exists, even if souls don't, Rowan thought. What is consciousness, then?
It was not memories. Not thoughts. Not even personality or feelings. All those were simply activity in the brain, simply those lines of code or bits of stored data. But consciousness was different. It lived below these things, a ghost in the machine, an invisible operator. No—not even an operator. An observer.
Rowan didn't truly understand consciousness. She didn't know if Brooklyn and Fillister possessed this invisible observer, or whether they simply mimicked human consciousness. Yet if the mimicry was perfect, was there even a difference? If something looked like a duck, quacked like a duck, who was to say it wasn't a duck?
Her brain hurt.
"Rowan!" Bay shouted. He peered down from above the hangar, interrupting her thoughts. "My sensors are detecting movement in the enemy fleet. They're sending down landing craft."
"Damn it!" Rowan said. She cursed herself for wasting moments lost in thought. "I've only installed nine vessels so far."
"It'll have to do," Bay said. "Send 'em up there!"
Rowan nodded. She shouted into her minicom, "Operation Hidden Fire—engage!"
She pressed herself against the wall of the hangar and covered her ears. Ahead of her, one shuttle—with Brooklyn installed—fired up its engines. Farther down, another shuttle—this one with Fillister inside—began to rise.
One by one, nine shuttles rose from the hangar and soared into the sky.
Rowan climbed back onto the tarmac. She joined Bay, and other soldiers gathered around them. They all stared skyward. The shuttles were rising at incredible speed, leaving white trails.
Rowan tapped her minicom, streaming a view from one shuttle's cockpit.
"How's it going, guys?" she asked.
"Going well, Row!" replied five versions of Fillister.
"Dude, we're fine!" replied four Brooklyns.
Both sets of clones spoke in perfect unison. Creepy. Did that confirm that they were simple algorithms, responding to stimulus in a predetermined way, rather than conscious beings with free will? Rowan would have to contemplate that another day.
The shuttles were thirty kilometers up when Rowan frowned. She brought her minicom closer.
"What's that?" She squinted.
Her monitor was streaming a video feed from one shuttle. It showed thousands of specks darkening the sky.
Her heart sank.
"Enemy dropships," she whispered. "The aliens' landing craft!"
"Dammit!" Bay said. "Too soon!"
"Um, dudes?" Brooklyn asked from thirty kilometers up. "What do we do?"
Rowan inhaled sharply, mind racing.
"All right," she said. "Two Fillisters—the first two I cloned. You guys attack the alien dropships. The rest of you—that is, the other three Fillisters and all Brooklyn clones. You'll have to do some fancy flying. Maneuver around those dropships, get into space, and attack the motherships!"
Rowan wasn't sure that was the best plan. She would have to analyze it later. But it was the best she could come up with so quickly. For now, she hoped it was a wise distribution of force.
What I wouldn't give for a thousand shuttles, she thought. Of course, Brook and Fill might kill me for that…
"Soldiers!" she shouted. "We're gonna have a nuclear blast within our atmosphere. Back into the hangar!"
She could hear them now. Roaring engines above. Thousands of enemy dropships.
The soldiers cleared the ruins, entering bunkers, and pulled the blast doors shut. Rowan watched the video feed on her minicom.
One of Fillister's shuttles was charging toward the enemy. The alien dropships filled the upper atmosphere—some long and scaly, others boxy, some blobby and organic.
"Row!" Fillister cried out. "I love you, Row. Goodbye. Goodb—"
In the mesosphere, he slammed into the lines of enemy crafts.
The video feed died.
But Rowan could hear the nuclear explosion, even down here in the bunker, eighty kilometers below. The boom was deafening. The blast door shook. The concrete walls cracked and shed dust.
Rowan lowered her head, grieving the loss of her friend. There were still other Fillisters up there, and one master copy on her minicom. But that did not diminish the loss.
My friend died up there. A soul.
She switched her minicom to another shuttle's video feed. This was one of Brooklyn's shuttles. On this feed, Rowan could see the destruction Fillister had wrought. The nuclear blast had taken out countless alien landing craft. They were falling toward Earth, raw and burnt, some barely more than shrapnel.
A twisted, raging sense of triumph filled Rowan. She bared her teeth.
Good. Die, you sons of bitches.
But suddenly she cringed. On the monitor, she saw the alien craft open fire on the shuttles.
"Brooklyn!" she cried.
"I see 'em!" Brooklyn replied, swerving.
Rowan tapped the minicom, splitting the screen to show eight thumbnail-sized videos at once. Feeds from all eight remaining shuttles.
There were thousands of alien dropships. And they were all firing.
Earth's eight shuttles flew madly, barrel rolling, zigzagging, dodging the fire. An alien laser hit a Fillister shuttle, and the feed went dark. Then another Fillister feed. Then a Brooklyn feed.
"Goodbye, Bay and Rowan!" cried one of the Brooklyn shuttles. "I love you, dudes!"
Brooklyn cried out wordlessly—and her feed turned to flaring white light, then went dark.
She detonated her nuclear bomb, Rowan knew.
A few moments later, once the sound wave had traveled the distance, Rowan heard the explosion. The boom rattled the bunker.
Only four shuttles now remained. Rowan watched their video feeds as they entered space.
The view in space was just as terrifying. Countless alien warships flew there. Many were frigates, large enough to hold thousands of aliens. Some were even larger. The aliens flew several full-sized dreadnoughts, colossal warships the size of skyscrapers.
"Take out the dreadnoughts!" Rowan said. "Shuttles—scatter and take out those bastards!"
Everyone crowded around her in the bunker, watching. They knew that in seconds, the alien dropships would land. But all eyes remained focused on Earth's last four shuttles.
The dreadnoughts opened fire.
Countless lasers, missiles, and plasma bolts flew toward the shuttles.
A Fillister clone screamed and went dark.
A Brooklyn clone tried to dodge a missile, could not
, and detonated her nuclear payload too early, taking out only a few alien dropships.
But the last two shuttles—one with Fillister, one with Brooklyn—made it through the fusillade.
Fillister reached a dreadnought, engaged his thruster brakes, and made a crude landing on the massive Rattler's hull.
Brooklyn positioned herself between one dreadnought and three frigates.
Both shuttles cried out, "For Earth!"
The video feeds flared white—then went dark.
Both shuttles must have detonated their nuclear payloads.
There was no resultant boom. No way for Rowan to hear or see the damage.
For a moment, the humans in the bunkers were all silent.
"Did it work?" Bay whispered.
Rowan didn't know.
The bunker began to shake. Across Port Addison, the artillery was firing. There were still thousands of enemy dropships in the sky, and Earth's cannons were bombarding them. Any moment now, the enemy would land. Rowan placed her hand on Lullaby, ready to fight—to death if she must.
Then—one more video feed appeared on her monitor.
It was a Fillister!
It was one more shuttle! A shuttle still in the mesosphere!
"Sorry, Row!" the last Fillister said. "Damn bullet took out me computer for a moment. But I've rebooted and I'm soaring back to battle!"
In the feed, she watched the last shuttle streak up into space—and into an inferno.
Rowan gasped and jumped and shed tears. Bay leaped up and hugged soldiers around him. Soon they were all watching the monitor, laughing, and pumping their fists.
Two entire dreadnoughts—massive warships that could conquer worlds—were destroyed.
The nuclear blasts had ripped through their hulls, cracking them into several pieces. Around the ravaged dreadnoughts, a hundred other alien warships were burning. The nuclear explosions had taken them out too.
Rowan watched, holding her breath, as Fillister's last shuttle flew toward a group of basilisk warships—and detonated its payload.
The video feed went dark, but this time Rowan knew: We got the bastards.
The troops in the bunker laughed and celebrated and embraced. When Rowan called Emet, she could hear cheers from his bunker as well. They too had been watching the video feeds.
For a brief moment, Earth celebrated.
"We proved something here," Rowan said. "We proved that we can hurt them! That we can hurt them bad. We are a force to be reckoned with! We—"
Then she heard it. Engines roaring. The bunker vibrated. The entire ground was shaking. Aliens screeched above.
Rowan switched on her video feed again—this time to a camera in the colony aboveground, hidden inside a hollowed-out boulder.
She saw them, and her heart sank. All her joy drowned under terror.
Earth's shuttles had taken out many alien dropships. But thousands were still landing. Many of them in Port Addison's ruins—just above her head.
Hatches opened. Roaring, drooling, and shrieking for blood, the enemy troops emerged.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mairead was not used to this shit.
As she trudged through the wilderness, swatting insects and hacking at vines, she spat and cursed.
She had been born in space. She had been raised in starships, sleazy space stations, and the odd asteroid. To her, a battle meant blasting your enemies from the cockpit of a Firebird.
Now she faced a new enemy: the vast, rolling wilderness of Earth.
Mairead paused atop a hill, wiped her forehead, and spat.
"Muck this shit."
She had been walking for days, ever since crashing on Earth. But the wild still spread before her to the horizon. Earth was not a large planet. Mairead had fought on worlds that made Earth seem smaller than a boil on her ass. But with her Firebird gone, with only her legs to carry her, it was a long way home.
Where was she? Mairead wasn't sure. The battle had been so chaotic. She had lost consciousness during her fall from the sky. Last she remembered, she had been falling toward North America. That was good. She was hopefully on the right continent, at least. But it was still a damn big continent, and Port Addison was a small colony. She had no map. She had her minicom, yes, but there were no GPS satellites around Earth. How the hell would she find her way?
"It'll be like finding a virgin in a smugglers' whorehouse," Mairead muttered, crushing another mosquito. The insect died on her arm, leaking her own blood. "It can take years, and you'll catch ten viral infections while you look."
Mairead took a few moments to catch her breath. Her head was spinning. She rummaged through her pocket, found her last granola bar, and winced. Just one bar left. She tore the package open, aching to devour the whole thing. By sheer force of will, she ate only half, then pocketed the rest.
Her stomach growled in protest. Mairead patted it.
"I know, buddy, you want more."
Her belly growled louder. Hunt!
Mairead snorted. "What do I look like, Daniel Mucking Boone? I can fly a Firebird through an asteroid field, storm a dreadnought, and slingshot around a star. What the hell do I know about hunting?"
Her belly was having none of it. Learn!
Mairead rolled her eyes. She placed her hand on her pistol. Yes, if she had to, she could hunt. But she didn't have an infinite supply of bullets, and there were no munition ships anywhere nearby. She was saving her bullets for the enemy.
Because the invasion had begun.
Mairead could see it in the distance. Lines of smoke trailing down from the sky. Alien dropships. Filled with elite troops. Not just basilisks but all the horrors of the galaxy, a coalition of monsters hellbent on destruction.
Mairead was miserable out here. She hated walking. She hated the mosquitoes. She hated the rain and sunlight and even the fresh air had begun to annoy her. She was a creature of cockpits, casinos, and firing ranges. But this was still her home. This was her planet. Her birthright. And she would kill every last alien son of a bitch who set foot, paw, claw, tentacle, or underbelly on this hallowed soil.
Night fell.
Mairead considered starting a fire. She had bullets. Explosives in her backpack. A flare that hung from her belt. Starting a fire should have been easy. But she had no way to generate a spark. She spent a moment rubbing two sticks together, then tossed them aside in disgust. Besides—a campfire would alert any basilisk from kilometers around.
Muck fire.
It was springtime but damn cold at night. Mairead burrowed under fallen leaves and vines and closed her eyes. She slept fitfully. Her stomach kept rumbling, her arms itched from countless mosquito bites, and her head spun. Throughout the night, things moved in the forest. Branches snapped. Leaves rustled. She kept waking up and drawing her gun, only for the creatures to retreat.
Dawn rose, cold and gray. Mairead sat against a log, watching the sun rise. Birds sang among the branches. Delicious birds she could not reach nor cook.
"Am I going to die here?" she said softly. "I flew for thousands of light-years around the galaxy. Am I going to die a mere thousand kilometers from home?"
She rose to her feet and swayed, feeling weak. She hated feeling weak. Hated feeling helpless. She could plan an assault, defend a space station, lead fleets in battle. But she couldn't start a damn fire or catch a damn squirrel to save her life.
She started walking, swatting away mosquitoes.
"I must be in the south of the continent," she said. "It's warm here. Too damn warm. I freeze my ass off at night, but the days are hot. That means south, right?" She nodded. "So, I have to walk north. I'm walking north now. The sun's in the east on Earth, right? Pretty sure."
She groaned. Great, she was talking to herself now. The first step toward insanity. By the time she got home, she'd be stark raving mad.
Her stomach growled. She shut it up with the rest of her granola bar.
As she walked, Mairead thought about the others.
About E
met, her leader, the only man Mairead looked up to. She hated all other authority. She had spent her service infuriating her commanding officers, disobeying orders, brawling with her superiors, and ending up in the brig time and again. If not for her genius as a pilot, she would have been demoted, probably even discharged. But Emet—he was a man Mairead had always respected, looked up to, proud to fight for.
She thought of Rowan and Leona, two women who had become dear friends. Two fellow lionesses, great warriors for Earth. Mairead would never admit it to their faces—but she looked up to Leona too. And she saw Rowan as a younger sister, a mini-Mairead.
She thought of Ramses. A man who infuriated her. Who kept catching her cheat at poker. Who kept making her feel so unrefined. While she guzzled down grog, the Pharaoh would brew fine teas and coffees. When she was listening to old heavy metal, he would speak of classical music. She hated him. Hated that snooty princeling! But she also loved him. More than she would ever admit.
You don't know, Mairead thought. I'll never tell you. But I love you more than anyone, Pharaoh.
Mairead never wanted to get married. Never wanted to have kids. Hers was a life of freedom and fighting. But if she ever did allow a man into her life, it would be Ramses.
She snorted.
"I'm going mad with hunger. I'm absolutely mad! Ridiculous. Laughable! What are all these pathetic emotions? Just the Ra damn mosquitoes is all. Making me sick."
Yet as she kept walking, tears flowed down her cheeks. Because Mairead missed them. All of them. They were not only fellow humans. Not only her fellow soldiers. They were her family.
"I'll see you again," she promised. "Muck this shit!" She picked up a rock and hurled it. "I ain't dying out here in no Ra damn forest." She punched a tree, howling as she bloodied her knuckles. "I'm going to meet you again, Ramses, and beat your ass at poker. I'm going to teach you everything about how to kill aliens, little Rowan. I'm going to salute you again, Emet, and win this war for you." She wiped away her tears and roared at the sky. "I'm going home, bitches. Get ready!"
Birds fled from her voice.
The trees rustled.
Ahead in the forest, something growled.
The Song of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 5) Page 7
