Earth Rising (Earthrise Book 3)

by Daniel Arenson

  They asked him how they had navigated the mines, finding their way to the queen.

  They asked him how he had freed Kemi from the scum's network.

  Over and over, they asked Marco to draw what he had seen. Of the tubes flowing into Kemi. Of the strange creature with his face. Of the hybrids in the scum's labs, created from stitching human and scum bodies together.

  And mostly they asked him about Lailani. They asked over and over about how Marco had met her, how close they were, how Lailani had behaved in training, whether she had killed scum in the Battle of Djemila, whether he had seen any markings on her body, whether she had ever communicated with scum agents, and a thousand other questions.

  The interrogation grew more and more bizarre over time. "What did the specimen tell you of her past? Were there ever any discrepancies in her stories? Have you noticed her hoarding food or eating one particular type of food more often than others? Have you noticed her preference to face any one particular direction? Have you ever dreamed of rotten meat when sleeping next to her? Have you ever thought you heard voices, maybe those of fellow soldiers in a crowded room, speaking of the Scorpius constellation when near the specimen? Have you noticed any strange color to your urine or stool after coming in contact with the specimen?"

  Marco replied honestly whenever he could, but two facts he kept secret.

  He did not speak of his relationship with Lailani, of making love to her. He hoped that if Kemi, Addy, and Ben-Ari were being interrogated, they too were hiding this fact. He couldn't imagine that making love to an alien agent would impress his interrogators very much.

  The second secret was just a suspicion, just a few words Ben-Ari had spoken in the hive.

  They knew.

  According to the android Osiris, the mayday signal from Corpus had been four years old when the Miyari had picked it up. If that was true, surely somebody in the HDF must have known of the scum invasion, had kept it under wraps for years. But what proof did Marco and his friends have? Just a bad feeling was all. This too he kept hidden. If somebody in the HDF top brass was somehow involved with the scum, the last thing Marco wanted to do was reveal his suspicions. That seemed like a real quick way to end up forgotten in some brig for the rest of his life.

  "If you're lying to us about anything, Emery, that is a serious offense," said one of the officers.

  "I'm telling you everything I know about Lailani," Marco said.

  "Please refer to her as the specimen. Have you noticed unusual behavioral patterns among insects who came near the specimen?"

  "Well, I once saw a bumblebee put on a top hat and coattails and tap dance. Does that count?" Marco sighed when the interrogators only gave him harsh stares.

  The questioning continued for hours. Halfway through, a new set of officers entered, only to repeat the same set of questions. Marco felt more and more like a criminal as time went by. Finally—it must have been eight or nine hours into it—he stood up and said, "Have I broken any laws? Why am I being kept here?"

  "Sit down, Private," one of his interrogators told him.

  "I've been sitting down all day, sir. We fought bravely on Corpus. We defeated the scum."

  The interrogator nodded. "And we're very proud of you, Private. You're also one of the few living soldiers who's seen a scolopendra titania laboratory, a queen, a king, as well as a cloned agent."

  "Lailani isn't a clone," Marco said. "She's my friend. Where is she kept? I want to see her."

  The interrogators glanced at each other, then back at him.

  "You will never see the specimen again, Private."

  Marco felt his heart hardening, then cracking inside him. "What are you doing to her? Are you hurting her? Are you going to . . . to kill her?"

  "That is none of your concern, Private. Now sit down."

  "I will not sit down!" Marco said. "Lailani is my friend. She fought with us. She—"

  "According to your own report, Private, the specimen killed over a hundred HDF soldiers. Were they not your friends?"

  Both officers were staring at him, and Marco realized he was in trouble here. If they thought he was an accomplice . . . The HDF didn't execute prisoners, not since those first chaotic years following the Cataclysm, but they could sure as hell make sure he spent the rest of his life in a dank cell on a forgotten asteroid. He sat down.

  "Sorry, sirs. Ask me your next question."

  But inside, he was trembling. Fuming. Terrified. The words kept echoing through his mind. You will never see the specimen again.

  Finally, after what felt like days, they let Marco leave the room. Guards escorted him, holding his arms, through a back corridor, a dark tunnel that brought back visions of the hive under Corpus, brought back the smell of the creatures, the screaming of the dead. The guards took him to a heavy metal door, and they guided him into a room with a handful of empty bunks. They closed the door. A moment later the door opened again, and other men in navy blue shoved Addy—she was grumbling and cursing—into the room. The door closed again, then locked.

  "You fucking bastards!" Addy shouted at the door, pounding at it, then spat on the floor. Finally, she turned around with a groan and seemed to notice Marco for the first time. "Oh hi, Marco. Did they ask you that question about insects behaving weirdly too?"

  He nodded. "Several times."

  "I told them I saw a cockroach do 'La Cucaracha'," Addy said.

  "I told them I saw a bumblebee in coattails doing a tap dance," he said.

  "They're such fuckers." Addy embraced him, then sat down on a bunk. "Any word from the others? Ben-Ari? Kemi?" Her voice dropped. "Lailani?"

  He shook his head. "I haven't seen anyone but you until just now."

  "They're treating us like criminals." Addy punched a pillow. "Fucking hell, Poet. We defeated an entire scum hive. We saw our friends die in the dirt. They should be giving us medals. Instead they locked us in here."

  "Addy." He hesitated. "Did you tell them about . . . about how Lailani and I . . .?"

  "About how you slept with her? Hell no." Addy pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and lit one. "I'm not stupid. Don't worry, Kemi and Ben-Ari won't say anything either. They know that would get the STC to chop off your cock and study it in a lab." She rose from her bunk and paced the room. "La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha . . . damn, now that song's stuck in my head. Want to dance? Conga line?"

  "Too hungry to dance," Marco said. "I haven't eaten anything since you polished off those chicken wings on the Miyari."

  Addy nodded. "I'm so hungry I might just rip off your arms and eat them. Marco-wings."

  "Eat me," he said. "Wait. No. Addy! Ow!" He rubbed his arm. "God, you bit me!"

  "I'm hungry!"

  He shoved her away. "Stay on your bunk. Stay, you rabid beast."

  Addy flopped down onto the bunk. The chamber was so small that Marco, sitting on his own bunk across the room, was close enough to reach out and touch her. He lay down too and stared up at the ceiling. He was silent for long moments.

  "I miss home," he finally said. "I miss seeing blue sky. I miss feeling the sun on my face. I hated Fort Djemila when we were there, but now I miss even that place. Spam sandwiches with our friends. Talking at night in our tent. Sneaking off to find the vending machine. Just . . ." He sighed. "Just being safe. Not being so scared all the time. I thought basic training would be the hardest part of military service. I thought nothing could be worse. But it is worse, Addy. I wish we had never gone into space."

  "I wish I could bite your arm again," Addy said. "My first bite only whetted my appetite." She turned her head toward him and grinned toothily. "At least we have each other, right? Best buddies?"

  Marco nodded. "Best buddies." He reached toward her bunk and let their fingertips touch. "I remember that day. That horrible day back in Toronto, the worst day of my life. The day when we were eleven, when the scum killed my mother and your parents in the snow. I cried at the funeral, but you never cried. I remember that. Not a tear throughout the
ceremony. You were so angry. So strong. The worst day of my life." His voice was hoarse. "But that's also the day you came to live with my father and me in our little apartment above the library. The day you became my best friend."

  "We fought all the time, Marco," Addy said. "Don't you remember? And for a long time, we ignored each other."

  "I know," he said. "Maybe it took the second worst day of my life—joining the army—to really make us true friends. And Addy, I'd have gone mad here without you. Just mad. I'm so grateful that you're with me. I love you a ton."

  She smiled and stuck her tongue out at him. "Oh, you. Such a tasty little poet." She pulled his finger to her mouth and gave the tip a bite. "Chomp."

  Chomp. Like Lailani did. And pain stabbed him.

  A key rattled in the door. Marco and Addy rose from their beds, expecting another round of interrogation. But when the door opened, it was Lieutenant Ben-Ari who stepped inside. Her face was ashen, her eyes haunted. She closed the door behind her, then looked at Marco and Addy, silent. She looked like she had aged a decade.

  "Ma'am?" Marco said. "Is everything all right?"

  "Sit down, Marco, Addy," the lieutenant said softly.

  They sat together on one bunk, and Ben-Ari sat on the opposite bunk, facing them. She placed her hands on her lap. "When we received the distress call from Corpus, we had no way to report it to Nightwall. This headquarters still lay hundreds of light-years away. Even if we had sent out a signal, it would take centuries to reach this place."

  Marco nodded. "I remember. We had no way of calling for help."

  "For a long time," Ben-Ari said, "humanity has colonized space, fought in space, without faster-than-light communications. In science fiction novels, you sometimes read about ansibles—devices that let you communicate instantly across vast distances. But when our species ventured into space, we found that the only way to travel faster than light was using azoth engines on massive starships, bending the fabric of spacetime around us. That's how the Miyari traveled from our solar system to here, the frontier, within only a month. And that is how, for years, we communicated with Nightwall. By sending messages on heavy starships, traveling at warp speed, bringing news back and forth between Nightwall and Earth. A message would take three weeks to deliver, and it would require a starship and a brave captain. But those days are in the past."

  Addy raised her eyebrows. "Did somebody invent those ansi-thingies?"

  "They invented wormholes," Ben-Ari said. "They actually invented wormholes."

  Marco's eyes widened. "Like in the stories? Great tunnels through space you can fly spaceships through, instantly arriving across the galaxy?"

  "Smaller," Ben-Ari said. "Wormholes large enough to fly a spaceship through would require massive amounts of energy to remain open for only a single journey, more energy than Earth uses in an entire year. But the HDF has developed a very small wormhole, only a few atoms wide, I'm told. These portals through spacetime are just wide enough to send messages back and forth. In the future, the HDF wants to open a network of these atomic wormholes, connecting every one of humanity's colonies across the galaxy. In fact, we copied scum technology; they've been using wormholes to send their pheromones between star systems. Just a week ago, while we were still flying here, the first human wormhole opened. One end by Earth. The other end here at Nightwall. We can now communicate with Earth in real time."

  This was incredible technology, Marco thought. Revolutionary technology. It could change human civilization the way the internet had in the late twentieth century. But he saw the dour expression on Ben-Ari's face.

  "And through this wormhole, you received news from Earth," he said slowly. "Bad news."

  Ben-Ari nodded. "The scum heard of our attack on Corpus, of the destruction of their hive. Their retaliation . . . has been beyond anything we've seen since the Cataclysm. Marco, Addy, I'm sorry. The attack was on your country. Vancouver was hit. Vancouver was destroyed."

  They stared at her, silent for a moment.

  "Destroyed?" Marco said. "You mean, the scum hit it hard? They killed thousands, they—"

  "Vancouver is gone," Ben-Ari said. "We don't have a casualty count yet. But we estimate that half a million people have died, the entire city's population. I'm sorry."

  Marco stared at her, barely able to process the news. Addy and he were from Toronto, on the other side of Canada, but Vancouver was still dear to them, still part of their country. His mouth went dry. His head spun. Addy reached out and clasped his hand, her face pale.

  "This will mean a major escalation in the war," Ben-Ari said. "This will no longer be a war of attrition. Not like it has been for the past fifty years. We're entering a period of full war. And we will strike back. Hard. Already the generals are planning our retaliation, a major strike against Abaddon, the scum's homeworld. Tomorrow morning, both of you will officially integrate into the STC and begin an intense month of training. When that month ends, our assault on Abaddon will begin." She stood up and approached the doorway, then paused and looked back. "Try to sleep tonight. I know this news is hard. Mourn tonight. Comfort each other. But in the morning, be strong. You will need your strength to win this war."

  The lieutenant left the room.

  Addy and Marco remained sitting on the bunk for a long time, silent, trying to process the news.

  "It's our fault," Addy whispered. "If we hadn't attacked Corpus, the scum wouldn't have done this. Oh God, Marco. It's our fault."

  "Addy!" He held her shoulders. "It's not our fault. None of this is. The scum did this. Only them. The scum who killed our parents. The scum who killed billions. The scum we will fight, we will—"

  She wouldn't let him finish his sentence. She pulled him into a crushing, desperate embrace, one that knocked the air out of him. Her tears flowed.

  "I'm so sick of this," Addy said, tears flowing. "I want to go home. I'm so scared. I can still see them, Marco. I can still see the scum in the hive."

  He held her close, and tears burned in his own eyes. "We have each other," he whispered hoarsely. "Always, Addy. Always. We'll get through this."

  And suddenly he was kissing her, or she was kissing him, and it tasted of tears and cigarettes, and her lips were soft, desperate, and her fingers dug into his back. She trembled in his arms, tears still flowing, eyes closed, their lips locked together, and Marco knew it was wrong, and Addy knew it was wrong, he could feel it, but he felt her fear too, the fluttering of her heart against his chest, a bird caught in a cage. They needed each other. They needed this comfort. They needed companionship, love, affection, sex, tears, kisses, heat, digging fingers, beating hearts—needed these things like air when all lay dead around them, with the cosmos burned, when the nightmares screamed inside.

  She stared into his eyes, cupping his cheeks in her hands, her eyes damp. She spoke to him without words. She spoke of their need for this. For human contact before the fury of the aliens. It seemed like a dream when they made love—no, not love but hypnotic, dreamlike sex, in darkness and heat and sweat, something that couldn't be real, something that felt like floating through an astral realm, and Addy cried out, clutching him, fingernails cutting him as they climaxed. Afterward she slept by his side, sharing his cot, her back toward him, holding his hand to her breast.

  Marco didn't know if this was wakefulness or a dream. He felt caught in some hyperspace reality, still lost in a labyrinth. His friends, dead. Lailani, gone. The world, burning. Addy, naked in his arms. He did not know when he slept, when he slid into true dreams, and he was lost again in the hive, seeking a way out, seeking a path home but finding only darkness, only a thousand screaming creatures with his face.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cadet Kemi Abasi walked through the corridors of the space station, seeking the port, seeking a flight back home. She had already missed her first flight home due to hours of interrogation. Come hell or high water, she was boarding the next starship heading back to Earth.

  I was stupid to ever leave Earth.
Her eyes stung, and she touched the pi pendant Marco had given her. I was just a stupid, lovesick girl, chasing her boy into hell.

  She paused for a moment to steady herself, looked through a viewport, and beheld the vastness of space. Hundreds of starships floated above a rogue planet. Nightwall. Headquarters of Space Territorial Command. She should feel safe here, in this bastion of humanity's might, but her fingers trembled and her heart pounded. Beyond this space station, these starships, and the fortresses on the planet below—there, among those stars, lurked horror.

  I should never have come into space, Kemi thought. None of us should have. There is evil here.

  She grimaced, the memories pounding through her.

  The claws grabbed her.

  The antennae poked her.

  The centipedes dragged her through the tunnels, bound her to the slab with sticky membranes, thrust tubes inside her, licked her, poked her, cut her, as the others screamed around her, and they flailed, half human, many legs kicking, and—

  Kemi forced herself to take deep breaths, to clear her mind, to let those nightmares flow away. When her brother had died in the war, she had learned this technique, learned to focus on her breath until the anxiety faded. Breathe in. Breathe out. She stood for long moments until the horror retreated to the back of her mind like a crab retreating into its shell.

  She turned away from the viewport. She walked onward through the space station. Soon she would board a starship. Soon she would be home on Earth. Soon she could forget about all this.

  Yes, she had been a fool. She had been accepted into Julius Military Academy, the most prestigious officer school on the planet. She had told her superiors that she wanted an internship program, to shadow Lieutenant Ben-Ari on a mission. Kemi could have earned several credits doing so, gained real experience in the field, she had told them. The truth she had kept hidden from her school. She had come here chasing Marco. Chasing the boy she loved, the boy she had broken up with, the boy she had desperately wanted back.