A fool. A fool.
Yes, it hurt. It hurt Kemi to arrive here, to find Marco again, only to learn that, over the past few months, he had forgotten her, had sought comfort in the arms of another. Yet it hurt that he had chosen another, chosen the petite, pretty Asian girl, tossing Kemi aside. But Kemi had always been a fighter, a survivor. It was bred into her. In the aftermath of the Cataclysm, her grandparents had been poor immigrants from Nigeria, struggling to sell fruit on the streets of a cold, snowy city across the ocean. Her parents had worked hard, had built a life of moderate wealth, and they had never spoiled her, had taught her to never take their middle class life for granted. They had pushed her and her brother hard—to prove themselves in a world that could so easily descend back into chaos. And so her brother had become an officer, had become a pilot, had fought the scum in space and sky, had fallen fighting over South America. And so Kemi had joined a military academy, determined to become an officer too, to make her parents proud.
But she had found heartbreak. She had found terror.
Again those images flared. The hybrids in the lab. Half human, half centipede. The visions of the hive. The chemicals flowing through her, connecting her to the vast consciousness of the creatures. The pain. The horrible visions of herself becoming one of them, metamorphosing into a creature. Claws. Mandibles. Slime. Maggots.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
She walked on.
She reached the dock, a long corridor that thrust out into space from the station, and—
The mandibles thrust out. They hurt me. They—
—and Kemi waited there, gazing out the viewports, watching the hundreds of ships outside, waiting for hers to arrive. In only three weeks she would be back on Earth, and she vowed to never leave again. Once she graduated from Julius Academy and became an officer, she would serve in Earth Territorial Command. She would refuse to return to space. She would find a cozy office job where no terrors could reach her, where she could bury herself in her work, where she could forget.
A slender starship came sailing toward the port, reminding her of a graceful fish, and Kemi wondered if this was her transport back home. She hefted her duffel bag across her back. Soon space would be nothing but a memory, then nothing at all, not even a memory, not even a chill at night.
"Cadet Abasi?"
The voice came from behind her. Kemi turned to see three men there, wearing the navy blue service uniforms of the STC. Sergeants. She nodded.
"Yes?"
"Good," said one sergeant. "We found you in time. You're summoned to room 507, to report at once."
He handed her a piece of paper, stamped with an STC seal. She frowned at it, then back up at the sergeant.
"I'm to catch transport back to Earth in only fifteen minutes," she said. "I don't have time."
"Orders come from Major Robert Verish," said the sergeant. "They trump your transfer for now. Report to 507 at once."
Kemi glanced back at the slender silvery ship. It was now docking, and a jet bridge was extending from the port toward it. She winced. Her flight home. Yet the sergeant was right. She could not disobey an order from a major, a senior officer, not unless she wanted a heap of trouble back home. With a sigh, she nodded.
She left the port and caught an elevator up to level five. STC interrogators had already questioned her for a full day after arriving here on the Miyari. She had thought that interrogation complete, but apparently, they wanted to escalate it now. Kemi cringed. She didn't think she could handle more of their questions, didn't think she could describe her ordeal on Corpus again, reliving the terror yet another time.
Just let me go home, she thought.
Finally she reached room 507, where a guard stood at the door and accepted her summons. Kemi knocked on the door, called out her name, then entered the room and saluted.
She found herself in an office with a view of space. Nautical antiques hung on the walls, sealed in shadow boxes: an old compass, a scope wrapped in leather, a frayed parchment chart of the seas, and an astrolabe with brass gears. A major sat behind a desk, probably in his late thirties, the first hints of gray just touching his temples and the thinnest of crow's feet tugging at his eyes. A photo on the wall showed him as a younger man, only a captain then, shaking hands with a white-haired general in front of a badly damaged fighter jet. Beside it hung two framed diplomas, one a university degree in astronautics, the other a commission from Julius.
The major rose from behind the desk and returned Kemi's salute. "Good morning, Cadet Abasi. I'm sorry to have torn you away from your flight home. My name is Major Robert Verish, and I command one of our L16 Firebird squadrons here at Nightwall. Please have a seat."
L16 Firebirds. Kemi knew them well. Her brother had flown one. She had sat in the cockpit of his jet as a child; the photograph still hung in her parents' apartment. The Firebirds were the workhorse fighter jets of the military, able to fly both in air and space, large enough for just a single pilot, deadly and fast enough to take the scum head-on. Her brother had been a lieutenant when falling in battle. Perhaps if he had lived, he could have risen to major too, commanded a squadron of his own.
She sat down, folded her hands on her lap, and stared at the major.
"Abasi, I heard of what happened on Corpus," Verish said, and his eyes softened. "Lieutenant Ben-Ari wrote you a very enthusiastic recommendation, speaking of your courage and determination in the face of horrible adversity. Are you all right?"
Kemi blinked several times, struggling not to cry in front of him. She didn't know this man, but something in his kind eyes made her soften, made the armor she always wore melt away. She wanted to tell him about her nightmares, about how the scum had bound her, infected her, forced her to live inside their minds. About the hybrids, the woman with the body of a queen, the babies who had burned. But she could not. She was not ready to speak of these yet. Back on Earth, she would request sessions with a psychiatrist, would work through her trauma. But not yet. Not here. She just wanted to go home quickly.
"I'm all right," she whispered.
Verish turned in his seat and gazed out the window at the fleet. Several large carriers hovered outside, each the size of a skyscraper. Suddenly five Firebird jets zipped just outside the window, leaving trails of light. A hundred or more were drilling in the distance, small lights.
"For years now, we've been building up our fleet of Firebirds," Major Verish said. "Each jet is among the galaxy's greatest feats of engineering, a true marvel of military might. When I joined the military twenty years ago, we had only a couple thousand of them. Today our fleet includes fifty thousand Firebird fighters." He turned back toward her. "And not nearly enough pilots."
Kemi nodded. "My brother was a Firebird pilot. I know how rigorous the training is, how few graduate from flight school."
Major Verish nodded. "I knew your brother well. I flew with him, fought with him. He was my friend."
Kemi's eyes widened. "You knew Ropo?"
"I did." He lowered his eyes. "I'm the one who retrieved his body when he fell, who brought him home."
Kemi too lowered her head, remembering that horrible day, that day her world had crashed around her. "Thank you."
The pilot rose to his feet and looked at a black-and-white photograph on the wall, showing an antique airplane. "This is a photo of an Ilyushin Il-2 fighter aircraft, built in 1942. During the Second World War, the Soviet Union built a staggering 150,000 fighter aircraft. Within only a few years! Even today, with a larger population, with vastly superior technology and resources, we struggle to produce as many fighter craft. But the USSR had the same problem we have today, two hundred years later. Where do you find enough pilots?" He nodded. "For many years, we indeed had only the strictest standards for our fighter pilots. Only the very best and brightest could assume this role. And for many years, that was good enough. We rarely had operations involving more than a few hundred Firebirds at a time. The other starfighters waited in hangars, ready for some remote
possibility—an impossibility, many thought—that someday we'd need to fly all of them at once." He smiled thinly. "It seems nothing is impossible in war. Something big is coming. Something on a scale such as we've never seen. We need more pilots, so we're going to lower our standards a little bit."
"And you immediately thought of me," Kemi said.
Major Verish's smile grew. "When you put it that way, it doesn't sound very good, does it? But yes, Kemi. I want you. I want you to fly in my squadron. I want you to fly where your brother once flew. And I want you soon. Tomorrow morning you will begin flight school. The program normally takes six months. You will complete it in six weeks."
She rose from her seat. "Sir! I'm not a pilot. I'm not even an officer yet. Flight school? I haven't even completed military academy! I'm just a cadet."
Major Verish opened a drawer in his desk. He pulled out the insignia of an ensign, the most junior rank of officer. He held out the golden bars in his palm. "Accept my offer, and I'll grant you your commission here and now."
Kemi's eyes widened. She stared at the gleaming golden bars he held, bars that could shine on her shoulders, that could mean that she, Kemi Abasi, was a true officer of the Human Defense Force.
Marco would have to salute me. The thought popped into her mind, strangely satisfying.
But she forced her gaze away from the insignia.
"Sir, I can't," she said. "I'm sorry. I must return to Julius Military Academy. I must earn my commission the proper way."
"Kemi, six weeks from now, there might not be a Julius," Major Verish said.
She blinked. "Sir?"
"The end of this war is near, Kemi. Utter defeat or final victory. And I need you with me. I need you flying by my side as your brother did. You've received excellent marks at your first semester at Julius, an excellent recommendation from Lieutenant Ben-Ari, and your aptitude scores are off the charts. You've earned your commission. In six weeks, I want you flying by my side."
She narrowed her eyes, staring at him, and tilted her head. "But that's not it, is it, sir? Not all of it. There are millions of soldiers who serve in the HDF. Many of them are more experienced than I am. Is this because . . ." She thought she finally understood. "Because of what happened, because of Corpus, because . . ." She covered her mouth, unable to say anymore.
Verish stepped closer to her. He spoke in a low voice. "You were part of the scum hive for several hours. You were able to lead Lieutenant Ben-Ari to the queen of Corpus. Our scientists think that some of that ability is still inside you. Right now we have only one other soldier confirmed to possess such an ability, and she's being saved for another task. Go to flight school, Kemi. In six weeks, fly with me. We need a pilot who can speak the scum's language, who can understand how they think, how they feel, how they perceive reality. Only one pilot—Evan Bryan—ever made it through the scum's defenses to reach their homeworld. We believe that you can do it too."
She closed her eyes. Those images danced before her. The scum in their hives. A baby with a centipede body. A woman giving birth to maggots. Myriads of scuttling creatures, so angry, so vengeful, so cruel.
"If I do this, sir," Kemi whispered, "I need to know one thing." She opened her eyes. "That we're going to kill them. Not just retaliate, punish, or scare them. That in six weeks, we will kill them all."
Major Verish nodded and pinned the insignia to her shoulders. "Ensign Abasi, I promise you. We will kill them all."
CHAPTER FOUR
Ben-Ari stood in the space station's gymnasium, barefoot, stripped down to her combat uniform pants, a black tank top, and her dog tags. She balanced on the balls of her feet, fists raised, eyes narrowed. Her opponent stood before her—an MFR, Mechanical Fighting Robot, essentially a punching bag with padded limbs. The machine swung one of its "legs"—a bar of padded iron—in a swift roundhouse kick. Ben-Ari ducked, dodging the blow, then swerved sideways, avoiding a swing from the robot's arm. She pressed an attack, but the robot raised its arms, blocking her blows. Ben-Ari was of average height and weight, but she had chosen an MFR the size of a heavyweight prizefighter.
"You will lose," chimed the robot, for some reason speaking with a Russian accent, and kicked again. She caught the blow on her arm. It hurt. Badly. "I will crush you."
Whoever programmed this robot obviously watched Rocky XII too many times, Ben-Ari thought. She had raised the setting to eleven, its highest mode of aggression. Its padded limbs swung in a fury, emulating various martial arts, everything from kung fu to capoeira to Chun Kuk Do.
As for Ben-Ari, she used just a single martial art. Krav Maga. It included everything she needed. Other martial arts, she thought, were showy, as much about the theatrics as functionality. But Krav Maga just meant business.
"I must break you," intoned the robot, launching into a furious attack, fists and legs flying. Ben-Ari grunted as blows slammed into her. She knew they would leave ugly bruises. But she refused to fall. She swung her fist, hit the robot in the chest, and smiled as red lights flashed.
It had been too long since she had trained like this. As a teenager, she would spend hours in the gym, sparring with her father's soldiers. Even as a scrawny fifteen-year-old, she would come home with bruises dealt by beefy sergeants. And she would deliver them bruises twice as bad. Many of her opponents underestimated her, not thinking that a young blond girl could defeat larger fighters. But Ben-Ari was quick, dedicated, fast, strong for her size, and able to suffer many blows without falling. The mark of a true fighter, she knew, wasn't just how many blows she could deliver. A true fighter could take more pain than her enemy and stay standing.
And what was physical pain to Ben-Ari? She had known pain all her life. The pain of her family's burden and history. The pain of growing up motherless, her father an officer who had traveled the cosmos, leaving her in the hands of his soldiers on desolate bases. The pain of having no home but the army, no life but fighting. So what were bruises? Nothing. A reminder that she was still human. Blows to make her forget the demons inside her. As Ben-Ari sparred on the mat, she knew nothing but the fight. Not her grief. Not her burdens. Just her enemy and herself.
Finally, taking another blow on the shoulder, Ben-Ari found her way through the MFR's defenses. She delivered a massive punch to its punching bag chest. Lights flashed. The machine dinged like one of those carnival games where you swung a hammer to ring a bell. The robot's limbs slumped, and the letters "KO!" popped up on its LED display.
"A winner is you," said the robot, then shut down.
Ben-Ari panted and wiped sweat off her brow. She had needed this. Here on the frontier, in this space station on the border of scum territory, weeks away from an invasion, she needed pain, needed sweat, needed forgetting.
"Fighting robots is one thing, ma'am." A rumbling baritone voice spoke behind her. "Fighting humans, quite another."
Ben-Ari turned around. One of the largest men she had ever seen was walking across the gym toward her. He must have stood closer to seven feet than to six, and his arms were wider than her entire body. He seemed to be in his mid-thirties, quite a bit older than her. He had dark skin, thick eyebrows, and a bald head, and the insignia on his sleeves denoted him a Gunnery Sergeant.
He was an NCO—a noncommissioned officer—a seasoned commander who had never gone to officer school, had never earned a commission, but who had spent years serving and fighting, rising through the ranks of the enlisted. NCOs were older and more experienced than Ben-Ari. As a commissioned officer, even just a junior one, she still outranked NCOs. No matter how old, experienced, and tough, NCOs had to salute and serve officers, even young lieutenants like her, only a couple years out of officer school. Many of them, she knew, resented that.
Ben-Ari had once had an aging, grizzled master sergeant refuse to salute her, refuse to call her "ma'am." She had been just a hesitant twenty-year-old ensign at the time, him a warrior who had been fighting the scum for decades. He had not recognized her authority. Some ensigns would have chewed out the
older man, like little nobles out to humiliate a peasant, but Ben-Ari had let it slide. She had doubted her own authority in those days, had felt too meek, too young, too inexperienced, had trouble realizing that she was an officer through and through, part of the commanding class of this military, that the "butter bars" on her shoulders did denote her as army nobility. So she had let that gruff, scarred, older man grunt at her, insult her, call her "girl." She had fled from him. Later that year, Ben-Ari had learned, the master sergeant had tried the same attitude, this time on a vindictive lieutenant who got the man court-martialed, demoted, and transferred to a desolate asteroid.
Since that experience, Ben-Ari had been a little wary of NCOs, especially one as tall and powerful as this one. The man in the gym looked like he had survived battling hordes of scum. But then she saw the smile in his eyes, and she saw warmth on his face and no hint of condescension.
"So you think you can fight better than this robot, Sergeant?" she said to him.
"The name's Bo Jones, ma'am," the man said. "I'm to be your new platoon sergeant." He bowed his head. "I'm here to assist and advise you, to act as your second-in-command, your right-hand man. But at the moment . . ." His smile grew. "I'm here to teach you a few things about hand-to-hand combat."
Her new platoon. Ben-Ari suppressed a shudder. Yes, the orders had come from the top brass, from this fleet's admiral himself. She was to form a new platoon here, all battle-hardened warriors, the best in the fleet. She was to lead them on a critical mission during the upcoming invasion. What mission, Ben-Ari had not been told. All she knew was that the admiral was sending her the best warriors he could muster. Why he had chosen her to lead this new platoon, among the many capable officers here at Nightwall, she could not imagine.
She took a closer look at Gunnery Sergeant Jones. Her old platoon sergeant had been Amar Singh, a tough but kind warrior, a dear friend to her. It was still hard to believe that Singh had died in the mines of Corpus. Replacing him would not be easy, no matter how capable Jones was. This tall, bald man was still somebody different. He was still not her friend.
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