From Earth, the news was scarcely better. As the human fleet had attacked Abaddon, the scum had been attacking Earth. The Iron Sphere defense system had stopped most of the assault, but not all. Entire cities lay in ruin. Millions lay dead. A new Cataclysm, they were calling it.
"We will mourn those who fell," Marco said softly. "We will never forget, never forgive, forever grieve. A second Cataclysm has shattered our world. But again we will rise from the ashes." He looked at the phoenix stitched onto his uniform, symbol of the Human Defense Force, perhaps of all humanity. "Like the phoenix, we will rise."
Lailani stood at his side, slipped her hand into his, and leaned her head against his arm. "We will rise."
Addy stood at his other side, and she placed a hand on his shoulder. "We will fucking rise."
Marco watched a squadron of Firebirds flit between the warships outside. He recognized Kemi's Firebird, saw her in the cockpit as she flew nearby on patrol. The larger ships were already warming up their azoth engines, and their turbines glowed blue. Within a couple of hours, the fleet would be blasting into hyperspace, beginning the three-week journey back to Earth.
"I wish the others could be here with us," Marco said. "Elvis. Beast. Diaz. Singh. All of them."
"We will remember them," Addy said. "Always."
Marco thought about the last survivor of their platoon. About a leader, a woman he had come to love deeply—as a friend, as family.
As the fleet gathered, making the last preparations for the journey home, Marco left the lounge. He walked through the carpeted corridors of the Terra, this ship the size of a skyscraper, and took the elevator several floors up. He reached the ship's hospital, and he walked down bustling corridors where nurses and doctors rushed, pushing gurneys. Through the windows of many doors, he saw doctors performing surgeries on the wounded. And he saw many orderlies pushing wheeled beds with the blankets pulled up over the dead.
Finally Marco reached the door he had sought. He knocked and stepped into the small room.
Inside, Ben-Ari lay on a bed, hooked up to an IV.
Marco saluted.
His officer smiled weakly at him. "No need to salute here, Marco. I'd rather save my strength."
He nodded and sat beside her. Her eyes were sunken, but some color had returned to her cheeks. Bandages covered her wound.
"How are you feeling, ma'am?" Marco asked.
"He shot me right through the lung," Ben-Ari said. "Missed my heart by only two centimeters, missed my spine by just a bit more." She coughed weakly. "I'll need a new lung. With so many fallen, they'll find me a good one."
Marco nodded. "I'm so glad you're all right, ma'am." He thought for a moment, then asked the question that had been on his mind all day. "I shot him. I killed him—our admiral. They'll know one of us did it. They—"
"They heard everything," Ben-Ari said. "My communicator was on the whole time. I turned it on just before Bryan shot me. His confession is recorded." She sighed and turned her head, looking out the viewport at the fleet. "His legacy is forever tarnished. For fifty years, he was our hero. Now he'll be remembered as a monster."
"I don't think of him as a monster," Marco said. "Not fully. I've wondered: What would I do if the scum had Lailani? Would I be willing to sacrifice others to save her? And I don't know. I don't envy the choices he had to make." He thought for a moment longer. "But I don't regret killing him."
She clasped his hand. "You did well, Marco. I'm proud to have you as my soldier. As my friend."
Her uniform hung by the door, and Marco noticed that new insignia topped the shoulder straps, three golden bars where two had once shone.
"And I'm proud to have fought for you, Captain Ben-Ari," he said. "And to be your friend." He hesitated for a moment, then asked the second question that had been on his mind. "Ma'am, what happens now? With the Human Defense Force? With our service?"
"Our military service will continue," Ben-Ari said. "We defeated the scum. But there are ten thousand technological civilizations in our galaxy alone. Some will rise to fill the void the scum left. Some, perhaps, will challenge humanity. There's still a need for the HDF. For us. It's time for peace, to holster our guns, but not yet to lay them aside." She stared into his eyes. "Have you reconsidered the offer I made to you once? About going to Officer Candidate School? I would still write you that recommendation. You can be leading a platoon of your own within a year."
"I've thought about it," Marco confessed. "But I still must refuse your generous offer, ma'am. Officers have military careers, sometimes lifelong." He sighed. "I joined for five years, the mandatory time, and I've been doing my best to be a good soldier. But I don't think this life is for me, not forever. I'll remain enlisted. And maybe, with the war over, they'll even shorten our service. Maybe I can spend the rest of my life at peace. At home. With my family."
Ben-Ari looked at him, a small smile on her face, then turned to look out the viewport. "Look, Marco. The stars are spreading out. We're leaping into hyperspace."
Her hand tightened around his. He sat by her side, holding her hand as the stars spread into lines, as they began their journey home.
* * * * *
They were home.
After long months of war, they were home.
They took the rocket here together. Marco. Addy. Kemi. Lailani. All four wore their service uniforms, the navy blue of Space Territorial Command. Marco, Addy, and Lailani wore the insignia of corporals, while Kemi wore the rank of ensign. All four carried Fyre rifles. In the aftermath of the war, all had been given a week off from the military. All had come here to Toronto. For a week of healing. A week of home.
The city had been spared the brunt of the scum attack, suffering a thousand casualties and still standing. From above, as the rocket descended, it looked like the same Toronto they had always known, the place where Marco, Addy, and Kemi had been born and raised. Lailani, who had never been to North America, stared through the windows with wide eyes.
"It looks . . . less crowded than Manila," she said, then nodded. "I like it, but I'll still miss home."
Sergeant Stumpy sat at their side in a crate. The dog, rescued from the scum-infested mine of Corpus, looked out the viewport and huffed in approval.
Marco's father was waiting for them at the starport. Carl Emery hugged his son—a long, crushing hug.
"You've lost weight!" he said. "You need to eat!"
"I'm fine, Dad!" Marco laughed, but Father would hear none of it. The librarian insisted on stopping by the nearest burger joint, a greasy little hole-in-the-wall with tattered booths and a sizzling griddle. Trying to hide his damp eyes, Father ordered onion rings and cheeseburgers for the lot of them. Kemi's parents were there too, and they all ate, and then Father bought a second round of burgers, insisting they needed to fatten up, couldn't even wait for the drive back home. Music was playing on the radio—a new pop tune, one Marco hadn't heard before. A few kids were in the burger joint too, laughing and playing on their phones. A mother was cooing to her baby.
It was the world. It was the real world again—with good greasy food, and music, and civilians, and family, and life.
But Marco was silent as he ate.
And Addy, and Kemi, and Lailani—they were silent.
Sometimes Marco caught his friends glancing up at him, then looking away quickly. And he knew that they were remembering too, like he was. Remembering the mines of Corpus. The hybrids underground. The millions dying as the fleet shattered. The music seemed too loud, and when the baby cried, Marco jumped.
The bathroom was out of order in the burger joint, and Marco stepped behind the restaurant to pee in the alleyway. When he zipped up his pants, he thought: What am I doing? He should have held it in, would have only months ago, but in the army he had always sneaked off to pee in some alleyway or behind some boulder. And he realized that he had stuffed half his second burger into his pocket, saving it for later, for days of hunger, though months ago he'd have just tossed it out. And he didn't kn
ow who he was now, who he had become during the war.
Before her parents drove her to their apartment, Kemi kissed Marco's cheek, and he stood for a while, watching her car drive off. Marco's father drove the rest of them back to the library.
Home seemed familiar but smaller somehow, their apartment above the library just somehow wrong, too clean, too neat. It almost felt like being in hyperspace again, when everything was just a little bit off. Father insisted on feeding them again at home, cooking spaghetti, even when Addy complained that he'd turn them all into blimps. They played old Beatles records, then drank some beer, then watched a hockey game. Sergeant Stumpy fell asleep on his back, hogging half the couch and snoring. It was what they had waited to do for so long, what they had dreamed of, what had gotten them through the hardest of times. They sat silently on the couch, staring at the TV, making no noise or movement when a goal was scored.
That night, Addy and Lailani shared the pull-out bed in the living room. Marco lay in his old bedroom, alone, staring up at the dark ceiling.
The scum were scuttling through the tunnels.
Elvis was dead, his heart on the floor.
Ships burned.
All night, Marco was still fighting that war, cold sweat trickling, breath panting, until gray dawn scratched at the windows.
Marco and Lailani walked through the city that day, leading Stumpy on a leash. In six days, they would return to their service, to four more years of the army. This day, Marco showed Lailani his home. They walked down Yonge Street toward Lake Ontario, and they watched ships from the boardwalk. They bought steaming cups of coffee and jelly donuts. They fed the geese. But they were silent a lot, glancing at each other furtively, then quickly away, daring not maintain eye contact. And this was no longer Marco's home.
There were no more guards with guns at every street corner. Civilians no longer carried their gas masks. The scum were defeated, and there were parades of victory across Toronto. People waved flags of Earth. They sang, they danced. A group of old men sat on a bar's patio, giving Marco and Lailani a standing ovation as the two soldiers walked by. But Marco did not feel honored. He wanted to shout at these men, to shake them. How dared they applaud, how dared they congratulate him? How dared people dance on the street and sing? How dared they be joyous when countless had fallen, when countless had come home alive but broken, dead inside?
"Our generation is lost," Marco said, standing on a street corner, watching a victory ceremony on a nearby stage. "People like Admiral Bryan. Like our president. The generals and politicians. They sent us out to die, or worse—to break. To shatter. An entire generation—lost."
"We're not lost," Lailani said.
"I feel lost," said Marco. "Millions of us are. Our ghosts came home, but we died out on Corpus, on Abaddon. In a senseless war."
"I'm not a ghost, Marco." Lailani held his hands, staring into his eyes. "Look at me. I'm alive, Marco. I'm hurt. I'm broken inside. You are too. But we're alive. We can still find a life now. Even with our scars." She glanced down at the scars on her wrists, then back into his eyes. "Some scars don't heal, those on the body and those on the soul. Our scars won't heal. Our wounds won't stop hurting. But we're still a long way from dead. I intend to live the rest of my life."
Live. Marco looked across the city. The towers. The lake. The parks. A city that had suffered so many dead, a thousand slain only last month. A city in a world still lying in ruins, millions dead across its charred landscapes. A city still alive.
To live, he thought. To rise again.
"Can we still find joy?" he said. "Even after seeing so much pain? Can we ever still laugh, dance, see beauty?"
"I don't know," Lailani said, and her eyes were damp. "But maybe we just have to take breath by breath. To live day by day. To be grateful that we're alive. And maybe we won't find joy. And maybe we'll always hurt. And maybe that's the sacrifice we had to make to our elders, to the cruelty in space, to the next generation, and if that is so, then that is so, and we'll live on, and we'll see that next generation live in a world that we never had. A world that is good. And maybe that's not enough, but if that is what we have, that is what I'll take."
Memories, Marco thought. Pain. A broken world. Haunting dreams. If that is what we have, that is what we take.
"So that is what we take," Marco said softly, voice hoarse.
Lailani embraced him. "Forgive, Marco. That's all we can do. Forgive our leaders, our parents, our enemies. Forgive our lives. Forgive all the pain and cruelty and shit and unfairness in the world. Just to forgive. Just to accept. Just to let it all flow over us. We tell ourselves that we're strong, that we can control our own destinies, that we can make our own choices. But we can't. We're only dust. Just dust. So forgive, Marco. Forgive what happened to us. Forgive yourself for hurting. Forgive yourself for remembering. Forgive me."
He held her close, tears falling. "Always."
She smiled through her tears and poked his nose. "Also, remember, I'm still going to marry you and give you beautiful mixed-race babies. Not just yet. In a few years. But it's coming. It's something to wait for. Something good."
May our children have a better world than we had, Marco thought, holding her. May they never know war. May they never know loss. May they never know horror and pain and memories that don't die. May we build a new world for them, a good world. May a lost generation create a generation of peace.
They walked down the street to the boardwalk. They stood by the lake, gazing at the water. Ships were sailing by, and seagulls cawed above.
"I love you, Lailani," Marco said.
She leaned her head against his chest. "Ruv you too."
They stood together, holding each other, watching the ships sail by.
* * * * *
Lieutenant Kemi Abasi flew in her Firebird, traveling several times the speed of sound, gazing down upon the world.
Earth lay in desolation.
In her small jet, she flew over India, where entire cities lay in smoldering ruins. Tanks and battalions of infantry were still moving through the wreckage, picking out the last scum who had invaded during the great war. She flew over Tibet, where temples lay shattered on mountaintops, where monks were performing sky burials for their fallen, carving up the dead for the vultures. She glided over ancient Chinese cities, their glory lost. She flew over Japanese castles where flags rose, defiant, above seas of ruin. She flew for a long time over the water, then over a field of rubble that had once been Vancouver.
So many gone, Kemi thought. Millions dead.
Night fell, and as she flew over the dark plains of Saskatchewan, she looked up through her cockpit. The stars shone above, and among them, she could see the lights of the Iron Sphere. It was the largest, most expensive missile defense system ever built. Thousands of its satellites surrounded the Earth, armed with missiles, manned by teams of gruff gunners, ready to fire at any enemy pod swarming toward the Earth. As Kemi had been bombing Abaddon five hundred light-years away, the brave soldiers of Iron Sphere had been firing at the scum invaders. They had destroyed hundreds of thousands of scum pods . . . but thousands had still made their way through.
Thousands of pods had slammed into Earth at once, not just a war of attrition but a massive assault. Blazing with fire, excreting poison, spilling out centipedes, the pods had devastated so much.
Millions gone, Kemi thought, flying over the good earth. Cities wiped out. We won. We defeated the scum. But at what cost?
The world was in ruin—and so was her life.
She had lost Marco, the man she loved. She had lost her brother to the war; he had died in a jet like the one she now flew. She had seen such horrors. She had seen the hybrids screaming in the scum hive, twisted into creatures half human, half alien. She had stared into the soul of that hive, had become a part of it, connected by tubes and pheromones to its cruelty. She had gazed into the eyes of a million scum, and she could not forget that horror. Kemi had not slept the night through since the terror on Co
rpus, waking up every hour drenched in cold sweat, struggling for breath, dreams of centipedes racing through her mind.
Yet as Kemi kept flying, she saw hope among the despair, life among the death.
Tractors were moving through ruins. Cranes were rising. People were rebuilding.
"Like a phoenix, we rise again and again from the ashes," Kemi said.
And she too would rise from ruin. She too would build a new life.
Kemi nodded. Perhaps every generation suffered a tragedy. Her grandparents had fled Africa as refugees during the Cataclysm. Her parents had grown up during the War of Attrition, had lost a son to the violence. She, Kemi, had seen this new destruction. But every generation had risen up.
Because we are human, she thought. And that's what we do. I'm no longer the naive young girl, chasing a boy halfway across the galaxy. I'm an officer in the Human Defense Force. I'm a pilot. I'm not just a survivor; I am one who will thrive. I am one who will rebuild her world and her life.
"Red Bird, do you copy?" The voice emerged from her headphones.
Kemi turned her head to see the rest of her squadron, fourteen other Firebirds, flying toward her. She was now flying over Houston, where her home airfield was located.
"I copy," she said. "Patrol completed, skies are clear. It's good to be home."
The other pilots came to fly around her. The jets formed a vee in the sky. They were defenders of Earth. They were heroes of the war. They were her new life.
* * * * *
Marco walked through the desert, wearing drab fatigues and a helmet. A T57 assault rifle hung across his back, and magazines jangled in pouches in his vest. He passed along a barbed wire fence, around a rusty tap, and toward a group of tents in the sand. The sun beat down on this North African wasteland, a forgotten hole somewhere between mountains and slow death. He remembered coming to such a base, only a few hundred kilometers from here, a year ago—a frightened kid, disoriented and green as grass.
Earth Rising (Earthrise Book 3) Page 22
