Most of the creatures were rising behind the tanks.
The tentacles were wrapping around the bridge itself. Sinking their clawed tips into the pilings. Tightening. Pulling. The bridge was swaying.
And Rowan understood.
"Dear Ra," she whispered.
The forest of tentacles gave a mighty tug, yanking the bridge to one side. Then they pulled the other way.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the bridge.
"Go!" Rowan shouted. "Tanks—go!"
They charged across the last two hundred meters of bridge.
Behind the tanks, the bridge pilings collapsed.
Twisted metal beams slammed into the river, raising fountains of trash. The concrete deck crumbled, raining chunks into the water. Rowan watched in horror as several tanks sank into the Hudson.
Her own tank kept charging. The others raced with her. Behind them, more and more of the bridge was falling, vanishing into the churning maelstrom of pollution. Another tank fell. Then another. The monsters lurked below, grabbing the tanks, pulling them into the depths.
Rowan looked forward.
They were only a few meters away from Manhattan now.
Just another few seconds, and we're there.
Massive boulders—each the size of a tank—rolled down the street ahead, blocking the path into the city. Rowan glimpsed basilisks in the distance, glaring with red eyes.
"Fire through them!" Rowan shouted.
The tanks fired.
Rowan ducked back under the hatch.
Shells exploded against boulders, and stones flew, and Rowan winced, and—
The tanks slammed into the boulders. Cannons bent. The massive machines came to a halt.
Beneath them, the last of the bridge collapsed.
Rowan scurried through the open hatch, kicked off her tank's cannon, and leaped upward.
Below her, the tank slammed into the river.
Rowan grabbed a chunk of concrete that thrust out from Manhattan. She clung on, dangling over the river.
With a gurgle, the tank sank into the maelstrom below.
The leviathans squirmed in the river, tentacles grabbing drowning soldiers. Clinging on with one hand, Rowan looked down. She saw Bay floundering in the water. Several leviathans were approaching him.
Rowan sneered, aimed her pistol, and fired.
The invasion failed.
She fired again, hitting a leviathan.
My tanks are lost.
She kept firing, emptying her magazine.
The city is lost.
From above, the basilisks emerged.
The serpents slithered over the boulders. Beasts large enough to swallow Rowan whole, coated with scales, murder in their eyes. The creatures undulated closer to Rowan, jaws opening, ready to devour her.
How the hell am I going to get out this one? Rowan thought.
Leviathans below. Basilisks above. Her hope all but gone.
Is this the end? Do I die here?
She ground her teeth.
"No," she whispered.
A dozen basilisks lunged toward her.
Rowan drew a grenade from her belt, hurled it at them, then dropped toward the river.
The grenade landed among the basilisks above—and exploded. Scales, shrapnel, and gobbets of flesh flew everywhere.
Rowan crashed into the polluted river beside Bay.
"Hullo, Rowan!" he said, covered in grime. "Decided to come for a swim?"
"This is a mucking disaster!" Rowan cried. "We have to get all the survivors onto the bank!"
She saw a few other soldiers floundering in the foamy water. Trash floated around them. Most of the tanks were gone. Five tanks had fallen onto the riverbank, could perhaps be salvaged. But the damn leviathans were everywhere. One rose from the water, grabbed a swimming soldier, and dragged the woman into the depths. Everyone else—the few who had survived the plunge—were swimming toward the bank.
Rowan and Bay swam with them. The leviathans pursued, roaring for blood. As Rowan swam, she loaded more magazines, firing over her shoulder. Bay hurled a grenade into a cluster of leviathans, destroying the beasts. But the aliens kept coming. Tentacles grabbed soldiers and drowned them in the filth.
Rowan was almost at the riverbank when a tentacle grabbed her leg. She yowled as the tentacle's claws sliced her skin. She fired again and again. It took several bullets to sever the tentacle, several more to slay the beast.
She made it onto the riverbank, shivering and bloody and covered in grime. She crawled between toppled tanks, wounded and screaming humans, and chunks of dead basilisks. A handful of soldiers crawled onto the bank with her, draped with filth.
Rowan rose to her feet, trembling. The Harmonians flowed through her wounds, neutralizing the venom, healing the cuts. The other soldiers were not as lucky; they had no microscopic alien parasites to heal their wounds. They lay on the piles of trash, screaming, convulsing, dying. One man crawled with no legs. Another lay by a shattered tank, clutching his belly, desperate to hold in his spilling entrails. The river ran red with blood, and screams and weeping rose in a song of agony.
Rowan kept her pistol drawn. For now, no more aliens were attacking. But she doubted her grenade had killed all the basilisks. More could show up any moment.
She took stock of the situation. She had gone onto the bridge with fifty tanks, ten soldiers crammed into each one. Only five tanks had made it onto the riverbank, and they were badly damaged. Only a hundred soldiers had emerged from the river—a fifth of her men.
She got on her comm, connecting to the other two battalions. They had fared no better. The leviathans had taken down the southern bridge too, sinking most of the Warthog Battalion. The basilisks had also bombed the tunnel, burying most of the Rhino Battalion. Between those two battalions, only thirty tanks and three hundred soldiers had reached Manhattan.
"This is a disaster," Rowan whispered. "I was a fool. I was a goddamn fool." She looked at Bay, tears in her eyes. "Emet told me to use paratroopers. I insisted on the tanks. I told him we needed to test my designs. Because of my pride, hundreds are dead."
Bay held her hand and stared into her eyes.
"Rowan, guilt later. Grief later. Lessons later. Right now—we have a city to take."
Rowan winced. "What? Bay! We lost nearly our entire brigade!"
"But we still have a mission to complete." Bay's voice was hard, his eyes harder. "Rowan, you said there are only a few hundred basilisks in New York."
"That's what our intel thinks," she confessed.
"We have over three hundred soldiers," Bay said. "And thirty-five tanks. We can do this."
Rowan sighed. She had hoped to storm the city with overwhelming superiority. With the force that remained, it would be damn tough. A typical basilisk could normally take out several humans. And here in New York, the aliens were defending familiar territory. The snakes had been lurking in this city for eras, preparing for war. All Rowan knew of New York came from ancient movies.
"Bay." She forced herself to stare steadily into his eyes, not to tremble or cry. "What if our last soldiers die? What if they all die and it's our fault?"
Bay's eyes darkened. "Since the dawn of war, officers have had to make the same decision. Do they send troops into danger? Or do they retreat? Sometimes retreat is necessary. Sometimes it can lead to indescribable disaster, to the fall of civilizations. An officer's job is not to protect his soldiers from harm. Not to save their lives. An officer's job is to defeat the enemy. Even at the cost of life. Even at the cost of his or her very soul. To triumph—that is our mission. And we both know how to complete it."
Rowan narrowed her eyes, gazing at him, at this young man she loved.
Who are you? she thought. You're not the sweet boy I met six years ago. You've changed. You've become harder, stronger, darker. Who is that speaking through your mouth?
But she knew.
"That's your father speaking," she said.
Bay shook his head. "No. It's the man I've become
. A man I hope is half as great as he is."
Rowan embraced him. "And you're a man I love. All right, Bay. Let's do this. We've got hostages to free and a city to conquer."
He kissed her cheek. "I love you, little one."
She smiled. "I know."
On the banks of the Hudson, they marshaled the remains of their brigade. Rowan raised the flag of Earth from a tank. Battered, bloodied, but not broken, the Human Defense Force rolled into New York City.
CHAPTER TWO
The infantry troops walked down the crumbling street. Their tanks rumbled behind them, and the decaying skyscrapers of Manhattan rose all around.
Bay hefted his rifle, his beloved Lawless. He kept it pointed ahead, a magazine inserted. Beneath his body armor, his uniform was wet. Ooze from the Hudson still dripped from under his helmet. He stank. They all did. He was grateful that basilisks had a poor sense of smell. Otherwise, the snakes would smell them approaching from kilometers away.
"Where are you?" Bay muttered, staring through Lawless's scope.
The few basilisks left in New York were hiding. But the mark of their evil was everywhere. Shed skins rolled along the roadsides. Metal scales coated several skyscrapers, turning them into erect snakes. Alien graffiti was scrawled onto the sides of buildings, depicting dead humans—drawn as hairy apes—and words in the basilisk tongue.
Kill all apes!
Apes are pests!
Devour humanity!
"Come out, cowards," Bay said softly.
"They must have retreated to guard the hostages," Rowan said. As she walked, she pulled out a folding map and examined it. "According to our intel, the hostages are kept at Times Square. We're not far."
Bay looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "You actually have a folding paper map? What happened to your minicom?"
She was struggling with the giant map. The wind kept whipping it, nearly tearing it away. The damn thing was like a sail.
"My minicom mucking died in the river!" she said. "Luckily, I'm not an idiot, and I brought a backup map. Even wrapped it in plastic."
Bay frowned. "So you wrapped your map in plastic but not your minicom."
She lowered the map and glared over the top. "Shut up."
They kept walking. Hundreds of soldiers. Thirty-odd tanks. The dusty streets spread out before them. In the old movies, millions of people had thronged these streets, and the city had bustled with life. Bay shivered to see this once-grand metropolis so barren, silent, coated with decay.
In some places, Bay saw remnants of Earth's Golden Age. A gilded statue of Prometheus, a symbol of Rockefeller Center, lay fallen on a street corner, several blocks away from its original location. The basilisks had deformed it, carving the limbs into serpents, severing the head. The gold was peeling now, revealing rusty innards. The bronze Fearless Girl, a statue that had once stood on Wall Street, now lay here on the northern side of the island, her face slashed, her body wrapped with snake skins. A barbershop beckoned from the roadside, human skeletons in the seats. These skeletons seemed new, not crumbling like bones from two thousand years ago. The basilisks must have taken them during the war, placed them here to taunt Bay and Rowan. A cathedral rose down the street, but the basilisks had ripped off the cross, replacing it with a bronze serpent.
As the soldiers walked, they all stared in silence at this profanity.
The basilisks came to destroy our heritage, to mock everything that we are, Bay thought. But this city is holy. We will scour it. We will cast out the evil.
He stared at an overturned taxicab, so rusty it was barely recognizable. Human skulls piled up inside.
Bay gritted his teeth and kept walking.
"Why the hell did these last basilisks stay here?" he finally said. "Millions of the buggers fled Earth back when we won the war. Damn these stubborn holdouts." He spat. "I'm sick of these mop-up operations. It's been half a year since we won our independence. And we're still fighting every damn day."
Rowan touched his arm. "I know, Bay. But we never thought resettling Earth would be easy."
"You're right," Bay said. "I shouldn't grumble. But damn it, Row. I'm just tired. I want to spend more time with you—and not on a battlefield! I want us to curl up in bed, watching old movies. I want us to explore nature, to hike up mountains and swim in distant lakes—ones that won't leave us covered in grime! I want to lie with you under the stars, and make love to you."
Rowan blushed. "Bay, not now! Our soldiers are listening."
"Let them! Rowan, I love you." He looked into her large brown eyes. "I fight for Earth. But also for you. So that we can finally win. So we can finally kill Xerka. So I can finally marry you. I promise you, Rowan. Soon enough, Xerka will be dead, and we'll be married. I'll build you a beautiful house in the countryside, and we'll have three beautiful kids, and several dogs, maybe a horse, and—"
"Bay!" She laughed. "Don't I get a say?"
He blinked. "I'm sorry! Of course you do. I—"
She patted his cheek. "It sounds wonderful. But build me a nice library wing in our house too. The rest of the house can be small. But the library must be huge."
Bay forced himself away. He stared forward again. He should not be flirting with Rowan here. Not be navel-gazing. Was he losing his edge? After so many years of war, was he just too damn tired?
He forced in a deep breath. He and Rowan had been fighting aliens for six years now. In many ways, they had been fighting all their lives.
Home stretch, he told himself. Within a year, this will all be over. And we'll be happy. We'll finally have our freedom and our peace.
No, this was not weakness, he decided as he kept walking. He needed something to look forward to. In this city of decay, he needed something pure and beautiful to fight for.
Shadows stirred ahead.
A screech rose.
The soldiers all raised their rifles. The clicks of hundreds of cocking guns filled the street.
Bay saw a flash of scales ahead. It vanished around a corner. A cackle sounded in the distance.
Bay took a deep breath. He gestured for the others. The soldiers all walked down the street, guns raised. The tanks rolled behind.
A scream sounded. This one was a human scream. Twisted with agony. Bloodcurdling.
A few soldiers cursed. Bay tightened his lips and kept advancing, following the sound.
They walked around the wreckage of a crashed Firebird starfighter, the remnant of some old battle. The pilot was still inside the shattered cockpit, burnt down to a blackened skeleton. Bay would return for the remains later. The cackle sounded again, and Bay kept walking.
Movement at the end of the street drew Bay's gaze. His heart burst into a gallop.
A naked boy stood ahead.
He was young, probably eight or nine, but his head was bald. Dust coated his entire body, revealing only his electric-blue eyes.
"One of the hostages," Bay said.
He approached slowly. Rowan grabbed his arm.
"Hang on," she said. "It might be a trap."
Bay raised an eyebrow. "A trap?"
She nodded. "Like on the bridge."
The soldiers all froze. They kept their guns raised. They all stared ahead.
The boy stood about a hundred meters away. He raised his hand and beckoned them closer.
"Hey there!" Bay called out. "We're here to help! What's your name?"
The boy was silent. He just beckoned with his finger. Face blank.
Bay glanced at Rowan, then back at the boy.
"Hello! My name is Bay!" he cried. "Are you all right?"
The boy slowly lowered his arm. An eerie silence fell across the city.
"Come …" said the child.
Rowan frowned. "Bay, give me your minicom."
She took the device from him, aimed its camera at the boy, and zoomed in. She inhaled sharply.
"Ra damn," she whispered.
"What is it?" Bay said, looking at Rowan. "What—"
The boy screamed
.
Bay whipped his head back toward him.
The naked child burst into a run, screaming demoniacally. His arms pumped at his sides. His eyes widened, revealing white all around the irises. As he charged toward the soldiers, his lips peeled back, revealing rows of sharp teeth.
Rowan raised her pistol and fired.
"Rowan!" Bay cried, knocking her aside. Her bullet missed the boy.
"Damn it, Bay!" She shoved him aside, aimed again, and her bullet hit the boy's leg.
The dusty child kept running, limping now. He was only meters away. The boy hurled himself into the air, flying the last few meters toward the troops.
"Run!" Rowan cried.
And Bay understood.
He finally saw the round shapes inside the boy's belly, pressing against the skin.
Bay and Rowan leaped aside.
They landed on the roadside, faces down, and covered their heads.
The explosion boomed behind them.
Bay grimaced as shrapnel rained, pounding the armor on his back. A piece slammed against his helmet, shoving his face onto the pavement, bloodying his nose. Something slapped down ahead of him. A severed arm, Bay realized.
He reached out toward Rowan.
"Are you all right?" he said, but he couldn't hear himself. Only ringing in his ears. A constant siren.
Rowan was saying something. He couldn't hear her. His head spun, and he tasted blood. Ringing. Just ringing and floating blobs of light.
He pushed himself to his feet, wobbled, and fell back down. He removed his helmet and saw a piece of shrapnel piercing it, and blood dripped down his temple. His ears felt full of cotton.
He shoved himself up again, forcing himself to take deep breaths, and raised his rifle.
He saw no basilisks. The naked boy was gone. Only his head remained, the lower jaw torn off. The rest—gone.
So were ten or more soldiers.
Severed limbs and heads lay strewn across the scene. A few torsos had been ripped apart, leaving little more than chunks of meat draped with bloodied uniforms. The soldiers farther from the impact were lying on the ground, screaming. One man clutched the stump of a severed leg. Another soldier had no hands left. The man stood, staring around, dripping, confused. Another soldier lay among comrades, skin burnt off.
The Legacy of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 6) Page 2
