The highway straightened. A deep blue jet rested on the asphalt half a mile away. The toe of Ness' shoe caught on a crack in the road, stumbling him. Sebastian grabbed his shirt with a tentacle, keeping him upright.
He'd seen plenty of their planes over the last few days, but parked on the ground, it looked much different than when they flew through the sky. It was triangular, with a pointed nose and a wide tail end, but up close, he could see that its nose was thicker and blunter, more like a manta ray than the needle-nosed human jets. The tail berthed a band of engines. It was all curves with no hard lines at all, reinforcing the marine, fish-like look.
One of the three Deepfinders lifted its pad. A hatch behind the cockpit slid open. A lightweight ramp extended to the blacktop. One of the Dovon climbed in, gesturing Ness, Sprite, and Sebastian to follow.
Ness stood frozen. They'd just met the Dovon that day and they were already on their way to the whaleship. There, they would be introduced to the counter-rebellion who would, in theory, spread the word that some humans had found the Way and could talk the local army into a treaty—news that Sebastian and the three Deepfinders were convinced would pull most of the rebels back from the brink.
Great. Exactly what Ness wanted. But now that he was literally standing in front of the vessel that would carry him to his dreams, he wondered if Tristan maybe had been onto something. Even if she was dead wrong, shouldn't he go search for her? How would he feel to bring an end to the war if she died in the fighting taking place in the meantime?
Sebastian glanced over his shoulder and saw Ness hesitating. "IS SOMETHING WRONG"
"No," Ness said. "Just admiring the ship."
Sprite thumped up the ramp and popped inside. Like that, Ness knew he wasn't afraid because it was a bad idea. He was afraid because he was always afraid. He willed his feet to move. They lifted. The ramp bounced lightly beneath his weight. He entered the jet.
Thanks in part to the thickness of its nose, its interior was much roomier than your standard F-16. Panels and lights shined from the front. Two of the Deepfinders settled behind the controls while the other gestured the passengers into the seats laid out in the hold, which was about the size of the interior of a van. The seats were low toadstools of hard rubber. The straps were arranged for an alien physique, but after some experimentation, Ness tied himself down well enough to prevent being tossed around.
He'd no sooner clasped the last buckle than the engines ramped up. His seat hummed lightly, but the cabin was practically soundproof.
Beside him, Sprite's grin was as broad as a boy with an orange slice stuffed in his teeth. "This is going to be awesome."
The intensity of Ness' pulse suggested otherwise. The jet rolled forward. Acceleration shoved Ness hard against his straps. Sebastian looked unfazed, gazing around the cabin in wonder. A lump rose in Ness' throat. Twisting his head, he could see out the cockpit. They only had a few hundred feet of straight road before the highway curved away. Ness grabbed tight to his straps.
The curve neared. Ahead lay nothing but an open field. The jet lifted from the ground. Ness exhaled through his nostrils. The nose pitched up, pointed at the clouds. The jet banked until it faced the mothership not twenty miles away.
Ness' anxiety fell away as fast as the ground. He was flying. He'd flown before, but not often, and not in the last seven years. More than that, he was flying on an alien ship. He'd dreamed of that since he'd seen Star Wars and Flight of the Navigator as a kid. He felt giddy.
And ahead of him, the whaleship grew and grew.
Before he knew it, they were slowing down. More than a mile across, a squat cylinder hundreds of feet deep, the mothership looked impossible, hanging in the sky like a chandelier without a chain. Lights spangled its sides. Track lights pointed to a gigantic hangar door yawning open. The jet slowed to a virtual crawl, passing into the hangar and touching down. Something seemed to grab at it, tossing Ness forward into his restraints.
The jet maneuvered into a space along the high wall and came to a stop. While the short, pale gray Dovon got out, the mottle-headed alien came back into the cabin carrying four finger-thick rubbery tubes. He signed to Sebastian.
Sebastian accepted the tubes and gestured to Ness. "YOU ARE TO WEAR THESE"
Ness' blood ran cold. "What for?"
Sebastian snipped his claws together in amusement. "YOU AND SPRITE ARE OUR VILE PRISONERS"
"What are those?" Sprite said. "Swimmer pasta?"
"Fetters," Ness said. "They want us to act like prisoners. I'm guessing that's how they plan to move us around."
"Man, I was hoping we'd use the garbage chutes."
Sebastian looped the cords around their ankles and wrists, pinching the loops tight. The short Dovon climbed back into the plane and led them into the hangar. It smelled like staticky metal and disinfectant. Cold winds blew in from the open bay door. Beyond it, the city lay beneath them. Whole swathes were blackened, or obscured under a layer of smoke.
A couple dozen aliens were spread around the hangar, working on jets or cleaning up. The mottled Dovon headed for the far wall. The fetters cut Ness' strides short, making him take quick, shuffling steps like a Japanese swordsman. They drew a few eyes from the maintenance teams, but nobody challenged them.
At the inner wall, a door slid open, allowing them into a hallway that was wider and taller than your average human passage. The walls were disappointingly plain. He tried not to stare as they passed a Dovon pushing a cart of inscrutable metal tools. The mottled alien took the first of many turns, leading them through a maze of hallways filled with closed doors marked with Dovon writing. The air smelled of salt and kelp. Not all that much different from how it had been on the sub, although considerably less humid.
They were brought to a pair of doors. These opened, revealing an elevator. Its lights made it look like a carnival ride, but after the doors closed, it accelerated so smoothly Ness didn't notice they were moving until the Dovon sigils on the wall began to change.
The doors opened, spitting them into a hallway bustling with Dovon. Ness' alien minders hurried along, all business. After a few turns of the corridor, the traffic thinned way down.
They approached another elevator. A lone Dovon stood in front of it. He bore a metal-shafted spear with a long, scythe-like tip. Sprite's eyes bugged. Ness couldn't decide whether to be terrified or awed, so he felt both at once. The mottled alien detached from the procession, signing back and forth with the guard, who moved with crisp, declarative gestures.
The guard brushed past the mottled Dovon and spoke to the short pale one, gesturing repeatedly to Ness and Sprite. After a good deal of conversing, the guard stepped back, tapping its spear on the floor, and opened the elevator doors.
The six of them piled inside. After a short ride and another hallway, the three Dovon took them into a cavernous room lined with tall orange boxes. It smelled more strongly marine-like than the rest of the ship. There was a sour note to it, too.
The short, pale alien moved to a box near the back of the room, placing a ramp in front of it. His tentacles played over a panel on its side. The lid peeled back. The mottled Dovon scuttled up the ramp and gestured inside. Another alien climbed out. His skin was rougher than the others, suggesting age, but he carried himself like the University of Idaho football players Ness used to run into back in his hometown.
He stood atop the ramp, gazing between the three Deepfinders, Sebastian, Ness, and Sprite. He spoke to the mottled alien for a moment, then to Sebastian. Sebastian lowered the tips of his claws and tentacles in respect. The two creatures gestured to each other, then bobbed their limbs.
"THIS IS TORU," Sebastian signed to Ness, spelling out the name, "ONCE-COMMANDER OF EYE THAT SEES THROUGH THE DARK. HE ASKS: WHAT IS YOUR NAME?"
21
Raina rushed into the street. Her warriors poured from the Big Lots. A woman screamed wordlessly. Her cry was joined by another voice, then a third. Within an instant, thirty fighters called out as one, their voi
ces slashing through the waning afternoon. The hairs stood on Raina's neck and arms. She raised her sword high.
Not all of them were out the door before the first lasers gouged through the air. Three blocks south, twenty Swimmers fired sporadically, scuttling for cover behind the corpses of cars parked to both sides of the road. Pistols popped and rifles roared. A beam blazed past Raina's side. She ran on, swerving behind the cars along her left-hand side.
She felt as though she could track each pair of alien eyes following her, and that each pair of eyes was connected to the next through an invisible line. If she could follow the course truly, she could strike down all who stood between her and her freedom.
Blue bolts sizzled into windshields and pavement. A man fell with a scream. So did a woman. The charge balked as people fell into cover behind cars, dumpsters, and doorways. A laser crackled over Raina's head. She ducked low and threw herself behind a car whose grill looked as angry as a swarm of bees. Her warriors fired on the Swimmers without regard for their ammunition. Despite the hail of bullets, as soon as Raina poked up her head, another blue beam zapped past her.
A jet rumbled from the west. She couldn't yet see the second group of Swimmers to the north, but they'd be upon her forces within two minutes. A man fell, clutching his steaming guts. She glanced around for Mauser. He was nowhere to be seen. Bullets and lights flew back and forth. Her soldiers had stopped advancing. The world had become a place of madness and heat.
She lowered her head. She had envisioned a glorious clash, one where foe met foe tooth and claw, and the blood of both species ran together. Yet so far as she had seen, not a single Swimmer had fallen. She understood, at last, the futility of it. Even if they broke through this line of defenders, the enemy behind them would catch up to them, or the airplanes above would bomb them.
What was best? To hold tight behind cover, let the enemy close in, and pick off as many of them as they could? Or, recognizing that it was over, to roar in defiance, hoist her sword, and charge into the lasers, knowing her blade would never taste blood before she fell?
She grinned at her sword. It knew the answer. She gripped it and cut her left hand, feeding the blade that had served her so well. She squeezed a fist, letting her blood drip to the land that had also served her. She took in a long breath and bunched her legs beneath her, preparing to charge.
Dozens of sharp cracks sounded from ahead, intensifying by the instant. At first, she took them for the spiked feet of alien reinforcements. But this was all wrong. It was the rhythm of hooves.
Rifles and shouts joined the clamor of the horses. Raina swung her head from behind the car. Down the street, cavalry tore into the Swimmers' rear, pistols flashing. Her warriors cheered and surged from the cover of the cars. Raina joined them, zig-zagging to avoid the now-sporadic laser fire.
Most of the Swimmers had fallen before she reached the front lines. She spun around a pickup truck, swords lashing into alien limbs. The creature toppled, firing its laser over her head. She cut off the claw gripping the weapon and drove her katana through the soft underside of the alien's jaw, the tip lodging in the crown of its skull.
She yanked her weapons free. A horse trampled a Swimmer into the pavement and pranced up before her.
"There you are," Lowell said, casually pumping three rounds into the twitching body. "What say we get out of here?"
"There's no time to waste. Another squadron will be upon us any minute."
"Mount up!" he hollered. "Horses and bikes!"
Warriors leaped into saddles and piled onto seats. Raina heaved herself up on Lowell's horse and glanced up at the sky. "We can't travel as a group. The jets will bomb us."
Lowell smiled tightly. "Don't worry about that. We've got it all worked out." He cupped his hands to his mouth. "Scatter! "
He had at least a hundred troopers with him, half on horses and half the bicycle-riding dragoons. At his command, they rode south and splintered, branching out like a river delta. Lowell's horse clopped through the street. The beast smelled of fur and fresh sweat.
Raina gripped tight to its mane. "Where are we going?"
"Cerritos High," Lowell said. "That's where the rest of our soldiers are waiting."
"The rest? How did you find us?"
"I didn't. Bryson and Red found us. They led us most of the way here. After that, it was just a matter of following the gunshots."
She turned to squint at the soldier riding behind them. "These are the knights of San Diego."
"You saved my ass not long ago," he said. "I thought it was only fair to come save yours."
* * *
After a bath and a meal, the only thing Raina wanted to do was sleep. Yet as she got up from her table in the high school cafeteria, a figure approached. Mauser's face was as puffy as hers felt.
"No rest for the wicked." He sounded more regretful than wry. "I think we're expected to come up with a new battle plan before bed."
"Won't a tired mind produce tired ideas?" She picked up her tray. "Lead on. The sooner we're finished, the sooner we can sleep."
"My thoughts exactly."
He took her through the tiled halls to an administrator's office. It had no windows, but this had allowed them to light candles, the scent of their wax intoxicating after so many days of smoke, ash, sweat, and burned flesh. As she entered, Lowell broke off conversation with the Queen of Better San Diego and stood. So did the queen.
"Georgia." Raina embraced the slightly older woman. "What are you doing here? You have your own people to look after."
Georgia stepped back. "I have the impression that if we don't stop the Swimmers here, my people will be the next target." She glanced at Lowell. "Besides, your ranger makes a convincing case."
Mia was present as well. Mauser seated himself next to her and gave her thigh a squeeze.
"I'd say we carried the night," Georgia said. "So, what shape will our next victory take?"
"You think we won?" Mauser narrowed one eye. "In your experience, do most battles end with the victors fleeing for their lives?"
"They lost twenty. How many did we lose? Five? I'll make that trade any day."
"So would I," Lowell put in. "But we can't count on repeating it."
Georgia gave him a look. "I thought you summoned me here to fight a war. Don't tell me you're already thinking about running for the hills."
"I brought you here to get Raina out of trouble. I don't know where we go from here."
"We did beat them, though," Mia said. "And we could have killed two dozen more if we hadn't had to run from the jets."
Mauser frowned. "So we could fight back if not for the fact they have an air force that could destroy us in no time flat? Maybe we can ask them to stop using their jets in the interests of fair play."
"Should I write the letter? Or would you prefer to?"
"You joke," Raina said. "But you've found the right path. We're fighting a venomous snake. Like you say, all it needs is one bite to kill us all. So if we want to fight it, what do we do?"
"Er," Mauser said. "Trap its head with one of those Y-shaped sticks?"
"Cut off its head," Georgia said.
"If we knew where its head was, that might work," Raina said. "For the best way to fight a snake is to kill it before it has the chance to strike. But we can't do that. So we will resort to the second-best way: we must take away its ability to hurt us. We must defang it."
Mauser leaned back, arms folded. "Got a proposal? Or are you merely instructing us how to direct our brains?"
"Mia is right. When we fight on the ground, do we fear their soldiers? No. We have soldiers of our own and ours are stronger. Take away their jets, and in time, they will lose."
There was a pause. Lowell rubbed his upper lip. "Good theory. But you can't fight an air force without having one yourself."
"We don't need planes. Not as long as they keep landing theirs on solid ground."
"You want to hit them at the airport. Got a how for us?"
"We ca
me here to discuss strategy. I have given you one." She stood, chair scraping. "If you want my thoughts on tactics, that will have to wait until I've had some rest."
As she made to go, Mauser rose as well. She feared he meant to try to convince her of something further, but he was just as eager to get some sleep as she was.
The smoke was gone, but she smelled it in her dreams. Despite this, it was the best sleep she'd ever had. When morning came, she willed it to go away and come back later, but the sun only grew brighter behind the blinds.
As soon as she was up for it, she had Lowell show her around the grounds. The high school had been a good location to make their new camp. To keep them from sight, the horses had been stabled in the gymnasium, which now smelled thoroughly of dung. When the skies were clear of jets, the horses' minders took them outside to graze on the sports fields.
Along with Georgia's eighty knights, far more of Raina's warriors had survived the aborted attack at the airport than she'd feared. Counting those she'd delivered from the fires, they numbered close to two hundred. Lowell had delivered most of the remaining non-combatants to San Diego, but a few remained to assist with logistics, to treat the wounded, and so on. There was more than enough space in the classrooms to house them all.
"We can't grow food, though," Raina said. "If our crops are visible, the Swimmers will know we're here."
Lowell nodded. "The idea is that we keep the aliens occupied here, then bring in food from San Diego. We're getting the wagons together as we speak."
"The submarine would shorten our supply line significantly. Have they been seen recently?"
"Funny you should ask. One of them showed up early this morning. Tristan. The sub's toast."
"That is most unfortunate. They saved countless lives during the evacuation. Her friends are dead?"
"She's been less than enthusiastic with the details." He got out a cube of gum, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth. "Speaking of details, we should save them for the war council."
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