Calixtus shook his head. “Get on board the ship.”
He took one final look around the decaying ruins of the Solar Arm Dravidian, sighed, and crossed the interconnecting bridge.
He hoped that Ubra and the baby had made it to safety.
Location and Time Unknown
Ubra woke up, her head throbbing like a toothache.
There was a blue sky above her, streaked with flame.
She wracked her brain for memories. The last thing she could remember was merging with the tentacles of the Sphere, and feeling the rush of air around her as she hurtled into space, and into unconsciousness.
She lay on the ground, staring up at it, aware of the smoking remnants of the Sphere around her. It must have burst or failed upon impact, hurling her loose.
There was something in her arms. She briefly wondered what, and then she heard a screeching, unearthly wail.
She screamed as she looked down and saw the bloody carnage beneath her, the spreading puddle, and the newborn infant.
She had no idea how long she’d been out for.
She felt no pain, just terrible weakness that transmuted all of her bones to water.
Her teeth sunk into the umbilical cord, severing it. There was no knife, and no time to look for one.
She clutched it to her chest and then just fell back, nearly as helpless as it was, hoping someone came across her.
There were burning patterns in the sky, as if a needle was stitching thrusts of fire through the fabric of heaven. She remembered what Wake had told her, about how the Solar Arm now stood immured in war.
But war was one side of the coin, as was death.
The other side was life, and that was the baby in her arms.
She’d done her part, had set her weight on the scale. Now it only mattered to see if death weighed heavier.
Come what may.
End
Over Neo Los Angeles, the sky was burning. Beyond a thin canopy of cloud there were fireballs erupting in the air, explosions felt none the less for the fact that they were happening hundreds of kilometers away.
The city was on a state of full lockdown. Underground bunkers and subway systems were packed, filled with desperate families who wanted safety and thought that twenty feet of solid concrete would save them.
The more intelligent ones were fleeing to the countryside, away from anything that might be a strategic target.
Soldiers patrolled every street corner. Mounted gun emplacements threatened alleyways with invisible lines of fire. The state of the war was well known now – the remnants of the Solar Arm could pump propaganda through the airways as fast as they could, but the truth was inescapable and plain on its face.
They were losing.
Perhaps they’d already lost.
The Solar Arm’s fleet had been smashed asunder in battle beyond the Belt. Sarkoth Amnon hadn’t been seen in days. Rumors flew that he’d been assassinated, or had fled. Nobody knew.
With Mars conquered, dogfights were happening, right on Terrus’s doorstep. Hammerheads and Xebecs. Occasionally, shards of wreckage would tumble out of the sky to the cities below, relics of an unwinnable fight.
The Sane were pushing further and further inwards, and now the last crust of resistance was ready to break. Once Terrus’s low orbit was secure, they could annihilate all of the Solar Arm’s cities with bombs. Ground troops would finish the job.
The incredible visage of Caitanya-9 was gone. Whether it was destroyed by the antimatter warheads or had left of its own accord, the planet with the two-black moons no longer glowed in the sky like a star. Its goals were unknown, and so was the power controlling it.
In weeks previously, you’d walk down a street and hear questions.
What…
How…
Why…
Now you didn’t hear anything, save the distant thunder from the heavens and the military broadcasts. Questioning is like a muscle, and everyone had used the muscle well beyond the point of exhaustion.
Now, there was only to wait. For peace, for liberty, even for death. Any guest could show up on man’s hearth.
Half a dozen soldiers stood near the city limits, mired in another day of endless busywork. Rose Rohilian spoke into her comms, one anxious eye on the battles up in space. “We need sandbags on the intersection of 53th and 39th. I’m seeing a lot of action happening to the south, and if the wind changes we’ll have debris falling right on top of us. Copy?”
“Copy.”
“And we need to make sure the roads stay open. The aquifers west of the gorge are wide open, and if they get destroyed or contaminated we’ll be be left trucking water in. Copy?”
“Copy.”
She’d expected to end up in the infantry. That was her skill set. She could fly, and operate piloting equipment.
But with forty percent of the Solar Arm’s forces destroyed or taken captive, strategic priorities changed. They needed her on the ground, needed someone who had a bit of ground knowledge of Terrus.
She’d taken the job.
Yves had been delighted. She thought Rose would stay safe, stay away from the theater of war.
No, Rose had told her. Don’t you get it? They’re coming here. They’re coming. Whether I’m piloting a Hammerhead in low orbit or handling a gun down here, I’m in their way. I’ll try and keep an ear out for the major strategic pushes. If I give you a signal, run for the countryside. And I don’t want you to argue. You might have minutes to save your life.
And now the final push was here.
The mood among the soldiers of her command had changed. Once, they’d talked about their plans for after the war. Few of them did any more, and only with the levels of sarcasm reserved for when pigs learn to fly.
Some of them were deserting. Just taking their families and running.
She would not be among them.
Sometimes running just means you die tired, with a cramp in your leg.
“Hey, what the fuck is this?” said Private Yatz, an oafish lout she hated with an intensity she almost thought couldn’t exist.
“What?”
He pointed down the road, where a man was approaching.
He was completely naked.
Flashes from high above illuminated his bare torso, stenciling deep lines of shadow into his flesh.
He held out his hands placatingly.
Rose’s stomach did flip flops. The man’s face was a mystery, but it tickled something inside her. Something that wasn’t quite recognition, but something close.
“The experiment ends…” she muttered under her breath.
Yatz was giving the guy a dressing down.
“This is your idea of a joke, right? Your buddies put you up to it, huh? Go streaking past the soldiers?”
The naked man ignored him, and spoke to the group. “Which one of you is in a position of command?”
“Where you’re concerned, cockroach, we’re all in a position of command,” Yatz said. “And if you thought this was a funny joke, I’ve got a funny one too – it’s called involuntary cavity search. Now sit down until I figure out what to do with you. Jesus, if I didn’t have enough shit to do…”
The man just walked right past him.
His eyes zeroed in on Rose Rohilian, and the corporal’s stripes on the lapel of her nanocomputer suit.
“I am placing myself under arrest, Corporal” he told her. No emotion in his voice.
She raised a hand to silence Yatz’s yapping. “Who are you?”
“I am Andrei Kazmer.”
It was as if the hot day had suddenly cooled by twenty degrees. A shiver ran up her spine.
Everything else happening suddenly blurred. The world as she knew it was probably ending. Fire was streaming down on their heads. The fate of twenty billion souls hung in the balance, but all of that was like looking into a fogged mirror now.
The only part in focus was the man in front of her.
“I know there’s a lot going on. I am an esca
ped criminal, and a fugitive from justice,” he said. “And now I’ve come back. Please take me away.”
“What for?”
His voice broke, shattering the emotionless expression like ice. “To serve the remainder of my prison sentence.”
Download the third book in the series, Skyline Severant: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MYFDVEI
Extinction Level Event (The Consilience War Book 2) Page 22
