by Scott Sigler
“So many,” Maria whispers. “Lahfah, what’s your count of their infantry?”
I think Maria forgot to speak in Springer, but Lahfah answers quickly.
“Thousand eight,” she says. She rubs at her middle eye, then corrects herself: “Eight thousand. That how said?”
I nod. “That’s how you say it, yes.”
When Matilda told me of the Wasp troopships landing in the jungle, I estimated some fourteen thousand enemy soldiers. Obviously the trucks, tanks, ticks and cannons took up much of the available space on those craft, but still…eight thousand foot soldiers. Even with Barkah’s troops, we’re outnumbered three to one.
And then there’s the fighter craft that flew back up to their mother ship. When the ground troops attack Uchmal, I know those fighters will be there.
“How long will it take us to get back to Uchmal?” I ask.
Maria breathes deep, considering. She says something in Springer to Lahfah, who thinks before replying. Maria nods.
“The snake-wolves are getting some rest now,” she says. “We’ll have to take breaks on the way back, but if we push hard we can reach Uchmal by this time tomorrow.”
I nod toward the enemy force.
“And them?”
Maria stares down into the valley. The tanks roll along. The troops march through the jungle.
“They have numbers, but that costs them speed,” she says. “If they keep moving at the pace we see now, they’ll reach Uchmal in two days.”
Which means we’ll have just one day to prepare.
A single godsdamned day to prepare against tanks, troops and cannons, but at least we have that day. That doesn’t make strategic sense to me—why didn’t they land closer and hit us before we could get ready?
A Springer horn echoes from the north, in the jungle on the far side of the marching army.
From the southwest, in front of the advancing Wasps, a second war horn answers the first.
My blood runs cold.
“Galanak,” Lahfah says. “Tribe attacking.”
The Galanak. The largest Springer tribe we know of. That village we saw was probably in their territory.
The Wasps react. They shout at each other in their piercing clicking tongue. Orders of some kind. The tanks stop. The infantry spreads out, making a wide circle around the trucks. The troop movements are uncoordinated, as if many of the soldiers are unsure of how they are supposed to act. Wasps with copper streaks on their shoulder armor scream at the confused ones, push them in the right direction.
“They’re new to this,” Maria says. “Like our circles were when we first started training them to fight.”
The tick groups rush into the jungle, eight legs a blur as they vanish among the dark trees and thick underbrush.
The southwest horn sounds again, closer this time.
The tanks spread out, creating space between them. Turrets pivot to point toward the threats in front of them and on their right flank.
The Wasps obviously have better weapons and equipment, but as a whole they are uncoordinated and slow to respond.
Matilda’s words come back to me: Find out what your enemy has and how they will react.
I watch. I learn. I memorize. Seeing how the Wasps respond to this threat is a huge stroke of luck. If I know their strategies, maybe I can find holes in them.
Both horns bellow again, followed by a sound I know all too well—a guttural war cry from thousands of Springers. Louder than the one I heard in the crescent-shaped clearing a year ago. This Springer army must be far larger than the one we faced.
A massive volley of musket fire; muzzle flashes in the heavy jungle cover reveal a long line of Springers spread through the underbrush. A few Wasp soldiers fall. A few others panic and run away. The copper-striped leaders grab them, hit them, throw them back toward their units—or just shoot them as a warning to the others.
“Galanak yinilah nahnaw,” Lahfah says.
I glance at Maria.
“Death-revenge,” Maria says. “The Galanak tribe wants payback for the village.”
“How many soldiers do the Galanak have?”
Maria translates for Lahfah.
“Thousand fifteen,” the Springer queen says, then corrects herself. “Fifteen thousand soldiers. They all come.”
I hear another musket volley. More movement, as if the jungle itself has come to life and is slithering toward Wasp soldiers that take cover and form rough lines of their own.
The Galanak outnumber the Wasps. Fifteen thousand Springers are closing in, giving me a surge of hope that the Wasp invasion might be routed right here, right now.
Then the tanks open fire.
Deafening echoes flood the valley. I instinctively move to cover my ears, almost fall, grab at branches to stop myself from tumbling down.
Fireballs erupt in the Springer lines. Trees shatter. Bits of vines soar into the air. In those brief flashes of light, I see Springers torn apart, ravaged bodies spinning away in all directions. Between detonations, I hear the screams of the terrified, the wounded and the dying.
The tanks pour it on, blasting huge, flaming holes in the tortured jungle.
Another war horn sounds: three short blasts, a pause, three short blasts.
The Springers that can still move rise and flee.
Blurs of machinery tear through the darkening jungle, rush past the crackling flames. The ticks are giving chase. Their weapons flash staccato bursts that shred flesh and wood alike.
Then, a different kind of scream—the Wasp foot soldiers rise from cover and shout as one as they move into the jungle after their attackers. When they pass fallen Springers, they shoot them repeatedly or draw long knives and hack at them, over and over again. The wounded Springers cry out. I don’t need to understand their language to know they’re begging for mercy.
They get none.
The armored aliens slaughter them.
Sounds of battle fade, not so much from distance as from the obvious fact that there’s no one left to kill.
Maria, Lahfah and I stay perfectly still in our tree, stunned into silence. The battle lasted only a few minutes, tearing the heart out of the jungle. Fallen trees. Broken stumps. Burning vines. Smoldering craters. And everywhere…bodies.
“Thousands,” I say, ever so softly lest these killers hear us. “There were thousands of Springers.”
“And they were waiting,” Maria says. “Springers chose the ground, had the position they wanted. And they still didn’t stand a chance.”
Lahfah says nothing. She’s making a strange noise—the Springer equivalent of crying.
The Wasp troops are inexperienced. They won with greater firepower, not greater discipline. Now I understand why they landed so far from Uchmal. They needed enough distance to make sure we couldn’t hit them as they unloaded, but there was a bigger reason—the Wasp soldiers don’t have combat experience. Before this army hits our well-defended walls, before these soldiers face my battle-hardened people, the Wasp commanders want their troops prepared to face enemy fire and to know what it’s like to kill.
They wanted the Springers to attack.
When we fought the Wasps in Uchmal, we outnumbered them.
When the next battle comes, we will be outnumbered.
We will be outgunned.
The Xolotl can’t help us.
No one can.
I close my eyes, lean my forehead against the tree’s rough bark.
Reality is what it is whether we like it or not.
The reality is we can’t win this war.
I have always searched for ways to keep my people alive.
Now there is only one way left.
I know what needs to be done, but I can’t do it without the help of my partner, my friend, my lover—I must talk to Bishop.
“Let’s get back to Uchmal,” I say. “As fast as we can.”
The sun is setting when we reach Uchmal. This time it’s not just Borjigin waiting for us at the city gate—t
hankfully, Bishop is there as well, standing tall in spider 01.
I slide off Fenrir and run to him, he hops down from the spider and runs to me. He takes me in his arms. For one sweet moment, we’re not leaders, we’re not soldiers—we are a boy who desperately missed his girl, and a girl who desperately missed her boy. We hold each other in full view of Borjigin, Maria, Nedelka and Lahfah, and we don’t care.
I’m filthy and exhausted from the long, hard ride. I smell like Fenrir. But there’s no time to clean up, no time to rest.
“The Wasp army is coming,” I say to Bishop. “I need to talk to you, in private. Right now. Let’s take your spider.”
He runs a hand over my dirty hair, pulls me in for another fast, desperate hug.
“As you wish,” he says, and walks to the machine.
Maria slides off Fenrir, leans close to me and whispers: “I wish he was taking me for a little private time.”
Our world is ending, yet I can’t help the blood rising to my cheeks.
“It’s not like that!”
Maria grins at me. “Too bad. It should be like that.”
Yes, it should, but there isn’t enough time.
“Please take Lahfah and find Barkah for me,” I say. “Tell him I need to talk to him in my room, alone, in one hour. It’s important.”
Her smile fades a bit. She gives me a what is this about? look, but she doesn’t question me.
“I’ll take care of it,” she says, then kisses my cheek. “Now go see your boy.”
I run to join Bishop.
—
The waterfall’s roar fills my ears. White mist crashes down, lit up by Omeyocan’s twin moons. Blurds zip in and out of the spray. I wonder if they are playing.
“Now can you tell me what this is about?” Bishop asks. “We don’t have time for dramatic nonsense. Why did you ask me to come here?”
We’re standing in the spider’s cockpit. As we drove from the gate to the waterfall, I told him about the Wasp army, the battle, how outnumbered we are. He’s anxious to get back to our people and start planning for Uchmal’s defense. But before that, I will say what must be said.
“We’re here because this is where we first kissed. Where we first saw a spider. It was here that everything changed for us—and it’s here that everything will change again.”
Bishop shakes his head in exasperation. I’m clearly trying his patience.
“Em, I love you, but you’re playing games. Every second matters. Get on with it.”
I take his hands in mine.
“We can’t beat their army,” I say. “We have to leave.”
Bishop thinks for a moment, choosing his words carefully.
“That might be the best strategy. If those cannons you saw have a greater range than ours, they can sit back and hammer the towers. The Observatory’s antimissile batteries are almost out of ammo. If we lose the tower cannons, the Wasps can march right in or land troops anywhere they like. Maybe you’re right—we take everyone to the ruins, go underground with Barkah. Then we fight a guerrilla campaign. We hit them where we want, when we want.”
“Like the Belligerents did? We wiped them out, remember?”
That stops him for a moment.
“We’re smarter than they were,” he says. “Barkah’s people hid from the automated spiders for centuries. We can hide from the Wasps the same way.”
I shake my head.
“That’s not the life I want our people to live. When I said we need to leave, I didn’t mean leave Uchmal. We need to return to the Xolotl.”
His eyes narrow in confusion.
“But you said there’s no weapons on that ship. All the Xolotl has to offer is a few old fighter craft. What would be the purpose of going up there?”
He is a warrior through and through, bred to defend his people. The thought of running is so contrary to who he is that he can’t even process what I’m telling him.
This will be hard for him to hear. Almost as hard as it is for me to say.
“The purpose would be to leave Omeyocan. For good. I’m giving the order to abandon the planet.”
Even this simple statement takes him a few moments to comprehend. I watch his face change from loving to guarded.
“But this is our home.”
I shake my head. “It never really was. This place is poison.”
His eyes narrow with anger.
“This world is ours. We’ve fought for it. We were made for it. We can’t leave.”
I put my hands on his shoulders.
“We leave or we die, Bishop. You have to see that.”
He flinches away as if he suddenly can’t stand my touch. That move was a reaction, he didn’t think about it at all, yet it makes my heart drop.
“I can’t believe you want to give up. You? Em Savage? Miss if you run your enemies will find you? You’ve gotten us through worse! You overcame Aramovsky’s lies. You stopped the Springer war. You’re the reason we escaped the Xolotl in the first place. That place was hell, and now you want to take us back?”
His voice is rising. He’s never yelled at me before, not even once.
“The Wasps have weapons we can’t beat.” I keep my voice level. I don’t want to aggravate him further. “And there’s another alien ship coming, remember? The Wasps won’t be the last enemy we face. But that doesn’t matter—the Grub is driving people crazy. It’s made us hate each other, fight each other. It’s made us kill each other.”
“Spingate was weak,” he says.
“When you strangled Victor, was that just weakness?”
“He hit you!”
“In a training session,” I say. “In a fair fight, the way he’s done a hundred times before. You almost killed him! You attacked him from behind, like a coward.”
Bishop leans back as if I’d just slapped him.
“I am no coward.”
“No, you’re not. You’re also not a murderer, but on the training ground you almost were. And if I’d had my normal spear close by, Bawden would be dead. That’s the Grub’s influence. If it can make you and me give in to rage, what do you think it will do to the others when its power grows?”
He crosses his arms.
“Then we kill it now, before it gets stronger.”
“We don’t…have…time! The Wasps will be here tomorrow. The Grub could rise at any moment, and when it does, I don’t think any of us will be able to resist. I saw it, I felt it. When it rises, we won’t just be fighting the Wasps, we’ll be fighting the Springers, too. And we’ll be fighting each other.”
“If anyone comes at me, I will destroy them!” His face twists into something primitive and hateful. He snarls, slams a fist against the cockpit’s back wall. “I’ve killed before and I will kill again! Do you hear me? And if you try and stop me, Em, I swear to the God of Blood that I will kill YOU!”
His words hang in the air like the waterfall’s mist.
I stand very still, say nothing.
Bishop blinks. He’s confused. His hateful face grows slack. His cheeks flush bright red.
“Em, I’m…I don’t know…I didn’t mean to say that.”
I force myself to take his hands again.
“It’s all right,” I say softly. “That’s what the Grub does to us. It makes us hate. Maybe you didn’t like Victor to begin with, but you love me—you just threatened my life. Now do you understand?”
He looks at the waterfall, refuses to meet my eyes. Maybe the Grub is affecting him, but Ramses Bishop doesn’t believe in excuses; he said the words, which means he’s at fault for saying them.
“We have a way out,” I say. “Did Zubiri tell you how long until our shuttle is fueled?”
Bishop nods. “She thinks tomorrow around midnight.”
It’s just past sunset now. Maria thinks the Wasps will be here around this time tomorrow—midnight will be too late. I know Zubiri and Gaston are working as fast as they can. We’ll have to find a way to slow the Wasps down.
“What ab
out the captured troopships?”
“Sooner than the shuttle,” he says. “Nevins is scheduled to do the first test flight tomorrow at noon, Cathcart right after that. Then they have hull integrity checks, or something like that.”
He continues to stare at the waterfall.
“Bishop, look at me.”
I reach for his face, to cup it, to hold it—with a sharp wave of his arm, he slaps my hands away.
Tears in his eyes. He feels betrayed. The person he loves is asking him to abandon everything he stands for.
“If you want to run, coward, then run,” he says. “Take your godsdamned shuttle and leave. I will stay. I will fight.”
I knew it would come to this. He won’t be the only one that feels this way. Bishop is an icon among us—if he stays, many will follow his lead. As a people, we must not be divided. Despite Bishop’s bravery, despite his skill as a warrior, despite his dedication to protecting our home against anyone and everyone, if he stays, he will die.
And so will those who stay because of him.
That I will not allow.
“Bishop…do you love me?”
The words crack his anger, but don’t destroy it.
“You know I do. Don’t dare use that against me.”
I already feel like a villain, because I am manipulating him, but I need him on my side no matter what it takes.
“Staying is suicide,” I say. “For you, for anyone who won’t leave. If you love me, Bishop, if you truly love me, then trust in me.”
Physically, Bishop is the strongest of us. But this isn’t a test of physical strength—this is a test of will. When it comes to that, I am more powerful than anyone.
“We’re going to take control of the Xolotl,” I say. “If we have to kill Matilda and her people to do that, then so be it.”
He finally looks at me. “What about the descendants of the vassals? Will we have to kill them as well?”
I thought Old Victor and Marcus were in league with Matilda, but now I believe that was the God of Blood warping my thoughts. If we have to fight them, we will, but I hope we don’t have to.
“They told me they want us there,” I say. “Together, we can make a new culture.”
