Katson tilted her head. "Mars, General?"
"The Red Planet. Overtaken by the marauders. Fifty thousand humans once lived there. Perhaps they still do."
The president groaned. "Yes, General, I'm familiar with what the word Mars means. Why you speak of it is a mystery."
He turned toward a control panel. He hit buttons, and a hologram of Mars burst out. On it appeared several domes—the colony of New Carthage. Home to fifty thousand souls, now overrun by the marauders. In the hologram, Petty saw them. Two thousand ravagers, the living starships of the enemy, orbited the Red Planet.
Living ships. The discovery still shocked Petty. His scientists, studying a crashed ravager, had spread the news across the fleet. The ravagers were female marauders—their skin made of metal, their breath flaming, great huntresses who ferried the males inside their bodies. As nasty as the males were, the females were worse by far. And the females were those Petty faced here in space.
"Perhaps you're right, Madam President," Petty said. "Perhaps we cannot save billions on Earth. Hundreds of thousands of ravagers surround our world. But on Mars—only two thousand. We can defeat them, Madam President. We can liberate fifty thousand Martian colonists, or however many survived the marauder assault." He met his president's eyes again. "Let us not leave without them."
She inhaled sharply. "So you agree? You will obey me? You will seek a new world with me, a world far beyond the marauder empire?"
I must have more time, he thought. More time! I must wait for Ben-Ari to return.
But his time was running out.
Stiffly, he nodded. "Yes. But we take the Martians with us." His voice cracked. "We will forsake Earth. But we will not forsake Mars."
Katson gazed at the hologram of the Red Planet. "You deal with dangerous mathematics, General. Two thousand ravagers can tear through our fleet. We might all die in this assault, and humanity will perish. Even if we defeat the ravagers on Mars, at what cost? We might lose half our fleet, maybe more. Thousands of soldiers—dead. The surviving ships—if there are any—might not be able to even hold the colonists. To make room, we'd have to empty the cargo ships, to discard our tanks, our ammunition, so much of our supplies. Or perhaps, after unbearable losses, we would land on Mars to find a planet with no human survivors. Mathematics, General. And plenty of unanswered questions." She smiled thinly. "Do you see, Petty? You know how to fight. To kill. To sacrifice. But I must deal with the devastating numbers."
He stared into her eyes.
Who are you, Katson? he thought. What pain do you hide?
He looked back at the hologram of Mars. Numbers, yes. He might lose thousands of soldiers. He might lose much of his fleet, maybe all of it. For what? A chance. A hope to sacrifice a thousand to save tens of thousands. A risk that he might lose it all. Perhaps Katson was right. Perhaps they should flee now into the darkness. Perhaps this war was lost. Perhaps nobility dictated that he remain to fight, yet pragmatism demanded that he flee. His duty—as a soldier but also as a man. Dedication to his honor but also to his species. How did he choose while honor, duty, and the terrible mathematics clashed?
Yes, perhaps I am just a soldier, he thought. I never asked to be the shepherd of a species.
He thought of his father, one of the founders of the fleet. A man who had fought the first scum invasion, who had commanded the famous Evan Bryan himself. James Petty still carried a tattered photo of the man in his pocket.
What would you have me do, Father?
And he knew.
"We go to Mars," he said. "We fight. Do this with me. And then I will fly with you into the darkness."
He gazed into that darkness.
Hurry, Ben-Ari. Find your legend. Come back home. We don't have much time.
"General Petty," Katson said, "I understand your concerns. But you're still thinking like a warmongering soldier. I'm not sure you've considered the full ramifications of—"
Klaxons blared across the bridge.
Officers rushed about.
Lights flared on the control panels.
Major Hennessy, the bridge security officer, rushed up to General Petty. "The ravagers, sir! A hundred of them! They've found us."
For an instant—terror. Claws clutching him.
He shoved that terror aside.
"Battle stations, everyone," he barked. "Full red alert! All Firebird squadrons—launch at once! Move the fleet into a Briggs-Doyle defensive position."
Outside, he could see them now.
Marauder ships.
Ravagers.
They streamed across space toward the human fleet, blasting out plasma.
As officers worked, as Firebirds streamed out of the hangar bays, as the last fleet of humanity arranged itself for battle, General Petty turned toward his president.
"You did not want another battle," he said. "But that battle found us. Get down into the secure lower decks, Madam President. Let the mere soldiers handle this."
As the president left the bridge, General James Petty walked toward the main viewport. He stared outside and saw them charge toward him, closer, closer, their plasma flaring. He inhaled deeply.
He prepared to do his duty.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In her dreams, Addy was trapped again in the web. A marauder crept toward her, and she struggled and screamed, but she could not free herself. The alien shoved a feeding tube down her throat, deeper and deeper. As Addy struggled, she realized it wasn't a feeding tube after all; it was the alien's phallus, driving deep into her, impregnating her with its eggs, and she wept as her belly bloated, as the aliens hatched inside her, as they clawed their way out, and—
She freed herself from the web. She jolted up and her eyes snapped open. She was lying on a bed, drenched in sweat.
She gazed around, panting. She saw rusted metal walls, pipes, figures in the shadows. Her heart raced.
I'm back in the trap, she thought. I'm back in the cattle car. I'm—
"Addy!" A shadowy marauder rose from the darkness and lumbered forward, reaching out claws. "It's all right."
Addy lurched backward, ready to fight, and then the figure stepped into the flickering light of a fluorescent bulb.
Addy breathed out in relief.
"Steve," she said. "I thought you were a marauder."
He nodded. "I certainly stink like one. The water is out in the showers. Can you believe it?"
Addy's memory returned in bits and pieces. Fleeing the marauders' net. Racing through the burning forest. Making her way along the train tracks to the water tower, pounding on the hatch . . . After that she remembered nothing.
But she was here. In the bunker. In the safe space.
As her heart slowly calmed down, Addy looked around, getting a better view. She was in an infirmary. The old crazy bastard had actually built an infirmary. The room was formed from the hollowed husk of a school bus, its seats removed. Through the windows, she could see the soil they were buried in. The other cots were empty.
When Addy glanced down at her body, she winced. She wore a hospital gown, and bandages covered wounds on her limbs. An oxygen tank stood beside her, its mask lying by her head.
"We both inhaled too much smoke," Steve said. "We both got burns and cuts and look like two raw steaks. We got here just in the nick of time, Ads. How the hell did you know about this place?" He leaned closer, glanced around, then whispered, "The guy who runs this show isn't quite right in the head, is he?"
Addy let out a weak laugh. "So you met Jethro. Oh, he's a total loon. But he also saved our lives. And he's also an old friend." She clasped his hand. "You saved my life too, Steve. Thank you."
He let out a weak, shaky laugh. "Me? I did nothing. It's you who saved my ass. And the asses of seven other captives who found their way here, following our tracks."
Addy lay back down. Her. Steve. Seven others. Were they truly the only survivors among the thousands?
The infirmary door rattled open, and Addy saw him there.
; "Jethro," she said.
He stepped into the infirmary, the buckles clanking on his heavy boots. He wore camouflage pants and a tactical vest, though Addy knew he had never served in the Human Defense Force. She remembered him ranting years ago, back when she would spend time on his farm, about the bastards not letting him in. Since then, Jethro's hair had grown even shaggier and whiter, and his beard hung halfway down his chest. But even in his fifties, his tattooed arms were still wide and strong, and his eyes were chips of flint.
"Addy Fucking Linden," he said, staring at her. "The same girl who'd run up to my farm, shoot tin cans with my rifles, and spend days sleeping in my barn."
Addy snorted. "Don't give me that look. You loved it when I came over. Only time you had somebody to talk to other than your pigs."
Finally a grin cracked Jethro's weathered face. He sat by her bed, clasped her hand, and squeezed it. "Fuck me. You've grown. Last I heard, you were a war hero. Come a long way from shooting cans off a fence on my farm. Heard you killed about a million scum."
"And only half a million marauders so far. Still need to catch up." Addy looked around her and gave a whistle. "So you did it, Jethro. You built it. You actually built your little bunker. I still remember you buying the old school buses and leaving them to rust in the rain, talking about how you'd bury them some day."
His grin grew. "Forty-two school buses, all buried sixteen feet underground. Welcome, Linden, to the Ark! Ten thousand square feet of comfort and safety. All powered by redundant diesel generators, with air filtration, stockpiles of food, and—once my guys get it working again—running water. And you used to call me crazy."
"You're still fucking crazy," Addy said.
"A crazy man who saved your ass." Jethro sucked his teeth. "Yeah, lots of folks called me crazy. The government. The fucking HDF when they kicked me out of the enlistment camp. The lying media buzzards when they came to film me digging. All said I was nuts to think the world was gonna end." He barked a laugh. "But my old Pa lived through the Cataclysm. He saw the world burn. I knew it would happen again someday, and, well . . . not much left aboveground now. All those guys who laughed at me? Dead. And old Jethro and his friends are still here."
Addy slung her legs off the bed. "Give me the grand tour." She stood up, swayed, fell back down.
"Ads, maybe you should rest," Steve said.
"I'll rest when I'm dead. Steve, help me walk, will ya? I gotta see this place."
Jethro led the way, and Addy followed, limping, leaning on Steve.
He did it, she thought, gazing around. The crazy old bastard actually did it.
The forty-two school buses had been rusty, dented, and dilapidated even before Jethro had buried them sixteen feet underground; they looked even worse now. The seats had all been removed, leaving scratched, dusty floors. The fluorescent lights flickered, and mold grew in corners. But God damn it, Jethro had pulled it off, had managed to survive the apocalypse. Two school buses served as kitchens; old sinks were attached to their walls, and canned goods stood on rough wooden shelves. One bus served as a decontamination room; Jethro had installed handheld shower heads and drilled drains in the floor. There were buses filled with wooden bunks, even a nursery where Jethro had stashed secondhand baby toys between cardboard boxes. There was an armory where a handful of rifles—the same ones Addy would come fire with Jethro a decade ago—stood on shelves.
Every piece of equipment here—from the dishes to the toilets—was old, cracked, falling apart, bought from garage sales or fished out of landfills. Rust and mold and dust covered everything. Half the lights didn't work, and the water still wasn't flowing.
It looks less like a cozy refuge to wait out the apocalypse, more like a serial killer clown's torture dungeon of horrors, Addy thought. And it's beautiful. Right now, it's fucking beautiful.
"I built this place for five hundred souls," Jethro said. "For years, I drove across the farms and villages handing out flyers, offering tours of the Ark. Barely anyone listened. This place could have kept five hundred humans alive. Only seventy-two showed up, and that includes you and Steve."
Even with seventy-two people, the place was crowded. Most of the people seemed to be farmers, judging by the amount of overalls, flannel, and straw hats Addy saw. About half were children. They crowded in the dingy buses, eyes darting. In one room sat four women, one about fifty years old and the others in their twenties. Jethro introduced them as his lovely wives.
"The rules are different now," he explained. "With the world population decimated, it'll be up to us men to breed as much as possible. Every man in the Ark must marry four wives."
"Really," said Steve, perking up.
Addy glowered. "It all comes down to sex fantasies with you men, doesn't it? Even the end of the world." She grabbed Steve's arm. "This one has me, and I'm worth more than four hundred women. You got that, Steve?" She twisted his arm. "You got that?"
Steve winced. "Ow, ow, yes!"
Addy spun toward Jethro. "And you listen to me, mister. You talk like we're the last humans alive. But there are millions still up there, I wager. The marauders didn't come to exterminate us. Not like the scum wanted. The marauders want to eat us. They'll place us in pens, breed us, butcher us, and—"
"Breed us?" Steve asked, perking up again.
Addy silenced him with a punch to the chest. "The next thing you breed with will be my foot as I kick your groin." She turned back toward Jethro. "How long can we last down here?"
"We have enough power, food, and water for a year," he said.
"I won't wait that long to die," Addy said. "I'm going back up there."
Steve cringed, rubbing his chest. "Ads, we saw what's up there. Toronto is gone. The whole world might be gone. We should lie low for a while, try again in a year, and maybe—"
"And maybe millions more will have died by then," Addy said. "Steve, what did you do in the army? Did you fight the scum?"
Steve bristled. "You know I wanted to. And you know I'm deaf in one ear. They wouldn't let me fight. Stuck me to fix antennae on the mountains. But goddamn it, the signals we picked up saved lives. I did my part. Even if I didn't kill any scum."
Addy turned toward Jethro. "And you, Jethro. What did you do in the war?"
The bearded survivalist grumbled. "I tried to join. Those kids in the HDF kicked me out. Said I'm mentally unstable." He snorted. "I'm saner than all of them. Who's laughing now?"
Addy gave them a crooked smile. "Well, boys, I'm giving you two a new chance. The HDF may have shoved you aside. But you both may join the HR."
"And what," Steve said, "is the HR?"
"My new army." Addy raised her chin. "The Human Resistance."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Even among the beauty of the Nandaki village, Ben-Ari could not stop her bitterness from rising.
This is what you withheld from me for so long, Father. These are the adventures you had while I wasted away.
The village spread around Ben-Ari across the trees, a jungle of tree houses, bridges, rope ladders, and wooden pipes that grew like mushrooms, nearly vanishing into the foliage. At first, she had thought the Nandaki frightening, what with their four arms, the mouths on their hands, and the massive eyes in their pale round heads. But she had come to admire them. They were a peaceful, intelligent race with a deep love of nature, art, and music. A race that someday could join the alliance of Milky Way civilizations.
She closed her eyes, and she was a child again. No longer Captain Ben-Ari, a leader of soldiers, but just little Einav, a girl, the daughter of a great colonel. She ran across the military base, passing between tanks and cannons. Fighter jets soared above and soldiers marched ahead. She raced into the building, and she leaped onto her father.
"Papa, take me with you!"
The tall, slender man pulled her into his arms and kissed her cheek, his mustache so bristly. Einav had inherited Colonel Ben-Ari's green eyes, pale skin, and dark blond hair, rare colors among her people. Everyone said that Eina
v looked like him, not like her dark, demure mother, and that saddened Einav. Her mother had died so long ago, killed by a bee sting, and Einav could barely remember the woman's face, only what she saw in photographs.
"Einavi, you know it's dangerous out there." Papa placed her down.
"But I want to go into space!" she said. "I'll help you find aliens. I'm good at making friends."
Papa only laughed—his deep laugh, head tossed back. He mussed her hair. "Someday, Einavi, you'll be an officer like me. An explorer. And you'll travel the galaxy. But today there is a war in space. Today I need you to stay here. My sergeants will take care of you."
"I don't want them!" Einav shouted, tears in her eyes. "I want my mother to take care of me. But she's dead. She's dead, and now you're leaving again!"
Across the base, soldiers turned toward her, then quickly looked away.
"Einav Ben-Ari!" Papa rumbled. "You will not speak to me like that."
"I'll say whatever I want, because I hate you! I miss Mama!"
With that, tears on her cheeks, Einav fled her father. And with that, only an hour later, smoke blazed and fire roared as Colonel Yoram Ben-Ari took off in his rocket, flying into the sky until he disappeared, leaving her alone again. In a few months, he would return, as he always did. He would bring her some gift, often just purchased at the base's spaceport. And in a few months, he would leave again.
Einav sniffed, tears in her eyes, and ran into her quarters. Every few months, they switched bases, had a new little room for a home. She sat on her bed, and through her tears, she read books of space adventures, fictional stories about imaginary places. Because true space was forbidden to her.
"Someday I'll fly out there," she whispered, staring out the window. The trail of smoke from the rocket was already fading away. "Someday I'll find my own worlds."
Ben-Ari sighed, looking around her at the Nandaki village. That had been twenty years ago. She was twenty-seven now, a grown woman. She had taken no husband, had no children, had chosen a career as an officer. The career she had been groomed for since childhood, the daughter of a colonel, born to a people with no nation. The scum had destroyed Israel, her tiny homeland, long ago. Her parents had died. All Ben-Ari had now was her career, and even that lay in shreds, her commission stripped away. Perhaps all of humanity now lay in ruins. Perhaps all she had left was her crew on this distant world. Marco. Lailani. Kemi.
Earth Shadows (Earthrise Book 5) Page 15
