Finally Kemi, who had remained silent for most of the journey underground, spoke. Her voice was so soft everyone had to lean closer to hear.
"I miss my boyfriend," the cadet said, staring ahead blankly. "I love him so much. I miss just walking with him through the city, listening to classical music with him, dreaming of a future together." She closed her eyes. "But I broke his heart. When I joined the academy, I told him that I won't see him for a decade, and I let him go. Only a couple months later, he found another girl to love. What hurts most is that it's my fault." She wiped her tears. "I miss being with him so much."
A few of the soldiers—Lailani, Elvis, Beast—all looked at Marco. They knew of whom Kemi spoke. They understood.
Marco spoke next. "I miss my girlfriend. A woman I love dearly. A woman who broke my heart. A woman I missed every day, dreamed of every night, a woman who's brave, intelligent, and beautiful . . . who let me go. Who returned to me. Whom I can never have again."
Everyone was silent for a long moment, staring between Marco and Kemi.
Addy coughed. "You two couldn't say something like hockey or hot dogs, could you?"
It was Osiris who saved them from the awkward moment.
"I want to see Earth," the android said. "I want to see forests. I want to taste lobster curry. I want to drink beer. I want to watch a hockey game. Will you take me to Earth?"
Addy yawned. "You know the best thing about Earth? The beds. Fuck, I miss having an actual, big, fluffy bed." She lay down on the floor. "I'm going to sleep for the next six hours. Anyone who bugs me is getting kicked in the groin. I call the last watch."
"I'll watch first," Lailani said. She still stood by the tracks, and she pulled her gas mask back on.
Marco lay down to sleep too, choosing a spot near Addy. Elvis stretched and soon began to snore. As the others lay down, one soldier stood up. He was a corporal of Space Territorial Command, wearing a black battle uniform, one of only three STC soldiers who had made it down into the mine.
"Wait a minute," the man said and pointed at Lailani. "Why does she want to guard first?" He scowled. "I don't trust her."
"Go to sleep," Beast muttered from the floor. "You can trust little one. She strong like bull."
"Strong enough to tear out an engine from a starship?" the STC corporal said. "Strong enough to sabotage a cage lift?"
Lailani marched toward the man. "You better shut your mouth, asshole, or you're going to suck my gun's muzzle."
"Then you'll have to shoot me too," said another STC soldier, this one a tall woman with brown hair and a scarred cheek. She snorted. "I don't trust this little one. Speaking of demons and witches, hiding her face behind a gas mask, threatening murder."
Now Addy leaped to her feet. She pointed at the STC soldiers. "How do we know you're not the saboteurs? You'd know your ship! You'd know how to dislodge the engine."
"It's the android," Elvis said. He glanced at Osiris and cringed. "Right? Guys? Back me up here."
"It's a land-legger," said the first STC corporal. "Never trust goddamn land-leggers. Worse than scum."
"I'll show you scum!" Addy shouted, leaping toward the man, fists raised. Sergeant Stumpy growled and began to bark. Soon everyone was shouting, grabbing at one another, and—
"Enough!" Lieutenant Ben-Ari shouted. "Everyone, sit down. Now!"
They all froze, grumbled, and sat down. Some of these warriors were older and more experienced than Ben-Ari, but she was the only officer here. They all seemed well trained enough to respect her rank, even the spacers.
For now, Marco thought.
"We don't know who the saboteur is," Ben-Ari said, staring at them one by one. "We don't know that there is a saboteur. I will not tolerate baseless accusations. Not from my own troops. Not from STC troops either. Tonight we'll guard in pairs. De la Rosa, Emery—you two guard first. Then wake up another pair." She passed her gaze from one soldier to another. "We'll survive this if we stay together. We have only one enemy down here. The scum. Is that understood?"
"Yes, ma'am," they replied.
As Marco stood guard with Lailani, he watched the others sleep. Could one of them truly be a traitor? He looked at them one by one. Sergeant Singh, his turban removed in his sleep, his long black hair spread out around him. Corporal Diaz, handsome and scarred, perhaps the strongest warrior in their platoon, half his spine now made of metal but his courage never faltering. Lieutenant Ben-Ari, young but wise, a leader Marco would follow—maybe was following—into Hell itself. Beast, a gentle giant. Elvis, young and silly and so afraid. Addy, his best friend, silent and peaceful in her sleep. Kemi, his Kemi, her cheek resting on her hands, a woman Marco still loved—even now, even as he loved Lailani. Marco loved them all, he realized. Not just Kemi but every one of them. He could not believe that one of them could be the traitor.
He looked at the others in the group. A few soldiers of the STC. A few soldiers from Earth he hadn't served with at Djemila. And among them, sitting upright, eyes closed—Osiris. Could one of them, a stranger in their new squad here underground, be the saboteur? Or perhaps one of the soldiers aboveground? Were Captain Petty and her warriors even still alive? They had not heard from the rest of their company since leaving the shaft. Were their headpieces malfunctioning here underground, or were the others gone, slain by the scum?
Lailani walked up to his side. As the others slept, she slipped her hand into his, and she leaned her head against his arm. Marco slung an arm around her.
"I'm sorry, Marco," she whispered. "That I've been so gloomy. So afraid. That I haven't been good to you." She moved so that she stood facing him. "When I said I missed boot camp, I meant that I missed being with you there. Before all of this."
She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against his chest, and Marco wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. He missed it too. Lazy Sundays on the base, lying on his cot, holding Lailani in his arms. More than anything right now, he wanted another day like that, just to lie with her in sunlight, hold her, laugh with her.
"Better days will come," he said. "It can't always be dark. We'll find our way out of this place. We'll have more days in the sun."
The wind moaned, emerging from the tunnels below, and it seemed almost to laugh, to mock Marco. The words from the wall returned to him. Welcome to Hell. He shivered and held Lailani close.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Marco woke up from sweaty, suffocating nightmares to find himself back in the mine, Kemi missing.
"How could they have just vanished?" Lieutenant Ben-Ari said, eyes flashing. "Who had the last watch?"
Marco rose, rubbing his eyes, shaking off the slumber, the dreams of being trapped in a labyrinth, creatures chasing him. He looked around him, and a fresh coat of cold sweat covered him.
The soldiers stood in the small, craggy chamber alongside the tracks. But two soldiers—an STC corporal and Kemi—were gone.
"I was meant to have the last watch," Addy said. "Elvis and me. But Kemi never woke us up."
Marco's heart seemed to freeze.
He stepped onto the tracks. "Kemi!" he shouted, then turned the other way. "Kemi!"
His voice echoed. Somewhere deep in the darkness, laughter—cruel, demonic—answered.
"I knew it." Lailani spat, pacing the chamber. "I knew it! That STC piece of shit corporal. He was the traitor all along. And he tried to pin it on me."
"Or maybe that Kemi cadet was the traitor," said one of the remaining STC soldiers. Only two now served in the group.
"Kemi isn't a traitor!" Marco said, knees trembling, heart racing. "I've known her for years. Something must have grabbed them while they were guarding." He coned his hands around his mouth and shouted again. "Kemi!"
Addy approached him, pale. She stared at him in shocked silence, then down the tunnel. Addy and Kemi had never been close friends. Addy was crude, rude, tall and blond like a viking, a girl who loved fistfights and beer. Kemi was studious, ambitious, and introverted, the sweet granddaughter of Niger
ian immigrants who loved good grades, classical rock from two centuries ago, and her boyfriend. But the two had grown up in the same city, same school, had spent many days together. Addy was now trembling.
"We'll find her," she said, voice shaky. "I promise you, Marco. We'll find her. And I'll kill whoever took her."
The soldiers split into two search parties. One group traveled back along the tracks toward the shaft, driving the train in reverse. The other group, Marco among them, traveled on foot deeper into the mine. Marco didn't have to walk far. Only a couple hundred meters down the tunnel, he froze.
A lump lay on the tracks.
His heart froze.
"Kemi," he whispered.
He ran along the tracks and knelt by the lump. He hated the relief that flooded over him, that shaky breath of joy.
It wasn't Kemi. It was the STC corporal, holes gaping in his chest, eyes staring lifelessly.
Marco rose from the body. "Kemi!" he cried.
In the distance—clattering. Moaning wind. The echoes of laughter.
"Maybe we should keep quiet," Lailani said. She knelt by the corpse, examining it. "Scum made these wounds. Scum claws."
Marco stared at the slain corporal. "Or the claws of those humanoid creatures, like the one in the gray robe." He turned to look at the other soldiers who stood behind him. "A creature must have grabbed them in the night. It might still have Kemi. She might still be alive."
He walked deeper into the tunnel, and his flashlight reflected on something small and metallic. Marco knelt.
It was Kemi's pistol. Sticky goo covered it.
"Scum drool," Marco said. "The scum have her."
There was no corpse. No blood. They had taken her alive, discarding her weapon.
Marco tapped his communicator and hailed Lieutenant Ben-Ari, who was leading the second search party. He waited in the darkness until the train came trundling back toward them. Ben-Ari and the others leaped off the carts, and Marco showed her Kemi's pistol.
"They took her alive," Marco said. "The bastards took her alive."
Ben-Ari nodded, face pale, eyes determined. "We'll get her back. Into the train. We follow."
They all boarded the train—fourteen soldiers, the last of their company. They traveled down the tunnel, staring ahead, the headlights cutting a path through the darkness. Marco kept dreading another lump ahead on the tracks, but the rails stretched onward, unencumbered. Marco kept one hand on Sergeant Stumpy's back; the Boston Terrier rode beside him, a comforting presence. They passed a kilometer. Another kilometer. And still the tunnel stretched onward, sloping deeper underground.
Where are you, Kemi? Marco thought. Tendrils of panic wreathed around him. He couldn't slow his heartbeat. His head kept spinning. Kemi was trapped somewhere here in the darkness, dragged into the shadows, hurt, maybe dead. Scared. She would be so scared. Marco's breath trembled, and images of their youth together kept rising in the darkness. Kemi helping him with his math homework. Kissing Kemi for the first time, sixteen years old, lying together on a grassy hill in the night. Kemi and him cooking in her family's kitchen, laughing, lying on the couch, reading together, comforted by each other's presence.
That's what I miss from home, Marco thought. God, Kemi. Hang in there. I'm coming for you. I'm going to find you.
The tunnel sloped downward, so steep Marco kept pressing the brakes to slow the train, and he felt like on a roller coaster, plunging down, his belly churning. The tunnel narrowed, soon so narrow the rough walls scraped the train's sides and the ceiling brushed the soldiers' helmets. They had traveled five kilometers when they reached a fork.
Marco stopped the train.
He stepped out onto the tracks, examining both paths. One was narrower and plunged deeper underground. The other tunnel was wider, sturdier, and level.
"Well, I know which way I like," Addy said, pointing to the wider path.
Marco frowned. He stepped toward the fork, staring down one way, then another, seeking some clue, finding none. Finally he shouted, "Kemi!"
The other soldiers cringed.
"Emery, I thought we were going to be silent," Ben-Ari said.
He didn't reply to his lieutenant. He listened, eyes closed.
In the darkness, a clattering rose, a cackle, a scraping on stone.
Marco pointed down the narrower, steeper tunnel. "There's life down there. I can hear it. They took Kemi that way." He grabbed a lever on the track and yanked it. With a screech, switch rails on the tracks moved, pointing down the narrow tunnel. They got back into the mine carts, and they rode onward in the darkness. The train rattled down the narrow path, scraping against the walls, sparks rising beneath its wheels. Pale curtains like cobwebs hung from the ceiling, brushing against them, though Marco saw no spiders. An acidic odor clung to the air.
As they drove deeper, the cackles rose louder ahead. Shadows danced, then vanished. A creature clattered above, disappearing when Marco looked up.
"They're everywhere!" Addy shouted from the cart behind Marco.
"I can't see them!" Marco said.
"They're here," Lailani said. "Demons. Demons of hell."
The whispers rose all around them. Feet pattered on the ceiling, along the walls. Shadows fled. Marco thought he saw something, there, ahead—a figure standing, humanoid, white eyes, and—
The headlight shattered on the train, plunging the tunnel into darkness. They kept plowing ahead, the blackness now complete. They lit their flashlights, but the light seemed so weak here, only intensifying the shadows, making them dance.
"Slow down!" Addy shouted.
Marco reached for the brakes. He cried out, pulled his hand back. It bled. The lever was gone. The train stormed onward, and the creatures were racing everywhere. Sergeant Stumpy wailed.
"Scum!" Addy shouted. "Fucking scum, they're on the walls, they're on the ceiling, they're everywhere!"
Lailani was laughing. "Hell. Hell. We're in Hell."
"Don't fire at the walls!" Ben-Ari shouted. "The bullets will—"
But her voice drowned as soldiers rose in their mine carts and fired their guns. Muzzle flashes lit the tunnel. Bullets screamed, slamming into the walls, shattering, ricocheting. Pieces of bullets slammed into the sides of the train. A soldier screamed and blood sprayed. Creatures screeched in the darkness, leaping down from the ceiling, claws flashing, and another man screamed in pain. Blood splashed Marco, hot, sticky. A huge white flash of light blazed forward as Lieutenant Ben-Ari fired her plasma gun. For an instant, the tunnel was bright as day, and Marco saw dozens, hundreds of scum ahead, coating the walls and ceiling like worms in entrails, claws clutching the walls, scuttling forward.
Marco rose in his seat and fired his gun.
The other soldiers leaned out the sides of their carts, firing their own guns. A creature slammed into the train, tore apart, and the carts screeched and thumped over the beast. More of the aliens shrieked ahead. Marco flipped his safety switch to automatic, emptied a magazine, loaded another one. He shouted as he fired. The train slammed into more scum, leaped off the tracks, slammed down again, scraped across raw metal, reconnected with the rails, and stormed onward.
A scum swooped from above, landing in the locomotive.
Marco shouted, swung his rifle's stock, and knocked the scum aside. He fired. Bullets riddled the creature's abdomen, and burning yellow blood showered. Another creature landed before Marco, and claws scraped his arm, and he fired again, screaming in pain. Stumpy leaped onto a scum, biting and barking.
"They're everywhere!" someone shouted behind. More scum kept raining from the ceiling. Bullets lit the darkness. They plowed over the centipedes. More kept landing, and the train slammed into a pile of them, scattering chunks of exoskeleton. With an ear-piercing screech, the train rolled off the rails. They skidded along stone, raising showers of sparks and shattered rock, and slammed into a wall. The mine shook. The engine belched out smoke, then died.
Ben-Ari fired her plasma gun again, illuminating do
zens of scum ahead, racing toward them.
Marco drew a grenade from his belt.
"Fire in the hole!" he shouted—he must have heard it in some movie ages ago—and tossed the grenade.
They all knelt and covered their ears.
The explosion rocked the mine, deafening, shaking the tunnel. Chunks of stone rained.
"Fire in the hole!" Addy shouted and hurled her own grenade.
"Fire in the hole!" others answered, lobbing grenades.
Marco leaped out of the train and knelt behind the locomotive. He ducked his head and covered his ears.
The moon of Corpus seemed to shatter.
A supernova explosion seemed to tear through the mines.
Chunks of stone and sizzling hot exoskeleton sliced him, followed by raining yellow blood.
The dust settled. Marco and the others rose. Sergeant Singh attached something to a pistol, then fired. A flare blasted down the tunnel, then burst into light, filling the mine with searing whiteness.
Scum lay dead or twitching across the tunnel. A handful were still crawling forward. A few more gunshots knocked them down.
Venom sizzled on Marco's wounds, infecting them, and with shaking hands, he plunged a needle of antidote into his thigh. His ears rang and thrummed. Already, over the past few days, he had found it more difficult than usual to hear conversations. If he ever returned home, he wondered how badly damaged his hearing would be. Rubbing his ears, he walked alongside the train. His heart sank.
Three soldiers lay dead, ripped apart by claws.
Two were STC soldiers, their necks slashed open. And the third . . .
"Corporal Diaz," Marco whispered. "God. God, no."
He knelt by his squad commander, the man who had taught him in Fort Djemila, who had been mortally wounded in the Appalachians, only to rise and fight again. Now Diaz lay by the tracks, lifeless, his belly ripped open, his insides spilling out. Marco could see a segment of his metal spine.
Earth Lost (Earthrise Book 2) Page 14
