When Kemi was sleeping deeply and Addy was at her side, Marco lay down by Lailani. She was awake, curled up on a mattress, watching him. Her hand strayed just a few inches forward, and he moved his hand too, letting their fingertips touch. Lailani stared into his eyes, and she didn't need to speak. Marco saw the words in her gaze.
It's all right, Marco. I know. I understand. And I still love you.
Kemi—the love from his past, the warmth of his youth, his memories of home. Lailani—the new love he had found here, his new light in the darkness, the light that led him forward on his path of fire and rain. Finally he slept, his fingers grazing Lailani's thigh, and it was enough. It was a hint of his connection to her, one that he now knew would endure, one that comforted him.
When their clocks showed morning, they had a cold breakfast of battle rations. These too were running low. They were down to only a few cans of tuna, two cans of Spam, a handful of energy bars, and a few packets of mustard. Kemi wore sweatpants and a T-shirt Addy had taken in her backpack, and she sat with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, barely touching her food. Her eyes were still sunken and haunted.
"When I was . . . there, with the tubes in me," Kemi said, "they weren't just feeding me. I was connected to them. To their hive. I was part of their consciousness." She shivered and held her can of tuna, not eating. Her voice dropped. "The scolopendra titania aren't individually intelligent. Each one alone is no smarter than an insect. But combined they form a network, a great communal brain. We were all connected to it. Me. The other patients in the room. They were trying to . . . to make us part of their hive, but to also retain human independence, singular intelligence."
"See?" Addy said to Marco. "They don't have scientists. They're dumb as insects on their own."
Kemi continued as if she hadn't heard. "When I was in their network—that's the only way I can describe it, a network—I was aware of what they smelled, what they heard, where they scurried. I was still myself, still Kemi, but I was also the entire hive, thousands of them, sensing everything the hive sensed. And I saw a blue heart, beating, pulsing in the depths. I saw where it lies. I know the way."
Ben-Ari rose from the bed she sat on. "The azoth heart!"
"I think so," Kemi said. "When you see into the hive, you don't see actual images. It's more like feelings, just senses, suggestions, like imagining a warm beach when a sunbeam hits you, like shuddering in a shadowy house when you feel somebody watching you. But yes, the more I think about it, the more I see blue, glowing, pulsing." She sighed. "It's frustrating, trying to explain it. The scum don't think like we do, not with words or images. They have no words, no actual language, just ideas, smells, feelings, tastes, visions." She shuddered. "I don't want to ever experience things as they do again."
"Can you show us the way to the heart?" Ben-Ari said.
Kemi shivered and hugged herself. Addy hurried to her side and slung an arm around her.
"I know the way," Kemi said, "but there is evil there. Great evil that guards it. Something worse than anything we've seen so far. I briefly sensed it. The fear in it. The size of it. I don't know any more. But I don't want to approach it. Everything in me screams to run as far away as possible."
"We need that heart," Ben-Ari said softly. "And we need all the firepower we can get. We must continue. You must show us the way. If we can't retrieve the azoth heart, we're stuck on this rock."
Kemi clutched the lieutenant's arms. She breathed heavily. "You must promise me something, ma'am. If we go there, if we face this evil . . . no matter how it looks, no matter what it says, we must kill it. Promise me that we will kill it."
"We will kill it," said Ben-Ari. She turned toward the others. "Gear up. We move."
They traveled on through the mines. Kemi walked at their lead, holding her pistol before her, pausing at every fork in the road, closing her eyes, shuddering, then choosing a path and walking onward. The others followed, rifles raised, firing whenever a scum raced toward them.
As they traveled deeper, they passed by metal carts full of rock and soil, great metal filters, and drills the size of tanks that idled by walls of stone. The miners had been digging new paths here, but they were gone now, their drills rusting, the shards of stone unfiltered. A few times the soldiers glimpsed crude azoth in the carts of rock: rough rocks with shimmers of blue, still uncut into the crystals used to power starships. In another chamber, buckets of soil stood on a frozen assembly line, and chunks of crude azoth shone in glass bottles like trapped blue fireflies.
These stones would be of no use here, not without an expert gemcutter and a year to work. Such a master would need to chisel a gem's angles down to just the right atom, allowing spacetime to bend within the stone. What the soldiers sought was a polished, cut gemstone, placed inside an intricate metal heart. Only such a crystal could bend spacetime the way a diamond could bend light. Only an azoth heart—not just the crude fuel but a masterwork—could send a starship across the galaxy. Even the cut azoth crystals did not last forever, often lasting only several journeys. Their angles faded—just one atom worn away required the entire crystal to be replaced. But finding one now would be enough—enough to raise the Miyari into orbit, to send the starship to Nightwall or back to Earth.
They walked for two kilometers down a steep tunnel along the tracks, and they reached a crude passageway and saw orange light and fluttering shadows beyond. A great clattering, clicking, and hissing rose within the chamber ahead, and they caught sight of many scum, dozens, maybe hundreds, racing along curved walls. The stench of the aliens wafted out, sickly sweet and rotten and wet. The soldiers pressed themselves against the walls of the tunnel, loathe to enter the hall of the creatures.
"There are about a million of those fuckers in there," Addy whispered, using a small mirror from her backpack to peer into the chamber.
Marco craned out his neck, then quickly pulled his head back. He had caught just a glimpse of the chamber—a hall the size of a movie theater, filled with scum scurrying over the walls and ceiling. "We'll have to find another way."
"There is no other way," Kemi said. "I traveled the labyrinth ten thousand times in the minds of ten thousand creatures. This is our path. We must pass through this chamber and into the tunnel beyond."
"Then we take one of those diggers back there," said Beast. "Big drills. They not Russian made, but they will still dig. We carve other path."
"The vibrations would alert every scum for kilometers around," Elvis said, looking ill.
"Would perhaps a joke help ease the tension?" said Osiris. "I still have a few hundred more in my databases."
Sergeant Singh snapped a bayonet onto his T57 assault rifle and hefted the weapon. "We'll carve our way through. We don't have many bullets left, but we have blades if it comes to that. I'll go first. The rest of you follow."
Lieutenant Ben-Ari shook her head. "No, Sergeant. I'm still platoon leader. This is my responsibility. I'll take the vanguard."
Marco understood. Going first into the chamber was the most dangerous. Ben-Ari was willing to take the brunt of the scum's fury to protect the others. That was not what many officers would do, Marco knew. Many officers would send the lowest ranks in first, fodder for the enemy, but Ben-Ari believed in leading her warriors into battle rather than commanding them from behind. The lieutenant raised her plasma rifle, then turned toward the others.
"You are my soldiers," she said. "I trained many of you myself. You are my friends. You are my family. You are all warriors. You make me proud to be human. Moses Formation. Ready?"
They raised their weapons. They spoke together. "Ready."
With a battle cry, Ben-Ari charged into the alien hall.
Marco and the others shouted and followed.
The chamber was round, large as a church nave, and full of the scurrying, screeching creatures. Here was a new breed of scolopendra titania. These ones too were ten feet long, shielded in an exoskeleton, and lined with claws, but they beat leathery wings and rose
into the air. On the ceiling hung bloated, dripping sacks of skin, stretched to the size of beanbags. The skin was translucent, revealing umber liquid inside. Several scum hovered below these massive wineskins like hummingbirds, drinking fluid through a hole in the center of each sack. When Marco looked closer, he wanted to gag, to faint. The reservoirs of nutrients were human. Their limbs had been glued to the ceiling, and their mouths still screamed. Their bellies had bloated to obscene size, storing the honey the scum fed upon through the navels. The prisoners were like honeypot ants, engorged, attached to the ceiling, living larders, feeding the hungry in their agony.
Hell, Marco thought. Hell. Hell.
At their lead, Ben-Ari fired her plasma gun, carving a path forward. Behind her, the others—seven soldiers and an android—fired their weapons in the Moses Formation they had learned at basic, four soldiers firing to the left, four to the right, splitting open the sea of enemies. They shouted as they fired. They wept as they fired. They all saw the horror. They all trembled, hated, feared. They all killed.
"Kill them all!" Addy was shouting, tears on her cheeks. "Those sick fucks! Kill them all!"
Their bullets sang. Scum flew toward them, fell, shattered. The sacks of fluid burst above, the prisoners dying on the ceiling, raining down the honey. More scum kept rising from the walls. They emerged from holes in the ground. Dozens. Hundreds. They buzzed through the chamber, claws lashing. One claw tore into Singh's leg, and the sergeant roared, firing his gun in automatic, limping forward. More scum blocked the door ahead. One slashed Beast's side, and the beefy soldier bellowed, fell, and rose again. Marco suffered a cut to his arm. It sizzled with poison, and he groaned and ran onward, tears of pain in his eyes.
"There are too many!" Elvis shouted.
"Kemi, with me!" Ben-Ari cried. "Plasma forward, carve a way to the tunnel!"
The two plasma guns—one a pistol firing a thin ray, the other a rifle gushing forth a torrent of fury—carved a path through the carnage. The enlisted soldiers ran behind the officer and the cadet, and Sergeant Stumpy followed, barking madly. The soldiers began to race into the tunnel, but the scum were converging, diving toward them. Marco spun around, firing bullets, backing up into the tunnel.
"They're following!" he shouted. "Hurry!"
Elvis and Lailani ran into the tunnel after him, leaving only Beast in the chamber. The giant was limping, fell again, and suffered another gash to his side. He rose and limped onward as scum stabbed at him from all sides.
"Beast, come on!" Marco shouted from the tunnel entrance. He fired a bullet over the Russian's head, hitting a scum.
Beast was bleeding, sweating, barely able to walk, but he managed to trudge toward the tunnel, gun firing in all directions. When he reached the doorway, he froze and looked into Marco's eyes.
"Go, friend," he said. "Run."
"Beast, come on!" Marco said. "Into the tunnel!"
But the giant turned his back toward Marco and the others. He stood in the tunnel opening, blocking it with his massive girth. As the scum in the chamber flew toward him, Beast howled and fired his gun, emptied a magazine, loaded another, and sprayed more bullets. The scum tore into him. His blood splashed.
"Beast!" Elvis cried from behind Marco, standing in the tunnel, eyes wide.
"Beast, come on, damn it, into the tunnel!" Addy cried. "What are you doing?"
"He's blocking the scum," Marco said, tears in his eyes. "He's letting us run."
"Soldiers, come on!" Ben-Ari shouted from farther down the tunnel. "Follow me, now!"
Yet how could Marco run? How could he leave his friend? Beast still stood within the passageway, blasting out bullets, the scum falling before him, cutting him, biting him.
"Run!" Beast cried. "Run, friends!" He roared out in pain, blood spraying. "For Boris! For Russia! For Earth!"
The giant fell to his knees, his legs shattered. His gun fell. He unhooked two grenades from his belt.
"Beast!" Elvis cried.
Marco ran. He grabbed Elvis, pulled him back. Addy was crying out, reaching toward Beast, but she ran with them, and—
The tunnel shook as the grenades exploded. The ceiling cracked and chunks of stone fell. More grenades burst, and the scum screamed as the cavern collapsed above them, blasting out clouds of dust. The soldiers kept running as the mines trembled, as dust stormed over them, as the scum died, until finally the rumbling ceased.
When Marco looked behind him, he saw a pile of stones. The chamber full of scum was gone.
Elvis fell to his knees.
"Beast!" he cried, tugging at boulders, trying to dig a path back. "Beast!"
"He's gone, Elvis," Marco said, voice choked. "He's gone."
Elvis lowered his head, body wracked with sobs. Marco held him. The others stood around them, tears in their eyes.
"Damn this place," Elvis said, voice shaking, eyes red. "Damn this fucking moon. Damn this war. Damn the scum. Damn all of it." He pounded at the boulders, harshly at first, bloodying his fist, then weaker, weaker. "Beast . . . My friend . . ."
"Come, Elvis." Gently, Marco helped him rise. "We have to keep going."
The soldiers walked onward, silent, until they reached a chamber where two scum were mixing sticky ooze in a vat. Panting, Elvis raised his gun and fired in automatic, emptying a magazine within seconds, then loaded another, emptied, another, emptied it, kept firing even with no bullets left, even as the scum lay dead.
"Die!" he shouted. "Die! Die!"
"Private Ray!" Ben-Ari said, stepping toward Elvis. "Private Ray, enough! Look at me. Look at me!"
Elvis turned toward his officer, pale, trembling, and let his gun fall to his side. "I hate them," he said, voice cracking. "I hate them so much. I want to go home. I want to stop losing people. Why do they all have to die? Why do they always leave me? I want to go home, Lieutenant. I just want to go home."
Marco thought that Ben-Ari would admonish the private, would slap him, shout at him to get a grip. But instead, the officer embraced him, held him close against her. Elvis was only eighteen, and Ben-Ari was only a couple of years older, yet she comforted him like a mother comforting her child.
"I will lead you home," Ben-Ari said. "I promise you." She looked over Elvis's shoulder at the rest of them. "I chose you all for this mission. I led you here. And I promise you. I promise. I will do whatever I can to take you home."
"That's what Beast thought too," Elvis said, head lowered. "That's what Diaz thought. What they all thought. That we'll go home. But there is no home. There is no hope."
"There is always hope," said Ben-Ari. "I learned that from my family, from my country, from my soldiers. So long as we live, there is still hope."
Elvis lowered his head. "He was my friend. He was my best friend."
Marco approached and embraced him. Addy joined the embrace, then Lailani, then the rest of them. They stood together in the chamber, eight lost souls, holding one another. Marco wished they could be stronger. Wished they could be like those warriors in the old action movies, tough, hardened, able to keep fighting without a tear, without emotion, spewing one-liners as they slew the enemy. But Marco wasn't such a warrior, nor were the rest of them, not even Addy, not even Ben-Ari, perhaps none in this army. They were kids, that was all. Kids with families at home. Kids scared in the dark, this war too big for them. Kids pulled from their homes, drafted into an army, tossed into the depths of space where terror lurked.
"We're just kids," Marco said softly. "We shouldn't be here. We're not brave. We're not strong. We're just kids far from our home. But that's what soldiers have always been, in every war. When were warriors ever strong, ever fearless, ever able to kill and lose friends and suffer pain without a flinch? Wars have always been fought by children—children torn away from their homes. It was like that when millions of boys, some as young as thirteen, fought the Second World War. It was like that when boys were shipped off on the Crusades a thousand years before that. It was like that fifty years ago when the scum first
landed, when Earth drafted everyone from age fifteen and up and saw them burn. We're lost. We're afraid. We're too young, too weak for this. We are soldiers. That is what soldiers have always been." They were looking at him, cheeks damp, and Marco took a shuddering breath. "But those soldiers all kept going. They trudged through the muck and death, leaving friends behind, because they believed the world could be good again. Maybe not for them, not for those who fought, who lost their souls. But maybe for those who follow. We're light-years away from Earth. We're trapped underground. We don't know if our ship will ever fly again, if we'll even last the night. But I believe that the world, that this cosmos, can be good again. So we'll keep going. For those we lost. For those who still live."
The others nodded. Addy smiled through her tears and took his hand. They walked onward through the mines. Ben-Ari. Singh. Osiris. Lailani. Kemi. Addy. Elvis. Marco. Eight friends, eight soldiers, leaving a friend behind.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
As they walked through the tunnels, Sergeant Stumpy began to sniff.
"Look," Addy said, pointing at the Boston Terrier. "Look at his nose! He smells something."
"He always smells something," Elvis said. "It stinks down here. It's why I have to wear my gas mask."
The tunnels were narrower, darker, and colder down here in the depths. A sign a while back had labeled the tunnel ten kilometers deep—half the length of Manhattan—and the soldiers had only been descending since. At times it was hard to tell if these tunnels were man-made, natural caves, or carved by the scum. The sticky ooze of the creatures coated the walls, and their stench clung to the air. Elvis was right. It stank here, and Sergeant Stumpy was always finding something to sniff at.
"Look at him." Addy watched the Boston Terrier. "He never sniffs like this. He's onto something. Look at his nose go. It looks like it's about to fall off his face." She knelt and patted the dog. "What do you smell, pup?"
Earth Lost (Earthrise Book 2) Page 17
