Earth Lost (Earthrise Book 2)

by Daniel Arenson

  After a long time of crawling, the tunnel widened, allowing the soldiers to walk again.

  The light shone ahead, and the sweet smell grew, spinning Marco's head. They all put on their gas masks, and sweat drenched them. They walked toward the orange light, like the light of a hearth reflected in amber, and even with his gas mask on, Marco smelled the place, smelled blood, organs, flesh, sex, birth, honey, vinegar, arthropods, humanity, decay, life.

  It's a language, he realized. The smells are a language the scum use.

  A doorway loomed ahead, and beyond he saw the dripping, corrugated walls of a pulsing chamber. No, not a doorway. The opening was organic, fleshy, like a cervix leading into a womb, quivering, whispering of life within. Only a thin crack was visible, like a closed curtain, veined, translucent.

  The soldiers paused and stared at one another.

  "It's here," Kemi whispered. Her eyes widened, and her fingers trembled. "It's beyond the doors. Evil. Evil guarding the heart." She still wore Addy's old sweatpants and shirt, dirt filled her hair, and her gun trembled in her hand. "She's calling to me. She's afraid. She's so afraid. She's so cruel."

  Kemi was shaking. Marco approached her and placed a hand on the small of her back.

  "It's all right, Kemi. We're with you. We survived this far. Whatever's in there, we'll face it." He looked at the others. "I'm ready."

  They stared back. Lieutenant Ben-Ari, her blond ponytail sticking out from under her helmet, scum blood staining her drab fatigues, her plasma gun in her hands. Addy, taller than the lieutenant, her gun longer, her eyes narrowed, her fists clenched, the hockey player who had beaten up men twice her size, ready to fight—Marco's best friend, always at his side. Elvis, slender, short, the boy who had lost so much—his brother, his fiancee, his friends—the boy who had begun his service singing and dancing, who had grown up in darkness, who had lost his light, his voice. Sergeant Amar Singh, wearing his turban under his helmet, a curved blade hanging from his belt, a pendant gleaming around his neck—the drill instructor who had once terrified Marco, who had become a mentor, a friend, a pillar of strength in the platoon. Osiris, a strange light in her eyes, a strange smile on her lips, suddenly looking hungry, a huntress, venomous, a machine with constant racing, scheming thoughts and the heart of a child.

  Finally Marco turned to look at Lailani, and a little of his fear eased. Lailani. His tiny soldier. A woman broken inside. Hurt. Haunted. A woman who had suffered more than anyone he knew, a woman with anger, sadness, desperation inside her. A woman with scars on her wrists, a woman who had joined this army to die in battle, who had survived with him through wars. She looked at him with her dark, almond-shaped eyes, and Marco thought of how he had first met her, how he had mistaken her for a boy, how he had made love to her in their tent, slept with her in his arms. He loved her. She was shattered, she could perhaps never be fully his, but he loved her, and he would always fight to protect her, to heal her, to make her happy—no matter what darkness still lay before them.

  "I'm afraid," Kemi whispered.

  Marco looked at her, looked at them all. He spoke softly. "I remember Earth. Here in the dark, it's hard to remember sometimes. Hard to imagine that Earth is truly still out there. But I remember candlelight in my library, the rustle of pages, the scrape of my pen against paper, the taste of tea and my father's whiskey. I remember walking by the beach, the wind in the maple trees, the flowers in spring, the snow falling in winter, and the taste of coffee. I miss coffee. I miss my father. But you are my new family—every one of you. Whatever still awaits us in the darkness, I can think of no better people by my side. Let's go find that heart."

  Elvis's eyes were red, and Ben-Ari smiled at him and nodded.

  Addy mussed his hair. "Silly Poet," she said.

  "More poet than warrior," he said.

  Addy shook her head. "No. Just as much a warrior. Now come on! Let's go kick ass."

  They stepped closer to the fleshy cervix. Marco turned toward Ben-Ari. "Ma'am, may I take the lead?"

  The lieutenant nodded. "I'm right behind you, Marco."

  He reached toward the entrance and began pulling back the fleshy curtains.

  At once, scum burst out.

  Marco fell back, hit the ground, and fired his gun.

  The creatures swarmed out from the chamber, different from any scum Marco had ever seen. They had the bodies of centipedes but heads like anglerfish, deep-sea predators with teeth like swords, and luminescent lanterns dangled from their heads. Each of the creatures wore a necklace woven from the rotting arms of human babies, lurid trophies from their conquests, and human bones and skulls and strips of dry skin covered their bodies like armor.

  "Tool use!" Osiris said. "Fascinating. I did not know that scolopendra titania could use tools. I must update the HDF encyclopedic databases!"

  But the others were too busy firing their guns to be fascinated. Marco hit one of the creatures, shattering its teeth. The alien leaped toward him, its suit of bones and flesh jangling, and a claw slammed into him, cutting his leg. Marco screamed, slammed his muzzle into the creature's shattered mouth, and fired a bullet. The head exploded, and the scum fell, scattering its suit of bones and skulls.

  The other soldiers fought around him. Singh suffered a gash to his cheek, bellowed, and swung his gun in circles, slamming the barrel into two scum. Lailani pressed her back against the wall, screaming, firing bullet after bullet. Ben-Ari and Kemi stood back to back, and the air crackled with plasma, and scum burned.

  More of the scum kept emerging, clad in their clattering suits of bones, biting, screeching. Teeth scraped across Ben-Ari's helmet. More teeth closed around Osiris's arm, yanked back, and exposed her inner circuits. And still the scum emerged from the chamber ahead, towering, a dozen feet tall, all claws and fangs and dripping venom. Osiris fell, followed by Ben-Ari. A blow knocked Singh against the wall.

  "For death and glory!" shouted Lailani, firing her gun, and a blow knocked her down too.

  "No," Elvis said. "No!" He loaded his last magazine. "No! No more death. No more!"

  Shouting, Elvis flipped his rifle to automatic and fired. Bullets sprayed out. Fragments of bone flew. Scum fell.

  "No!" Elvis shouted again. He reached into his boot and pulled out another magazine. "No more will die." He fired again and again, tearing the scum down. He ran out of bullets. He snapped on his bayonet, and his eyes burned, and still he screamed. "I lost enough. Enough! Enough!"

  He charged toward the scum, lashing his bayonet, tearing into one's skull. His blade flew again, slicing a creature's abdomen. Elvis reached down to Singh, as if to help the sergeant rise, but grabbed his gun instead. He fired, tearing down more scum. And before him, they died. The last creature wobbled, then crashed down, and Elvis slammed his bayonet into its skull.

  The aliens all lay dead and smoking.

  Elvis spat. "Fucking scum."

  Then he began to weep.

  "Goddamn," Addy whispered. "Elvis is a savage."

  Marco approached the weeping boy and slung an arm around him. "You all right?"

  Elvis nodded. "I hate them. I just hate them. For what they did. To Beast. To us. To the world."

  Marco rummaged through his pack for his medical kit, and he spent a while tending to their wounds. Everyone had suffered cuts and gashes, and they needed shots of stinging antidotes and heavy bandages. But all could stand. All could still fight. All turned toward the fleshy opening from which the creatures had emerged.

  Marco took a deep breath and stepped through the membranes and into the chamber. The others followed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Entering the chamber was like entering a womb. The walls were rounded, coated with sticky red membranes. Many coiling white tubes were attached to the ceiling, running down, feeding her. There in the middle of the chamber she lay, pulsing, corpulent, gasping for air. Royal. Holy. Worshiped.

  "The scum queen," Marco said.

  They all stood and stared.

&n
bsp; Here in the depths of the hive, she dwelt, too obese to move. Her body was as large as a whale, ridged and soft and quivering and the color of cream. With every pulse, the queen expelled another egg, a scum larva twitching inside. Ooze dripped onto the floor, stinking, yellow, bubbling. With each egg birthed, one of the smaller, softer scum, those like silverfish, lifted the treasure and carried it away from its mother, vanishing into a hole in the ceiling.

  "God, she stinks," Addy said. "I can smell it even through my gas mask." She raised her gun. "Let's roast this bitch."

  Marco had objected to killing the larvae before, but faced with this corpulent, quivering creature, he found no pity inside him. This was an alien spawning a scum army—the army that had killed his friends. Armies like those that had destroyed the world, butchering billions, that had killed his mother. Marco nodded and raised his own gun. Standing before the queen, as small as toy soldiers by the corpse of a cat, the others raised their own weapons.

  Marco placed his finger on the trigger when he heard a voice.

  "Help . . . me . . ."

  A woman's voice. Weak. Afraid.

  Marco lowered his gun. The voice sounded again.

  "Help . . . me . . ."

  It came from behind the queen. Marco walked, rifle held before him, frowning. The others followed. They walked around the creamy body of the queen, more eggs expelled with every one of its pulses. Moisture dripped from the queen's body, oozing around their feet.

  "Help . . ."

  Marco reached the end of the queen's massive abdomen, walked around the last fold in her flesh, and froze.

  He couldn't breathe.

  Darkness spread around him.

  Panic began to rise, drenching Marco with sweat, spinning his head, shaking his fingers.

  The scum queen had the upper body, arms, and head of a woman.

  The woman stared at them, eyes damp. Below the ribs, her body flared out into the bloated abdomen that filled the room.

  "Help me," she whispered. "They hurt my husband. They hurt my children. I think they're dead. Help me. Help me." Tears flowed down her cheeks. "What happened to me?"

  Marco saw a name tag still attached to what remained of the woman's shirt. Kara Lason, Inventory.

  "Sweetness," Ben-Ari whispered, kneeling by the woman and stroking her hair. "It's all right, Kara. It's all right now. We're here. We'll help you."

  "My children," Kara whispered. "Have you seen them? I think I killed my daughter. I was holding her, keeping her so silent. The monster was hunting us. I think she suffocated. Have you seen her? Have you seen my daughter?"

  Lieutenant Ben-Ari shed a tear. "She's safe now," she whispered, holding Kara's hand. "She's safe. Everyone is safe."

  "How long have I been here?" Kara said. "I can't move. Why can't I move?" She looked at the massive, quivering mass that grew from her, filling the room. "What happened to me?"

  "She must have been here since the scum first landed," Marco said. He turned toward Osiris. "Osiris, remember when we received the distress signal on the Miyari? Communications can only travel through space at the speed of light, and this system is light-years away. How old was the signal?"

  "Checking memory banks . . ." The android thought for a moment. "Four Earth years, two months, four days, and seven hours, master."

  "She's been here for four years." Marco exhaled slowly. He couldn't even imagine this agony stretched out for so long. "No. No, that's impossible." He shook his head wildly. "Ships would have arrived here within the past four years. Bringing supplies. Picking up azoth. How could this have been going on for years?"

  They were all silent for long moments.

  Finally it was Ben-Ari who whispered, "They knew."

  The soldiers all turned toward her.

  "Ma'am?" Marco said.

  "They knew," Ben-Ari repeated, face pale. "Chrysopoeia Corp. Maybe even the HDF high command. They knew this was going on. They let it keep happening. This could not have gone unnoticed for four years. We stumbled across something here, something we should never have seen." The lieutenant stared at the queen, then back at her soldiers. "Guys . . . what's going on here?"

  Lailani, who was standing farther back, ran up toward them. She grabbed Marco's arm. "Marco!" she said. "Marco, come look." She pulled him a few feet away and pointed to the top of the queen's body. "Do you see?"

  Marco looked. Yes. He saw it. A blue glow.

  "The color of azoth," he said.

  "Let me climb onto your shoulders," Lailani said. He knelt, and she hopped on. When Marco stood up again, hoisting her on his shoulders, Lailani nodded. "I see it, Marco! I see it pulsing through the skin. It has to be it. The azoth heart. The machine that once powered the mines—now here inside the queen, giving her a second heart."

  Lailani hopped off Marco's shoulders, grabbed the queen's distended abdomen, and scampered up, slipping, grabbing again, finally making her way to the top. The abdomen quivered beneath her, dripping moisture. Lailani lowered her hand for Marco to grab. As he climbed after her, Marco had the vision of himself as a child in a bouncy castle, and even here, in this chamber of horrors, an army of monsters in the mines around him, Marco found himself laughing—a pained, sick, wonderful laugh, tears in his eyes. What else could a man do when confronted with torture and horror than laugh?

  He reached the top with Lailani. To one side, the abdomen stretched out, vaguely segmented, still expelling eggs, and Marco could feel many eggs below them, waiting to be birthed. At their other side, the abdomen sloped down, connecting with Kara's human chest. And here, between him and Lailani, the blue glow—just under the skin. Marco could make out the vague outline of a mechanical heart.

  "The azure engine!" he called down to Lieutenant Ben-Ari. "It's here, ma'am. Embedded into her. The scum must have placed it inside her."

  "Why would the scum put the heart here?" Lailani said.

  "Maybe they believed the azoth could give power and fertility to the queen," Marco said. "Maybe the scum worshiped its glow the way ancient human tribes worshiped gems. I think I can cut it out." He looked down to Ben-Ari. "Ma'am?"

  The lieutenant still knelt by Kara, holding the woman's hand. The other soldiers stood around her. Eyes damp, Ben-Ari nodded. "Cut it out." Ben-Ari squeezed Kara's hand. "This might hurt just a bit."

  Marco drew his knife. He looked at the heart pulsing beneath the skin, pale blue and black, no larger than a human heart.

  This is a dream, he thought. Just a fever dream. I was hurt in Fort Djemila. I'm asleep. I'm feverish. I'm dreaming.

  He sank the knife into the skin.

  Kara screamed.

  The distended abdomen trembled. Marco worked quickly, incising, carving an opening, and he reached his hand in. There, resting above the eggs, the heart lay. Mechanical, forged of metal, the azoth crystal inside it shining through lenses. Instead of metal pipes, fleshy cords were attached to the heart's valves. Marco cut through them, then took the heart into his hands and pulled it free.

  "I got it!" he said, placing the heart into his pack. "I'll bandage her up."

  He opened his first aid kit, knowing that Kara's life was pain but knowing he could not kill her, that her life was not his to take. He was unpacking a bandage when the abdomen convulsed and began to wilt. He swayed. Lailani grabbed him. The queen was deflating. They fell, slid down the side, and hit the floor. Without the heart, the queen's body was shriveling, expelling its last eggs, fading away, detaching from the human body.

  Marco walked toward Kara. She lay, holding Ben-Ari's hand, her body now ending with an empty sack. She gazed up at Marco, eyes glazed.

  "Thank you," she whispered.

  Her eyes closed.

  Her breath died.

  The soldiers gathered together, bloody, bandaged, weary—but with their prize.

  Goodbye, Kara Lason, Marco thought. I'm sorry we could not save you. I'm sorry.

  "I know a way out," Kemi said, pointing at a tunnel across the room. "Only two kilometers up
this tunnel, we'll reach another shaft, another cage lift. We can make our way back to Corpus City, then back to the Miyari . . . then far, far away from this cursed place."

  Sergeant Singh nodded. "I'll lead the way this time. My flashlight still has some juice, and my gun still has some bullets." He hefted his weapon. "Let's get out of here. Let's go home."

  The soldiers walked around the eggs and toward the tunnel.

  It's over, Marco thought, following his sergeant. It's over.

  "Traitors!" rose a shriek.

  Sergeant Singh froze at the tunnel's entrance.

  Blood bloomed across his back.

  "Amar!" Ben-Ari cried.

  Claws lifted the sergeant into the air, ripping him apart, tugging out his insides, then tossed him down. The sergeant hit the ground, torn to pieces. He died without even the time to scream.

  The remaining soldiers all raised their guns, staring ahead.

  At the entrance to the tunnel stood Captain Coleen Petty, their company commander. Her human body now ended below the ribs, sprouting a great centipede body lined with claws. She rose like a cobra about to strike, a dozen feet tall, stitched onto her new lower half.

  "You are all traitors!" the creature screeched. "You ruined my ship! You left me to the scum! You made me this creature!"

  The hybrid leaped forward, claws lashing.

  The soldiers opened fire.

  Bullets slammed into Captain Petty—or at least the creature Petty had become. Holes opened in her centipede and human bodies, but still she advanced, claws lashing, screaming through a shattered jaw.

  "Traitors! Traitors! Trai—"

  Lieutenant Ben-Ari shot her last plasma charge. The inferno blazed across Captain Petty. The creature screamed, burned, melted, curled up. Petty fell to the floor. She gazed up through the flames, and suddenly she seemed so scared, so hurt.