She leaned closer, mouth opening as if to kiss him, and saliva dripped down her fangs.
Marco turned his head aside, struggling to speak, to wrench off her claws. They cut his fingers when he grabbed them. "Lailani," he whispered hoarsely. "Lailani, this isn't you. Fight it. Fight them."
She sneered and tightened her grip, cutting off his words. Her eyes glared. "This has always been me! You fool. I've always been one of the hive. When you fucked me, you were fucking scum spawn." She laughed. "You pathetic humans. I was always there, always with you, and you suspected nothing, you—"
"No!" Marco managed to pry off one claw, to suck in some air. Blood dripped down his fingers. "If what you say is true, that was a buried part of you. A part you controlled. A part you can still control. You're human, Lailani!" His voice was barely a rasp. "You were human when you fought with me against the scum. You were human when I held you, kissed you. When you loved me. I love you, Lailani. I love you. You're human. You don't have to obey them."
Fists were pounding against the engine room door, and he could hear Ben-Ari shouting for him. The ship rocked madly, and massive claws still slammed at the hull. The second of the three turbines shut down. Marco remained on his knees, Lailani gripping him. Tears flowed down her cheeks.
"I was never human," she whispered, and now her voice sounded like it always had. A high voice. Soft. Afraid. "I was always broken. I never knew. I never knew why I was different. Marco. I can feel them inside me. I . . ." Her voice deepened, and the red glow returned to her eyes. She leaned forward to kiss him again, mouth dripping saliva. "You will be infected now, human. Soon we'll be together forever. Mates in the hive."
His eyes began to roll back. He couldn't breathe. She kissed him. Her saliva entered his mouth, sizzling hot, sickly sweet, filling with the essence of the hive. That hive opened up before him. He could see them. Millions of them. Networks of tunnels, spreading out, filled with larvae, the great intelligence of the hive, and above them all, him, the master, the emperor, calling to him, welcoming him, and he scuttled through darkness, and—
Marco coughed, spitting out the foul liquid. Lailani recoiled, hissing, enraged. She clutched his chest with her free hand, digging her claws into his skin, ripping into the muscle, and he screamed.
"Lailani," he whispered, feeling consciousness fading. He could barely see her. Shadows spread around him. "I ruv you."
The claws released him. He fell onto his back, gasping for air, every breath like a saw inside his throat. The darkness drew back. He pushed himself onto his elbows, then onto one knee. Lailani stood before him, tears flowing, trembling. The ship rocked around them. Cracks raced across the hull. The scum king laughed outside, a bellowing, grumbling sound like living thunder.
"I'm scared," Lailani said. "Help. Help me, Marco. Help me." She reached out toward him. "I ruv you." She laughed through her tears. "It's hurting me. It's hurting me so badly. I'm so scared."
Marco dragged himself closer to her. He held her hand, even as her claws cut him.
"Lailani, do you remember how we lay together in the tent, how we held each other all night long? That was real. It was real, Lailani. That is the real you."
"I'm diseased," she whispered, tears flowing. "My father wasn't a soldier. I'm a creation of the scum. I'm a monster."
"I don't care," Marco said. "You're Lailani. You're someone I love."
He pulled her into his arms. She struggled against him. She screamed. She tore into his skin. She arched her back, howling, fangs dripping, spraying saliva. She convulsed. She screamed horrible things, screams of breaking him, of shattering humanity, of stitching him into creatures like in the mines. But still he held her. Still he whispered into her ear. I love you. I love you.
Her body grew limp. She trembled against him.
"Help me," she whispered. "Don't let me go."
As he held her, stroking her hair with his bloody fingers, her claws retracted. Her fangs pulled back into her gums. Her eyes closed, and she lost consciousness in his arms.
He laid her down on the floor by Elvis's corpse. She slept, chest rising and falling, her claws gone. Marco dragged himself forward. The ship jolted. He fell, banging his crushed knee again, and fought to cling to consciousness. He crawled. From his helmet several feet away, he could hear Addy shouting, "It's tearing us apart!"
He reached the plasma generator, a towering metal tank. He grabbed it. He pulled himself up, the cuts on his hands dripping. He grabbed the valve, smearing it with blood, and grimaced, turning the handle. Indicators lit up on the generator. The red pipes lit up and thrummed, flames racing through them.
"We're back in business!" Addy's voice rose from the helmet. "Eat fire!"
Flames roared. The generator heated, burning Marco, searing his hands, his uniform. He fell backward. He hit the floor. From outside, he heard the scum king roaring. A viewport, round and distant, peered in the wall like a porthole, and he could see the plasma streaming, swirling like the storm of the planet, washing over a dark form. All was black. All was floating lights. Marco reached out and found Lailani's hand, and he held it. They lay side by side, and his eyes closed, and the ship rocked them, and they were as survivors adrift in a dark sea, the stars spreading endlessly above.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
He drifted on the sea.
Endlessly he rose and fell, rose and fell on the waves, floating beneath a field of stars.
He washed onto a cold shore, and he ran through snow in the night, fleeing creatures, as comets streamed down from the sky. He reached to his mother as the insects consumed her. He crawled through a labyrinth, seeking a way out, as laughter rolled around him and a thousand eyes stared.
"Lailani," he called in his dreams, seeking her in the tunnels. She cried out to him, in pain. She laughed. She wept. He found her in a glittering hall, and she had swollen to the size of a starship, her naked wet body birthing eggs, and she kissed him.
"I ruv you," she whispered, cutting him, as insects crawled around her. "Look at our children."
Marco's eyes opened.
He stared at a white ceiling. His ears rang, but past the ringing he heard the low hum of engines. Everything hurt, but the pain felt buried, blurred. He struggled to focus his eyes, to turn his head.
He was in the Miyari's infirmary. Monitors, an IV drip, and a small table stood beside him, and a viewport showed the streaming stars of hyperspace.
We're out of Indrani, he thought. I'm alive. Some of us survived.
He turned his head, and he saw Osiris standing beside him, smiling thinly. He started and nearly jumped out of the bed.
"Hello, master," the android said.
Marco's heart raced. "Hello, Osiris. I didn't know you were here."
"The ship is on autopilot, master. I've taken over the duty of medic for the duration of our flight, as well as pilot, as well as all other duties." The android tilted her head. "You were wounded. When Lieutenant Ben-Ari found you, your body was lacerated, your knee broken, and did you know that one of your eardrums was pierced and a bone in that ear shattered?"
He wasn't surprised, considering the ringing in his ears. One didn't survive a battle full of exploding grenades and whistling bullets without some hearing damage, it seemed. He looked down at his body and saw it bandaged, and another bandage covered his left ear.
"I have many medical books in my memory banks," Osiris said. "Your kneecap has been replaced with an artificial hardened silica replacement. Your wounds are stitched. I even replaced the broken bone in your ear with a synthetic and stitched up your eardrum using the tiniest of tools. You'll fully heal, but you'll be sore for a long time. I've been administering painkillers regularly while you slept, and—"
"How long have I been asleep?" He sat up in bed. "Where is Lailani? What of the others?"
His belly twisted to remember. Lailani sprouting claws. Stabbing him. Lailani—only half human, implanted into her mother's womb as a scum agent. Lailani—killing Elvis. Marco still reeled.
&nbs
p; "Lailani is in the brig, master," Osiris said. "After watching security video footage of the incident, Lieutenant Ben-Ari commanded her imprisoned until we reach our destination in eighteen days. To answer your other questions, you have been sleeping for fifteen hours, and the others are on the bridge." The android's face grew somber. "I have something else to tell you."
That didn't sound good. "What?" he said, belly twisting.
"A horse walked into a bar. The bartender asked him why his face is long. It's funny because horses don't walk into bars. They drink from troughs."
"Osiris." Marco reached out to touch her cold hand. "I'm sorry. When I first met you, I didn't trust you. I could have been nicer to you."
"You were always very courteous, master. I am buggy. I know it. I'm only a few months old, and I still make many mistakes. But I'm learning. I'm improving. Would you like to hear another joke?"
"I'd like to see my friends," Marco said softly. "And I'd like to see Lailani."
He removed his IV drip and stepped off the bed, swaying. He was wearing nothing but boxer shorts, and his uniform was nowhere to be found. He grabbed a blanket, wrapped it around his shoulders, and left the infirmary. He walked the halls of the Miyari. The place seemed too silent, and even the shuffling of his bare feet seemed loud. When he had first boarded this vessel, he had shared it with hundreds of soldiers. Now it seemed deserted, bunk after bunk empty, the mess hall vacant, the chapel barren. He made his way to the bridge, a semicircular room at the prow of the ship with viewports showing the panorama of hyperspace.
He found his friends there.
My family.
They stood side by side, staring out into the darkness, the survivors of Corpus. Lieutenant Ben-Ari, still in her old uniform, her plasma gun slung across her back. Beside her, tall and covered in scrapes and bruises, stood Addy. Beside Addy, her black curls cascading down her back, Kemi. The three stood in silence.
The last of us, Marco thought. The ones who lived. And the deaths of his friends—of Jackass, Caveman, Sheriff, Singh, Diaz, Beast, Elvis, all the rest of them—felt too great to bear.
Fuck this war, he thought, eyes stinging. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it.
He must have made a sound, because the three soldiers ahead of him turned around, saw him, and rushed toward him.
They held him. The four of them stood together, embracing, silent.
"It's over," Kemi whispered. "It's over. It's over."
But no, Marco knew. It wasn't over. That labyrinth underground would remain inside him. His friends would still be gone. The nightmares would still haunt him. He had left Corpus, but Corpus would never leave him, and this battle would rage forever inside him. Inside all of them.
Maybe someday the scars on my body will heal, he thought. Maybe someday we will defeat the monsters. But the scars and monsters inside me—those cannot be healed or slain.
"Marco." Lieutenant Ben-Ari touched his cheek, her eyes soft, and her voice was hoarse. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I chose you for this mission. I led you into the mines. I'm so sorry."
Marco shook his head. "Ma'am, I'm proud to have followed you here. To follow you still. You led us bravely. I'm honored to be your soldier, to learn from you, to fight with you."
"We beat them," Addy said. "We beat the damn scum. We lost so many. But we won."
Yet this didn't feel like a victory to Marco. Not without Elvis here. Without Diaz, Singh, Beast, the rest of them. Not with Kemi looking so hurt. Not with Lailani in the brig. Not like this.
Perhaps there is no victory in war, Marco thought. Perhaps even those who win battles lose their souls. Some return from war in body bags. Others return in victorious parades. But we all come home dead.
"What now, ma'am?" Marco asked.
Ben-Ari turned toward the viewports that surrounded the bridge. She looked out into hyperspace. "Our war is not yet over. We still haven't reached the frontier. We will continue on our mission. We will travel to the front line, to the very edge of humanity's war with the scum. One battle has ended. One hive was destroyed. One scum leader was slain. But hundreds of hives still spread across the cosmos. And the scum emperor still reigns over them all." The lieutenant turned back toward her soldiers. "This war will not end until the scum homeworld itself falls."
Marco thought about their discovery in Corpus. That it had been overrun for four years. Surely somebody in Chrysopoeia Corp—or the HDF itself—must have known. Must have left Corpus to fester. Must have kept it a secret.
They knew, Ben-Ari had said in the mines.
Marco shuddered. Perhaps, on the frontier, he would find more enemies than the insects.
He looked out into space. The frontier. It still lay many light-years away. Somewhere in that darkness his greatest battle awaited him. Somewhere in that impossible distance awaited the home planet of the enemy. The front line. A war that could burn the cosmos.
"Then we will face them," he said. "We will defeat them. Even if we die trying."
Because I no longer have a life on Earth, he added silently. Because I'm already dead.
They stood together. Four soldiers. Staring out into the darkness.
* * * * *
Lieutenant Ben-Ari sat alone on her bed, head lowered. She caressed the shadow box on her lap, gazing at the medals inside.
The medals of her ancestors. Of all the officers in her family, going back for generations, all the way to the horrors of the Second World War two hundred years ago. Her burden to bear. Her pride and her yoke. The expectations that forever haunted her.
"How did you deal with it?" Ben-Ari whispered, and her tears splashed the glass frame. "How did you live on after so much loss, after watching your soldiers—your brothers and sisters in arms—die under your command?"
She wished she could speak to them. To her ancestor who had fought the Nazis, losing his entire family. To his son and grandson who had fought in the hot deserts. To her grandfather who had fought the scum during the Cataclysm when the world burned. She wanted to hear their wisdom, their guidance, for though she was a leader of soldiers, Ben-Ari felt alone, lost, in need of her own mentor. Yet the ghosts of her family did not speak.
I have to remain strong, Ben-Ari thought. For Marco. For Addy. For Kemi. For Lailani.
Medals. Medals from a dozen wars. Ben-Ari had not chosen this life. She had been born on a military base, born to a family with no home, no nation. Born to become an officer, to lead warriors in battle. Born to suffer loss. Born to kill. Born to die. And Ben-Ari knew that she would die in this war, knew that she had cheated death too many times. Knew that love of family, of motherhood, of peace—that these would never be hers.
"I hope you're proud of me, my family," she said, staring out the viewport. "Because I find no pride here. I'm scared. I'm so alone. I want to go home, and I don't know where home is, if I have a home other than the battlefield."
She lay on her bed. Her soldiers shared a bunk, shared some companionship in this dented, empty starship. But she was their officer, forever apart from them. She lay here alone in the darkness, gazing up at the ceiling, and she did not sleep.
* * * * *
"Marco," Kemi said, "once we reach Nightwall Outpost, I'm going to find transport back to Earth."
They stood in the Miyari's lounge, the one with the dusty Colonel Coffee machine and the table where they had played poker. The place was small and cluttered, but it seemed so empty now, so full of memories.
"I understand," Marco said. "This was never meant to be for long."
Kemi looked out the viewport at space. She was silent for long moments. When she spoke again, her voice was soft. "I was a fool. I thought this would be an adventure. But I found only horror. There is such evil in the darkness. There is such pain."
Marco embraced her. "Kemi, I'm sorry."
Tears filled her eyes. "And I thought you and I could be as we were. But we're not, Marco. We're different now." She looked back outside. "The people we were, two youths in love . . . those people died on
Corpus. Maybe our bodies survived. But the people we were lie dead on that moon."
"I know," he said.
Kemi wiped her eyes and smiled tremulously. "Maybe someday I'll come back into space. Come back to you. But not yet. I need to return to the academy. I need to learn. And I need to heal. From this. From everything that happened. From us."
"I love you, Kemi," Marco said. "I always will. Even if we part ways. Even if we don't end up together. I love you."
She held him closely. They stood together by the viewport as the stars streamed outside.
"I love you too," she whispered. "Goodbye. A real goodbye this time."
"Hey, it'll be seventeen more days until we reach Nightwall, until you leave." He smiled and gave her shoulder a playful punch. "This isn't goodbye yet."
But her tears still flowed. "It is. Because she's waiting for you. Go to her, Marco. She needs you. She will need you for many days ahead. Goodbye." She kissed his lips. "Goodbye."
Kemi left him in the lounge. He remained here for a long time, alone in the small room, thinking of Kemi, thinking of those he had lost. He had never felt so alone, so trapped, so lost in the dark. Finally he left the lounge. He walked through the ship, this shadowy labyrinth. And he went to her.
The brig was a small chamber, even smaller than the lounge. Addy was guarding the locked door, gun in hand. She gazed at Marco, wordlessly nodded, and opened the door to let him in. She closed the door behind him.
Marco stood in the narrow white chamber, gazing down at Lailani.
She lay strapped to her bed, asleep. She seemed so peaceful. So young. So frail. Her stubbly black hair had grown over the past couple of weeks, and Marco stroked it, stroked her cheek, and reached down to hold her hand. She mumbled in her sleep, and her eyes opened to slits. Dark eyes. Eyes Marco used to gaze into for hours in wonder.
"Marco?" she whispered.
"I'm here, Lailani."
"I feel so weak. They stuck a needle in me. I think they sedated me." Lailani blinked and tried to move, could not. Her arms, her legs, her torso—all were strapped onto the bed. "I can't move."
Earth Lost (Earthrise Book 2) Page 22
