“The Conglomerate forces are massing in the outer Oort cloud, on the far edges of your solar system and past our defenses. You repelled their beachhead, so they are planning a siege now. Accordance ships can’t get in or out. They are trapped here with us. They need more recruits. Because the fight is coming to us.”
A blast of energy wrenched through the dark and vaporized the drone. The image faded, leaving just the white table.
“The Arvani will move your family out of the political camp they are currently in and to home custody in upstate New York,” the Arvani on the left said. An Arvani tank had crept into the room silently while I was watching the video. I tried not to jump back slightly, thinking of Commander Zeus’s slashing, armored tentacles. “If you agree to our conditions.”
“I can’t go home?” I asked.
“You are needed now more than you were before,” said Anais. “Let us promote you to the youngest lieutenant, at twenty, in the CPF.”
“I thought I was an octave,” I said. “Aren’t native ranks not allowed?”
Anais smiled. “We’re getting concessions. A fully human officer corps. The chance to use native rank insignia across the force; we’re configuring this all on the fly, but taking full advantage of Arvani fear. Let us train you more. Deploy you. Help the CPF fight the Conglomeration. Because they are coming for Earth, Devlin. They’re coming for us.”
“Get the cuffs off me, and get me a goddamned doctor,” I told Anais.
+ + +
I walked down toward the old financial district, enjoying the freedom to choose any direction, any path I wanted. I had no particular aim in mind, I just wanted to feel the sun on my skin, the breeze on my face. I wanted a hot dog with mustard, or a gyro, or a gelato, just something that wasn’t optimally designed to fuel my metabolism.
The city was different now. Smaller, maybe. I’d had a change in perspective. The streets looked grubbier. Earth First tags spray painted on brick corners warned me that walking here in my grays might not be too smart.
There’d been bombings. The repacification hadn’t worked. Human ingenuity prevailed as minds bent themselves to making life miserable for collaborators, civil servants, aliens. New York looked like a city under occupation: human enforcers in yellow riot gear in clusters everywhere, looking determined and tired. Armored struthiforms rumbling by on personnel carriers. Broken windows, destroyed buildings. The pockmarks of bullets on facades.
Concentration camps in New Jersey and Long Island. Livestreamed executions. Bombings. The occupation’s iron grip was slipping, because the Accordance was pulling its forces into orbit to ready itself for the oncoming invasion.
And who knew how many Conglomerate double agents were already here?
Rumors said the Darkside base attack had opened negotiations between Earth First and the Colonial Administration for a cease-fire. Earth First was trying to decide which enemy to fear more: the one that occupied our world and its moon, or the one that might breed us into hungry heat shields.
I stopped walking around aimlessly and headed toward my appointment at the Empire State Building.
The whole side of the ancient structure had been repainted in Colonial Protection Forces gray with white swirls. And to my surprise, recruits in civilian clothes stood in a line waiting to get into the lobby. A line that wrapped around the block. Once processed, they’d be housed here before going to the Hamptons for selection.
People pointed at me as I walked by. The Accordance had used my image already this morning, broadcasting the story of our fight. Ken and I had become symbols of resistance. They’d left Amira out, as they didn’t know what she was going to do next.
Even I wasn’t sure I wanted that profile.
But I could use it.
As I stood in front of an auditorium full of wide-eyed recruits, I smiled. If we could fight and survive the Conglomeration, the threat that made Arvani shit their tanks, then we’d be a dangerous force.
The graffiti-spreading Earth First activists outside could cause trouble. But these recruits in front of me? They could turn on the Accordance and gain Earth its independence.
In time.
If we survived.
If I could help build them into the weapons we all needed to be.
I cleared my throat, and heard the sound amplified to three hundred pairs of intent eyes.
“Listen closely,” I shouted. “There are many aliens out there. They come in all shapes and sizes. But if you want to survive your first encounter with the enemy, there are five aliens that you will need to spot on sight. Pay attention to me now, and you might live.”
32
The hopper rattled and the green hills of upstate New York slid by the open side door. The Empire State base commanding officer had given me leave and let me borrow a hopper piloted by a newly promoted human pilot.
The Accordance was getting nervous, I thought, if they were letting us fly craft now.
I ran a hand down my uniform grays with the single red bar of command on my right shoulder.
What could I tell them about my decision to accept command and collaborate with the enemy?
I understood my father’s desire to escape the occupation. I’d seen his desire to see people freed burn inside him since I was a child.
They’d hate what I represented. They would turn their back on me. It would hurt.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t want to see them.
In some ways, this upcoming visit might end up being the most alien encounter I’d had yet since joining the Colonial Protection Forces.
A long streak of lightning danced across the blue sky. A slow pinprick of light unfurled into a flower of fire that hung in place.
“Lieutenant,” the pilot called back at me. “Did you see that?”
“That’s orbital,” I shouted back. “You hearing anything?”
“Chatter, nothing official.” The hopper flared and slowed, spiraling down to land near a road leading into a forest. We arrived at the property my parents had just been moved to. A pair of guards at the end of the road walked toward the hopper as the skids hit gravel.
More pinpricks blossomed in the sky.
“That looks serious,” the pilot shouted. “That looks really serious.”
“It’s probably automated Conglomerate probes against the orbital forts,” I said.
“Someone just said the space station got hit. It’s lost.” The Accordance had refused to put protection around the creaky old human station. Not a military asset or necessity.
Gravel spat against the side of the hopper as the engines pounded at the road.
I looked down the road and bit my lip. “Take us up,” I ordered. “Get me to the Hamptons.”
The hopper scraped along the road and then got airborne with a screech of power.
My earpiece buzzed. I glanced at my wrist and accepted the call. Only one person would be using an unlisted contact to try to reach me.
Amira’s voice filled my right ear suddenly. “Hey, Devlin, you seeing all this?”
“Where have you been?” I asked.
She moved past the question. “I just talked to Ken. The Accordance is mobilizing the CPF. No more shipping us off to other worlds, everything is getting set up to fight right here in our own solar system.”
“You said ‘us.’ I thought you’d left.”
“I wanted a vacation without anyone giving me orders,” Amira said. “Consider it personal leave. They owe me that, after everything they’ve done. But as much as I hate the Accordance, Devlin, the Conglomeration is worse. You know that.”
“I do,” I said. “I already agreed to stay in. I’ve been helping recruit—”
“I know, you’ve been bunking down at the Empire State barracks. I’m in New Haven, coordinates in a few minutes once I pick a spot. Come pick me up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said crisply.
“Fuck you,” she said conversationally. Then hesitated. “Make sure you arm up. People around here don’t react well to seeing CPF.”
She cut the connection. My wrist buzzed and displayed the coordinates.
The hopper curved around a foothill, and the road leading back toward my parents disappeared.
33
We fell into a buffeting storm, straps holding us secure to the benches in the craft. Outside, Saturn’s horrific winds howled and tossed us around.
With each second the pressure squeezed the jumpship more. Outer armor plates pushed in hard enough to make the bulkheads groan.
“There’s something out there in the dark,” I shouted at everyone, yanking their attention away from the visibly distorting hull plates. “And we are part of an elite force of human fighters striking back against it. Accordance commanders might lead us, but we are a human fighting force.”
Amira held up three fingers. Touchdown was imminent. Something exploded nearby, jerking the entire craft sideways and smacking us around. Close.
I tapped the stylized Earth and pockmarked moon on my shoulder. “We are the Icarus Corps. And we will make sure our world remains right where it is.”
“Damn right,” Ken said from the other side of the craft. None of us was sure how well the Accordance would support us. They were keeping their weaponry to themselves, leaving us to fighting with human guns. And if they cut and run, we probably wouldn’t stand long against the Conglomeration. “So we will fight. Fight harder than the Accordance. Harder than the Conglomeration. Because they can be beat. And we have everything on the line.”
“And if you think Accordance commanders expect a lot out of you, it’s nothing compared to what we expect,” Amira said, and made a fist. “Seal up!”
Helmets snapped into place with a hiss.
A second later the craft struck. The ramp dropped open and the interior of the craft filled with reddish, yellow storming air.
“Out.”
Explosions blanketed the air above us. A full-on firefight. Arrow-shaped Stingrays darted about as they tried to pierce the crisscross lines of defensive fire, but burst apart and rolled off deep into the clouds.
The sun was a bright daystar from here. Or maybe that was a ship burning in orbit far overhead.
“Cover,” Ken said. A twinkling star slammed into the side of the jumpship we’d just exited, ripping it apart. The debris sizzled and sunk into the fleshy surface under our boots.
“No way back but forward.” Amira took point and started moving forward.
We stood on the surface of a Conglomerate mining facility. Large, gelatinous, the floating structure in Saturn’s clouds stretched ahead of us for a mile. Treelike spines spouted flaring gas, lighting the hellish landscape randomly. Pockmarked ridges in the living hull provided hiding space for hostiles.
“Troll,” Amira said, pointing into the distance. The chilling and familiar shape thudded toward us.
“Crickets,” Ken reported.
“Okay.” I pulled my MP9 up tight and looked around at my team in their black armor. “Let’s go show them who they’re fucking with.”
About the Author
Zachary Brown is pseudonym. Brown is a New York Times bestselling author as well as a Nebula and World Fantasy Award finalist.
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SAGA PRESS + An imprint of Simon & Schuster + 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020 + www.SimonandSchuster.com + This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. + Text copyright © 2015 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. + Jacket illustrations copyright © 2015 by Steve Stone + Icarus Corps logo by Craig Howell + All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. + SAGA PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. + For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected]. + The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. + The text for this book is set in Bembo Infant. + Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data + Brown, Zachary. + The Darkside War / Zachary Brown. — First edition. + pages cm. — (The Icarus Corps ; Book one) + Summary: “For ages, people have looked at the stars and wondered if we were alone in the universe. Now we damn well wish we were . . . There are many aliens out there. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. You will probably fight besides creatures that will haunt your nightmares long after you leave the service, and they’re the good guys. However, if you want to survive your first encounter with the enemy there are five aliens that you need to learn to spot on sight. Pay attention now and you might live to see your mama again someday. These are the enemies of the Accordance. Our enemies. They are the Conglomeration, and they seek to destroy us. So we will destroy them first. Devlin Hart becomes part of an irregular army for an alien civilization. A reluctant recruit, he’s only here because his parents have been captured by the alien Accordance. Devlin will have to decide where his real allegiances are: because the enemy of the enemy is not always a friend. In this case, they’re a far, far worse threat”— Provided by publisher. + ISBN 978-1-4814-3035-7 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-4814-3036-4 (ebook) + 1. Human-alien encounters—Fiction. 2. Science fiction. I. Title. + PS3602.R726D37 2015 + 813'.6—dc23 + 2014048849
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