Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series)

by J. Barton Mitchell

  Ravan smiled. A little. “Careful, Red. Got a reputation to think of.” The two studied each other awkwardly. They weren’t exactly friends, but they had come a long way from where they’d started, in that tense march through the Strange Lands. Ravan had proven she was more than she seemed, and as much as Mira hated to think about it, she could see why she had meant so much to Holt.

  “You know,” Ravan said after a moment, “I don’t pretend to understand why you’re doing all this, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect the strength it takes to do it. You wouldn’t make a half-bad pirate.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Mira answered. “For what it’s worth, I definitely feel a lot safer when you’re around. Part of me is glad you’re going with Holt.”

  “And the other part?”

  Mira didn’t say anything, and Ravan didn’t push it. She kept smiling, though.

  “Don’t worry about him, kiddo,” the pirate said. “If there’s one guy who can take care of himself, it’s Holt Hawkins. But I’ll keep an eye on him for you.”

  “That sounds ominous.” It was Holt’s voice. They turned and saw him approaching with Max.

  “It was meant to,” Ravan said. She looked down at Max, and the dog stared back up. She pulled a piece of jerky from a pocket and threw it to him. Max snapped it out of the air. “Last piece, you little fearmonger.” Then Ravan turned and headed for the gangplank of the ship, looking at Holt as she did. “See you on board.”

  Mira stared after Ravan. It was odd, there was a melancholy to watching her leave. As complicated as things were between them, she’d become a part of Mira’s life too, and that part was about to be gone.

  “Seemed like an okay good-bye,” Holt said.

  “I guess.” She turned to Holt and the two stared at each other soberly, as the crew finished untying the ship. The White Helix were leaving, Avril was slowly walking up the gangplank while Dane stared after her. It was almost time.

  “I don’t like the idea of you going on the Wind Star,” Holt said, for probably the thousandth time. His voice was tight.

  “It’s the flagship of the fleet,” Mira reminded him. “It’s the most heavily armed and it has three times as many Barriers on it, I built them myself. So as far as Landships going into the fight, it’s the safest one to be on.”

  “It’s the ‘going into the fight’ part I don’t like.”

  “We all have to fight eventually. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

  Holt didn’t say anything; he knew she was right, but that didn’t make it any easier for him. She felt the same, in her own way.

  “I got you something,” Holt said as he pulled out a small object, wrapped in old paper and handed it to her. Mira stared down at it guiltily. Giving Holt something as they left each other seemed like such an obvious gesture, and it hadn’t even occurred to her. She felt awful.

  “I … didn’t get you anything,” she said.

  “That’s okay,” Holt smiled. “You’re a horrible person.”

  She frowned at him, then opened the package. Underneath all the wrapping was a small white tube, with faded writing she could just barely make out.

  It was sunblock.

  Mira smiled and shook her head, gave him a dubious look.

  “Hey, it’s practical,” he told her. “You’ll thank me later, trust me.”

  It was exactly the kind of gift Holt would give her, and underneath it were implications. His foresight, his concern for her well-being, just the fact that she, regardless of what was happening around him, always factored into his thoughts.

  Her smile faded as she stared at the tube, her hands began to shake. She made herself look back up at him. She couldn’t believe this was happening, that the moment was here. The tears were starting to form, like it or not. “Holt…” Mira started.

  “What’s one short whistle?” Holt asked, looking quickly down and away. He’d asked these questions over and over the last week, drilling them into her. It was important to him, she knew, so she tolerated it.

  “It gets his attention,” Mira answered with patience, but this wasn’t what she wanted to talk about.

  Holt nodded, bent down to Max, rubbing his sides. The dog was still working on Ravan’s jerky. “One long, one short.”

  “Scout ahead,” Mira said.

  “Two long—”

  “Holt, I know the whistles, I promise. Can we—”

  “You don’t have to bathe him if you don’t want to,” Holt said.

  Mira frowned. “I don’t.”

  “But you have to feed him twice a day, and not that jerky Ravan always gives him. Real food.” Mira was about to tell him the dog would be lucky if it got her table scraps, but she noticed the emotion in Holt’s voice. Max, as annoying as he might be, was a friend to Holt, and they’d never been apart. Holt was losing two connections in his life today, she realized, and that wasn’t something he was good at. “Make sure he has water, he drinks more than you’d think. And … pet him. You know? Sometimes?”

  Mira nodded. When she spoke her voice was barely audible. “Okay.”

  Holt stood back up and the tears were in her eyes now, there was no stopping them. Holt’s hand cupped the side of her face and she leaned into it.

  “Oh, God…” she said, her voice cracking.

  “Do you remember the first time we met?”

  She managed a small smile. “I was in the tub.”

  “You tricked me, trapped me in that Gravity Void.”

  “Wasn’t very hard,” she told him. “You get a little distracted around naked girls.”

  “Clearly,” Holt said, and she felt the warmth of his hand and made herself commit the feeling of it to memory. “Amazes me how far we’ve come. Everything before that moment was you not in my life. Everything after … I can’t imagine without you. You’re a part of me now, and it’s not accidental, I believe that.”

  “Me too.” The tears were hot and stinging.

  “I know we said no more promises, I know that, but…” Holt moved closer, his hands touching her face, wiping away her tears. “I lost everything once. I don’t think I could go through that again.”

  He meant his sister, Mira knew, Emily. Every time he spoke of her, there was a slight hint of pain in his eyes. Her loss had almost destroyed him.

  “I just want to know,” Holt continued, “that when this is all done, when whatever happens next, happens … that you’ll be here. With me.”

  Mira smiled through her tears. “Where else would I be?”

  Holt pulled her to him and kissed her. The world blended away a little, just enough, for one brief moment, to forget everything else … and then the ringing of the crew bell on the top deck of the Wind Rift signaled it was time to leave. The grounds around the huge ship had cleared out.

  Holt pulled away. They looked into the other’s eyes one last time. Then he grabbed his pack and headed for the gangplank. Max tried to go with him, but Mira grabbed the dog’s collar. He whined, confused.

  Holt held her gaze. “Pet him. Every day.”

  Mira watched him climb the gangplank, feeling her heart beating, feeling the energy he brought to her life diminishing with every step he took until he disappeared over the edge onto the deck and was gone.

  The world suddenly felt very cold.

  “Hey,” a small voice said. It was Olive, watching the last of her crew board her ship.

  Mira wiped the rest of her tears away. “Hi.”

  “Seems like an okay guy,” she observed.

  Mira smiled. “He is.”

  “I’ll get him there in one piece. After that…” Olive’s voice was dark.

  “I’m sorry you got this task, Olive.” Mira meant it. “And I’m sorry it’s because of me.”

  Olive looked at Mira, searching her eyes. “The deal is, on the surface, this all seems to be about rescuing some little girl. If you could tell me it was about more than that … I’d have to be okay with it. I’ve always trusted you.”r />
  Mira thought about her answer. “I go back and forth on that every day. Zoey … has done amazing things. Things I never thought possible. All I can tell you is, she’s shown me, for the first time in a long time, that it’s okay to hope again.”

  Olive studied her, then simply nodded. “Well … at least it won’t be boring.”

  The two girls hugged each other, then pulled apart and Olive moved for her ship. Something occurred to Mira then. She suddenly realized she did have something for Holt, and she slipped it off from around her neck. “Olive!” Mira threw a necklace to the pink-haired girl. At the end was a small, brass compass. Its hands, instead of pointing north, pointed southwest. Zoey had an identical one, or at least she did when she was taken. “Give that to Holt, he’ll know what it means. Tell him … it’s for if he loses his way.”

  Olive stared down at the necklace, then looked back up. “Winds guide you, Freebooter.”

  “And you.”

  She watched Olive jump onto the deck above and disappear, watched the gangplank being rolled up, watched the giant, colorful sails unfurl and the giant wheels turn as the Wind Rift began to roll.

  Mira looked down at Max. He glared back up at her skeptically. “Come on, mutt. Got our own boat to catch.”

  5. GAUNTLET

  THE ENTIRE CREW stood at the edge of the Wind Rift’s deck, and everyone who had optics was scanning the horizon. Holt peered through his binoculars with them. It was an impressive sight, almost seventy Landships arranged in formation south of Currency, and more were still coming, assembling in the staging area. When the time came they would all run the gauntlet together.

  In the distance, eleven additional Landships stood ready, their sails deflated. These were equipped with the new White Helix cannons, the ones which would try and buy time for everyone else to escape, and it was where Mira was now.

  He could easily make out her ship, the Wind Star, among all the ones there because it was so much larger. Probably double the length of the others, with five giant masts that towered over the rest, a formidable sight … at any other time. Today, what those ships were about to face was, without question, far more powerful.

  But where was it? The red army had yet to show itself, and everyone waited with dark anticipation.

  “What are we still doing here?” Ravan asked impatiently next to Holt.

  “Waiting for the other ships,” Olive replied, staring through a fold-out telescope she’d pulled from her belt. “We leave as one.”

  “But we aren’t going with the others,” Ravan replied. “We’re headed south, what does it matter if we wait or not?”

  “Looks like you’re the only one anxious to get where we’re going, Menagerie.” It was Castor’s voice. He and Masyn were looking to the west with everyone else. They were the only White Helix on board, having been assigned to accompany them to Faust. Neither was happy about it. The way they saw it, a war was about to start and they were left out, given the official (and mundane) task of demonstrating the White Helix weaponry to Tiberius Marseilles. Unofficially, they were more likely there at Dane’s orders to watch over someone else.

  Avril sat separate from the others, her back against one of the ship’s tire-wrapped masts, staring at the empty fingers of her left hand. She seemed completely blank, like she was living in a dream. Holt had left a lot behind himself, he knew how it felt.

  “Shh.” Olive silenced the others nearby, lowering the telescope. Ravan and Holt looked at her in confusion … until they heard what Olive had. Everyone on deck heard it.

  Shuddering, concussive booms that came from the distance.

  A second later, and the sounds repeated, echoing off the serene, rolling hills.

  Then again. Again. They were growing louder.

  “What the hell?” Ravan’s voice was unnerved. “Sounds like…”

  “Footfalls,” Holt finished, rescanning the horizon, and this time, amid the haze of the far distance … shapes moved.

  Large ones. Lines and lines of them, trudging powerfully forward. They were barely silhouettes at this distance, but Holt had seen enough shapes like that to know what they were, and he felt his blood run cold.

  Spider walkers. Fifty feet tall and wider than a city street. Agile, powerful, and carrying enough firepower to decimate anything that challenged them. They got their name from the eight large mechanized legs that held their huge fuselages above the ground. The combination granted them superior mobility, and made them one of the most feared sights on the planet.

  Holt had seen red Spiders only once before, two of them, and from what Holt remembered, they were different than the blue and whites. Blockier, slower, but more heavily armed, and judging by the movement on the horizon, there were a lot more than two.

  “Mira’s mechanical friend was right,” Olive said soberly. “Looks like about two hundred.”

  “But it doesn’t explain that noise,” Holt answered. As he did, the sounds filled the air again, sounds that were now close enough to vibrate the deck under his feet. He remembered what that Captain had said back at the power plant, about the giant shape that moved within the Spiders.

  “Look,” Masyn said, pointing to the east. “They’re moving.”

  Holt saw with a building dread that she was right. The great, colorful sails of the Landships near the Shipyards plumed outward in bursts of purple and blue as the vessels began to move, gradually picking up speed, headed toward the army growing on the horizon.

  “Jesus,” Ravan said. “This is going to be a massacre.”

  “Five hundred White Helix are on those ships,” Castor replied proudly. “When they reach the ground—”

  “They’ll be crushed like five hundred ants,” Ravan cut him off.

  Now there was something else, Holt could see. A blackness that stirred above the walkers in the distance, like shadows growing in the air. Holt had a pretty good guess what it was. So did Ravan.

  “If we don’t go now,” she told Olive, “we’re never going to leave.”

  “The signal hasn’t been shot yet,” Olive said.

  “What’s the signal?” Holt asked.

  “A red flare.”

  Ravan looked to Castor and Masyn, her eyes moving to the Lancets on their backs. On the end of Masyn’s rested a glowing red spear point. Holt had a guess what she intended, but his eyes were locked on the Landships barreling ahead and the huge image of the Wind Star in his optics as its sails launched it forward. She would make it, he told himself. It was the flagship. The safest place.

  “You! The blond one!” Ravan yelled at Masyn, taking a step toward her. “Shoot your red crystal thing!” Castor took a protective step in between them, but Masyn stepped past him in annoyance.

  “Why?” she asked. “Look how far away those things are. What’s the—”

  “Because what’s swarming over there moves faster than any one of these ships.” Ravan looked at Olive as she said the last part. “You know I’m right.”

  Olive stared at Ravan, then looked at Holt. Holt nodded. “Do it,” he told her.

  Olive studied him with a mixture of frustration and fear, but then she looked at Masyn and nodded.

  Masyn shrugged and yanked the Lancet from her back. There was a loud, percussive ping, and the red spear point shot into the sky. Every ship in the staging area would have seen it.

  “I hope you’re right,” Olive said. “Because if you’re not, then—”

  “Look!” one of Olive’s crew shouted, pointing westward. The air along the horizon exploded in a myriad of buzzing shapes, a hundred of them probably, screaming forward.

  It was what Holt expected. Raptor gunships, racing ahead of the ground forces toward the approaching Landships. If those gunships wanted, they could be on the main grouping, the unarmed and defenseless ones, in minutes.

  Olive knew the same thing. “Unfurl!” she yelled, running for the helm while everyone else scrambled to their positions. “Unfurl!”

  The red spear point slammed bac
k onto Masyn’s Lancet with another ping. Either it had been taken for the signal flare, or the other Captains had figured out the same thing. The crews of every Landship around them were scrambling to unfurl their sails too.

  “Checklist?” Olive’s first mate shouted as he started climbing the central mast.

  “No time! Full Chinook. Now!”

  The wind roared above Holt’s head as it was focused and intensified by the artifact, bellowing out the ship’s massive sails. The Wind Rift rocked, and Holt held on, trying to—

  Explosions flared up in the distance.

  With wide eyes, Holt saw the swarm of gunships streak over and rain down yellow plasma onto the ships in the distance. Their Barriers blazed to life, but flames erupted everywhere.

  He could hear the sounds of Raptor engines. Could see several dozen of them bank hard right and separate from the others. He knew what it meant.

  “They’re coming this way!” someone shouted.

  Holt’s eyes searched for and found the Wind Star, far away, rocking wildly as a blast erupted near it, but, like the others, it kept moving, dashing toward the Spiders … and, right next to it, the first of the armed Landships exploded in a ball of fire that arced into the sky.

  Then the gunships roared over the Wind Rift, and the ground all around them was bursting apart too.

  * * *

  DANE BARELY MANAGED TO leap from the deck of the Wind Thrust before it exploded in a massive fireball. Three of his Arc hadn’t been fast enough. The Barriers on the ship had taken their share of punishment from the air assault, but had eventually failed.

  The Raptors had made short work of it after that.

  Another Landship blew apart, spraying fiery splinters all through the air. He saw some of the Arc there, leaping to safety, but not all.

  “Damn it!” he cursed as he hit the ground, dashing forward as more plasma bolts rained down, dodging through them. The Freebooter’s Barriers hadn’t been enough, and it was tempting to blame what was happening on her, but it was plain to see where the real blame lay.

  On him.

  He’d pushed for this frontal assault. He’d heard Mira’s claims about air support, and he’d ignored them. He should have thought strategically. Gideon had always preached strength, but he had also drilled in the idea that strength could never be relied on alone.