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

by J. Barton Mitchell

  “Hello, Holt,” Tiberius said.

  Holt didn’t reply, but neither did he lower his gaze. The stare that passed between the two was intense, and Avril wondered again just what the history was between them.

  9. WIND SHEAR

  “MAX!” MIRA YELLED as the dog darted down into the lower decks of the ship and disappeared, in hot pursuit of the orange cat that had taunted him one time too many. She moved to follow, then felt the shock wave rip through the ship. Her balance faltered, she felt shaky, but it had very little to do with the explosion itself.

  Maybe a hundred feet away, the Wind Star, the vessel she was supposed to be on, incinerated in a fireball.

  “Keep your stupid dog out of the way!” Dresden yelled as he dashed toward the helm, dodging through his crew running everywhere like ants.

  “It’s not my dog!” she said defensively, but her feelings on the subject were conflicted now. If it hadn’t been for Max, she wouldn’t be on the Wind Shear right now, she’d be dead, and all because of his obsession with a cat.

  “Then why is it on my ship?” Dresden was, admittedly, a little flustered. “For that matter, why are you on my ship?”

  Mira pushed through the chaos after him. “He was looking for your cat! It keeps baiting him and—”

  “Nemo doesn’t bait anybody.” He cut her off.

  Another explosion shook the ship, and Mira felt its wheels come off the ground and then slam back down. The impact sent her tumbling to the deck, and everyone else reeling.

  Giant, colored Antimatter crystals pulsed through the air in both directions, some being fired, others begin recalled, but even the ones that were hitting their marks weren’t making much difference.

  Raptors roared through the sky, plasma bolts streaking down. More bolts, larger ones, burned through the air from ahead as the Spiders finally returned fire. And then there was that massive shape in the distance, a walker so big it towered over everything else. Its beam weapon had incinerated the Wind Star. It would no doubt fire again soon.

  The fleet, and the entire escape attempt, were in a lot of trouble.

  Dresden frowned as he helped her up. “Enjoying yourself? This was your idea.”

  Another ship exploded off the starboard side of the ship, and Mira saw the White Helix there leaping into the air.

  “Helm, get ready for a hard pull to port!” Dresden shouted, trying to balance, leaving her. Another explosion rocked the ship. “When we clear past the line, we’re going afterburner, everyone brace for the hit.”

  Mira looked to the port side. There was nothing there but empty land, it would take them south, away from the battle.

  “What?” She pushed after him. “You’re not leaving!?”

  “What the hell else would I be doing?” More explosions flared as another flight of Raptors blazed past. “This is a disaster.”

  “What about your brother?” Mira pointed ahead of them, at one of the six remaining Landships, Conner’s vessel, the Wind Mark, bobbing and weaving, flame bursting all around it. “You’re just going to leave him?”

  Dresden gave her a very disapproving look. “In case you haven’t noticed, he and I aren’t very close. Helm, on my mark—”

  “If we leave, everyone is going to die!”

  “Sweetheart,” Dresden’s patience was running out fast, “I gotta say, I think that’s kind of a foregone conclusion.”

  “I don’t mean just us, I mean the others; the gunships are already hitting them and when we’re all gone, those walkers will too. If we don’t turn this situation around, you don’t just lose this ship, you lose the entire fleet and Currency.”

  More explosions, the ground shook. The helmsman gripped the wheel tightly. “Orders, sir?”

  “We can’t leave,” Mira insisted.

  Dresden stared at her, thoughts swirling in his head.

  “You’re not seriously considering this?” yelled a tall boy nearby with a shaved head and glasses. His name was Parker, Dresden’s first officer, and from what Mira had observed, the two seemed to have a combative relationship. “Look at that thing!”

  They were close enough now to see the giant machine surrounded by the Spiders, a red walker unlike anything Mira had ever seen. Six giant legs moved a blocky, armored fuselage three or four hundred feet over the battlefield, brimming with weapons and what looked like its own communications tower. The thing was a walking fortress, and Mira could see a giant, oblong cannon installed on its top, so big it ran the entire length. Mira could feel the earth shudder whenever one of its legs slammed down.

  “We have to get the hell out of here,” Parker continued. “Now.”

  Dresden looked from Parker back to Mira, weighing things. “What are you proposing?”

  Good question, Mira thought. She answered with the first thing that came to mind. “That big walker’s like the king on a chessboard.”

  “You have a real knack for metaphors, darling, but how does that help us?”

  She studied the Spiders in the distance, the Landships nearby … and the Raptors, dozens and dozens of them, filling the sky. She had an idea. A crazy one. “Can this thing go any faster? Get out ahead of the other ships?”

  Dresden frowned. “She’s the fastest ship in the fleet, but why in hell would I wanna get out front in this madness?”

  She looked back at the huge walker. “Can we fit under it?”

  “Under it?”

  “If we can, we can take it down.”

  “Orders, sir?!” the helmsman yelled, his nerves shot.

  “This is beyond insane!” Parker yelled as more explosions flared everywhere.

  “There isn’t time to explain it,” Mira yelled, dropping her pack to the deck and riffling through it. “You want to save your people or not?”

  Another Landship was incinerated, White Helix leaping off in flashes of yellow. Plasma bolts, both from above and ahead shred the ground as the Wind Shear roared forward.

  “Orders, sir?!”

  “Dresden…” Parker warned.

  The Captain held Mira’s look, struggling with the choice. “Do you have any idea what the hell you’re doing?”

  She could have said anything just then. She chose the truth. “None whatsoever.”

  Dresden studied her a moment more … then smiled. It seemed, somehow, to settle it for him. “That’s all I wanted to hear.” He pulled the old brass sextant off his belt and quickly sighted through it. “Helm, set … two-six-eight, and hold that course.”

  “Aye,” the helmsman echoed, without much enthusiasm.

  “You’re a lunatic,” Parker said, but he was moving for the helm station with Dresden. The Captain had made a call, and that was that.

  “I thought so at first too, Parker.” Dresden flipped open the lid of a small box on one of the workbenches there. Inside was a small red button, wires haphazardly connected to it and running down into the ship’s hull. “But the Freebooter’s right, running ain’t gonna save us.”

  “Neither will playing chicken with that thing.”

  Mira pulled three Barrier artifact combinations from her pack, ones she’d made earlier for the Wind Star, and tossed them to the ship’s artifact handler, a small girl, young, maybe fourteen, her eyes fearful, her hands shaking. Mira didn’t blame her.

  “What’s your name?” Mira asked.

  “Jennifer.”

  “Jennifer, we’re going to need those, especially on the rear,” Mira said pointedly. “Keep an eye on the ones we have now, we’re going to burn through them quick, okay?” The girl nodded, moved for the Grounders with the new combinations.

  Parker yelled to the crew across the ship. “Brace for Acceleration Sails!” He adjusted the Chinook, dialing its band of old clock hands to the right, and when he did the wind howling around them blew in a maelstrom, stronger and wider.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Afterburner,” Dresden replied. He hit the button in the box.

  Rockets exploded into the a
ir from the front of the ship, trailing long lengths of cable behind them, attached to fabric. As the rockets flew upward, they unfurled three additional sails, mixes of all kinds of colors that filled with the reinforced wind, pulling the Wind Shear harder, giving her more speed.

  The ship rocked violently and Mira fell flat on her back. All around the ship, the crew had grabbed onto safety handles or the lines from the sails to brace themselves.

  The world rocketed past outside. Mira glared at Dresden. “A warning would have been nice!”

  The other Landships swept past in blurs as the Wind Shear blew by them. She saw the crew of the Wind Mark pointing and cheering as they raced past, taking the lead.

  Of course, the lead in this assault wasn’t normally where you’d want to be. Mira hoped this worked …

  “I’m doing my thing, Freebooter, you get to yours,” Dresden yelled over the roaring wind. Both he and Parker were looking at her expectantly. Time to put up or shut up.

  Mira ran toward the front of the ship, where the bow tucked under, the ground racing by thirty feet below. Ahead of them, maybe a mile away now, moved the powerful line of red Spider walkers. She could see their cannons flashing, flinging forward volleys of plasma bolts, but they weren’t all headed for the Landships. They seemed to be shooting everywhere; left, right, into the sky.

  Mira saw why. The small White Helix force, what was left of them anyway, had reached the Assembly and engaged. She could just make out their silhouettes against the giant shapes of the walkers, leaping and flipping between them. Streaks of color flashed through the air, explosions blossoming from the walkers.

  Hopefully, they’d distract the Assembly long enough to let the Wind Shear do its thing.

  Mira closed her eyes and reached out with her senses, searching for the presences she knew were somewhere nearby.

  She found far more than she expected.

  A flood of sensation, thousands of thoughts and images filled her mind, and she almost collapsed, moaning, holding her head, trying to fight the projections. The idea that she might be able to tap into the reds’ thoughts just as she could the silvers hadn’t even occurred to her. She felt their rage … and their excitement. It had been a long time since anyone had truly resisted them, usually the Tone rendered a population inert long before any true challenge, yet here it was. Battle. Action.

  Other sensations pulled her back and away, a thick, swirling mix of apprehension and nervousness. It was the silvers. Ambassador’s group … and they knew she was in danger. If they lost her, they lost their one link to each other, the only one they had left. Mira latched onto their anxiety, letting it push away the massive wave of sensation from the reds.

  Guardian, the projection came. It was Ambassador. You risk much.

  Wasn’t that the truth?

  I need your help, she projected back.

  We were not wanted.

  You’re wanted now, she answered firmly. Please.

  There was silence from Ambassador, and the thoughts and sensations from the others swept in like the tide to fill the breach. Mira tried her best to push it away.

  We will come, Ambassador finally replied. Where?

  Mira breathed in relief and opened her eyes …

  The air less than five feet in front of her exploded in plasma bolts, bursting into sparks against the ship’s Barrier. The effect field flared in prismatic color, absorbing the projectiles, but it was weakening. Every walker not engaged with the White Helix ahead of them was firing at the Landships, now just a half mile away.

  Above them, the Raptors circled, roaring after the Wind Shear, and even with its extra sails and emergency power, it couldn’t outrun Assembly gunships. Yellow bolts peppered the Wind Shear’s rear end, and the Barriers flared to life there too. Mira just hoped Jennifer had the presence of mind to cycle out the Barriers as they failed with new ones.

  Where? Ambassador projected again.

  Mira looked straight through the hailstorm of plasma bolts, focusing on a spot behind and right of the center of the army.

  There, she projected, staring, waiting. There. There. “There!”

  Mira saw the flashes of light, just perceptible behind the reds as the silver Brutes teleported in, each with an additional walker for support. Mantises, Spiders, Hunters.

  We are here.

  Explosions flared up from behind the line of red walkers as they were hit by a volley of plasma … and Mira was overwhelmed by sensations and feelings. Shock from the reds, elation from the silvers. In spite of being outnumbered, Ambassador’s strike force seemed to revel in the fight, and she felt their lust, felt it crawl through her … and a part of her liked it.

  Mira pushed the feelings back. It was getting harder and harder to tell which feelings were hers and which were theirs, and the implications were unsettling, but that was something to worry about later.

  She looked behind them and saw exactly what she hoped. Most of the gunships had regrouped in a giant line that was chasing after the Wind Shear, their cannons blazing and hammering its rear Barriers. She saw Jennifer rip out a smoking combination from the rear Grounder and shove in a new one, the last Mira had given her.

  When the Barriers they had now failed, the ship would be defenseless.

  A new sensation washed over her. An awareness, a collective of a hundred or more presences, turning toward the Landships. She felt heat begin to build in her mind, it was the only way to describe it, and everything went brighter and brighter and—

  A giant beam of pure, red energy burned through the air from the cannon on the huge walker. It slammed into another Landship, the Wind Arrow, burning through its Barrier in less than a second, and Mira shuddered as it exploded. The Wind Shear crew barely hung on as the shock wave hit.

  “Can you signal concentrated fire on that thing?” Mira yelled.

  Parker gave hand signals to the crew in the crow’s nest, who yanked loose two flags, one red, one white, and started waving them in patterns toward what was left of the armed Landships. Seconds later, the air again exploded in color as Antimatter crystals streaked toward the giant walker in the distance.

  Mira projected the same instruction to Ambassador. In the distance, the silvers obeyed, their plasma bolts slamming into the huge machine right as the giant Antimatter cannon crystals hit. Fire sprayed from it in violent plumes of orange and red, but even that wasn’t enough. The walker was just too huge.

  The Wind Shear raced forward, the Spiders unsettlingly close. Mira could see the White Helix leaping between them. Two of the machines erupted in flames and collapsed to the ground. From the way the Landship was pointed, Dresden was doing exactly what she asked, steering her right at the giant walker.

  Another blast from its massive cannon fired. Another Landship disintegrated.

  “Hold on to something!” Dresden shouted from behind … and then they were rushing past the front lines of red Spiders, dodging and weaving through them. The Wind Shear swayed and bounced wildly. Its last Barrier flickered once, twice, then died completely. Smoke bellowed out of the Grounders from the ruined artifacts inside. They were defenseless, but the vessel thundered ahead.

  It reached the massive red walker, passed between two of its giant legs. Mira looked up, watched the underside of the machine flash by, saw its hydraulics moving, felt its outpouring of anger and surprise.

  The Raptors chasing them saw what was coming.

  They tried to pull up, but it was too late. They crashed into the huge walker, dozens of them, over and over, exploding in flame and debris, hammering it with more powerful blasts than any plasma bolt. The White Helix, leaping and jumping nearby, seemed to get the plan, and added their firepower to the rest.

  The huge machine shuddered. Mira shut her eyes, feeling the desperation of the entities inside to stay standing … but it was all futile.

  The Wind Shear roared out from under just as it began to tip over, groaning horribly as it fell, slamming into the ground in a symphony of contorted metal as fire
blew everywhere. Dozens of Spider walkers were crushed under its girth. The ground trembled from the impact, and what was left of the gunships spiraled into the ground all around it.

  The crew erupted into cheers, but Dresden held up a hand.

  “Not clear yet,” he yelled. “Hold it together a little longer.”

  There was still a small bit of the field to pass through, marked by an approaching slight incline. As they raced toward it, Mira looked behind.

  From the wreckage of the huge red walker, a hundred shimmering, golden energy fields rose up and out, each forming a different crystalline pattern in the sky. She felt a surge of elation from the silvers in the battlefield. The tide had turned, the reds were confused … but they were all still outnumbered, still in danger.

  Leave, Mira projected. Leave now. You’ve done well.

  And you, Ambassador replied.

  She saw flashes of light as what was left of the silver Brutes teleported out and away, vanishing into thin air, taking the other walkers with them.

  There were no more gunships. Mira saw more red Spider walkers falling in flames as they were swarmed with White Helix, but she could tell they weren’t staying around to fight, they were retreating, flipping and darting into the cliffs and rocks in blurs of purple, but there were many fewer than what they started with. The Landships were strategically retreating too; she could see their Antimatter cannon crystals streaking through the air and landing back on the ships where they’d launched, and, like the Helix, their numbers had dwindled. Of the eleven they’d had, now there were four.

  Mira shut her eyes, feeling the guilt and horror wash over her. They had escaped. But at great cost …

  Pain suddenly overtook everything.

  The sensations she had been fighting finally overwhelmed her, and she was bombarded with hundreds at once, a dizzying array of emotions from every direction. Mira felt herself fall, felt herself hit the deck, but it was all in the background.

  There was nothing but the projections from the red army. Fury at being thwarted, confusion, and … something else. Curiosity. Intrigue. The delicate forming of faith, and all of it was because of her, she somehow knew. It was … disturbing.