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

by J. Barton Mitchell

  “So what does it mean for us?” Dresden asked.

  Mira guessed what he meant. What she was thinking about before was in the future. There were concerns in the present to worry about too. This entire endeavor, the journey west to find Zoey, ran on artifacts. Just the Reflection Box alone was a major part of the campaign. If it failed …

  And what about the Antimatter crystals? The White Helix’s weapons she and Holt were using as bargaining chips? If they lost their power, they would have no way to earn the cooperation of the other groups, much less fight Assembly combat walkers.

  “We’ll have to make more combinations, more often,” she said, thinking it through. “Monitor them, keep records of how fast they fail, compare the data. That way we can see if it’s accelerating or constant.”

  “And if it’s accelerating?”

  She looked up at him. “Then, in a few months … the world’s going to be a very different place.”

  Dresden stared back at her soberly. “A can of worms.”

  Then they both rocked forward as the giant ship began to slow, the vibrations under their feet softening. The Wind Shear was slowing down, and the look Dresden gave her said it wasn’t planned.

  “Now what?” he asked, and they both moved for the stairs.

  * * *

  THE PROJECTIONS THAT HIT Mira when she stepped back onto the deck were the strongest she’d ever felt from a single source, so powerful it would have reached her from the other end of the world. It was fear, but not the normal anxiety Mira usually felt from the Assembly, this was mortal fear, potent and sharp, and a wave of dizziness almost overwhelmed her.

  The entire line of Landships had come to a stop, and smoke rose in torrents from the very front, about six ships ahead. Crews were running in that direction, and Dresden, Mira, and everyone on the Wind Shear followed. When they pushed through the parked ships and all the people, the cause of it all was obvious.

  A silver Spider walker—one of the Mas’Shinra defectors judging by the armor—and a Landship had had one hell of an unfortunate incident. It looked like the huge walker had fallen over right on top of the ship, and the impact had been catastrophic.

  The front half of the vessel was disintegrated, while what remained of the rear had split into three pieces, and one of them was burning. Its cargo was thrown everywhere … and so were its crew.

  “Oh, God…” Mira said, her eyes darting from person to person on the ground, each surrounded by three or four people, trying to help. Like every other ship in the fleet, it had been carrying several Arcs of White Helix, but they would have easily leapt clear. The crew wasn’t so fortunate.

  “Conner!” Dresden yelled, getting the attention of his brother, who was overseeing the chaos. “What the hell?”

  Conner stared back hotly. “It was the Wind Fall. How’s that for irony? No one’s dead, it’s a damn miracle.” He glared at Mira then. “This is all your fault.”

  Dresden stared back skeptically. “What’d she do, trip the Spider walker?”

  “This was intentional!”

  “Oh please.” Dresden cut him off. “Attacking Landships by falling on them?”

  Mira stepped forward through the crowd of people, ignoring the damage and the burning ship, all of it blending into the background as she zoned in on the source of the intense fear. It was the walker, the crumpled silver Spider on the Landship, or more specifically, the entity inside.

  It was terrified and … weak. The projections from it came in fragmented waves, like a radio whose batteries were dying. It was awful, the intensity, the feelings. All she wanted was for it to stop, to not have to feel it …

  Guardian. It was Ambassador, its five-legged walker standing across the waterway amid half a dozen others. You are here.

  What can we do? she projected back.

  Nothing. The Void waits.

  Mira was confused.

  It will cease to be, Ambassador clarified.

  Mira hesitated. What was Ambassador saying, the thing was dying? She thought Assembly entities were immortal. The fear from the presence in the Spider was boiling over inside her. Mira’s body was almost shaking with the thing’s terror. She had to find a way, had to stop it, if for no other reason than to shut down the stream of emotion.

  “You okay?” Dresden asked, studying her with concern. The White Helix watched her oddly too, but right then she didn’t care. She had to find a way to stop these feelings.

  Mira moved for the machine, and when she did, Dresden grabbed her and pulled her back.

  “Whoa,” he said, holding on. “Whoa, whoa.”

  She glared at him angrily. “It’s dying.”

  “It’s probably best to stay away from it,” Dresden said.

  “Let me go.” She said it with as much heated emphasis as she could. Dresden wasn’t happy about it, but he relented, released his grip.

  “Your funeral,” he said with a frown.

  Mira walked forward, past the others, toward the fallen machine.

  Guardian. What do you intend?

  “I don’t know,” she said out loud instead of projecting. She didn’t care if the others heard, she just wanted to stop these feelings. She felt the stomping of giant, mechanized legs as a dozen of the silver Assembly moved toward her and the fallen Spider, surrounding it. She passed through them and kept moving. “It defected to our side because of you and me. Which means no matter what side it was on before, if it really is dying, then it’s dying for us.” Her voice was tight, it was hard to talk through all the fear. She still had no real understanding of why the thing was fading, but that could wait.

  She sensed confusion from the Assembly, they seemed just as perplexed as Dresden.

  This makes no sense, Ambassador projected. This makes no difference.

  “Yes it does,” she whispered.

  Mira reached the giant Spider, navigating around where its legs had splayed outward, climbing up one of its actuators and pulling herself toward the fuselage. It was the first time she had ever been this close to one. Who knew, maybe it was the first time anyone had. The machine was enormous, its power undeniable, and yet here it was, terrified and helpless.

  She crawled toward the eye, and watched it move back and forth, never resting, as if studying every millimeter of her. Mira fought through the fear bleeding off the thing … and then slowly placed her hand on the bare metal right next to its optics, and closed her eyes.

  The fear doubled in intensity. It was the first time she had ever communed with one like this, it was different from doing it at a distance: more powerful, more intimate, more vibrant, and that made the fear almost unbearable.

  She held on, resisted the urge to run, felt her heart beating. There had to be a way to stop the outpouring of feeling, she would go insane if she couldn’t.

  I’m here, she thought to it. You’re not alone.

  The fear didn’t subside, but it felt different, a little less potent. Guardian … she heard.

  An odd thought came to her: the memory of Holt holding her, on that hillside, when the Tone first fought her for control. He had been there and whispered in her ear, asked her to tell him what she missed most from the World Before. Her answer had been Hostess CupCakes, a gift he later found for her in the Drowning Plains. The point of it, though, had been to disrupt the pain of the Tone and to focus her. She wondered if she could do something similar here.

  Show me your peace, Mira projected. She had no idea if the thing would understand what she was asking, for it to recall a place or time when it had been the most at peace. She found that it was easiest to communicate with the aliens with simple ideas, in the same way they communicated with her. The translation from words to impressions was as difficult for them as the opposite was for her. Show me your peace.

  An image flared in her mind.

  A giant, wavering, geometrically perfect column of energy, that must have been two or three hundred feet in diameter. It looked tangible, as if you could touch it, and it was so brigh
t and distinct she could almost see the individual particles, gently and lazily floating upward. As she experienced it, so did the other Assembly around her, and their reaction was one and the same. An outpouring of awe, of reverence … and a yearning for what had been lost.

  Whatever it was, it was stunningly beautiful. What is it?

  The Nexus, it replied. From where we came. The reply was echoed solemnly all around her, by the dozens of Assembly, one after the other.

  From where we came …

  As comforting as the image was, Mira could feel the entity weakening, its terror returning.

  Mira reached back out to it, burrowing through the thick outpouring of fear, until she found the emotion she was looking for, the one of tranquility that had arisen when the image of the Nexus had appeared. When she found it, she concentrated on it, tried to blossom it, to grow it, and slowly, very slowly, it began to work.

  The feeling grew. Not just within her, but within the entity before her, and all the others nearby.

  She exhaled a long, relieved breath as the terror dissolved away, enveloped by the peaceful ones, and as they did, the image came to life again, the brilliant, beautiful column of energy, stretching upward.

  She felt gratitude from the entity, the only other emotion inside the bubble of placidity, and Mira knew it was meant for her.

  It’s okay, she told it. It’s okay now.

  The feelings lasted a few more moments, for her and the others …

  … and then they faded completely. It was like watching a small breeze stir the leaves on the ground as it evaporated and moved away, drifting off, and then never seen again.

  When Mira opened her eyes, the Spider had gone dark. The hum of its electronics and actuators was gone, the lights up and down its fuselage were dark, and the red, green, and blue of its “eye” had gone colorless. There was nothing now. The entity inside was silent.

  Guardian … It was Ambassador. Mira looked to where it stood, its giant, five-legged form nearby, part of the circle of other walkers that had surrounded the fallen. Every one of them stared at her intently. You are of us.

  There came an outpouring of gratitude from the machines, not just for what she had done for one of their own, but, apparently, for showing them that brilliant, beautiful column of energy once more. She got the impression it was something they never thought they would see again, and their thankfulness was tangible.

  “Why did this happen?” Mira asked out loud. She had a feeling the answer wasn’t a good one.

  Ambassador responded in the way it did when it needed to impart a concept more complicated than its limited words could express. Images and sensation filled her mind, and she shut her eyes tight as it flashed by, showing her the truth, and all the unpleasantness it represented.

  When it was over, she opened her eyes and looked behind her. The Wind Traders and the Helix were staring at her with a great deal of confusion; they had no idea what she had just been through. She looked for someone specific, saw him near the other Helix, watching her with concern.

  Dane.

  “We have a problem,” she said.

  17. THE VOID

  “THEY’RE … DYING?” Dane asked with incredulity.

  “Yes,” Mira answered. She understood his shock, it seemed impossible to her too, but that’s what Ambassador had shown her. “When they joined us, they disconnected themselves from the rest.”

  “You’ve mentioned that before, but how’s that killing them?” Dresden asked. He stood nearby with Conner and Dane, while the crews continued to work at the wreck site behind them. The endeavor had turned into a salvage operation now, with Smitty organizing kids to pick through what was left of the Wind Fall’s cargo on the ground for anything of value, while he surveyed the wreck for usable parts.

  “Disconnecting from the others means they no longer have access to something called the Nexus,” Mira explained, and they stared at her strangely. She was struggling to explain in words what Ambassador had shown to her in imagery. “It’s … like a power source, I think. Some kind of energy that recharges them, and if they don’t enter it every so often, they die.”

  “Lovely,” Dresden said.

  “That’s what happened to the Spider?” Conner asked. “It passed out and died on top of one of my ships!? What if this happens again?”

  “It undoubtedly will,” Mira said, and her gaze moved to Dane. There was a larger implication here, and she was sure he saw it too.

  “We used to see them outside their ships all the time, now we hardly ever do,” Dane said. “They’re protected inside, aren’t they?”

  “They can last longer, yes, inside the armor. If they come out … they’ll fade fast. Which means—”

  “If their machines are destroyed,” Dane finished for her darkly, “they’re dead, just like any one of us.”

  Mira nodded. It was a grim realization. All this time they’d been operating under the belief that if the Assembly lost one of their machines, they would just float up and out and enter another one. The reality was, it seemed, only their enemies had that ability. Their silver Assembly army was very vulnerable.

  Dane shook his head bitterly. “This just gets better and better.”

  “I couldn’t care less about your little war,” Conner said, holding Mira’s gaze. “What I do care about is the loss of one of my ships for no reason, and the cargo it was carrying. Those are irreplaceable.”

  “So were the crew,” Dresden said.

  Conner gave him an annoyed look. “They’re fine, none of them died, so I’m looking at what actually was lost. Profit.”

  “Of course, Conner,” Dane replied. “Wouldn’t expect you to care about anything other than your own bottom line.”

  “And what exactly am I supposed to care about?” Conner asked back. “This little girl that’s been kidnapped? If you didn’t have something incredibly valuable worth bargaining for when you showed up two months ago, no one would be on this fool’s errand with you. No one. This entire coalition is held together with string, if that, and it has six days left.” That last he said with a pointed look at Mira, then he simply turned on his heel and disappeared back toward the ships and the campfires.

  When he was gone, Dresden looked at Mira. “He’s right about one thing. The more you ask us to do, the closer we are to just saying the hell with it.”

  “Does that go for you too?” she asked back quietly.

  Dresden studied her impatiently, starting to move away, back toward the Wind Shear. “I’m no hero. You’re the only one trying to be one of those.” He held her look a moment, his eyes full of … something unreadable. Then he disappeared back into the salvage effort, blending in with the others.

  “What are we going to do?” Mira asked Dane.

  “All that we can,” he said. “We still have six days with the fleet, that’s enough time to make it to San Francisco. Truth is, the ships weren’t going to be much help there anyway. I haven’t seen the ruins, but I can’t imagine Landships would be able to operate inside. When we find this Phantom Regiment, and Holt and Avril get back with the Menagerie, we’ll make up for losing them.”

  “I meant what are we going to do about the silvers?”

  That was the real problem, wasn’t it? Ambassador and his rebels numbered almost a hundred now, and if they were to be honest, represented as much power as the White Helix, and now they were apparently just as vulnerable as any other piece on the game board. The Assembly, however, could lose walker after walker and not truly suffer a single loss.

  Dane rubbed his eyes tiredly. “We just have to think strategically when we use them, like any other asset, and hope we get more defectors as we go.” He turned to her, confused. “Why would they do this? Why would they revolt if it was going to cost them so much?”

  Mira shrugged. It was one of many things she still didn’t understand about the aliens.

  “Maybe it’s time you found out,” Dane said.

  * * *

  THE ASSEMBLY
“CAMP” WAS nestled in a clear area of desert that was mainly compacted dirt, and it felt like walking on cement. They had definitely left the green rolling hills of northern Idaho behind. Even though it was night and the sun was hidden, the heat still bore into her through her clothes. Why would anyone live in this wasteland?

  The Assembly always camped the same distance away from the Wind Shear. In fact, Mira was convinced if you were to measure between the two at every stop the distance would be identical. She’d made this journey many times, secretly slipping out of her bunk on the Landship and coming to sleep amid the Assembly, where she could breathe, where she could actually think.

  Guardian … The projections came, one after the other, dozens of them. You return.

  The machines stood like hulking shadows in the dark, and the dozen or so golden, crystalline entities that floated in the air lit them in strange, wavering bands of amber. As she approached, the walkers moved toward her.

  Mira watched the glowing shapes, hovering between the walkers. Like Dane had pointed out, seeing the entities themselves was getting rarer now, as they weakened, but it was still a strange sight, knowing those golden constructs were the aliens, not the machines they controlled. Ironically, the walkers had much more personality than the ambiguous, glowing formations. They hovered and drifted slowly and grew brighter or dimmer, but without Mira’s abilities to commune with them, they appeared docile, fragile even, and judging by what had transpired earlier, maybe they were. Mira wondered what that would be like, a true form that was nearly immobile and nonphysical. Then again, humans were probably no less mystifying to the Assembly.

  Mira exhaled as the anxiety and loneliness drained away as the aliens took comfort in her closeness, able to feel each other again, just a little bit. She sat down on the warm, dusty ground and closed her eyes.