She was evading so hard she didn't even see who killed the first of the three Lurkers pursuing her: it simply exploded, to eventually get sucked into the microgravity of a passing asteroid. Winters got the second, executing a skid turn and rolling on his back to nail it with three sets of guns. Mat-Nalin peeled off the third ship, letting Rada circle back around on it and gun it down.
There were no more missiles and drones, no more computer algorithms to spit out your best course of attack and defense. They were far too close for that now. All that you had available to you were instincts and reflex, and Rada found that she had both. She locked into the same mental state as she'd briefly fought in after Toman's death, where the battle no longer felt like churning chaotic madness but a legible map, where she could anticipate an enemy's movements based on the smallest twitches, where there was no time for thoughts but she no longer needed them because the fight was as much a part of her as her own blood.
As it turned out, there was one last wave of missiles after all: the Lurkers and Swimmers had a short exchange that ended in the death of another Swimmer ship and several Lurkers. But even after all missile stocks were depleted, the tactical display thinned steadily. They were gaining ground on the enemy, but the Lurkers had such a head start Rada didn't know if it would be enough.
She emerged from a dogfight and took a fresh glance at tactical. Her eyes bulged. "To Kansas! She's in trouble!"
On screen, Winters looked befuddled. "No she's not."
"She's about to be. Stay tight on my wing. We're the only ones close enough!"
Rada hooked toward the Last Argument of Gangsters, the big black ship isolated in a pocket of empty space. But a spread of six Lurkers was already spearing toward her. The Gangster's rear cannons opened up at the incoming fighters.
Rada shot a long burst at one of the ships, then dived toward a second. It peeled away from Kansas, firing back at the Tine as Rada drove it away from the Gangster. Winters had engaged two of the others and was leading them toward a trio of Dashers hustling to enter the fray.
Movement on tactical caught Rada's eye. Five more Lurkers were coming in fast. Toward her. At once, she knew the attack had been a setup. A way to bring both of humanity's leaders down at once.
She grabbed her device and ran from the main bridge to that of the other third of the Tine. As soon as she was through the door, she closed it behind her and punched the button to split the ship. The two portions of the Tine cleaved from each other with a series of hard clunks. She sent the middle section racing away, juking as it went. The five new Lurkers hurried after it as Rada let her part of the ship drift forward as if it was unmanned.
As soon as the aliens were past, Rada swooped in on a fighter harrying Kansas' tail. It never saw her coming. As it blew apart, she took up remote control of the other section of the Tine, veering wildly back and forth, shooting behind it at its pursuit.
The Lurkers evaded, then began to close on the empty third of the ship again. Rada switched back to the controls in front of her just in time to push another fighter away from Kansas and into Winters' line of fire.
"You two are ruthless," Kansas said. "Why weren't you fighting like this all along?"
"Because everyone else was cheating and using missiles," Rada said.
She switched back to manual control of the distant third of the Tine, managing to shoot down one of her pursuers before their guns ripped the makeshift drone apart. But the chase had led the aliens right up to a squad of Locker fighters. The pirates hooted and charged, slaughtering them at quarters that could only have been closer if they'd been clashing with sabers atop the deck of a frigate.
Maybe the attempt to kill the humans' two admirals had been the Lurkers' last trick, and when it failed, their morale collapsed. Or maybe the battle had simply reached a tipping point where what had seemed like an even field suddenly tilted into the inevitable.
People would comb through the footage later, seeking explanations and lessons. In the moment, all Rada knew was that the Lurkers collapsed. As their numbers evaporated, they formed into three groups and made a run in three different directions.
The Swimmers took down one group. Kansas' fleet axed the second. And the last of Rada's people smeared the third.
With the attempt to flee thwarted, Rada looked to tactical. What she saw there filled her eyes with tears.
The skies were clear.
~
It was afternoon of the next day before they reached Tandana. Webber was so tired from paddling that he had dragged MacAdams halfway up the beach before he remembered the security grids. He looked back at the waterline, but his suit was almost dead and it could no longer show him whether the grid was there anyway.
He dragged the two of them into the shade of the palms and slept.
When he woke, it was light again. MacAdams was still out. Webber was as thirsty as a dried prune. He found a stream. It was probably filled with little tiny things that would make him shit his brains out, but it was either that or wait for the tropical sun to dehydrate his brains out, so he drank until he had his fill, then filled his suit's water pocket and headed back.
MacAdams' wound looked bad. The inner layer of his suit was melted to his skin and Webber had to cut it away with a knife. He cleaned and bandaged it the best he could, which wasn't very well. It looked like it was going to get infected. To keep busy, Webber went for a swim. There were fish, but he didn't know how to catch them.
He spent two days watching the skies for planes and the seas for boats. At that point, there was no denying the redness spreading from MacAdams' wound. Webber gathered some water and the wild bananas that were the only thing he'd eaten that day and got up to go.
"Where are you going?" MacAdams croaked.
He turned. "Up to the base."
"No you're not."
"That infection's going to kill you and I don't have any meds. So unless you think you can stand up and stop me, yes, I'm going back."
MacAdams tried to rise but fell back. "You idiot."
"You can punch me when you're better."
He headed uphill. It had rained that morning and the slopes were slick. Puddles glistened with rainbow oil that seeped from the clay. The brace on his right leg was starting to stiffen when he lifted it and he wasn't sure what he would do if it gave out when he was miles into the jungle. Then again, he had to get to the base no matter what and his brace was going to do what it was going to do, so what sense was there in worrying about it?
Twilight stole over the island, draping the western sky with soft pastel clouds. Shadows stirred in the ferns to the right of the trail. A pair of eyes shined at him like incoming missiles. The tiger slid out from cover, watching him. Goosebumps rolled over Webber's body like a swell coming in to shore and he knew that it could smell his fear the same way he'd be able to smell a grilling T-bone.
The tiger flickered to the left. Like that, it was gone, vanished into the ferns so suddenly it might have been a hallucination if not for the massive tracks pressed deep into the damp clay.
He headed to the plateau, running as much as he could. The base was empty. No soldiers, no planes left on the runway. Birds flitted between the buildings, pecking at silver foil packets spilled during the departure.
The ground near the back of the canyon was broken and jumbled from the underground blasts. The hangars had cracks on their roofs and some of the smaller buildings were leaning heavily. Webber took the trail down from the jungle and went from building to building. He was dead sure that a Lurker was going to leap out from hiding and gun him down in a last act of treachery, but the facility was empty. He found a first aid kit, complete with antibiotics and burn cream.
It was the good stuff. MacAdams was looking better by the very next day. The day after that, he was walking around. By the third day, and the fifth since they'd made it back to Tandana, MacAdams cut down two long stalks of bamboo, angling their tips into sharp spears, and insisted they swim out into the reef to fish. That nigh
t, they ate their first meat in days.
They built a shelter of palm fronds and bamboo. MacAdams didn't want to use the laser every time they wanted to build a fire, so they figured out a way to get one going with a piece of glass and sunlight. They climbed trees for coconuts and split them on the rocks. Webber had never been one of those guys like MacAdams who liked work, but none of this really felt like work. If the Lurkers took control of the System, he hoped they wouldn't come back to Tandana for a long time.
On the eighth day, Webber wandered down to the beach to think about going fishing and saw a ship passing three miles out to sea.
He ran to the edge of the sand where they'd set out their wood and lit it with his laser. A column of dense white smoke climbed above the trees. The boat heaved toward shore, windshield flashing in the sunlight.
Webber and MacAdams hid in the palms until it anchored at the edge of the reef and launched a canoe. When it was clear the sailors weren't about to missile strike them, Webber and MacAdams emerged onto the beach.
The canoe was crewed by a single man in dark clothes. He cruised up onto the sand and MacAdams and Webber helped pull the vessel away from the surf.
The man's gray eyes looked older than the rest of his face. "You're them, aren't you? Our new agents. The ones who seem to be the only two people the Lurkers can't kill."
"And now we've taken over their little island, too." Webber motioned to the canoe. "What's the matter, run into some budget cuts?"
"The submarine was destroyed in the attack on Tandana. All hands were lost. Loris was among them."
Webber nodded stupidly. He'd barely known the gnomish old woman who'd been deploying them around the globe for the last few weeks, but he'd gotten the impression that she'd been doing a lot of good for a lot of people.
"Sorry to hear that," he said. "We've been stuck here since the attack. Our devices are down. We don't have any idea what's going on."
"Nothing at all?"
"We've been a little too busy dealing with food and shelter to reinvent the device just yet."
"Then you don't know that we've won."
"At Tandana? Yeah, I figured as much."
The man's gray eyes flashed in the tropical sun. "Not just Tandana. We won it all, Agent Webber. The war is over."
23
Rada flew forward in stunned awe. The final explosions played themselves out like the year's last blossoms falling from the bough. Scraps of ships both Lurker and human continued along their aimless paths. Bullets sailed off into the darkness to disappear into oblivion, sailing forever on their initial momentum. Unless they struck a planet or asteroid on their way through the System, in ten thousand years, they might cross into the domain of a foreign star.
"We did it." Kansas made the words sound like a question. "We did it!"
A cheer roared across the comm, a battle cry, a yawp of victory. Every man and woman was screaming their lungs out and the primal wrath of it made the hairs stand up on Rada's arms and neck.
Yet the number of voices joined in that cry were so few you could have packed them all into the same bus.
"27 ships," Rada said to Kansas, voice subdued with wonder. "That's all we have left. 27 ships—and three from the Swimmers. How many pilots and crew do you think we have left? A hundred?"
"If that."
"A hundred people. That's all that stood between us and extinction."
"Sure," Kansas said. "That and the thousands of people who died in the fighting. And the millions who died in the attacks on the stations. And the billions who died in the bombardment of Earth."
A shudder passed over Rada. "All of that and we still would have lost if not for the aid of the Swimmers. After what they did to us, did it ever once cross your mind that they'd someday be the ones to save us? We have to thank them."
"Go right ahead."
"Don't tell me you're not grateful."
"Hell yeah I'm grateful. Without them, I'd be some Lurker's skinsuit by now. But the Swimmers give me the creeps, you know? They're your friends. You tell them what a good job they did."
While Kansas ordered the remnants of the once-great fleet to form up—there was still a chance, however slight, that a hidden wave of Lurker ships might reveal themselves—Rada opened a line to the three alien ships.
"This is Admiral Pence." The title still felt strange to her, as if she was borrowing it from someone else. "Thank you. Thank you for coming to fight for us. We were right on the brink of running out of missiles. Without your help, we'd all be dead."
The comm was silent. Rada checked to make sure it was functional, but everything looked fine.
She cleared her throat. "You've never intervened before. Not like this, not physically. Why did you come this time?"
The Swimmers remained silent. Without so much as a waggle of their wings, the three ships turned away. They engaged their engines and boosted off into empty space.
"What'd you say to them?" Kansas said. "'Thanks for the save, but next time can you be less ugly?'"
"I thanked them, that's all."
"Maybe they're just shy." Kansas stretched her arms above her head, rounding the muscles of her shoulders. "Well, come on. We better get our butts over to Earth."
"Earth?"
"You think this thing is over? Our job won't be done until we've checked for Lurkers under every rock in the System. That starts on Earth. Now let's get a move on. We can party on the way."
Kansas moved to the head of the formation. "All ships, set course for Earth. Eyes sharp. If there are any more Lurkers out there, they'll be out for our blood."
Rada took up position behind her. The fleet powered toward the heart of the System, leaving the dead and the ruins of their ships to cool in the implacable vacuum.
~
The terminator of the sun sliced down the middle of the continent of North America. The half that lay in light looked scarred and battered. The half that lay in darkness showed almost no lights at all. The sight of it made Rada's chest tighten. It had taken them five days to get here from the Belt. She knew there was still a lot of chaos down on the surface, even some conflicts, but with the Lurkers removed from the picture, she'd expected them to have gotten some of their infrastructure back online.
Instead, the planet looked liked it had been knocked into a coma. And there was no telling if, or when, it would open its eyes again.
The Timeless hung in high orbit like a shark cruising the pelagic off a coastal shelf. It was big enough to hold a team sporting event inside, complete with audience, meaning it would have died in the first thirty seconds of a fleet action. Rada understood perfectly well that that was why Dark Solutions had held it out of combat, yet on seeing such a large and intimidating vessel, a part of her couldn't help feeling irritated that it was so impractical in a fight.
The Tine docked an umbilical to the large airlock of the Timeless. Rada passed through and was met in the foyer by two blandly handsome men in the black uniforms of Dark Solutions. Kansas, Mat-Nalin, and Winters soon joined her. The two men opened the door and walked them down an oddly dim corridor to two tall, copper-plated doors.
These swung inward with a gust of salty air, revealing a room too wide and dark to see its other end. The soldiers led the four of them along a causeway. To either side, water tossed gently, illuminated by subtle blue and green lights. Fish and turtles drifted between small clumps of seaweed.
They came to an island in the middle of the room. A round table stood at its center. Two men rose from the table. One was big enough to hunt bouncers for sport. The other was more normal sized, the white of his grin flashing in the gloom. They both moved stiffly, the shorter man favoring his legs while the big one seemed to be protecting his chest.
The shorter man hugged her tight. "What took you so long?"
"Webber?" Rada barked a short laugh.
She was interrupted by MacAdams, who promptly picked her up and crushed her. "You made it."
When he released her and she caught h
er breath, she fixed a glare at Stuart, the old man with the white beard who ran DS. "You didn't think to tell me that my friends had survived an alien invasion?"
Stuart made a small conciliatory gesture. He no longer looked as sickly as when Rada had seen him before. "We only recovered them from the surface a few hours ago. Conditions on Earth remain confused."
"That's why we're here, isn't it? To clear up the confusion?" Kansas pulled out a chair and thunked down in it. "What's the latest from down there? Root out any more Tubes?"
"We intercepted three more of them in New Mongolia early this morning local time. They were dressed in human disguises, but our latest modification to our bio scanners has proven effective."
"How effective?"
"Better than the nothing that we possessed before. Once we are able to distribute the devices widely, any remaining fugitive Lurkers should no longer be able to hide among our population. Unless, of course, they find a way to adapt to our scans."
Rada leaned forward, bracing her arms on the table. "How many of them do you think are down there?"
Stuart turned to her, closing one eye halfway. "As far as we know, there are unlikely to be more than a few dozen. But as far as we know is not very far."
"What if they're setting up new factories? Or…breeding?"
"Be reminded that we control Earth's orbit. To control a planet's orbit is to control the planet. Thanks to your friends, we also have records of the power signature of the factories they employed at Tandana. We will use this signature to hunt for any additional factories in much the same way we hunt for the Lurkers."
Mat-Nalin folded his arms, head tilted. "You'll have to excuse me, I must be slow. Because it sounds to me like things aren't a total disaster for once."
"Regarding the Lurkers, yes."
"But not regarding what? The inhabitants? How's it going for them?"
Stardust Page 32
