The Reckoning (Earth Haven Book 3)

by Sam Kates

“I can’t imagine what I can do to help.”

  “It is a task that you will find distasteful. That anyone would find distasteful, except perhaps for Simone.” She uttered a short, humourless laugh.

  Peter’s eyes narrowed. “Then why would I agree to perform it?”

  “To save us. And in return for the knowledge you seek.”

  Peter drew in a sharp breath. “You saw my need… And you now possess the knowledge?”

  “It passed to me from those who perished. Though it troubles me greatly the use to which you will put the knowledge, I will share it with you provided you agree to help me carry out the plan if required.”

  Peter’s hand came up and touched the locket around his neck.

  “Tell me,” he said, “what I’d have to do.”

  * * * * * * *

  “You can’t stay. It’s too dangerous.” Ceri could hear the shrillness in her voice and feel her colour rising.

  Bri shook her head and Ceri’s frustration cranked up another notch.

  “Tom!” she exclaimed. “Will you speak to her?”

  They were standing in the hotel car park, next to the Peugeot. Tom had the car doors open and was taking out their firearms. He looked odd in the clothes he’d borrowed from Grant to replace his sodden ones; no odder than she looked, Ceri supposed, in the clothes she now wore that had belonged to Simone. The Chosen had been of slighter build than Ceri, but drawstring sweat pants and baggy tee-shirt fitted her well enough.

  Tom straightened, wincing, and clutched at his side. “Bugger! That hurts.” In his other hand, he gingerly held a submachine gun. He noticed her looking at him expectantly. “Aw, Cer,” he said. “Look what happened last time we tried to make them do what we wanted. It didn’t work out so well.”

  “But, he’s just a child!”

  “I’m not,” said Will indignantly. “Besides, I want to see the spacemen.”

  “And I can help,” said Bri. She glanced at the small array of weapons Tom had taken from the car and grimaced. “Maybe not with the guns, but I may be able to protect you. From their minds.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Whatever. We’re staying.”

  Ceri stared at her; Bri stared defiantly back. Ceri sighed as she felt the fight leave her. She was just too tired.

  “Oh, have it your own way. But you both stay close to me. And if I say we take cover, you bloody well listen.”

  “Okay,” said Bri.

  “Okay,” echoed Will. “Thanks for caring about us, Ceri.”

  Despite herself, Ceri smiled. Then she looked at Tom.

  “Pass me that assault rifle.”

  * * * * * * *

  Diane sat in the hotel kitchen, stuffing food into her face. It had been quite a thoroughfare. Lavinia Cram, George Wallace and Rodney Wilson had all come in, piled plates with food and disappeared, not speaking to her or to each other, although Wilson had muttered something about being better at fishing than fighting. Jason Grant had also been in, loading a platter with food.

  “For Milandra,” he said.

  He’d taken it outside and returned to load a plate for himself. Then he, too, left.

  Of their kind, Peter was the only one who hadn’t come in to make a dent in their food supplies. Just as Diane thought that he walked in, looking pale and drawn.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  Peter shrugged and busied himself opening cans.

  “We have about ten minutes,” he said.

  “Well, I’m done. I’m going outside to catch some sunlight. Where are Tom and the others? They lighting out?”

  Peter shrugged again. She had never seen him so distracted. He began ramming food into his mouth, not looking at her. She left him to it.

  Outside, the sun shone brightly and she sighed as she felt the warm light begin to suffuse her with energy. She could see that Tom and the other humans, far from lighting out, looked as though they were prepared to fight it out. Tom clutched a shotgun, Ceri a rifle and Colleen a pistol. Will stood among them, unarmed. Nearby stood the clutch of sailors. Irving had a submachine gun dangling from his shoulder. The one with a wide gash to his forehead held a shotgun identical to Tom’s. The remaining three sailors held no weapons.

  Bri was standing next to a sailor, one of the two who had come ashore with Irving and Colleen in the yellow inflatable. He wore a blank expression. As Diane watched, the man’s face changed, became alive. His eyes opened wider and he gazed wonderingly at the girl. Bri smiled and turned away to rejoin Tom’s group.

  Jason Grant emerged from the hotel, clutching a leather bag. He strode over to Irving’s group and handed pistols to the three unarmed men, including the newly animated one. Grant walked back to where Milandra stood facing the steps that led up from the beach. Lavinia Cram, George Wallace and Rodney Wilson—the ruddy-faced bus driver—came out and stood alongside her.

  Grant rummaged in the bag and produced three submachine guns—Uzis, Diane thought, like the one she had disabled that belonged to Bishop. Keeping one for himself, Grant handed the other two to Lavinia and Wallace; they accepted them grim-faced. Finally, he took out two more pistols and offered them to Milandra and Wilson. They both shook their heads. Grant noticed Diane watching him and held out a pistol in her direction. She, too, shook her head but offered a thin smile of thanks.

  The last person to emerge walked stiffly from the hotel. Peter approached Grant and, to Diane’s surprise, accepted a pistol from him. He checked it was loaded then came towards her, tucking the weapon into the waistband of his jeans in the small of his back.

  “Why—” she began, but was silenced by a curt shake of Peter’s head. Despite the food he had consumed he still looked pale, as though he might throw up at any moment.

  He turned and looked out to sea. Diane followed his gaze. The Argute had gone. Two dark shapes were approaching, making light work of the Atlantic swell. They were close enough for Diane to see why: constructed of some thin material, roughly circular in shape, the objects skimmed the surface of the water, propelled by unknown but almost silent means. The faintest high-pitched buzzing, like a distant swarm of hornets, indicated that a form of technology powered the discs, rather than something more arcane.

  On their flat surfaces, held in place by unseen forces, knelt people, fifteen on each disc. The wind of their motion whipped their hair and rippled their clothes. The craft approached the rocks of the foreshore and passed over them, coming to rest on the sandy strip.

  There came the metal ratcheting sound of weapons being readied to fire as the remaining Deputies stepped forward to the cliff edge. Following their lead, Irving and his four men also strode to the clifftop.

  Diane sucked in a deep breath. The final battle for Earth Haven was about to commence.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  George Wallace wanted to kick ass. Despite stuffing down his throat enough food in the last thirty minutes to feed a pony, despite the sunshine infusing his cells like water plumping raisins, he still felt tired and grouchy. He and Simone had never been exactly affectionate towards each other, had mostly been downright antagonistic, but she was one of their own and it was because of these bastards that she was now gone. Moreover, the bastards had let Wallace et al blunder along on Earth Haven for five thousand years while humans multiplied to the point that the integrity of the planet as a new home had been threatened. And then the bastards, having finally decided to make the journey to Earth Haven, arrived with the intention of killing not only the surviving humans, but the remaining Earth Homians to boot.

  It was payback time.

  Wallace raised the Uzi to his shoulder. As the people clambered off the discs at the water’s edge, they did not spread out, but clustered together behind the figure of a blond-haired man. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

  “No mercy,” said Wallace. “Remember, these fuckers came here to kill us. Let’s make ’em wish they’d stayed on Earth Home.”

  “Amen,” said Lavinia.

  Wallace’s finger tig
htened on the trigger.

  The burst of bullets flew harmlessly into the air as Grant’s bulk barrelled into him. He was thrown sideways, bundling into Lavinia, who went down in a tangle beneath him without having discharged her weapon. It all happened so quickly that Wallace might have imagined the puff of air that wafted into his face an instant after Grant hit him, but he had experienced something similar in World War I when a Turkish bullet flew past his cheek so close that he felt its passage, and he didn’t imagine the sharp report that came from his right where the humans stood.

  “What the fuck!” exclaimed Lavinia, struggling to extract herself from Wallace’s unintended embrace.

  “Listen to me,” hissed Grant’s voice from just above Wallace’s ear. “Lend me your minds now. We have to be quick.”

  As Wallace reached and felt his, and Lavinia’s, psyche join with Grant’s, he glanced at the group of five sailors. They had turned towards the Deputies. Each face was twisted into a grimace; each weapon was pointing at them. Wallace recognised what was happening; he had caused it often enough himself. Each sailor was under the control of another; probably thirty others, and one of them had taken a shot at him.

  A protective pall, buttressed by the added minds of Wallace and Lavinia, bloomed from Grant and settled over the sailors. Being in such close proximity to them, the three combined minds of the Deputies trumped the controlling intellects. The sailors lowered their weapons with looks of relief replacing the twisted expressions of moments before.

  Wallace retained sufficient control over his own motor and neuron functions that he managed to extract himself from Lavinia and scramble to his feet. A glance down at the beach confirmed what he already suspected.

  The survivors from Earth Home had lined up in a loose triangular formation behind the blond man. He had been staring up at the sailors, his bearing a study in concentration, but his hold over the sailors now broken, he began to advance towards the cliff, the people behind following without breaking formation.

  Grant had also climbed to his feet.

  “Back!” he ordered Irving and his men. “Go stand with Tom and the others.”

  Looking pale, the five men did as he ordered and Grant released Wallace’s and Lavinia’s minds.

  “I should have seen that coming,” said Grant with a sigh. “We employed the same tactic in London.”

  Lavinia was peering over the cliff edge. “They’re climbing the steps,” she remarked as though commenting on the weather.

  “Back to Milandra,” said Grant. “We’ve missed this chance. Let’s just hope we get another.”

  * * * * * * *

  When she saw Irving and his men turn their guns on her Deputies, Milandra knew that she would need to put her plan into action. The new Keeper Stark might only have twenty-nine people remaining to back him up, but he was nevertheless too strong for Milandra and her currently pitiful resources to withstand.

  She spared a moment—just a moment—examining her feelings. For many months she had missed the life-enhancing sunlight of Florida; the effort of helping Simone resist the power of the newcomers from Earth Home had drained her further. But in truth she had already grown tired to her core. Tired of being guardian to the millions of years of memories of her people. Tired of planning to eradicate almost an entire species for acting in ways it had been designed to behave. Tired of hoping that the signal from Earth Home would come before a solution like the Cleansing became necessary. Tired of disappointment and frustration and dejection. Most of all, tired of living.

  Not that she was ready to die; not quite yet. Even allowing herself to age—and Jason had not imagined it; since the Cleansing has been accomplished, she had been letting her cells degenerate—she reckoned on another century or two to grow old and slip away gracefully beneath the blue Floridian sky. As the passage of time was perceived by her kind, especially here on Earth Haven, a century or two was little more than the blink of an eye, but a blink she would prefer not to forego.

  The moment of introspection had passed. She needed to act.

  Looking mightily relieved to step away from the cliff edge, the five sailors were making their way to the group of humans, with whom stood Peter and Diane.

  Milandra strode over to them, utilising that well-hidden ability to move with deceptive speed when it suited her. Her glance included Tom, Ceri and Colleen.

  “You need to lose those weapons,” she said loudly. “Possessing them makes you a target. And a threat.”

  Tom opened his mouth, but Irving cut across him.

  “She’s right. Those people…” He sighed as though about to commit himself to craziness. “Those aliens, the ones down there who will shortly be up here, just took over our minds. I was still myself but I had no control over my body. They made me shoot at her friends.”

  “The same thing happened to us at Stonehenge,” said Tom.

  Milandra nodded towards the hotel. “Drop them back there. Then form up behind us.” She looked at Bri. “You know how to protect against mind control—I’ve seen you do it. Without the guns, I suspect they’ll leave y’all alone, but you must cast protection in any case.” Her glance darted to Diane. “You’ll have to help her.”

  Diane nodded. “And Peter.”

  Milandra grunted.

  Peter shuffled his feet and did not look at her.

  “Hurry,” said Milandra and turned away.

  She took a few paces forward and beckoned to Jason and her Deputies. You, too, Rod she sent.

  Milandra faced the top of the steps that led up from the beach. Jason Grant took his place to her right, half a pace behind her. Lavinia Cram stood to her left. George Wallace and Rodney Wilson stood on the ends so that the five of them formed a tight V with Milandra at the point. Grant, Lavinia and Wallace held Uzis.

  A shuffling of feet and low murmur of voices told her that Peter, Diane and the humans were taking their places behind them. She felt warm breath on her ear and Peter’s voice whispered, “I’m right here if you need me. I pray that you don’t.”

  Milandra nodded. As the blond-haired figure of Stark appeared at the top of the steps, she sent to her Deputies: Whatever happens, do not, I repeat, do not attempt any form of mind control against them. When they try to control us, let them in, just a little, just enough that I can lay down a return path to their minds. It’s always a two-way street and my plan depends on it.

  You have a plan? sent Grant.

  No time to explain. They’re here.

  Stark had stepped forward far enough for the remaining twenty-nine of his people to file in behind him, retaining the triangular formation. He stood maybe five yards from Milandra. Judging from the intense, single-minded expressions on his followers’ faces, he still controlled their intellects.

  “Milandra,” said Stark. “This was not the welcome I’d imagined.” His tone was stiff, probably due to working his tongue around a language he’d never before spoken.

  “The welcome was proportionate to the gift you brought with you. We paved the way for you to arrive with the intention of killing us?”

  A slow grin spread over Stark’s face, but his eyes remained cold and dark, like chips of flint.

  “A lot can change in five millennia,” he said. “We changed.”

  “Sivatra. You discovered her memories.”

  “I see that you, too, have been curious as to what that bitch did. Tell me, what did you find?”

  “I found…” Milandra paused. She felt as if she was sparring with this man, but that he was merely jabbing and hadn’t even begun to throw the punches of which he was capable. “I found that it was our people who devastated the surface of Earth Home and forced us to live underground. I found that Sivatra attempted to hide our true nature.”

  “That being?”

  “There was no warlike species from which the ancients fled. Or there was, but it was us.”

  Stark nodded appreciatively. “Very good. So it can’t come as a surprise, then, to know the ‘gift’, as you so q
uaintly put it, we bring is that of oblivion.”

  “You see us as weak?”

  “Of course. Tainted by the animals amongst whom you have lived for so long.”

  “You call them animals? Yet they are pure of heart and strong of mind as demonstrated when a mere girl loosened your grip on the intellect of the Chosen in which you were entangled.”

  Stark frowned and peered behind Milandra as though trying to pick out the one responsible for freeing Simone’s mind from their grasp. “Yes,” he said, “I did notice that the new mind contained neural pathways that were foreign to us. Alien.” He gave a smile that might have looked wry if it had reached his eyes. “It took us aback and allowed the one you call the Chosen to escape.”

  “We are not weak,” said Milandra, keen to draw his attention away from Bri. “But I see little point in arguing. Although there is more than ample room on this world for all who survive to live and thrive, you do not seek conciliation, only conquest.”

  Stark spread his hands. “You see truly.”

  “You have no weapons. You are few. You cannot win this fight. And even if you do, more than four thousand of our people yet survive. How can thirty hope to overcome so many?”

  “As for the immediate fight, you might be armed, but you are weakened. When we have dispatched you, we shall leave this land and travel south to where the sun—such a wonderful star—shines more powerfully. There we shall bide our time while we multiply. When we are sufficient in number, we shall finish what we start today.”

  From the corner of her eye, Milandra was aware of a movement to her left as Lavinia brought up her gun.

  “I’ve heard enough of this shit,” Lavinia muttered.

  “Me, too,” said Wallace and raised his Uzi.

  Milandra made no move to stop them; they must provoke Stark into taking the action she anticipated and needed.

  Then she felt it. An energy scrabbling at her mind, powerful and grasping, that, if allowed a firm hold, would squeeze the essence from her like a fist crushing a lemon.

  She did not fully resist; allowed it access sufficiently that a return pathway opened, but not so much that her plan would be revealed.