Hammerhead Resurrection (38 page)

Her HUD showed her she was fully an hour behind schedule and had only twenty-five minutes before the singularity would trigger. She should have been at least three miles away. She looked beyond the tops of the buildings to the towering Sthenos destroyer, standing like a shard of obsidian lanced into the city’s hide. The clouds had faded from the higher reaches, leaving the ship stark against the sky.

Time to get moving.

She ran into the afternoon light angling between the towering, empty buildings.

Jeffrey stared at the Nav-Con’s dark disk with Leif and Holloway. At 5:01 GMT they’d turn everything on. Only then would he know their fate. He had no idea w
here his teams were and felt he might lose his mind in that vacant space. He wanted to go hands on, to strap into a Lakota and fight, but that wasn’t his role anymore. He would sit and wait, listen and coordinate as his men and women fought… and died. He dreaded standing aside as they did, knowing that what would come over the com channels in the next few hours would likely haunt him until his dying day.

His thoughts turned to his pilots. Who were they really? He hoped they were strong enough, but he’d missed the mark with Nathan Brooks. It was easy enough to be bold before the fight.

When death grips their shoulder, who will they prove to be?

Jeffrey had heard arrogant men crying in their last moment. He’d seen the bold run when the odds shifted. Then there were those like Maco, who when death came for him, without words put his arm around destruction’s shoulder.

Fifty years he’s been dead. I wish he were with us now.

Jeffrey looked at his watch. 4:40 GMT.

20 minutes.

…

Stacy’s HUD said she had twenty minutes until singularity initiation. She’d found the concrete slabs which formed a staircase off of 6
th
Avenue just as the convict had said. Across the field, she saw the grassy area where she’d talked with the girl. It lay empty.

…

Marco sat in his Wraith. He hadn’t flown a fighter in a few years, but if he could survive being chased by Sthenos in a transport, he felt sure he’d do fine in this. He could see the hulking engines in his rear view mirrors. Even with the modifications, which had left the back of his left index finger numb—something he hadn’t told the doc—he knew that this ship could beat the hell out of him, knock him out and snap his neck. He felt as though he were in a bull-pen chute, sitting on a broad, twitching back.

“GMT 4:45 folks,” came a call over the radio, “Fire ‘
em up.”

Marco’s stomach tensed as he initiated the firing sequence. The nuclear engines spooled up with a turbine like whistle, rising in volume and deepening in pitch until his ship rumbled like a volcano, the engines thump-thumping as they warmed and settled in. As the seat resonated behind him, he wondered if Sofía was alive. He hadn’t let himself think much about her or his children. Downtown L.A. had a Sthenos destroyer spiked into it, and after Denver, the war would go there. He prayed she’d been able to get away. He wished he’d never taken her from her quiet home in Mexico. She’d have been better off poor
but safe. His thoughts turned to his parents. He wondered, if they’d find forgiveness for him now.

As he adjusted his seat straps, he looked up beyond the opening in the trees to the high clouds. In less than fifteen minutes he and the other Wraith pilots would launch through them and into the starry void—thirty-three against thousands. He wished somehow he could get one last message to his wife, to let her know that he loved her, and that just before his death, he wanted only to think about her dark, beautiful eyes and warm smile.

…

Stacy had run on light feet halfway around the fencing. She’d spotted the place where she needed the girl to go on, two
bushes on the far side of the Sthenos destroyer’s broad base, but no girl. She would stop every twenty feet or so and scan the faces.

There are so many… Have they already taken her through the wall? …processed her?

The thought of the girl passing through the slaughterhouse made her stumble.

She looked up the reach of the destroyer, a vertical cliff-face glittering in the sun, its prow invisible in its height. When her gaze returned to the crowd, as if by fate, it landed on the girl. Stacy inhaled, checking her elation. The girl stood among several others, her eyes hollow, skin pale.

The girl’s gaze shifted in a slow arc. Her eyes looked like those of a corpse, as though she’d given up so completely on life that her inevitable death had already sidled into them. She seemed terribly thin standing up, hip bones showing through her pants, the joints of her elbows larger than her biceps. Stacy ignored the rest of the crowd, unable to bear acknowledging them. If she could save just the girl, that might mean something in the years to come.

Stacy picked up a small stone and threw it at the girl. The stone arced through the air against the backdrop of the monstrous ship and landed at the girl’s feet. One of the people standing beside her looked around.

Stacy threw another small stone. This one sailed through the air and cracked right between the girls eyes. Blood bloomed there. Stacy winced.

“
Ow,” the girl shouted and clapped her hand to her forehead. A Sthenos guard looked in the direction of the girl. The girl held her forehead as one of the adults asked if she was all right. The Sthenos guard walked over, towering above their heads on its hind legs.

The girl said something to them and, holding her face trickling with blood, turned from the Sthenos guard and walked toward Stacy on the fence line. The Sthenos guard’s attention remained fully on her as she sat down. Stacy moved over to her, watching the guard as it continued to stare at the girl.

Give up on her. She’s nothing but a weak girl ready to die. Just look away.

But the Sthenos guard did not look away. He walked over to the girl.

Stacy had run out of time, she had to hope that the girl understood. “Do you see the transformer with three bushes around it?”

The girl said, almost inaudibly, “Yes.”

“Go there when the guard stops being interested in you. There’s a tunnel dug between the bushes under a stack of branches. I’ll meet you at the other end of the tunnel.”

The girl gave one simple dip of her chin to acknowledge.

The Sthenos guard lifted its silver rod, which scattered blue fans of electric sparks.

Stacy now had nine minutes to get the girl through the tunnel and move at least a quarter mile away.

…

In the hills north of Los Angeles, Sofía Fields ran as fast as she could up the slope carrying Luciano in one arm, and fairly dragging Emilia. Stealing one look over her shoulder, she saw the black transport had stopped at the edge of the trees. Beneath it, the air warped and pine needles and dirt floated in its shadow.

Sprinting around the trees with the weight of her children on her, the burning in her legs became numbness, and she felt they might give out at any moment. She gasped for air. The dawn light, angling in under the trees, threw the long shadows of her racing legs out ahead of her. She glanced back again. The rising sun framed one side of the ship in brilliant light. The side opened and a dark shape emerged. She could not see clearly due to the bright light, but it seemed to have too many legs. She did not look back again.

As she ran she heard the transport begin thumping again. It was moving. When she came out onto the gravel access road, cut into the ridge crest, she saw its broad, dark shape coming around the
hillside on the road. Despite her exhaustion, she sprinted across the road, but her legs finally did betray her and she fell spilling Luciano from her arms. Landing head first on the gravel, he began to yowl. She turned him over, blood began pouring from a cut on his smooth cheek. Without a word of comfort, Sofía picked him up and ran on, Emilia’s little legs barely keeping up.

She dropped down into the forest on the other side, now barely able to breathe, her legs feeling as though they were filled with le
ad shot. She had to find a place to hide. She wouldn’t be able to outrun them much longer. Luciano howled in her ear as blood dripped warm on her neck.

Finding a narrow ravine, she slid down into it. At the base of the ravine she found drifts of pine needles, which she threw over Emilia.

“Stay perfectly silent Emilia, no matter what you hear. Do you understand?”

“Yes mama.”

She covered over her face loosely. “No matter what, you stay still.”

She tried to bury Luciano in the same way, hoping to run off again, drawing the things away from her children, but his screaming wouldn’t be quelled, so she dug a larger pit in the needles and buried herself with the boy. Covering herself over as best she could. In the dim light under the needles she tried to hush him. He screamed louder his eyes wild with fear.

“Mijo, I need you to be calm, to help me protect your sister.”

At that his cries quieted. He gave her a silent nod in the dim light under the needles.

The thumping rose up and she heard scuffling and… not footsteps… but almost hoof-falls coming near. They’d been found. She’d have to keep running.

Sitting up out of the needles, what she saw caused her to freeze with fear. Perhaps ten yards away stood a red monster, a mirrored, faceless head with a centaur’s body, but insect-like in its sheen and segments. It’s head turned on her. Leaving Luciano
behind, she took up a branch and ran at the beast, screaming bloody murder.

The beast raised a chromed pipe. As the pipe caught the sunlight, the light seemed to jump out of it. Crackling into her, it wrapped her in darkness.

…

On the other side of the world, Whitetip sat in her Lakota waiting. The vast swath of Tokyo’s lights shone through the shadowed shapes of branches, which blustered on a heavy breeze. The city’s fusion generators had somehow stayed online. The monolithic spire of the Sthenos destroyer towered over the sea of silvered, multi-story buildings. Nearby, an island of darkness marked the imperial palace. Somewhere between here and there was X and the singularity warhead. He’d told her he’d be back with hours to spare, and in his confidence, she’d felt hope.

But he hadn’t returned. Her Lakota’s clock read 4:51 GMT. In 9 minutes she’d know her fate. If the stern of the destroyer wasn’t consumed, if the massive ship failed to tip over and crash into the city, she’d have to take it down herself. It would be easy in the night. She’d come over the tops of the buildings fast, follow the ship up into the sky as it launched, and trigger the singularity just as she had when she took out the first destroyer. Yet, this time she wasn’t piloting a drone. She’d go with it, crushed into the space in the back seat where the backpack lay with wires running to a switch beside her.

She was willing to do it, knew the destroyer couldn’t be allowed to launch, but as she thought of dying, she felt the scarcity of her twenty-two years. As a Navy pilot, she’d lived an amazing life but had so much left she’d like to do. She spent those final moments visualizing the destroyer falling, imagined X coming back, and her hugging him.

At 4:52 GMT, she gripped the control yoke with her right hand, and with her left pressed the switch to release the compressed air. The air hissed as the Lakota’s turbines spooled up, fired, and built to a whine. Beside her, the Norwegian called Kodiak’s Lakota fired up.

…

Sofía opened her eyes to see pine boughs against a blue sky. Her head hurt, and at first, she couldn’t remember where she was. She sat up with a start, finding her arms shackled behind her and legs bound together.

“Luciano, Emilia!”

Several meters away one of the monsters held her children, Emilia by the upper arm and Luciano by his shirt front. Emilia tugged violently against its grip, while Luciano wailed. The monster had its helmet off exposing white, irisless eyes, which seemed half-rotted out. As it lifted Luciano, screaming, over its head, it’s wide mandibles opened, exposing a second set of scissor-like inner jaws, flicking at its upper pallet.

“Leave him alone!” she screamed.

The thing looked at her.

“Let them go!”

Rolling to her knees, she hopped to her feet, and jumped toward it.

It looked at Luciano and then Emilia. It could not draw its weapon and maintain hold of the two children. If she could get it to attack her, perhaps it might release them.

It lunged at her, slamming her with its chest. Heavy ozone and the scent of a rotten-sea overwhelmed her as she fell. When it stomped on her leg, a loud crack sounded out. She screamed against the pain. Keeping its weight on her leg, it held her children up.

“Please… no,” Sofía said in gasping breaths.

Its mandibles opened as it let out a low, reverberating sound, which tickled at the hairs on her neck.

…

Seven minutes to go and the Sthenos guard seemed unwilling to move away. He’d continued staring at the girl. Wolves would single out a weak member of a herd. Stacy wondered if the girl had somehow triggered a predatorial instinct. If the Sthenos shocked her, knocked her unconscious, there would be no way to save her. Stacy leveled her pistol on the dark, glassy lens of the Sthenos’ helmet. The helmet might be armored, but very few things that allowed light to pass could stop a bullet.

Steadying her breath, she shifted to a solid base on her knees, sitting on her heels. Her heart thumped in her chest. She exhaled slowly as she increased the pressure on the trigger. Before she could fire, the girl drew the knife and leapt high, slashing at the arm which held the rod. The Sthenos guard let out a piercing scream as it dropped the rod.