The Tenth Legion (Book 6, Progeny of Evolution) (37 page)

“The assholes
are at it again,” someone said, referring to the news feed. “The
announcer’s almost begging them to attack.”

“Are you
surprised?” Lorna asked. “If it bleeds, it leads. We’re now an
expendable minority.”

“Here they
come!” the watch captain cried out.

The entrance
monitors showed hundreds of people trotting ahead at a determined
pace. Many had weapons. Lorna had set the kill zone at two hundred
feet, the minimum range she needed to stop the assault while still
giving the mob a chance to reconsider the attack.

“Oh, my God,
those are helicopters!” shouted one of the operators, pointing to a
rooftop camera image.

“They’re
coming from the direction of Rocket City,” Lorna muttered under her
breath. Aloud, she added, “How did they repair them so fast? Open a
secure circuit.”

As the bulky,
olive drab flying machines neared, Lorna realized they were larger
models than the two being readied at Rocket City.

The
helicopters didn’t land on the rooftop as she expected, but hovered
over the mob above weapon range. “What in the hell are they doing?”
Lorna wondered aloud.

“Ma’am,” said
the communications technician. “I have the OIC of the helicopter
flight.”

Lorna snapped
the headset from the technician’s hand. “This is HQSEC,” she said
sternly, using her call sign which was known through the
corporation. Only one other outranked it. “Who authorized your
flight?”

“This is
MEGFLIGHT-1,” replied an unsteady, youthful-sounding voice. “The
OIC told me to say he will tell you after he scatters some
riff-raff littering up the area in front of the HQ.” Pausing, he
added. “And, ma’am, the OIC hopes this will be all right.”

Lorna opened
her mouth to give the pilot what for when the watch captain said,
“They’re dropping something.” Returning the headset to the
technician, she turned to the events unfolding on the security
cameras.

Black pellets
fell from each of the aircraft, detonating about a hundred feet
above the ground in a brief orange flash. A spreading white blossom
of smoky vapor drifted earthward. The mob slowed to a stop. Several
individuals looked up. The first tendrils of smoke reached the
ground. Anyone they touched fell over and lay still.

After the
first of them fell over, curiosity turned to terror. Screams and
panic filled those closest to the smoke. They dropped their
weapons, attempting to reverse direction, but they could go nowhere
because of the pressure from behind. In a minute or two, the matter
became moot when everyone collapsed in a heap.

“HQSEC, this
is MEGFLIGHT-1,” the helicopter pilot said. “JEHOVA recommends you
evacuate your people to the top floor unless you want them to take
a six-hour nap and wake up with a splitting headache.”

JEHOVA! That’s
Ed’s call sign.

“This is not
funny,” Lorna snapped, and then to the technician, added. “Tell
them using the Chairman’s call sign can result in termination.”

Before the
technician could speak, the voice Lorna thought she might never
hear again said, “Tell HQSEC, if she’s around, the Marines have
landed. All of you will be coming to Rocket City.”

* * * *

“I got to the
Moonbase,” Ed told her later, in the privacy of their home at
Rocket City, as they lay on the great, round bed. “The day before
we were to jump off to Mars, I was still in conflict with myself
and decided to seek another opinion.”

Lorna sat up
in surprise. “Another opinion? Who?”

“One I rarely
consulted in the past because of his unpredictable passions, but
who I gained a new respect for after our adventures as jungle
guerrillas.”

“Are you
talking about Donatello?”

Ed chuckled.
“Heavens no. I brought my vampire nature into the
conversation.”

“And what did
you learn?”

“He said,
while the logical course of action, to continue to Mars, was clear,
neither the Chairman nor his Shadow would be of no use to anyone or
anything without you and the children, end of the world or not. He
advised to for once, let go of the reins and put the colonies in
God’s hands.”

Lorna snuggled
closer to her two, now three, Eds. “I want to know more about this
third side of you.”

“Then you
forgive me?’

She answered
by clutching one of his hands on both of hers. There they stayed
for the better part of an hour, basking in the simple pleasure of
each other’s presence, until Lorna stirred. “Seriously, what’s
going on with the colonies?”

“On the trip
down from the moon, we had detailed conversations. Great-pop and
Cynthia became Great-mom’s legs. To quote her, my niece and
Great-pop have “manned up” to deal with the situation. He’s
threatened to relieve Ethan and Toby and place them under Cynthia
unless they end the bickering. Beyond that, all we can do is hope
for the best and we survive past 2107. We’ll spend a lot of time
talking on the stream until Great-mom can resume her duties. The
doctor predicts many decades ahead for her, and a return to work in
three months.” He smiled. “In three Earth months, that is.”

“So I guess
for the present, we’re on our own.”

“If Earth
survives 2107, there’ll be trips to Mars for both of us. When the
children are twenty, we’ll relocate.”

Shifting
position, she displayed the small, firm rump he couldn’t resist.
Kissing her between the shoulder blades, his fingers reached around
to caress the aroused nipples.

“All we have
is right here, right now. Tell me we’ll always be like this.”

“For as long
as the Earth holds together,” he promised.

That same
night, Lorna had a dream.

A teenaged
Cithara squatted by the fire. The girl had the body of a
twelve-year-old. She turned toward Lorna, dull eyes widening in
happiness. “My lady,” she said in a girlish, slow-spoken voice. “So
much time has passed since we last visited.”

They were in a
round tent of skins, drawn taut over a frame of cut tree branches.
The fire burned in the middle of the room. A howling, cold wind
outside pulled the smoke straight up through a hole at the top.
Behind Cithara, Aliff’s red hair gleamed in the firelight. His
sleeping form beside that of his mate Roscera stood out against the
light tan hides of the tent wall.

“
You are
pre-emergent,” was all Lorna could think to say.

“
So you’ve
told me, but there is so much I do not know.”

Lorna
continued to observe the adolescent Cithara, finally asking, “How
old are you?”

“
Sixteen
summers, my lady.”

“
You said
we’ve spoken before about your emergence. Have the occasions been
often?”

Young
Cithara’s smooth, round face turned toward Lorna. The eyes
reflected a dull, washed out brown, consistent with sluggish,
unsteady movements, but soon, they would change dramatically. “Many
times, my lady,” she answered, confused by the question. “As long
as I can remember, you have entered my dreams. You’ve shown me
likenesses of your children and their children.”

Lorna gasped
in comprehension.

I know what
will happen!

“
Thank you,
my child,” Lorna wanted to explode with joyous excitement. “You are
correct. We will speak more, much more.”

Lorna awoke.
After a minute she got out of bed, going to the window. In the
direction of Orlando, the fires had finally died. An overpowering
sense of relief melted inside of her.

Poor,
frightened humanity. If only they knew the things I do. When they
find out, will they be better or worse for the knowledge?

Having the
answer when no one else did, she felt almost godlike.

The Earth
wouldn’t die when summer arrived.

Lorna gazed at
her sleeping husband. The thought that they had a complete lifetime
of loving ahead seemed almost too much to bear. One day, they would
sit together over a garden on a distant planet while
great-grandchildren played in the ruddy glow of the Martian
evenings.

Teenaged
Cithara said Lorna had visited for as long as she could remember,
but Lorna had not seen child or even young girl Cithara, except
through the priestess’s adult memories. To counsel pre-emergent
Cithara, there must be more encounters ahead, years more of
them.

As the adult
Cithara who occupied Lorna’s childhood dreams faded into memory, a
new interface arose, the mature Lorna entering the dreams of
pre-emergent Cithara. Lorna understood for the first time the
smallest part of Eternity had touched her, a continuity outside of
time and space, the continuity of the Universe, which, having no
beginning, must have no end.

And so the
cycle will continue.

Forever.

*THE END*

Did you enjoy
The Tenth Legion
? If so,
please help us spread the word about Mike Arsuaga and I Heart Book
Publishing, LLC.

•Recommend the book to your family and
friends

•Post a review on Amazon and Goodreads

•Tweet and Facebook about it

SNEAK PEEK

The Tenth Legion

Lagrange Point

Progeny of Evolution

Book Seven

BY

MIKE ARSUAGA

COMING Spring 2016

Chapter One

The Voyage “Up”

C
ynthia May rode the shuttle from Moon
base to the mother ship. Uncle Tommy and his cousin, Sadie
Lynch—for genealogical simplicity known as Aunt Sadie—accompanied
her, the last living members of the family to leave Earth. A year
before, her favorites—Uncle Ed, a vampire, his mate and wife Lorna,
a lycan and their hybrid children—had relocated to Mars.
Lycan-vampire hybrids aged as humans did. While Cynthia anticipated
a lifespan approaching three centuries, her companions, also
hybrids, rarely lived more than a third of that.

Ahead, shining brightly against the black
omniscient silence of space, a gigantic, silver passenger ring
rotated slowly around an equally brilliant propulsion cylinder.
Magnetic flux lines held the engineering plant at the center of the
vast doughnut-shaped object. The centrifugal force generated by the
silent rotation maintained an artificial gravity, a fifth of
Earth’s. By creating a sense of up and down, the pull addressed the
majority of disorientation or space sickness concerns for those who
remained awake during the voyage to Mars.

“Is that our ship?” Uncle Tommy asked. Thick,
snow-colored curls carried a faint scent of a grooming gel Cynthia
couldn’t place. He leaned across his niece for a better view. Less
than twenty-five years separated him from Cynthia in age, but she
could pass for his granddaughter.

Two of Cynthia’s long, pale fingers, tipped
in glossy red, parted the small, pleated curtain panels to maximum
extent, allowing both elders a proper view. “It’s so large,” the
elderly aunt remarked, her voice frail.

“Five kilometers across, or about three
miles.”

Aunt Sadie pouted her square, wrinkled face.
“I’ll never get used to all these meters and kilograms.”

Patting her almost child-sized, bony knee,
Cynthia laughed. “That’s exactly what The Greats said when they
arrived. You’ll be fine, dear.” The Greats were Samantha and Jim
White, first lycan-vampire pair bond of The Others, as the
community of lycans and vampires were known. Aunt Sadie’s mother,
Cassandra, belonged to their initial litter. To all generations of
the family, hybrid as well as vampires and lycans, Samantha, or
Sam, was Great-mom, while they called Jim, Great-pop.

“Are you sure making the journey will be
safe? I’ve heard about the perils space travel poses for hybrids,
not to mention humans.”

With momentary exasperation Cynthia rolled
her eyes and inhaled deeply before explaining the facts for what
must’ve been the tenth time. “Uncle Tommy, you’re remembering the
early days of deep space travel. Neither humans nor hybrids
acclimated very well to traveling beyond the Earth’s moon, only The
Others. We’ve improved shielding and speed. Travel duration is
reduced. Now just about any adult can make the trip at least once
before exceeding lifetime radiation limits or experiencing the
threatening physical effects the first expeditions faced.”

“Try to remember what little Cindy told us
Tom, and don’t be asking the same thing in ten minutes,” Aunt Sadie
added peevishly. At eighty-six, the elderly woman was a year
younger than Uncle Tommy. With no patience for her cousin’s more
frequent episodes of confusion, she possessed only a marginally
clearer mind. Retreating into herself, Cynthia thought how the old
ones with barely sounder memories had the least tolerance for their
contemporaries’ mental lapses. “Senior moments,” Lorna called
them.

“Hush up, Sadie. I just want to be sure.”
Cynthia knew how this would go. For the next few minutes or so,
they’d continue arguing, often showing surprising passion. Usually,
it would end when one or both lost focus or forgot the cause of the
dispute, sinking into uneasy quiet. Concentrating on the image of
the spaceship’s silvery flank, as it gradually filled the viewport,
Cynthia left them to their debate.

When only meters separated the shuttle from
the skin of the ship, a portal opened. Making a black circle in the
otherwise unblemished metal, the aperture reminded her of a
camera’s shutter. A space-suited person riding a machine that
resembled a jet ski, like she used to ride in Brazil, shot from the
hole, trailing a steel cable. After attaching the tow, the rider
steered clear. Cynthia watched the line grow taut, reeling them in
and their craft.