EARTH IN DARKNESS

EARTHRISE BOOK 14

by

Daniel Arenson

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

AFTERWORD

NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

KEEP IN TOUCH

Illustration © Tom Edwards - TomEdwardsDesign.com

CHAPTER ONE

Tamara was enjoying a nice day at the beach when her twins spun toward her, neck bones creaking like old doors, and spoke words from hell.

She couldn't even get one good day, could she?

Huh, God? Just one day of peace? One day without terror?

Guess not. Geez, really appreciate it.

Terror. It had always been Tamara's companion.

She had not enjoyed her childhood. Oh, her parents had never beat her. Creepy Uncle Bob never abused her, only her cousins. She had food to eat, a roof over her head. It could have been worse, she supposed. But terror had lived with her nonetheless, her loyal childhood companion.

It came in the sharp barbs of her mother. Her constant disapproval. Her nonstop yelling.

I could have been a famous singer, dammit! But you, Tamara, you little shit, with your endless demands and your crying. I'll give you something to cry about!

Ah yes. The memories of psychological abuse. They left scars, you know. Tamara had no physical scars. At the support group, she met people with cigarette burns all over their arms like the spots on a walrus's ass.

At least Tamara was still outwardly beautiful. If you don't mind her saying so herself.

But the scars inside. Ah, those never left. Those never healed. Those were like herpes. Just like those nasty little virus fuckers. Sometimes you could forget you had the sneaky buggers at all. Memories were like that. Then one day they'd start to itch, and then they'd come roaring out of you, flaring like infections, ready to ruin your whole fucking day.

Well, little Tamara had run away. She had been fourteen and scared and hooked on drugs, because drugs dulled the pain—even for little kiddies with narcissist mothers. So she ran. She hopped on starships, flew from planet to planet, turned a few tricks in greasy bars, then came back to Earth with a bad case of gonorrhea and no less terror in her heart.

Well, fuck it. What should she do now? Start a family, she supposed.

And … there came another shitstorm. One husband who fucked her best friend, then fucked off. Another husband who beat the shit out of her. Then finally a good husband. A decent man. A kind, sensitive soul with sperm slower than quadriplegic turtles crawling through peanut butter.

They tried everything, she and Slowpoke Stanley. At first they just fucked a lot, but that grew old. For her at least. Dear old Stanley, kind and sensitive as he was, didn't seem to mind the constant fucking too much.

Then came the doctors. The miscarriages. The goddamn fucking stillbirth. Add another bunch of scars inside her.

Outwardly, she might still be beautiful. She had a decent enough face, and her fake tits were a hit. But on the inside, she probably looked like one of those burn victims from the Alien Wars. The ones you saw begging on the streets sometimes or talking to schoolkids about the danger of war. They always scared Tamara, the burnt men. Candlemen, they called them, since they looked like melted candles. The scars reminded her of the monsters she saw in the old slasher pics. Like that asshole her mother used to put on the TV a lot. What was his name? Freddy Krueger. Ah yes, that was the one. Oh, Tamara knew it wasn't fair to compare veterans to monsters. They were good souls, those veterans. Most of them at least. But looking at them, well … it scared the shit out of her.

Because that was what Tamara thought she looked like. On the inside, that was. All burned up and scarred.

Maybe she should go talk to schoolkids. Ha!

"Hey, kiddos! It's me, Auntie Tamara, with a bit of advice for you little fuckers! Don't run off at fourteen, fly to Mars, and fuck space truckers for drug money. Now, who knows how to spell syphilis?"

The twins were meant to be different.

They were meant to end the horror.

She got them implanted, naturally. Poor old Stan with the slowpoke sperm wasn't gonna cut it. She dumped his slow ass. She would go solo.

IVF treatments were way out of her budget, of course. By the way, kiddos, that stands for in vitro fertilization. That's when your insides are all fucked up and look like Freddy Krueger, so you can't get preggers, and you need a doctor to pop a few embryos into your ugly-ass belly. But you gotta be hella rich! And while Auntie Tamara sure could make a man happy in a Martian brothel, one thing's for certain, she ain't no Rocker fellow. Rocka-fellow? Rocker-feller? Whatever the fuck his name was. The rich guy. Any questions, kids?

So no. No IVF for old darling Tamara and her broke ass. At least not in a proper clinic. Not a place where they swept the floors, washed their hands, gave you a brochure, or asked for your insurance.

For her, well . . . think more greasy guy behind the pipes at the train station. With a bloodstained apron, potbelly, and grubby fingers. But his needle seemed sharp enough. She gave him that. And no, kiddies, that's not a euphemism. He was a fertility doctor, he claimed. His diploma even hung on one of the rusty pipes. Love Doctor Medical College, says so right there on the paper.

She was broke. Instead of money, she gave Dr. Grubby Fingers a night to remember behind the pipes. She made him happy from dusk to dawn. Oh yes, she put effort into that one. And as the sunlight oozed into the alleyway, Dr. Grubby squatted between her legs, stuck in a tube and a syringe, and gave her the precious gift of life.

Three beautiful embryos. One came out all tiny and wrinkled and died after a day. Little Freddy Krueger baby, that one. The two others grew into the lights of Tamara's life. She adored those babies. She adored them like her own mother hated her.

Two girls. She named them Frankincense and Myrrh. Yep, like from the Bible. Why? Because fuck you, that's why.

Okay, so Myrrh got the better end of that deal. Better than going through life as a girl named Frank. But Myrrh also had a mole on her rump the size of a Chiclet. So Tamara supposed that made the girls even.

She raised them by herself, intrepid Tamara did. From infants to toddlers. From toddlers to preschoolers. And here they were. Little Frankincense and Myrrh. Five years old and beautiful like the sun and moon.

She wasn't a great mother, she knew. Not even a good one. She couldn't give them a big house, and she couldn't buy them fancy toys. They ate rice and beans, not steak and lobster. But goddammit, Tamara loved them. That had to count for something, right? She no longer ran from place to place. She no longer injected drugs, and she barely ever snorted them either. She no longer turned tricks for truckers. She worked as a janitor, cleaning shit for a living, just so she could be decent. For them. For Frankincense and Myrrh, two precious gifts.

Sometimes, like today, Tamara even took them to the beach.

Their day at the beach started well enough.

The girls ran along the sand, pretending to be Princess Tigerella, their latest holofeed obsession. They swam for a bit—shallow water only, of course, with Tamara watching every move. They behaved. She bought them ice cream. Not even with stolen money, how about that?

It was a good day. Finally, after a long shitshow, Tamara was even starting to enjoy life. There was a white hair on her head this morning, and last week she had found one down there. Who cared? She still looked like chewed-up meat on the inside, scarred and stinking. Who cared about that either? Dammit, she was happy now. Fuck Stan and Gary and whatever the fuck the husband before them was called. She didn't need anyone but her girls, her smokes, and another chapter in a Robert Prince book every night, ideally taken with a scoop of ice cream. Yep, life could be shit, life could be good, and today was a good day.

Until the twins creaked their necks around and spoke with demon voices, that was.

That kinda put a fly in her ointment, she had to admit.

"This is a message to the people of Earth and the Human Commonwealth." The twins spoke in unison, voices monotonous, faces blank. Their eyes were like the eyes of dolls. Dead eyes, yet eyes that seemed to see too much. Wicked eyes. "The King of Many Claws has fallen. But a new queen has risen on Abaddon. And she will not tolerate the abuse of starlings!"

"Frankincense?" Tamara said. "Myrrh? What are you doing!"

She reached forward to grab them, to shake them. They hissed at her, revealing fangs. Their hands rose, sprouting claws.

Tamara gasped and took a step back. Other people on the beach saw. They pointed. A few approached curiously. Others fled. A beagle whimpered and hid behind its master.

The twins spoke again, their voices inhuman. "You have three days to release every starling held in your concentration camp. President Einav Ben-Ari, obey!"

Then the twin girls blinked, looked around in confusion, and began to cry.

Tamara stared at her two precious little angels.

"What the fuck?" she said.

King of Many Claws? That giant centipede in outer space? Yes, Tamara had heard of him. The damn news never shut up about it, especially when Tamara just wanted the lottery numbers. They said that ol' King Claws had a bunch of agents here on Earth. Scummers, they called 'em. Half-human, half-centipede, all fuckery. Some bleeding-heart do-gooders called 'em starlings. Tried to be nice. To give 'em a pretty name. But most folk called 'em scummers.

They weren't scum like the giant centipedes that had attacked Earth about a million times. They were scummers. Sneaky. Could pass for humans. Until they grew fangs and claws and tore out your throat, that was.

Tamara flashed back to the alleyway behind the pipes. To Dr. Grubby Fingers fucking her, then sticking her full of embryos. Come to think of it, Tamara had never asked where those embryos had come from. Oh, she had given Grubby her own eggs, of course. She wasn't that dumb. But who fertilized the eggs? Well, that was none of her business, Grubby had told her. He'd take care of it. Don't you worry about a thing.

Now Tamara imagined some giant centipede curling around her tiny little eggs, humping them like a dog humping a pile of ping pong balls. She shuddered.

"Mommy!" Myrrh whimpered. "I'm scared!"

"What happened to us?" Frankincense whined.

Tamara stared at her two precious little angels. Two darlings who had, if only for a moment, grown claws and fangs that could shame a wolverine.

"Fuck," Tamara said.

She could just strangle Dr. Grubby Fingers.

Beachgoers were gathering around. They pointed at the twins. They muttered to one another. Tamara heard some of their voices.

"They're scummers! The little girls are scummers!"

"Did you see those two little shits grow claws?"

"I'm telling ya, they're centipede agents."

"Did they just threaten Earth? Oh God, is another attack coming?"

"Call the police! Somebody call them please! Why won't somebody call the police!"

Tamara stepped closer to her daughters. She smiled hesitantly at the crowd, hands held out in a placatory gesture.

"Now, now, there's no need for anyone to call the police!" she said. "My little girls were just playing around. Right, sweeties?"

The twins hissed and bared their fangs at her. Tamara cringed. But within a second, the girls were back to their lovable selves, sniveling and needing their mommy. She knelt beside them in the sand, pulled them into her arms, and comforted them.

"Mommy's here. It's okay. I'm here."

Ah fuck it. So they were monsters. But they were her monsters.

More people gathered around on the beach. They pointed and muttered.

An old man came walking by, sweeping the beach with a metal detector. He held a plastic bag full of bottle caps, screws, empty lighters, and other treasures. An Irish setter loped at his side, covered with sand. The dog barked. The old man drew a knife and brandished the rusty blade.

"Scummers, eh?" the old man said. "Bring 'em here, lady. I'll bleed 'em like I bleed my pigs. I'll be doing you a favor."

Tamara bared her teeth at him. Sadly, she had no fangs. "If you touch my daughters, I'll take that knife from you, cut off your balls, and feed 'em to your dog."

That got a few people to step back, pale. Good. The Irish setter licked its lips.

A siren wailed. A police cruiser came flying from above. Its stabilizer thrusters blasted air onto the beach, raising clouds of sand. Blue and red lights flashed. People coughed and stepped back.

Just perfect. Tamara had gotten her first police record at age thirteen for punching her mom in the face. Now the kids would get their first record at five.

Several policemen emerged from the cruiser. Big, powerful men in riot gear. Armored plates clattered across their torsos, and they held guns the size of battering rams. Helmets enclosed their heads, and they breathed through filters. They reminded Tamara of giant insects, tough little warrior beetles grown as big as men. She knew most Earthlings respected the cops. Tamara hated them. All her life, they had chased her. Hurt her. Hired her.

"Stand back from the scummers!" a policeman said. His helmet acted as a megaphone. His voice boomed across the beach. His companions knelt and aimed their heavy assault rifles.

Tamara wrapped her arms around her twins. "Never! They're my children. They're good children."

The policeman who had shouted stepped closer. His boot crushed Myrrh's sand castle.

"Ma'am, I'm going to need you to step away from the alien menace."

"Alien menace?" she said. "My ass! They ain't from space. I squeezed 'em outta my own body. I didn't get a goddamn episiotomy to have them called an alien menace!"

The cops stepped closer. Several aimed their guns at Tamara and the twins. Another cop grabbed her arms, pulling her back.

She fought them. She was a goddamn mother bear, and she fought them hard. She bit. She clawed. But sadly she was all human, and her measly human teeth and fingernails didn't do much damage to armor built to withstand grenades.

The police chained up her twins. They chained them up!

"They're only little girls, you fucking cowards!" Tamara screamed, kicking wildly as a policeman held her back. "They're five! They're only five! Leave them alone, you fascists!"

Tears streamed down her cheeks. She screamed. She kicked again and again. She watched, eyes bugging out, as the police dragged her little girls into the cruiser.

And there it was again. Her old friend terror.

"Mommy!" the girls cried, reaching out to her. "Mommy, please!"

"Send 'em to New Siberia!" said the old man with the metal detector. "That'll teach 'em. We gotta be tough on the scummers, that's what I always say, don't I, Martha?" He ruffled his Irish setter's fur.

"Mommy!" the girls cried one last time. And the cruiser door slammed shut.

The police vessel rose into the sky, leaving Tamara down on the beach. The sand blew all over her.

"My girls!" she cried, reaching to the sky. "My babies! I'll come get you! I'll free you! I …"

But the shuttle kept rising and rising. It streaked through the sky and vanished into orbit.

Ah, fuck.

Tamara fell to her knees. Martha the Irish setter approached and licked her, but the old man pulled the dog back.

"Come on, girl," the old geezer said. "We got bottle caps to find." He wandered off, dog in tow, scanning the beach with his metal detector.

They all wandered off. All of them. Mothers pulled their kids away. A few young women whispered and pointed, and one laughed. A couple of young men approached the women, flexing their muscles.

Tamara remained alone on the beach. Alone without her children. Only the dog had shown her any goddamn sympathy.

Blood dripped onto the sand, and Tamara looked at her arms.

She gasped.

Gashes ran across her forearms, full of sand and blood. The marks of claws. Her little angels had lacerated her. The precious little half-alien scummers that greasy doctor had shoved into her. They had ripped her up. And her fellow humans, well … the humans had just torn out her heart.

CHAPTER TWO

Across Earth and her colonies, the starlings spoke.

All together.

All in a trance.

All spoke in a voice from beyond the dark.

"This is a message to the people of Earth and the Human Commonwealth."

At a basketball game, one of the players dropped the ball. He turned toward the cameras and spoke the chilling words. Several people in the audience straightened, their eyes glazed over, and they spoke with him.

Millions of viewers at home heard. Some viewers rose from their couches, scattering nachos and potato chips. Moments ago, they had been shouting orders at the basketball players on their holofeed. Now their eyes became hazy. The blood drained from their faces. Much to the shock of their friends and families, these armchair coaches spoke the message too.

Across Earth. On Mars. On Titan. On Alpha Centauri. Tens of thousands of them spoke. They delivered a message.

"The King of Many Claws has fallen."

A baby, who had not yet learned to walk, suddenly rose on his feet, and he spoke with a deep voice. His mother screamed and fainted.

A starship pilot, halfway through welcoming tourists to Saturn's orbiting casinos, changed his voice and delivered the cryptic news.

In bed, two young lovers took a break from their vigorous lovemaking. They stared each other in the eyes. They spoke the words too. "The King of Many Claws has fallen!" Then they shuddered and climaxed.

In boot camp, a soldier broke free from his platoon's formation. He ignored his shouting drill sergeant. The sergeant shouted louder and louder, spraying saliva. Yesterday, the recruit would have cowered. Today he stood at attention, gazing at nothing, speaking with a voice from beyond the stars.

"But a new queen has risen on Abaddon."

"Shut up, drop down, and give me thirty!" the drill sergeant shouted.

The recruit, waking from a trance, shuddered and looked around in confusion.

In a nursing home, a nurse was feeding a feeble old veteran. Here comes the airplane into the hangar! The spoonful of mashed potatoes vroom, vroom, vroomed toward the toothless mouth.

Suddenly the nurse froze.

The mashed potatoes splattered onto the floor.

The nurse began to speak in a deep monotone. Down the hall, a little girl named Julie, all of eight years old, had come to visit her great-grandmother. She stared that old woman in the eyes and spoke the same words.

"And she will not tolerate the abuse of starlings!"

On a distant planet named New Siberia, a snowstorm was raging. A snowstorm was always raging on New Siberia. It was the farthest location in the Human Commonwealth, this empire Earth had carved among the stars. Yes, little old Earth, invaded by aliens again and again, beaten and brutalized over and over … this traumatized planet was becoming a galactic power. Einav Ben-Ari, the Golden Lioness, had commanded armies during the Alien Wars. Now she led humanity, and her fleets reached the stars.

Officially, they called it the Human Commonwealth. But everyone knew what it really was. A galactic empire. Most humans were pretty damn proud of that.

But nobody was proud of New Siberia. Among all the worlds Earth controlled, New Siberia was the worst. Some planets were glittering jewels in the crown of the empire. Not New Siberia. This frozen world was a boil on the empire's ass.

It was cold. It was far. It swarmed with ravenous wildlife that looked like childhood's monsters. It was, in short, a perfect penal colony.

The Golden Lioness, proud leader of an empire, had been rounding up the scummers. The hybrids had attacked Earth twice, slaughtering millions. Earth's armies marched door to door, caught scummers, and exiled them to that frozen wasteland on the fringe of space. On New Siberia the hybrids languished behind walls of concrete and barbed wire. There they could claw nobody but one another.

If you asked most Earthlings—good riddance!

And now, in the frozen hellhole called New Siberia, tens of thousands of prisoners stood still. Chained, pale, freezing, they turned toward their guards. Toward their warden. Toward the security cameras. And they all spoke in unison.

"You have three days to release every starling held in your concentration camp. President Einav Ben-Ari, obey!"

And that was it.

The message was delivered.

The talking babies dropped down and crawled again. The lovers collapsed into each other's embraces. The basketball players kept playing, and the crowds kept cheering. The empire returned to normal.

But everyone had heard the message.

Everyone knew who had spoken it.

Scummers.

Every man, woman, and child who had spoken those words—a scummer!

Humans with the DNA of Scolopendra titania, commonly known as scum. The giant centipedes. Old enemies of Earth. The scums' twisted creations still filled the empire, passing as humans. Agents. Spies. Hunted and hunters.

Not all had been caught. For every scummer imprisoned on New Siberia, several had remained on Earth, hiding in plain sight. Today all had risen and proudly revealed themselves. They had delivered a message from their queen.

They delivered a message to humanity.

And humanity heard.

* * * * *

The message rang out, pulsing from Earth. From radio stations. From holofeeds. From arena megaphones and the mouths of babes. The vibrations spread into space, washed over the moon, over the planets of the solar system. The words rode on waves of light through the heliosphere like ripples in a pond. A year from now, the words would wash over the Oort Cloud and then float into interstellar space . . . and be lost in the darkness.

But far from Earth, hundreds of light-years away, the words echoed too.

Looking down from space, planet Abaddon appeared dead. A massive rock the color of old bones in the sand. Craters, canyons, and volcanoes covered its surface. It was a desert planet. An unforgiving planet. A planet of gorges so deep and wide Earth could hide inside them. A planet with mountains so high that, if you could transport them to Earth, they would rise past the sky and satellites would crash into their peaks. Abaddon was, in many ways, an impossible planet. A planet too large to exist. Other planets this size collapsed in on themselves, began to churn and burn up, becoming brown dwarfs. Failed stars.

But Abaddon survived. Perhaps because it was mostly a husk. A shell. On the inside, it was full of tunnels like Swiss cheese. During the great Scum War, human marines called these tunnels maggot holes. But they were more than that. They were a labyrinth. An ecosystem. A living, breathing hive. In many ways, Abaddon was a skull, and its network of tunnels was a brain.

Because despite appearances, Abaddon was not a dead planet. It brimmed with life.

The canyons and craters were portals, leading to the underground cities. Scratch the surface, and they squirmed.

The centipedes.

Giant centipedes. Centipedes larger than men. They scuttled back and forth, hissing, twitching, hunting, feeding upon one another. Digger centipedes carved new tunnels and dens. Warrior centipedes patrolled their burrows and tore into rival clans. Mother centipedes coiled around piles of translucent, thrumming eggs, while nurse centipedes lay dying in nurseries, allowing the larvae to feed upon their flesh.

Basic instincts guided them. Classic castes divided them. But over time, the centipedes had evolved new roles. They were constantly evolving. Fanatically evolving. All their dreams, their hopes, their obsessions circled evolution. For she, Mother Evolution, was their goddess.

In deep caverns and pits, the centipedes stirred pools of molten flesh, and from the carbon stew they raised structures. They took the gooey, squirming stuff, and they blew into it like glassblowers, forming tubes, spheres, great airships of skin and veins and hard chitin. The fleshy pods rose from the desert, floating into space like spores. They were starships like wombs, and they delivered centipede seeds to other worlds.

Across a thousand planets, the centipedes hunted. They sniffed. Circled. Attacked. They killed. Oh, how they killed! They killed and killed because their hunger could never be sated. Not just for flesh to eat. But also flesh for those oozing, bubbling, malodorous pools. Carbon flesh. DNA. New material to weave new ships. To weave into themselves. To evolve! For DNA was the fuel of evolution. The centipedes collected it into their hives like ants collect seeds or rats might collect old bones.

In the depths of Abaddon's caverns, these unholy concoctions brewed. Creatures emerged dripping from the ooze. New centipedes, smarter, faster, crueler. New lifeforms. New bugs. New creations. Most were failed beasts, wriggling, boneless, squealing with agony. The engineers tossed them into the lava pits. But every once in a while, an improvement arose. A great warrior. A hunter that could fly in the stinking pods, land on alien worlds, and hunt for the next generation.

And sometimes, every million years or so, the centipedes made a great leap.

Not just an incremental improvement. Not just a creature a bit smarter, longer, faster. But a jump to a new paradigm. A leap in evolution as great as the first soft worms growing exoskeletons billions of years ago.

To find these new beings, you had to dig deeper. Down past the bubbling pits of organic ooze. Down past the sprawling graveyards where piles of exoskeletons crumbled to dust. Down past the burnt, forgotten experiments. Down and down into Abaddon's darkest soul.

Here was the lowest level of hell. Here, in a vast dark chasm the size of a cathedral, rose a pillar of stone. Upon its flattened crest rose a throne. A throne forged of dark iron with many armrests. A throne like a rearing centipede. Here was the throne of the empire.

Upon it sat not a centipede. But a new creation.

The Earthlings called her a scummer. A freak. A monster.

"But I call myself a starling," Lailani whispered into the dark. "And I will protect my people."

Across this vast pit, the centipedes reared and bowed, reared and bowed, worshipping her. But they were the old things. The previous models, obsolete. They had hive intelligence. Each one just a neuron in the larger brain.

But she, Lailani—she was new.

Most of her DNA was human. Nearly all of it. But there was that one percent. That insidious drop. And it spread through her like a drop of blood in a bowl of water. It gave her strength. It gave her so much power.

Sitting on her throne, she smiled, and her fangs glistened in the light of the lava trickling down the walls. Her claws scraped along the iron armrests of her throne, raising sparks.

There were others like her. Thousands of them. She was the first, the greatest, but not alone. Thousands of starlings had been planted on Earth like seeds. They had grown—only to be mowed down. Only to be stuffed into jails and camps. Lailani was their queen. And she would free her people.

Sitting on her throne in the depths of Abaddon, Lailani reached out to them all. To thousands of starlings so far away. To mutants like her. To beings created in test tubes, implanted in the wombs of whores and runaways and the broken women of the world. To children raised in squalor and slums. To the next leap forward in evolution, to the new light of life. The greatest life sprang from rot.

She was mostly human, yes. She was an individual. She was Lailani de la Rosa of Manila, the Philippines, Earth.

But she was also a starling, and she was one among many. She was part of a hive. Just one node in a great network. She sat upon this throne, and from here, she experienced every neuron in her hive. She saw through their eyes. Heard through their ears. Felt their pain, confusion, fear. She saw the barbed wire and concrete, and she suffered the jabs of humans and their mockery.

All my life, I've been an open book to the scum emperor, she thought. Now I sit where he sat. Now I see what he saw.

To all of them, to the multitudes of starlings, she reached out. And she enforced her will.

Sitting on her throne, she spoke the words. And hundreds of light-years away, across Earth and her colonies, every starling received her orders. And they all spoke the same words with her.

"This is a message to the people of Earth and the Human Commonwealth. The King of Many Claws has fallen. But a new queen has risen on Abaddon. And she will not tolerate the abuse of starlings. You have three days to release every starling held in your concentration camp. President Einav Ben-Ari, obey!"

She released the starlings.

She took a shaky, gasping breath, then slumped in her throne.

For long moments Lailani shivered. Connecting with the entire hive drained her. So many minds, morphing into one, like many pixels forming one image. For a moment she had not been Lailani. She had been a superorganism. They had all spoken with one mouth, one mind.

She shuddered on her throne, floating in a void, not sure if she was one or many. If she was woman or hive mind.

"Mommy!"

Tala climbed onto the throne. The girl was nine years old, almost too large to sit on Lailani's lap. But sit there she did, cuddling, and Lailani held her close. Their hearts beat together. And slowly Lailani's heartbeat slowed to match her daughter's steadfast pulse. Yes, she was a woman again. A mother. She was her old self.

Tala did not speak with the others, Lailani thought. I couldn't see her in the hive. She's not starling. Or she hasn't manifested yet. Good.

She hugged the girl close.

"Mom, I don't like this place," Tala said. "When can we go home?"

Lailani rocked the girl and stroked her hair. "Soon, Nini. If Tita Einav listens to us … soon."

CHAPTER THREE

When the scummers spoke as one, President Einav Ben-Ari happened to be at synagogue.

She was not particularly religious. She had been raised in a Jewish family, yes. And she had built her family home in Israel. But she had never been spiritual. From her Judaism, she took more of a lingering pain. A trauma that echoed through the ages, the curse of thousands of years of persecution. Around her neck she wore a Star of David, but people often misunderstood the reason. It was not faith in God that drove her to wear this symbol. And it was not faith in God that brought her to synagogue most Saturday mornings.

It was the weight of history.

As a child, she had learned the tragedies of her people. The memories of Rome destroying the temple. Of captivity in Egypt, then in Babylon. Of the Crusaders and Nazis and communists. In a sense, when the scum attacked Israel last century, it had come as a relief. Finally the Jews were not suffering alone! All of Earth cried out in the new genocide that rained from the sky. And misery, as they said, loved company. Petty, yes—but inexorably human.

It was from this trauma, Ben-Ari thought, that she had grown strong. From soil doused with blood and tears grew the greatest courage, and the trail of thorns sometimes led to the Holy Land. Well, here she was in the Holy Land, and now her trauma, the lingering ghosts of genocide, had spread to encompass a planet. And now, instead of being Einav the little Israeli girl, desperate to prove herself in a military of millions, she was Einav Ben-Ari, the leader of humanity.

She had to stop thinking in tribal terms. She very rarely did these days. She led all of Earth, not just her own country. But yes, she had built her home here in this land. And yes, she still visited this synagogue, and she still listened to the old songs. There was comfort in them, even if there was no truth. There was familiarity. There was wisdom. There was a connection to her past. It grounded her.

It's funny, she thought. We humans have crossed space and come back, we've seen nebulae and alien worlds, and we never saw God anywhere in that panoply of darkness and starlight. Yet I still wear a Star of David around my neck, and Lailani still wears a cross, and in an era where we can travel through the heavens, we seek comfort in old scrolls and older tales.

This was an ancient land. But also a new land. Israel had been destroyed three times in history—and risen three times anew. The Babylonians destroyed it once. The children of Israel were captured, dragged off in chains. Their temple, the work of King Solomon, fell to ruin. Yet they returned many years later, free men and women. They rebuilt their temple. They reestablished their ancient nation.

Centuries later, the Romans destroyed Israel. They toppled the Second Temple, leaving but a single wall. They slaughtered a million Jews. A few survivors fled, and for two thousand years, they cowered in the Diaspora, hunted everywhere, butchered, slaughtered by the millions. Finally, in the twentieth century, a few ragged survivors returned. They rebuilt their ancient homeland yet again.

Then came the scum, the terrible aliens from space. They called this devastating alien invasion the Cataclysm. The brutal assault destroyed huge swaths of Earth. Israel fell a third time. Millions died. Once more the survivors fled into exile.

Einav Ben-Ari was born to one of those exiled families. She was born a girl with a nation—but without a homeland. Yet she returned. And others returned with her. Today two hundred thousand Israelis lived in this land, heirs of trauma stretching back to antiquity. They were building what they called the Fourth House. The fourth attempt of their nation to rise and survive in this beaten, haunted land, this little place called Canaan, the Holy Land, perhaps a cursed land, yet somehow blessed. Ben-Ari prayed that this time it stuck.

Yes, for all these reasons, she came here to this synagogue. And she prayed.

And perhaps she found a community here at synagogue. The women spoke to her like an equal, called her "Einav" instead of "ma'am" or "President Ben-Ari." They spoke to her in Hebrew, her native tongue, which her best friends could not speak. They shared recipes and gossiped and bragged about their children. Here she was not the Golden Lioness, not the legendary woman with the weight of a hundred worlds on her shoulders. She was just Einav. Forty-two years old. A white streak through her blond ponytail. Green eyes that had seen too much. Eyes that always seemed a little sad when she caught them reflected in the mirror. A chandelier hung in the synagogue, and sometimes when Einav stood on the mezzanine, when the angle was just right, she caught herself reflected in a hundred crystals. A hundred faces gazing back. Sad. Yes, a sad face.

Today was particularly sad. Because she came here alone. Around her sat the women who gossiped and shared recipes and bragged of their little angels. But her own son had not come. Her own husband had not come. They now lived in an apartment in Jerusalem. Far from her.

They said the synagogue was a family. But her own family had been torn apart.

The divorce papers were sitting on her desk at home. She had not yet signed them. He called every day, her dear Noah. He was urging her. He was so urgent. He was so desperate to move on. Did she sign yet? Had she had a chance to call her lawyer? It was important they moved ahead, she must see. For Carl. Mostly for the little one.

He's probably fucking his lab assistant, Ben-Ari thought as the cantor sang, as the congregation bobbed up and down in prayer. I bet she's younger than me. Prettier than me.

A petty thought. As far as she knew, there was no other woman. The plain truth was …

I drove him away. I marched my troops around the world. I scanned the DNA of millions. And I dragged off the scummers to camps.

Noah didn't like that. He claimed it was illegal. Even immoral. He had the goddamn nerve to compare her to the Nazis. To the fucking Nazis! Hunting subhumans. Dragging them off.

Ben-Ari snorted. I didn't gas anyone. And I didn't imprison innocent people. The scummers attacked us. They murdered millions of us.

She had told him that. And he had walked away. And he had taken their son.

"Well, fuck you, Noah!" she blurted out in a sharp whisper. Her hands clutched her prayer book so tightly she crinkled the pages.

The woman beside her, a gardener named Shira, raised an eyebrow and smiled. "I believe we're learning about Isaac today, not Noah, but I'm sure Rabbi Rosen appreciates your enthusiasm."

Ben-Ari flushed. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to speak out loud. I was talking about . . ."

Shira gave her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "I know. He's kinda famous. I agree—fuck you, Noah!"

A few old women glanced over from their pews, scowling. Ben-Ari and Shira couldn't help but giggle. Like schoolgirls!

It was in the middle of Lekhah Dodi, a liturgical song performed every week, that the cantor suddenly froze.

The old man faced the crowd and spoke in a strange deep voice.

Two more people rose from the crowd. Including one of the women who had scowled at Ben-Ari.

They spoke together.

It was the message from Abaddon. From Lailani.

Ben-Ari listened, a chill spreading through her.

"You have three days to release every starling held in your concentration camp. President Einav Ben-Ari, obey!"

The spell ended. The cantor collapsed. Chaos erupted.

At once, Ben-Ari signaled her security agents. She moved through the crowd, out the back door, and into a waiting shuttle.

She soared from the Old City of Jerusalem, leaving below the ancient walls, spires, and places of worship. Within moments, she was in space.

Skysphere shone above. She had commissioned the space station a year ago. It now served as the official workplace of the president of Earth. Down on the surface, on her day off, she could be Einav the Israeli girl. But now? Up here? Here she was president of all Earth. Of all humanity.

The scummers were back. And they threatened everything she had fought for.

She flew in her shuttle toward the space station. Many glassy panels coated it—windows and solar panels alike—forming a reflective sphere. Critics of the structure joked that it looked like a giant disco ball. To Ben-Ari it looked like a star.

Fifteen minutes ago, she had been in a Jerusalem synagogue, singing ancient songs. And now she marched into the command center of Skysphere, a state-of-the-art space station, and she gazed down upon Earth. From antiquity to the future—within fifteen minutes.

Standing on the polished deck, she hit a button. A hundred holographic video feeds materialized around her. They formed a miniature sphere within a sphere. The floating screens showed her military bases, cities, and news broadcasts from across the Human Commonwealth.

It was happening everywhere.

It wasn't just the synagogue.

Lailani doesn't know where I am, Ben-Ari realized. She has no Skysphere of her own. She can't see all places. Not yet at least. So she sent her message everywhere, hoping that wherever I am, I will hear.

Every scummer across the Human Commonwealth had spoken the same words.

The thousands of scummers Ben-Ari had captured spoke from their detention center on New Siberia, light-years away. Thousands had also spoken on Earth. On Mars. Even in her own damn synagogue.

Looks like I didn't catch every scummer after all, Ben-Ari thought.

She turned off the video feeds. She walked toward the observation window and gazed down at beautiful blue Earth.

The pain still lingered. The ghosts still haunted. The scummers had attacked Earth twice. Each time—a million dead. The pain still gripped Ben-Ari's heart, squeezing tighter every day.

The King of Many Claws had ordered those attacks. Now, it seemed, he was dead. And Lailani sat on the throne of Abaddon.

Ben-Ari felt weak.

It scared her. It scared her more than the scum emperor. More than the King of Many Claws. More than any alien she had ever faced.

"You should be back here on Earth, Lailani," Ben-Ari whispered. "What happened to you on Abaddon?"

She turned away. She walked across the observatory to another viewport. Now she gazed away from Earth into the depths of space. Out there, light-centuries away, shone Antares. The star of the centipedes. Too small to see, but clear in her memory, loomed Abaddon, homeworld of the scum.

"We flew there together twenty years ago, Lailani," Ben-Ari whispered to the darkness. "We flew there and killed the emperor. That's not your world. Why do you linger there? What happened to the woman I love?"

The minicom on her hip kept ringing. Her staff was desperate for orders. But right now Ben-Ari needed to talk to just one person. The only one who would understand.

She marched across Skysphere back toward her shuttle.

She needed to return to Earth. She needed to visit Canada. She needed to speak to Marco.

CHAPTER FOUR

They hiked through the Canadian woods. Two old friends.

It was May 4, 2164. Back in Jerusalem it was a scorcher. But Canada clung to the cold. This land was old and hard and stubborn. Every winter, Canada draped herself with ice and slumbered under blankets of snow while other lands woke with spring's dawning. Canada awoke reluctantly. Even in May her branches were bare and cold, and only the first handful of greenery budded through last year's carpet of fallen leaves.

Ben-Ari shuddered as she hiked up the hillside. "I should have brought a jacket. Canada is freezing."

Marco hiked at her side, leaning on a walking stick. "For us Canadians, this is hot."

"I don't know how you're just wearing a T-shirt." She hugged herself. "I miss visiting you in Greece. Can you move back there?"

Marco laughed. He climbed over a mossy log, kept walking uphill between maples and birches. He reached down his hand, helped Ben-Ari climb over the log too. A squirrel peered at them from behind an oak, then fled.

"Sometimes I miss Greece too," Marco confessed. "Greece was all dazzling colors, intoxicating smells, light that turned every scene into a painting."

Ben-Ari smiled and touched his arm. "Always the poet."

It was just the two of them walking here. Their families had stayed home. Marco and Ben-Ari had needed to enter the wilderness. To clear their minds. Then to talk. To find solutions. When Ben-Ari had landed in her shuttle, needing his advice, Marco had taken her here. It was in this forest that he plotted his novels. He knew of no better place to think.

Well, just the two of them and a team of secret agents. But the agents were far behind them along the trail, disguised as humble hikers. The drones that flew above were barely noticeable too. They could almost pass for birds. And of course, there were the armored vehicles set up in the valleys. I guess you could … kind of … pretend they were boulders?

When you're the president, you're never really alone, Marco thought.

His dear friend Einav was the number one target on Earth. Millions of aliens and humans alike wanted her dead.

Aliens, humans, and those in between, Marco thought. He shuddered.

"It's still so hard to believe," he said. "That Lailani—our Lailani—sits on the throne of Abaddon."

Ben-Ari looked at him with those sad green eyes. Yes, that was why she had come. Not to talk about the weather.

To talk about their friend.

Their friend who now, evidently, led the most dangerous alien empire Earth had ever faced. No enemy in Earth's history—not the marauders, not the grays, not the Dreamer and his terrible cyborgs—had ever killed as many humans as the scum.

And now the scum were back. With Lailani at the helm.

"I could barely believe it myself," Ben-Ari said. "It just seems so surreal, doesn't it? Not only that thousands of people across Earth went into a trance and spoke a message from Abaddon. That on its own would be terrifying."

"But to learn it's Lailani …," Marco said.

For a moment he could not speak. The memories flooded back.

He had been eighteen. A recruit. Drafted into a war he never wanted to fight. A war against the scum, the aliens who had murdered his mother.

Boot camp had been a phantasmagoria. A dreamland of pain and fear and confusion. Of shouting drill sergeants. Rattling gunfire. A childhood severed with a cruel knife. It was no wonder so many succumbed to suicide at boot camp. It grabbed you, shook you until you begged, broke you apart and rebuilt you into a warrior.

Marco had almost not survived it.

But she had been there.

She. The most intoxicating little creature he had ever seen.

At first, he remembered, he had mistaken her for a boy. The Lilliputian recruit had run up to the platoon, all bravado, head shaved and chin raised. Just a little boy drowning in a man's uniform.

Then she had spoken. Recruit Lailani de la Rosa, reporting for duty!

She was a girl. That became even clearer that night in the communal showers. Marco didn't want to. But yes, as she walked out of the shower, drying her stubbly hair, he had sneaked a glance at her naked body. At the olive-toned skin. The tattoos of a dragon and rainbow. Yes, those were a woman's curves.

It wasn't long later that they made love. Awkward love, yes. Banging teeth, smacking sweaty sounds as their bellies pressed together, and giggles and elbows and knees in all the wrong places. They were young. They didn't quite know what they were doing. But it was enough to make Marco fall in love.

As the scum rained their terror from the sky, he had asked her to marry him.

Well, so much for that. She broke his heart.

It was only later that he learned she wasn't truly human. That she was an agent of the enemy. That she had been placed on Earth to kill.

She had resisted her fate, rebelled against her purpose. She had put the chip in her skull. Had driven out the scum. Had lived among humans. Lived as a human. As a brave, courageous, compassionate woman.

Dammit—fine then! Maybe Lailani was no longer his lover. And maybe she was no longer even human. But she was still Marco's best friend. Alongside Addy and Ben-Ari, of course. And now … now this. Speaking from thousands of mouths. Sitting on the throne of Abaddon, that old enemy, that genocidal empire.

"Of course I can't release the scummers," Ben-Ari said, interrupting his reverie.

"Well, hang on a minute," Marco said. "Let's review this."

They reached a hilltop and hiked between wild apple trees and maple trees. A stream gurgled below through a valley, and deer fled toward the pines. Cardinals flitted overhead, fleeing a hawk.

"What's to review?" Ben-Ari said. "The scummers attacked us twice. Two horrible waves of violence. They killed millions, Marco. Millions."

"I know. I don't forget that for a second. But remember who led the scummers then. The King of Many Claws. Not Lailani. And, if we're to believe the message, the king is dead. With him dead, the scummers might be … well, they might be harmless."

Ben-Ari spun toward him. A frown furrowed her face. "You don't believe that, do you?"

Marco stopped hiking. He stared into her green eyes, which had lost their sadness, which had become as hard as granite.

"Einav, the scummers are just foot soldiers," he said. "Just automatons. The war is over. Lailani ended it. I mean, come on! It's our Lailani. Our best friend. The girl who fought at our side. Who saved the world with us. Well, maybe this time she saved the world on her own."

Now some of that sadness returned to those green eyes. Her voice was softer than the breeze in the birches. "Did you forget dinner in my house?" She rubbed her neck. "How she grew claws. How she grabbed me …"

Marco pursed his lips. Yes, he remembered. "The King of Many Claws made her do it."

"The king, the king!" Ben-Ari said, throwing her hands into the air. "How much can we blame one leader for the sins of his soldiers?"

"The scummers had no choice," Marco said. "You know that. They were controlled like marionettes. Einav, Lailani is right. I know you don't want to hear this. But you didn't just come here for me to validate your actions. You came here to hear my honest opinion. And I think the scummers should be freed from New Siberia. From anywhere they are imprisoned."

"You're the one who recommended I imprison them in the first place!" Ben-Ari said.

"That was before Lailani killed the King of Many Claws."

Anger flitted across Ben-Ari's face. Her eyes narrowed to slits of green fire. "Would you say the same if Corvin were imprisoned? The scummer who kidnapped your daughter?"

Marco froze. That hurt. That brought back the memories. Seeing Corvin, a scummer with four arms, grab Terri. Leap through the window. Carry her away. Chain her and cut off her—

Marco closed his eyes, forced a few deep breaths. His head spun. His heartbeat quickened.

"Oh, Marco . . . I'm sorry." Suddenly Ben-Ari was hugging him. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't be so callous. I love you, my friend, and I'm sorry."

For a moment Marco stood there stiffly. But then he relaxed and hugged her back. "I love you too, Einav, and I'm also sorry."

She looked into his eyes. "For what?"

"For … just for this. For everything you have to deal with. Being president. Making these decisions. And … I heard about Noah. I'm sorry about that too."

Ben-Ari closed her eyes. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder. "I suppose the tabloids have been full of it. I haven't read them. What did they say? That Noah dumped me for a stripper from Mars or something?"

Marco laughed. "Actually, there was some story about him cheating on you with a sexbot."

Ben-Ari laughed too, wiped her eyes. "Hey, I have a bionic arm. I'm half-sexbot anyway." Her cheeks flushed. "I mean half-robot. Not the sex part."

"Pity," Marco said. "I was hoping to get lucky."

She snorted. "You wish, poetry boy." She hugged him again. "Oh, Marco. I should have married you, I swear. I should never have let Addy snatch you away."

"What can I say? Addy just kinda showed up and grabbed me. That'll teach me for walking around with hot dogs in my pockets."

Ben-Ari lost her smile. She held his hands, stared into his eyes. "Marco, I want to tell you a story."

"All right. Tell me."

She tightened her grip on his hands. "When I was a girl, we had an eccentric neighbor. She was a sweet lady. But yes, eccentric. A dozen cats, healing crystals, dream catchers hanging from all her trees …"

"A hippie cat lady," Marco said.

"Something like that. One day she adopted more than another cat. She adopted a pet chimpanzee."

Marco cringed. "Wow."

"Wow," Ben-Ari agreed. "The lady rescued it from a roadside circus, brought it home, was determined to raise the poor thing. It was just a baby. That little chimp was so adorable! I played with him when I was a toddler. The chimp was no bigger than me. But he grew. And he grew. Have you ever seen an adult chimp, Marco? Most people have only seen the babies. The chimps you see on TV are almost always babies. Trainers won't touch the adults. Even labs don't use them. Adult chimps are too large, too strong, too violent. My neighbor's chimp grew to be the size of a prizefighter. And still that eccentric, sweet lady babied him, pampered him, kept him in her home. Until one day that chimp ripped off her hands, her face, and half her scalp."

Marco shuddered. "Horrible story. I remember hearing that on the news as a kid. I was scared for a year of chimps under my bed."

"Marco, Lailani is dangerous. I know this is hard to hear. I love her too. We've spent the past twenty years with her. But she's not human. She's like a wild animal. She's a baby chimp who grew up. And now she rules an empire of monsters."

"I don't think it's fair to compare Lailani to a chimp, with all due respect."

"Marco, she confessed something to me. Back at my house, that day we all had dinner. She confessed that she murdered a man."

Marco nearly stopped breathing. He gulped. "You mean, back during the Scum War, before her microchip, or …"

"I mean last month. In Paris. She transitioned into a scummer involuntarily. Her chip didn't work. And she murdered an innocent person. Now you can say the King of Many Claws ordered her to do it. And maybe you're right. But she's still unpredictable. As are all scummers."

Marco pulled his hands free from hers. He turned away, took a few steps, and gazed off the hilltop to the valley below. He saw leaves budding on saplings, wild grass sprouting among the melting snow, and trilliums shivering in the sunlight, their petals like slender wafers of ice. Spring was finally here. And he remembered a scorching desert long ago. Remembered a woman as wild and beautiful as those dunes. A woman he had held in his arms. The only good thing he had found in an alien war.

"Even then, even that first year, she killed," Marco said, looking down into that valley, gazing back upon that desert. "We forgave her. We were so quick to forgive her. And we loved her." He turned back toward his president. "Einav, I was wrong. I tried to play devil's advocate. But I was wrong. The scummers are dangerous. We must keep them locked up."

Ben-Ari nodded. "Lailani said we have three days to release the scummers. When the ultimatum expires, what do you think she'll do?"

Marco thought for a moment. Would she launch another wave of attacks against civilians? No. That was not Lailani. That was something the King of Many Claws had done, but Lailani would not. What, then?

Marco had fought alongside Lailani in several wars. He knew she was brazen, bordering on foolhardy. She often attacked even the mightiest enemy with fearless fury. How would she react now?

And he knew.

"She'll try to free the scummers herself," Marco said. "She's going to New Siberia."

Ben-Ari grabbed his arm, stared into his eyes. "And so are you."

CHAPTER FIVE

"It's him, officers!" Kimmie said. "Right there, the guy with the bow tie and gray hair. Mr. Birtwistle is his name. My history teacher. He's the one who spoke in tongues!"

The police officers entered the classroom, wearing full suits of graphene armor, complete with helmets that hid their faces. They breathed through filters, and they raised electric grabbers. The black batons sprouted crackling rings of red energy designed to catch and subdue.

They also carried big guns. The grabbers didn't always work.

"Sir, you'll have to come with us," said one of the policemen. His voice emerged robotic through his helmet's filters. A heavy assault rifle hung from his side.

The students all stared, eyes wide. They were eighth graders, old enough to remember the Cyborg Wars four years ago. But most had probably never seen an assault rifle this close. One girl was trembling. One of her classmates, a boy with red hair and freckles, shot her with finger pistols and laughed.

"But … but …" Mr. Birtwistle paled and straightened his bow tie. "I wasn't speaking in tongues. I was teaching them Latin."

A few students laughed. A policeman turned toward him. "This is no laughing matter, children. We're searching for scummers. We know they're hiding in our community. When the Scum Queen spoke, every scummer on Earth spoke with her, revealing themselves as agents of the enemy. Keep your eyes open, children! If you encounter a scummer, report it right away to your local authorities."

While the policeman was speaking to the class, the other officers circled Mr. Birtwistle. Their electric grabbers moved in closer, crackling. The stench of ozone filled the air.

"I'm telling you, I'm not a scummer!" the teacher said.

Kimmie leaned against the wall. She popped her bubblegum, twirled it around her finger. "I saw him grow claws. Take him away, boys."

"She's lying!" Mr. Birtwistle said. "She always lies, that one. Just because I failed her on the test! She thinks she can get away with anything because her father's a hotshot lawyer. Well, I— Ah!"

An electric grabber seized him. The coiling strands of electricity wrapped around Mr. Birtwistle's arm, searing his tweed jacket.

"Not so tough now, are ya, scummer?" Kimmie said. She raised her exam, displaying a big red F. "I guess I can rip this up now."

She ripped the exam to shreds, then tossed the pieces of paper at the teacher.

Birtwistle struggled against the electric cuffs. "Give me a test!" he shouted as the police pulled him toward the door. "Test me with a scum detector, dammit! I can pass any test. Test me!"

"Sorry, sir, but we're running low on detectors," said a policeman, applying another electric grabber. This time around the teacher's neck. "And besides, they give false negatives."

"Ah, New Siberia ain't too bad!" said another policeman. "You'll like it there. No annoying kids."

As they dragged him out of the classroom, Birtwistle kept shouting, then begging. Begging Kimmie to call her hotshot lawyer father. The girl just winked at him and popped her bubblegum. That'll teach him for that big fat F!

* * * * *

"Yes, sir!" Evan said on the phone. "Saw her grow fangs, horns, a tail, the works. And she spoke that message, sir. The damn scummer message from space. Grab a paper. I'll read out her address for ya."

The policeman's voice came from the other line, concerned. "And how do you know this suspected scummer?"

"Suspected!" Evan snorted into the phone. "Let me tell you, sir, I've been married to that bitch for six years. Until she fucked her boss, kicked me out of the house, and now makes me pay alimony and child support. Can you believe I'm paying her to fuck Todd in my own house, in my own bed? Always knew she was a scummer. Now grab a pen. Write down the address. It's a nice house, you'll see." He dropped his voice to a mumble. "I'm finally getting my house back, Todd."

* * * * *

"I'm not a scummer!" Jessica cried, tears flowing down her cheeks. "You have to believe me."

The cops were manhandling her through the offices of Markitech Corp. Did they really have to handcuff her? For all to see? She wobbled on her heels, nearly fell. A policeman gripped her arm, steadied her, kept pulling her along.

Everyone stared from their desks. A few were pretending not to. But they were staring too.

The managers stood up in their corner offices. They watched from behind their glass walls.

One of those corner offices was almost mine, Jessica thought. Her tears kept falling. It was just down to me and Bethany.

As the police dragged her through the office, they passed by Bethany's desk. The marketing assistant wore a plaid skirt, sweater, and neat little glasses. She smiled at the weeping Jessica as the police dragged her along.

"Don't worry, Jessica! I'll run the marketing department until you're back." Bethany smiled sweetly, blinked innocently. "I'm sure you'll be found innocent and back in no time!"

* * * * *

"Look at those fools, Clifford! Ha! All their lives they tried to look young. Dyed their hair. Lifted their faces. Tried to look all youthful and gorgeous." Emmet snorted. "Now they just wanna look like us. Ha!"

Clifford sat beside him on the bench. The old-timer pulled bread from a paper bag, ripped off a piece, fed it to the pigeons. "Yep, it's a strange world, all right."

Emmet waved his cane at the people lining up outside the beauty salon. "You can't help it, you young whippersnappers! You'll never be like us. Oh, you can fake it. You can dye your hair white. You can swim in brine till you're wrinkled like a raisin. But you won't be old for real."

With arthritic fingers, Clifford ripped off another piece of bread. He tossed it at a few squabbling pigeons. "Strange world, strange world."

It was like this all over the city. Tomfoolery! Every bench you sat on, you saw 'em. The young fools. They lined up outside beauty salons. But instead of coming out looking younger, they came out looking older. Their hair was suddenly cloud white. Fake wrinkles covered their skin. Emmet snorted. Ha! Fake wrinkles! Even dear old Clifford, who could barely distinguish pigeon from dog turd these days, could tell those wrinkles were fake.

"I tell ya, Cliff, we got it made." Emmet leaned back on the bench, stretched out his legs, and sighed contentedly. "To be old for real. Now that's a privilege these days!"

"Yep." Clifford tossed another piece of bread, watched a pigeon waddle off with the morsel. "It's a strange world, all right. Strange world."

"You see, my dear friend Clifford," Emmet said, "some brainiac figured it out. Scummers don't age like us. They age sloooow. Slow as a herd of snails in a puddle of molasses. See, they're part scum, you know. Aliens. And aliens can live for centuries. And the scummers are a new species. They haven't been around long enough to grow that old. They all look like young whippersnappers. Like that one there on the skateboard." He waved his cane. "Hey, young whippersnapper! Pull your damn pants up, ya punk!"

Clifford reached into his paper bag for another piece of bread. It was empty. He tilted it over, but only crumbs fell out. "Strange world."

"Clifford, my dear old buddy." Emmet slung an arm around his friend's shoulder. "It's a wonderful world after all."

* * * * *

Ms. Pirie placed her hands on her hips. She was only twenty-seven, slim as a twig, and a humble kindergarten teacher, but she wasn't going to let the police bulldoze over her.

"Now listen here! None of my students are scummers. None of them. And certainly not Viola. She's a smart, sweet little girl, all of four years now. Not some alien menace!"

Half her kindergarten class was crying. The other half were hiding behind tables and desks. Little Billy was still playing with his toy trains, obliviously smashing two locomotives together, God bless him.

Five policemen stood there in the junior kindergarten classroom. Five big, burly men in armor—standing among toy cars, blocks, and macaroni artwork. Several more stood outside in the yard, aiming rifles at the windows. Snipers knelt on the roof across the street, and a police battle-copter flew above.

This was not how Ms. Pirie had imagined her Monday going.

She actually liked Mondays. How about that? She had only been teaching there for a year. It was her first year as a teacher. And she loved her job. She loved every child in her class. Some of the older kindergarten teachers got jaded, she knew. They came in for the paycheck. But not her. Not Dana Pirie. She was there to make a difference. To mold young minds. True, at this age, the kids barely knew the letter A from a burp, but they did say the early years counted the most.

"Now listen here, ma'am," said one policeman. "We've heard reports from concerned parents. They worry about little Viola here. We've had calls from just about every parent here. Even Viola's own parents. They begged us to take her away."

The five policemen and Ms. Pirie turned together. They all looked at little Viola.

The girl sat on a rug, playing with toy dolls. An adorable girl. Blue ribbons held her black hair in pigtails. Her pink shirt featured Peter Pup, her favorite cartoon character. The girl seemed not to notice the adults. She was singing a song, making her dolls dance. "Ring around the rosies, a pocket full of posies …"

A beautiful girl. A precious girl. So what if she sometimes grew claws? Ms. Pirie knew how to deal with difficult children. She took care of little Billy all right, didn't she? She could handle this too.

A mustached policeman knelt before the girl. "Hello, Viola."

The girl didn't look at him. She kept playing with her dolls. "Ring around the rosies, a pocket full of posies …"

"Hey, let go of me!" Ms. Pirie said as several cops grabbed her. She squirmed, but they tightened their grips.

The mustached policeman kept kneeling by the girl, letting his comrades deal with the teacher. He spoke again. "It's nice to meet you, Viola. My name is Officer Dan. Now, I'd like you to come with me, and I can show you the station. Would you like that?"

Even as Ms. Pirie struggled to free herself, she saw the bead of sweat roll down Officer Dan's temple. Saw how his hand trembled on his gun.

Viola still ignored him. She was making her dolls skip along some imaginary meadow. "A-tishoo, a-tishoo, they all fall …" Finally the little girl looked up. She smiled wickedly, showing her fangs. "…down!"

She pounced.

Officer Dan never stood a chance.

Before he realized what was happening, the girl had her claws deep in his neck. She twisted. Twisted and twisted and dug and cut. Officer Dan gurgled on blood until she ripped off his head.

"Destroy the alien menace!" shouted one of the policemen holding Ms. Pirie.

The policeman released the teacher, aimed his rifle, and—

Little Viola leaped on him, all claws and fangs, and tore into his throat. He screamed and fell as the girl began lacerating his chest.

The other cops—only three remained standing—opened fire. Their rifles roared. Bullets drove into Viola. And into the policeman beneath her, who was still very much alive. Well, very much alive until so much friendly fire tore into him.

As the children screamed and fled, as a policeman kicked Viola over and put a last bullet in her head, Ms. Pirie decided that maybe she didn't like Mondays after all.

CHAPTER SIX

Addy swung her hockey stick into the oak tree. Bark flew.

"Make me stay behind to babysit!"

She couldn't believe it. The audacity! From her very own husband!

She swung the hockey stick again. This time into the backyard fence. She shattered a plank of wood. A family of finches fled, squawking and shedding feathers.

"Make me babysit—me, Addy Fucking Linden, the greatest heroine in history—while you go gallivanting around with the president!"

She lashed her stick again. This time into a tree stump. Splinters flew. Addy wasn't sure if those were tree splinters or hockey stick splinters. In any case, it was satisfying.

"I'll show you, Marco!" She hit the garbage bin again and again. "Take that! And that!"

The metal bin fell over, spilling a raccoon. The animal hissed at Addy but fled when she brandished her hockey stick.

"Um, Mom?" Sam said. The eight-year-old sat on the deck, sipping pop. "You did volunteer to stay and babysit us, you know."

Addy growled. "I know! But Marco should have said: No, of course you don't have to babysit. I'll stay and babysit, you go out hiking with President Einav."

"Mom, you hate hiking," said Rosa. The little girl looked just like her twin brother. She sat beside the boy, playing a video game on her tablet. "I actually remember you specifically saying you wanted to stay behind. If I may quote you verbatim: 'Last time I went hiking, a mosquito bit my ass twice!'"

"Hey, never say that word!" Addy pointed at the girl, glowering.

Rosa lowered her tablet. "What, ass?"

"No—verbatim! I don't know what that means, so shut up. Where did you learn how to talk like that?"

"I read books."

Addy snorted. "I read books."

"I mean real books," Rosa said. "Like the kind Dad writes. Not just Freaks of the Galaxy."

"Oh, look at that!" Addy placed her hand on her heart. "My own daughter, my own flesh and blood, is a critic." She heaved a sigh. "But yes, I suppose you're right. I'm being unreasonable. I just get so angry sometimes, you know?"

The twins hopped off the deck, rushed across the grass, and embraced her.

"We know," Sam said.

"Trust me, we sure do know," Rosa said.

"You can increase our allowance to compensate," Sam said.

"I'll give you twenty bucks if you print a photo of your dad, help me pin it to a piñata, and we can beat it with hockey sticks."

"Deal!" the twins said. They ran off to find the printer.

Addy remained alone in the backyard. She tossed her hockey stick onto the dandelions and heaved a deep breath.

She had been living with Marco for thirty years, ten of them as his wife. She loved him with all her heart. She loved him more than she loved hot dogs, and that was saying something. But sometimes Addy just needed to beat the shit out of a piñata wearing his face. She got it out of her system, then went back to adoring him. It was how their marriage survived.

Lately there were more anger spells than usual.

The damn anger. It had always been a part of Addy, a flame forever simmering when it wasn't erupting. Lately it had grown into a raging fire.

Maybe it was the carnage on Earth, all those scummers and their cruelty. Maybe it was Lailani's betrayal. Maybe Addy was just scared of turning forty this year. Whatever the reason, more and more often Addy came into the yard and hacked at trees, or went into the basement and beat her punching bag, or—she wasn't proud to admit it—took it out on her family.

I can't be wise like Marco, she thought. I can't be steadfast like Einav. I was born to be a warrior. And now I'm a fucking housewife.

That was it. There it was.

She looked up at the sky. The sun was out, but she imagined the stars shining beyond the blue.

There was terror up there. There was death and pain and monsters from her worst nightmares. Addy hated space. Hated it! In space, she had lost so many friends. Had faced so many demons.

She was on Earth now, and Earth was beautiful, and her house was beautiful, and her children were angels.

But she missed it. The stars.

Not the battles. Not the blood. Not the alien bugs with their terrible claws. She missed being who she had been. She missed being Addy the warrior. The heroine. The one they called the Dragoness.

Up there, I wasn't just a hockey mom, she thought. I was a fucking legend.

She went into the house. To hell with beating up Marco piñatas today. She was no longer in the mood.

She kicked off her shoes, patted her pet pig, and walked to the fireplace. Photos stared at her from the mantel. One from her wedding day, hugging Marco and kissing his cheek. Another photo from her promotion to colonel. And an older photo too. One all the way back from the year 2143.

A photo of the Dragons Platoon.

Addy lifted it off the mantelpiece.

A photo from twenty-one years ago.

Marco was there, beardless, eighteen but looking even younger. Ben-Ari stood beside him, an ensign fresh out of officer school, commanding her first platoon. Their uniforms were shabby, dusty, torn. Their guns looked so large and heavy hanging across their skinny frames.

Addy looked at herself, standing there in that platoon. A kid of eighteen. Tall. Bright-eyed. Her golden hair spilling out from her helmet. She was making a silly face at the camera.

She had been such a warrior. She would storm alien strongholds, firing a gun in each hand. The aliens feared her. God, she had been strong.

And look at me now, she thought. I'm twice as old, half as fast, and my ass is three times the size.

That was the worst thing about growing old. To become somehow less.

She looked at the rest of the platoon. Most of them were dead now. She could still recite their names.

"Singh. Diaz. Beast. Elvis. Jackass. Texas. Webb. St-Pierre. Caveman. Pinky."

She spoke their names like a prayer. All had fallen in the war. So few remained.

And there in the photo she stood. One more survivor. Lailani.

She was the smallest soldier by far. Not even five feet tall in her boots. As skinny as a twig, drowning in her uniform. Addy and Marco had become her friends at once. It was always the three of them in boot camp. The Three Amigos. Or the Three Stooges, depending on who you asked. Inseparable. They had been together since then.

"Ads?"

She spun around, nearly dropping the photograph. Marco was stepping indoors, back from his hike. Ben-Ari was with him. It was odd seeing the president wear cargo pants and a hoodie. They had been friends for decades, but Addy still found it jarring to see Ben-Ari in regular clothes. Even now, it was strange seeing her as a regular woman, not a lofty officer or president gazing from on high.

"I was just reminiscing," Addy said. "Remember this old photo?"

And suddenly she was crying. And Marco and Ben-Ari rushed toward her, embraced her.

"Ah fuck it," Addy said. "I've been sad all day. I'm done being sad. Now I'm hungry. Einav, you're staying for dinner. Marco—fetch the rake!"

* * * * *

The sun was setting. The three of them sat outside on Muskoka chairs, a mainstay of every Canadian country home. Flames crackled in the firepit. Addy held a rake over the fire. A hot dog was sizzling on each prong. Addy was already drooling.

The night was cold, and Ben-Ari shivered, wrapped in a plaid blanket. But Marco and Addy, typical Canadians, were wearing short sleeves.

I'm freezing my butt off here in Canada, and this place is downright balmy compared to New Siberia, Ben-Ari thought.

That was where Lailani would strike. That frozen penal planet. Ben-Ari had no doubt of it.

Ben-Ari sipped from her thermos of hot chocolate, and she looked up at the stars. It was a clear night, and the constellations spread above. Many lights, nearly indistinguishable from stars, glittered among them. Skysphere shone like a little moon. Satellites zipped back and forth. Starships orbited farther out, ranging from massive frigates and tankers, each the size of a skyscraper, to starfighters and shuttles barely larger than cars. From down here, every one of those machines was like another star. In the twenty-second century, the night sky was twice as bright and dazzling as any time before.

Some people said the night sky was diminished. Nature spoiled. That man in his arrogance had polluted the ancient vista of stars. But to Ben-Ari, the new night sky was more beautiful than ever. When she had been born, only forty-two years ago, humanity had been a frightened species, clinging to this single little world. The scum had just invaded a few years earlier, wiping out more than half the population of Earth, the greatest tragedy since the Black Plague. The survivors cowered.

But Earth rose from the ashes. Earth reached into space. Earth beat back the scum and all the alien invaders who followed.

And now Earth is building a galactic empire, Ben-Ari thought. And it's my privilege to lead us during this time.

It was her dream, those many lights in the sky. A dream of a powerful human species. Of a civilization that no enemy would dare attack again. An Earth too mighty to ever fall. Never again, she swore.

Maybe it was the trauma of the Cataclysm, that terrible invasion of the scum, though it had happened before her birth. Maybe it was the lingering tragedy of her people, the ghosts of the Holocaust and the genocides before it, still haunting her down the generations. Maybe it was just that Ben-Ari had seen so much misery on Earth, but in the night sky, she saw a future.

Whatever the reason, those lights were beautiful to her. Space stations, starships, colonies on other worlds—those were not pollution.

They were hope.

"Hot dogs are ready!" Addy chimed, pulling her rake from the fire. "Dinner is served."

Ben-Ari bit into her hot dog. The skin snapped. And memories filled her. Sweet memories of Shabbat at home, the flicker of candlelight, the smell of tallow, the love of her husband and child. Eating challah bread and noodle kugel and crunchy schnitzel. Feeling warm. Safe. Loved. Feeling like all her wars, all her sacrifices, had meant something.

That was all gone. With her separation, her family was torn apart. That beautiful dream—shattered like the world.

Tears gathered in her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away, hoping nobody saw. Marco and Addy were her friends, yes. Her oldest, best friends. But they were also officers under her command. And she could not show them weakness. Could not show anyone weakness.

Maybe that was what she missed most about Noah. Having one man she could show weakness to.

So much for that.

Noah was a genius. And he was a good man. And she loved him with all her heart. But he had betrayed her. In some ways, Marco and Addy were not perfect friends. She was their leader, and that placed daylight between them, even now, even here. She had little in common with them culturally, religiously, ethnically. All that baggage that came with being Israeli, all the generational trauma of genocides and persecution and ridicule and hatred. That was a pain Addy and Marco did not share with her, that a stranger might never understand. That too put distance between them.

With Addy it was especially hard. Beyond the cultural differences, beyond the differences in rank, the two women shared nothing in common. Addy loved sports, wrestling, and of course hot dogs. Ben-Ari loved classical music, old novels, and good teas. At least with Marco she shared interests, but with Addy?

And yet Ben-Ari had always felt so comfortable with both of them. Yes, Addy too. Despite everything, Ben-Ari loved them. She loved them with all her heart. Loved them as much as she had ever loved anyone. And she trusted them. Fully. She knew that unlike her husband, Marco and Addy would never betray her.

But Lailani did. The thought arose at once. Lailani was part of our little gang. And she betrayed us all. Is there no one I can truly trust?

"I'm sending a full military frigate to New Siberia," she said. "Along with a full armada of escort corvettes, five starfighter squadrons, and a battalion of marines. Thanks to time dilation, they can be there in three days—just in time to meet Lailani's ultimatum with strength rather than capitulation. This is a formidable force. Enough to protect the planet. Just in case."

Addy gulped down her third hot dog, leaned back in her seat, and sipped her beer. "So it's war again. It's fucking war again, is it? Ah fuck it. I was getting bored with peace anyway." But fear danced in her eyes.

Marco put down his beer. He gazed into the fire, then at Ben-Ari. "You really think Lailani will do it? Attack New Siberia?"

Ben-Ari nodded. "Yes. She'll try to free the scummers. And you must stop her."

Marco tilted his head, pointed at his chest. "Me?"

Addy leaned forward in her seat. "Him?"

"May I remind you, Marco, you are a colonel in the Human Defense Force Reserves," Ben-Ari said. "And I'm calling you to duty. You will lead the mission to Abaddon. You will defend our colony."

"Ma'am." Marco rose to his feet. So it was back to ma'ams now, no more Einavs. "I've been a civilian for four years now."

Ben-Ari stood up too. She was shorter than Marco, but she was used to commanding taller, bigger men. "Because you and Lailani are best friends. Because she trusts you. At dinner at my home, Lailani attacked me. She almost attacked Addy. But you, Marco … you she still trusts. You she still loves. If she comes to New Siberia, I don't want war. I want you to talk to her."

"Bit odd to bring an army just to talk," Addy muttered and cracked open another beer.

"Speak softly but carry a big stick," Ben-Ari said.

"Or a rake," Addy said, reaching for another hot dog.

Marco stood by the firepit, staring into Ben-Ari's eyes. He could see the storm of emotion there. The memories. The fear. But also the courage.

"You know, Einav," Marco finally said, "I really hate inviting you to dinner. Every time I do, you send me to war."

She smiled wanly. "This time may we forge peace. Will you do this, Marco? This is about saving the world again, yes. But it's also about saving our friend." Her voice softened, barely audible over the crackling fire. "I hope you can bring Lailani home."

They all turned to look at the fourth Muskoka chair. It stood there by the fire, empty.

Marco looked back at Ben-Ari, stood a little straighter, and saluted.

"I'll go, Madam President. I'll defend our colony. And I'll bring our friend home."

Addy stood up too. She saluted, hot dog in hand. "And I'm going too."

"First of all, don't salute with a hot dog," Marco said.

"But my other hand is holding a beer!" Addy said.

"So put down either beer or hot dog," Marco said.

She gasped. "Never!"

"You smeared your forehead with mustard," Marco said.

"Lick it off!" Addy said. "Come on, Marco, lick it off!"

"Stop, no! Go away! Stop chasing me!"

"But there's free mustard!"

"Addy, stop!" He pushed her away. "For God's sake. You're a lunatic. I'm going to New Siberia alone. There's no need for you to risk your life in space."

She placed her hands on her hips, spraying beer and mustard. "Oh, I see. So Addy is just a mom. And she has to stay home and babysit. Well, guess what, buster? You can stay home."

Marco hugged her. "I just want you to be safe."

She shoved him, getting mustard on his shirt. "Fuck you! I'm not interested in being safe. When did I ever want safety? I've always gone into the fire with you. I always fought at your side. Since we were kids. I'm not going to stay behind now. I may be a little older now, and I may be a little out of shape, but goddammit, I'm going to be there at New Siberia with you. Lailani is my friend too. If we can make peace, I'll be there to hug that little bitch so tight she squeaks. And if it's war … Well, I'll be there with you, Marco. Like I always was. And always will be."

"Aww, Addy, you're not out of shape," Marco said. "A pear is a shape."

She growled and raised her fist, crushing her can of beer. "You little piece of—"

"Dad?" Terri pattered into the backyard. "I can babysit the twins."

Everyone turned to look at the girl. Terri's red hair hung in a loose braid, and she wore sweatpants and carried a mug of hot chocolate. Her bionic eye shone in the darkness, bright blue, reflecting the stars.

"Terri, I asked you to remain in the house," Marco said. "You do realize this is a secret meeting between two colonels and the president of the Human Commonwealth, discussing the fate of a galactic empire—needless to say, highly classified material."

"I heard something about saluting with hot dogs and licking mustard off faces," Terri said.

"You know our secrets!" Addy said. "You're part of our council now. And yes, you can stay on Earth to babysit the twins. Want a hot dog?"

"You know I'm vegetarian," Terri said.

"I made you a veggie dog." Addy plucked one off the rake, placed it in a bun, handed it to the girl. "I noticed you eavesdropping from the get-go."

"It's not my decision," Terri said. "Nor is it yours, Addy. Or yours, Dad. It's up to our president to decide."

"About the hot dog?" Addy tilted her head.

"About everything," said Terri. "Who goes, who stays, how this mission proceeds. We can question, but we cannot decide. Only the president can do that."

Everyone turned toward Ben-Ari. She had been watching the exchange quietly, not wanting to interfere. She needed to let the Linden-Emery family work this out first. But secretly, Ben-Ari was glad.

She smiled. "Of course Addy should go. Addy, you too are a colonel in the reserves. You led Earth during the Marauder Uprising. You fought the grays on their homeworld. You commanded armies during the Cyborg War. You'll fly to New Siberia too. Marco will fly on the flagship as the presidential emissary, representing me to the fleet's commanders. I must remain on Earth to govern; Marco will enforce my will in space. You, Addy, will command the infantry force. If it comes to fighting on the ground, I want you there." Ben-Ari took a deep breath. "I really hope it doesn't come to that."

"So it's team BAM back in action!" Addy said. "That stands for Ben-Ari, Addy, and Marco, if you didn't already know. I just hope Lailani comes back so we can be BLAM again." She patted her backside and sighed. "And I hope I can still fit into my old army pants."

"It's good to hope," Marco agreed and dodged a flying hot dog.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Time flew on Abaddon, homeworld of the scum.

Lailani had flown all over the galaxy, and she knew that every planet had its own time. She didn't just mean the length of a day or year. Those differences were easy to calculate. Those were simply the length of time a planet took to turn around its axis and orbit its star.

She meant time itself, that mysterious dimension embedded into the fabric of the universe.

Speed affected time. So did gravity. Each planet moved at different speeds around its star, and each star moved at different speeds in the cosmic dance, and each planet pulled its denizens with its own unique graviton tug. All those forces twisted and bent time. On some planets, time fluttered ahead like a butterfly seeking nectar. On other planets, time moved even faster, hammering away like a hummingbird's heart. On those planets, time would pull you along like a rushing river, and you could fritter a lifetime away in moments.

But on other worlds time slowed down. It ambled like a content beast with its belly full, in no rush to nowhere. On other worlds this beast slowed to a crawl. Time inched along, paused, looked around, yawned, fell asleep for a while, then inched forward a bit more, begrudging every second.

The physicists called it time dilation. They had formulas for calculating it all. It was why an astronaut could explore space for a week, come back to Earth, and learn that months had gone by. It was why Lailani wasn't even sure what her age was. She had simply traveled too much, walked on too many worlds.

She didn't know the math. The physicists and their formulas did not concern her. She could feel time. Her internal clock knew.

So she didn't need math here on Abaddon. She felt it with every beat of her heart. Every breath. Time was fast here. On this planet of canyons and claws, of scorching deserts and deep dungeons, time raced.

The days and nights all blended. There was no true day or night underground. There was just the relentless, merciless galloping of time. She wondered how long was passing on Earth. Whether time was still slow there. Whether Lailani had been languishing here in the darkness for years, while on Earth, a planet so small and fragile, time barely inched forward a week.

She had given Ben-Ari three days. That was all. Just three days to free the captive starlings.

For an Earthling, three days was fast. Ben-Ari would barely have time to plan anything. She would have to rush her fastest starships to New Siberia, to free the captive starlings with moments to spare. Or she would miss the deadline.

For Lailani, three Earth days lasted a long, long while.

"Mom, can we go up to the surface again?" Tala said. "I miss the sun."

They stood on a ledge of stone, overlooking a cavern the size of a football stadium. Hundreds of worker centipedes moved back and forth, crawling on the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Unlike the warriors, they had claws of different shapes. Some claws were shaped like shovels, evolved to dig. Other claws could spin like drills. Some claws were like pickaxes, and others were shaped like hammers. Each worker centipede was like a walking Swiss Army knife.

The aliens were busy working around the clock. Carving alcoves in the walls. Hewing staircases from the living stone. Laying down cobblestones in snaking paths. Raising bridges and cutting deep grooves in the ground.

They were building something they had never built before. Something Abaddon had never seen.

A town. A town for humans.

"Soon this place will be full of sunlight," Lailani said. "When the town is built, the centipedes will carve a shaft in the ceiling. The sunlight will fall down, illuminating the center of the cavern." She pointed. "The light will fall right there. And we'll turn it into a pond. A pond with glittering blue water, surrounded by gardens."

Tala frowned. She stepped along the ledge of stone and leaned forward, peering down into the cavern. Lailani had to grab her and pull her back.

"Don't stand so close," Lailani said. "You're not a flying centipede."

They both watched a winged centipede soar ahead of them, carrying a stone pipe. The airborne arthropod rose toward a hole in the wall, then slid the pipe inside. The pipe vanished like a rolled-up letter into a pneumatic tube. Centipedes filled the tunnel, laying down pipe after pipe. The pipes would eventually lead to reservoirs of subterranean ice, which would be melted into fresh water.

"It doesn't look anything like a town," Tala said. "What about, well, town stuff? Playgrounds? Parks? Plus, ya know, houses?"

"There's a limit to what centipedes can build," Lailani said. "They're experts at digging tunnels. But they don't exactly know how to tile a roof or install a carpet." She smiled. "But they can put down the groundwork. Those alcoves in the wall that look like honeycombs? We'll turn those into swanky apartments. There will be water. There will be light. There will be an electric grid, running off generators. We can even grow food here. Whatever the centipedes can't do, the starlings will. When the starlings arrive, they'll take over the work."

Lailani could already imagine it. Thousands of starlings, freed from New Siberia, finding a home here on Abaddon. Living underground. Living in safety.

It wasn't an ideal planet. There were planets more suitable for human habitation. Planets with clean air, verdant forests, pristine lakes, and arable land.

But those planets were all spoken for. Aliens had already colonized them. Or native civilizations defended them. Perhaps there were some Earthlike planets nobody had discovered yet. But if so, they were far off, tens of thousands of light-years away, far beyond the reach of even the fastest starship. Even with state-of-the-art azoth engines, it could take millennia to explore the planets on the far reaches of the galaxy. Lailani didn't have that time. Her people needed a home now.

And even if she could find some clement world, some twin to Earth, a planet unspoken for and within reach, free to become a starling homeworld—even then, she could not hold it. If she could reach such a world, so could Earth's armies.

And Earth's armies are my enemy, Lailani thought.

She clenched her fists. She could still see through the hive. See through the eyes of starlings in the Human Commonwealth. They were still being imprisoned. Oppressed. Even butchered. All because of their mixed blood. Because they were part alien.

Yes—Earth was her enemy now. There was no way to sugarcoat it.

I fought all my life for Earth, Lailani thought. But I'm a starling. And Earth drove me away. So here on Abaddon will be our new home.

This was not only a homeland. It was also a world of deep tunnels. Of towering mountains. Of volcanoes that could spray lava onto orbiting starships. This was a world they could defend.

And after all, the starlings were part centipede, weren't they? Their fathers had come from this world. It would be jarring at first—to live underground. To live like the true centipedes, burrowing deep into this massive planet. But their ancestral blood would remember. The old instincts would awaken.

Lailani was already feeling it. A connection to this land. A sense of home.

But Tala felt no such thing. She hopped from foot to foot. "Mom, come on! I wanna go to the surface. To run outside in the sun. It's so boring down there. I just wanna . . ."

Her voice trailed off. She crossed her arms, looked away.

Lailani frowned. "You want what, Tala? Talk to me."

"Nothing." She pouted.

"Tell your mother."

Tala heaved a sigh. "I want to go back to Earth. Okay? Happy now? I hate it here. I hate it on Abaddon! I miss my friends. I miss Rosa and Sam and Carl and Terri. I . . ." Suddenly she was crying. "I want to go home. I miss Earth. Please, Mom, can we go home?"

Lailani hugged the girl, all her anger melting away. "Oh, sweetie, I know. I know you miss Earth. I do too. I know you miss our friends. I do too. But we can't go back. This is our home now."

Tala pulled away from her. Tears poured, and her little fists clenched. "I hate it here!" Her voice rose to a hoarse cry. "And I hate you!"

She turned around and ran.

"Tala!" Lailani shouted. "Get back here! Get back and apologize at once!"

But Tala kept running, even as she sobbed. She raced into a tunnel and vanished into the darkness.

Lailani wanted to chase her. To bring her back. To discipline her. But maybe that was a bad idea. Maybe instead Lailani needed to comfort the girl. Or maybe she just needed to let Tala be.

Lailani didn't know. She sighed. Being a single mother was hard enough. It was even harder when you ruled an empire of centipedes on an alien world.

"When you were a little girl, Tala, we were such good friends," Lailani said softly, speaking to the shadows. Tala was too far to hear, but Lailani needed to speak these words. "Now you're becoming independent. Old enough and wise enough to hate your mother. To hate me for what I'm doing to you. And maybe you're right to hate me."

Lailani thought back to herself at age nine. Just a muddy homeless girl on the streets of Manila. One among millions.

The memories flooded her. Picking through trash. Getting so excited when the dumpster truck spilled its treasures onto the landfills. The hunger. The illness. Always begging. Always afraid.

Lailani entered the tunnel, seeking her daughter. Tala had not run far. She found the girl curled up only a few meters away, hugging her knees, crying bitter tears. Lailani sat beside her. She placed a hand on Tala's back, but the girl recoiled. So Lailani just sat beside her.

Finally Lailani spoke. "My mother was a prostitute. I think you're old enough to know what that means. Hell, you learned about Mary Magdalene at Sunday school, didn't you? But my mother was no holy woman. When I was born, she was just a thirteen-year-old kid, homeless, selling her body on the streets. She raised me in the slums. She loved me. She loved me with all her heart. But she could not provide for me. When I became a mother, I made a promise. A promise that I'd give you a better life, Tala. And I failed. Over and over, I failed."

Tala wiped her eyes with her fists. She finally looked at her. "So why can't we go back to Earth? Why can't we have a real house, a real family? Like Rosa and Sam and Terri have? I want to live like that."

"I know, sweetie. I do too. But we're different. I'm different, at least. I'm a starling. You know what that means, right?"

Tala nodded. "Part alien."

"And someday we'll learn if you're human or starling. And if you're human, and you're old enough to live on your own, you can go back to Earth. I wouldn't be mad. But if your powers manifest, if you can tap into the hive, if you're a starling like me, well … you'll have a home here on Abaddon. A safe home. A home where our people can be free from persecution." She smiled. "And it won't always be like this. We'll build a real town here underground. The surface of Abaddon is too hot. The radiation from the sun is too dangerous. But it won't always be muddy little burrows. We'll have streams to splash in. Greenhouses full of vegetation. Real homes."

"And other kids?" Tala said.

"And other kids."

"But . . ." Tala bit her lip. "I heard you talking to Uncle Kai. About how Aunt Einav is keeping the starlings in prisons. How she won't free them."

"You let me take care of that," Lailani said. "Your mom will work everything out."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kai stood on the surface of Abaddon. He stood alone. He was the only man in a desert larger than Jupiter.

He was, in fact, the only man for hundreds of light-years around.

Cracked, rocky plains spread to the horizons. Hot wind screeched, tossing a hailstorm of jagged pebbles and sand like shards of glass. Mountains the size of continents rose in the distance, scratching sky the color of mummified corpses. The sun blazed, searing, punishing, bathing the landscape with merciless radiation. Kai tightened the scarf around his head, covering his face. A man could die within moments here on the open plains of Abaddon.

"Well, I did it again," Kai muttered to himself. "I got myself completely, utterly fucked. Over a woman. As usual."

Well, that was enough fresh air for today. Two wholesome minutes before he felt like death. He climbed back into the hole.

He walked down the tunnel. Assault rifles, electric stunners, plasma guns, and an authentic samurai katana hung across his back, a veritable peacock's tail of savagery. In the scum tunnels, the barrels and blades kept scraping against the walls. His handcuffs dangled from his belt. A bounty hunter always carried handcuffs with him, just in case he ran into a renegade. Well, slim chance of that here. The only damn creatures here were the bugs.

They scuttled everywhere. The worker centipedes scurried along the walls, the ceiling, even between Kai's legs. They were the size of anacondas, the damn things, and their legs kept brushing against him. Sometimes a few warrior centipedes bounded forward, their claws like blades, and Kai had to press himself against the wall and pray the stampeding creature didn't disembowel him. They were like living chainsaws, the damn things. Half a dozen times already, Kai had almost grabbed his flamethrower and torched the whole damn hive.

This place gave him a serious case of the willies.

"If you ask me, we should nuke the whole damn planet from orbit and be done with it," he muttered to himself.

A passing centipede gave him a dirty look. She was one of the nurses, carrying a clutch of eggs.

"The fuck are you looking at?" Kai said. "Get outta here!"

The centipede clacked her mandibles and scuttled away in a huff.

This place was a nightmare. A bloody nightmare. If any planet in the galaxy could be called Hell, it was Abaddon.

I have a starship, Kai thought. I can fly back to Earth.

A day didn't go by that he wasn't tempted. He had come here for a woman. A woman he loved. But he could not stay here forever.

He finally reached the little cave he shared with Lailani. Centipedes had collected thousands of gemstones from the deep tunnels, strung them together, and hung curtains of glittering rubies, diamonds, and sapphires. There were enough gemstones here to purchase a palace on Earth. Kai parted the billion-dollar curtains and stepped into the cave. The strings of gemstones settled back in place behind him, chinking and reflecting the light.

This was a cave, but not some dank, dark place. It was a dwelling worthy of a queen. The centipedes themselves lived in stinking, reeking pits, rutting in the ooze. But they had worked hard to create a palatial home for Lailani. A waterfall cascaded down one wall, filling a pool. Bioluminescent beetles glowed in glass bulbs, painting the room with golden light. Platinum ewers glittered in alcoves. The centipedes had even figured out how to make fabric. Embroidered blankets, rugs, and pillows topped marble beds and divans, luxurious enough for a sultan.

I wonder what material they weave into fabric, Kai thought. Baby scum eggshells? Old exoskeletons? Their own puke?

It was probably best not to think about it. The scum had worked hard to make their guests comfortable. It was the thought that counted.

Yes, a luxurious chamber. A little comfort in hell. But Kai would give it all up for a night on Earth, a greasy hot dog with Addy, a cold beer with Marco, and the soil of Earth beneath his feet.

But there she was.

The reason he was here. The drug he could not quit.

Lailani was swimming in the little pool in the middle of the cave. She saw him and rose from the water, as graceful as a tigress. The droplets glinted on her naked body. She walked toward him, her every step like a slow dance. The light painted her body gold and turned her tattoos nearly black. Her eyes shone, and her lips parted in a smile.

Kai stared. And suddenly all his reservations, loneliness, homesickness—they all faded. And there was only her.

She reached up, grabbed his hair, pulled his face down toward hers, and kissed him. A deep, hungry kiss.

"I missed you," she mumbled.

Kai ran his hands along her naked wet body, marveling at how one so small could boast so many curves.

"Lailani, I . . ." Reluctantly he took a step back from her. "We have to talk."

She narrowed her eyes. "Kai?" She caressed his cheek, her wet fingers dampening his goatee. "What's wrong?"

He turned away. "Oh fuck, this is hard. Especially when you're all naked and wet."

She reached for him. "It's definitely hard."

"Lailani." He gently held her hand, pulled it away. "Can we sit down? And can you put on some clothes?"

She frowned. "This is serious, isn't it? All right." She got dressed, sat on the bedside. "Sit down. Talk to me."

He glanced around. "Is Tala …?"

"She's inside the Black Rose Viperess. The ship is parked, safe and sound in the next tunnel." Lailani smiled sadly. "She's still not used to luxury. She prefers sleeping in a starship bunk."

"The Viperess is a piece of home," Kai said. "And it has electricity. She can play video games, watch movies, listen to music. Hey, come to think of it, I think I'm moving in with her."

"Don't you dare." Lailani grabbed him. "You're mine."

Kai took a deep breath. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Lailani … we can't stay here."

She released him. "Kai."

"Listen to me, Lailani." He stroked her cheek. "I love you. I love you more than I've ever loved a woman. You're not only beautiful. You're also brave, intelligent, and kind. But … I don't belong on this world. I'm not a starling like you. I'm just a regular human. A regular guy. And I'm wilting here."

She rose from bed. "You're wilting?" She scoffed. "What are you, a fucking flower?" She grabbed his arm, and her eyes flashed. "Come on, Kai! What's wrong with this place? You got rubies and diamonds, you got safety and shelter—and you got me. I'm yours here. Your queen."

"I don't want to be a king." He laughed bitterly. "I just … God, I don't know, Lailani. I want to go onto the surface and not be bathed with radiation. I want to sit on a lawn chair under a blue sky, sip a beer, be with my friends. I miss them. I miss my sister. I miss Marco. I … I want to go back. I want us to go back. Together. And …" His voice dropped. "And Tala wants it too."

Anger blazed in her eyes. "Don't bring Tala into this. Don't use her to manipulate me."

"She cries every day, Lailani. She comes to me. Talks to me. Says she wants to go home, but you won't listen. This morning, she asked if I can fly her home myself. And you would stay here."

Lailani took a step back. Blood drained from her face. "What? She said that?"

"She didn't mean it. And of course I told her no. She's miserable here. I am too. If we knew how long this would last, knew when we could go home, we'd feel better. We'd have a plan. We—"

"We're never going home!" Lailani shouted. Her voice echoed through the cavern. Tears leaped into her eyes. "I told you what I saw in the hive. Starlings like me—dragged from their homes! Placed in chains! Imprisoned in concentration camps! My best friends betrayed me, Kai. They betrayed me! Einav and Marco and Addy—they turned against me! Just because I'm a starling."

She was trembling now. Her tears flowed.

"I know, baby." Kai reached out to stroke her hair. "I—"

"Don't touch me." She shoved his hand away. "You want to betray me too. To leave me here. To take my daughter." She sneered. "Well, nobody is going to steal Tala from me. Nobody! She's mine!"

Her voice rose to a howl. The walls of the cave shook. Dust fell. Lailani's eyes blazed, and her fangs shone in the golden light.

Kai took a step back.

Lailani stared at him, hissing, but then she deflated. Her claws retracted. Her shoulders slumped. She fell onto the bed, curled up, and began to cry.

Kai sat beside her. "Baby." He ran his fingers through her silky black hair. "I'm sorry."

"I'm scared, Kai," she whispered. "I'm so fucking scared. Of myself. That I'm some kind of monster. Even my best friends, the people I love most in the world—they turned against me. They fear me. Do you have any idea how much that hurts? I lost my mother when I was a kid. My army friends … they were my family. Marco. Addy. Einav. I love them so much. And it hurts so bad. All I have left is Tala."

"You have me," Kai said.

"Until you leave me too?" Lailani looked away. A tear streamed down her cheek. "I sound so manipulative. I'm sorry. If you want to leave, you can leave. I just …" She closed her eyes. "It's just hard. And …" She opened her eyes, turned back toward him. "And I love you, Kai. I know I never said I love you before. But I do. And I'm not saying this to manipulate you. I love you and I want you to stay."

Kai pulled her into his arms. He held her close, and she trembled in his embrace. For a long moment, he just held her.

Finally Kai spoke in a low voice. "When we came here, I thought it was temporary. That we'd kill the King of Many Claws, then fly back home. But now you're building a world here. A world for starlings. And I don't know what to do."

"I don't either. But we'll figure it out, right?" She smiled, tears glistening on her eyelashes. "Hey, how about you bring out the handcuffs?"

Kai already felt his blood heating.

"How about we do it without the handcuffs tonight?" he said.

Lailani lowered her eyes. "I'm scared to. What if, while we're doing it, I lose control? What if I hurt you? You should cuff me again. Just to keep yourself safe."

"Baby, I trust you. Let's try it. Without the handcuffs this time."

"Okay," she whispered. "I'd like that."

He pulled her clothes off. "Actually, I decided I prefer you naked."

"No fair!" She ripped at his clothes too. "If I'm naked, you have to be too."

He heaved a sigh. "Well, fair is fair."

They lay on the lush rugs, dampening them with sweat. They made love—rough, wild, fast. Lailani arched her back below him, free for the first time, and she wrapped her arms around his back and held him tight.

He looked into her eyes.

I love her, he thought. But do I love her more than Earth? Will I stay for her?

Their passion grew. They moved faster. She screwed her eyes shut and let out a passionate howl.

And suddenly fangs sprouted from her mouth.

A growl sounded low in her throat.

Kai felt her claws on his back. Not piercing the skin but dangerously sharp.

He froze.

"Don't stop," Lailani said. "Don't stop!"

He kept going. She screamed, a sound that shook the cavern, and her fangs sliced the air. She thrashed from side to side, digging her claws into the blankets, ripping them to shreds. But she did not cut him. Not so much as a scratch. And when it was over, when they lay panting side by side, her humanity returned. She curled up against him and kissed his damp cheek.

"See? Perfectly safe."

"That was . . . kind of amazing," Kai confessed.

"I didn't hurt you," Lailani whispered. "I changed. And I didn't hurt you."

"I knew you wouldn't. Let the others say what they will. It doesn't matter what they say. What the president says. What your friends say. I know better than they do. I know that you're not a monster."

She cried onto his chest. "Thank you."

He yawned. "You take a lot out of a man. You won't mind if I fall asleep, would you? Some girls get insulted if you fall asleep after sex."

She smiled. "I take it as a compliment."

He closed his eyes. Within seconds, he was asleep.

* * * * *

Strange dreams haunted Kai that night.

He was running down the streets of Bangkok, his childhood hometown, trying to find his way back home. Home was just a filthy little room above a brothel. As his mother worked below, dancing on stage and wooing clientele, Kai could relax upstairs, read manga, and watch kung fu movies on the jittery little holofeed. He only had to leave when his mother took a man to bed. He would wander the streets then, passing by bars, strip clubs, and pawnshops, a clever little kid with quick fingers.

Every day, he would snatch another wallet. Another purse. Sometimes even a watch off a man's wrist. They were slow and fat, the men here. Tourists from America, wearing Hawaiian wife-beaters, flip-flops, sometimes T-shirts saying "I LOVE BANGKOK" that they picked up in the tourist shops. They were never used to the heat. Sweat soaked their underarms, and they kept dabbing their heads, but they trundled on, hooting at the bargirls under the neon signs. Sometimes they'd take a girl, maybe two, tiny little creatures, so petite and frail by their corpulent clients. Kai liked to follow those men after they captured a local girl; he was a hunter of the hunters.

Sometimes the tourists would take a girl straight upstairs, but often they would stop by the ATMs first. Flesh was cheap here in the neon slums, but not free. The men would pull out their wallets, load them with cash, stuff them into their back pockets. Then it would be back to the brothel for half an hour on a stained, damp mattress.

But Kai always got them first. He sneaked up from behind. He would kick, overturn some merchant's cart, spilling spices, dirty magazines, and once even a basket of live crabs. The merchant would invariably shout and wave his fist, blaming the fat tourist. The sweaty man who would mumble apologies while the bargirls tapped their feet, hands on their hips, impatient for their ordeal to begin and end.

That was when Kai would creep up, reach toward the man's oversized rump, and snatch the wallet from the back pocket. A wallet loaded from a fresh trip to the ol' watering hole called Bangkok Bank.

It was a good racket. The men usually didn't notice. But sometimes they did.

Today's tourist did.

And now a beastly man, towering and bald, cursed and reached for little Kai.

The boy ran. All of thirteen and slender as a twig, Kai raced down the streets. He leaped onto the corrugated steel roofs of shanties. He hopped over a vegetable cart, landed in an alley, whipped around a stall selling knockoff watches and cheap summer dresses. He banged into one man, another. He overturned an old woman's basket of melons. He ran onward, and the man followed.

Kai was almost home now. But the more he ran, the more he realized he was lost. The streets didn't curve where they should. The wide avenue with its roaring traffic was gone. He ran through a sea of honking rickshaws, sought a familiar landmark, found none.

A growl sounded behind him.

"Come here, kid! I'm going to gobble you. That's right, kid. I'm going to eat you up!"

Kai glanced over his shoulder and gasped.

The tourist was still following him. But he was no longer a man. He had become a strange being, half-human, half-centipede. A dozen arms sprouted from his wobbling, overfed torso. His face was bloated, leaking pus, lips open in a hideous grin that revealed a mouth full of fangs. The eyes were yellow balls embedded into white folds of rancid flesh.

Kai screamed and tried to run faster. But the crowd was so thick. He could barely shove his way through. The faces all hovered before him, scowling, howling, growling like beasts. Demonic faces. Insect faces.

"Come closer, kiddo!" rose the voice from behind. "Come to Papa Claws. I want to gobble you up!"

Kai turned down a dark alleyway. He was finally free of the crowd. He raced down the narrow passageway, his bare feet kicking up paper cups, old newspapers, and condom wrappers. He heard the clatter of claws behind him. He saw the centipede shadow on the walls. He ran, rounded a corner, and skidded to a halt.

The monstrous hybrid was there. Half-man, half-centipede. Somehow it had gotten ahead of him. The creature opened its mouth and screamed.

Kai screamed too. It was the same sound.

And he realized that he was facing a mirror. A tall mirror here in the alleyway.

The creature was him.

He bolted up in bed, awash with sweat.

Where was he? In the alleyway? Above the brothel?

His heart pounded. He took a deep breath, looked around. Just a dream. He was back on Abaddon, safe inside the queen's den. Lailani still slept beside him. The lamps were dimmed, and soft golden light gilded her. The blankets were torn to shreds. Her claws had done good work last night.

He glanced at his watch. He had only slept for three hours. But he couldn't fall back asleep, not after that nightmare. Besides, his bladder was full.

Gingerly, without waking Lailani, he rose from bed and walked across the luxurious cave. The centipedes, curse their black little hearts, had not yet installed plumbing. Kai, Lailani, and Tala were still using the washroom aboard the Black Rose Viperess.

Kai passed through the curtain of gemstones, walked down a tunnel, and entered another cave. This cave was much larger—as large as a school gym. The Black Rose Viperess stood on the craggy stone floor. She was a small starship, barely large enough to qualify as a corvette. Even so, bringing her down here had been a bitch. Thankfully, the Viperess was shaped like a dagger, long and slender and black. The centipedes had enlarged a few tunnels, were able to slide the starship down, heaving and tugging and pushing and digging. Almost as hard as moving a piano. Finally the starship rested underground, parked just outside Queen Lailani's fancy new digs. A tiny interstellar starship. A little piece of home.

Kai stepped into the starship. He tiptoed through the little hold. Tala was curled up in her bunk, fast asleep, her chin resting on her hands. Kai paused for a moment, looked at the girl.

I'm sorry, kid, he thought. I know you wanted me to talk your mom into going home. I let you down. I came to Abaddon to look after you, little one. And I'll keep doing it. When I was a kid, my dad was never around. I know your dad is gone. But I'll look after you. I'll make sure things are all right.

Okay, now his bladder was truly about to burst. He hurried into the washroom, closed the door, stumbled toward the toilet, and sighed as he let it all out. He yawned and washed his hands. The cobwebs of nightmares still draped over him. He splashed some water onto his face, rubbed his eyes, and—

He froze.

He stared.

I'm still asleep, he thought. I'm still dreaming. It's just the nightmare.

He stared at his reflection.

He had fangs. Just the tips peeked through. He curled his upper lip, and he saw them more fully. Long, sharp fangs. Vampiric.

His hands began to shake. Hands with claws.

Trembling seized him. Cold sweat dripped down his back.

"Just a dream," he whispered. "Just a goddamn dream."

He pinched himself. And it hurt. And his claws cut his skin.

He ran.

He burst out of the washroom, raced across the hold, not even worried about waking Tala. He ran down the tunnel, heart pounding in his chest, his breath shaking, and it felt like the nightmare again. Like running through the alleyways of Bangkok, fleeing the monster, only to discover that the monster was him.

He ran through the gemstone curtains, ripping off two jeweled strings. Diamonds scattered across the floor.

Lailani sat up in bed, pulling a blanket over her nakedness.

"Kai?"

He skidded to a halt before her, panting. A tremble vibrated through him. His head was spinning, his eyes burning. Centipedes seemed to be racing through him. He pointed at his fangs. "Look. Look what you did to me!"

Lailani leaned back, gasping. "Kai, you … you're a starling?"

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to calm himself.

And he saw the hive.

It was blurry. Barely visible at all. But with his eyes closed, he could see a thousand tunnels. See through the eyes of endless racing centipedes. He smelled it then. With thousands of antennae, he smelled it. The coiling innards of Abaddon. The hive brain. A smell of deep soil and lashing claws and eggs in the dark.

He opened his eyes. He stared at Lailani, this beautiful, tattooed woman in bed, this woman he had fallen in love with. This woman he had made love to last night, even as she thrashed and tore the blankets with her claws.

"You infected me," he whispered.

She leaped up. Her own fangs grew. She stood on the bed, naked and snarling. "It's not a disease!"

Kai growled at her, fangs bared, and raised his claws. Fury blazed inside him. The hive picked it up. Thousands of centipedes reared in the tunnels, clacking their mandibles, egging him on. Lailani craned her neck forward, growling right back at him. Her claws burst from her fingertips, making little hissing sounds like drawn daggers.

"Did you know?" Kai hissed through clenched teeth. "That being a starling is sexually infectious?"

"It's not an STD!" Lailani said. "Don't you call us diseased. Don't you dare insult starlings. You're one of us now!"

She growled and snapped her teeth, a wild animal. Kai sneered and prepared to claw her apart.

But then he stepped back.

"What did you do to me?" He howled and clutched his head. "I'm so angry. I'm thirsty for blood! Why? What did you do to me?"

Lailani stared at him from the bed. "You flatter yourself. Do you think I was a virgin when I met you? I've slept with people before. Hell, I fucked both Marco and Einav, and they're not starlings, are they?" She took a shuddering breath, and her claws retracted. Her fangs did too. "Kai." Her voice was softer now. "Kai, it wasn't me. You must have been a starling all the while, just—"

"When you slept with other people, did you ever go into starling mode?" he said. "Or were you just in human mode the whole time?"

"I—" Lailani bit down on the words. She thought for a moment, then winced. "I guess I was always in human mode. The microchip in my brain was working better then. I had more control. With you, I let myself go. During sex, I became my true self. And … Oh God." She covered her mouth. "Maybe it is sexually infectious. But only when I'm in starling mode!"

Kai stared at her in horror. "Did you know?" he whispered.

"Of course not! Kai!" She reached toward him, tried to hug him. "Kai, I didn't know."

He pulled away from her. "I'm a scummer. Oh God, Lailani. I'm a fucking scummer. I'm part alien now. Oh God."

"Starling," Lailani said softly. "We're starlings. Not scummers. Scummers is a slur. That's what the humans call us."

Kai ignored her, pacing the room. "How is this possible? It must have something to do with sex. You know, sex cells."

"Sex does sell," Lailani said.

"Sex cells with a c. You know, sperm and eggs. They create new embryos, right? They make babies, right? They can weave DNA! They're the only cells that can do this. I think so, at least. I'm not a goddamn biologist." Kai shuddered. "Oh God. During sex, you must have somehow … changed my cells. Put the scummer chromosome in or something."

"I'm not quite sure you got the biology right, but suppose something similar did happen," Lailani said. "Suppose you were indeed a normal human, and you caught the starling from me. Is that so bad?" She held his hands. "Kai, I'm a starling. Is being like me really so bad?"

He sat on the bed and clutched his head. "For fuck's sake, Lailani, can you stop making this about yourself? I'm having a hard time right now, okay? I'm having a fucking hard time, and you're busting my ass for offending you. I just learned that I caught some alien DNA. That I'm a scummer, or starling, or whatever the fuck you want to call it. And it's fucking me up, and I'm scared, Lailani, okay? I'm fucking scared, so stop riding my ass!"

She opened her mouth, closed it again. She sat beside him, folded her hands in her lap, and was silent. She just sat there. Not hugging him. Not touching him. Not yelling. Just being there.

Finally she looked at him. "I'm sorry."

He stood up. He walked toward the wall, placed a hand against the craggy stone, and lowered his head. "I'll never see Earth again now. They're testing everyone. If I go back, they'll find out who I am now. They'll put me in jail. I'll never see Addy and the kids again."

Lailani walked toward him, and she put a hand on his back. "We'll fight for our people, Kai. You and me. Together. I'm here for you. Always. If it hurts, I'm here for you. If you need time to accept it, I'm patient. I love you."

He looked at her. "Lailani, tell me it was an accident. That infecting me was a mistake. Tell me you didn't know."

She stared into his eyes. "I didn't know."

He nodded and closed his eyes. Lailani hugged him, and he let her. He would spend the rest of his life here. A freak. An outcast. But he had her. He had his Lailani.

* * * * *

Lailani held him. Her sweet Kai. A kind man who would never leave her. Who would never betray her. Who could never break her heart.

She kissed him, and she soothed him, whispering soft nothings into his ear. And when she was sure his eyes were closed, Lailani smiled, and the golden lamplight shone on her fangs.

CHAPTER NINE

The shuttle rose from Earth, flying through space toward a distant starship. The HDFS Ishtar, a mighty starfighter carrier, was still far, not much more than a speck of light from here. Several smaller lights orbited the Ishtar—warships under her command, forming a full carrier strike force. From here aboard the shuttle, the fleet seemed like a constellation of stars. Meanwhile, Earth was still close, casting blue light through the shuttle's portholes.

But soon I'll be on that starship, and I'll be leaving Earth behind again, Marco thought. A chill flooded him.

Inside this little shuttle, he felt trapped. But he dreaded reaching the large starship.

A starship the president had asked him to command.

Marco was not used to command.

He had been a soldier for many years. At first he fought in the trenches, a grunt with a rifle, facing the alien scum. He earned his commission on the battlefield. They called him a mustang; an enlisted man, just a jarhead who distinguished himself, who never went to officer school. The other officers, especially those who had gone to fancy military academies like Julius, sometimes mocked the mustangs. But nobody mocked Marco. He was the soldier who had stormed the tunnels of the scum emperor, who fought under the legendary Golden Lioness herself. When she gave him his commission, no officer, even those from Julius, would question it.

He fought in more wars. He fought against the marauders, giant spiders from deep space. He fought the grays, going undercover behind enemy lines to strike at their monstrous tyrant, the deformed and wicked Tick-Tock King. He fought the Dreamer and his terrible cyborgs. He rose in rank, war by war, eventually retiring as colonel.

Yes, he was a senior officer. And a famous one. He had a drawer full of medals at home, and everyone knew his name. Throughout the wars, he had commanded men in battle. He had led daring missions.

But in his heart, he had always been just Marco the author. And he had never commanded a starship. Let alone a fleet. This was new. And Marco felt woefully unqualified.

He turned away from the porthole and looked at himself in the mirror.

He felt like an impostor.

He wore the uniform of Space Territorial Command. A navy-blue blazer with polished brass buttons. A cap with a pin of Earth above the brim. A pistol hung at his side, and the insignia of a colonel shone, gilded with real gold: three stars on each shoulder. This was certainly nicer than the dusty fatigues he used to wear in the infantry. He didn't recall ever having cuff links in the trenches. STC knew how to dress snazzy.

The Human Defense Force was a single military. Infantry, space force, armored corps, marines, and all the rest of them—they all fit into one hierarchy. You could move horizontally between the corps. Marco's rank of colonel, achieved in the infantry, was just as legitimate aboard a starship.

Legally, at least. In practice, things were different. He was an infantry grunt placed in command of a fleet. And it terrified him.

Well, no, I'm not literally in command of the fleet, Marco reminded himself, trying to calm his nerves. The starships still have their old commanders, some of whom outrank me. I'm just there to represent the president.

Still, it was a big job. Aboard the Ishtar, he would wield all the president's authority. Marco felt overwhelmed.

He looked again into the mirror, and he didn't see a colonel.

Hell, it even felt strange to see a soldier.

Marco had never wanted to be a soldier. He had just turned forty this month, and even now, after decades of fighting, he didn't see himself as a soldier. On the inside, he still felt like that boy who dreamed of being a writer. Who lived among books. The nerd. The poet.

This all felt like a dream.

But there he was. His reflection stared back at him. A man. A man with silvering temples. With the insignia of a colonel. With the memory of battles and friends lost under fire. An officer. A leader.

It felt like a disguise. He didn't know who he was. Even now, after all his wars—he didn't know.

"You wanted me to do this, Einav," he said softly. "So here I am. And I'll make you proud."

His president couldn't hear him. She was down on Earth, and he was flying this shuttle toward a starship that would take him to New Siberia. To Lailani.

"Goddammit!" Addy's voice rose from the back of the shuttle. "I can almost … get . . . it!"

Marco turned away from the mirror. This was a luxury shuttle for senior officers, not the boxy transporters Marco was used to. Instead of straps along the walls, there was a cushioned couch at the back. Addy sat there, grunting, struggling to pull on her pants.

"Addy! Are those your old pants from the wars?"

"They're still good!" she said, straining as she pulled. "I'm not some fancy fleet officer like you, wearing your pretty ballroom uniforms. You heard the president. I'm to lead the marines! I still got good battle pants from the wars. You just shrank them in the laundry."

Marco rolled his eyes. "Yes, it's my fault. Didn't you bring any other pants?"

She shook her head, finally giving up. "Nope."

Marco sighed. "Stand up. Let me help you."

She rose from the sofa, pants around her ankles. Marco tugged them up.

"Now suck in your belly—" Marco began.

"Suck in your face! I don't have a belly."

"Well, suck in whatever you can! Stand straight, and …" Marco gave a mighty tug. "There we go."

Addy stood there, the pants squeezing her legs. "It is your fault, you know. You're the one who put two babies in me." She struggled to button the pants, could not. "I guess I can move this button an inch over. I do have a sewing kit. I still carry it around 'cause the kids always rip their clothes." She looked at herself in the mirror, turned her back to her reflection, looked over her shoulder. "Oh God. I'm a blob."

He kissed her. "You look beautiful."

"I'm too old for this."

"Patton was twenty years older than you when he led the Third Army into Nazi-occupied France."

Addy snorted. "Patton didn't have an ass the size of Minnesota."

"But his balls were that big, and he still fit them in his army pants."

"Touché."

He brushed back a lock of her golden hair. "I know it's been a while. We've been farmers for the past few years. But this isn't war. We're just going to defend New Siberia, not fight a battle. We're just going to talk."

"I hope you're right," Addy said. "I hope it doesn't come to battle. To have to fight Lailani … I couldn't do it. I know I argued with her back on Earth. But I love her. She's my best friend. Her and Einav. I don't want to lose that friendship."

"I thought I was your best friend," Marco said.

Addy snorted. "You wish! I'm only with you for the sex."

"Well, I am pretty amazing in bed."

"And you look kinda sexy in your fancy uniform," Addy said. "You even still fit into it!"

"Addy, I have a little secret." His voice dropped to a whisper. "This is a new uniform. I probably don't fit into my old one either."

"Cheater." She smiled, then took a deep breath and nodded. "All right. I feel a bit better now. I can't breathe with my pants buttoned up, but I feel better nonetheless. And a good thing too, since we're almost at the fleet." She saluted. "I'm ready to go! Let's go lead this army!"

"Um, Addy? You have to wear a shirt too."

She pouted. "But I hate shirts."

"Addy!"

"Fine, fine." She grabbed her shirt from the closet. "At least I still fit into this one."

"Wait." Before she could pull on her shirt, Marco grabbed her and kissed her. For a long time they stood in the shuttle, kissing. Finally they broke apart. "Now you can put your shirt on."

"Now I want to take my pants off again!" Addy said.

"No time. Look. We've reached the fleet."

* * * * *

The HDFS Ishtar hovered in space before them. She was a starfighter carrier, over a thousand feet long, a terror of the dark. Plasma cannons, torpedo bays, and machine gun nests rose across her hull. Her hangar bays were open, revealing Firebird-class starfighters ready to deploy like angry hornets. Three thousand spacers served aboard the mighty Ishtar. The spacers served in Space Territorial Command, operating Earth's mighty fleet.

In addition to the regular complement, three thousand extra soldiers filled Ishtar's hull today. They were the Khione Brigade—a marine brigade specializing in arctic warfare. They wore thermal white armor trimmed with fur, and they carried deadly assault rifles and plasma guns. They were all raring for war.

She was a beautiful starship, the Ishtar. Her hull was painted white and trimmed with Earth-blue lines. A golden phoenix figurehead reared on her prow, rampant and triumphant, symbol of the Human Defense Force. Despite her grace and beauty, the Ishtar was deadly. Run the Ishtar through a time portal, and she'd devastate Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Red Dawn hegemony, or any other old Earth empire within an afternoon. This ship was built to conquer worlds.

And I'm going to oversee her mission to Abaddon, Marco thought. He took a deep breath. He wasn't ready for this.

It wasn't just the Ishtar either. She was part of a full CSG—Carrier Strike Group. Starfighter carriers like the Ishtar were expensive. Damn expensive. Even Earth, the center of a fledgling galactic empire, could only afford a few of them. Only nine other carriers flew in Earth's fleet. An asset so costly never traveled alone. Other starships had been assembled to defend her.

Two frigates surrounded the Ishtar. Each frigate was about half the size of a carrier. That still made them massive; these were beasts of war, predators of the depths of space. Four destroyers flew here too, smaller and faster than frigates. Seven corvettes whipped back and forth, small battleships with terrifying firepower. Three munitions freighters trundled between the warships, carrying everything the fleet needed, from nuclear weapons to battle rations. A hospital ship flew here too, its white hull emblazoned with a red serpent coiling around a staff. Finally, dozens of shuttles bustled back and forth, ferrying crew between the starships.

Marco and Addy stood in their own shuttle, staring at this panorama of military might.

"Wow," Addy said. "All this for little Lailani."

"All this for the scum," Marco said. "If they make a move on New Siberia, this fleet will stop them."

"Eh, we could have taken on the scum ourselves," Addy said. "Just you and me."

"Yes, we've taken on quite a few enemies by ourselves, haven't we, Ads? I must say, I prefer not pushing our luck. If Lailani is part scum, we must be part cats. And we're running low on lives."

She held his hand. "Poet, you can do this. Represent the president on the ship, I mean. I'm proud of you. You deserve this honor." She caressed his cheek. "I know you just feel like an author, not a commander. But you're the bravest warrior I know. And the smartest man I know. I love you. You're going to kick ass."

"You ain't so bad yourself." He winked.

"Damn right."

The shuttle flew closer to the Ishtar. A hangar opened, and they flew into the starfighter carrier.

* * * * *

A host of officers and men filled the hangar, standing in formation. A mustached NCO shouted: "Commander on deck!"

Hundreds of heels slammed together. The NCO saluted. Marco stepped out of the shuttle and returned the salute.

He stood for a moment, getting his bearings. The shuttle hangar was cavernous. Several mule-class shuttles, similar to the one Marco and Addy had flown, docked near the bulkheads. The mules were used to ferry troops back and forth between the starships. As transport vessels, they were heavily armored and lightly armed. No starfighters docked here. Starfighters, like Firebirds and Falcons, were far more sophisticated and deadly than mules, and they had their own hangars elsewhere on the ship.

Soldiers stood here in two rows. To one side stood brave men and women of Space Territorial Command. They lived aboard this starship. Some had been serving here for years. They were navigators, gunners, starfighter pilots, all the soldiers who kept this floating fortress going. Like Marco, they wore navy trousers, blazers, and caps. The senior officers even carried sabers on their hips—they were reserved for formal events.

On the other side stood representatives of the Marine Infantry Corps. They wore white-and-gray camo fatigues made for winter warfare. They were warriors, every one of them. They had trained to deploy in dropships, storm enemy strongholds, and achieve victory at any cost. Marco hoped he wouldn't need to deploy them on this mission.

Marco was perhaps overseeing the mission, but he was not replacing the Ishtar's commander. That commander now walked across the deck, smiling.

Marco saluted. "Brigadier Crawford!"

The brigadier returned the salute, then smiled and shook Marco's hand. "Welcome aboard, Colonel Emery! Welcome to the Ishtar. It's lovely to have a war hero aboard."

Marco returned the smile. "The pleasure is mine, sir."

Crawford was a tall, broad-shouldered man in his sixties. He sported a white mustache and an eye patch. As a brigadier, he was the senior officer in the fleet. He commanded both the Ishtar and the ships accompanying her.

Marco was there as the president's representative. Technically, Marco commanded this operation. After all, he wielded Ben-Ari's authority. But Crawford outranked him. Crawford also knew a hell of a lot more about commanding an armada.

"Sir, I want to assure you, I'm not here to step on any toes," Marco said. "I'm just here to help. I won't get in your way."

"Of course, of course!" Crawford was all affable smiles, but the smile didn't reach his one eye. "No harm in having a president's man aboard, just to keep us on our toes. Even brigadiers need babysitters sometimes." He winked. It was odd to see a man with one eye wink.

A few senior officers approached next. They were the bridge crew, the overseers of this starship. They saluted and spoke to Marco. They shook his hand.

"We all heard the stories about your heroism in the wars, sir," a lieutenant colonel said. "It's an honor to have you here."

They all greeted Addy too, some even bowing their heads to her in honor. They all knew the exploits of Addy Linden, the great heroine of the Alien Wars.

These powerful men admired Marco and Addy. Respected them. But Marco still felt ill at ease. At forty, he was the youngest senior officer here. Maybe the least experienced too, despite the many missions he had fought in. Definitely the least experienced when it came to running a fleet. Most of his experience was fighting on the ground as a grunt. Not very useful up here in space.

And—Marco hated to admit it—but being short didn't help. He knew it shouldn't matter. But it did.

Marco stood five-foot-eight on a good day. As a grunt, that had never mattered much. Sure, he took some ribbing, but it was all good-natured. Just friends busting his balls. When you fought in the trenches, nobody cared how big you were. If you could fight, that was all that mattered. In fact, he wasn't even the smallest man in his old platoon. Pinky had been much smaller, and that little son of a bitch had been a savage.

But Marco noticed something over the years. As he rose in rank, the average height he encountered rose too. A man's average height back in Canada was only an inch or two taller than Marco. But when he met senior officers, they were usually taller. Quite a bit taller. It was rare to find a leader under six feet tall. This was true in politics too. And in the corporate world. In fact, it was a tradition that went back thousands of years. Leaders were tall.

Humans wanted to follow a leader. And they looked up to tall men. Literally and figuratively. Society elevated tall men to CEOs, generals, presidents, Hollywood stars.

Some short men made it to the top. But they always seemed to compensate somehow. They were particularly aggressive, mean, loudmouthed. Napoleon complex perhaps. They relied on pure arrogance, attitude, or talent. I'm shorter than everyone? Well, then I'll prove myself better than everyone too!

Marco didn't want to compensate. He didn't want to bark and puff his chest and strut around like a little French emperor. And he didn't want to boast of his talents. So he felt it. A certain awkwardness. The mighty leader of this mission, standing short!

Would the crew follow him?

Marco sighed. His self-confidence was definitely struggling here. He would simply have to rely on his street cred.

"At ease, soldiers!" he said to the crowd—not just the officers but everyone in the hangar bay. "My name is Colonel Marco Emery. President Ben-Ari asked me to accompany this Carrier Strike Group to New Siberia. I fought on New Siberia during the Cyborg Wars. It's a harsh planet but a valuable one. On New Siberia, the Human Commonwealth keeps its prisoners of war. You know them as the scummers—the enemy that attacked Earth last month. The president and I consulted with Military Intelligence, and we believe the scum will attempt an attack on New Siberia to free the prisoners. Our job is simple. We show up. We look tough. And hopefully we repel an attack. This is guard duty, plain and simple. But if we must—we're ready to fight."

Well, there you go, he thought. I name-dropped Einav. That should help. Street cred for the win.

Addy strutted forward next, chest thrust out, fists on her hips. Unlike Marco, she wore the camos of a marine.

"You heard Colonel Emery!" she cried to the crowd. "The scum. That's right—the fucking scum centipede shitbags from outer space. The same fuckers that bombed Earth when we were babies. They're back! And the scummers, the ones that look like us, well, they're even meaner. Well, I say fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all! We beat the bugs back in '43, and we'll beat 'em again. Guard duty? Aww hell, I almost want the buggers to attack. There are only three things I love in this world. Cold beer, a hot dog, and pumping aliens full of bullets. Who's with me?"

A few soldiers cheered. Most looked confused.

Marco leaned toward his wife. "Yes, thank you, Addy. Eloquent as always."

She leaned toward him, whispered in his ear, "Oh fuck, Poet, I messed it up. I love four things. Sex too."

"Too late, Addy. I think the moment has passed."

"And freaks!" Addy said. "Five things. Let me start over." She cleared her throat, turned back toward the crowd. "You heard Colonel Eme— Ow, Marco, stop! Give me back the mic!" Feedback screeched across the deck, making everyone wince.

"Addy, please." Marco wrestled the mic from her.

"Ah hell, take it, take it." Addy crossed her arms and pouted.

Well, things are certainly starting on the right foot, Marco thought.

He accompanied the officers to the bridge. He gave the order. The Ishtar and her companion ships fired up their warp engines. With streaks of lavender light, they blasted into the distance.

CHAPTER TEN

Lailani sat in the cockpit of the Black Rose Viperess, gazing down at a frozen planet.

There it was. New Siberia. The most miserable planet in the galaxy.

There upon that frozen wasteland, she saw it.

A chill ran down her spine to the tailbone.

She was still in space, orbiting the planet, but her telescopes were sharp. And there was no denying it. Ben-Ari could call it a relocation facility. But Lailani knew what it was. She saw the concrete walls. The barbed wire. The guard towers.

"A concentration camp," she said. "They put our people in a concentration camp. Our friends did this. Marco, Addy, and Einav. They did this."

Lailani stood very still. She did not tremble nor weep. But a tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto the control panel.

Kai walked up from behind, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed the top of her head. Lailani saw them reflected in the viewport. She was half his size, wearing a black catsuit. The fabric was woven with graphene strands. Though as thin as linen, her catsuit was stronger than a knight's armor.

She had painted a symbol on the catsuit's chest: five red scars, as if etched by claws. The mark of a starling's wrath. She had designed this symbol herself. The symbol of a rising nation. Of her people.

She looked at her face next. A delicate face. Almost fragile. Doll-like. The skin olive-toned, the eyes dark. Her hair was chin length these days, as black and smooth as the fabric she wore. Gazing at herself felt strange. She still looked like a girl. Just a teenage girl. Looking at her, nobody would guess that she was forty. Starlings aged slowly. For all Lailani knew, she might live to be a thousand. Scum could live for centuries, but nobody knew how long starlings could live. Lailani was the first starling ever created.

Then she looked at Kai. In many ways, he was like her. He too was Asian. He too had been born to a prostitute. He too had grown up in the slums. He too was tattooed, scarred, unwanted.

He too was a starling.

And that was what mattered now. Not a person's heritage. Not their upbringing. Not their faith or looks or anything else. Right now humanity was divided by one line alone. On one side—the old. On the other side—the new.

The starlings were the future. Humans touched with starlight. A new race. A new step in evolution.

Lailani had fought all her life for Earth. But she had never truly fit in. She had always been a monster to them. And now she knew her life's purpose. To be here. To fight for the starlings. To usher in a new era, a new nation. She would free the captives, and she would build this nation among the stars.

"We'll get them out," Kai said, holding her in his strong arms. "We'll free our people."

She raised an eyebrow. "Our people?"

He nodded. "Our people. I was shocked when I woke up and found myself to be a starling. I was hurt. I felt that I caught something. A disease. But I've been living with it for a few days now, and I accept it." He leaned down, kissed her cheek. "I'm proud of who we are. And I'm proud of you."

"We'll build a good world for the starlings. And for Tala. And … maybe someday you and I will have children too. Little starlings." Lailani felt her cheeks blush. "Oh, I blurted that out, didn't I? I'm sorry. I don't mean to scare you away, Kai. I know we've just been together for a few months, and . . ." She bit her lip. "I'm such an idiot."

Kai stroked her hair, his hand tattooed, callused, a hand that had wielded many weapons—but it was so soft as he caressed her. His face was angular, a hard face, already showing premature crow's-feet around the eyes. A rakish face with his flopping mohawk falling to one side, his pointy goatee, the pierced eyebrow and nostril. But as he gazed at her, his face was soft, and he kissed her lips.

"Let's build a home for our people and fill it with babies," he said.

She grinned. "Thanks for not running away. Not like …" She heaved a sigh. "Not like my friends."

Kai's eyes softened. "Lailani, they're just trying to do the best they can."

She took a step back. Her little hands, so small, so soft, curled into fists. She had always been the smallest one. On the streets. At boot camp. In the wars. She had always relied on her anger and tenacity. That would not change now.

"They betrayed us. It was Einav, a woman I loved, who put our people in this camp. It was Addy and Marco, people I loved just as much, who carried out the president's orders. When they spit on starlings, they spit on me. On us." She sniffed. "But I don't care. I don't care how much they hurt me. Because they're in my past, and we have a future together. We'll build a future. A beautiful future for you and me—and for all starlings."

Kai gazed out the viewport at New Siberia. A planet storming with blizzards, covered with ice. The concentration camp huddled in a snowy valley.

Lailani could see through the eyes of the prisoners, hear through their ears, know what they knew. She didn't need spies. The hive gave her all the info she needed. She knew that thirty thousand starlings were imprisoned below. And that only a thousand guards watched them.

Reinforcements were on their way from Earth. She knew that too. But Lailani had gotten here first. Those prison guards shouldn't be a problem. She would leave their bodies in the ice.

Thirty thousand starlings! Once freed, they would form the nucleus of a nascent nation. A nation on Abaddon. A nation apart from Earth.

"Are you sure Ben-Ari has sent ships this way?" Kai said. "Are you sure Marco and Addy are on those ships?"

Lailani nodded. "Yes. But they're moving slowly. Their starships are big and cumbersome." She smiled. "It was smart sending the ultimatum from a nearby star. They probably thought I sent my message from Abaddon, that it would take us two weeks to reach New Siberia. We just had to hop right over and beat them here. We have time to set up a few surprises for our dear friends."

Kai frowned. "How do you know all this? How can you track Addy and Marco?"

"I've seen it. I can see it right now."

"How?"

"I'm the Queen of Claws. I can see things through the hive mind. Things simple starlings or centipedes cannot. I have servants in many places. Eyes I can see from. Ears I can hear from." She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. "I can see them now. Flying closer. Racing through space. Marco and Addy. They don't even know I'm watching. They'll be here in two days."

She opened her eyes and smiled.

Kai gasped. "You have a spy in their fleet! A starling spy!"

"Maybe. A magician does not reveal her tricks."

"Two days." Kai looked down at the planet, then hopped on his heels, giddy. "We have time! We can kill the guards. Then we can load the starlings into our podships—they'll fit—and be back on Abaddon before the Earthlings realize what happened."

He nudged the yoke, yawing the Black Rose Viperess away from the planet. They gazed into deep space now. There they floated. Hundreds of podships. Centipede vessels.

They looked like floating wombs the size of houses. Scum, at least as a hive mind, had intelligence on par with humans. They knew chemistry and could forge metal, though they treated metal with suspicion, reserving its use for religious worship. They preferred stone and soil, digging elaborate labyrinths underground.

But their favorite material was carbon.

They loved to weave with life. They constantly tinkered with their own DNA, spinning, spooling, tweaking, changing. They had begun life as small centipedes, no larger than the bugs found on Earth, but they had evolved. They had grown larger, stronger, faster. They hunted for carbon across the cosmos, bringing back caches of stolen DNA. They had created the starlings. They had created Lailani.

And with carbon, they built their starship. They were organic things. Giant floating organs in space. The hulls were made of muscle and skin, and veins ran through them like electric cables. Neurons were embedded throughout the structure, forming basic brains, always calculating navigational charts. Each pod was a living creature, genetically engineered, built for one purpose: spaceflight.

The pods' hulls were translucent. Standing here aboard the Black Rose Viperess, Lailani could see centipedes writhing inside the pods. It was like looking at larvae squirming inside eggs.

Lailani couldn't help it. She shuddered. She was perhaps part scum herself. But looking at these ships gave her the willies. She was thankful that she was flying in the Viperess, a human-built starship. A ship with real bunks, real chairs, a fridge with real food. And no giant centipedes knocking about.

"No," she said. "We won't transport the starlings in the pods. They're inhospitable for us starlings. These pods are hot, foul, full of hungry centipedes and oozing chemicals. A starling can survive in one for a few hours, maybe. But it's two weeks from here to Abaddon. Our people would never survive the journey."

Kai blinked. "So we came here for nothing? We flew all the way from Abaddon to New Siberia—and we can't even transport our people back!" He looked around him. "I mean, the Black Rose Viperess is barely larger than a semitrailer. We can fit a few people in here, but not tens of thousands!"

Lailani caressed his cheek. "Oh, sweet Kai, did you really think I came here without a plan?"

"Oh? More tricks from the magician?"

She nodded. "We have two days. And a lot of work to do."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Warden Wagner was having a good day before the president called him.

Damn meddlesome woman.

Wagner liked it out here on the frontier. Most people thought him crazy. To work out on New Siberia, a planet light-years from Earth? A frozen planet where the snow never stopped, where the wind could cut through your bones? Where there wasn't so much as a whorehouse in sight?

Yes, they thought him crazy. Most officers of the Prison Bureau served on Earth. They punched in, guarded degenerates for a few hours, punched out, nursed a beer or two at the bar, went home and fucked their wife, slept in a cozy bed, and then it started all over again. A simple life.

Out here on New Siberia, there were no houses. You lived in the prison. Right by the prisoners. There were no bars, unless you counted the little canteen, but that place only sold pop anyway. There were no wives. No kids. No comforts.

There was concrete, ice, snow, and the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy.

And Wagner loved it.

On Earth, he had been nobody. A lowly prison guard. He had lived that life. Punch in, punch out. The other guards all did their duty without complaining. Wagner had wilted.

But here on New Siberia? Ah—here he was an emperor! This was his domain.

Here he could breathe.

There were plains of ice and snow, endless plains where he could hunt the slow, furry beasts with no name. Sometimes a prisoner escaped. Sometimes Wagner let one escape. And then he could truly hunt. The trophies of his hunts filled his office. Fur pelts. Horns. A hand in a jar. It was a little office, just a concrete box high in a tower. To him it was a throne room.

From up here, he could oversee his domain. Rows of concrete buildings. Icy streets. A mess hall. A few commissaries. A little movie theater. The prisoners moved along the streets. They had no prison cells here. The scummers were free to roam within their town.

Some on Earth thought it cruel to imprison the scummers here. They called it a concentration camp. Wagner laughed. A concentration camp! Ridiculous. The scummers had it easy here. If it were up to him, he'd keep every damn one in a cage. Leave them to rot. Maybe put a few prisoners together in each cage, let them starve, wait and see how long before they became cannibals.

He tried that once. Just once. Just to see. He had dug a pit, put a few scummers in—the real nasty ones that couldn't be trusted to roam free. It took two weeks—two damn weeks—before the first man began to eat the others.

A few guards, witnessing the little experiment, had threatened to squeal. Wagner took them out on a hunting trip, just to make amends. They never came back. An unfortunate accident involving a crack in the ice. The bodies were never found, of course. And Wagner never put anyone else in a pit. After all, he wanted to keep this job. And too many guards were rats. Too many of them squealed.

And now the damn president called him. Goddamn Einav Ben-Fucking-Ari. The so-called Golden Lioness. They said she was a war heroine. That she had fought aliens. If you asked Wagner, she was nothing but a stuck-up little bitch.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, leaning back in his office chair. "I understand."

She appeared on his computer monitor. They didn't have fancy holograms here. Just a 2D image. The bitch was blabbering on about how he needed to treat the prisoners humanely. How she heard rumors of guard brutality. How it was his responsibility to ensure the prisoners were treated well—or else.

He kept nodding. Yes, ma'am. Of course, ma'am. We treat them all well, ma'am.

He amused himself by sticking little Post-it notes on the monitor. He scribbled on each one. A circle of alien dicks pointing at his president's head. She kept talking, oblivious.

"Wagner," she said, "I'm sending over a marine brigade. They'll assist you."

That got his attention. Wagner sat up straight. He glared at the monitor. "What? A marine brigade? Goddammit, I don't need the army here."

Ben-Ari stared at him, her green eyes hard like chips of jade. "Wagner, the marines aren't flying there to become more prison guards. They're flying there to defend the camp from external threats."

Wagner frowned. He leaned back in his chair, regarding the woman. "External threats?"

"Wagner, you heard the warnings, I imagine."

The warden guffawed. "All the scummers suddenly turning stiff as zombies, all talking together? Giving an ultimatum? Yeah, I heard 'em. We got the scummers here putting on the same show. If you ask me, it's nothing but a parlor trick."

"I take the threat seriously," Ben-Ari said. "A brigade of marines will be there within two days. They won't interfere with your duties within the camp. In fact, they have orders to remain outside the camp walls. You'll have warships in orbit too, patrolling the planet from above."

"Dear God." Wagner leaned forward again. The front legs of his chair thumped against the floor. "You're really taking this seriously. You're scared shitless."

"You have a thousand prison guards eleven light-years from Earth," Ben-Ari said. "You're understaffed. You're undefended. We're going to fix that. In two days, you'll have the marines. A week after that, I'm sending you another thousand prison guards. As well as ten thousand more prisoners. Hang tight for now, Wagner. And for God's sake, I don't want to hear any more talk of inhumane treatment!"

"Ma'am, with all due respect, my prisoners are not human."

"But you are!" she snapped. "Act like it!"

She hung up on him.

The damn bitch hung up on him.

Wagner cursed and shoved his desk aside. The monitor fell to the floor. A cup of coffee shattered.

Hiding under the desk, the scummer woman cowered.

"Please, sir, please don't hurt me again."

He looked down at her. She was naked. Chained. She looked a little like President Ben-Ari. Blond hair. Brown eyes instead of green, but nobody was perfect.

He stroked that blond hair. The woman trembled under his hand.

"I won't hurt you, my pet. You were so good during my call. You remained so quiet. You could have shouted out. Save me! Help me! But you didn't make a sound. I trained you well."

She looked up at him from the floor. "I'm a good prisoner, sir. Please. Please free my son."

He brushed her bruised cheek. "A good prisoner? Maybe. A good girl? I don't know about that. What was it you did on Earth? Oh right. You picked up a baseball bat, walked into a schoolyard, and began beating first graders to death." He tsked his tongue. "Naughty, naughty."

Tears rolled down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm so sorry. The King of Many Claws made me do it. Every day, I see their faces again. The children I killed. I'm so sorry." She wept. "But my son is innocent. Please, sir. Please free him."

He slapped her. Hard. She fell to the floor, and her blood splattered.

"Your son is a filthy scummer!" he shouted. "Just like you. Maybe I'll leave him forever in solitary confinement. Maybe I'll let him rot."

"No!" The woman rose to her knees. "Please. Please! He's only a child. Only twelve years old. He didn't do anything. Please free him. At least … at least let me bring him some food. Please."

Wagner leaned back in his chair, stroking his chin. "Well, I'm not unreasonable. Perhaps I'll let you bring him a nice, gooey peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Just like mom makes it. Mmm-mmm. My own mother used to make me a bit too many of those sandwiches, I think." He slapped his belly and laughed. "But first, before I let you make that delicious sandwich for your boy … there's something you're going to do for me." He unbuckled his pants. "You know what to do. Do your job well. And your son will eat tonight."

She shuffled closer, chains jangling, ready to do her work.

Before she could start, light flared outside.

Wagner squinted. The light flooded the office, blinding. The woman cowered. It was like a goddamn supernova.

"What the hell—" Wagner began when the boom hit.

* * * * *

Boom!

The sound was deafening. The window shattered. The concrete walls shook, and dust fell from the ceiling.

Wagner leaped to his feet, tugging up his pants. He kicked the chained woman aside. "Get the hell out of my way!"

He grabbed his pistol and rushed out the door.

He made his way into the prison yard, still buckling his belt. Hundreds of scummers stood there, their ankles and wrists chained. They were staring skyward. Prison guards stood among them, also staring up, covering their eyes with their palms.

Yellow and white stains spread across the sky, melting the falling snow. Rain began to fall. Rain! Actual rain on this frozen planet of endless snow and hail! Within seconds, the water froze, coating the yard with ice.

"What the hell is that?" Wagner muttered, staring at the sky. It looked like a nuclear blast.

He saw Maddox, his deputy, standing nearby. A submachine gun hung at his side. He was staring up at the sky too, scratching his head. While Wagner was short and wide, Maddox was tall and thin, and he sported a pencil-line mustache. If you asked Wagner, it made him look like a goddamn pervert. But the deputy was obsessed with that little rat tail on his upper lip and groomed it daily.

"Maddox!" Wagner barked, lolloping toward the taller man. "What in God's holy name happened here?"

"I'm not sure, sir. The sky just kinda … blew up. A huge explosion. Like a nuclear blast. Ka-boom!"

Wagner couldn't help it. He shuddered. And it wasn't just because this planet was so damn cold.

The president's words returned to him.

The enemy was planning an attack.

Goddamn, where were those marines? He needed them!

He stared again at the sky, squinting, trying to make out an enemy. He saw nothing but that white and yellow glow. The colors spread across the sky, oddly beautiful. They reminded him of bruises.

Wagner pulled his comlink from his belt. "Eastern guard tower, this is Warden Wagner, come in." He waited for a moment. "Come in, guard tower, goddammit."

No answer came. Wagner stared at his comlink. The screen was dead.

"Um, sir, is it broken?" Maddox said.

"Come here." Wagner grabbed the skinny man, yanked the comlink off his belt. "Let me try yours. Eastern tower, come in! North tower, south tower—do you read?"

He shook the second comlink. It was as dead as the first. He looked at a few other guards. They were trying to use their comlinks too, to no avail. The guards looked at him and shrugged.

The prisoners were muttering. A few glanced at the guards openly. Not even keeping their eyes lowered.

Wagner drew his electric baton. He pressed a button, and the top crackled with electricity. A few prisoners stepped back. They had tasted this baton's sting before.

"Back into your bunks, you scummers!" Wagner shouted. "Showtime is over. Back into your bunks!"

He was too lenient. This whole place was too lenient. These bastards should be in cages, not allowed to walk in the open. They were wild animals.

The prisoners weren't moving.

Wagner felt the blood rushing into his face.

"Dammit, you pieces of scum shit, move your asses now or—"

"Sir!" Maddox said, pointing at the sky. "Sir, look!"

Wagner looked up. He squinted, the prisoners forgotten. "What the hell is that? Is that . . . is that a person?"

Something was falling from the sky. Small. Dark. No, it couldn't be a person, could it?

"Gimme your binoculars." Wagner yanked them off Maddox's neck. "Let me take a look."

He pointed the binoculars at the sky, saw nothing.

"Um, sir," Maddox said, "the lens caps are still on."

Wagner growled and kicked his deputy. "Why the fuck did you leave them on? Moron!"

He plucked off the plastic caps, tossed them at Maddox in disgust, then looked at the sky again.

He saw it more clearly now. Yes, definitely a person. Falling through the sky. Not a parachute to be seen.

He zoomed in.

"It's some kind of China girl," he muttered. "Goddamn crazy bitch. Where did she come from?"

"Can I see, sir?"

"Shut the fuck up, Maddox." Wagner adjusted the lenses, bringing the girl into focus. "Pretty little thing. I wonder how pretty she'll look splattered across the courtyard."

"How did she get up there, sir?" Maddox said.

"Gotta have something to do with that blast," Wagner said. "You see, Maddox, one thing must have caused the other. A blast in the sky. A girl falling. She must have been flying. Her plane exploded. Maybe even a starship. She ejected."

"Sir, that was an awfully big explosion," Maddox said. "During the Alien Wars, I once saw a starship explode in the sky. Looked a bit like a shooting star, not much more. Are you sure it wasn't a nuclear blast or—"

"I told you to shut up, Maddox! You don't know shit about war. You spent the Alien Wars behind a goddamn desk. I actually fought, dammit. On the front lines."

That wasn't entirely true. Wagner had been a prison guard during the wars too. But he had guarded enemy prisoners—actual cyborgs, barely human at all. And it was only a few miles behind the front lines. A hundred miles tops. That was still considered the front line. That was still considered combat. He knew more about war than goddamn Maddox with his string bean legs and skull full of mashed potatoes.

"Sorry, sir," Maddox said. "I—"

"Why the hell are you all still in the yard!" Wagner bellowed, looking at the courtyard full of prisoners. "I told you to get into your bunks, dammit!"

But the prisoners just stood there. They were all staring at him. Every one of them. Hundreds of them. All still and staring. Creepy fuckers. A few guards grabbed them, began dragging them away. It was like dragging statues. The prisoners weren't moving at all. Their joints didn't even bend as the guards dragged them away. But their eyes moved. Their eyes kept following Wagner.

He wanted to beat every one of them bloody. But the girl falling from the sky reclaimed his attention. She was close now. Only seconds away. He wanted to be here to hear the satisfying splat.

And there she came! She fell past the guard towers, kept falling, heading right to the courtyard. Right toward Wagner.

She's going to fall on me!

He stepped back, aghast.

An instant before she could hit the ground, the girl activated a jetpack. Goddamn! Wagner hadn't even noticed her wearing it.

Streams of fire blazed out the two exhaust pipes. The girl skimmed the ground, then soared a few feet into the air. She hovered on twin pillars of fire, gazing down at the courtyard. The guards stepped back from the fire, gasping. A few raised their guns, but nobody fired.

It's hard to shoot such a pretty little thing, Wagner thought.

Why, the girl looked no older than twenty! Gorgeous cinnamon skin. She wore some kind of skintight diving suit. Her black hair streamed in the wind.

"Hey there!" Wagner holstered his baton and held out his open palms. "Why don't you put your feet on the ground, sweetheart! Where did you come from? Are you an angel fallen from heaven?"

She bobbed in the air, balancing on the jets of fire. Slowly she descended, the fire died, and her boots hit the ground. She faced Wagner, expressionless. A gust of snowy wind billowed her hair.

"Are you the warden here?"

"Why, you're a doll!" Wagner said. "I bet you're not five feet tall on heels. What's your name, gorgeous?"

She stepped closer to him. Her eyes narrowed the slightest. "I'm Lailani de la Rosa. Some call me the Queen of Claws. And I've come to take my people from this place."

Wagner glanced at the other guards, then back at Lailani. For a moment he was silent. Then he burst into laughter. On cue, his fellow guards laughed too.

"A regular Moses we have here!" Wagner roared, then imitated the girl in falsetto. "Let my people go!" He wiped his eye, shook his head, sighed. "Why, pretty little China girl, why don't you fly off to where you came from?"

He lifted his baton. The tip crackled. The red electricity reflected in Lailani's dark eyes.

She spun in a circle, speaking louder. "Hear me, guards! I am the Queen of Claws. I've come for my people. Stand down! Lower your weapons! Let the starlings go." She turned back toward Wagner, and a crooked smile found her lips. "Or by God, I will rain down death and fire upon this place."

Wagner stared at her for a moment, blinking, then tossed back his head and laughed. "You? You'll destroy us? By yourself?"

Her crooked smile grew. "A starling is never by herself." She raised her hands to the sky. "Come, brothers of the hive!"

The sky cracked open.

Purple pods plunged from above like asteroids, moving with terrifying speed. Within seconds, they slammed into the courtyard and cracked open.

Centipedes emerged. Giant centipedes the size of crocodiles.

"Scum!" Wagner shouted.

Lailani ignited her jetpack. She rose several feet into the air, held out her hands, and claws sprouted from the fingertips.

"Fellow starlings, rise!" she cried. "Rise and fight for your freedom! Your queen is here! Rise!"

All around the courtyard, the prisoners stepped toward the guards. They sneered, revealing fangs. Their claws gleamed. The centipedes moved among them, screeching, mandibles clacking.

Wagner aimed at Lailani and opened fire.

She rose higher on the flames, dodging the bullets. He fired again and again. She flew left, right … and then forward.

The last thing Warden Wagner saw before she ripped out his throat was her snarling fangs and mad dark eyes.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It didn't take long.

An hour, maybe two, and the guards were all dead.

Pity the marines aren't here yet, Lailani thought. Would have been fun.

But they were coming. They'd be here soon. And Lailani would be ready for them.

She walked along the frozen streets, surveying New Siberia Hybrid Relocation Facility. The place the prisoners called the Freezer.

Dead guards lay everywhere, blood staining their gray robes. Already snow was covering the corpses. A few centipedes approached the dead, sniffed, and raised their antennae toward Lailani like hungry dogs begging for a treat. She shook her head, and the centipedes backed down.

"I won't have you feed on these dead," Lailani said. "They were human. And I'm mostly human. They fought against me, so I killed them, but I won't desecrate their corpses. Drag them into the alleyways. The cold air will preserve the bodies. When the marines arrive, they'll find them. Whatever marines survive can take them home for burial."

The centipedes probably didn't understand all that. Human customs were strange to them. When a centipede died, the others consumed the body. They reabsorbed the dead's nutrients. It was an honor. Why waste good protein by burying it underground? But Lailani imposed her will on them. She was the Queen of Claws, and she sat on the throne of Abaddon. They did not understand, but they would obey. They grabbed the bodies with their pincers and began piling them up.

Several starlings, leaders among the prisoners, walked at Lailani's side.

"Thank God you're here," one said. He was a tall man with dark bags under his eyes. "We've been rioting. We killed one guard two days ago. For that, the warden took us all to the courtyard, where he randomly chose ten prisoners. He forced them to fight one another like gladiators. Until only one remained alive. The guards watched and laughed. Finally they shot the last survivor in the head. We all had to watch. We all had to cheer."

Lailani shook her head in disgust. "And the humans call us monsters."

"The warden raped some of the prisoners," said another starling, a woman with straw-colored hair. "Oh, he didn't call it rape. But it was. Sleep with me, and I'll make sure your husband isn't beaten tonight. Sleep with me, and I'll make sure your child gets a coat and doesn't freeze to death." Tears ran down her cheeks. "We had to obey. We did what we had to. To survive."

Lailani shivered. Did Ben-Ari know this was going on? No, impossible! Even Ben-Ari had her limits. Yes, the president had betrayed Lailani. Had imprisoned the starlings. But surely her dear friend, her former leader, her former lover—surely she didn't know of this horror.

Yet this horror had happened. It had happened under Einav Ben-Ari's watch.

Lailani tightened her lips, fearing they would tremble.

Look what you've done, Einav. Look what you created. Look what you did to me. To us. I loved you once.

"You … you …"

The voice came from behind a stack of dead bodies. Lailani walked around the gruesome pile. A prison guard lay there, covered in blood, a hole in his gut. He stared up at Lailani, spat blood.

"You … monster!" he managed. "You … freak! Damn you, scummer. Damn you to hell!"

Lailani looked down at him. A young man. Barely more than a boy. Dying.

"I did not want to do this," Lailani said. "You should have let us go."

The prison guard was shaking now. Going into shock. "We should … we should have killed you … you scummers … when we had a chance! We . .. should … kill you …"

He fell back, unable to speak anymore. His leg twitched. His fist loosened, dropping a tattered photo of a young woman, maybe his girlfriend back home.

Oh God, Lailani thought. Oh God. Oh God. What have I done?

"Get me a med kit!" she shouted. "Somebody get a med kit over here!"

She knelt by the guard, placed her hands on his wound. A deep gash. The work of a scum's claw. She tried to stop the bleeding, but the blood flowed over her fingers. By the time somebody found the infirmary, ran back with bandages, the guard was dead.

Lailani lowered her head, closed her eyes, and laid her hand on the bloody man's head.

"He hated me," she whispered. "He hated all of us. He kept us imprisoned. So why do I feel so bad?"

A familiar voice spoke behind her. "Because you have a heart."

She turned around, sniffing, unable to dry her tears with her bloody hands. Kai stood there on the frozen street, the cold wind fluttering his mohawk.

"You're supposed to be back on the Black Rose Viperess," she said.

He shrugged. "Eh, Tala is fine on her own for a bit. I figured I'd come down for a look." He sighed. "I missed some fun, didn't I?"

Lailani ran a few steps and hugged him. She laid her cheek against his chest. He was only wearing a sleeveless shirt.

"You need to wear a jacket on this planet, dumbass," she mumbled, nuzzling him.

"What, and hide these beautiful tattoos?" Kai said. "No way, babe." A shiver ran through him. "Just keep hugging me for a while. It's damn cold down here."

Finally she pulled apart from him, sending him back to the Viperess to watch over Tala. The last thing Lailani wanted was Tala to step outside, walk around the camp, and see this slaughter, see what her mother had done.

All my life, I killed monsters, Lailani thought. The scum. The marauders. The grays. The cyborgs. But now I killed men. And I came with an army of monsters. Maybe Einav is right. Maybe I am a monster. But if so, I'm too far down along this path. I did this for the starlings. For all these imprisoned monsters. For them I must keep going.

She returned into the courtyard. The starlings gathered. Thousands of them. Those who couldn't fit in the courtyard stood on rooftops and side streets, gazing in. They all listened. Lailani spoke.

"Fellow starlings! I'm Lailani de la Rosa, and I've come to lead us to a new home. We don't belong here on New Siberia. And Earth no longer wants us. To the humans, we're monsters. They imprisoned us. Beat us. Killed us. This ends now! We will tell the humans that we are not scummers. We are not some mindless killers. We are starlings. We are people blessed with a dash of alien DNA. With a sprinkle of starlight. We are worthy of life!"

A few people cheered. But most mumbled and whispered among themselves.

"Where will we go?" somebody cried. "All our lives, we lived as humans. We don't know any other life."

"We'll go to Abaddon!" Lailani said.

Mutters passed through the crowd.

"The planet of the scum?"

"A bug planet!"

"We can't live there. We're from Earth!"

"I'm human, dammit!" somebody shouted. "So what if I'm one percent scum? I'm still human!"

"We want to go back to Earth!"

Lailani ignited her jetpack. She rose ten meters into the air, towering above the rest of them. "Earth betrayed us! They tossed us out! Exiled us here! We can't go back. I know this hurts. It hurts me too. My friends turned against me. It broke my heart. But I will build us a new home."

"But we can't live on Abaddon, it's a desert!" somebody said. "Find us another planet then. An Earthlike planet!"

Cries of agreement rose from the crowd.

"All Earthlike planets within a thousand light-years have been claimed!" Lailani said. "Not all by humans. Most by aliens. Good real estate is in short supply in the galaxy. Even if we did find a free Earthlike planet, a paradise that no other species has claimed—how will we defend it? The Earthlings would nuke from orbit! But on Abaddon we have safety. Fleets of podships and armies of centipedes defend us. We can live in the tunnels, safe from bombardment. We can build a home there. Maybe not as comfortable as Earth. There won't be blue skies or grassy meadows. We'll live in caves. But we'll be free! We'll be free and proud!"

The crowd talked among themselves.

One starling, the woman who told Lailani the horrible tales of the guards, stepped forward. She stood at Lailani's side.

"I'm with Lailani!" she said. "She saved us. She came from the sky on a pillar of fire, and she delivered us from evil. I'll follow her through the darkness of space. To whatever land she takes us, I'll follow." She bowed before Lailani. "Queen."

Another man stepped forward. A young man with one eye and a broken arm. "I'll fight for you, Lailani. I'm a starling. And I'm proud!" He knelt. "Queen."

More of them stepped forward. Men. Women. Children. On Earth, they had been regular people from all walks of life. Until a few weeks ago, they had not even known they were anything but human.

Over the past few weeks, their universe had flipped inside out. Obeying a cruel king, they had killed. Now a queen would lead them to a new home.

They knelt before her in the snow.

"Queen."

"Queen."

"Queen."

Hundreds. Then thousands. Then tens of thousands knelt before her.

Lailani stood among them, gazing upon her people. She had never felt prouder. And she had never felt more horrified.

You betrayed me, my friends, she thought. But I found a new community. I found new purpose. All my life, I was broken. All my life, I was less. Not fully human. Not fully alien. Not belonging to either world. For the first time, I'm whole.

* * * * *

That night, Lailani walked over the snowy plains of New Siberia, leaving the prison camp behind. The clouds had finally parted. The light of four moons shone, sparkling on the endless plains of snow. Distant mountains soared toward the stars. It was oddly beautiful.

She approached the Black Rose Viperess. The starship stood a mile from the camp, her treads buried in the snow. With all the snow squalls, you couldn't see the camp from here. It was important to keep Tala away from the horror.

Let the girl see the snow and stars, Lailani thought. She's seen enough blood in her life.

She entered the little starship, shivering with cold, and brushed the snow from her hair. Kai and Tala were sitting in the hold, playing chess. They greeted her with warm hugs.

Lailani sat down in the armchair, wrapping herself in a plaid blanket. Her fingers were white and shaking. Kai put on a kettle of water, speaking about everyone needing some hot chocolate, while Tala set up the chessboard for a new game.

"Lailani." Kai sat beside her. "I've been scanning the sky with our sensors. The Human Defense Force fleet is ahead of schedule. They'll be here by dawn. It looks like a big fleet. They sent an entire carrier strike force."

Lailani bolted upright. "An entire carrier … My God."

"It's a fleet that could devastate a planet." Kai shuddered. "Are you sure we shouldn't get the hell out of here?"

"I'm sure," Lailani said. "I won't abandon my starlings here. And I won't transport them in gooey pods full of centipedes. They'd never survive the flight. I'll lead our people to Abaddon, yes. But for now, we're stuck here. So this is where we make our stand."

The kettle shrieked. Kai raced to shut it off. He returned with steaming mugs of hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream and marshmallows.

"Lailani, are you sure we can win?" he said, settling down beside her, cradling his mug.

She nodded. "We're ready for them. Marco and Addy are coming here with an army. But I have a nation. A hundred starlings are patrolling the camp walls, disguised as prison guards. My centipede warriors await in hiding. They know the plan. They won't fail. The board is set." Lailani sipped her hot chocolate and moved a pawn on the chessboard. "Let the game begin."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Marco stood on the bridge of the HDFS Ishtar, hands clasped behind his back, and stared out into space. The cosmos spread before him. The stars streaked by, drawing lines of light, as the carrier strike force raced through warped spacetime.

The Ishtar, flagship of the fleet, flew in the center, a massive vessel bristling with cannons. The other ships constantly surrounded her, protecting the carrier. The HDFS Lulal led the force; she was a mighty frigate with cannons so large you could drive a car through the barrels. The HDFS Shara, the fleet's second frigate, brought up the rear, guarding the flank. These three massive ships bore the names of Canaanite gods: Ishtar, goddess of war, and Lulal and Shara, her two children. They formed the bulk of the strike force's power.

Smaller ships flew here too. Four destroyers guarded the flanks, named after the Four Guardians of Eastern mythology. They were the Black Tortoise, Dragon, Vermilion Bird, and White Tiger. There were twelve corvettes too, named after the twelve zodiac signs. The corvettes flew above and below. Thus the Ishtar, mother of them all, was protected from all sides. She flew within a sphere of firepower. Close to her hull flew the hospital ship and munitions ships; they too were precious, and the fleet would not survive without them.

Marco could see all those ships from the bridge. Whenever he turned, a holographic screen followed him through the air. Wherever the screen floated, the hull became invisible, and Marco could gaze out into space. There was no static viewport aboard the Ishtar. He just had to turn in any direction, and he could see through the walls. Clever. Of course, the hull was still as opaque as always. The holographic screens took their video feed from cameras mounted outside the hull. But the effect was flawless. Standing here, Marco had X-ray vision. Superman style.

He missed home. But at least out here he got to play with all the latest army toys.

Brigadier Crawford came to stand beside him. The tall man clasped his own hands behind his back, aping Marco. He looked out into space and nodded. "She's beautiful, isn't she? Our Milky Way galaxy. Gods above, every time I'm down on Earth for any length of time, I forget how beautiful she is."

"Gods, sir?" Marco asked.

Crawford raised an eyebrow. "You're not a pious man, Marco?"

"Most men would say God in singular. You used the plural form."

The brigadier nodded. "So I did. I've flown all over the galaxy, and every civilization I met believes in a god. But they're all different gods. Some gods are said to create the cosmos. Others are local gods. They seem to rule only one planet. Sometimes even one nation. Hell, Earth itself has worshipped thousands of gods over its history. Well, I'm hedging my bets. I believe in them all."

"You must be a busy man, sir," Marco said. "Friday at the mosque, Saturday at synagogue, Sunday at church, and the rest of eternity in a million temples across the galaxy?"

Crawford laughed. "I like you, Marco. You get it. You get how absurd it all is. Oh, and drop the sirs when it's just the two of us. Call me Henry."

"Sure thing, Henry," Marco said. But it felt odd. Brigadier Henry Crawford was old enough to be his father and commanded this fleet. And yet Marco was overseeing the mission. Who worked for whom? Marco wasn't sure.

Why did you choose me, Einav? he thought. And again he felt like an impostor. The crew respected him. Even the brigadier respected him. And Marco worried about letting them down. About revealing himself to be a fraud. Just a guy who hiked in the Canadian woods, wrote silly stories about dragons and goblins, and sometimes helped his wife cook hot dogs on a rake. Not a hero. Certainly not a leader.

But another voice spoke inside him.

Come on, cut the crap. You commanded infantry battalions in the Gray War. You led men to battle against the cyborgs. You saved the world during the marauder invasion. Stop acting like a wimp, man up, and command this fleet!

It was his own voice. The voice of Marco from the wars. Marco the soldier. Maybe it just took time to get used to the uniform again.

You were the president of all Earth when you were younger than me, Einav, he thought. I can handle a measly little strike force.

"Henry, we're almost at New Siberia," Marco said. "I want to make sure we're on the same page here. We'll do whatever we can to avoid violence. If the scum show up, we deter them. We send them back to Abaddon. We don't attack unless we must. We're here to guard our asset, not start another intergalactic war." He looked at Crawford. "I don't want a single gun firing unless the scum fire first."

The brigadier stared out into space. His face tightened just the slightest. "New Siberia is clearly within the domain of the Human Commonwealth. If the scum come close, that's in violation of our sovereignty. According to our code of conduct, we must fire."

"Normally that would be true," Marco agreed. "But this situation is more delicate."

Crawford turned toward him. He looked down at Marco from his towering height. "You're talking about the defector."

Marco tightened his lips. He didn't like anyone calling Lailani a defector. But in a sense, that's what she was now.

"Yes," Marco said. "The president was very clear. Colonel de la Rosa still controls many sleeper agents on Earth. We believe some of those agents might be in charge of military assets. Possibly even nuclear weapons. Some might even be serving aboard this very ship. Our best DNA detectors have a false negative rate of five percent. We're missing a lot of scummers, Henry. Last time the scummers attacked, we lost millions of lives. We cannot antagonize Lailani de la Rosa."

He added her last name just quickly enough. He had almost referred to her as simply "Lailani," implying far too much familiarity.

Crawford seemed to catch the slight pause. He took a few steps, pacing the deck. But it seemed to Marco that he was prowling. Circling him. Like a predator.

"Lailani de la Rosa," the tall brigadier said. "Is it true what they say? That you were romantically involved with her?" He paused, stood before Marco. Loomed above him. "That you two were engaged?"

Marco stared at the older man, refusing to be cowed. "Don't be coy, sir. You know that's why I'm here. I know her. I understand her. You don't. I'm here to make sure we resolve this diplomatically."

Crawford smiled thinly. "Your exploits in the Alien Wars are well known, young Marco. Our beloved president wrote all about them in her memoirs. You served directly under her. Distinguished yourself on the field of battle. Do you know what I did in the Alien Wars, Marco?"

"At first you served as XO of the HDFS Darwin, which saw service above Abaddon. During the Gray Winter, you rose to command the HDFS Gemini destroyer. Five years ago, you assumed command of this starfighter carrier."

"You've done your homework, young Marco." The brigadier ran his hands along a control panel, almost caressing the plastic and glass. "That is the official answer. What I truly did was obey the diplomats." He looked at Marco, and his one eye narrowed shrewdly. "They wanted a war of attrition against the scum. So I gave them one. I could have destroyed scum patrols, but I let them fly by. To avoid … what was it the diplomats call it? Escalation. If you ask me, they were afraid. Afraid to get a little bloody. And their hesitance cost many lives."

Marco stared steadily into the other man's one eye. "I know your son died on Abaddon. Twenty years ago now. I know the pain of losing a loved one never ends."

"My son … my son!" Crawford's voice rose to a shout. "My son could have lived if the diplomats had butted out! If they had let us win the war! But no. They held us back. With their soft hands, and their fine suits, and their opinion polls—they held us soldiers back! But …" Crawford took a deep breath. "I obeyed them. And I obey them still. Because I am a soldier, and it's my duty to obey. And I will obey you, Marco Emery. You run this show. I'm here to serve."

Jesus, Marco thought. The man was certainly carrying a chip or two on his shoulders.

Marco kept staring at the brigadier, wondering if he should chastise the man for his little emotional outburst. He decided to go for appeasement.

"Henry, I know I can count on you."

That did the trick. The tall officer relaxed. "Aw, hell, Marco. You should know something about me. Off the record, I speak my mind. I hope that won't be a problem."

"Not at all, Henry. I value your opinions."

"Now hug it out, bitches!" rose a voice from behind them. Addy strutted onto the bridge.

"Addy, I thought you'd be with the marine brigade," Marco said.

She yawned. "I kept beating them at poker. It was boring."

"You cheated, didn't you?"

She gasped. "I object! What kind of immoral cretin do you think I am?" A few playing cards fell from her sleeve. "Um, ignore those. Those are my, um, baseball cards."

"Addy, I can see that they're aces," Marco said.

"Um … damn right… they're aces! Ace players!" She quickly stuffed the cards into her bra.

New Siberia was only eleven light-years from Earth, and this was a fast starship. The flight would take another two days. Marco and Addy returned to their quarters for the night. They served in different corps but enjoyed this luxury. On this mission they could cohabitate. Being war heroes came with some benefits.

As soon as the door closed, Addy began undressing. "I've been waiting for this allll day."

Marco admired his wife. "Me too."

She glared at him. "I mean taking off my tight pants! What are you thinking about?"

"About what happens next."

He put his hands on the small of her back, pulled her close, and things happened next.

"Marco," Addy said sometime later, gazing out a porthole at the stars. "You don't think it's war again, do you? Against … against Lailani this time? We fought aliens. We fought robots and cyborgs. We fought grays from the future. But we've never had to fight one of our own." She turned toward him, eyes haunted. "She's like family. Like a sister. We won't have to fight her, will we?"

"No," Marco said. "Not so long as I'm in charge of this mission. We'll work this out and we'll all go home together. This isn't just a mission to defend New Siberia. This is a mission to save Lailani."

* * * * *

With deep hums and vibrations that shook the bulkheads, the fleet shut down their azoth engines. Spacetime flattened around them. They emerged into regular space with a dizzying bending of reality. Crewmen rubbed their temples and blinked their eyes, disturbed by visions of future and memories of past. Limbs suddenly seemed ten feet long. Heads seemed too large, bodies too small, as if they all lived inside fun house mirrors. For a moment they became homunculi. It took a while for space and time to return to normal.

It always took a moment to recover from a warp flight. At this time, a fleet was at its most vulnerable. But they had sent a squadron of Firebirds ahead, along with a corvette. The ships had reported the coast was clear. Now the rest of the fleet rejoined the scouts. They reestablished their formation and kept going, now flying with regular propulsion engines, moving slower than light.

They were almost there. The star Procyon shone ahead. From Earth, it appeared in the constellation Canis Minor. This was a relatively unimportant star, one few Earthlings normally noticed. But from here it blazed bright, searing and white. A white dwarf, invisible from Earth, now shone with clear brilliance, orbiting its larger sibling. Though Procyon appeared as a single star from Earth, this was a binary system.

Procyon was larger than Sol, Earth's sun, and one of Sol's nearest neighbors. This was Earth's doorstep. If anyone struck here, they'd be striking uncomfortably close to home.

New Siberia orbited far from the star. Procyon was large and hot, but New Siberia was too far to enjoy any warm weather. It was a cold, frozen world. The temperature never rose above freezing. It wasn't particularly valuable for colonists. But it made for a damn good prison. If you were too dangerous for Earth prisons, they sent you here. Scummers certainly qualified.

Marco saw New Siberia in the distance, a snowball in space. He shuddered. He remembered fighting here in the Cyborg War. Not a good memory.

"Give us a scan, Captain Centillion!" Marco said, standing on the bridge. "Any scum vessels in the system?"

Centillion looked up from her console. She was an android. Not a perfectly realistic one, thankfully. Twenty years ago, they used to build androids that looked exactly like humans. When they were still, you couldn't tell them apart. Yet when they moved and spoke, there was always something a bit off. A bit creepy. The androids would walk around, answer questions, even crack jokes like a regular human, but only from deep in Uncanny Valley. Their eyes were always a bit too sharp. Their movements too crisp. Their smiles too deranged.

Thankfully, that trend was over. Modern androids were humanoid, yes. But instead of synthetic skin, complete with fake pores and fine hairs, they simply had plasti-steel bodies. This one was colored teal and white, and she had large purple eyes. Much more pleasing to look at.

"Running a scan now, sir," the android said. "Scanning for energy residue. Scanning for spacetime disturbances. Scanning … scanning … I'm detecting some anomalies in the star's orbit, but those might be simple comets."

"Anything nearer the planet?"

Lines of code ran across the android's purple eyes. "Scanning … scanning … I can detect several energy signatures orbiting New Siberia."

"Those might just be the Prison Bureau ships," Marco said. "Can you check?"

More lines of code raced across Centillion's eyes. "Confirming … yes, sir. The vessels show Human Commonwealth energy signatures. I'll run a scan of deeper orbit. And—" She gasped. "Sir!"

Marco wondered if her gasp was true astonishment or a programmer's attempt at realism. "What is it, Centillion?"

"I'm detecting another ship, sir! Orbiting far from the planet, but definitely in its orbit. It's showing Scolopendra titania heat signatures, sir."

"The scum," Marco muttered.

Across the deck, officers glanced at one another. Addy sneered and tightened her grip on her assault rifle—as if it could do any good here. Brigadier Crawford pursed his lips, straightened a little, and took a step toward the gunnery station.

"I knew it!" the tall, one-eyed brigadier said. "The bastards beat us here."

"Centillion!" Marco said. "Get me on the line to the starships Lulal and Shara." He waited for her to patch him through, then spoke into his comlink. "HDFS Lulal, HDFS Shara, this is the Ishtar. We have some readings we'd like you to confirm."

"We already detected the bogey, sir," replied the commander of the Lulal. "It's the scum all right. A podship."

"Confirming . . . confirming … confirmed," replied Shara. "Orders, sir?"

"Go into full yellow alert, but stay in defensive formation," Marco said. "Await further orders."

"Do we have permission to shoot, sir?"

"No."

Marco hung up. He turned toward Centillion. "How many scum are out there?"

"Just one podship, sir."

"Pull up a holographic map."

The android typed on a control panel. A holographic map materialized on the bridge. It showed the binary star, New Siberia, and the position of the fleet. The scum ship was flying farther out.

"It's a scout," Crawford said. "And it knows we're here. We gotta blast it out of the sky. Gunnery station, prepare to open fire and—"

"Belay that order!" Marco said.

Crawford spun toward him, face flushing. "Colonel Emery, that podship invaded Human Commonwealth space. If we let it get away, it would report our position."

Marco thought for a moment. He had promised not to start a war. But dammit, that ship had invaded their territory. It was almost certainly a spy. Were these special circumstances? What would Ben-Ari do?

"Contact the enemy ship," Marco said.

"Yes, sir," said Centillion. "Hailing them now, sir." She tilted her turquoise head. "They're blocking our transmission. Sir, the enemy ship is turning to flee."

"We must act now!" Crawford said.

Marco inhaled sharply.

Would you shoot down a spy, Einav? he wondered. Yes, I think you would. And I'm here to do what you would do.

Marco nodded. "All right, let's destroy the bogey. Gunnery station, prepare a torpedo trajectory. Lock position and—"

Suddenly, on the holographic map, the scum ship blasted into the distance. It vanished with a streak of light.

"Goddammit, it saw us and bolted!" Crawford blurted out. "Your hesitation let it get away, Emery."

"It would have gotten away anyway!" Addy interjected. "A few seconds couldn't have made any difference."

"Enough," Marco said. "I want that podship destroyed. Centillion, can you map its trajectory?"

"Yes, sir."

"We'll send a squad of Firebirds after it," Marco said. "A corvette too."

Crawford barked a laugh. "They'll never catch it, not in warped space. Do you forget how fast those alien bastards can fly?"

Marco cursed himself. Was he already fucking this up?

"At the very least, our warships can chase the enemy out of our territory with its tail between its legs," Marco said. He got on the comlink. "HDFS Taurus, prepare to pursue the bogey. I'm sending a squadron of Firebirds with you."

"You can't send a corvette into deep space with only a few Firebirds!" Crawford said. "She'll be prime picking for any space bug that comes her way."

Marco turned toward the brigadier, forcing himself to remain calm. "Your suggestion, sir?"

Crawford grunted and got on the comlink. "HDFS Scorpio, HDFS Leo, join Taurus on this mission. You see the bogey, you fire to destroy. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," came the reply from both starships.

Three corvettes primed their warp engines and blasted off, chasing the enemy.

The remains of the fleet entered orbit around Abaddon. Everyone on the Ishtar's bridge was very quiet. Crawford was fuming but said nothing. Marco's spirits were down around his ankles.

I'm three warships down, Marco thought. And Lailani didn't need to fire a single shot.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"All right, boys and girls, we're about to deploy down to warm and sunny New Siberia." Addy paced the deck, hands clasped behind her back. "Temperature is a balmy freeze your balls off, and the native wildlife consists of savage predators who'd love nothing more than to eat said frozen balls. This planet is an icy turd, but we fine warriors of the Mobile Marines Corp are tasked with defending it. And by God above, that makes it more precious than the Taj Fucking Mahal."

She stood on the lower deck of the HDFS Ishtar—a vast chamber that stretched across the entire starship, a thousand feet long. There were no bulkheads; rows of columns kept the structure solid. Three thousand marines stood here in formation—the entire Khione Brigade. They were a specialty infantry brigade, created for war in cold climates. Back on Earth, every candidate for Khione trained in Antarctica for three grueling months. Only twenty percent of recruits completed the training. Here were true bears of winter.

"You might think that Antarctica was cold!" Addy barked, pacing on stage before the soldiers. "Well, I fought on New Siberia during the Cyborg War, and I can tell you: Antarctica is a goddamn tropical whorehouse compared to this planet. You might think you know cold. I thought I did." She shook her head sadly. "You'll experience real cold soon. A cold that goes deep into your bones. You will be in shock. In pain. You'll miss your mommies and daddies. But you are winter warriors! You trained for this. Now winter has come."

They all stared, somber. Kids. Most of them were damn kids. Many weren't even twenty yet. Privates and corporals. Fresh meat.

Was I ever so young? Addy wondered.

She turned toward the back of the stage, where a white sheet covered something tall and hidden. She grabbed the sheet, paused a moment for effect, then yanked it off.

Despite their training, gasps rose from the brigade.

A scum stood on stage. An actual scum, rearing, claws stretched out.

"Don't nobody shoot your guns!" Addy said. "It's dead. Just an exoskeleton. I want you to see what you'll be facing." She reached up, patted one of the scum's legs. "See these claws? I saw them carve through grown men in armor. Most of you were too young to fight in the Scum War. Hell, some of you weren't even born. But I fought the scum. I fought them hard. And I lost many friends. Do not underestimate them."

She looked over the brigade. She saw scared faces. Good, they needed to be scared. But nobody was trembling. Nobody was passing out. They all still stood at attention. They were all ready to fight. And that was very good.

Marco was still optimistic. He thought he could resolve this diplomatically. Addy wasn't going to take her chances.

"Now come on, winter warriors!" she cried. "We ride the blizzard!"

They all raised their fists. All three thousand of them. Their voices boomed, repeating their brigade's motto. "We ride the blizzard!"

The hangar doors opened.

A hundred blizzard-class dropships emerged from the Ishtar. They were white vessels, angular, blinding in the starlight. They stormed down toward New Siberia like frozen blades hurled by the gods.

Addy rode in one, standing among her troops, secured in a harness. Let Marco and the other spacers stay in the Ishtar. They needed their creature comforts. Not her. Not the marines.

As they dived through the atmosphere, fire blazed outside the portholes, and the dropship rattled so violently Addy could barely see. Her head banged against the bulkhead again and again. Her teeth knocked, and she bit her tongue and tasted blood. Her belly lurched. Some soldiers puked, some were feverishly praying, and some even fainted.

But as they stormed through fire and snow, Addy smiled. A savage smile. A bloody smile.

God, I missed this.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Marco stood on the bridge of the Ishtar, watching the dropships dive into New Siberia's snowy white atmosphere.

For a moment he could barely breathe. He remembered riding in dropships during the wars. The artillery fire rising from below. The explosions. The screams. The hundreds of bodies falling through the sky. Burning men. Still alive as they plowed into the ground.

His fists tightened as he watched them dive.

Hang in there, Addy, he thought.

He stood tensely, watching.

Within a few minutes, it was done. The dropships successfully entered New Siberia's atmosphere. They were now flying through clear skies.

Nobody attacked the vessels. No artillery fire. No screams. No deaths. Three thousand marines—successfully deployed to the icy planet.

Marco allowed himself to relax. This was a peacekeeping mission. They were safe. The Ishtar and her companion starships settled into a nice low orbit. Aside from a few local satellites that served the Prison Bureau, they had space to themselves.

"Good," Marco said. "Things are going well. That scum bogey gave us some concerns, but our corvettes will hunt it down. Centillion, any read on those corvettes?" He turned toward the android.

Centillion tapped on her control panel. Her lavender eyes reflected New Siberia, which shone outside the viewport. The pale light glimmered on her hard teal skin. "I can detect their tunnel of warped spacetime. They're traveling fast. Communication is impossible while they're in warped space."

"Any sign of trouble?" Marco said. "Any podship signatures near them? I want to make sure that bogey didn't draw them into a trap."

The android tapped again at the controls. "It's impossible to say, sir. Would you like to send a ship after them?"

Marco pursed his lips, shook his head. "No. Three corvettes is enough for that mission. Keep monitoring their funnel of spacetime. As soon as they emerge from warp, I want an update."

"Yes, sir."

Marco stared down at the planet. He tapped his comlink. "Colonel Linden, send me an update."

Addy's voice emerged from the speaker. "Colonel Linden?" She snorted. "I'm Addy! Your Addy. Or Ads. Or Addison the Great. Or you can call me Sexy Pie like you sometimes do at—"

Marco covered his comlink speaker. A few bridge officers were glancing over. Marco lowered his voice to a whisper. "Addy, be professional please."

"Tell me you love me."

"Addy, not now!"

"Are you embarrassed?"

"Addy, please!"

"Fine, fine." She blew a raspberry through the comlink. "We're fine over here. We're flying a few klicks above the snow, heading toward the camp. We'll be there soon. Now calm your tits. And stop calling me at work. Ciao."

She hung up. So much for military protocol.

Marco walked across the bridge toward the front viewport. He gazed out into space. Around him, the bridge crew was working at their stations. Not just Centillion but an assortment of officers: a navigator, a science officer, two helmsmen, a tactical officer, and a gunner. Brigadier Crawford was here too, commander of the ship. The tall, one-eyed man walked toward Marco.

"Is everything to your satisfaction, sir?" Crawford said. He draped that last word with a good dose of sarcasm.

Marco forced a thin smile. "I'm sorry if I'm micromanaging, Henry. This is your ship, and I'm not here to interfere with your command."

"I understand! This is your first mission aboard a starship this size. Don't worry, I'm here to help." He smiled down at Marco. "I realize this is all a bit … much for you. But hey, you're gaining valuable experience!"

Marco met the older man's gaze and held it. "I've spent over twenty years in the military, Henry, including aboard some very large starships. But I appreciate your concern. Things are going well so far. The president will be pleased."

Marco turned away and looked down at the planet. He waved his hand, and a holographic screen rose from the deck and hovered before him. Marco placed his palms on the screen, expanded it, and the image zoomed in. The holographic rectangle now functioned as a telescope. Marco zoomed in some more, tapped a few holographic buttons, and found it.

There it was. New Siberia Hybrid Relocation Camp. The Ishtar was flying right above it now.

Some on Earth called it a prison. Others called it a concentration camp. Marco didn't know what to call it. It was ugly, that was certain. The camp spread across the frozen plains of New Siberia. Tall concrete walls surrounded it, topped with barbed wire. Guard towers rose every hundred yards. Rows of concrete buildings filled the camp, forming a frozen town. Each building contained simple apartments.

The scummers lived there. Those who had attacked Earth, obeying the orders of the King of Many Claws. Only weeks ago, back on Earth, they had shot up schools, theaters, and shopping malls. They poisoned kindergartners. They drove trains into buildings. They plowed trains into cities and planes into skyscrapers. They slaughtered two million innocent people.

Now they were here. Exiled. Free to live within these concrete walls but never leave their austere little town on the frozen plain.

"Look at them," Crawford said, gazing with Marco down at the camp. "The scummers. They got off easy. If it were up to me, I'd nuke the bastards from orbit."

Marco heaved a sigh. "I know how you feel. One of them hurt my daughter. Some believe that the scummers had no choice. No free will. That the King of Many Claws puppeteered them." He dropped his voice low. "If that's true, we're doing a terrible thing here."

Crawford patted Marco's shoulder. "We're officers of the Human Defense Force, Marco. We don't make policy. We carry it out. We're weapons, you and I. Sophisticated weapons, that's all. Let the diplomats and politicians deal with morality. We deal with steel and fire."

But Marco didn't think that was true. For twenty years, he had fought in the trenches. And that had never been true. Soldiers did not merely obey blindly. That set them apart from the scum. Soldiers followed orders, yes, but they always questioned their ethics. Good soldiers did not follow illegal or immoral orders.

But he let the topic drop. Choose your battles.

"You said it, Henry."

* * * * *

As he stood on the bridge, something caught Marco's eye. He frowned and stared at a holographic screen. A dead pixel? No. Something was moving across the screen. Rising from the planet.

He shoved the hologram aside. Instead, Marco looked through the front viewport, which afforded a wider view of the planet. Yes, there it was again. A white speck, blazing bright, rising from below. A shuttle or rocket.

The others saw it too. The Ishtar's gunnery officer looked up from his station. "I'm priming our prow cannons, sirs. Just in case. We're primed … now."

The young gunner was named Jean-Michel Paradis, but many among the crew called him "Le Petit Capitaine." The Frenchman stood only four feet tall. Despite his humble height, he had advanced quickly through the ranks. Only five years ago, he was loading shells into cannons down at the artillery deck. Now he was a bridge officer. The little captain had a blond mustache, blue eyes, and a tailored uniform to match his humble size.

At least I'm not the shortest officer here, Marco thought wryly. A petty, mean-spirited thought, he knew. Not a thought he was proud of. Sometimes his brain disappointed him.

"Hold off for now, Paradis, but keep your fingers light on the trigger," Marco said. He turned back toward the android. "Centillion? Give me an update on the approaching vessel."

The android was already running a scan. With her slender white fingers, she moved holographic screens back and forth, then looked at Marco. Lines of code ran across her lavender eyes.

"A small corvette," she said. "Named the PBSS Star Sentinel. She's broadcasting the codes of the Prison Bureau."

Marco waved the gunner down. Captain Paradis nodded and cooled the plasma cannons.

"Sir, they're hailing us," said the communications officer, a slender woman with white hair and round glasses.

"Take the call, please," Marco said.

With a wave of his hand, Marco raised another holographic screen. It hovered at the head of the bridge for everyone to see. For a moment the screen just showed the logo of the Human Defense Force, a rampant phoenix. Then a video stream appeared from inside the rising corvette, showing an austere cockpit and several men in gray uniforms. Prison guards.

"Good morning, Star Sentinel!" Marco said. "This is Colonel Emery of the HDFS Ishtar. We're here to offer our support."

"Good morning, Ishtar!" said one of the guards in the corvette. "Gods above, it's good to see you here. My name is Captain Tom Miller."

Miller was a wiry man with a thin mustache. He wore the concrete-colored uniform of the Prison Bureau, one of the primary uniformed services of the Human Commonwealth. The HDF, the proud military in which Marco served, operated its own network of prisons. But the military just used those internally, imprisoning both its own soldiers and enemy combatants. The Prison Bureau operated civilian penitentiaries across Earth and her colonies. The Guys in Gray guarded millions of prisoners across the empire, mostly humans but even some aliens.

Well, if there's any doubt that's a prison below... Marco thought. Hard to call it anything else with the Prison Bureau guarding it.

"Our marines are heading toward the camp," Marco said. "They'll build their own camp outside of yours, and they'll work closely with you to offer increased security. Meanwhile, the Ishtar and her companion ships will protect New Siberia's orbit. We—"

"Colonel, pardon the interruption," Captain Miller said, "but we require immediate medical aid. We had a prison riot this morning. One of my men is badly injured, beyond the ability of our medics. He's bleeding internally. He's here with me in the Star Sentinel. I understand that your fleet includes the HDFS Panacea, a hospital ship. I request permission to dock there at once."

Captain Miller moved aside, revealing more of his small ship. A prison guard lay there on a stretcher, bandaged and moaning. Blood covered him.

"A riot?" Marco said.

"I'll explain everything," Miller said. "Can we dock at your hospital?"

The prison ship was currently blocked from entering the fleet's formation. Military corvettes and Firebirds still patrolled the fleet's perimeter, protecting the larger starships, which included Ishtar, two frigates, munitions ships, and the Panacea. To enter the formation, Marco would have to pull a few defensive ships back. It exposed a chink in their armor. But Marco didn't see any way around that. At least there were no scum nearby.

He looked at Brigadier Crawford.

The one-eyed officer raised an eyebrow. "Your show, your call, young Marco."

Marco turned toward his android. "Captain Centillion, please send word to HDFS Pisces, HDFS Sagittarius, and the Firebird squadron Silverwolf. Tell them to let the Star Sentinel through. Have a Firebird team accompany the prison ship to the Panacea."

The android began typing commands on two holographic screens. "Yes, sir, calculating and sending new defensive diagrams to the fleet. Disabling strike carrier force starboard defenses. We're armed down, sir. The Star Sentinel is free to approach."

"You hear that, Miller?" Marco said to the holographic video feed.

"Much appreciated, sir," said the prison guard. "Thank you. By the way, sir, I'm a big fan of your books. We have a few copies here in the prison library."

The video feed cut off, leaving Marco feeling rather embarrassed. He hoped he wasn't blushing.

Worlds colliding, he thought. I'm a colonel in the HDF. And he read my stories about fire-breathing dragons and drunken dwarfs.

That was all fine and well for a farmer, but when you were trying to be taken seriously as an officer, well … awkward.

"I'll have to read one or two of those," Crawford said with a smile. Marco swore the old man was just trying to torture him.

Marco missed just being an author. He missed waking up every morning and hearing the birds. Missed sitting on the deck with a hot cup of coffee, relaxing under the trees, and writing another chapter. And even more than writing, he missed his kids.

Why do I keep letting Einav talk me back into my uniform? Damn the woman. She's my best friend. But damn her to the deepest pits of hell.

He watched the Star Sentinel fly closer. The Prison Bureau's corvette was a clunky little ship, boxy and gray. Old technology too. Her engines had been outdated a century ago. The Star Sentinel was not an elegant, state-of-the-art vessel like the HDF starships orbiting the planet. But that was to be expected. Soldiers got the big bucks, not prison guards.

A quarter of Earth's GDP went to the military. A full quarter! That was a seriously big chunk of change. Historically, people rarely spent that much on the army. Israel spent that much during the Yom Kippur war, Ben-Ari had told him, when her nation was close to falling. The United States did during World War II. One dollar out of four. You spent that much on war when your very survival depended on it.

Marco didn't like it, but he understood it. Several waves of alien invasions had struck Earth over the past century, nearly causing human extinction. The recent scummer attacks hadn't been fun either. The Orion Arm of the Milky Way was a tough neighborhood where only the strong survived. When it came to budgeting, the army got the lion's share. C'est la vie.

On Earth, many are upset that the military is taking so much money, Marco thought. If it's war again, they'll be happy we have a big army. I hope they're never happy.

Ishtar's defenders moved aside to let the Star Sentinel pass. The mighty cannons of the fleet's frigates wheeled aside, a common courtesy. Three Firebird starfighters accompanied the Prison Bureau ship into the fleet's inner circle.

The Star Sentinel flew closer, passing by Ishtar's portside, vanishing from the main viewport. Marco raised a holographic screen to watch her pass. He kept moving the screen to follow the Star Sentinel's flight.

"Interesting, sir," Centillion said. "The Star Sentinel is not making a beeline to the hospital ship. She's flying the long way."

Marco frowned. "What?"

"She doesn't need to fly so close to us, sir."

Marco's lips suddenly felt dry. "Centillion, scan our database for a Captain Tom Miller, Prison Bureau."

Lines of code ran across her eyes. "Sir, there is no Captain Tom Miller in the Prison Bureau. There's a Sergeant Thomas Miller in the PB, but he's stationed on Earth, and he looks different in his ID photo. Maybe our database is out of date, sir. We only get monthly updates from the other uniformed services."

"Call the Sentinel." Marco waited. "Centillion, put them online."

"Calling them, sir, but they're not accepting our call."

Marco inhaled sharply. "Broadcast my words. Star Sentinel, you're flying too close to our carrier. Please fly directly toward the hospital ship." He made a cutting movement with his finger, and the android cut the call. "Centillion, run a weapons scan on them."

Crawford stepped forward. "A weapons scan?" The brigadier barked a laugh. "Marco, Marco! They're only a prison ship. Clunky tech. A security guard at the helm. You're not dealing with soldiers here. Cut them some slack."

Centillion was looking at the two men. The lines of code stopped scrolling in her eyeballs.

"Results of your scan?" Marco said.

"Sir." If it was possible for an android to look scared, she looked it. "The Star Sentinel is carrying a nuclear warhead."

"Shields to full power!" Marco barked toward the bridge officers. "Centillion, broadcast the order to the entire fleet! Shields at full power!"

As Centillion worked, broadcasting the message, Marco glanced at the port screen. The Star Sentinel was moving closer and closer toward the Ishtar. Toward the vulnerable stern. Where the engines and torpedoes were.

"Captain Paradis, take that ship out!" Marco said.

The petite gunner hesitated, glanced at Crawford.

"Belay that order!" Crawford said. "Marco, really. You can't fire on—"

"Firebirds, destroy the Star Sentinel!" Marco said, broadcasting to the starfighters outside.

Unlike the bridge gunner, who perhaps felt intimidated by Crawford, the Firebird pilots did not hesitate. The starfighters turned toward the Star Sentinel and opened fire.

Bullets slammed into the bulky Prison Bureau ship. The Sentinel careened through space. Bullets punched through her gray hull. An engine caught fire, and then—

White light blazed.

A nuclear blast.

The light shone through the viewport, blinding Marco. White beams burst from every screen on the bridge.

The mighty HDFS Ishtar, a starfighter carrier the size of a skyscraper, rocked in space.

Marco knelt, covered his head with his arms, and grimaced. The starship jolted madly. A control panel sparked. People fell to the deck. The holographic screens went dark, vanishing from the air. The main viewport cracked. The video feed vanished, replaced with white error messages on a blue screen. Klaxons wailed. Smoke filled the bridge, somebody coughed, and somebody lay on the floor, bleeding.

"What the hell happened?" Crawford was shouting through the blaring alarms.

"A nuclear detonation, sir!" Centillion was saying, standing in the smoke. "Just off our starboard bow."

"The Sentinel went supernova," Paradis whispered in awe.

"Impossible!" Crawford said. "She's a prison ship; she doesn't have nukes."

"The scummers armed her," Marco said. "What do you think? It was a trap, dammit."

Marco struggled to his feet, swayed, and trudged across the deck. The floor was sloped. He made his way to a sparking control panel. A few officers stood there, looking around helplessly.

"Our control panels are dead, sir," an officer said. "Fried to a crisp."

"What do you mean—fried?"

Suddenly every light in the cabin shut off.

The air stopped flowing through the vents.

Even the alarms died.

The starship floated through space, out of power, dead in the water.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Light blazed from above.

Heat bathed the valley, melting the snow.

A thunderclap tore across the world. Deafening.

Addy barely noticed it. She was busy flying through the snowy sky in a rumbling, heavily armored dropship.

Dozens of marine dropships were flying behind her, leaving trails of fire. Snowy squalls buffeted them. The armored shuttles rattled. Jangling in a harness, Addy let out a battle cry. Her heart pounded against her ribs. Her pulse roared in her ears. Her hands, clutching the harness straps, were shaking.

What was that blast of heat? That flash of light? Was something happening above the sky? An attack on the fleet? Or was it just a lightning storm? Perhaps the blaze of so many shuttles entering the atmosphere?

Addy didn't know. She'd worry about that later. Right now she had to worry about what awaited below. Not what she left above.

She was scared. She was damn scared. Probably more scared than any soldier in this brigade.

And not because she was a coward. Because she had fought here before. On New Siberia. And the horrors still haunted her.

On New Siberia's icy plains she had fought the cyborgs, monstrosities woven of human flesh and cold machinery. It was here that the Dreamer, a cruel electronic god, had invaded her womb. It was here that Addy had lost a child.

Suddenly she wanted to turn this shuttle around. To fly back into space. To keep on flying and get as far from New Siberia as possible.

But another part of her craved the battle. Craved the roar of gunfire and the smell of gunpowder and the thrill of victory.

I was a soldier for almost two decades, she thought. And then the wars ended. I became a housewife. A mom. And in peace and beauty, a part of me withered. Maybe that's the curse of soldiers. Soldiers hate war. Soldiers hate blood and battle. They crave peace more than anything. Yet when they find peace, a part of them withers. Without battle, a soldier is never whole. War breaks us all.

She hoped this wasn't war. Not this time.

Because this time it would be war against Lailani. And Addy had faced giant centipedes, alien spiders, terrible cyborgs, evil grays … but she didn't think she could handle fighting her best friend.

She looked out the dropship's windshield. And there it was, spreading across a snowy valley. New Siberia Hybrid Relocation Camp. On Earth, the media sometimes called it the Freezer. Concrete walls surrounded the camp, topped with barbed wire. Apartment blocks lined icy streets. Guards patrolled the walls and stood on towers, armed with machine guns.

Tens of thousands of scummers lived in the Freezer. Prisoners of war. The bastards who had attacked Earth with guns, knives, planes, poison. If you asked Addy, the president should have executed them all. So long as they lived, they were a danger.

But well, Ben-Ari wanted them alive. The president was the smartest person Addy knew, maybe even smarter than Marco. Addy wasn't going to question orders from the legendary Golden Lioness. So she'd dutifully guard those sons of bitches. And if the scum tried to steal them, well, Addy would turn those fucking centipedes into chopped meat.

I'm not smart like Einav or Marco, Addy thought. There's a reason they stuck me in the remedial class as a kid. Maybe I'm just an idiot. But I'm brave. And I'm strong. And I have a big fucking gun. I'll let the smart folk make the tough choices. I'm the muscle. And I'm here to lay down the law.

Addy spoke into her comlink, broadcasting her words to her fleet of dropships.

"Welcome to New Siberia! This is Colonel Addy Linden calling to remind you to keep your tits warm and not lick any metal poles. Boys and girls, you know what to do. We're going to surround this camp like a noose. Arctic Fox Battalion, land your shuttles outside the north wall. Polar Bear Battalion, you take the east. Walrus Battalion, you sons of bitches guard the west. Snow Wolf Battalion? You're lucky bastards, because you get to guard the south wall with me, Addy Fucking Linden. Here we go—onto the ice! It's hockey night!"

The brigade's shuttles split into four battalions. Each battalion comprised four companies. Each company was further divided into four platoons. In total, Addy commanded 3,200 marines, all trained for arctic warfare. She had never led a force this large.

I won't let you down, Einav, she vowed. If it's peace, we'll maintain the peace. If it's war, we'll kick ass.

She flew with the Snow Wolves toward the southern wall. As the shuttles descended, the stabilizer engines blasted hot air, stirring up snow. Icicles melted off the barbed wire surrounding the camp. Addy saw the scummers in the streets, shuffling between their concrete homes. They looked up, but then clouds of snow blew over them. The guards on the walls saluted the coming marines.

According to the mission brief, there were a thousand guards below, all uniformed members of the Prison Bureau. A thousand sounded like a lot. It wasn't. Not when they were guarding thirty thousand scummers, creatures with alien viciousness. One human guard per thirty scummers? That was a recipe for disaster. Back on Earth, the typical prison hired one guard per ten prisoners—and those were human prisoners, not bloodthirsty scummers. And even more scummers were likely to arrive once Earth rooted them out.

Goddamn, this camp is understaffed, Addy thought. No wonder Einav wants us marines here. She raised her chin proudly. An HDF marine can do the job of ten normal people.

The shuttles thumped onto the ice outside the camp walls. Addy unstrapped her harness and walked across the shuttle deck. A full marine platoon filled the shuttle—fifty warriors. They all unstrapped themselves and slung their assault rifles across their backs. Most were carrying T58s, firing simple bullets. As an officer, Addy got to carry a more expensive toy—a nice plasma rifle she had named Calcifer.

"Kids, we're here!" she said and yanked the shuttle hatch open.

Wind and snow gusted into the shuttle. At once, frost spread across their armor and helmets. Snow clung to beards, hair, and the heavy coats they wore over their armor. This place made Canada seem like Hawaii. The air hurt her skin, her lips, even her eyeballs. Teeth chattering, Addy pulled on her goggles.

"Nice warm tropical breeze!" she said and hopped out of the shuttle.

The platoon emerged after her and arranged themselves in a defensive formation. The camp wall rose beside them. From down here, Addy realized just how damn big that wall was. It towered over the dropships, easily ten stories tall. Contractors had built this camp only weeks ago, pouring concrete to form these towering walls, but already sheets of ice covered them. On New Siberia, ice quickly grabbed whatever it could, which was basically everything. Already frost was forming across Addy's uniform, growing like white moss.

The sun broke through the clouds. The ground sparkled like a white sky strewn with endless stars. The prison camp's wall glimmered, a sheer cliff of ice. There was something beautiful about that wall, even majestic, but terrifying too. Addy was glad to be on this side of the frozen edifice.

A line of sixteen shuttles spread along the southern wall. Sixteen platoons emerged—the entire Snow Wolf Battalion. Their coats, uniforms, and helmets sported a white-and-gray camouflage pattern. White armored plates protected their chests, and big guns hung across their backs. They were a formidable force, an army that feared no blizzard nor beast. You had to be crazy to join an arctic brigade. You had to be even crazier to mess with them. Hell, if the scum invaded, Addy almost felt sorry for the poor buggers.

She got on her comlink. "All battalions, this is Colonel Linden. Report your status."

The other three battalions of Khione Brigade had landed too. Arctic Foxes in the north. Polar Bears in the east. Walruses in the west. The four battalions surrounded the camp, a full brigade, over three thousand troops. They all reported in. No problems landing.

Good. No scum here. Maybe the centipedes had finally learned not to mess with the goddamn Human Defense Force.

A beefy NCO trudged through the snow toward Addy. He was a hulking man with a bushy white mustache, serving as quartermaster of the Snow Wolf Battalion. With that mustache, Addy thought he should have joined the Walrus Battalion, but life was full of little ironies.

He saluted. "Ma'am, our supply shuttles have landed. Shall we begin to set camp?"

"Please."

The quartermaster saluted again, then turned toward the battalion. "All right, soldiers!" he boomed, voice cutting through the flurrying snow. "Let's set camp! We got billets to raise and latrines to dig! Move, move!"

As the soldiers got to work, Addy summoned the battalion's officers. A major commanded each company, and captains or lieutenants commanded each platoon. A group of seasoned NCOs supported them. Three of the majors and five NCOs had fought in the Alien Wars. That was good. Addy needed experienced leaders here. Some of the lieutenants were fresh from officer school, barely into their twenties, looking around with wide eyes. This was their first mission. To some, it was their first time off Earth. If shit hit the fan on New Siberia, the brigade would rely on its older, battle-hardened commanders. Every officer and NCO with battle experience was worth his or her weight in azoth.

Alongside the younger officers, a lieutenant colonel reported to Addy. The senior officer commanded the entire Snow Wolf Battalion. He was a wiry man with only one limb—his left arm. The other three limbs were mechanical prosthetics.

Addy had to admit. When she saw the disabled officer marching through the snow, swinging those robotic limbs, she instantly thought of the cyborgs. Those damn human-machine hybrids had nearly killed her on this planet four years ago. She shoved that memory aside. Lieutenant Colonel Terrell was perhaps part machine. But he was an excellent officer and courageous man.

He saluted Addy. "Ma'am, our battalion is ready to serve. But we're having trouble reaching the Prison Bureau command inside the camp."

Addy returned the salute. "What's going on?"

"We've been hailing the prison guards, ma'am, but their radio systems seem to be down. Our scanners pick up heavy radiation in the sky. It might have been a massive solar storm, explaining the light we saw when flying over. The radiation levels aren't dangerous to us. But it might have fried the camp's electronics."

Addy nodded. "Thanks for that update, Colonel Terrell. Seems like the Prison Bureau fucked things up again. Good thing we're here to help."

He winked. "Call me Cyborg. It's what everyone in the brigade calls me."

She frowned. "It's been only four years since the Cyborg War. You don't mind?"

The officer tapped his metal legs with his metal arm. "Hell, how do you think I lost three limbs? In the goddamn Cyborg War! I'm proud of my nickname. It reminds me that I'm a survivor."

"That you are, Cyborg. I'm honored to serve with you today."

"The honor is mine, ma'am. You're the famous Addy Linden. You raised Earth in rebellion against the marauders. I was just a young captain then, but I remember."

She winked. "You outranked me at the time. Try to keep up, old man."

She worried she had gone too far, that he'd be insulted. But Cyborg only laughed.

The officers huddled together. Addy listened, hands on her hips, as Cyborg briefed the junior officers. The Snow Wolf Battalion included four companies, and each would have its own job. Iceberg Company would begin digging a defensive moat around the camp. Snowstorm Company would organize a patrol of the camp wall. Yeti Company would set up artillery batteries. Finally, Icicle Company would enter the camp walls and patrol the streets, easing the burden on the prison guards.

This was all just the Snow Wolf Battalion. The arctic brigade had three other battalions, which had landed a few klicks away. They would be busy with their own tasks. They were setting up a mobile city here. Eventually they would have a basic electric grid, heated cabins, a mess hall, and enough defenses to push back an army. There was a lot to do.

"Speaking of prison guards, where the hell are they?" Addy said, glancing toward the icy wall. "No welcome committee? I don't expect the warden to lay out a red carpet and kiss my ass. But a simple hello would have been nice."

Cyborg frowned. "I don't like this. A guard should have come. Has the camp been compromised?"

Addy pointed. "There's the southern gateway. What say we go and knock? Come with me, Cyborg. I might need your metal legs to kick the door down."

They walked across the ice, moving through the battalion. Some troops were busy digging trenches a hundred yards away from the wall. Eventually the trenches would form a second line of defense, just in case anyone tried to break out—or in. Some soldiers were already setting up light artillery nests behind snowbanks.

Other troops were unscrewing sections of the dropships and pulling out hidden panels. Blizzard-class dropships were designed to transform into cabins, optimized for survival in arctic environments. Once the soldiers were done their work, each shuttle would become a comfortable living space, large enough for an entire platoon. All right, maybe "comfortable" was stretching it. The troops would be sleeping in hammocks slung across the walls—not exactly cozy beds. They'd also be crammed so close together it would make a submarine seem spacious. But they'd have a roof over their heads. They'd have heat, running water, a working toilet. The engines would power the life-support systems, and munition ships in orbit would deliver regular supplies of fuel.

It was a bit rough, but hey, Addy wasn't complaining. When she was a young soldier, they slept in tents in the middle of the desert. A nice heated cabin? With actual walls? Heaven. Truly, young soldiers today were spoiled rotten.

I like this, Addy thought, breathing the cold air. I need this. I was growing soft on the farm. Gaining weight. Losing my edge. Going stir crazy. It was too comfortable. Too perfect. I don't know how to do perfect. I don't know how to enjoy peace. Maybe this is where I belong. Maybe this is all I can be. A soldier. A fighter. A survivor. It's the only thing I've ever been good at. And I'm damn good at it.

She looked up at the camp wall. Guard towers rose above the barbed wire. Men with machine guns stood there, faces hidden behind thermal masks. Snow swirled around them. The guards just watched.

"Hey, you up there!" Addy shouted. "Do you hear me?"

But the wind gusted, carrying away her voice. The prison guards stared down silently.

Not the most welcoming bunch, Addy thought.

She checked her comlink. She tried hailing the camp headquarters. Again, no connection. It was probably just technical difficulties, but Addy didn't like this. Any of this. That blast in the sky. The cold reception, literally and figuratively. Something stank here.

Is this a trap? she thought.

Just to be safe, she flipped a switch on her plasma rifle. Calcifer hummed and began to warm up, charging for battle. Beside her, Cyborg began charging his own plasma rifle. Farther back, the troops noticed their unease. Clicks sounded as the soldiers loaded their assault rifles.

Her gun hot, Addy reached the camp gateway. For such a towering wall, it was a small door, no larger than Addy's front door back home. But it was forged of iron, heavy and probably damn thick, and coated with ice.

Addy knocked. The sound reverberated through the door, surprisingly loud.

No reply came.

She knocked again. Louder. The sound vibrated through the frozen wall. A sheet of ice cracked and slammed down beside her, shattering on impact. Icicles pierced the snow like blades. One icicle hit Addy's helmet and shards of ice fell around her.

"What the hell is going on here?" Addy muttered. "Cyborg, I need your metal arm to rip this door off, and—"

The ground shook. A crack raced across the ice beneath Addy's feet. She swayed, arms held out for balance.

The cracks were spreading across the marines camp, snaking between the dropships. One of the armored vessels tilted. Another overturned, nearly crushing a soldier. More sheets of ice fell from the wall, splintering, bombarding the marines with icicles. The ground shook. Ice was shifting in the depths, and the sound of deep cracks reverberated below.

"How hard did you knock?" Cyborg cried.

"I'm strong but not that strong," Addy said. "What the hell's going on? Earthquake?"

She stepped away from the door, placed her back to the wall, and raised her gun. She scanned the camp. The world was still shaking. The dropships rattled. One dropship slid across the ice and slammed into another shuttle, denting both hulls. The soldiers climbed out from the trenches they were digging. Cracks were still spreading across the ice, forming natural trenches. Soldiers fell and clung to the ice, struggling not to slide into the pits.

And then it ended.

The ground stopped shaking. The cracks stopped spreading. Even the wind died down.

Addy shuddered. "Great, so snowstorms aren't enough, we also have to deal with earthquakes. What's next, a—"

She never got to complete her sentence.

From every crack across the ice, they emerged. Shrieking. Clattering. Ripping up the ice in their claws.

There were thousands of them.

The scum.

Addy shouted and opened fire.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"I need this starship back up and running!" Marco said. "How long?"

An engineer looked up from a sparking control panel, his eyebrows singed. "They fucked us up bad, sir. Sorry for the language, but they fried our systems like bacon."

Marco forced himself to remain calm. "How. Long."

The engineer winced. "Hard to say, sir. If I work faster than the devil plays fiddle, an hour until we're back online."

A thud sounded somewhere deep in the starship's machinery. The bridge went dark again. The air stopped flowing.

"Dammit!" another engineer said. "Backup power just went down again. Give me a minute and I'll get her up and running again."

The only light came from two portholes on the bridge. It wasn't much. There was still enough oxygen on the bridge to last for a while, even with life support on the fritz. But Marco couldn't wait to hear the comforting hum of the backup generators again, to breathe some sweet recirculated air.

The nuclear blast had done a number on them. It was still chaos aboard the Ishtar. The entire starship was dead in orbit.

A clunky little prison guard shuttle took us down, he thought bitterly. So much for the fabled might of the Human Defense Force!

Marco turned toward a tactical officer. "Lieutenant Li, how's that damage report coming along?"

Li stood with her back to him, conferring with several other officers. They each wore different colored pins, signifying their units. They had come from across the ship. The communication systems were all down. To talk to one another, the crew ran. Across five decks. Each a thousand feet long.

"Sir." Li turned toward him. "We sustained minimal hull damage. Just a few scorch marks, really. Our shields held quite nicely. It's our computer systems that took the brunt of the attack."

"An EMP attack," Marco said.

EMP. Nuclear electromagnetic pulse. Such an attack could fry electronics, leaving a starship, a city, even an entire country completely offline. Most starships were built to withstand EMP attacks. Any modern shield system offered pulse protection. Somehow the damn scummers had managed to bypass the Ishtar's defenses.

And not just the Ishtar. When Marco looked out the porthole—not an electronic screen but an actual window—he saw the other ships idling. Lights off.

Marco didn't know how the bastards did it.

But he knew who did it. The scummers.

They were here. And they were hostile. Were they attacking the marines on the surface? Marco couldn't even call Addy to warn her. His comlink was fried.

Stay safe down there, Addy.

"Right now we're blind," Marco said. "Chief Valencia?" He turned toward the security officer. "We need some reconnaissance. Our sensors are down, so we'll rely on visuals. Lead a squad of shuttles into space. Look around. Come back and—"

The carrier rocked.

A control panel shattered.

People fell to the bridge deck.

Another blast hit the Ishtar. Another. Alarms wailed in protest. The lights came back on, died again.

"What the hell is going on?" Crawford was shouting, clinging to a control panel as the bridge shook.

Marco ran across the swaying deck. He reached the porthole, stared outside.

My God.

The sky was opening up. Portal after portal. Spheres of lavender light swirled like fairy rings.

Tunnels of warped spacetime.

Bloated, fleshy sacks emerged from the portals. They looked like flying wombs. Huge. Veined. Wriggling through space. A hundred or more wobbled forth.

One of the bulbous pods turned toward the Ishtar. It seemed to be staring right at Marco. A fleshy tube extended from the blob like sprouting fungus. Its tip bloomed open, revealing gurgling innards. A vent.

"Scum attack!" Marco shouted.

The podship fired.

Marco grimaced as a blast slammed into the Ishtar.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"Scuuum!" Addy shouted, firing her plasma rifle.

They swarmed from the ice. Thousands of the giant centipedes. All shrieking for blood.

Images flashed before Addy's mind. Herself as a little girl, only eleven years old, and the scum racing across Toronto, slaughtering her mother. Herself as a teenager, a private in a war, battling the aliens in tunnels. Her friends—dying. Everywhere—death.

For a moment Addy could barely see. Barely tell the past from the present.

For a moment the terror overwhelmed her.

A trap, she knew. Lailani lured us into a trap.

That cut through her terror. Rage. Pure, burning rage. Not just for these alien bugs but for Lailani.

You betrayed us. You betrayed us!

Addy snarled, loaded a fresh plasma charge, and kept firing her gun. Torrents of furious blue plasma blazed forth, carving through flurries of snow, and reflecting in the ice below.

A scum leaped toward her. A massive beast. As large as a crocodile. It lunged through the air, shrieking, claws like swords pointing at Addy.

She bathed it with plasma. Her fury carved the beast in two. Both halves fell onto the ice.

The halves still lived! The lower half flailed, ripping the legs off a nearby soldier. The upper half kept racing toward Addy, claws gleaming. Those claws dripped venom.

Addy stood with her back to the icy wall, firing Calcifer, drenching the mutilated creature with plasma. The centipede screeched. Burning, missing its lower half, it kept advancing. Its acidic blood spilled, burning holes through the ice.

Addy stood her ground. She drew her pistol and fired into the inferno.

The halved centipede finally fell. It curled up at Addy's feet and died. The thing stank. She kicked it aside. Some acid blood got on her boot, began eating through the leather. She grimaced and cleaned it on some snow.

She looked around her. Blood flowed across the ice. A soldier was writhing nearby, missing his legs. Another soldier lay on an ice floe, clutching a gash across his belly. One soldier took a step, a scum claw in his skull, then collapsed face forward. Centipedes swarmed over the corpse and fed.

But most of the soldiers were fighting.

Gunfire rattled. The enlisted men were firing bullets—crude but effective. Officers fired plasma. One soldier walked around with a flamethrower, filling the cracks in the ice with fire, roasting the aliens below.

More scum kept bubbling up from below. Screams emerged from Addy's comlink, coming from several klicks away—the other sides of the camp. The scum were attacking all four battalions at once.

Two more centipedes raced toward Addy. She held down the trigger. Calcifer spewed a spinning, crackling torrent of fire, roasting one alien. The second scum kept running forward, and Calcifer dinged. Out of charge.

Addy had a backup plasma battery somewhere in her rucksack. Well, it might as well be on Mars. She slung the plasma rifle across her back and hefted her pistol instead. Bullets would have to do.

The second scum leaped toward Addy. She fired her pistol again and again. The scum kept flying through the air, jaws wide, ready to devour her. Addy snarled, standing her ground. She fired her last bullet into the alien's head.

The beast crashed down dead at her feet, its skull blown open. She spat on it.

The battle raged across the ice. Thousands of marines were firing their guns, mowing down scum. But the aliens kept coming. The living centipedes just climbed over the dead and swarmed onward. The centipedes had no guns, but they could jump high and fast. Addy watched several scum fly through the air and slam into a marine platoon. Blood splattered the ice. Soldiers screamed. A few soldiers managed to kill the nearby scum, only for the acid blood to wash over them.

A severed arm flew, still holding a gun, and landed on the ice not far from Addy. The gun was still firing, skidding in a circle, the trigger pulled by the lifeless finger. The friendly fire cut through a nearby sergeant's legs. The man fell, screaming.

Addy stared around, the horror claiming her.

This shouldn't be happening. We're here as glorified prison guards. This shouldn't be a war.

Yet war it was. And the dead were piling up. Addy glanced at the sky, trying to see if anyone was attacking the fleet in orbit. But she saw only the swirling snow.

Very well then. She sneered and fished a new plasma charge from her rucksack.

"If it's war you want, Lailani, I'm game." She loaded the new charge and opened fire. "Your ass is toast."

* * * * *

"Ma'am!" An NCO limped toward Addy through the raging battle. His cheek was gashed open, revealing a molar, and scum venom was eating through his arm. "Ma'am, should we restore the dropships? We can get them flying again in five minutes and be off this snowball."

"We are marines of the Human Defense Force!" Addy said, firing her rifle at the enemy. "We do not retreat. We do not surrender. Fight! Fight the enemy!"

The NCO nodded. Despite his gruesome injuries, he opened fire, torching an oncoming scum.

Addy knew that morale was low. A low morale could cost the marines this battle. These were not soldiers fighting for Earth. They were stranded on a distant, frozen planet on the far reaches of the empire. Could they summon the fighting spirit Addy had known during her youth?

She fired another plasma bolt, tearing down a scum. A squad of warriors gathered around her, mowing down more of the aliens. A chill flooded Addy. She had refused to retreat. But she couldn't win this battle. Not alone.

She stepped back, raised her comlink, and tried to contact the fleet again. "Marco! Marco, do you hear me? We're under attack! Can you spare a few Firebirds? We need air support! Marco, come in!"

Nothing.

No answer.

Only static.

Goddammit.

"Cyborg!" she shouted. "Cyborg, can you hear me?"

The lieutenant colonel was fighting farther away. His metal legs were planted firmly on the ice. He was firing an assault rifle with his real hand, a plasma rifle with his prosthetic hand. Dead centipedes lay before him, some still twitching. He looked over at Addy.

"Yes, I can hear you!"

"Are you able to contact the fleet? My comlink is dead!"

"Mine is too!" he shouted. "All our comlinks—dead! No way to call the fleet!"

Addy remembered seeing that flare of light. Feeling that blast of heat. Could it have been a nuclear blast? Had something happened to the fleet? To Marco?

We're alone here on New Siberia, she realized. No help from the fleet. No help from the Prison Bureau behind the walls. It's up to us marines.

She ran toward one of the dropships. Its hull had been expanded, hidden panels pulled out to form a cabin. Right now it could not fly. But there was still a big machine gun mounted on the prow. A machine gun far more powerful than any sidearm, even more than dear old Calcifer.

Several other soldiers had the same idea. They ran toward the dropship too, only for scum to leap from the ice, to rip off their legs, then pull them down into the pits.

Addy ran, vaulted over a chasm, and fired her plasma gun downward. As she vaulted over the pit, she glimpsed scum squirming in the icy water below. Dozens of them. They were devouring a few drowned soldiers. Then Calcifer's plasma washed over them, and Addy landed on the far side of the pit.

She raced toward the dropship.

Twenty or more scum were racing toward the vessel too, their claws perforating the ice.

Addy sneered and ran faster.

A scum lunged toward the dropship. Addy fired Calcifer, knocked it back.

She reached the dropship. The machine gun turret was on the roof.

One normally reached the gun turret from inside the dropship, climbing a ladder up a shaft. But Addy glimpsed soldiers battling scum inside the vessel. The way was blocked. She would have to climb from the outside.

More scum came scuttling forward. They saw the machine gun too. They knew what awaited them if Addy reached it first. Clever little buggers.

Addy grabbed a handlebar on the side of the dropship. She began to climb.

The scum reached the dropship a second later. They leaped from the ice.

As Addy climbed, she fired Calcifer downward. Plasma blazed, knocking the scum back down. The ice began to melt. The dropship tilted beneath Addy, one corner cracking the ice. A scum fell into a soup of water and icy shards.

Please don't sink below me, dropship, Addy silently prayed.

She kept bathing the aliens with plasma, careful not to melt the ice directly below the dropship. Finally Calcifer dinged. Out of charge. Again.

"Damn you, Calcifer!" she cried.

The ice began to freeze again, covering the alien corpses and sealing the dropship in place.

She scrambled onto the roof as the surviving scum regrouped.

The aliens began to climb the dropship's armored hull. They were singed. Some were missing a few limbs. All still screeched for blood. They crested the dropship within seconds and leaped toward Addy.

But Addy was already standing at the massive machine gun that topped the dropship. With a roar, she pulled the triggers.

Twin rotary cannons roared with her. Bullets plowed through the scum. Shards of exoskeleton flew every which way. The assault pulverized the beasts. They thumped onto the ice in segments.

Screeches sounded behind her.

Addy looked over her shoulder.

A goddamn army of scum was racing across the ice toward her. Sneering, she spun around, wheeling the enormous machine gun toward the aliens. The rotary cannons chewed through belts of ammunition. Bullets the size of carrots plowed through the centipedes. The scum screamed as they tore apart. Many kept coming, even as the bullets mangled them, ripping off segments of their bodies. Some scum were only heads and two or three claws, still advancing.

Addy shot them. She shot them all down. Their venomous blood sprayed her legs. If not for her thick uniform and armor, that blood would have burned off her skin.

The bastards were everywhere. They came from all directions. Addy kept spinning, killing them, careful to avoid her fellow soldiers. In a battle this chaotic, friendly fire could do as much damage as claws.

Her fellow marines were fighting all around her. Most stood on the ice, firing their assault rifles. Others had climbed onto dropships too, were firing the machine guns. Hundreds of centipede corpses covered the ice. Maybe thousands.

Among them lay the human dead.

Addy couldn't estimate how many humans had died so far. Dozens for sure. Maybe over a hundred. And that number kept climbing. Every one of them—a son or daughter. Every one of them—a family destroyed.

This was a fiasco. A massacre.

Did you send these centipedes, Lailani? Addy thought. If you did, I will kill you myself. I swear it. I will kill you myself!

The betrayal shook Addy to her core. Her fury blazed.

Lailani, you were my best friend. But I swear to you. I will hunt you down and kill you like just another bug!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

They kept emerging from deep space.

Pod after pod.

Scum ships.

Portals opened around New Siberia, shining with purple light. The funnels of warped spacetime kept spewing them out. Scum pods. Oozing, quivering starships, organic and formless.

There were hundreds.

Then thousands.

Another blast hit the Ishtar. The mighty starfighter carrier rocked. The lights died again.

"How the hell didn't we see them coming?" Brigadier Crawford said, standing on the bridge. The tall officer was bleeding from a gash on his forehead. "We should have seen this much spacetime disturbance light-years away."

The crew kept racing back and forth, desperately trying to bring the power back on.

"The EMP attack." Marco brushed sparks off his singed uniform. The pant leg caught fire. He patted it out. "They blinded us. Then they hit us hard. And they're still com—"

Another blast hit them. The starship jolted. The hull gave a menacing creak.

"Our shields won't take much more of this punishment," Crawford warned.

An engineer gave a whoop of triumph. Finally, praise God, the computer systems were coming back online. They were just running in basic mode, accessing backup databases. Most of the fancy features were still offline. There was no visual interface yet, just scrolling lines of text. But it was something.

"Let's start acquiring some targets and hitting them hard," Marco said. "Captain Paradis, can you work with our backup computer?"

"I think so, sir," said the gunner. "I normally use our visual interface. See, point, fire. We just have text running now, but I can pick out enemy coordinates and type them in manually. It's slow but it should work. I've done it before. In training." The little gunner gulped, then turned toward Crawford. "Sir, I recommend we begin with a plasma assault. It's easiest and fastest. And I can fire a whole lotta plasma without sacrificing shield power."

Crawford nodded. "Get 'em, Captain. Roast those bugs."

"With pleasure," said Le Petit Capitaine.

The Ishtar thrummed. The deck plates rattled, and the cannons boomed. Red light—the plasma bolts—flashed through the portholes.

Without functioning viewports, they couldn't see much else. Did they hit anything? There was no way to know. The Ishtar still floated aimlessly, half her systems down. But at least they were still in the fight.

Another blast hit them. Another. The ship shook. The lights died again. Curses rose across the bridge. Thankfully the backup computers were still running. Lines of green code raced across a handful of terminals.

"Centillion, call the starships Taurus, Scorpio, and Leo," Marco said. The corvettes were still in deep space, pursuing the scum scout. "Tell them to call off their pursuit and get back here. We need all the firepower we can get."

The android met his gaze. "Sorry, sir, we lost all contact with Taurus, Scorpio, and Leo."

"You mean they're still in warp space, and you can't contact them?"

A boom rocked the carrier. A bulkhead bent. The attacks just kept coming.

"I mean I can't detect them at all, sir," Centillion said. "They're gone."

Dammit. Damn damn damn. The three battleships must have been drawn into an ambush.

Clever, Lailani, Marco thought. But you haven't won this yet.

He knew it was her. He knew the scum. Knew how they fought. They normally just fought with brute force, no tactics. But now the enemy was setting traps, sabotaging electronics, fighting like humans.

Lailani was commanding them now. Marco was sure of it.

Another blast hit the Ishtar. The carrier rocked in space.

Marco hurried toward a control panel that still seemed to work. The holographic screens, which could float so pleasingly through the air, were still dead. But Marco was able to pull up reports on a good old-fashioned monitor. Lights and metal. Hey, it worked for Neil Armstrong. Marco pulled up reports on the Ishtar's current state.

"Our shields are still fine," Marco said in wonder. "At ninety percent."

"What the hell?" Crawford said. "Are the aliens shooting spitballs at us?"

"I need a visual." Marco frowned. Lines of text could only tell him so much. "Engineers! When can we get our viewports back? We need that visual interface."

The team of engineers turned toward him. "Sorry, sir, it'll be another hour at least. Our main computer system … sir, they fouled it up bad."

We won't last an hour, Marco knew.

Where were the damn shuttles? Marco had sent them out for a look. They weren't back yet. Had the scum destroyed them?

He looked out the porthole again. He couldn't see nearly enough through this small window.

"I'm going to the observatory on the upper deck," Marco said. "Our comlinks are back up. I'll keep talking to you from there. I need to see."

He ran off the bridge.

* * * * *

The Ishtar's bridge was located on a middle deck near the prow. The observatory was several decks up. And this was a large starship.

Marco raced down a corridor. It was chaos. The deck was cracked. A bulkhead had fallen. Alarms kept blaring and lights flashing. Air was whistling somewhere in the distance, and gauges were spinning menacingly on the walls. A cracked pipe spewed clouds of steam.

Crewmen ran back and forth in a panic, desperately trying to hold the ship together. As Marco ran by, a few crewmen stood at attention and saluted. Most ignored him, figuring the situation was too urgent for protocol. They ran onward to handle their tasks.

Marco reached the elevator. Out of order. Not surprising. It was the service ladder for him.

He approached a bulkhead, pulled open a service hatch, and revealed a shaft like a chimney. The tunnel connected to many other hidden passageways, burrowing through the starship, forming a complex labyrinth. There was a map somewhere, but Marco didn't need a map. He just needed to go one way. Up.

He climbed madly, moving several rungs at a time. Smoke and warning lights filled the shaft. A pipe was leaking, and steam blew across him. Thankfully, the massive starship was mostly length. She was only a few stories tall. Sweating and breathing heavily, Marco reached the upper deck.

I'm out of shape, he thought. Been a while since my last war.

He hurried into the observation lounge. It was located at the prow of the ship near the upper hull. The room featured the largest viewports on the Ishtar. On the bridge, the viewports were merely screens displaying video feeds from cameras mounted on the outer hull. But here in the observatory were actual windows. They stretched across the hull, floor to ceiling, affording a semicircular view of space.

Marco stared, and his heart sank.

My God.

The scum's podships were everywhere. Thousands. They circled the fleet like piranhas around a drowning cow.

The scum. The goddamn scum. Twenty years after the war, they were back.

But they're only servants of their mistress, Marco thought. And she is no scum. She's the woman I almost married.

A chill flooded him.

Is all this your work, Lailani? Are you on one of these podships? Are you puppeteering these creatures?

A cluster of scum pods came flying closer to the Ishtar. Twenty or more. They wobbled like some massive bacteria, magnified a billion times. Their hulls were translucent, revealing figures inside, just faint silhouettes. Long, clawed silhouettes. Centipedes. It was the scum all right.

"Bridge, do you detect them?" Marco said into his comlink. "Twenty scum pods off our prow. I'm feeding you the exact coordinates. Well, as exact as I can get." He typed on his minicom.

"Got 'em, sir!" Captain Paradis answered through the com. "Firing!"

The Ishtar hummed and rattled. From up here, Marco could see the cannons. They thrust out from the prow just below him, pumping like pistons. Plasma bolts flew. The scum pods scattered, surprisingly agile, squirming away like frightened beetles.

A plasma bolt hit a podship. The blobby vessel exploded, scattering yellow ooze through space. Centipedes tumbled into the void. A second pod burst nearby, its hull ablaze, curling outward like burning paper.

But most podships dodged the plasma assault. The Ishtar's barrage was haphazard. After all, Paradis was firing by typing in coordinates manually. And those coordinates were just Marco's best estimate, staring out the window without any digital help. Without the point-and-click interface, hitting two podships was about as good as could be expected.

Eighteen pods were still flying toward the Ishtar's prow. They regrouped into three formations, flew closer, and thrust out fleshy tubes. Vents bloomed open, about to blow.

A plasma bolt from Ishtar took out one pod.

A Firebird starfighter raced by and took out another.

The remaining podships let rip. Globs of orange ooze flew through space, rolling toward the Ishtar.

Several globs missed. One flew right over the observation lounge, splattering the viewport with droplets. Marco instinctively ducked.

The other blobs hit.

Marco leaned against the glass window. He saw it happen. The oozing blobs slammed into the Ishtar's plasma cannons—just below the observatory. The goo entered the barrels. It was like sticking gum into straws.

"Hold your fire!" Marco said into his comlink. "Bridge, hold your fire—now!"

"Sir?" came Captain Paradis's reply.

"The scum pods jammed our plasma cannons. They filled them with some kind of ooze. If you fire the cannons, they'll blow!"

Silence for a moment.

"How do the torpedo bays look?" Paradis asked.

"I can't see them from here," Marco said. "Are the inter-ship comlinks back up? Let's see if we can get Firebirds to do some recon. Do not fire the cannons! Repeat—do not fire until we know a cannon is clear!"

Marco ran toward the starboard side of the observation lounge. He gazed into space. The HDFS Shara was flying there, a hulking frigate. She was smaller than the Ishtar but still a damn big machine.

Shara was deep in the fight, blasting her plasma cannons at incoming podships. Several pods burst, spilling centipedes.

"There's a bunch of that ooze covering Shara's exhaust ports," Marco said into his comlink. "Her cannons are still operational, but the frigate won't be moving anytime soon. I'm getting a visual of the Vermilion Bird too now. She's too far to see clearly. But looks like she's been slimed as well. It's no wonder our engines are dead. It's not just the electronic damage. The scum gunked them up."

As he watched, the scum pods raced alongside Shara's port hull. The ooze flew, splattering the frigate's cannons. Some slime entered a torpedo bay. Dammit! That meant the frigate, one of their most powerful warships, was essentially out of the fight.

"Centillion!" Marco barked into his comlink. "Open a channel to the Shara. Tell them what's happening. They might be blind too. If they fire with their cannons jammed, they—"

And then it happened.

The Shara opened fire.

Her entire portside cannons—fifteen guns in all—fired a full broadside.

A few plasma bolts managed to tear through the ooze. They rolled into space. But several cannons burst. It was like one of those old Looney Tunes cartoons where Bugs would stick his finger into Elmer Fudd's muzzle, and the gun would burst open. Fire spread across Shara's portside.

"They're not trying to destroy our ships," Marco said. "Scum have acid that could eat through hulls. They're just disabling us. They're planning to board us."

He ran back to the bridge.

CHAPTER TWENTY

"Colonel Linden, we have to retreat!" Cyborg shouted over the roar of battle. "We can't win this. We must get off this planet!"

The battle was raging across the ice. Thousands of marines stood with their backs to the walls, firing machine guns at the enemy. The centipedes kept coming. Wave after wave. Whenever the soldiers mowed them down, fresh scum rose from cracks in the ice.

"Has anyone managed to contact the fleet?" Addy shouted. She was firing an assault rifle, peppering the scum with bullets. Poor Calcifer was out of plasma charges.

"Nobody can reach them!" Cyborg said.

The officer stood on the ice, his metal legs steady even as the world shook. Addy envied him. Her own boots kept slipping as she fought.

"What about the Prison Bureau?" Addy said.

"We've been hailing them on all frequencies." Cyborg loaded a fresh magazine. "They're ignoring us. They're hiding behind their walls and letting us die out here."

"Or they've been compromised," Addy said.

The marines had raised a snowbank outside the camp's concrete walls. They stood behind it like soldiers behind sandbags, rifles slung over the top. This crude, snowy barricade surrounded the prison camp. The trenches they had dug right after landing were already overrun.

It was only a matter of time, Addy knew, before the enemy breached these defenses too.

Without air support, we're toast, Addy realized. Thousands of soldiers. An entire brigade. Wiped out. Under my watch.

She couldn't let that happen.

She hated the idea of retreat. She had never retreated from a fight. Not as a kid fighting bullies on the streets. Not in all her years of war.

But throughout those years, she had been a grunt. Just a common soldier in the trenches. Now she was a leader. She could not doom these soldiers to die just because she was too proud to run.

There's no shame in retreat, Addy realized. Sometimes it's necessary to die valiantly. And sometimes it's necessary to run, to live, and to fight another day.

Very un-Addy-like, she knew. But maybe she was finally growing up.

"Very well, Cyborg," she said. "Spread the order among the companies. We're to get these dropships flight-ready again. Then we blast the hell off this pla—"

White light blazed in the sky.

A boom shook the world.

Addy grimaced, blinded. She knelt and covered her head with her arms. Gunfire died across the battle. Even the scum screeched, paused from fighting, and curled up. The sky blazed as if a billion lightning bolts flared at once.

And then it was over.

The air sizzled.

Addy rose slowly, woozy. She looked around her.

"What the hell just happened?" she demanded. Nobody answered.

She looked up at the sky. White blobs spread across the zenith, flaring out to sickly yellow. A bruise across the sky.

"That was a nuclear blast," she said. "A fucking nuclear explosion. The fleet. Oh God … the fleet."

Cyborg squinted, staring upward. "That nuclear blast wasn't in space. It didn't target the fleet. It looks like it was just a few kilometers up."

"How can you tell?"

"Because I—" He frowned. "Well, because—" He paled.

"Cyborg?" Addy said.

The scum resumed their attack. The centipedes swarmed toward the snowy barricades, and the troops resumed firing their guns. But Cyborg just stood there, frozen in place.

"Cyborg, what's wrong?" Addy said.

"I can't move," he said. "Oh God. Addy. I can't move my legs! Or my left arm!"

His legs. His left arm. All three were prosthetic limbs, complex contraptions connected to his nervous system.

"Does your right arm work?" Addy said. "The real arm?"

He moved it around. "Yes. But the three mechanical limbs are dead." He grimaced. "That blast in the sky. That was a goddamn EMP attack. It fried my circuits."

Addy tried her plasma rifle. Dead. Completely dead! The little screen—which normally showed stats like battery power, plasma heat, and total kills—was now black. She tested an assault rifle instead, a simple T58 that fired regular bullets. That worked at least. The assault rifle just had mechanical parts, nothing digital. Addy emptied a magazine on a scum that scurried too close.

"Fuck!" she said. "You reckon it fried the dropship controls too?"

"I'd check," Cyborg said, "except I seem to be frozen in place."

Addy took three magazines from her vest's pouches, keeping only two for herself. "Take these. Fight hard. I'll be back. Stand your ground, Cyborg." She winked.

She ran along the battlements. A narrow path stretched between the concrete walls of the camp and the stone embankment the soldiers had raised. It felt like running down a canyon. All along this makeshift trench, the soldiers were firing. As Addy ran, hot bullet casings kept flying, pattering against her armor and helmet. One singed her cheek. She ignored the pain.

A few brazen centipedes charged the battlements. Soldiers shouted and fired. Two centipedes made it over the top.

One of them leaped onto a fireteam of marines. The men screamed and fought it, swinging their rifles. The second centipede landed at Addy's feet, sprang up, and knocked her down. The beast shrieked. Its claws rose, dripping venom, ready to tear her apart.

She clubbed it with her rifle. The alien fell back. She swung the rifle again and again, screaming, beating the alien.

A claw scraped her calf. Venom blazed in the wound. Addy screamed.

She kept shouting, knocking the beast back, until she managed to aim properly and open fire. She emptied her magazine into the damn thing. It mewled, gave her a baleful stare, and died. Bastard.

With shaky fingers, Addy reached into her med kit, found a syringe, and injected herself with antidote. The pain from the venom faded, but her leg was still shaky.

She loaded a fresh magazine. Now she only had one left in her pocket.

She kept running along the battlements until she reached a dropship. The vessel was still expanded into a cabin, its outer paneling turned into walls. It would take some effort to get it back into flight mode. Assuming the machinery even worked.

Addy hurried inside, found three dead soldiers and two dead scum. She climbed over the bodies into the cockpit and tried to fire up the engines.

Dead.

The control panels—fried.

"Cyborg!" she said into her comlink. "The goddamn EMP attack fucked up our dropships. Cyborg?"

But the comlink was dead too. Addy tossed it aside in disgust.

She stood in the cockpit, the horror sinking in.

They had no way of contacting the fleet. No way of flying off this planet. They were stuck here. They were marooned. And the enemy kept coming.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"Stop," Lailani whispered, tears flowing down her cheeks. "Please stop. Please. Please. Please."

She sat in the Black Rose Viperess, half a light-year from New Siberia, floating in the void. But she saw through thousands of eyes. The eyes of starlings in the camp. And the black soulless eyes of the centipedes in the snow.

The hive was swarming.

The hive was killing.

The hive was dying.

The bullets flew. Millions of bullets. Millions of shards of agony. So painful. So much pain! Bullets tore through exoskeletons. Fire. Fire blazed! Fire hurt! Fire melted flesh!

They died. So many died. They rose from the ice only to fall, to burn, to freeze.

They kept scuttling forward. Rage. Raging! Hungry! Must consume! Must kill!

They climbed over the corpses of their fallen. They kept bubbling up from the depths. Never turn back! Never flee! Charge! Charge! Kill! Feed!

They swarmed. They raced toward the humans, fearing no bullets, no fire. They were a cruel species, the humans. Smart. So smart. So deadly. Their bodies were so soft, and they didn't even have exoskeletons. They were weak like maggots. But their weapons were so strong.

The hive would not flee. No matter how many died. The hive knew no retreat. The brave ones reached the humans. The claws ripped off limbs. So soft! Such soft flesh! The mandibles tore open rib cages, feasted on delicious hearts. The mighty humans with their bullets and fire—just larvae!

Many centipedes died. Many brothers and sisters of the hive. But many fed. And many humans fell.

"Stop!" Lailani screamed, rising from her seat in her starship, so far away yet seeing, sensing all. "Stop killing! I told you. I told you! Herd the humans into the camp. Do not kill! Do not feed!"

The centipedes ignored her. The bloodlust consumed them. She was too far. Too new a queen. Too weak to control them. And they were so hungry.

This was not the plan. Lailani had hidden the scum under the ice. For a frantic day and night, they had toiled, digging in the permafrost, creating tunnels for scum. They were meant to emerge as one, to surprise the humans, and herd them into the prison camp. To lock up the marines within those concrete walls.

But the gates were closed.

The starlings were keeping them closed—against her orders!

The humans could not enter the camp.

And the scum fed.

One scum ripped a man's entrails out. Lailani saw it through the centipede's eyes. She tasted the hot blood. Felt it gush down her throat. She might as well have killed the soldier herself.

More died. Every moment, more soldiers died.

Human soldiers.

Lailani was not fully human. And she was no longer a soldier. But she had served in that uniform for years. She did not want anyone to die.

"Stop!" she cried.

Why were the starlings in the camp not opening the doors? She had freed them! She had descended from the sky and liberated them! Now they disobeyed her!

The prison guards were all dead. The starlings themselves now wore the gray uniforms, masquerading as the guards. Part of the trap to lure the marines into the camp.

Yet the starlings kept the doors closed.

They let the scum feed outside the camp.

They watched from the walls—and laughed.

"Open the doors!" Lailani shouted, forcing her thoughts across the distance—and into the minds of the starlings inside the camp.

They gazed at her across the distance … then looked away.

Let the bugs feed, rose a thought in her mind. A thought from the frozen planet, millions of miles away. Let the poor hungry centipedes drink the blood of our oppressors.

"I gave you orders!" Lailani said.

We are starlings. We are not centipedes. We have minds of our own. We do not obey! Let the scum feed. Let the humans die.

"Those humans are our brothers and sisters."

So are the centipedes. And they are so hungry. Let them feed.

Lailani pursed her lips. She had to put an end to this. But she needed to be here in deep space. She was waiting for something. Waiting for a trap to spring.

The trap was set here. Here in the darkness. Here in the distant void. She could not leave. She must wait.

She howled and tugged her hair.

"Hurry," she whispered through clenched teeth. "Please hurry. Hurry, hurry, hurry. The trap must spring. And I must fly back and stop this slaughter!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

So much for peacemaking, Marco thought. It's war. But is this war against the scum again? Or against you, Lailani? Are you out there, pulling the strings?

Scum were not capable of independent thought. A scum alone was no smarter than a regular centipede, the little ones you saw on Earth. Somebody was giving the orders. Somebody who knew how to disable Earthling starships. How to jam their guns. Somebody who had fought on starships before.

"Show yourself, Lailani," Marco said softly. "Talk to me."

Another blast hit the Ishtar. The carrier rocked. Standing on the bridge, Marco swayed.

The front viewport was back online, at least. The screen jittered and skipped, but it was showing a video feed again. Marco beheld a dizzying scene of starships and podships locked in battle. Fire and ooze filled space.

More and more scum pods kept streaming in from deep space. They fired more goo, ensnaring the human starships in sticky nets. The Ishtar, the Lulal, and the Shara floated helplessly. They were the largest three ships in the fleet—and useless. The damn Shara crew kept trying to fire their jammed cannons. Marco watched as they tried to fire another broadside, only blasting two more muzzles apart. Damn fools!

Thankfully, some of the smaller ships were still in the fight. The corvettes were more agile than the larger warships. They were doing a better job of dodging the ooze, and their guns were still firing, blasting scum pods apart. The Firebirds were mostly still fighting, zipping back and forth between the enemy vessels. Marco watched a podship spew acid onto a Firebird, destroying the starfighter. The pilot ejected, only for a second stream of acid to roast him.

Without the big ships fighting, this battle is hopeless, Marco thought.

He turned toward the gunnery station, which stood near the back of the bridge.

"Captain Paradis, where's my diagnostic report?" Marco said.

The young gunner looked up from his station. Le Petit Capitaine was so short he could barely look over the control panel. Standing only four feet tall, he would make even Lailani seem like a giant.

"Sir, I'm still running a complete diagnostic sweep of all the Ishtar's weapons systems," Paradis said. His French accent was oddly comforting in the hectic environment of a warship's bridge. "And … I'm just getting the results now." He winced. "All our cannons are jammed. Every plasma cannon, torpedo bay, even the machine gun nests—jammed! The scum clogged them up. I don't know what they're firing, but it's stickier than tar."

Marco pursed his lips, inhaled sharply through his nostrils. "What is the protocol for unjamming them?"

Paradis glanced at the manual, which stood on a nearby shelf. "Um … sir, we don't have a protocol, we, um … normally get the guns serviced at the shipyard."

Marco nodded. "Get a spacesuit on. We're going out there." He paused for a moment, softened his voice. "The ship does have a spacesuit in your size, doesn't it?"

"Yes, sir!" said Le Petit Capitaine.

Brigadier Crawford, who was busy yelling at a malfunctioning control panel, spun toward them. "Out there? In spacesuits? Are you mad?"

"We need to get those cannons back into the fight," Marco said.

Crawford guffawed. "The instant you get outside, the scum will rip you to ribbons."

"If we don't get those cannons back up and running, we're all dead," Marco said. "If we have to clean them with goddamn pipe cleaners, we're going to get them firing again. Captain Paradis—with me."

The petite Frenchman was pale. He looked about thirty, old enough to have fought in the Cyborg War. But he might have never seen action before. At his size, he had likely never fought on a battlefield, only served behind a control panel.

He never fought in the trenches, Marco thought. Nor in open space. Not like me when I was that age.

Marco was only a decade older. But he had spent the Alien Wars in the infantry. Infantrymen saw things. They learned courage under fire.

To his credit, Captain Paradis did not question the orders. He gulped and saluted. "Yes, sir."

"Good man," Marco said.

His heart's in the right place, that's for sure. It's time for the old war dogs like me to show the young ones some tricks.

He marched off the bridge, and Paradis followed.

"It's your funeral," Crawford could be heard mumbling behind them. Then the brigadier returned to banging on the broken control panel.

Marco ran through the ship. Whenever he passed by a porthole, he saw the starfighters and podships battling outside. Blasts kept hitting the Ishtar. The deck swayed. Marco nearly fell, kept running. Paradis followed, hurrying to keep up on his shorter legs. The little captain swayed with every blast.

During the Alien Wars, the scum would bathe starships with acid, melting their hulls. Today they were just slinging sticky goo.

They're cocooning us, Marco thought. Like spiders cocooning a fly before they feed. And they're gonna get hungry soon.

They passed by the starboard gunnery stations, which lined the hull along the middle deck. The machinery of massive cannons filled the room. Gears. Pistons. Barrels large enough for a man to crawl into. Most of the mighty barrels, however, were outside the ship. Portholes revealed the muzzles. The great guns of the Ishtar pointed toward the battle, jammed, covered with the alien slime.

Gunners stood in the room, covered in soot. These soldiers weren't fancy bridge officers. They didn't just press buttons on a control panel. They manned the mighty cannons, loading and firing, much like warriors on sailing ships of old.

At the moment, these gunners were busy pulling on spacesuits. When Marco entered the room, however, they stood at attention and saluted.

"Going somewhere?" Marco said.

The lead gunner, a lieutenant with a sooty face and prosthetic arm, nodded. "Yes, sir. We're going out there to clean off the damn goo."

Damn good men, Marco thought. This is HDF spirit.

"Captain Paradis and I came to help," Marco said. "Anyone got two spare spacesuits? And some mops?"

"Spacesuits, yes," the sooty gunner said. "Mops, no."

"Were you gonna use your hands?" Captain Paradis said.

The lieutenant looked at his fellow gunners, then back at his captain. "We haven't thought that far ahead, sir, to be perfectly honest."

"There's a janitorial closet down the corridor," Marco said. "It's on the way to the airlock. We'll grab cleaning supplies there. Come on!"

They raced down the corridor as blasts shook the starship. Every few steps, they swayed, hit the bulkheads, and ran on. There were eight of them, all wearing spacesuits and helmets, all carrying guns.

They burst into the janitor's closet. It was full of sponges, squeegees, mops. The mother lode! In this battle, mops were worth more than guns.

Marco reached for a sponge when he noticed a girl cowering among the mops. She peeked at him, trembled, and managed to stand at attention. She saluted with a shaky hand.

"Sir!"

Dust covered her military uniform, but Marco saw the insignia of a private. Her hair was red and curly. She couldn't have been older than nineteen.

"Are you the janitor?" Marco said.

She raised her chin. "Aye, sir! Private Emily Macintosh, ready to serve!" She had a thick Scottish accent.

He pointed at the back of the closet. "Put on that spacesuit, Macintosh. You're coming with us. Today the janitors will save the galaxy."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The machine guns roared.

Bullets pounded the iron gateway of the Freezer, otherwise known as the Hybrid Relocation Camp. Sparks flew. Bullets ricocheted. The blast door withstood the assault.

"Come on, come on, fall, you fucker!" Addy shouted, firing the machine gun. She stood on the ice, holding the weapon with both hands, hammering the thick metal door with bullets.

It didn't budge.

After all this time, there was still no word from the Prison Bureau. The guards had vanished off their towers. The doors never opened. And the scum kept coming, wave after wave, pounding the marines against the concrete walls.

Addy needed to get her troops into that camp. Out here in the open, the scum were slaughtering them. But inside the Freezer, behind those thick walls, they stood a chance.

A part of Addy worried about what she would find inside this massive prison camp. Would the horrors inside eclipse the slaughter out here? Was this all part of an elaborate trap? She didn't know. But one thing she did know.

Out here they were dead. This battle was lost. They had to retreat somewhere. And the Freezer was the only place available.

Addy kept firing the machine gun. More and more bullets kept pounding the blast door and the concrete walls around it. Around her, soldiers were firing in the opposite direction, holding back the assaulting scum. The aliens kept charging from the wilderness, but they could not reach the camp's frozen walls.

Finally it happened.

The bullets tore down the metal door, opening a path into the camp.

It was only a small door. Not much larger than a simple door in a house. And there were thousands of marines to evacuate. It would take time. But they had a way in. They could begin pulling back from the enemy.

"All right, soldiers!" Addy shouted over the gunfire. "Iceberg Company—you're in first! Go, go! We'll cover you! Get in there! Everyone who's not Iceberg Company—keep killing the bugs!"

She climbed onto a dead dropship. Following the EMP attack, it was just a hunk of metal. The machine gun ammo was gone. But from up here, Addy could peer over the snowbanks and oversee the battle.

What she saw chilled her.

Countless scum covered the horizon. The centipede horde surrounded the human force, a noose of claws. How the hell had so many hidden under the ice? Addy looked back toward the Freezer, trying to peer inside, but soldiers already crowded the doorway. What fresh hell awaited in there? Whatever it was, they'd have to face it.

Iceberg Company began squeezing themselves through the doorway, desperate to enter the camp. They were one of four companies in this battalion, two hundred men strong. All those two hundred marines now crowded at the doorway, forming a bottleneck. Men shouted, shoved one another. Somebody fell. Other soldiers trampled him. One soldier found himself pinned against the wall, gasping as other soldiers tried to shove their way toward the door.

"Iceberg Company, dammit, calm your tits and queue up!" Addy shouted. "Enter one by one, platoon by platoon! Sergeants, organize your company, dammit!"

Finally some order was restored. The Icebergs began entering the Freezer one by one.

Only one squad had entered before the centipedes surged.

Hundreds of the beasts stormed the barricades. And with Iceberg Company out of the fight, the marines had less firepower to hold them back.

A scum caught one marine, pulled him over the barricades, and dragged him into the swarm. The other centipedes devoured him. It was like watching a hive of ants consume a piece of fruit. Within seconds, the soldier was gone. Nothing but bones remained.

More scum leaped over the barricades and crashed into the retreating company. Soldiers screamed. They fell back. They opened fire wildly, assault rifles swinging from side to side. Friendly fire cut one man down. The retreat into the Freezer collapsed into chaos.

Iceberg Company was falling apart. The scum trapped them from all sides. For every man who entered the Freezer, the scum tore down two.

Addy turned toward Snowstorm Company, another one of the battalion's units. The Snowstorm marines currently manned a snowbank, taking potshots at the scum horde, which covered the icy plains. The soldiers weren't doing much good up there. They could fire until the cows came home, and the scum would just produce more bugs.

"Snowstorm Company, form a defensive line here!" Addy shouted. "Form a line! Rally here!"

Snowstorm Company abandoned the snowbank and gathered around her. They had suffered heavy casualties, were probably down to about a hundred and fifty soldiers. That would have to do.

"Iceberg Company needs us at the gate," Addy said. "We'll cover their retreat. Snowstorm Company, with me—charge!"

She ran, howling, and Snowstorm Company followed.

They stormed toward the doorway. Not to enter the Freezer but to defend their retreating friends. The centipedes, who were busy savaging Iceberg Company, turned toward the charge. Their claws and mandibles dripped blood.

Addy ran down the snowbanks, roaring, and fired her gun. Centipedes fell apart, scattering pieces of exoskeleton.

But Addy soon had to hold her fire. Iceberg Company was right behind the scum. Her bullets could easily kill Iceberg marines just as easily as centipedes. She'd have to get up close. Close enough to stare the buggers in their beady little eyes.

Beside her, a Snowstorm Company private unleashed a hailstorm of bullets. He took down a scum—and two Iceberg soldiers, men who were simply waiting to enter the door.

"Hold your fire!" Addy shouted. "Snowstorm Company, hold your fire! We can't fire bullets with our friends behind the scum. Bayonets! Fight with bayonets!"

"We can't get too close!" a soldier shouted. "Their blood is venom!"

"We will spill that blood nonetheless!" Addy cried. "Raise those bayonets!"

T58 assault rifles came with hidden blades. Addy hit a button on her rifle, and a bayonet thrust out with a hiss. Across the snowbanks, the brave soldiers of Snowstorm Company revealed their blades.

"With me—charge!" Addy shouted and ran toward the enemy, bayonet pointing the way.

Snowstorm Company ran with her, howling for war, charging to defend their friends.

A great cry rose from the north.

"For Earth! For Earth!"

Addy looked up, and her heart soared.

They came from the north, joining the charge. Yeti Company, two hundred strong!

Cyborg was leading them. The major's mechanical legs were still broken. He was riding on the shoulders of another soldier, his rifle raised, and his cry rolled over the battlefield. For Earth! For Earth! Behind him ran the brave Yetis, bayonets gleaming.

The centipedes at the doorway shrieked. They paused from their slaughter of Iceberg Company, turning to face this new threat. Addy was leading the Snowstorm Company from the south. Cyborg was leading the Yeti Company from the north. The scum at the gates were trapped. And they knew it.

A few centipedes tried to form a defensive line. But other centipedes recoiled. Fear shone in their eyes. Actual fear! They were afraid!

Then the forces slammed together.

The world shook.

Bayonets drove into centipedes.

Most of the bayonets just found the hard exoskeletons of the aliens. They glanced off, leaving mere scratches. But Addy had fought these beasts before. The memories resurfaced. She drove her bayonet forward, aiming for the thin line between two segments of a scum's body.

Her blade sank in. It found the soft flesh. She twisted the blade, and the scum twitched and shrieked and fell.

"Aim between their segments!" Addy shouted. "Those are the chinks in their armor! Get them between their—"

A horrible scream rose. A centipede leaped onto the corporal beside her. Claws ripped the man apart. The scum reared, mandibles bloody, and turned toward Addy. She slammed her bayonet right into its open jaws, pulled the blade back, then thrust again and again, carving deep until she reached the brain. The alien fell.

Some of the acidic blood got on Addy. It began eating through her body armor. She washed it off with a handful of snow. Other soldiers weren't as lucky. Beside her, one man got scum blood in his eyes. He screamed, blinded, eyeballs melting.

The battle raged around the doorway, two companies covering the retreat of a third. Addy didn't know if she'd live to ever enter these frozen walls.

* * * * *

Finally Iceberg Company made it into the camp.

But hundreds of soldiers were still outside. And with one company off the battlefield, the scum attacked with more vigor.

"Snowstorm Company, you're next!" Addy shouted. "Get into the Freezer. We'll cover you!"

She had no contact with the brigade's other battalions. Not with the comlinks down. From here at the southern wall, she could only see the brave companies of the Snow Wolf Battalion. But she had landed on this planet with three other battalions, together forming the legendary Khione Brigade. Those other three battalions were stationed outside the north, west, and east walls, a few klicks away from here. Addy hoped they were making their way into the Freezer too.

She kept fighting. Stabbing. Her leg bled. The gash was deep, but she had no time to die. She kept killing the beasts. The scum were all the same. To Addy, every centipede here was the same centipede that had destroyed her family. That had murdered her friends. That had ruined her life.

And Snowstorm Company was in!

Yeti Company followed! Iceberg Company fled next. A floodgate had broken in the battle. They were all moving so fast now.

Only one company of the Snow Wolf Battalion remained outside the walls. They were called Icicle Company, and they were down to only a hundred men. Half their usual size.

It was time for them to pull back too.

Thousands of centipedes swarmed toward them. Addy didn't know if the Icicles could retreat fast enough. Maybe it was their fate to die outside the walls, the last men standing, their lives sacrificed to save their brethren.

Then from above the walls—fire raged!

Bullets pounded the enemy!

Streams of plasma burned the scum!

Addy looked up. She saw Snow Wolf soldiers on the walls, a joint force from several companies. Cyborg stood there. Somebody must have carried him up. His legs still weren't working, but he could stand in place and deal death to the enemy.

"Get your men in here, Linden!" Cyborg shouted down at her.

As Cyborg and his troops lay down suppressive fire, Addy moved between the soldiers of Icicle Company.

"You heard the cyborg, Icicles! Get your frozen asses inside! Go, go! We'll cover you, get in there!"

The troops ran through the door, entering the Freezer. The centipedes moved closer. Addy stood her ground, fighting as the others retreated, emptying magazine after magazine until she was the last woman outside. The last soldier facing the alien army.

Everyone else was either inside the camp—or dead.

Addy stood alone before the monstrous horde, panting, wounded, but still standing tall.

She snarled and reached for her last magazine. She would make it count.

Suddenly the centipedes all froze.

There were thousands. They could have ripped her apart. But they froze. They reared. They all stared at Addy. Their antennae twitched, and voices emerged, vibrating through the air.

"Addy … you should not … have … come … I'm … sorry …"

Addy narrowed her eyes. "Lailani?" she whispered.

The spell broke.

The centipedes charged.

Addy emptied her last magazine with a single burst, taking down a centipede. Then she spun around, ran through the doorway, and entered the concrete camp.

At once, soldiers ran forward with slats of metal—bulkheads taken from the dead dropships. They slammed them onto the open doorway, then sprayed plasma, welding the makeshift door into place.

The scum screeched outside. They clawed at the door. Once more, they were just mindless animals. But the words echoed in Addy's ears.

I'm … sorry …

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

They jumped out into space. Marco, a handful of gunners, and one young janitor.

Oddly, as they flew into a battle of fire and death, Marco's first thought was: I missed this.

His second thought, rising only a second later, was: No I didn't! Oh fuck, oh fuck, what the hell am I doing here?

Space blazed around him. A Firebird streaked by, leaving a trail of rippling blue fire. Marco winced in the heat. A swarm of scum pods chased the starfighter, spraying acid. Farther out, a corvette was firing its rotary cannons, tearing through a podship formation. One of the blobby pods caught fire, blazed like a zeppelin, and crashed toward the atmosphere of New Siberia. A Firebird exploded nearby, spun madly, and slammed into the hull of a frigate. Metal shards flew through space. Marco ducked, narrowly dodging a scrap of wing.

For a second, terror claimed him.

Everywhere around him—death. A panorama of destruction.

Around him, his fellow soldiers stared, pale, trembling.

Then Marco tightened his lips and balled his fists.

Onward, soldier! he told himself.

"Come on, boys and girls, to those cannons!" Marco said. "Let's clean 'em up!"

Seven of them flew through space. There was Marco, several gunners, and Macintosh the janitor. They wore spacesuits and jetpacks, and ropes tethered them to Ishtar. They began to rappel across the Ishtar's hull, moving from the hatch toward a plasma cannon. They wore belts heavy with sponges, squeegees, and mops taken from a janitorial closet.

We must look like the galaxy's craziest window washer, Marco thought.

War was more than just combat, he knew. Combat soldiers did not win wars without help. There were the sappers, brave soldiers who built roads, secured bridges, and dismantled bombs, often under fire. There were the logistic soldiers—truck drivers and laborers, courageous souls who delivered food, ammo, and hope where hope was needed most. There were soldiers who built, scrubbed, cleaned. Who fixed antennae. Who cleared minefields, rescued the injured, healed the hurt, prayed for the dying. They were the men and women who stepped onto the battle with wrenches, hammers, med kits. They were the brave soldiers who, under heavy fire, fixed what needed to be fixed. Did what needed to be done. Their courage gave hope. They were called "noncombat" soldiers. But goddammit, they won wars. Today Marco was proud to be counted among their number.

A scum pod wobbled above. The translucent hull revealed centipedes scuttling inside, tugging on fleshy strands like umbilical cords, operating their vessel.

Marco drew his pistol.

The podship's vent bloomed open, pointing at Marco. Acid gurgled within.

Marco fired.

As a bridge officer, he didn't walk around with an assault rifle. He wasn't a grunt anymore. But he got some cool new toys. His pistol was one of them. The sidearm was small, but it fired mighty plasma bolts. One of those bolts, a flaming ball of energy powerful enough to tear through a tank, slammed into the podship's blooming vent.

Fire spread through the vent. Acid sizzled, bubbled, and sputtered out in random directions. Marco ducked, dodging a glob of acid. It hit the Ishtar's hull and began eating through the shield plates.

Macintosh the janitor quickly approached the acid on the hull. She began scrubbing it off with her mop. God bless that plucky young Scot. Her mop melted down to the handle, but she saved the ship.

Marco fired again. This plasma bolt perforated the podship's fleshy hull. Air blasted from the hole, spraying through space. The podship caved in like a punctured basketball. The wilted blob sank through space, caught in New Siberia's immense gravity well. Within moments, it was burning up in the planet's atmosphere.

Marco looked at the gunners and janitor. They clung to the hull, gazing at the battle in horror. They held their mops and sponges in shaking hands.

"Keep going, soldiers!" Marco said. "I'll cover you. Get to the cannons and start cleaning!"

They snapped out of it. The group kept rappelling down the hull, looking like ants crawling along a boulder. They finally reached the first plasma cannon. The massive barrel thrust from the port hull, as long and thick as an oak.

"All right, boys and girls, let's get to scrubbing!" Marco raised a squeegee. "Captain Paradis and I will handle the first cannon. The rest of you—get the next few guns. As one soldier cleans, the other will lay down suppressive fire. Keep those scum away!"

Half the soldiers drew guns, the other half sponges.

They got to work.

Marco began to clean one cannon. The goo was sticky like tar, and it squirmed like a living thing as he scrubbed it. Very soon he gave up using a sponge. Instead, he reached both hands into the cannon and began tugging out the goo. Kind of like gutting a fish.

As Marco toiled, Paradis kept guard, firing his pistol toward the battle. He wasn't aiming at any scum in particular, just firing random shots into the void, discouraging any enemy from approaching. His hands trembled, but he stood his ground.

Out here in space, it doesn't matter how tall you are, Marco thought. Paradis is just as brave a warrior as anyone.

Farther along the Ishtar's hull, the other soldiers were cleaning more cannons. Macintosh was doing the best job. The janitor kept sticking her mop deep into the bores, then pulling out gook. She looked like a woman with a giant a Q-tip, cleaning the ear canals of a giant.

"Good job, soldiers!" Marco said. "Keep that up and—"

"Sir, incoming podship!" Paradis said.

Marco glanced over his shoulder, saw the pod fly close. He had his hands full, covered with the sticky material.

"It's a small one—shoot it!" Marco said.

Paradis fired his sidearm. Missed the first time. Fired again, and the pod exploded.

Three centipedes spilled out. The aliens came flying through space—toward them!

"Um, sir?" Paradis said.

"Shoot! Shoot the damn things!"

"I'm not used to shooting guns this small," Paradis muttered. But he fired again. Again. Two centipedes careened into space.

The third landed on the Ishtar's hull. It scuttled toward Marco, mandibles clacking, claws scraping the starship's armored plates.

Paradis was busy firing at another incoming pod.

Goddammit!

His hands too sticky for a gun, Marco grabbed a glob of goo. He flung it like a monkey flinging its own filth.

The goo slammed into the centipede, tangling around its antennae. That gave Marco time to wipe his hands on a sponge, draw his sidearm, and finish the job.

"Paradis, keep doing what you're doing," Marco said. "You're doing great. I'm almost done."

Several starfighters raced by. A few scum pods pursued. A corvette blazed overhead, cannons blasting. Marco tuned it all out, focused on his task—cleaning this cannon.

Finally—the first cannon was done!

"Paradis, get back into the ship and start firing this cannon!" Marco said. "I'll keep cleaning the other guns."

"But sir, you need someone to cover you," Paradis said. His pistol was shaking in his hands.

"What I need is this damn ship back in the fight. Get inside! Start firing cannon A-15. I want to hear this gun booming."

Paradis saluted. "Yes, sir. I'll get our cannons firing if I have to load every plasma charge myself."

Le Petit Capitaine activated his jetpack and flew toward the airlock, leaving Marco outside.

* * * * *

Marco moved onto another cannon. The other crews were making good progress too. Marco paused by the fouled cannon, placed his back to the hull, and scanned space. A few podships were wobbling nearby, but thankfully, a Firebird was roaring in, missiles flying. A pod exploded, showering centipedes.

Marco fired three shots, knocking three floating centipedes aside. A few other crewmen added their bullets to his.

The next podship was still a moment away. Marco got to work, pulling goo from the cannon's bore. It was slow work. This cannon was messier. The slime filled the barrel deeper than he could reach. Marco had to crawl inside, to pull out strands of the tar, and hurl the sticky blobs into space. He wriggled in deeper until the bore enveloped him. He felt like a rodent in a hollow log.

"Please don't fire the wrong gun, Paradis," Marco muttered as he worked.

Clattering sounded behind him.

Marco looked over his shoulder.

A centipede was crawling into the bore after him!

The beast scuttled closer, shrieking. It was massive. The size of a python.

Marco flipped onto his back, aimed his gun, fired a shot.

His bullet ripped off an antenna, but the scum kept advancing. He fired again and again. The alien reached him. A claw lashed.

Marco cringed, scampering deeper into the bore. The claw missed him, hit the inside of the cannon, and embedded itself into the steel.

The centipede roared, stuck inside the barrel.

"Idiot," Marco said and fired a shot into its head. The scum thumped down dead.

Well, that was a second cannon cleaned. Marco crawled out into space, dragging the dead scum along. He hovered by the hull between two massive plasma cannons, both now clean.

"Paradis, I got gun A-14 clean," Marco said. "Are you ready to—"

Suddenly the cannons surrounding him, units A15 and A14, unleashed blasts of plasma.

Marco grimaced.

The heat was terrifying. It bathed across him. His spacesuit wailed and flashed radiation warnings. The visor automatically darkened, the algorithms kicking in to save his eyes. Even with his visor on its darkest level, Marco saw two balls of plasma, roughly pumpkin-sized, fly into space. The bolts plowed into two heavy podships, pulverizing them. The centipedes inside, thousands of them, burned up like twigs in a fire.

A bit stronger than Marco's pistol.

His head rang. Afterimages flashed before Marco's eyes. The heat was boiling his suit, possibly searing his skin too.

But good. Very good. The Ishtar was back in the fight!

The remaining cannons, which the other soldiers were cleaning, began firing too.

Marco floated along the hull, watching the plasma blasts rip through a scum dreadnought—a fleshy blob the size of a football stadium. Myriads of centipedes burned in the inferno.

Lailani, are you here on one of these ships? Marco thought. Are you giving the orders?

Horror filled him. Not just horror of the scum, the battle, the death. But that it was Lailani, his Lailani, who sat on the throne of Abaddon. Who had ordered this attack. He prayed that he was wrong. That there was some other scum king, that Lailani was innocent of this crime.

But he had seen scum fight before. Scum would normally be bathing these starships with acid, eating through the hulls. Not trying to disable the starships. Amazingly, despite every instinct in their hideous bodies, the scum were taking care to minimize loss of life. They were clogging up engines and cannons, not destroying indiscriminately.

Is this your humanity, Lailani, shining through the brutality?

Marco glanced down at the planet. At the prison camp below.

Are we the monsters this time? Me and Einav and the rest of Earth?

This whole thing was ridiculous. He needed to talk to Lailani. To solve this with words, not blood. Where was the damn woman?

* * * * *

The portside cannons were now all firing.

"Soldiers, let's head over to the starboard bow!" Marco said. "We got a whole other battery of cannons to clean."

He looked up at them, and he saw that one gunner was dead. Centipede claws had ripped his spacesuit apart, shattered the helmet, and tore off a limb. The corpse floated, still tethered to the airlock. His comrades were holding the body, eyes haunted.

Yes, maybe Lailani was trying to minimize loss of life. That was little consolation to this fallen man's family.

To their credit, the other gunners saluted Marco.

"Yes, sir!"

Nobody groaned. Nobody complained. They activated their jetpacks, and they began flying under the mighty Ishtar, heading toward the opposite side of the ship, where there were more cannons to clean. And more scum pods.

As Marco flew, jetpack thrumming, he fought down horror.

What the hell are we fighting for here? To keep a bunch of scummers imprisoned? Why the hell are we fighting Lailani? What the hell did that man die for?

Marco had fought many battles, but this one felt different. He wasn't fighting against some ruthless alien emperor now. He was fighting the armies of a woman he loved.

He tightened his lips. He'd deal with all that later. Right now his fleet and his soldiers were under attack. He was here to serve Einav Ben-Ari, the Golden Lioness, and by God, he would not let her down. For now, that was reason enough to keep fighting.

They were flying under the Ishtar now. The flat underbelly of the ship spread above, charred and scarred from previous battles. New Siberia swirled below, a land of endless blizzards. Looking down, Marco could only see snow clouds. He wondered if Addy was okay. He checked his comlink again. The communication network was back up, but the range was limited. There was no way Marco's comlink could pierce those clouds and get Addy on the line.

"Hang in there, Ads," he said, gazing down at the cloudy planet. "Show them who's—"

A shadow fell.

A gargantuan scum pod lumbered into view, hiding New Siberia.

A vent bloomed open. But this pod did not fire acid nor goo. An elongated strand emerged from inside. The fleshy tentacle reached through space toward Marco and his crew, who were still flying under the Ishtar. The podship reminded Marco of a giant chameleon, stretching out its tongue to grab a fly.

The crew scattered. A few men fired their pistols, but the tongue was a narrow target. The blasts hit the scum pod, scarred the hull, but the ship kept flying. The tongue kept reaching out.

A soldier screamed.

Marco looked up. Private Macintosh was flying above, holding a mop. The young Scottish janitor screamed again. She tried to dog-paddle through space without much success. Her jetpack sparked, one engine dead.

The tongue was stretching right toward her.

It was seconds away from grabbing her.

I'm not letting you die today, Macintosh! Marco vowed.

He hit the thrusters on his jetpack. Moving on instinct alone, he flew forward, slammed into Macintosh, and sent the janitor careening through space to safety.

The alien tongue wrapped around Marco's torso—and tightened.

It only took a second. Before Marco realized what was happening, the tongue retracted, pulling Marco into the podship. It was so fast Marco just saw a blur, and then he was inside the alien vessel.

It was like being inside a womb. The walls were red, fleshy, veined. Centipedes filled the organic ship. They reared around Marco, a ring of aliens. Their claws rose and their antennae twitched.

Suddenly they spoke. All of them together. They had no vocal cords, but they could vibrate their antennae to produce sounds.

"Marco … leave this world … The starlings are … mine!"

Marco stood on the meaty floor. He gasped, narrowed his eyes.

"Lailani?" he said. "Is that you speaking through them?"

The scum moved closer, antennae twitching. "Marco, you must—"

The pod rocked.

A hole blazed through the hull. Air began whooshing out.

"Sir!" Macintosh peered through the hole. The janitor was hovering outside the podship, jetpack thrumming and sparking. A plasma gun smoked in her hand. "Come on, sir! Hurry!"

Marco jumped off the bouncy floor, ignited his jetpack, and flew toward the hole.

The spell broke. The centipedes shook their heads, then screeched and leaped toward Marco. Once more, they were mindless animals, no puppet master controlling them. As he flew upward, Marco fired his pistol again and again. Plasma bolts slammed into centipedes, knocking them down.

He reached the hole that Macintosh had burned open. The plucky young Scot grabbed Marco's hand, pulled him out into space.

At once, both soldiers opened fire, shooting plasma into the hole. The flames spread through the podship. The blobby vessel deflated, trapping the burning centipedes inside, and began to sink toward New Siberia. The planet's gravity caught the ruined pod, pulling it down into a snowstorm. By the time the burning podship reached the surface, it would be nothing but ash and charred centipede claws.

Meanwhile, the gunners had crossed over to the starboard hull. Hopefully they were cleaning those cannons too. The Ishtar shook as her portside cannons blasted a full broadside. But the starboard cannons were still cold.

Jetpacks thrumming, Marco and Macintosh flew along the carrier's underbelly, then emerged on the starboard side.

Marco cursed.

Macintosh trembled and tears filled her eyes. "My God."

The team of sooty gunners clung to the starboard hull. Ooze covered them, gluing them to the starship's exterior. A scum pod hovered nearby, its vent retracting, the rim dripping the foul tar.

That wasn't the worst of it.

Centipedes were on the hull too. Feeding. The scum were digging their claws into the trapped gunners, biting, ripping off limbs, heads.

One of the gunners was still twitching as a scum ripped out his guts. Marco fired his gun. A bolt of plasma tore through the centipede, knocking it into space. The poor gunner managed to whisper "Mama" before dying.

The starboard cannons suddenly glowed red.

They blasted out plasma.

The barrage plowed into the scum ship, destroying it. Captain Paradis must be on the bridge, firing the cannons from his station.

"They cleaned the cannons." Hovering in space, Marco faced the bodies—and saluted them. "They gave their lives. They died heroes. And they cleaned the cannons."

Eight soldiers had flown into space. Only Marco and Macintosh returned. But the fallen had not died in vain. The Ishtar was back in the fight, and Marco vowed to remember the fallen.

As he raced through the Ishtar, returning to the bridge, more than grief filled him.

Anger too.

He marched onto the bridge, gazed at the battle through the viewport, and clenched his fists.

"You did this, Lailani," he whispered. "Their blood is on your hands."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Marco stood on the bridge of the Ishtar, watching more and more scum pods arrive from deep space. They seemed endless. Whenever the human fleet blasted a podship, three more emerged to replace it.

The Ishtar was still firing. The brave gunners had not died in vain. The cannons boomed. Enemy ships exploded.

But Marco knew the battle was lost.

They outnumber us ten to one, he thought. This is over.

He wanted to order a retreat. To pull back to Earth. But Addy was still down there on the surface. And besides—the engines were still fouled up, full of scum tar. Teams of mechanics were down in the engine room, crawling into the exhaust pipes, and cleaning the gears. It would be a while before the Ishtar and her sisters could fly again.

"You lured us into a trap, Lailani," Marco said—too softly for anyone to hear. "We walked right in."

Off the Ishtar's starboard bow, the HDFS Lulal was slowly yawing. A ship that large could only turn slowly. The frigate's side cannons were all jammed, but the torpedo bays on her prow were still operational. Marco understood. The Lulal was rotating toward an enemy formation, preparing to fire torpedoes.

But the podships swarmed fast. They charged on kamikaze missions, splattering themselves against the Lulal's prow. Their ruptured hulls draped across the torpedo bays, clogging them. Centipedes emerged from the deflating pods, scurried across the Lulal, and began ripping off armored panels, seeking a way in.

The HDFS Shara, who flew off the Ishtar's port bow, wasn't having much more luck. Her stern cannons were still operational, thankfully. The mighty railguns were taking down many enemies. But scum pods mobbed the frigate, and even the dreaded railguns could not keep up. Soon Shara too was dead in space.

The larger warships, the frigates and destroyers, were falling fast. But the smaller ships were still fighting! Corvettes were still roaring back and forth, guns blazing. Starfighters, smaller still, flew among them, blasting the enemy with their missiles and machine guns.

"The starfighters and corvettes still fight!" Captain Paradis cried in triumph. The little officer raised his fist. "They will win the battle! Where giants fall, the small triumph!"

Suddenly, as they all watched from the Ishtar's bridge, a group of podships ceased their assault. The fleshy, spherical ships began to pull back.

Marco frowned. "What the hell? Are they retreating?"

No. The hundred podships paused a distance away. Then they began flying up and down, side to side, spewing sticky membranes through space. The gooey strands stretched for several kilometers. The podships kept flying, spooling out more strands, like spiders weaving webs.

"What the hell are they doing?" Brigadier Crawford said.

"Weaving," Marco said. A chill washed him.

As they watched, the strands took form, becoming elaborate cobwebs the size of cities.

Their work complete, the podships flew back toward the battle—pulling the webs with them. They looked like fishermen trawling with nets through the water.

"Starfighters, corvettes, get out of there!" Marco cried into his comlink.

A few starfighters tried to flee. They were too slow.

The sticky webs caught them.

Strands wrapped around the small vessels, coiling around engines and wings. The net scooped up two corvettes next, trapping the little warships. The human vessels hung there like flies in cobwebs.

The podships kept advancing, trawling with their hideous webs. The nets ballooned like sails. As the snares swept through space, they kept scooping up corvettes and starfighters. The trapped ships blasted their engines, fired their guns, but they could not escape. The web was too sticky, the strands too tight.

Centipedes moved across the webbing, approaching the stuck starfighters and corvettes. The bugs spewed more sticky membranes, cocooning the human starships like spiders cocooning flies.

Marco could only watch in horror from the Ishtar's bridge. He couldn't even order an assault on these enormous nets. Not without burning the trapped human vessels.

Crawford stood before the viewport. The tall brigadier stared at the battle, the explosions and blood and despair. The firelight painted him red.

The brigadier spoke softly. "Let chariots of fire charge across the firmaments, let angel wings burn and cherubs weep, let fathers carry their sons on shields and mothers place flowers on their graves, for on that day the bells of judgment shall ring …" He seemed to wake from a dream, turned his head, looked at Marco. A strange smile tugged at his lips. "It's beautiful, isn't it? The fire. The destruction."

"Sir—" Marco began.

"Anyone can deal with victory. Only the mighty can bear defeat. Do you know who said that, Marco? Adolf Hitler. Now there was a man who could bear defeat!"

"Sir, we need to prepare for hostile boarding," Marco said. "The scum will be here soon. I want all available soldiers to guard the airlocks. I want barricades put up in the corridors. I want—"

"Boarded?" Crawford said. "No. No, we will not be boarded." A strange light filled his one eye. "The angels have heard our prayer. Look, Marco! Look off the starboard bow! Help is here."

Marco turned and saw them.

His chest swelled.

Yes—hope had arrived!

Their three missing starships were back! The Taurus, Leo, and Scorpio!

The corvettes emerged from warped space with glowing lavender light. They stormed toward the battle, their hulls white and trimmed with gold. Finally reinforcements were here.

The three warships were coming in hot, guns booming. They were still full of ammo, and they were unleashing a fusillade. Scum pods burned. The mighty warships of the enemy deflated and ripped apart.

Cheers broke out across Ishtar's bridge. Even Marco raised his fist in triumph and let out a cry of joy. He wanted to hug every damn soldier on those ships—and then promote them.

The corvettes flew closer, blazing a path through the enemy. The scum lines fell apart. The bloated ships scattered. The corvettes seemed unstoppable. It was a legendary charge. A charge historians would write about. Marco could only gaze in wonder.

"Centillion, hail them," Marco said. He let the android connect him, then spoke. "Taurus, Leo, Scorpio! This is the Ishtar. Thank God you're here."

No reply came.

"Sir?" Centillion looked up from her control panel. "They're listening but not broadcasting."

The three warships flew closer. Closer still. They were approaching the Ishtar and her frigates. The remaining Firebirds, recognizing the corvettes as allies, were moving aside, letting them into the fleet's formation.

Marco frowned.

"Taurus, Leo, Scorpio—this is Colonel Emery from the Ishtar. Please report on your status."

The three warships kept ignoring him. They kept flying closer, blasting apart scum ships. They were almost past the HDFS Lulal now. Almost at the Ishtar herself.

"What the hell are they doing?" Marco said. "They're corvettes. They should remain on the outskirts of our formation, not come this close."

Crawford scoffed. "Give 'em a break, Marco. They saved our asses. They're probably flying over with Champagne."

A chill ran through Marco. "Centillion, put me in touch with the Firebirds. Firebird pilots! Intercept Taurus, Leo, and Scorpio—now! Fire on their engines if you must, but stop them from—"

"Belay that order!" Crawford cried. "This is Brigadier Crawford, commander of the Ishtar. On my authority—Firebirds, stand down."

Marco spun toward the one-eyed officer. "Dammit, Crawford, this isn't right. Those corvettes are breaking protocol. They could be compromised."

"Compromised?" Crawford laughed. "You think a bunch of centipedes are sitting at the controls? Shooting their own fellow bugs? You've gone mad." He turned to the viewport, tapped a few buttons. "Corvettes, welcome! Come fly in our orbit! We could use your guns. Hail the heroes!"

The corvettes came closer. The other starships in the fleet moved aside, letting them pass. Taurus came to fly above the mighty Ishtar. Leo and Scorpio flew at her sides. Corvettes were the smallest class of warship. They were far smaller than Ishtar, but agile and deadly. They were three sharks swimming around a whale.

And three sharks can bring a whale down, Marco thought.

This was wrong. He knew it. Felt it in his bones.

He turned toward the gunnery station. Captain Paradis sat there, his fingers on the controls. Le Petit Capitaine was pale, his eyes were haunted, but his fingers were steady.

Marco spoke the hardest words he ever had to speak. "Paradis—destroy those corvettes."

"Belay that order!" Crawford shouted. "Colonel Emery, you are relieved of duty."

Paradis hesitated, torn between the two senior officers. Then he pulled his hand back from the control panel. He would not fire.

Marco tried to control his anger, found himself sneering. "Dammit, Crawford, you don't have authority to relieve me of duty. And if—"

He bit down on his words.

He stared out the viewport. He felt the blood draining from his face.

The three corvettes opened their airlocks and hangars.

Scum poured out.

Thousands of them. Alien centipedes. A swarm. They all landed on the Ishtar's hull.

They just had to sacrifice a few of their own little podships, Marco thought. A small price to pay for a starfighter carrier.

The holographic displays were still on the fritz. But Marco approached a control panel, where he pulled up camera feeds from the hull.

The Ishtar was a massive starship, among the largest ever built, as long as three football fields. Sixteen airlocks lined her hull: six on the starboard, six on the portside, and four on the underbelly.

The scum were scuttling toward all sixteen airlocks. They were like ants racing toward fallen treats.

Marco watched as the centipedes began ripping the airlocks open—and swarming into the HDFS Ishtar.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Addy ran down the frozen streets. Her heart pounded. Her breath frosted.

Where was everyone?

Thirty thousand scummers should be here. An entire town. A community of murderers. The monsters who had slaughtered millions of Earthlings.

They were gone.

The camp was empty.

Addy kept running.

New Siberia Hybrid Relocation Camp, commonly known as the Freezer, was a bleak place. Concrete apartment buildings framed narrow roads. Cold windows stared from above, frosted and pale like the eyes of arctic vultures. The sky churned with snow, and icicles hung from electric poles. Wind moaned through a mess hall's open doors, rattling plates, knocking over mugs, and raising napkins into a ghostly dance. There was nobody inside. Snow swirled into an apartment building, covering bunks and concrete floors and cold stoves. The wind banged open a church's doors, revealing a frozen altar and snowy pews.

Empty. Everything—empty.

"They were here!" Addy said. "When we flew down from orbit, I saw them here. Prisoners on the streets!"

Cyborg ran at her side. He had finally managed to fix his prosthetic legs. He carried a dropship battery across his back—a heavy contraption the size of a microwave. Cables ran from the battery into his metal legs, keeping them running.

"They've got to be here somewhere," Cyborg said.

Addy raced toward a concrete building. She hurried inside, rifle held before her. Nothing. Empty bunks. Just rows of empty bunks. She swept the building room by room, then emerged out the other side into an alleyway.

She skidded to a halt and stared.

"Oh God." She covered her mouth. "Oh fucking God."

Corpses piled up in the alleyway. But they were not scummers. They wore gray uniforms.

Prison guards.

"Murdered," Addy said. "Murdered in cold blood."

Cyborg came to stand at her side, panting. His mechanical legs gave off a rubbery burning smell. He'd need to service them soon. "Scum?" He pointed. "I see claw marks on their chests."

"Those are smaller claws," Addy said. "The scum didn't do this. The scummers did. Those claws sprouted from human fingertips. The prisoners rioted. Maybe while we were fighting outside, maybe before we even landed. I bet it was Lailani who—"

A roar sounded in the distance, overpowering her words.

Addy ran out the alleyway back onto the main road. A squad of marines stood there, pointing skyward.

A shuttle was rising into space.

An NCO from Iceberg Company stood nearby. He was a burly man with weathered skin. A scar snaked across his cheek, and he held a cigar between his teeth. Addy recognized him. Master Sergeant Robert Adams.

Adams stared at the shuttle, raised his rifle, and opened fire. Bullets pinged off the shuttle, but it kept soaring.

"Hold your fire!" Addy said. "That's a Rhino-class military dropship. One of ours."

Sergeant Adams turned toward her, both his rifle and his cigar smoking. "Ma'am, our dropships are outside the camp. That one must belong to the enemy."

"Or the fleet finally sent reinforcements," Addy said. "Hold your fire. For now. Come with me. Let's see where this shuttle launched from."

The troops kept moving through the camp, passing by more empty buildings. Another shuttle roared into the sky. A third. Soon twenty or thirty shuttles were rising. They were taking off from inside the camp, just a few streets away.

What was going on?

Then the clouds parted. New shuttles descended from above. Dropships. Army dropships. Rampant phoenixes were painted on their hulls—symbol of the Human Defense Force. Was the fleet delivering reinforcements? Tentative hope filled Addy.

Engines rumbling, the dropships landed behind a cluster of concrete buildings. Moments later, the shuttles rose again.

Chomping his cigar, Sergeant Adams aimed his rifle at the rising shuttles. He glanced at Addy. "Permission to open fire, ma'am?"

She shook her head. "Hold your fire, Sergeant. Those are our own vessels."

"The prisoners are escaping, Colonel," Adams said. "It's got to be them. They must have hijacked some of our dropships."

"Maybe," Addy said. "But we won't shoot fleeing prisoners. That's against the HDF's code of conduct."

Adams snorted. "They're scummers, ma'am. Aliens. The code of conduct doesn't apply to them."

"I won't debate this," Addy snapped. "Hold your fire, Sergeant. That's an order."

Addy and her troops kept moving along the snowy streets. More platoons joined them. The entire brigade was sweeping through the camp. Thousands of soldiers now filled the snowy streets where prisoners had once walked.

Finally Addy, Cyborg, and a platoon of marines reached the center of the camp. They found a large snowy yard. Large enough that the entire brigade could have mustered here. Perhaps it was where the prisoners exercised.

The shuttles were rising from there. A hundred vapor trails filled the sky. A hundred shuttles were gone.

This is an airlift, Addy thought. The scummers are fleeing in stolen dropships. Sergeant Adams was right.

Several HDF dropships still stood in the yard.

So did a few last scummers.

She only knew they were scummers because they wore camp uniforms—orange jumpsuits. Chains jangled from their ankles and wrists. They had no claws. No fangs. They looked like normal humans. Many among them were women and children. They looked harmless, scared. But Addy remembered seeing the claw marks on the dead guards.

The scummers pointed at the marines. They cried out in fear. A child burst into tears. A baby cried. A woman hid behind her husband.

"Come on, come on!" rose a voice from behind a shuttle. "Get in! Hurry!"

A familiar voice.

Addy inhaled sharply. "Lailani?"

She took a step forward, eyes narrowed.

A few scummers raced into a shuttle, then slammed the hatch shut. The shuttle soared skyward on a pillar of fire, blasting back curtains of snow. When the snow parted, Addy saw scummers running into another shuttle.

"They're getting away!" shouted Sergeant Adams.

He raised his rifle, aimed.

"Sergeant, n—" Addy began.

The gunshot rang out. A young scummer fell dead. Just a child.

His mother stood there, frozen. She stared down at her dead child, and she opened her mouth to scream. She never got a chance. Adams fired again. The woman fell.

The other scummers screamed. They ran in a panic, leaping into the remaining dropships.

"Sergeant, stand down!" Addy shouted, rushing toward him. "Surrender your weapon!"

Adams ignored her, raising his gun to fire again. To kill another child.

Addy barreled into him. The gun went off. A bullet flew harmlessly through the sky.

The murderous sergeant tried to shove her off. Addy punched him in the face. Again and again. Bloodying her knuckles. Knocking out his front teeth. Finally she swung her fist into his jaw. Pain exploded across her hand, and Adams's head snapped back. He lay unconscious in the snow.

Addy rose, cradling her fist. Her knuckles screamed in pain. She hoped she hadn't broken them. She spat on the unconscious sergeant. Bastard.

Only one dropship remained in the courtyard now. The last few scummers lifted the dead, carried them into the shuttle. A few remaining scummers hurried into the dropship too, chains jangling. A young scummer, probably only three or four years old, gave Addy a frightened look, then buried his face in his mother's embrace.

Suddenly Addy felt like shit.

Is this why we came here? she thought. Is this why we fought and died? To keep these people in this camp?

She caught herself. People? The scummers weren't people! Okay, maybe Sergeant Adams had gone too far, shooting a child and mother like that. Addy didn't approve of mindless slaughter. But that didn't mean the scummers were human! They were hybrids. And they were here because they slaughtered humans! They drove trucks into crowds. They opened fire in schools. They poisoned kindergartners. They were evil!

And yet … they had served the King of Many Claws. A king who was now dead. In some ways, they were like the centipedes outside the camp. Mindless. Blindly following orders.

Addy hated this. She was good at shooting things, not contemplating ethics. Moral introspection was something for Marco and Ben-Ari to do. They were the brains. Addy was the muscle. Maybe she was like a scummer herself. Just a pawn. A puppet. A killer on marionette strings.

Well, Marco and Ben-Ari weren't here now. Addy was running this show. Her decisions here would echo through history. And possibly haunt her for the rest of her life.

More marine platoons emerged from roads. Guns rose, aiming at the last few scummers racing into the shuttle.

Addy waved them down. "Hold your fire! Soldiers, hold your fire!"

"Starlings, hurry!" somebody cried in the distance. "Get into the last dropship! Hurry!"

The voice rang across the camp. She stepped from behind the shuttle, herding the last few scummers through the door.

Yes. It was her. There she was.

"Lailani!" Addy cried out. Her voice rang across the courtyard.

Lailani froze. She turned and stared.

The two women made eye contact.

Lailani wore a skintight black spacesuit. Her chin-length black hair streamed in the wind. A symbol blazed on her chest—five red claw marks, roughly shaped as a human hand. There she stood, the proud Queen of Claws, new ruler of Abaddon. But Addy saw the young, frightened girl. The little Filipina who had shown up late to boot camp, all angry tears and trembling little fists. A girl who had become Addy's best friend.

"Addy!" Lailani called from the center of the courtyard. "You shouldn't have come here. You should have let my people go. I warned you!"

Addy took a few steps closer. "You're not Moses. Stop this. Come back to us. Come back to Earth." Her eyes dampened. "We'll forgive you, Lailani. We love you. We miss you. Come back home."

She hated herself for this moment of compassion. Lailani was a traitor. She had stolen military ships. Had killed hundreds of soldiers. She commanded an army of monsters. Addy had been nursing her hatred for many days. But right now, looking at her friend, she still saw the scared little girl. The fragile soul, trapped in a body so small and weak, who would never stop fighting.

Yet now Lailani was fighting on the opposite side. And Addy was still a soldier.

"Lailani de la Rosa!" Addy said. "As an officer of the HDF, I demand that you surrender yourself. You will return with me to Earth, where you will be given a fair trial."

Everybody watched. Scummers and soldiers alike. Thankfully nobody was shooting yet.

Lailani's face changed. Anger suffused her delicate features. She clenched those little fists.

"You put my people in a concentration camp! You turned against me! I loved you, Addy. I loved you and Marco and Einav." Tears flowed from her angry eyes. "And you betrayed me. I'm taking my people. And I'm taking your starships. Goodbye, Addy. Goodbye fore—"

Somebody opened fire.

A bullet drove into Lailani's stomach.

Lailani gasped. She clutched the wound. Blood dripped between her fingers.

"Hold your fire!" Addy shouted.

Lailani stumbled into the shuttle, bleeding. The last scummers followed. The hatch closed, and the shuttle soared into the sky. Within seconds, it vanished into the snowy clouds, ascending toward space.

Addy turned around to see who had fired.

Cyborg stood there, holding a smoking rifle.

He stared at her, eyes hard. "You've been emotionally compromised, Colonel Linden. This had to be done. I hope she's dead."

Addy turned away, eyes burning.

She left the courtyard, entered a concrete building, and found an empty room. She lowered her head, and her tears fell.

I came here to fight monsters, Addy thought. So why do I feel like we are the monsters?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Marco stood in the corridor, facing the airlock.

He raised an assault rifle. A good old T57. Just like back in the Scum War. He waited for his old enemy to arrive.

Twenty years ago, I fought you with a gun like this, Marco thought. Plain old bullets. I killed you then, scum. I'm ready to kill you again, old friends.

A squad of soldiers surrounded him, tense, silent. They also aimed guns at the airlock. Waiting. Just waiting for the enemy to break into the Ishtar.

Nobody other than Marco was a combat soldier. They were computer programmers. Mechanics. Navigators. Technicians. Macintosh the janitor was here. But they were all soldiers of the Human Defense Force. They were all armed. Today they were an infantry squad. Today they were heroes.

From behind the airlock rose the shrieks.

Claws scraped at the doorway.

The soldiers tightened their hands around their guns. Beads of sweat dripped down their faces.

"Sir?" A young private gulped. His hands were shaking. "I don't think I can do this, sir."

"What's your name, Private?" Marco said.

The scum were shrieking louder now. Clawing at the airlock door. The metal began to dent.

"Ben, sir." The private looked ready to pass out. "My name is Ben Cornwell."

"Private Cornwell, you're not just any other soldier in the Human Defense Force. You're special. Do you know why? Because you're my soldier. And I'm proud of you. I'm proud of all of you. You are warriors of Earth! And you will cast the scum back into space!"

The aliens tore off the airlock door.

Screeching, the centipedes raced into the Ishtar.

At once, Marco was eighteen again. Just a private at Fort Djemila. A gun in his hand. His friends at his side. A kid facing the scum.

He howled and opened fire.

His bullets slammed into one centipede. It barely fazed the beast.

A second later, the other soldiers opened fire too. Macintosh was screaming and shouting as her gun blazed. Even Ben Cornwell found his courage and unleashed hell.

Several scum fell, riddled with bullets.

Snarling, Macintosh loaded a fresh magazine. "Die, ye fookin' bastard beasties!" she screamed.

Her red curls bounced with every bullet fired. Her freckled face twisted with rage. She might just be a janitor, but the young Scot was fighting with serious ferocity. She shot down another scum, grabbed a magazine from a dead soldier, and kept fighting. Marco was proud to fight at her side.

More dead aliens piled up. The assault rifles were mowing them down.

But there were too many centipedes. Thousands of them were trying to break in. There was no stopping this wave. They kept coming. Gushing into the Ishtar. The living centipedes raced over the corpses of the dead.

A soldier screamed and fell, assault rifle spraying the ceiling with bullets. The corporal, a humble computer programmer, kept firing even as a scum ripped off his legs. As his stumps spurted, he raised his rifle. He blasted off the alien's head. He kept firing, even loaded a new magazine, and took another scum down before more aliens ripped him apart.

One soldier, a data analyst, turned and fled. A few scum chased him. He tossed down his gun and kept running, weeping as he raced down the corridor. Marco did not blame him for running.

Two more soldiers fell. Scum claws dug into them. Ripped them open. Venom burned through them. The soldiers screamed. They wept. They called for their mothers. The aliens were eating them alive. Another soldier dropped his gun and fled. And another.

Marco stood his ground. The horrors spun around him. And he was back there. Back in the war. Seeing his friends die. He stood with them again. With Caveman. With Sergeant Singh. With Jackass. With Elvis. With all the rest of them. His best friends. His family. Twenty years had gone by. But today he fought for them.

He emptied a magazine. Loaded another, emptied it too. A third. A fourth. He did not flee. Even as a claw ripped his leg, as venom sizzled, Marco stood and fought and killed.

And the enemy kept coming.

Ben Cornwell fell. The private was out of bullets. He cried softly as a scum ripped his stomach open, pulled out his insides.

"I want to go home," the boy whispered as the scum worked. "I want my mom. I want to go home."

Marco was shaking. The venom was spreading. He fished through his med kit, injected himself with antidote, and the pain eased to a dull throb. He stared around him.

Most of his troops were dead already. Oh God, most of the young soldiers he led here were dead.

"Fall back!" Marco shouted. "Soldiers, fall back to the inner deck! We'll seal the hatches!"

A few soldiers turned and ran. Macintosh, bless her, retreated while walking backward, firing all the while.

Marco fired his gun, knocking the scum off Ben Cornwell. The private was still alive despite his ghastly wound. Venom was sizzling inside his lacerated belly. Marco lifted the young man over his shoulders. He retreated, firing a gun with one hand, desperate to hold the enemy back.

They fell back behind a layer of thick bulkheads. The scum kept chasing them, claws bloody. They were a rushing river of death. They didn't just scuttle along the deck. They raced along the bulkheads, the ceiling, one another. The mass of them became almost like a fluid, flooding the corridor.

"Get behind that hatch, go, go!" Marco shouted, rushing soldiers to an inner level of the ship, a deck full of bunks.

The other soldiers raced through the hatch. Finally only Marco, Macintosh, and the dying Cornwell remained in the corridor.

Marco emptied his magazine, knocking a scum back. Then he shoved Macintosh through the hatchway. Carrying Cornwell, he leaped after the Scot.

Once inside, Marco hit a control panel.

The hatch swung shut.

The heavy doorway slammed into one scum, halving the creature. The upper half kept scuttling, grabbed a soldier, and ripped the man apart. Several soldiers opened fire, destroying the beast.

Meanwhile, the scum outside clawed at the hatch, denting it. The door wouldn't hold them for long.

Marco removed his empty magazine. Dammit. He was out of ammo now.

He lay Ben Cornwell down on the deck. The private moaned, barely clinging to life. His blood pooled. The poor boy's entrails were spilling out, pink and wet. The scum venom was turning his skin gray.

"Sir . . ." Ben said. "I'm scared. Sir, I want to go home. I want my mom. I . . ."

He died then and there. In Marco's arms.

Suddenly Marco was shaking. Suddenly he couldn't breathe. Suddenly his eyes were full of tears.

Control yourself, Marco thought. You are the senior officer on this deck. Be strong for them.

With a bloody hand, he closed Ben's eyes. Then he took the fallen soldier's ammo and loaded a fresh magazine.

He would keep fighting. He would fight to the end.

He just hoped the end didn't bring death to them all.

* * * * *

They fought.

They fought for every deck. Every corridor. Every berth.

The marines were down on the surface. The warriors were gone. But the crew of the Ishtar fought nonetheless. Computer programmers. Cooks. Navigators. Janitors. Mechanics. Engineers. Clerks. Scientists. Logisticians. Medics. They were all noncombat soldiers, but they picked up rifles and they fought with a fury matching anything Marco had ever seen in the infantry.

And they were losing.

And many of them died.

They fell back deck after deck. Losing more and more ground. And the centipedes kept coming.

When Marco passed by a porthole, he looked outside into space. He saw centipedes swarming over the other starships in the fleet. Flowing into the airlocks. Probably slaughtering everyone on board.

He knew the fleet was lost.

But there's still something we can do, Marco thought. A last terrifying action. It must be done.

"Private Macintosh!" Marco said. "Lead the troops down corridor G9. Carve a way to shuttle bay B9A—and secure it. I must report to the bridge. Keep your comlink on and await further orders."

The young Scot was firing her assault rifle, howling in fury, hurling insults at the scum. Her red hair fluttered wildly with every shot. Dead centipedes piled up before her. She glanced at Marco, nodded.

"Shuttle bay B9A!" the janitor said. "Understood, sir. We'll secure it."

Marco left her and the other soldiers. He turned and ran the other way. The corridors here were eerily empty. Everyone was fighting closer to the hull, trying to halt the centipede swarm. But soon the bugs would swarm here too. Soon they would reach the bridge. Marco had to stop them. By any measure.

He burst onto the bridge.

The crew was still there, bustling around the control panels. Brigadier Crawford was barking orders, his white mustache bristling. Centillion the android was typing madly on two screens, and lines of code kept racing across her electronic eyes. Captain Paradis, Le Petit Capitaine, was tapping at his controls, firing torpedoes from the last working torpedo bay. Several other bridge officers were scrambling between stations, pale, a few shaking. The bridge jolted as a blast of alien goo slammed into the ship, clogging the last torpedo bay. Paradis cursed in French and tossed up his arms in dismay.

Marco marched across the bridge.

Crawford looked over his shoulder at him. He scoffed. "Well, well, the prodigal son returns. Thank you for gracing us with your presence, young Marco."

Marco came to stand before the brigadier. He spoke loud enough for the entire bridge crew to hear. "I've sent soldiers to secure shuttle bay B9A. We're going to initiate a self-destruct sequence, then evacuate."

Everyone turned to look at him. They were all terrified. Some were shaking. But they would still do their duty. Paradis saluted. A second later, the others saluted too. They were ready to follow Marco, to abandon ship.

All but Crawford. The tall officer only guffawed. "Self-destruct? Destroy a priceless HDF carrier? No, young Marco. I'm not going to destroy my ship. Nor any ship in this fleet. We will fight to the bitter end."

"The end is here," Marco said. "We have moments left, no more. If we don't destroy the Ishtar, she'll fall into enemy hands. If you think the enemy is powerful now, wait until you see them commanding a starfighter carrier and her warships."

The mustached brigadier snorted. "What, a bunch of centipedes flying a starship? They're bugs, Marco."

"I'm not talking about the centipedes," Marco said. "I mean the scummers. The tens of thousands of people down on New Siberia. The ones we imprisoned. Their queen is leading the centipedes. She's not leading them for the glory of Abaddon—but for the people below."

Crawford's lip peeled back in a snarl. He marched toward Marco, stood before him. The tall brigadier towered over Marco.

"And how do you know, Colonel Emery, about the plans of the enemy queen? Oh, that's right. Of course! I forgot." He raised his voice for all to hear. "You, Colonel Emery, were once engaged to Lailani, the Queen of Scum. Maybe you're working for her! How do we know you're not a scum agent?"

"I fought the scum!" Marco said. "I fought them twenty years ago, and I fought them today. I fought them in Ishtar's corridors with brave soldiers who gave their lives for Earth! Soldiers braver than you can imagine, Crawford. But somebody here is working for the enemy. Somebody sabotaged our shields, allowing the EMP attack to cripple our starship. Somebody with security clearance. Somebody high up." He pointed at Crawford. "Maybe it's you, Brigadier, who works for the enemy."

Everyone was staring at them now. Deep within the ship rose the sounds of battle. The scurrying scum. The rattling gunfire. The screams of dying soldiers. The shrieks of bloodthirsty aliens. But here on the bridge—silence. The two commanders faced off.

Finally Crawford broke the silence. "Very well then. We will get to the bottom of this. Centillion, bring me a scummer detector."

The android opened a service hatch, pulled out a scummer detector, and brought it to the brigadier. Marco had seen these devices before. Factories on Earth had been pumping them out by the million. Police used them to scan suspects for alien DNA. Neighbors used them on neighbors. Bosses on employees. Spouses on spouses. Scummers were mostly human. Mostly. They could pass as anyone. This detector caught them.

Most of the time, at least.

"You know these detectors have a five percent false-positive rate," Marco said.

"What's the matter, young Marco?" Crawford said. "Starting to sweat? No problem. I'll go first. You accuse me of being a scummer, don't you? Of disabling the shields and betraying my race? Well, unlike you, I have nothing to hide. Centillion! Run the test on me. Go ahead. Everyone—take a look!"

Marco cursed inwardly. They didn't have time for this. And if Crawford were a scummer, he could have tinkered with the detectors anyway. If he could disable a fleet's shields, what was tweaking a simple scanner?

But the others were already proceeding, and if Marco objected, he would simply look guilty.

Centillion raised the scanner toward Crawford. The brigadier breathed into it. The machine hummed for a moment, and then the prognosis appeared on a small screen. Centillion showed it to the bridge officers. HOMO SAPIENS.

"There you are then!" Crawford said. "You were worried for nothing, Marco, you see?"

"Crawford, we don't have time for this," Marco said. "We need to take action now to prevent the scummers from acquiring our starship. I have the authority of the president behind me, and I order you to—"

"Don't have time for this!" the brigadier said. "Suddenly, when it's time to test you, you're out of time! Is that so? How suspicious." He pointed at Marco. "Do you refuse to take the test?"

The bridge security guards stepped closer. Their hands moved to their guns.

Marco had no choice. He knew it.

"Give me the damn test, Centillion," Marco said. "Do it quick."

The teal android held up the scanner. Marco breathed into it.

They waited for the results. The scum shrieked deep in the ship. Closer than before. Closer and closer every second. Less gunfire was rattling. Fewer soldiers remained alive to fight.

Keep that airlock safe for us, Macintosh, Marco thought.

Finally the scanner beeped. Marco's result appeared on the screen.

SCOLOPENDRA TITANIA HYBRID.

A scummer.

* * * * *

Everyone stared at him.

The bridge was silent. The only sound was the scum in the corridors, clawing their way closer.

The result flashed on the detector's screen.

SCOLOPENDRA TITANIA HYBRID

Marco raised his eyes. He stared at Crawford.

"I'm not a scummer," Marco said. "And you know it. You tinkered with the detector. Your test is a lie." He raised his chin. "With the authority of the president of the Human Commonwealth, I relieve you from duty, Brigadier Crawford. Bridge crew? Initiate self-destruct of the Ishtar and prepare to evacuate."

Nobody moved.

They all just stared at him.

The security guards had their hands on their weapons, waiting for an order.

"No, Marco." Crawford shook his head. "It's too late for you now. You can deny it. But we saw the truth." He pointed at Marco. "This man is a scummer! An agent of the enemy! Security—take him to the brig. If he resists, kill him." He turned away. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a fleet to lead."

The security guards pointed their guns at Marco.

"Come with us, sir," said the chief of security, a burly man with a severe crew cut. Three more guards stood with him.

Four men? Marco had fought worse odds. He was tempted to reach for his gun. To take his chances. To fight his way to the hangar bay.

"Sir—now!" the security chief boomed, aiming his gun.

Marco took a deep breath. No, he would not kill fellow humans. These men were misguided, not cruel. They were not his enemy. Enough good men had died today.

He held out his hands. He let them cuff him.

The guards dragged him down the corridor. He walked with them, not resisting. The screeches of scum echoed down the halls. Gunfire roared. As the guards pulled him past one intersection, Marco glimpsed the hangar bay. Macintosh and several soldiers were there, waiting for him. They looked at him. They stood over dead scum, and more centipedes scurried toward them.

And then the guards pulled Marco around the corner, and he just heard gunfire and screams. He smelled the blood.

They reached the brig. It looked like a twentieth-century prison cell, complete with iron bars. A cage. A damn cage. The guards shoved Marco inside and slammed the barred door shut.

As the guards turned to leave, Marco called out: "Soldiers! Make for the shuttle bay. Get off this ship. Shelter on the surface of New Siberia. Aid will arrive from Earth. If you stay on the Ishtar, you'll die."

They looked at him, at each other. Then they ran off.

Marco remained alone behind bars, waiting for the centipedes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The shuttle soared.

Lailani held her bleeding stomach, gasping for air.

"Make room, make room for the queen!" a starling said.

"Our queen is hurt!"

"Get a med kit!"

A hundred starlings filled the shuttle. It was so crowded there was only room to stand. But they moved aside, creating space for Lailani to lie down. She lay on the deck, breathing deeply, blood on her fingers.

She wished she were in the Black Rose Viperess. That Kai were here. That she felt a little bit at home. But she had descended in a Human Defense Force dropship—part of her ruse. The marines would have shot the Black Rose Viperess from the sky.

Now she lay on a cold metal deck. She didn't want to die in a military shuttle, far from Kai and Tala. Oh God, she didn't want to die here.

Oddly, the pain wasn't that bad. Weren't stomach wounds supposed to hurt like hell? Maybe she was dying already. The pain was fading.

Oh, stop being so melodramatic! she told herself. You've suffered wounds before. Man up! Or, um, girl up? Starling up? In any case—toughen up!

She removed her hand from her stomach, examined the wound.

Her black catsuit was woven through with graphene fibers. The material was incredibly expensive. Graphene was among the hardest materials in the cosmos. But the soldier had fired from short range with a powerful assault rifle. Maybe even a railgun. There was a hole in her armor. Blood dripped.

But then Lailani frowned.

She saw the bullet.

It was embedded into her armored suit.

Frowning, she grabbed the bullet between two fingers and pulled. It was stuck. She pulled harder, roared in pain, and it came free.

Fresh blood dripped. The bullet had cut through her suit, pierced her skin, and stopped. By the looks of it, the bullet's tip had just grazed her lower rib, possibly cracking the bone. The suit had slowed it. The bone had stopped it. A centimeter up or down, it might have killed her.

She let out a sigh. "I'm fine. False alarm. I'm all right. I do want a refund on my armor, though. They told me graphene was stronger than diamonds. Bastards."

The shuttle kept soaring, leaving New Siberia below. Holding her wound, Lailani walked into the cockpit. The people made way.

A young starling sat in the cockpit, flying the ship. He was just a kid, barely a teenager, but he flew well. Lailani sat beside him and gazed out the viewport.

A hundred other shuttles were rising around her. They were each crammed full of starlings. That was the last of them. The evacuation from New Siberia was complete.

The shuttle's prow rose, pointing them away from the planet. Ahead Lailani saw it.

Earth's fleet.

The HDFS Ishtar, a mighty carrier. The starships Lulal and Shara, full frigates. Several destroyers. Twelve corvettes. She had even nabbed a bunch of Firebirds. They were all coated with gooey tar, a material the scum bioengineered. That could be cleaned easily enough. Otherwise, the damage was minimal. If there were any dents and scratches, the starlings could fix those.

As for new crews to man those ships? Well, she had thirty thousand starlings with her. On Earth, many had been mechanics, engineers, navigators, veterans. They'd figure it out. They would learn how to fly these enormous machines. There would be a learning curve, yes, but they were smart, educated, and driven. They would figure it out.

A few shuttles were still descending toward the planet, carrying prisoners of war. The entire crew of these starships—she was getting rid of them all. She would allow not a single human to stay. These starships now belonged to the starlings.

She watched as the shuttles dived into the atmosphere, carrying the original crew to the prison camp. Behold—the brave soldiers of the Human Defense Force! They had come here to stop Lailani. To keep her people imprisoned in the Freezer. Now they were the prisoners!

"The starships are ours," Lailani said. "An entire fleet. They belong to us. To the hive."

The young starling pilot, a cocky kid with a wispy mustache, gave a crooked smile. "Hey, will you let me pilot the big one? I'm getting the hang of this piloting thing."

"Maybe a Firebird," Lailani said. "If you're good and drink all your milk."

She had starships to bring her people home to Abaddon.

And she had starships to defend her nation.

She looked again at her bullet wound. The bleeding had stopped already, and the wound was scabbing over. It didn't even hurt anymore. Starlings healed fast.

Yes, I'm all right, she thought. We'll all be all right.

But before she could go home to Abaddon, there was one more thing she must do.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Marco stood in the brig, holding the metal bars, waiting to die.

He knew he would die here. The centipedes were moving closer and closer. Slaughtering the last soldiers. Making their way through the ship. Soon they would feed on his flesh.

The same way they ate my mother, Marco thought. I'll just be another meal.

He thought back to that day almost thirty years ago. Walking through the snowy streets of Toronto. Seeing the pods rain from the sky. Hearing the scum screech. Smelling the blood as they tore his mother apart. For thirty years, her death had haunted him. For thirty years, he had been running from the nightmare. Now the nightmare finally caught up.

A scream rose somewhere deep in the ship, then died.

And then there was only the sound of claws. The hissing and clattering of centipedes. Even the klaxons no longer blared their alarms.

The last bullet had fired. The battle was over.

Marco did not fear death. Death was simply nothingness. He didn't believe in heaven, hell, any sort of afterlife.

But he feared the pain. The claws digging into him. The venom spreading. He feared the blood and horror of his flesh being ripped off the bone.

He feared never seeing Addy again. Never holding his wife again. Never seeing her smile, never making love to her, never hearing her laugh.

He feared never seeing his children again. His beloved Terri, Roza, Sam, the lights of his life.

He feared the person Lailani had become. The evil she had done.

He had no gun. The guards had disarmed him. If he had a weapon, Marco might have ended it now.

The shrieking was dying down across the ship, replaced with hissing and creaking. The battle was over. The scum were probably patrolling the corridors, maybe searching for a few last survivors. Marco wondered if he was the last.

A shadow moved across the wall.

A long shadow. Clawed.

Here they came.

Marco took a deep breath, trying not to tremble. He took a step back from the bars, but he knew these bars wouldn't stop the scum. They could rip these iron bars apart like twigs.

A scum crawled from around the corner. Its antennae twitched. Its claws clattered against the deck. It was a big one too. It could probably eat a Komodo dragon for breakfast and ask for seconds.

The alien raised its head. Its mandibles clattered, and its antennae twitched. It saw Marco.

A few more scum appeared. They stood in the corridor, hissing and chirping and sniffing. But amazingly, they did not attack the bars. Instead, they formed two rows—and bowed.

Silence filled the corridor.

Another shadow fell. The shadow of a woman.

Footfalls sounded.

She came from around the corridor, walking between the rows of scum.

Lailani.

* * * * *

"Lailani!" Marco said. And suddenly rage filled him. He gripped the bars in his fists. "Lailani, how could you do this?"

She came to stand before him. Just a few feet away. Far enough that he could not reach between the bars and grab her.

She looked at him.

She wore a spacesuit of armored fabric. Red optic cables ran along the black sleeves and legs, and pistols hung from her belt. A strange emblem appeared on her chest. Five claw marks, painted red. Claws in the shape of human fingers. Symbol of the starlings, perhaps?

She wore no helmet. She had cut her black hair shorter. It now grew to her chin, forming a bob cut. Her face was the same as always. Delicate. The skin olive-toned. A doll-like face, pure and beautiful. But there was something new in her eyes today. Something jaded and hard and callous. Something deeply hurt.

"Hello, Marco," she said. "Your leg is bleeding."

He stared at her in disbelief. "That's what you're worried about? Lailani, that is what you're worried about? Do you realize what you've done?" His eyes had remained dry throughout the battle. Now they dampened. "People died here! People with families back home! You killed them!"

Her eyes hardened. Her lip twitched. "I took care to minimize loss of life, Marco. I ordered my centipedes to clog your cannons, not destroy your ships. I ordered them to kill only in self-defense. I—"

"Are you listening to yourself?" Marco said. "The scum—killing in self-defense? They boarded our ship! They butchered people! Boys! Girls!"

"Soldiers!" Lailani shouted. "Soldiers who fired on them! When you and I were eighteen, we fought a war. The young soldiers today did too. But they lost!"

He stared from his cage. His fists whitened around the bars. "So you're on their side now, are you? Last war, you fought against the scum. Aside from that one time." He couldn't stop the words from coming. "When you crashed our starship. And when you murdered Benny. But that time …" He laughed bitterly. "That time the scum emperor made you do it. This time you made your own choice."

She was silent for a moment, watching him. A tear flowed down her cheek.

"Yes, I made a choice," she said. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. "I made a choice to save my people. To save thirty thousand starlings imprisoned below in a concentration camp. I came here to free them. To liberate them. And you stood against me!" Her tears fell. "You, and Addy, and Ben-Ari! People I loved! People I trusted! You betrayed me!"

Marco sneered. "You betrayed yourself, Lailani. I loved you once. Now I'm ashamed of you."

"You can be ashamed of me all you like, Marco," she said. "You came here to guard a concentration camp. That is not the Marco I once knew. Not the Marco I once loved." She wiped away a tear. "You've changed. But I'm the same person. I fight for what's right—then and now. I freed my people. And I will keep fighting for them."

Footsteps sounded around the corner. Another shadow fell across the corridor. The shadow of a tall man.

He emerged from around the corner. Brigadier Crawford.

The tall officer nodded to Lailani. "My queen, the survivors have been rounded up in the cargo bay, as you requested." The brigadier glanced at Marco, back at Lailani. "Would you like me to execute this one, my queen?"

Marco's lip peeled back in disgust. "I knew it. I goddamn knew it, Crawford. You're the scum agent who disabled our shields. You let the EMP attack take down our computers. And you rigged the scummer detector, so it would clear you and incriminate me."

Crawford looked him. He shook his head. "No, Marco. I'm no scummer. I'm just a man. A man who knows when he's lost a battle. I surrendered. There's no shame in that. Adolf Hitler said that anyone can deal with victory, but only the mighty can bear defeat." He raised his chin. "Today I am mighty."

Marco frowned. "But there was a scummer on board. Had to be. Somebody who sabotaged the shields, who tinkered with the detector."

"Yes, Marco," came a voice from behind the corner. "There was." She stepped into view, then bowed before Lailani. "My queen!"

Macintosh.

"You!" Marco hissed.

The janitor looked at him from under strands of curly red hair. An amulet hung from her neck, replacing her military dog tags. The pendant featured the same symbol from Lailani's armor—five red claw marks arranged like human fingers.

Macintosh smiled, revealing fangs. "Yes, Marco. Me. I've been a starling all my life. A scummer as you call us." She laughed. "You humans. You're so pathetic. It was easy enough to get a job on this ship. I cleaned your tables, your floors, your shit for long months, waiting for my orders. And finally my queen called upon me." She bowed again before Lailani. "I'm honored! I will always serve our people."

"You killed centipedes," Marco whispered. "I saw you kill them!"

Macintosh only smiled again. "Centipedes, yes. They're the old model. Expendable. Just like you humans. We starlings are the future." She pouted. "Oh, I'm very sorry, Sir Marco. But you belong in the past."

Lailani pointed down the corridor. "Crawford, Macintosh, get to the hangar bay. Round up the survivors and await my orders."

They both nodded. "Yes, queen." They retreated.

Marco and Lailani were alone. Aside from the scum, that was. But the giant centipedes were still bowing, frozen. They might as well have been empty exoskeletons.

Lailani stepped closer to the iron bars. She gazed at Marco, and her eyes softened.

"You should step back," Marco said. "Before I reach between these bars, grab your throat, and squeeze."

"You can't hurt me, Marco," she said softly. "You know that you can't. I'm powerful now. I was always powerful, even when I didn't know it. I love you, Marco. Don't laugh. I've always loved you. I know I broke your heart, but I still love you, and I'm sorry."

He stared into her eyes. "I loved you once."

A tear rolled down her cheek. "Marco, do you remember that day? Back at Fort Djemila? Boot camp? It was Sunday. Our day off. The others—"

"Stop, Lailani."

"The others went to play soccer, and we made love." She smiled shakily. "I was too shy to say I love you. Do you remember what I said instead?"

"I don't care," he said, but now tears streamed down his cheek too. He was lying. He did care.

"I ruv you," she whispered. "A silly word. From a silly girl who was so shy, so scared. A girl who was in love. That was the best day of my life, Marco. It was the best day. And I'm so sorry it's come to this."

Marco wiped his eyes. "Those days are gone."

She stepped closer, reached between the bars, and caressed his cheek. "I wish we could have that time back. But you're right. Those days are gone." She took a few steps back, stood again among the centipedes, and suddenly she was no longer little Lailani, the awkward girl from boot camp. She was the Queen of Claws. "My duty is to my people. I must fight those I love. For the starlings, the shunned souls of the universe."

"Are you going to kill me now?" Marco said. "Toss me out an airlock or get your pet centipedes to rip me apart?"

She shook her head. "No, Marco. I would never hurt you or Addy. You betrayed me. You broke my heart. You can't imagine the pain that causes me. You can't imagine how it tears me up inside. But I still love you, and I won't hurt you. You're going to see Addy again. And Marco … you must never come back here." Her face hardened. "If you, or Addy, or Einav come after me again … I will have to fight you. And next time I will not be as merciful."

She turned and marched away, shoulders squared and head held high.

The scum ripped the bars apart.

Yep, Marco thought, just like twigs.

The aliens grabbed him. He noticed that these were not the warrior scum. They were the workers. Their claws were shaped like pincers, used to lift stones and mine for ore. Now those pincers closed around Marco's limbs. They dragged him from the brig, rougher than the security guards had been.

As they pulled him down the corridor, Marco saw those security guards. They lay in a corner, ripped apart, their guns in their hands. A few dead scum lay by them. At least they had taken some of the bastards down. Marco wanted to pause, to take their dog tags, but the scum kept pulling him along the corridor.

The aliens took him into the hangar bay. The survivors of the crew were there.

There weren't many. Marco was glad to see that Captain Paradis had survived. Le Petit Capitaine stood among the other captives, chained, his head lowered.

The centipedes grabbed people and shoved them into shuttles. Nobody fought back. They knew they were beat. Macintosh stood among the centipedes, smirking, pointing an assault rifle at the prisoners. Marco wanted to wring her freckled neck.

Lailani is wrong, he told himself. We only imprisoned the scummers because they attacked Earth. I did not come here to oppress her people. I came here to guard dangerous criminals.

He told himself these things. But doubt filled him. And he knew that Lailani felt hurt. Betrayed. That she was the heroine of her story. That in her story, he was the villain.

"Get into the shuttle!" Macintosh shouted.

Marco walked with the scum. He did not resist. The aliens shoved him into a shuttle and slammed the door shut. Marco sat there, huddled with twenty or thirty other prisoners. They were pale. Bruised. Bleeding. One man was missing an eye. They hung their heads low in shame. A shame shared by defeated soldiers throughout history.

The shuttles flew from the airlocks. They tumbled through space, spinning. The portholes revealed the devastation.

Corpses floated through space. Thousands of corpses. Scum and humans alike. Earth's fleet was still intact. Not a single vessel was destroyed. The scum had taken great care to trap every ship, to cocoon them in their sticky goo. From the smallest starfighter to the massive carrier—Lailani had trapped them all in her net.

She now commanded the fleet.

Marco sat in the descending shuttle, gazing glumly through a porthole.

"This was your plan all along, wasn't it, Lailani?" he said softly. "To lure us here with your ultimatum. To get the marines down to the surface. Then to capture our ships. You did well, Lailani. You did well."

The shuttles flew on autopilot. Commandeering them was impossible. Centipedes filled the cockpit, ready to slash any wannabe pilot. For a moment, Marco worried that Lailani would send the shuttles hurtling into deep space, never to be found.

But no. Of course not.

The shuttles plunged into New Siberia's atmosphere.

They had no seat belts. No harnesses. The prisoners rattled in the shuttle like dice in a cup. A man's elbow slammed into Marco's mouth, bloodying his lip and loosening a tooth. He groaned, blinked, spat, and struggled not to pass out.

Flames blazed outside the portholes. The dropships had hit the atmosphere, ionizing the air.

Finally the fire cleared. Snow swirled outside. Winds lashed them. They dived through the clouds, and Marco saw it below.

Concrete walls. Barbed wire. Rows of concrete buildings.

The prison camp.

New banners already fluttered there. White banners painted with five red claws. Claw marks shaped like a human hand. Symbol of the starlings.

The speakers in the shuttle crackled to life. Lailani's voice emerged.

"Welcome to New Siberia Concentration Camp. Your new home."

As the shuttles descended toward the camp, Marco coughed and spat blood.

And so our first battle ends, old friend, he thought. Lailani: 1. Earth: 0.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Addy had never felt so humiliated in her life.

I lost. I faced Lailani in battle. And she beat my ass.

She walked down the snowy streets of the Freezer. The survivors of the mission, spacers and marines alike, wandered the streets around her. Everyone seemed dazed. Soldiers stared with blank eyes, holding their wounds. Medics were setting up field hospitals, performing surgeries in the snow. One sergeant was drilling his platoon of marines, making the poor bastards march up and down the street. Maybe he could think of nothing else to do.

Everyone had the same eyes.

Shell-shocked eyes.

They were the mighty Human Defense Force. The great galactic power that had defeated alien empires.

"And Lailani beat us," Addy muttered.

But of course she did. Lailani was smarter than any of those aliens. Lailani had fought alien armies at Addy's side.

If there was ever anyone who could have beat us, Addy realized, it was one of us.

Oddly, Addy felt sudden pride in her friend. Yes. She was proud of the little spitfire. Her friend had proved herself a brilliant tactician and commander. Yes, Addy had lost. But she couldn't help but admire her opponent.

Then Addy rounded the corner and saw a makeshift morgue.

Grim survivors were arranging the dead in rows. Row after row. They didn't even have body bags down here. The dead lay exposed to the weather, faces white and frozen, icicles on their eyelashes, snow on their eyeballs.

Addy stared for a moment at those frozen dead faces. They were so young. She saw the insignia stitched onto their sleeves. Some were only privates. Only eighteen years old. They had probably only joined the military this year. This was their first mission. A few days from now, their parents would get a signed condolence letter from the president, a Purple Heart in a glass case, and a dead child in a box.

Any pride Addy had felt in Lailani evaporated now.

You killed them, Lailani. Addy clenched her fists. You killed these soldiers. You turned against your own people.

Lailani was not fully human, no. But she had still served in the HDF for twenty years. She had still grown up on Earth.

And she butchered these boys and girls.

It was treason. Pure and simple.

"Addy."

The voice came from behind her. Addy turned around.

Marco stood there.

A bandage was wrapped around his leg. Snow filled his hair and beard. Addy rushed toward him and embraced him. They stood by the dead as the snow fell.

"Are you all right, Addy?"

She nodded. "I'm not hurt." Suddenly she laughed, wiped her eyes. "The fucking scum again, eh?"

Marco held her a little closer. Addy remembered that day long ago. When they had been eleven. Standing in the snowy streets of Toronto after the scum had murdered their mothers. They were on a far planet now. They were adults. But that nightmare had never left them. It had been chasing them all that time. It finally caught up with them.

"What happens now?" Addy said. "We're stuck in a goddamn prison camp."

"In a few days, rescue ships will arrive from Earth," Marco said.

"And then?"

Marco looked at the dead. His eyes reflected the bodies. His face hardened. "And then we strike back."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The Black Rose Viperess sliced through space, flying toward a distant star.

She was a small ship, sleek and black, like an obsidian shard hurled from a sling. But she led a nation.

Close behind, the fleet followed.

A dozen corvettes, not much larger than the Viperess, bristling with cannons. Four destroyers, twice the size, machines of deadly war. Three full frigates, armored and lined with torpedo bays and shuttle hangars. And finally the mighty Ishtar, a full carrier, gravid with starfighters.

Thirty thousand refugees filled these starships. Starlings. A new kind of life. Heading to a new home.

The scum pods flew around the fleet, full of centipedes. They were alien, disturbing, even to the starlings. Most of the starlings were old enough to remember the great Scum War twenty-two years ago. Many had lost relatives in that war. They stared at these strange, clawed aliens and shuddered.

But the centipedes had created the starlings. And they would protect them. The centipedes were the old, and the starlings were the new. And the centipedes knew it. The starlings were their children. They would not harm them.

For two weeks they sailed the cosmic ocean, pushing the engines to the limit. They had a mighty fleet, yes. They had warships and podships and plenty of cannons. But Lailani knew they were not safe here.

She knew that Ben-Ari would not forgive the theft of her ships. The Golden Lioness would follow.

Lailani had faced many aliens and monsters in her life. She had commanded troops in battle, had fought among the stars in battles of legend. She had stood before alien emperors and defeated them.

But none of those scared her as much as Einav Ben-Ari.

Because she had seen the Golden Lioness fight. She had heard her roar. All Lailani's victories seemed so fragile, so meaningless by the glory of the Lioness. Einav Ben-Ari was a figure of legend, a military heroine listed alongside Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Admiral Bryan, and the other great generals of history. She had toppled empires.

They taught Ben-Ari's victories in military academies. They told tales of her triumphs across the galaxy. But Lailani didn't need to hear the tales. She had been there. She had seen it. Even she, a close friend, had gazed in awe upon the leader with the golden hair.

And she'll come after me next, Lailani thought.

She tightened her fists. Those small angry little fists. Her lips formed a straight line.

I won the first battle. Don't try me again, Einav. Maybe I can't beat you. But I can hurt you. Don't follow. Let us be.

On the fourteenth day, they saw it ahead.

Abaddon.

The homeworld of the scum rose before them, larger than Jupiter, a great rock carved by gorges and craters, thrusting up mountains, an impossible planet, a planet full of tunnels and secrets.

Lailani stood on the bridge of the Ishtar, watching Abaddon rise. She wanted to fly on the carrier for this dawn. She had left this world in the little Viperess. But she came back in a flagship, leading a nation.

Twenty years ago, I flew here as a private under your command, Einav, she thought. I flew here to conquer and kill. Now I return. Maybe I was always meant to return. Maybe this has always been my home.

Kai stood at her left side. Tala stood at her right. They held her hands. The three stood together on the bridge, facing the viewport, watching the planet rise.

Lailani picked up her comlink, and she broadcast a message to every ship in her fleet.

"Welcome home."

* * * * *

The refugees stumbled down the tunnels, blinking, holding one another. A few trembled. A few prayed. The tunnels were narrow, and centipedes peered from the darkness. A few people wept, wanted to turn back, to fly to Earth. In the cold, dark underground, they panicked.

Lailani moved among them. She was small enough to squeeze by. She soothed people. Patted hands. Smiled softly.

"Keep going, we're almost there. I'm with you. You're doing great."

And they moved onward. Encouraged by this tiny queen. This girl who looked no older than a teenager. Who didn't even stand five feet tall. This girl who fought in battles and slew enemies, but who came to them with smiles, with hugs, with kindness. This leader who did not treat them like monsters. Who saw them for what they were.

People.

All my life, I fought for the underprivileged, Lailani thought. For years, I built schools in poor countries. I taught homeless children to read and write. Now I found new purpose. Now I found new people who need me. I was born for this.

She led them down the dark tunnels, far from the cracked surface, the searing sun, the radiation and sandstorms. Down into the cool darkness. Down to safety. Finally they reached it. The grand chasm Lailani had dug. The cave that would become a city.

She'd named it New Canaan. A new beginning.

The centipedes had worked hard. They had honeycombed the cave walls with burrows, each large enough to become an apartment. A waterfall cascaded, filling a pool, feeding from deep reservoirs of ice. Bioluminescent moss filled glass bulbs, forming thousands of lanterns. Cobbled roads and bridges led here and there. There was room enough for them all.

They gathered on the cave floor around the pool. All the thousands of them.

Lailani climbed onto a pillar of stone that rose by the waterfall. They all turned to face her. She spoke into a microphone.

"My fellow starlings, I know this is hard. I know this is scary. I know this isn't Earth. This is a dark cave on a foreign world swarming with giant centipedes. Not exactly a land of milk and honey. I know. But we're safe here. We're free here. In this cave, we have everything we need. Water. Air. We have enough food on the starships to last for months, and we can grow more food on Abaddon. We'll survive, and—"

"We don't just want to survive!" somebody shouted from the crowd. "We want to live."

"We will make this a home," Lailani said. "Do you see the alcoves along the walls? We'll fill them with light and color and turn them into homes. We'll carve holes in the ceiling to let in light, and we'll install shaded glass to filter out the radiation. We'll build buildings. We'll expand to other caves. I know this isn't paradise. There are no grassy meadows, no soothing forests, no birds or flowers. This is a hard land. A cruel land. But it is our land."

That got them going. A few people cheered. A few shouted out: "Our land! Our land!"

"Lailani!" somebody cried, raising his fists.

"Lailani! Lailani!" somebody answered.

It spread across the crowd. And soon they were all chanting her name.

Lailani turned her back to the crowd. She lifted her minicom and pointed the camera at herself, making sure to get a view of the crowd too. She began to stream a video. A cable, which she had unspooled through the tunnel, delivered her video to Abaddon's surface. From there the starship Ishtar picked up the stream, opened a microscopic wormhole, and broadcast her message to Earth.

From this underground cavern to Earth, five hundred light-years away—a live feed. Modern technology was amazing.

"This is Lailani of the starlings, speaking to Earth. A week ago, I told you to free my people from captivity. Instead, you sent a fleet of starships to keep us imprisoned. I took your starships. And with them, I transported my people to a new world. You know where I am. That's no secret. But one thing you don't know. We are free people. And though you've imprisoned us, butchered us, we reach out our hands in peace." Her eyes hardened. "But if you force war upon us, if you attack us again, if you send more ships against us … we know how to defend ourselves. Einav, let me speak to you directly now, because we were friends once. Let this go. Let us be. We're ready for peace. Or we're ready for war. The choice is yours."

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

GALAXY STUNNED! DEFEAT AT NEW SIBERIA

Human Defense Force troops suffered a humiliating defeat at the colony of New Siberia late Monday. Our military source reports that an entire fleet of HDF starships, along with a full marine brigade, arrived at New Siberia in an attempt to secure the Hybrid Relocation Camp. Within hours, it was over. A joint force of Scolopendra titania aliens working with the hybrid detainees overwhelmed our forces. A thousand prison guards and over five hundred soldiers were lost in the battle. All HDF starships are reported seized by the enemy.

President Ben-Ari was already lagging in the polls ahead of November's election, running on a platform of strong military leadership, touting her accomplishments during the Alien Wars. Such a stunning military defeat is widely expected to hurt her chances in November, possibly costing her the election. Pressure mounts from the opposition to launch a counterattack, though our analysts predict that . . .

* * * * *

SIBERIAN SLAUGHTER!

It was a MASSACRE!

Our troops arrived at New Siberia, a frozen hellhole our readers are already familiar with. Yes, THAT New Siberia, home of the legendary Alien Bigfoot the government still denies exists. But on Monday, our troops didn't arrive to hunt Bigfeet. They arrived to hunt scum. And the scum kicked their backsides!

All our starships—let us repeat this, dear reader—ALL OUR STARSHIPS were lost. Our troops suffered a beating! Witnesses report seeing troops LIMP back to Earth on crutches, crying, begging to see their mommies.

The Sol Gazette asks you, dear reader—is this truly the same proud army that won the Alien Wars? Have we gone soft? Is the new generation of soldiers simply TOO WIMPY?

Rumors spread that President Ben-Ari, who has never lost a battle until now, is actually a SHAPESHIFTING REPTILE working for a secret cabal of …

* * * * *

RESTORE EARTH PRIDE

Defeat at New Siberia Underscores Earth Weakness

Loyal readers of Call to Earthlings already know the truth. Under the tyranny of Einav Ben-Ari, a known Zionist, Earth has grown weak. Our proud military, which should be conquering worlds and expanding our empire, has been reduced to a farce. Even with a full carrier strike force, the so-called Human Defense Force could not defeat a mob of subhuman alien mongrels.

Is Ben-Ari truly loyal to Earth? Or is she more loyal to the rich bankers financing her?

A demonstration is planned this Friday. We encourage all proud Earthlings to show up with your flags, with your guns, with your courage, and we will demand to unshackle our military. Our troops must be allowed to drive forth with full strength, crush the enemy, and proceed to claim more worlds for our empire. Only with strength, only with eternal conquest, can the proud human race survive among the stars.

We ask again, proud Earthling, will you accept a greedy Zionist as president? Or will you fight for Earth?

* * * * *

The big bald man in the suit raised his fist. Standing six-foot-seven and bulging with muscles, he struck an imposing figure.

His bass voice boomed through the arena. "And this is why, my fellow Earthlings, we're going to get rid of Einav Ben-Ari!"

The crowd cheered. Thousands of them. They raised their fists like their leader. Their cries shook the stadium.

A chant broke out. "Stone! Stone! Stone!"

The big bald man soaked up the adulation. His name was Joseph Stone, and he was running for president. Vote Stone! Keep Earth strong!

"The elections are only six months away." Stone's voice boomed from speakers across the stadium and holofeeds around the world. "Ben-Ari has shown herself to be weak. She couldn't even beat a bunch of scummers. Ha! What Earth needs now is a strong leader. A leader who isn't afraid to use our military's full capabilities. Ben-Ari has hobbled our military. She placed restriction after restriction on our boys and girls in uniform. She launched a ground operation when she should have nuked the bastards from orbit. I say: Let our troops win!"

The cries filled the arena. "Let them win! Let them win!"

Stone spoke over their cries. "We know what happens when we are weak. We were here on Earth when the scum attacked! When the marauders attacked! When enemy after enemy attacked! And we bled. And we died. And we buried loved ones. Because we were weak. Only through strength did we cast the enemy back! And only through strength will we defeat the scummers and their cruel queen, Lailani de la Rosa."

Boos rose at the sound of Lailani's name.

"Kill the scum queen!" rose a chant. "Kill the scum queen!"

Joseph Stone raised his chin, puffed out his chest. "I vow to you, fellow Earthlings, if you elect me as your president, I will kill the scum queen. Death to scummers!"

The cries echoed through the arena. "Death to scummers!"

"Down with Ben-Ari!" Stone cried.

The crowd answered his cry. "Down with Ben-Ari!"

"Death to de la Rosa!" Stone shouted.

The crowd's faces twisted with fury. Red animal faces. Their cries rang across Earth. "Death! Death! Death to de la Rosa!"

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Ben-Ari sat in her home office, staring at her holofeed. The video from Abaddon ended, but she still sat there, staring at the floating screen. At the frozen image of Lailani's face.

The last words echoed.

"The choice is yours."

Ben-Ari kept staring. There she was. Little Lailani. Looking as young as she did twenty-two years ago, showing up in Ben-Ari's boot camp platoon.

You came to me an orphan from the slums, Ben-Ari thought. You came to me scared, hurting, suicidal. I trained you. I molded you. I gave you confidence and strength. You became one of my best soldiers. And later you became one of my best friends. And you betrayed me.

She turned the holofeed off. Lailani's image vanished. Ben-Ari sat silently at her desk.

Visitors often found Ben-Ari's home office surprisingly rustic. The limestone walls were unpainted, showcasing raw, craggy bricks the color of sand and memory. Her desk was made from olive wood with live edges. Lantana flowers bloomed in the windowsill. Wooden shelves held antique books, wooden statuettes of biblical animals, and boxes of chamomile tea. The harsh Middle Eastern sunlight seemed softer in here. Vines hung outside the window, dappling the light, mottling the room in silver and gold. A framed photo of her son stood on the desk. She had removed the photo of her husband.

Yes, a rustic little place. A place of stone and wood and tea and memories. Oh, she had a proper office in Skysphere, the space station that orbited Earth. That was where she met dignitaries, signed papers, shook hands with world leaders as journalists snapped photos. But when she really needed to get work done, she came here. This little room in her little home.

And right now she had to make a choice.

The choice is yours, Lailani had said.

War or peace.

The choice seemed easy. Peace of course! Who wouldn't choose peace?

And yet …

Rumbling engines sounded outside. Ben-Ari looked out the window.

A giant hot dog was flying through the sky. Her friends were here.

Ben-Ari stepped outside. She just wore a white dress and sandals today. There were no cameras here, no need for formality. Today she was meeting friends.

And they would discuss the fate of the empire.

The hot dog shuttle was descending through the clouds, heading toward the hilltop. Ben-Ari walked between the cyclamens and the clay statues Noah would sometimes sculpt. Why had she not gotten rid of those statues? Every time she walked here, she saw his artwork, and it reminded her of him. Her husband had left her. He was living in the city now, doing his research, teaching his students, and for all she knew, fucking that pretty lab assistant of his. He had her son. He had the peace she had always yearned for. She kept the sculptures.

But enough of that now. She had no time for her own pain. Not when she had a world to lead.

The hot dog landed. The hatch opened. The Linden-Emery family emerged.

Addy came first, wearing a bathing suit, flip-flops, and a straw hat. A hockey stick hung across her back. She held a real hot dog in each hand. She took turns biting the left and right hot dogs.

"Come on, kids, get your butts out here!" Addy said. "And don't forget sunblock! We Lindens are Viking stock. The Middle Eastern sun will burn our skin right off."

"Cool!" Roza and Sam said, hopping out after her.

"I want my skin to burn off!" Sam said.

"Then we can be zombies!" Roza said. She crossed her eyes, stuck out her tongue, and zombie-walked down the hatch.

Both twins wore T-shirts that read "I HEART JERUSALEM." They had apparently stopped at a tourist shop on the way.

Terri followed. The teenager wore black clothes, even in the punishing heat. She had dyed her hair black and applied heavy eyeliner. She wore headphones and kept her eyes downcast.

"Marco, get your ass out here!" Addy shouted.

Marco emerged from the shuttle last. He carried a massive backpack and was dragging two suitcases. "Does anyone want to help me?"

"Can't, eating hot dogs!" Addy said.

"Can't, we're getting our skin burned off!" the twins said.

Terri said nothing. She just kept listening to music and ignoring everyone.

Ben-Ari couldn't help but smile. She hurried forward, gave Addy and the kids quick hugs, then helped Marco with the suitcases. They were damn heavy. Especially the suitcase with all the hockey stickers on it.

"Addy!" Ben-Ari groaned, dragging the suitcase. "What did you pack in your suitcase? Rocks?"

"Um … no." Addy blushed.

Ben-Ari frowned, put down the suitcase, and unzipped it. Her eyes widened.

"It's full of rocks!" Ben-Ari said.

Marco stomped forward, stared, and groaned. "Addy! I've been dragging this suitcase all day."

"Those are curling stones," Addy said. "Not rocks. Stones are totally different from rocks."

Marco tugged his hair in frustration. "Why did you need to bring curling stones here?"

Addy rolled her eyes. "In case we found an ice rink. Duh!"

"An ice rink in the Middle East?" Marco said, practically shouting.

Addy shrugged. "Stranger things have happened."

"And why did you need to bring multiple curling stones?" Marco cried. "Why not bring one stone? Why did you bring ten?"

"There are twelve," Addy said. "They come in a set. Oh, by the way, careful with that second suitcase. It's full of bowling balls."

Marco sighed and looked at Ben-Ari. "Once again, I must apologize for my wife. I'd get her committed, but she refuses to admit she's insane."

Addy climbed onto a boulder and stared at the desert. The dunes rolled into the horizon. "I have a brilliant idea. Sand curling. On camel back. With hockey sticks! We all ride camels, swing hockey sticks, and knock curling stones into nets. I call it—Addyball!"

"I have a brilliant idea too," Marco said. "You commit yourself into a mental institution."

"Quiet, you!" Addy said. She turned toward Ben-Ari. "Do you have any camels? I'm putting together an Addyball team. You in?"

"We're not playing Addyball!" Marco interjected. "For Chrissake, Addy, we're here for an important meeting to discuss the fate of the galaxy."

"Meeting?" Addy gasped and placed her hands on her hips. "You told me you're finally taking me on holiday!"

"I said nothing of the sort. And why are you even wearing a bathing suit? This isn't the beach!"

She crossed her arms. "There's sand. Close enough."

"We want to play Addyball!" the twins said.

Terri only rolled her eyes and increased the volume on her music.

Ben-Ari sighed. "Guys? Can we have our meeting? Kitchen table?"

Marco nodded. "Please. Let's."

"You held us up as usual, Marco," Addy said as they walked into the house, dragging the suitcases. "And don't you complain about my bathing suit. I know you love seeing me wear it. Don't deny it."

As Ben-Ari ushered her friends into her kitchen, she felt a little less lonely. A little less desperate. She had missed them. Whenever they were away, she missed them.

Yet as the adults sat down in the kitchen, and the kids played in the yard, Ben-Ari couldn't help but notice the empty seat.

They all did.

One empty chair. Lailani was not here. And it was Lailani they came to discuss.

* * * * *

Hospitality was a cornerstone of Middle Eastern culture. Despite her fair complexion, a curse in this hot land, Ben-Ari was Middle Eastern born and bred. It was in her bones. She set out an assortment of kibood for her guests.

The word kibood in Hebrew roughly translated as "honoring" or "respecting." It was how you treated a guest in your home. And in the Middle East, kibood meant food. She laid out platters of refreshments. Dry dates, sticky and sweet. Fresh figs that exploded with flavor. Grapes grown in her own vineyard behind the garden. Pomegranates from her tree, cracked open to reveal gleaming beads like rubies. She served honey cake she had baked that morning; the honey came from a kindly beekeeper in a nearby valley. Finally, she poured them all rich coffee in little silver cups.

Ben-Ari even set out a few hot dogs. She always kept hot dogs in her freezer in case Addy popped in.

As Addy scarfed down the food, and as Marco sipped his coffee, Ben-Ari spoke.

"We've reached a crossroads. We stand before two paths. One path to peace. Another to war."

"Seems easy enough," Marco said. "Peace."

"I say war." Addy reached for another hot dog. "I never back down from a fight. This ain't over till I kick Lailani's ass."

Ben-Ari smiled sadly. "Not that easy a choice, as you can see. On one hand, I'm tempted to choose peace. I hate war. That would surprise some people, perhaps. Me, the officer who led armies in the Alien Wars!"

"Most soldiers hate war," Marco said. "They've seen it up close. They know its brutality. Soldiers don't fight because they love war. They fight because they love peace. They fight so that those behind the front line can be safe."

Ben-Ari nodded. "This is true. And we could have peace. We could forge peace with Lailani. Yes, she has opposed us. Yes, she defeated us in battle, and she killed many of our soldiers. Yes, she's become our enemy. But she's not a madwoman. She's not unreasonable. She's not evil. She's still the same Lailani we always knew. The same Lailani who we love. We can make peace with her."

Addy rose to her feet. "I don't love Lailani! Not anymore. Not after what she did." Suddenly her eyes were damp. "I loved her once. Like a sister. She was my best friend—along with you two, that is. But she turned against us. Betrayed us. You weren't there. You weren't on the ground in New Siberia. Even Marco stayed in the starship. But I was there on the battlefield! She unleashed scum against us. Scum! The same aliens that killed my mother."

"We've all lost loved ones to the scum," Ben-Ari said softly. "I understand the pain of betrayal. I feel it too. And Lailani feels it."

Addy scoffed. "Lailani?"

Ben-Ari nodded. "From her perspective, we betrayed her. When we put the starlings in prison, we turned against her very being. Her very identity."

"They're called scummers," Addy said, still standing. Her fork shook in her hand. "Not starlings. They're monsters. Peace?" She snorted. "You can't make peace with monsters. We learned that in the Alien Wars. I say we muster another fleet. A larger fleet. We fly to Abaddon, and we show them what Earthlings are made of!"

"And what, kill Lailani?" Marco laughed bitterly. "Addy, come on. Lailani betrayed all of us. But we can't keep fighting her. How many more soldiers must die for this feud between us?"

"Between us?" Addy said. "This isn't just between us and Lailani. This is also about Kai." A tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away with her fist. "My own half brother. He joined Lailani. He betrayed me too. My brother!"

Everyone was silent for a moment. Addy shed another tear. Marco wrapped an arm around her.

"Ads, I'm sorry," Marco said. "I wish I could make this better. Our group has split in two. Us here. Lailani and Kai on Abaddon. And Tala is with them. Sweet little Tala, just eight years old—living on the scum homeworld. This feels like civil war, and it's horrible. I hope our group can reunite someday."

Addy sniffed, nodded. "But this isn't just about our group. The scummers killed two million humans. Two million, Marco! This is a fight for all Earthlings."

"Or it can be peace for all Earthlings," Marco said. "I don't care about revenge."

"Neither do I," said Addy. "But if we do nothing, what's to stop Lailani from striking us again?"

"She has no reason to strike us again," Marco said. "The starlings—okay, okay, scummers—live on Abaddon now. She got what she wanted. Maybe she'll just leave Earth alone." He turned toward Ben-Ari. "What do you think, Einav?"

Ben-Ari took a deep breath. "If it were that simple, I'd agree with you, Marco. I'd forge peace. I'd forgo vengeance. We'd lick our wounds, swallow our pride, let Lailani win this war, and move on. But it's not that simple." She looked out the window for a moment, watching a wagtail flutter among the branches of the pomegranate tree. "This is an election year."

"Einav, with all due respect, you're not thinking of continuing a war just to gain a few points in the polls, are you?" Marco said, voice dry.

"Of course not." Ben-Ari looked back at him. "I'd gladly forfeit the presidency if that could bring peace. But if I lose the election, Joseph Stone wins. And that means brutal warfare. That means war until every last starling, Lailani included, is dead. That would mean many more dead Earthlings too."

Addy finally sat back down. She snorted, reached for a fig. "That Stone's a dumbass. He'll never win the election. I mean, come on, Einav! You're the Golden Fucking Lioness. You're a living legend. You'll wipe the floor with Stone."

Ben-Ari remained somber. "The polls are clear. The people of Earth are furious, shocked, humiliated that we lost the Battle of New Siberia. It's not surprising. The starlings killed two million of us. We tried to strike back and lost. We lost . . . quite thoroughly."

Addy bit into the fig. "We got our asses handed to us."

"The voters want me to do something," Ben-Ari said. "Anything. To strike back at Lailani. If I show restraint, if I do nothing … I'll lose the election. Stone will win. And then we will never have peace. Then it'll be war and war and more war until there's nobody left to fight."

Marco rose to his feet. He paced the kitchen. He stared out the window for a while, contemplating. Finally he looked back at the others.

"There's only one solution," he said. "We walk a middle path. Not the path of peace. But not the path of war either. We walk between them. We carry out a limited strike on Abaddon. A small military operation. No starling casualties. Just something to appease the voters. To show the people that Earth is proud, that Einav Ben-Ari is still a strong military leader."

"That way Stone will have to cut the crap about Einav being a weakling," Addy said.

Marco nodded. "Exactly. We show voters that the Golden Lioness has still got it. But we don't actually kill any starlings. We don't give Lailani a reason to strike back. We hurt Lailani just enough to give us the last word. To win the election. And then—then, after the election, after Einav wins, we negotiate for peace. True peace."

Addy heaved a sigh. "Well, I can't say I'm happy with a limited strike. Part of me wants to kick Lailani's ass halfway across the galaxy. But okay. I agree."

Ben-Ari watched the sunlight glimmer on the pomegranate seeds, silent for a long moment. Finally she spoke softly. "I don't like the idea of attacking Abaddon again. I have bad memories of that war. And I don't like the idea of fighting Lailani. Though we're at odds, and though she attacked me in this very home, I still love her. But we have no choice. Both the left and right paths lead to despair. So we must walk the middle path. We must walk along the knife's edge. To balance will be painstaking. If we fall to either side, the galaxy will burn. But walk along this knife's edge we must. We will strike Abaddon. A limited strike. A strike that kills no starlings—yet satisfies Earth's need for vengeance. How should such a strike look?"

"I have a suggestion," Marco said. "Lailani took our starships from us. So we take her podships from her. The scum has a shipyard on Abaddon. At least their own version of a shipyard. It's a festering pit of ooze, swirling inside a crater on the planet's surface. There the scum brew and stir carbon and liquid flesh. From this molten soup, like glassblowers, they inflate their ships—reeking pods made of organic material. And they fill these flying blobs with centipedes." Marco shuddered. "I say we send a strike force. A fast, small, deadly fleet. We jump out of warped space near Abaddon. We bomb their reeking shipyard. And we fly back to Earth. A surgical strike. They took our ships? We take theirs."

Ben-Ari nodded. "I like that. No starlings would be hurt. Only scum would be working at these pools of liquid carbon. Lailani would be furious, yes. But without starling deaths, she won't have a compelling reason to fight back and escalate this into an all-out war. I think she'd understand. She'd know we're giving her an out."

Marco sat down, exhaled slowly. "For peace, we must fight."

Addy reached across the table for another fig. "A chance to kill scum and humiliate de la Rosa? I'm in." She bit into the fig and wiped the juice off her chin. "When do we leave?"

Marco frowned. "Who said we're going to do this? There are plenty of other officers in the military, you know. Haven't we earned a rest?"

Addy's eyes hardened. "No. Nobody else gets to do this. This is personal. This is between us and the pipsqueak. We're going." She reached for the honey cake. "Right after dessert."

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

This time they took no carrier.

This time they would not fall into the same trap.

This time they would not face Lailani on a frozen world. But on her own soil.

Marco and Addy flew in a mini-corvette. It was a small starship. Barely twice the size of a starfighter. The cramped cockpit had two seats. The hold was full of bombs and missiles. This was a ship for one purpose. War.

Behind them flew hundreds of Firebirds. They looked like the old fighter jets from Earth's history. But a Firebird was deadlier by far, able to fly faster than light, zip around like a bumblebee, and unleash enough destruction to annihilate a small moon.

This was not some lumbering carrier fleet, slow and cumbersome. This was a strike force of blinding speed and devastating firepower.

Addy wriggled around in her seat. "Ugh, why do they make these seats so small? I can barely fit."

"I'm fitting fine," Marco said.

She punched him. "Your seat is wider."

"I also didn't eat three hot dogs for breakfast."

"That reminds me." She pulled a hot dog wrapped in tinfoil from her purse. "It's lunchtime."

"How are you even still alive?"

"Viking genes. We're carnivores by nature."

Marco shuddered. "Dear God. I just imagined a whole army of Addys pillaging the coasts of northern Europe, looting all the villagers' sausages. Must have been terrifying to see."

"One Addy is enough to win any battle," she said. "I'll prove that today."

They were almost there. Almost at Abaddon.

Getting this far while avoiding detection had not been easy. Abaddon was over five hundred light-years away. Even with warp engines, that was a two-week flight.

Normally, when flying so deep into space, humans flew in large starships. Ships with bunks. Mess halls. Recreation rooms. Big ships like destroyers, frigates, even mighty starfighter carriers.

Ships this small never ventured into deep space alone.

Until now.

Large ships were easy to detect. Maybe not for scum technology. While the centipedes were brilliant genetic engineers, their sensors were crude. But they weren't just fighting scum now.

They were fighting scummers. And those scummers included physicists, engineers, mathematicians, astronomers. They also happened to have stolen a few very large, very sophisticated starships whose sensors could monitor the galaxy.

If Marco and Addy had flown here in a larger starship, Lailani would have seen them coming.

So they flew in small starships. Tiny starships. Starships that were meant to launch from a carrier, fight a quick battle, then return into a hangar bay. To make detection even harder, the fleet had not flown here in a beeline. They had zipped back and forth, hiding their approach in the gravity wells of stars and nebulae.

It wasn't easy. It was like flying coach in one of those old galactic cruisers, the kind colonists would fly in a century ago. For three weeks. And you couldn't even walk up and down an aisle.

They slept in their seats. They ate in their seats. At least they had a little toilet in the back of the mini-corvette. The Firebird pilots didn't even have that. They used a funnel and tube.

After three grueling weeks in deep space, everyone was nearing breaking point. They did special exercises to avoid sores and muscle atrophy. It helped physically, but only a little. For a psychological boost, they all brought virtual reality helmets and disappeared into 3D video games and movies. That helped a little. But it was never like the real thing.

At least Marco had Addy here with him. The starfighter pilots were alone.

Though to be honest, sometimes when Addy chattered for hours about freaks and hockey, Marco wished he were alone. Especially whenever she insisted her seat was too small and sat on his lap instead. No matter how often she shifted positions, her elbows kept poking him in his stomach, and her hair kept getting in his mouth.

The fleet had traveled a circuitous route, utilizing the Wormhole Road—an ancient network of wormholes, built by an alien civilization a million years ago. The Wormhole Road was always bustling. Thousands of alien species were always flying down those luminous tunnels. Traffic was heavier than Toronto at rush hour. That was good. Flying among thousands of other starships, the little human fleet disappeared. Sensors would never pick them up among the noise.

Not until they were almost there.

Almost at Abaddon.

And now, after weeks of star-skipping, it was time.

They saw Abaddon ahead. From here, it was just a yellowish ball in the distance. Marco could hold out his hand and hide it. But the strike force was coming in fast. They would be there in moments.

Here we are again, Marco thought. Homeworld of the scum. Last time I flew here, Lailani, you were my fiancée. Today you're my enemy.

The planet came closer and closer, growing from the size of a baseball to a basketball, then growing still.

"Are you ready, Addy?" Marco asked.

"For war?" She squeezed his hand. "Never but always."

Marco got on his comlink.

"This is Colonel Marco Emery. Disengage your warp engines and initiate Operation Jeremiah's Hammer. Godspeed, soldiers of Earth."

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Lailani was down in New Canaan, the great underground city of starlings, when the air-raid sirens blared.

She was kneeling in one of the little gardens along the pool, her hands in the soil. The colonists were attempting to grow plants in the caves. They had carved an oculus in the center of the ceiling—a round hole, no larger than a manhole cover, which connected to a shaft. Sunlight poured down the shaft into the cave. The sunlight on Abaddon was cruel and blinding. The radiation would kill anyone who walked on the surface for too long. But a window of engineered steelglass, set into the shaft, mimicked Earth's ozone layer, filtering out X-rays, gamma rays, and ultraviolet of Antares. The sunlight that reached the garden was similar in frequency to Earth sunlight.

And the gardens were blooming.

Apple trees gave forth juicy red fruit. Potatoes sent up leafy stalks. The avocados were almost ready to pick. The chickens were busy in their coops, laying egg after egg. The people lived in the alcoves that honeycombed the walls, but the cave floor was for growing food. And the harvest was good.

Last year, the harvest had failed. The starlings had survived on battle rations taken from the Ishtar and her companion ships. Those rations were gone now, and thankfully the harvest would be plentiful. Next year Lailani planned to expand to more caves, to plant more gardens.

The population was growing. New starling babies were being born, averaging a baby a day. Nobody was dying. They were all young, healthy, strong. Soon New Canaan would not be alone. More underground cities would flourish. Already intrepid starlings were exploring other caverns in the underground labyrinth of Abaddon. Several new communities were popping up. Fifty starlings here, fifty starlings there.

One town, near the centipede shipyard, was already two hundred starlings strong. They called it Ein Gedi after a biblical oasis, the location of a confrontation between David, a plucky young princeling, and Saul, a corrupt king who had mentored David but then betrayed him. Lailani felt a little like David, turning against her mentor and leader. Yes, Ein Gedi was a good name for this place.

The new Ein Gedi was located inside a large cave with a natural spring of fresh water. The centipedes had built their shipyard nearby so they could tap into the spring for their purposes, mixing the water into their carbon baths. There was enough water for the shipyard and starling community to share. Lailani hoped that someday Ein Gedi could become a city of thousands, large enough to rival New Canaan, where she lived and toiled.

In fact, Tala was in Ein Gedi right now, visiting one of her friends. It was an hour away by train. Yes, the starlings had laid down train tracks along one tunnel. Their own little subway system. There was only one line so far, and only one train, but it ran back and forth between New Canaan and Ein Gedi every day. Lailani could already envision it: a massive subway system connecting hundreds of caves. It might take decades, even centuries. But eventually the starlings would have a nation of millions underground.

Time flowed differently on Abaddon. This was an unusually large planet orbiting a binary star. The system's unique gravity and speed distorted time here, stretched it out. On Earth, not much time had passed, Lailani knew. To Marco, Addy, and every other Earthling, only six weeks had gone by since the great Battle of New Siberia. Here on Abaddon, the starlings had been surviving for over a year. Not just surviving—living.

They had almost forgotten the sting of war. With growing orchards and gardens, with new babies filling the caverns with laughter, it was easy to forget. Easy to think that there would always be peace.

This was a good world for them. A hard world, yes. They all had to work hard. Everybody pitched in—farming, building, digging. Some tiled their home walls, forming intricate mosaics, hiding the raw stone of the cave. They built furniture, blew glass into vases and lamps, and wove rugs. They dug a new cave, which they turned into a theater, and they performed plays, pantomimes, even played sports. They forged silver and brass into musical instruments, and they played live music every night, ranging from classical to rock. There were many supplies to salvage from the Ishtar and the other starships. Whatever they lacked, they built.

Yes, they built. They thrived.

Lailani too was thriving here. Every day, she worked in the gardens, and her skin was tanned deep bronze. Every night, she slept with Kai, falling more deeply in love with him, more than she had ever thought possible. Tala was growing like a weed. She had just turned ten and was a sprightly, happy little daredevil, racing up and down tunnels, climbing, running everywhere, coming home with scraped knees and bright eyes. She was small for her age and fiercely intelligent. She looked like her mother, but there was something of her father in there too. Something of Benny's smile and mocking eyes.

I did it, Lailani sometimes thought, maybe while working in the garden, or meeting a new baby, or sleeping in Kai's arms. I built us a home.

But she knew that this peace was fleeting. She knew that Earth would strike back. Yes, time moved fast on Abaddon. It was too easy to forget. Someday, Lailani knew, Earth would strike again.

So she had prepared. She kept her starships in orbit, patrolling Abaddon. She kept an army of both scum and starlings, always ready. She pointed her telescopes to the stars and installed alarms in every cave.

And today it happened.

Today the air-raid sirens sang.

Lailani sprang up from the garden and ran.

* * * * *

She ran between rows of banana trees, reached the staircase built into the cave wall, and raced upward, three steps at a time. And for someone with such short legs, that was no small feat.

As she ran, Lailani passed by many burrows dug into the cave walls like hobbit holes. A few had their round doors open. Families cowered inside, trembling, praying.

"Everyone—into the shelters!" Lailani cried. "Stay calm, move in orderly lines, like we planned!"

The people emerged from their homes, faces pale. The air-raid sirens wailed louder and louder.

Abaddon was under attack!

The Earthlings were here.

Oh God, Lailani thought. Tala. Tala is at Ein Gedi!

The people began racing down staircases, heading toward the cave floor. The Starling Police—a hundred brave souls—were ushering people downward. They opened manhole covers, revealing staircases that led to bomb shelters below the gardens. There was enough room for everyone.

Lailani had insisted on building these bomb shelters. Some called it a waste of time. But Lailani knew that someday the starlings would need them.

As everyone hurried downward, Lailani hurried up—navigating between the crowds on the staircase. To their credit, nobody panicked. They all walked down in orderly lines. Nobody shoved or screamed. They had drilled this a hundred times. Lailani had insisted on that too. The drills had paid off. Children walked hand in hand with their buddies. They were shaking and pale, but they too acted perfectly. Lailani was proud of them all.

Kai burst out from one alcove. His hair was messy, and he was only wearing boxer shorts. He must have just woken up. That lazy bastard did nothing but sleep! At least he had grabbed some weapons. Many weapons. Several assault rifles and swords hung across his back.

"Kai!" Lailani cried. "Kai, Tala is in Ein Gedi! She's visiting her friend Emma."

Kai inhaled sharply. "Damn! Come on. We can be there within ten minutes by train."

Lailani hesitated. "Kai, I have to lead the fleet. I'm the queen of Abaddon. I can't run from battle."

He nodded. "Gotcha. I'll watch Tala. Now go! Fight the enemy!" He blew her a kiss. "Wish I could come with you. Go kick ass, babe."

"Love you, babe," she said.

He winked. "Right back at ya. Go get 'em."

With that, Kai ran off, leaping down the staircase toward the train station.

Lailani entered a tunnel, ran into a small cave, and found the Black Rose Viperess.

Her old starship was ready, fueled up and armed to the gills. Lailani hopped into the cockpit, fired up the engine, and soared.

She flew up a shaft, racing by the stone walls, then burst out an opening into the blazing white sky of Abaddon.

She kept soaring, gritting her teeth, clutching the yoke. The Viperess flew higher and higher. Below her, she could see gorges, canyons, mountains, deserts—the ragged landscape of Abaddon. The ground dropped down beneath her. The Viperess flew faster and faster, soon traveling several times the speed of sound and still gaining speed. The cockpit rattled. The engines roared. The g-dampeners helped, but the immense pressure still squeezed Lailani's skull and wrung her insides like a wet towel.

Soon the Viperess was flying thirty times the speed of sound. It was only a tiny fraction of the speed of light, which the Viperess could achieve in deep space using her warp engine. But she was near a planet now, and it was still damn fast. The pressure was enormous. Lailani almost passed out.

Nightwish, she thought.

Her microchip shut down. The centipede within her awoke.

Rage roared through her. Fire flowed down her arteries. She was so much stronger now. So much more than human.

She was a starling.

Even with the crushing g-force, she did not pass out. Her starship gained speed. She soared faster and faster.

Finally she burst through the thick atmosphere of Abaddon into space, and the dizzying panoply of stars spread above.

The gravity eased. She could breathe again.

She saw them in the distance.

A hundred lights, maybe more. Clustered together. Coming in fast.

Enemy ships. Ships from Earth. They were minutes away. Maybe just seconds.

Lailani kept flying, racing forward. The SAS Ishtar hovered ahead, turning her starboard hull toward the invaders. That hull was lined with sixteen plasma cannons. The Lulal and Shara, mighty frigates, were patrolling the other side of the planet now. This was a gargantuan planet, larger than Jupiter. It would take the frigates time to arrive.

That was okay. The Ishtar was here, and she was the mightiest ship in Lailani's fleet, the flagship of the Starling Army. The frigates were perhaps far, but two destroyers and three corvettes were racing toward the Ishtar and joining her in a defensive formation.

These starships had once served the Human Defense Force, had borne the prefixes HDFS. Human Defense Force Starship. Today they served the Starling Army. The old symbols had been scraped off the starships. No more golden phoenixes shone on their hulls. Instead, the starlings had painted their own symbol onto the ships. Five crimson claws.

Lailani had founded the Starling Army here on Abaddon, recruiting every starling who could fight. A full quarter of the starling population served in the SA, over seven thousand soldiers. It was a tiny force compared to Earth's military. Millions of soldiers fought in Earth's Human Defense Force. What were seven thousand souls against millions?

But we defend our homeworld, Lailani thought. One soldier defending his home is worth a thousand invaders.

And the starlings had help.

The scum fought with them.

The centipedes provided their own vessels. A hundred podships arranged themselves farther out, forming a wall in space. A hundred more podships were rising from the planet. Centipedes squirmed inside the wriggling, blobby ships.

This was not Lailani's full force. Her remaining ships were patrolling the other side of the planet, Abaddon's several moons, and the far reaches of the Antares star system. But even this small fleet—these few starships by Lailani—was a formidable force.

I hope it's enough.

She held down the throttle, racing toward the head of her fleet. The Black Rose Viperess rose over the Ishtar, as small as a hummingbird flying over an albatross. The sleek little black ship faced the darkness of space.

The enemy was coming in fast. A hundred lights, blazing forward, leaving trails like comets.

Lailani zoomed in. Her viewport shimmered, then revealed a closer view.

She clenched her fists.

Firebirds. HDF's dreaded starfighters.

She tapped a few buttons on her control panel, starting a broadcast on HDF frequencies.

"Earth ships! This is Lailani de la Rosa of the Starling Army. You are in violation of Abaddon's space. Turn back now, or we will shoot you down."

She gave them three seconds.

They weren't stopping.

"Starling Army, destroy them!" Lailani cried.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Marco and Addy sat in the cockpit of the Silver Hornet, their little corvette, leading two hundred starfighters.

Marco took a deep breath and clutched the Hornet's yoke. "Here they come."

The fleet of Abaddon stormed through space toward them. Dozens of starfighters. Corvettes and destroyers. Hundreds of scum podships. The mighty Ishtar loomed behind them, her cannons facing Earth's little fleet.

"Lailani is here." Addy pointed. "That's the Black Rose Viperess. Her starship. She rose to fight herself."

Marco shoved down the throttle. His hand inched toward the cannon controls.

"Here we go."

* * * * *

Lailani sneered as she charged toward the enemy. The Black Rose Viperess streaked toward battle.

Lailani peeled back her lips, revealing her fangs. Her claws dug into the yoke, scratching the metal. Her rage consumed her. Her alien rage. Red painted her universe.

She had worked for eighteen months to build a home here on Abaddon. She would not let it fall! The Earthlings would not steal it!

"This home is mine!" she roared and pulled the trigger.

Two missiles blasted from the Viperess, flying at hypersonic speed, leaving streaks of light through space.

On cue, the rest of her fleet opened fire.

The mighty cannons of Ishtar boomed. Torpedoes the size of telephone poles flew under the Viperess, racing toward the enemy. The other ships unleashed plasma bolts, missiles, and photon blasts. The scum pods fired too, spewing globs of acid that could eat through hulls.

Lailani did not intend to capture these starships. No. This fleet had come too close to home. She would not risk the lives of her people.

This time she would simply destroy.

A part of her, the human part, worried that Marco and Addy might be flying in this enemy fleet. That they were piloting two of these incoming starfighters.

If they were, she would kill them too.

That horrified Lailani. Even with her starling powers flowing through her, even with the terrible rage, she felt that horror. Yes, they were her enemies now. But she had loved them once. Maybe a part of her still did, always would. She hoped they would not die.

But it was too late. The triggers were pulled. The fusillade of plasma, missiles, and torpedoes was flying.

She watched from the cockpit of the Black Rose Viperess as her missiles struck home.

An enemy Firebird exploded.

And another.

And a third!

More and more explosions rocked the enemy fleet.

"Forth, starlings!" Lailani cried. "Forth to battle! No fear! No mercy! Fight!"

The Black Rose Viperess led the charge. Her corvettes and starfighters followed. The carrier loomed behind, cannons unleashing more torpedoes. Hundreds of missiles flew, leaving tails of light, like strange luminous mushrooms blooming through space.

The enemy fired back.

Two hundred Earthling Firebirds unleashed hell.

Missiles flew toward the Starling Army.

Lailani sneered, hit a button, and the Black Rose Viperess unleashed a cloud of decoys. Shreds of aluminum flew into space like confetti. Around her, her fellow starling ships blasted forth their own chaff.

Millions of pieces of scrap metal, each no larger than a pen, flew forward—a great cloud of debris.

They had practiced this again and again. A shield of scraps ballooned out before them.

The enemy missiles didn't stand a chance. They slammed into the chaff. Missile after missile exploded. A few missiles missed the decoys, but the explosions caught them, ignited them too. Fire bloomed in the darkness. Missile after missile blazed out, forming a nebula of red and white and furious blue. It was oddly beautiful. It reminded Lailani of her childhood, sitting on a hot tin roof in Manila's slums, watching firework displays across the river on Rizal Day.

"Fly, starlings!" Lailani cried. "Fly and destroy!"

She yanked back the yoke. The Viperess's nose rose. She soared over the cloud of decoys and fire. The other starships spread out, flying around the debris too. As soon as they made it past the flaming wreckage, they opened fire again.

More missiles flew.

The Ishtar didn't even need to fly over the debris. Her torpedoes were the size of trees. They plowed through the chaff like hungry barracudas racing through silt.

One of the gargantuan torpedoes slammed into an enemy Firebird. The starfighter exploded. Its wings were heavy with missiles. Its hold was full of bombs. The ammunitions all detonated, spreading clouds of fiery debris.

The blasts caught a nearby Firebird. Then a third. It was a chain reaction. More and more enemy birds ignited, shattered. Furious explosions lit space.

Lailani laughed. "Is this all you've got, Einav?"

A few enemy Firebirds made it through the carnage. They fired missiles. A scum pod exploded. Then another. Dead centipedes tumbled through space. But there were hundreds of pods here. And the blobby ships swarmed like angry jellyfish. Several podships engulfed a Firebird, sprayed it with acid, and the little starfighter melted. More pods bathed the other Firebirds with acid. The starling missiles, bullets, and plasma blasts did the rest.

It didn't take long. Probably only took ten minutes.

Lailani fired the last missile, destroyed the final Firebird.

And it was over.

Abaddon won the battle.

Lailani reactivated her chip. Her fangs and claws retracted. She leaned forward in her seat, panting, and gazed out the viewport.

The enemy fleet was gone. The Starling Army had destroyed two hundred Firebirds.

They had lost only a few podships.

Not a single starling had died.

Lailani trembled. She laughed. Tears ran down her cheeks.

We won. We defended our home. We proved that starlings cannot be defeated. Abaddon stands!

Cheers rose through her comlink. Starling soldiers were celebrating aboard the other ships.

Strangely, as she listened to the cheering, Lailani's own elation faded.

Something was strange here. She finally realized what. She stared at the debris of two hundred shattered Firebirds. And she saw no corpses.

Not a single dead Earthling floated through space. Not a single drop of blood.

A shiver ran down Lailani's spine.

"Something is wrong," she whispered.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Kai wished he could be flying to battle now. Wished he could be fighting at Lailani's side. But right now he had a more important task. Right now Tala was away. Tala needed him. So Kai did something he had never done before. He ran from a fight. He ran to protect a little girl he loved.

Tala was not his daughter. Benny "Elvis" Ray, the girl's father, had died long ago. That didn't matter now.

I love both Lailani and Tala, Kai thought. They're my family now. Not by blood but by love. I'll do whatever I can to protect them.

Lailani was a great warrior. She could take care of herself. But Tala was only ten. And Kai would fight every monster in the galaxy, would die a thousand deaths, just to keep the girl safe.

He raced down a tunnel. The crowd was rushing in the opposite direction, heading toward the bomb shelters. Kai wormed his way between them. He had grown up a pickpocket on the crowded streets of Bangkok. He was good at worming through a crowd.

Finally he reached the subway station. It was just a crude cave, not much fancier than an old mine. There was a narrow stone platform, a few pipes and gauges, and tracks that ran down a tunnel.

Kai ran toward a control panel on the wall. He pulled a lever. Electricity crackled down a cable. Deep inside the tunnel, the train awoke. Grumbles, clanks, and snorts sounded in the depths.

Kai shuddered. Whenever the train woke up, it gave him the willies.

They had no means to build an actual train here. Oh, Kai supposed that with some ingenuity, they could kludge something together. They could mine for metal, use tools from the starships, and construct a proper train. The technology was simple enough. But they were only thirty thousand people, and they must focus on farming, sanitation, and air filtration. Transportation simply took a back seat.

Funny, he thought. We own several interstellar starships, and we can't get a single train running.

So scum had built them a train.

And here it came. Kai shuddered again.

The centipede train scuttled along the tracks, snorting and sniffing. The scum did not forge metal. They bioengineered. For their starling guests, they had designed and grown a living train. A centitrain.

It was shaped like a centipede but far bigger than usual. As big as a train back on Earth. Its claws raced along the tracks. Its antennae twitched and skimmed along the tunnel walls. Its beady little eyes, no larger than human eyes, stared at Kai. All eight of them. The creature seemed to be welcoming him aboard.

The centipede's body was segmented. Each segment acted as a train car. The walls were made from chitin, the same material all centipede exoskeletons were made of. But most centipedes filled out their exoskeletons with soft tissue. The centitrain kept its organs within a narrow deck along the bottom of its body. The train cars were hollow.

There were even windows.

The centitrain kept staring at Kai. Its antennae twitched.

Kai felt sick. But he had no time for disgust. Tala needed him.

He climbed into the train. He chose a segment near the back. The farther he was from that giant head the better.

There were a few seats inside. Thankfully, they were regular seats, made of good old metal and plastic. Somebody had taken them from the Ishtar's mess hall. Kai sat down and pulled a rope that dangled from the ceiling. With snorts and sniffs, the centipede began to move again. Its claws scraped across the tunnel, racing along the track.

Kai had asked Lailani why there was a track at all. The centipede used claws, not wheels. Lailani, who was able to peer into the hive mind, answered him. The track was made of chitin too, not metal. It released pheromones, which the giant centitrain followed. The chemicals motivated the beast like a carrot on a stick.

Apparently, the insides of the tracks were organic and soft. The rails too were living creatures, two great serpents clinging to the tunnel floor. Kai tried not to think about that as the centitrain ran down the tunnel. The whole idea of genetic engineering sickened him. To take living material and morph it to your needs?

Then again, the starlings were doing exactly that down here—with their agriculture. Produce that could grow on Earth would wither on Abaddon. The bioengineers were working hard to genetically modify bananas, apples, potatoes, and avocados that could grow in Abaddon's caves. Last Kai heard, they were working on corn.

He supposed he could not fault the centipedes too much.

The train ride only took ten minutes. The giant centipede moved fast. It skidded to a halt, having raced thirty kilometers in the darkness. Almost twenty miles. It wasn't even out of breath.

Kai stepped off the train with relief. The centitrain stared at him again, silent.

"Much obliged," Kai said.

The giant centipede snorted, then scuttled off down the tunnel.

Kai raced across the Ein Gedi train station. It was just a natural cave, but the colonists of Ein Gedi had painted murals on the walls, depicting biblical scenes. Camels walking across dunes. An oasis. A golden city on a mountain. Even here on a new world, the ties to home mattered. The original Ein Gedi, a biblical oasis, had sheltered King David from vengeful Saul, and its namesake honored the past.

He raced out of the station, entering the cave of Ein Gedi. The cavern was enormous. Nearly as large as New Canaan, where most of the colonists lived, and still mostly undeveloped. There were no staircases along the walls yet, just zigzagging snake paths. The burrows were still just crude holes. But a river of water snaked across the floor, soil had been laid down, and the first plants were sprouting. Eventually this cave would support thousands of starlings.

The only problem with Ein Gedi was its proximity to the centipede shipyard.

That shipyard was only a kilometer above—right on the planet's surface. The fumes wafted down, filling the air of Ein Gedi, smelling like burnt bubblegum and raw meat. The heat bathed the cavern. Eventually they would build an air filtration system. For now, the cave stank. It was no coincidence that the two locations, shipyard and town, were nearby. A natural spring sprouted here from the rock, feeding from buried reservoirs of ice. Both the scum and the starlings tapped into the water source.

The aliens were constantly toiling in their shipyard above, brewing chemicals in great pools. The way they had built the train, weaving it from organic material, they constructed their starships. Kai had visited that shipyard once, had gazed in wonder at the round podships rising like fleshy balloons from the pools of liquid carbon. The heat of those bubbling pools flowed down the tunnels into Ein Gedi.

Kai didn't mind the heat. He even got used to the smell. Hell, the heat and industrial aromas reminded him of Bangkok, his hometown. He liked it here. New Canaan, thirty kilometers south, was too cold. Too crowded. This was a warm place. A soothing place. So what if there was a shipyard above them? In time, the gardens would bloom, and Ein Gedi would become a true oasis, honoring its eponymous sanctuary. Maybe someday Lailani would even agree to leave New Canaan and settle here.

We can build a good home here, Kai thought, far from the crowds. We can get married. Raise a family.

Kai reached into his pocket. He felt the ring there. He had carved it himself from the bone of a Rigelian horned sandwhale, a beast he had hunted a few years ago. For a long time, he had carried the black bone around as a trophy. Finally he had cut off a piece, turned it into a polished ring. It glimmered like obsidian, veined with gold.

An engagement ring.

He had not given it to Lailani yet. Always too nervous. Too worried she'd say no. He knew that Lailani had been engaged before. That she had broken Marco's heart. So Kai hesitated, not wanting his own heart to shatter.

But maybe now it was time. They had been living together for eighteen months now.

If we survive this raid, I'll ask her, Kai vowed.

"Kai!" Tala cried.

The girl came running through the gardens. Her pigtails bounced. She normally smiled, but now fear filled her eyes.

"Tala, what are you doing out here?" Kai said. "Didn't you hear the air-raid sirens from here?"

She nodded. "I did, but I don't know what to do. Nobody is doing anything."

Kai saw several other colonists lounging around in the open. A few were tending to their farms. Others just sat on benches, relaxing. Goddammit! It was a good thing Kai was here.

"Everyone!" he boomed, voice echoing through the cavern. "Didn't you hear the air-raid sirens?"

An old-timer with white muttonchops rose from his rocking chair. "We heard them coming from a distance. We figured there's trouble down at New Canaan."

"The sirens mean you too!" Kai said. "Everyone—into your bomb shelters! Go!"

They began to run through the gardens when they heard the screams.

Terrible screams.

Inhuman screams.

They were the screams of centipedes. Coming from deep in the tunnels that wound below this cave. From the burrows in the walls. From the nearby shipyard. The screams of thousands of centipedes. Screams of fear. Of rage.

Tala froze, face pale. "What's happening?"

Kai didn't know. He scooped the girl into his arms and ran, carrying her. They reached a manhole cover by a vegetable garden. Kai yanked the cover off, revealing a ladder.

"I'll give you a piggyback ride," Kai said. "Hurry, onto my back!"

They descended the shaft into the bomb shelter. The alien screams were even louder down here. They echoed through the very planet, the stone walls shook, and Tala hugged Kai in terror.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Marco and Addy sat in the cockpit of the Silver Hornet, staring at the images on the viewport.

"Lailani fell for it," Marco said. "Our decoys were destroyed. It's time for phase two."

The Silver Hornet, along with two hundred Firebirds, hid behind one of Abaddon's moons. Only a single probe, no larger than a snowball, hovered farther out, too small to detect. The probe had filmed the whole battle, streaming the video to Marco and Addy.

Constructing hundreds of fake Firebirds had not been easy. Back on Earth, mechanics had worked in a rush, day and night. They had taken old, decommissioned Firebirds, removed the expensive azoth warp drives, and left just basic computers onboard. They had stuffed the birds with expired ammunitions, then installed rudimentary autopilot software. A new Firebird with all the trimmings cost a fortune. But these decoys were cheap. The HDF itself sometimes used them in training exercises, allowing new pilots to destroy decommissioned vessels in mock battles.

"My idea worked!" Addy said. "Remember, it was my idea to use decoy birds."

"Yes, you're a genius," Marco said.

"Damn right!" Addy puffed out her chest. "I'm way smarter than you. And prettier. And taller."

"You're not taller than me," Marco said.

She gasped. "So you admit I'm smarter and prettier?"

"You're crazier, I'll give you that." He got on his comlink. "Attention all Firebirds. We're ready to proceed to phase two. Godspeed, soldiers. Let's go."

They had loaded the decoys with a lot of ordnance. Explosives were expensive, but they came with expiration dates. The military had entire warehouses full of expired bombs, which they used for training—and for missions like this. Clouds of debris, blobs of plasma, and pulsing radiation still filled space. Enough to blind any sensor. Just enough, Marco hoped, to hide a swarm of little Firebirds sneaking by.

They didn't have long. Maybe another ten minutes before the debris cleared. Maybe even less time before Lailani realized she had been duped.

The fleet shot out from behind the moon. The mini-corvette and two hundred Firebirds.

They flew fast and dark. They turned off all their lights. They even shut down their engines, flying on momentum alone. They were far enough that Lailani could not see them with the naked eye. And if the plan was working, the cloud of radiation hid them from Lailani's sensors. They had purposefully loaded the decoy Firebirds with ordnance designed to release blinding blobs of energy, overwhelming the Ishtar's telescopes. But would it be enough?

It was too late for doubts. The die was cast.

Earth's starfighters—the real starfighters—shot through open space.

The radiation and debris from the battle hovered off their starboard bows, a blob like a nebula. Lailani's ships flew on the other side, hidden behind the glowing clouds. She had more ships orbiting Abaddon, but they were still on the other side of the planet. Marco, Addy, and the other pilots flew in Lailani's blind spot.

"We have only a few minutes before Lailani detects us," Marco said softly. "We gotta do this fast."

There was nothing he could do now but sit in the cockpit and wait. Every second felt like an eternity.

"We'll get the job done," Addy said. "In and out, ten minutes, piece of cake. Look! There it is!"

Marco looked at Abaddon. The planet was so large now that it covered the front viewport. Addy was pointing at a cluster of craters. A massive crater dominated the scene, roughly the size of Australia. Several smaller craters surrounded it like a halo. That was the landmark. Marco tapped a button, and a holographic screen rose to hover before him and Addy. The screen zoomed in on the top-right crater.

There it was. The scum shipyard.

Shipyard was a bit of misnomer. This was nothing like the shipyards humans used. Smaller ships like starfighters or corvettes were assembled in factories on Earth—big warehouses bustling with robots and workers. Larger starships, like frigates or carriers, were built in space. Marco had seen some of those mighty floating shipyards. They were enormous space stations the size of towns. The chassis of great machines orbited them, and workers in spacesuits glided back and forth, toiling to assemble these starships the size of skyscrapers. Shipyards had always struck Marco as the height of human engineering and industry. They were where thousands of scientists, engineers, mechanics, and tradesmen came together to create humanity's finest technology. Their machines could explore the galaxy.

Well, the scum shipyard looked nothing like that. This was not a place of wonder. It looked to Marco like a pit of ooze.

Slime bubbled in a great pool, swirling with orange and black and frothy whites. Smaller pools surrounded it, full of liquids in different colors. Some pools were dark red. Others white. Others black and tarry. Centipedes moved back and forth, moving levers, opening and closing canals. Different colors of ooze flowed from the smaller pools into the big one. The centipedes stirred the broth, sniffed, tasted, added more of the red stuff, then the white, like chefs making a sickly stew.

A few centipedes shoved a boulder, and lava poured down a basalt riverbed. The brew heated, began to bubble. One large bubble rose in the center, growing and growing, forming an oozing dome on the pool surface. It looked like some giant's bald head rising from below.

Centipedes swam through the broth toward the quivering dome, attached their mouths to the blob, and began to blow into it, to inflate, to shape. Other centipedes raced along the bubble's surface, their claws jiggling it. The balloon's surface thickened into something like skin, translucent, lined with blue veins, growing moles. A few hairs sprouted.

An armored centipede turned a winch, and a stone cauldron tilted, pouring red liquid into the pool. Blood. The blood flowed through the pool, touched the growing balloon, and pumped through its sphere of veins. The bubble grew larger like an infected boil, rising from the pool, until it detached from the surface and floated into the air. A new podship was born. A living starship.

Completed podships were floating nearby, obscene hot-air balloons woven from flesh and skin. The newborn podship joined the others, quivering and dripping liquid.

Marco watched in horror from the Silver Hornet.

"Disgusting," Addy said. She chomped on a hot dog.

"Not disgusting enough to spoil your appetite, apparently," Marco muttered.

He snapped a few photos of the shipyard. He was going to destroy this place soon. Back on Earth, military intelligence could analyze the photos, piecing together how an alien shipyard ran.

Marco wasn't sure how many podships were there. At least five hundred, maybe more. Coiling strands like umbilical cords tethered the podships to the rocky surface of Abaddon. But when released, they could fly through space. Some Earthling scientists believed that the podships were conscious. Brain tissue was worked into their walls. Their neurons constantly fired electric signals, calculating, navigating. The ships were in a sense living beings. Maybe not entirely sentient. Not nearly as smart as the computers humans could build. But at least as intelligent as animals.

Marco flashed back to his childhood. To seeing these scum ships descend over Toronto, hatch like rancid eggs, and unleash the centipedes. Seeing the creatures devour his mother.

Rage filled him. He bared his teeth and clutched the cannon controls.

"Let's destroy these bugs," he said.

Addy shook her fist. "Fuck yeah!"

Marco lifted his comlink. "Fleet—commence the attack!"

The starfighters reignited their engines. Furious red lights ignited in the darkness. The time for stealth was over. The time for destruction was here.

The scum in the shipyard saw them. The centipedes reared, pointed their antennae at the sky. A few began rushing to their podships.

It was too late.

Earth's starfighters came in hard and hot.

Two hundred Firebirds. Birds of prey. Machines of death. They stormed downward and unleashed their wrath.

Hundreds of missiles streaked forth. They moved at hypersonic speed, almost too fast for the eye to see. Within a split second, they found their targets and ignited.

As planned, the assault struck the completed podships first.

Explosions blazed. Podships tore open. Shreds of their hulls flapped like scraps of skin. Fire blazed through their innards. The hundreds of missiles plowed through them. The flames spread. More and more podships burned, melted, ripped. Centipedes tried to flee the inferno. The fire caught them too.

Marco gripped the controls, flying low. His mini-corvette was skimming the inferno. He was so close to the ground he could count the centipede claws. The two hundred Firebirds flew close behind. The starfighters raced over the shipyard, strafing whatever remained. More flames spread. More podships burst.

A few podships extended vents like little fleshy volcanoes, ready to spew acid. Earth's bombs fell. The podships tore apart before they could ever fire back.

"Rise, Firebirds!" Marco cried, pulling back the yoke.

The nose of the Silver Hornet rose, and then Marco and Addy were soaring from the surface. The two hundred Firebirds soared with them. Addy whooped in triumph.

"Commence second wave!" Marco shouted.

The two hundred ships yawed together like a school of fish. They spun to face the shipyard again—and swooped.

Centipedes scattered below in a panic.

Earth's ships released bombs.

This time they aimed at the pool of bubbling ooze. It wasn't enough to destroy the podships on the ground. They needed to make sure the damn scum couldn't build more podships.

This time they dropped heavy bombs full of napalm.

The bombs fell into the pools of liquid, cracked open like eggs, and spilled their burning innards.

Napalm spread through the pools of fleshy ooze. The organic material, intended for building more podships, ignited. Flames spread through the pool, consuming what centipedes remained. The surrounding pools splashed madly. Bubbles burst. Acidic spray blasted skyward.

The geysers caught two Firebirds. The ships ripped apart and crashed into the inferno. Marco grieved to see them fall. Two pilots dead.

But the mission was not over.

"Commence third wave!" Marco shouted.

One more attack. This time to hit the scum where it really hurt.

The ships soared toward the sky, then swooped again. This time they unleashed digger bombs.

Bunker busters.

Most of the facility was underground. Marco would make sure he destroyed every last part of it.

One last wave—and they could fly home.

The diggers plunged toward the surface. They were heavy bombs. Each Firebird could carry only one. The mini-corvette Marco and Addy flew was slightly larger than a Firebird. It released two of the metal beasts.

Each digger was tipped with a spinning drill. The weapons landed on the surface, drill first, and began to dig. The enormous bombs burrowed underground like metal moles. A few centipedes tried to attack the diggers, only for the whirring metal to toss them back and shatter their claws.

From his starship, Marco watched the drills dig deeper underground, vanishing under the surface.

It was time.

He hit a button on his controls. That gave the signal.

Underground, two hundred diggers exploded.

The landscape itself ballooned like a bubble. Sheets of stone and soil rose and fell. Cracks raced across the ground. The bubbling pools of carbon drained into underground chasms.

Good, Marco thought. We hurt them. We hurt them bad. Now we—

"Marco!" Addy shouted and pointed upward.

He looked up and saw them.

Enemy starships!

A dozen or more corvettes—Earthling ships now painted with the red claws of starlings. Hundreds of podships. And at their lead flew a slender black ship. A familiar ship. The Black Rose Viperess.

Lailani was here.

The holographic screen in front of Marco, still set to zoom, caught a glimpse of the Viperess cockpit. Lailani sat there, her eyes hard, her lip raised in a sneer. She pulled the triggers of her cannons. The Viperess and her companion ships unleashed hell.

Marco yanked the yoke, veering sideways. Missiles came at him. They were heat-seeking. They adjusted course, following his trajectory. He couldn't dodge them. The Hornet's shields wouldn't withstand them. He grimaced and—

Addy opened fire. The Silver Hornet's rotary cannon roared. Bullets took out Lailani's missiles. The Hornet shot through the explosions.

Around them, missiles hit the Firebirds Marco and Addy had led here.

One Firebird exploded. Another. A third. One Firebird careened, hit another starfighter. They fell apart and rained onto Abaddon.

Lailani's fleet rose and swooped, letting loose another attack.

"Get out of here, everyone!" Marco cried into his comlink. "Make the jump to warp!"

Lailani's podships fired blobs of acid. The globs slammed into several Firebirds, burning them up. The soldiers screamed inside, melting under the acid. Marco dodged one ball of sizzling liquid, but droplets hit his ship's wings. The Silver Hornet careened.

"We're too close to Abaddon to jump to warp!" Addy said. "This planet has so much gravity it'll rip us apart."

"We have to risk it!" Marco cried as more Firebirds exploded. Lailani's frigates had entered the melee now. Their cannons boomed. Every second another Firebird shattered. "Jump—now!"

Marco shoved down a lever. Deep inside his engine, the azoth crystal ignited. The engine glowed purple, sucking in spacetime, refracting it through the crystal, and warping it into a bubble. Around them, the Firebirds—each with a costly azoth crystal installed—glowed lavender too.

Lailani fired more missiles. Several more Firebirds exploded.

Then the strike force blasted out.

The little ships streaked across warp space. The stars spread in lines around them. Scraps of debris flew with them—what remained of the Firebirds that were hit during the jump.

Marco exhaled in relief. A shudder passed through him.

They had completed the mission. But not without heavy losses.

He got on his comlink and ordered a roll call. Too many names were missing.

Two hundred pilots had flown on Operation Jeremiah's Hammer. Thirty would never come home.

"Thirty pilots—dead," Marco said softly. "Just to send a warning. Thirty sons and daughters gone. To bring peace."

Addy hung her head low. "We'll remember them." Then her fists clenched, and her eyes blazed. "And we'll remember who killed them."

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The bomb shelter trembled.

The booms sounded outside.

Two hundred people sheltered here. The entire population of Ein Gedi. Even as the bombs fell outside, even as the walls shook, as dust fell from the ceiling, they did not panic. Nobody screamed. Nobody wept. They sat still. A few held hands. They remained calm.

Boom!

A huge blast rattled the world.

"Damn that was a big one!" a boy said. He was probably no older than ten. He was scared. Terrified. His face was pale. But he did not panic. Nobody did.

The bomb shelter was small. Barely large enough for them. It was just a crude cave, the walls reinforced with steel beams and concrete. There were blankets on the floor. Board games, books, and toys covered a few shelves. Nobody felt like playing or reading. Somebody had hung a vintage poster on the wall. It depicted a cat hanging from a clothing line with the caption: HANG IN THERE, BABY!

That's what we gotta do, Kai thought. Hang in there, baby.

As they sat together in the bunker, Kai wondered how long the oxygen would last. There were ventilation holes, yes. But if debris was falling above, would the vents be blocked? Even if they survived the bombing, would they suffocate?

Another boom shook the bomb shelter. The bombs were falling fast now.

They all knew who was bombing them.

Earth.

Humans.

Were their own friends up there, unleashing the bombs? Marco? Addy?

Are you up there, Addy? Kai wondered. My own sister? Bombing us?

A huge blast shook the shelter. A hairline crack raced along a wall.

Tala trembled. The girl sat beside Kai, hugging her knees. She shifted a little closer to him, and Kai placed an arm around her. She leaned against him, looked up at him.

"Kai, are we going to die?" she asked.

"Of course not." He attempted a soothing smile. "The shelter is keeping us safe."

She closed her eyes, snuggled closer to him. Kai looked at the girl. He had come to love her like a daughter.

Is she human or starling? he wondered.

Tala had never grown fangs or claws. Never manifested alien power. That was not unusual among children, however. Lailani, a late bloomer, had not manifested until eighteen. Yet Kai wondered. If Tala had not inherited the starling gene, was it cruel to keep her here? To raise her in caves? In bomb shelters? Did she belong on Earth with other humans?

No, he decided. Even if Tala was human, she belonged here. With her mother. The ties of family were greater than the bonds of geography. Yes, it was worth raising Tala here.

Of course, it was easy to think that while the bomb shelter stood. If those cracks widened … if death came gushing in …

Another blast sounded. Even louder.

Screams rose outside. Centipede screams. The aliens were dying.

The distant screams fell silent.

The bombs stopped.

Inside the shelter, everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

"Is it over?" Tala whispered. "Is—"

Booms shook the world. Explosions rocked the foundations of Abaddon. It was deafening. Furious, roaring devastation. A sound as loud as shattering nations.

Cracks raced across the bomb shelter walls. Stones cascaded from the ceiling. The north wall tore open, exposing tumbling rocks and spilling soil. Everyone leaped up. A few people screamed.

"Back against that wall!" Kai shouted, pointing. "Against the southern wall, come on!"

They ran toward the southern wall. But then it tore open too. Boulders rolled. A rock slammed into a woman, knocking her down. Her arm snapped. More stones hit a child's head, knocking him unconscious. The collapsing walls revealed the burrows of centipedes, but the aliens had abandoned them.

"We'll escape through the centipede tunnels!" Kai said. "Come on, to this tunnel here!"

The starlings were running when a drill tore through the ceiling.

A massive drill. The size of a fire hydrant.

The drill spun, shrieking, and drove toward the floor. And Kai saw what it was attached to.

A bomb.

"Run!" he shouted.

He scooped Tala into his arms and leaped into the tunnel.

The bomb went off.

Waves of sound and agony roared over him … and then everything was white light, falling stones, and ringing in his ears.

* * * * *

Hummmmmmmmmmmmmm.

An endless ring.

A siren.

Hummmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Kai groaned. He could hear nothing but the ringing. An endless note like an air raid siren.

He blinked crusty, charred eyelids. He could see nothing but white light. Feel nothing but pain.

But no—he could feel Tala too. The girl was still in his arms. And Kai crawled.

He crawled as stones fell onto his back. As the agony tore at his ears. As dust filled his lungs. He kept moving, cradling Tala against him, pulling her along, sheltering her.

After crawling only a few meters, Kai collapsed.

He lay in the tunnel, breathing raggedly, his skull squeezing, squeezing his brain, his ears full of sirens.

He took a few breaths, coughed.

Another boom sounded. Another.

The tunnel shook. The world trembled. The devastation kept raining. For an eternity, the explosions rocked the underworld.

And then it ended.

The explosions stopped. Past the ringing in his ears, Kai heard boulders rearranging themselves, the underground reforming, shifting … and finally settling.

The bombing had ceased. For long moments, Kai lay in the tunnel, holding Tala beneath him. The girl was breathing, trembling, silent but still alive. They waited for what seemed like forever.

"You alright, Tala?" Kai finally whispered.

"My leg hurts," she whispered. "It hurts so bad." She paused. "But I'm alive. And I suppose that's what matters. The others are dead, aren't they?"

Kai managed to sit up. The tunnel was too low to stand. He reached into his pocket, fished around for a lighter, and lit a small flame. The light painted Tala's dusty face. Blood was trickling down her temple.

He examined her leg. It was bleeding. But Kai didn't think it was broken.

"Can you move it?" Kai asked.

She moved her leg a bit, winced. "Yes. Hurts, but yes."

"Good. It's not broken. Just lots of bruises and scrapes. You were lucky, kiddo."

"What about the others? What about my friends?"

Kai looked back the way they had come. The tunnel had caved in. He pulled a few rocks loose, hoping to clear a path to the bunker. The entire structure shifted. Stones rolled. Dust fell from the ceiling.

"We'll get crushed!" Tala said.

"We have to look for survivors." Kai grabbed a boulder that blocked the way back to the bomb shelter. He gave a mighty pull. The boulder barely budged. Tala helped, and they finally managed to roll the boulder aside.

Instantly, more rocks fell, filling the gap. Dammit. The way was blocked.

"We need centipedes," Kai said. "They can dig a new tunnel back to the bomb shelter. We can't do this alone."

"Are we trapped here?" Tala said. "Are we going to die?" She sounded surprisingly calm, as if she were asking what they were having for dinner.

She's traumatized, Kai thought.

Tala had grown up during the Cyborg War. As a little girl, she had traveled with Lailani across the desolation and killing fields. Everyone had hoped that here on Abaddon, Tala could heal. Emotionally. Spiritually. Now war had found the girl again.

Kai had grown up rough. Grown up in slums. Grown up fighting for bread. But it was too late for him; he was already hurt and hardened. Tala didn't deserve this. He hoped that when she grew up, she would grow up to be kind, loving. Not broken like so many of the adults she knew.

He'd worry about that later. Right now he had to get Tala out of this tunnel.

"We'll come back for the others," he said.

They crawled onward, leaving the bomb shelter behind. Kai wondered if anyone was still alive in there. Had anyone else gotten out? Perhaps into another tunnel?

They crawled for a long time in the darkness. Sometimes he had to pause, to shove aside fallen rocks, then keep going. The tunnel was so narrow they had to wriggle on their bellies at some points. They kept going. For what seemed like hours, they moved through the dark, until Kai's last lighter burned out. They crawled onward, blind.

Finally the tunnel widened. When Kai coughed, the sound echoed. He could see nothing, but he could smell something oddly sweet. Sickeningly so.

Pheromones, he thought. A scum trail.

He followed the smell. It took him upward, coiling through the darkness. At one point, he heard sniffing and snorting. A centipede came rushing by, moving in the opposite direction. The alien brushed against Kai and Tala and kept going, moving deeper, perhaps to repair the collapsed tunnels. A few more centipedes scuttled by, ignoring the humans. Kai hoped the aliens were heading toward the bomb shelter to seek survivors.

Kai and Tala kept crawling, moving upward, until firelight bathed the tunnels, and they smelled fire and chemicals. They climbed onto the surface of Abaddon.

It was night, but firelight lit the planet. Kai and Tala rose to their feet, coughing, covered in dust and blood and soot. The fires blazed everywhere. Great walls and towers of flames soared toward the night sky, forming a burning city. Flames leaped from craters and chemical pools, and lava ran in rivulets. Dead centipedes lay everywhere, blackened, ripped apart. Shrapnel smoldered around them.

Kai recognized this place. It was the centipede shipyard. Once thousands of centipedes had worked here, building podships. Earth's attack had devastated the place. The pools of organic stew, the raw material of the pods, burned. The bombs had destroyed the canals used to mix the carbon brews. Rivulets of chemicals flowed everywhere, burning up.

"The bombs never targeted us," Kai said. "Earth's bombs destroyed the shipyard. They didn't know we were below."

"But they slaughtered our people nonetheless."

The voice came from behind him.

Kai turned around to see Lailani. He had not even noticed her there.

She wore her black spacesuit, but she had removed her helmet. The firelight painted her delicate face a deep red, and her hair fluttered in the ashy breeze. She sat on a boulder, cradling a dead centipede.

"Mom!" Tala cried and rushed toward her.

Lailani released the dead centipede and pulled Tala into her arms. The two hugged each other close, both shedding tears.

Kai approached them but hesitated, not sure if he was welcome in the moment. It was Tala who reached out, took his hand, and pulled him into the embrace. The three of them knelt together in the ashes. Just grateful to be together. To be alive.

"Lailani." Kai's voice was choked. "There were two hundred people in the bomb shelter. We tried to reach them, but there's too much debris. You can command the centipedes. They need to dig. They need to look for survivors. There might still be—"

"They're all dead," Lailani said. A tear etched a line through the ash on her cheek. "I'm speaking to the centipedes now. Telepathically through the hive. They dug into the bomb shelter. Kai … they're gone. All of them."

Tala let out a wail, buried her face against Lailani's chest, and wept. Lailani held the girl close, crying too.

"They almost killed you, my sweet little daughter," Lailani whispered. "They almost took you away from me." She took a shaky breath, and her fists clenched. "And they will pay."

CHAPTER FORTY

Lailani stood on the surface of Abaddon, gazing up at the night sky. A million stars spread above, but Lailani looked at only one. A small star. Barely visible to the naked eye. All her attention focused on it.

Sol.

Earth's star.

"She's there, Kai." Lailani spoke softly, voice barely audible on the wind. "The one who hurt us. Who killed our people. Einav is there. The blood of our fallen brothers and sisters is on her hands."

She wore no spacesuit tonight. The sun was down, and the radiation levels dropped. It was almost pleasant on Abaddon at night. The wind blew, scattering silver curtains of sand, mimicking the Milky Way above. Normally, Lailani would find the night soothing, even beautiful. But tonight she grieved. Tonight her heart was a cracked stone full of fire.

Kai stood beside her, tall and dark in the shadows. For a long time, he was silent, just staring at the night. But finally he spoke in a low voice. "So it's war. We strike her. She strikes us. We strike back. It keeps going. Again and again like a game of chess, each player taking turns. And with each turn, more people die. Lailani, how do we break the cycle of violence?"

She wheeled toward him. Rage flared through her. "Don't patronize me. They almost killed my daughter. Do you think I can let that go? Do you really think I can just forget it, let them get away with it?"

"Yes," Kai said. "If it ends the violence."

Lailani's fists shook. Those same tiny angry fists that Kai had once found so endearing. Now her rage scared him.

"Don't you understand?" Lailani said. "They will never let us be! Ever! They imprisoned us. When we flew to a new world, they chased us, slaughtered us. They killed children! Do you think if we bow down now, it'll end? It won't end until we prove we're strong! Prove that we can withstand them! I want peace too, Kai. But not the peace you get from kneeling and groveling. I want the peace you get from deterrence." Her lips peeled back in a snarl. "I will strike her. I will strike Einav so hard she'll never dare hurt us again."

"Lailani, listen to yourself!" Kai said. "You're talking about Einav as if she's our mortal enemy. As if she's some butcher. She used to be our friend. We loved her once."

Lailani stared at him, eyes hard and dry. "That was then. Before she betrayed us. Before she put my people in concentration camps and sent starfighters to bomb us. She broke my heart, Kai. She broke my fucking heart. She chose war. So war she will get."

Kai turned away from her. He took a few steps across the sand, stared at the distance. Scattered fires still burned on the horizon. The shipyard was still ablaze, two days later. The organic soup and chemicals would just have to burn themselves out. It was likely the facility could never be used again.

"Lailani, please," Kai said. "Peace is our only option. What are you going to do? Conquer all of Earth and her colonies? Because that's what victory would mean. For us, thirty thousand people, to defeat a galactic empire."

"We have the centipedes—" she began.

"Who attacked Earth a few decades ago and lost. And billions of lives were lost. Is that what you want?"

"Of course not!" Lailani said. "What kind of monster do you think I am?"

He cupped her cheek in his palm. "I don't think you're a monster. You're a woman I love. A woman I flew across the galaxy for. I will always love you and fight for you. But that doesn't mean I can't argue sometimes." He winked.

That diffused the tension. The rage fled Lailani's eyes, her body slackened, and she hugged him. "I know. I love you so much, Kai. Always."

* * * * *

He kissed her. They stood in the desert under the stars, kissing as the distant fires burned, and the smell of smoke filled the air. Kai thought of the ring in his pocket. The ring he had carved from a sandwhale's bone. An engagement ring. He wanted to ask her now but dared not, fearing it was the wrong moment. Fearing she would say no.

I wish you were here, Marco, Kai thought. So I could talk to you. You asked Lailani to marry you once. I wish I could get your blessing—and advice.

But of course Marco was now the enemy. Marco had flown the mission against New Siberia. For all Kai knew, Marco had led the strike on the shipyard too. And where Marco fought, Addy fought too.

The pain of betrayal washed over Kai. Addy was his sister. Marco was like a brother. Kai had only met them as an adult, but they were his family. His only family. He loved them.

Did I betray them? he wondered. Do they see themselves as heroes? Do they feel hurt, betrayed, like we feel?

He wished he could talk to them. But they lived on Earth, hundreds of light-years away. They talked with blood and fire and death.

Finally Lailani pulled back from his kiss. She stood in the sand, so small, so delicate, no taller than his shoulders. The starlight shone on her hair and sparkled in her eyes. Just a little doll. Just a little queen of an empire.

"We have to strike back." Lailani looked at distant Sol. She spoke softly, her voice almost a whisper. "You slaughtered us, Einav. You slaughtered hundreds of us. Women. Children. You cannot escape punishment. You almost took my daughter from me. So I will take something from you."

Kai shuddered. Something about Lailani's soft, dangerous voice scared him more than her wild fury. "Lailani, we just talked about how—"

"I won't kill anyone, Kai. But I will hurt her pride. She's the president of Earth. She oversees the planet from Skysphere, her presidential space station. She commissioned Skysphere herself. It's the symbol of her presidency. Of her power." Lailani sneered. "I say we blow it apart."

"Lailani!" He grabbed her arms, stared down into her eyes. "Hundreds of people work on Skysphere. Maybe thousands. It's the presidential office. There are clerks, cooks, janitors, mechanics, and a boatload of politicians."

"Not a huge loss about those last ones."

"Very funny. Lailani, we can't just kill those people."

"We won't! I said no killings. Kai, listen to me. Just shut up and listen! Two weeks from now, it's Yom Kippur."

He tilted his head. "It's what?"

"The Day of Atonement. A sacred day for Jewish people. Their most sacred day. On Yom Kippur, Jewish people don't work. They don't drive. They don't eat or drink. They don't even turn on lights. They just sit and contemplate."

"Can they flush the toilet?"

Lailani groaned. "Be serious. Listen. Einav is Jewish, right? So on Yom Kippur, she won't be in Skysphere. She'll be at home, observing the solemn day. And when the president isn't in Skysphere, the whole station is dormant. Just robots maintain the place. That's when we strike. When it's closed. We'll blow it up, Kai. We'll blow up Einav's favorite toy. It'll be a massive blow to her status. It's like … like blowing up the Statue of Liberty."

"I thought the scum already did that."

"They did! And it crushed morale across America. Until they rebuilt the statue, at least. So that's what we do—to a symbol of Earth and humanity. We take their ball from them—and smash it."

* * * * *

But before her mission, there was something Lailani had to do.

Something she had been thinking about for a while. Never daring.

The attack on the bunker made up her mind. It was time. Time to embrace who she truly was. Time to let go of Lailani the human once and for all. To become fully starling.

Among her people, Lailani was an oddity. There was a little chip in her mind. By thinking a single word—Serenity—she could shut off her starling side. She could lose her fangs and claws, become just a woman, fragile. Vulnerable. The humans had forced that microchip upon her. They feared her true self.

But Lailani was no longer afraid.

It was time to remove her chip.

Among the thirty thousand starlings, there were a few doctors and nurses. Some worked down in the tunnels. Others served in the Panacea, the hospital ship Lailani had captured over New Siberia, which was currently orbiting Abaddon. She had exiled the human medical team. Starlings now staffed the flying hospital.

There were no neurosurgeons, unfortunately. Even on Earth they were rare. Hoping to find one here? Not gonna happen. But they did have two general surgeons, one anesthesiologist, and several nurses. They agreed to perform the surgery.

Lailani took a shuttle up to the Panacea, entered a medical bay, and let the anesthesiologist guide her into the land of deep dreamless sleep.

When she woke up, there was a bandage on her head. The original surgeons, when placing the chip inside her head, had left a little hatch in her skull. A tiny little plasti-bone door, no larger than a postage stamp. They intended to use it a few years down the line, when her microchip needed replacement, negating the need to saw her skull open again. Well, she got that old chip out. She would never get one put in again. Lock that door and throw out the key!

As she untangled the cobwebs of slumber, Lailani looked at her bedside. She blinked, groggy, and saw it lying there on a tray. Her little microchip. So small. The electronic device meant to make her human.

It never worked that well anyway, she thought.

Oddly, she didn't feel that different. She didn't go berserk and destroy the ship. She didn't turn into a drooling madwoman. She felt like herself. Maybe for the first time—she was truly herself.

She returned to Abaddon. She stepped into her home and hugged Kai.

"I'm Lailani," she whispered, feeling safe in his arms. "And I'm a starling. For the first time, I'm myself. And I'm no longer human."

"I still feel like a human," Kai said. "I still feel like we're all humans."

She caressed his cheek. "No. We're something more."

And as she stroked his cheek, her claws grew involuntarily, drawing blood. He gasped in pain. Lailani grabbed him, pulled his face toward hers, and kissed him, and her fangs cut his lip, and she savored the taste of his blood.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

For two weeks, they didn't know.

For two weeks, Marco and Addy traveled through space, crammed into the Silver Hornet, heading back to Earth.

For two weeks, they congratulated themselves on a mission well done.

It was only when they landed on Earth that the president met them. Einav Ben-Ari was waiting at the spaceport. She held their hands, and her eyes were soft, and she told them.

"There were two hundred civilians hiding under the shipyard. They died in the attack. You could not have known. None of us knew."

The ride home from the spaceport was only an hour long. It seemed longer than weeks crammed into a mini-corvette.

For a long time, Marco and Addy did not speak. Not until the city faded behind them, and they drove through the countryside toward their farm. Only then did Marco finally dare speak.

"We couldn't have known. Einav is right. It's not our fault."

Addy looked at him. A tear rolled down her cheek. She said nothing.

They reached their farm in the evening. When they stepped indoors, their kids ran toward them. Terri had babysat the twins. They had not seen them in a month.

Marco and Addy pulled their children into crushing hugs. The twins wanted to know why their parents were crying.

"Because we missed you," Marco said.

"We'll never let anyone hurt you," Addy whispered.

Not like we hurt children, Marco thought. Not like we killed children cowering in a bomb shelter.

They all stayed up past midnight. The twins too, though they were only nine. They ate pizza, played games, listened to music, hugged a lot. The kids had missed them so badly. How could their parents deprive them of this? So Marco and Addy laughed along. Played along. And when Terri wondered why Addy wasn't scarfing down hot dogs as usual, Addy said that she had already eaten.

The kids knew something was wrong. Maybe they had watched the news. Maybe they knew about the bombing. But nobody talked about it. Maybe they never would.

Finally the family lay down to bed. Marco and Addy lay facing each other, embraced. For a month, they had slept in their starship's chairs. Finally they had a bed, but Marco felt trapped. Felt like he was in a bomb shelter. Like the walls were caving in.

"Marco …," Addy whispered. "Do you remember Haven?"

"Of course."

"Do you remember how … at first we were homeless there? And we slept in a train station one night?"

"I remember."

She wiped her eyes. "We were so miserable then. So weak. Two homeless veterans. Broken. Traumatized from the war. We slept among beggars and junkies. We were the lowest of the low. Hiding underground."

"It was a hard time."

"I miss it," Addy said.

Marco held her a little closer. "Why, Addy? It was a horrible time."

She sniffed. "I miss being weak. Powerless. Not being strong. We rose up from that train station. From homelessness and despair. We fought hard. We fought against poverty and shell shock harder than we ever fought against any alien. And we rose up. We became soldiers again. We became officers. We became powerful. And we did something horrible, Marco." She let out a sob. "We did something unforgivable."

"Addy." He looked into her eyes. "I feel like shit too. I feel the guilt. I feel everything you're feeling. But we both know that in war, sometimes civilians are caught in the cross fire. It's tragic. And it's accidental. We did our best to avoid civilian casualties. To just target the scum, not starlings. If we had known …"

"If we had known, if we had known!" Addy said. "How could we have known? We could not have known! We knew there was a chance. We knew starlings lived there. And we flew there and bombed the shit out of their planet anyway. And now two hundred people died! Kids died! And …" She sobbed again. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do, Marco. This is the worst I've ever felt."

Marco kept holding her in his arms, and he kissed her tears away. "That's because you have a good heart. If you were not good, you would feel no guilt. I can't make this better. I can't undo what happened. But I know that my wife is a good person. And I love you. And I'm here for you. Always."

"That usually makes me feel better," Addy said. "But it doesn't now. And I don't know if anything ever will."

She closed her eyes. And all Marco could do was hold her all night long, and he grieved for what they had done, and he felt helpless and alone.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

"Einav, join us for Yom Kippur." Noah's hologram stood before her, dressed in corduroy pants and a tweed jacket. "My mother is cooking the after-fast meal. Carl will play with his cousins. Join us. Like always. Things don't have to change now."

She stood in her garden. She wore shorts, sandals, a straw hat. Soil covered her hands. The world was falling apart, the galaxy was burning, and here she was, president of Earth. Gardening. Sometimes she did her best thinking here. By tending to her flowers and trees, she worked out the problems of her galactic empire.

The problems in her own life seemed harder to solve.

"Noah, things did change." She dug a hole by the patch of cyclamens. "They changed a lot."

He was in his new apartment in Jerusalem. The place he rented after leaving this house. She could see bits of the apartment in the hologram, just flickers hovering over the garden, surrounding his form. African tribal masks hung on his walls. Pretentious, she thought. Everything about him seemed pretentious to her now.

I loved him so much once, she thought. I was a young officer, starstruck. He was the famous scientist. My mentor. My hero. Then my lover. Finally my husband. I adored him. He was the world to me. And now I want to punch him in the face.

"Einav, we're still friends," Noah said. "Even if we're getting divorced. And we still share Carl. We'll always share our son. Let's be a family."

She dropped jasmine seeds into the soil. "If you wanted to be a family, you shouldn't have dumped me for your student."

"I didn't dump you for—" He groaned. "Einav, please. Can we not do this now?"

Okay, maybe he was right. He had left her for other reasons too. Many reasons. She was a soldier, and he was a scientist. They were lovers who had lost their passion. Most importantly, she was a war president. She tarnished his image as a man of peace. As the dreamer. The optimist. The stargazer. She was bad voodoo. She was wicked karma. She was a stain on his career.

His pretty young student appeared only later, perhaps. A symptom, not a root cause. Ben-Ari glimpsed the tabloids sometimes. How could you avoid them? She saw the images of Noah walking hand in hand with the girl. She looked barely twenty. Gorgeous, of course. Big tits, of course.

I wonder if that's what I was, Ben-Ari thought. A trophy wife. Until I turned forty. Until I was no longer the famous blond war heroine, the babe who graced posters in boys' bedrooms across Earth. Until I became the politician. The mom.

Pain stabbed her.

I should have married you, Marco. A lump filled her throat. I should never have let Addy snatch you up.

Lately she had been thinking about Marco like this. It hurt. It was inappropriate. It was stupid.

Stop it, she told herself. You made your bed. Now lie in it!

"Noah, I know what's going to happen if I stay over at your family's house for Yom Kippur." She began pulling on a stubborn weed. "Your mom will keep telling me to use moisturizer so I won't get these crow's-feet at the corners of my eyes. Your dad will drink too much and talk about how I remind him of a girl he dated in university. And your new nineteen-year-old girlfriend will keep rubbing her hands all over you—while smirking at me!"

"Meital is twenty-four," he said.

"A veritable grandmother."

Noah took a deep breath. "Carl wants you to come."

Her eyes stung. She looked away from the camera. She didn't want to show him her tears. "Don't ever use our son to manipulate me, Noah. It's over. So it's all over. Goodbye."

She tapped her minicom. His hologram vanished. She felt jealous of people in old movies who could actually slam down a phone—tapping a holographic button didn't have the same effect. At least he was no longer blocking her view of the pomegranate tree.

She wiped tears from her eyes. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell!

That was unfair. She knew it. Noah Isaac was a good man. A kind man. She still admired him. Maybe still loved him.

That's why this hurts so much.

No, she could not go to his family for Yom Kippur as usual. And not because of his mother's questions. Not because of Meital the twenty-four-year-old. But because she still loved Noah. Because this hurt so damn much.

She stood up, brushed her hands on her shorts. This was ridiculous. Earth was edging toward war. The crisis on Abaddon burned hot. And here she was, gardening and dealing with family drama.

She would work tomorrow. So what if it was Yom Kippur? She had never been particularly observant. Let her skip one damn holy day. If God existed, he would have to forgive her. Let her work instead on saving the galaxy. That was the only damn thing she was ever any good at. That and gardening.

I can't keep a marriage together, she thought, but I can save the world. At least I'm good for something.

She walked into her house, showered, put on a business suit. Then she picked up her phone and called her chief of staff.

"We're opening up Skysphere tomorrow. Yes, I'll be there."

* * * * *

Ben-Ari rose in her shuttle at dawn. Three Falcon starfighters rose with her, defending her vessel. She watched Earth drop down below her. Her home becoming a country. Her country becoming a continent. Then all of Earth becoming one world. One people. All her own problems seemed so small. She had this whole planet to protect.

This was why she worked in space. Why she could not work from one home, one nation, one set of problems. One life. She had to gaze at the entire world to reflect upon its fate—and her role in guiding that fate.

From the surface, Earth seemed so large, its galactic empire nearly endless, too great to comprehend. Yet whenever she flew up here, Ben-Ari marveled at how small Earth truly was. Just a blue sphere in the darkness. Such a small planet. A speck of dust, that was all. The sky was just a thin band on the horizon. It was no wider than a peel around an apple.

Such a small thing, Earth. Such a little jewel. Yet from this minute world spread a galactic empire. She led this great endeavor, this exploration and conquest of the stars. Because she had fought alien invaders. She had watched millions die. She knew how fragile a single world was. She could see it every time she rose to space.

Only by building an empire can we be strong, she thought. Only with an empire can we hope to hold back the Hydrians.

A shudder ran through her.

She did not like thinking about that prophecy. About the day the monsters would come. Not just aliens from a nearby planet on the Orion Arm of this humble Milky Way galaxy. But a great evil from beyond the galaxy. From the void. From a place no human could understand.

According to the prophecy, the Hydrians would destroy Earth. Humanity would be driven to the brink of extinction. Only a handful of people would survive and flee to the stars. And this great enterprise would end, and all human civilization and culture would be lost.

Ben-Ari didn't know when this was coming. Perhaps not for years. Maybe not for decades, even not for generations. It might not be her who leads Earth during that terrible apocalyptic war.

But she could prepare humanity. She could make them strong.

And to be strong, she needed peace with Lailani.

Because Lailani too is human, Ben-Ari thought. I don't care if she has some alien DNA in her. She's still a human. Still a woman. Starlings are merely another branch of humanity. A subspecies. Or maybe another species in the same genus. Whatever the case, they are ninety-nine percent us. We cannot fight a war.

Was there any hope for peace? Even now?

"Two hundred dead starlings," Ben-Ari whispered to herself. "We killed them. Two hundred women and children on Abaddon."

Maybe that was the reason. Maybe that was why Ben-Ari could not face Noah or his family today. Because the deaths of two hundred still hurt so bad. Their blood was on her hands. And on this Day of Atonement, a day when people around the world confessed their sins and prayed for forgiveness, maybe it was just too hard to see her son. On the one hand, Ben-Ari was desperate to see Carl right now. To hug him so tightly and never let go. On the other hand, she felt such shame.

She looked up. She saw it rise above her. Skysphere.

The space station shone above like a moon, reflecting the blue sky of Earth. It was not a smooth sphere. Its surface was actually composed of a hundred flat panels. Some were solar panels. Others were windows. Ben-Ari had once visited Marco's office, had seen dice from a game called Dungeons and Dragons. Those dice had twenty sides. Skysphere reminded her of those dice—just with a hundred sides.

A hatch opened on the sphere, and her shuttle glided in. When she stepped onto the deck, soldiers stood at attention and saluted. She returned the salutes and walked deeper into the station. For her circadian rhythm, it was still early, not long after dawn. But there was no true day and night on Skysphere, and the space station bustled with activity. Politicians, lobbyists, generals, advisers, journalists, and scientists filled the halls of Skysphere. Some worked deep inside the station. The lucky ones had window offices, able to gaze upon the splendor of the galaxy.

It was Yom Kippur. Normally, with Ben-Ari absent, there was only a skeleton crew here. But today the president was at work, and with her came the thousands who helped her lead this fledgling galactic civilization called humanity. There were still individual countries, individual governments down on Earth. But all gave their fealty to Skysphere. The leaders on the surface led their nations. She was the captain of this starship Earth.

She stepped into her office. One of Skysphere's panels formed the outer wall. Skysphere was constantly rotating around its axis, revealing different views. Right now her window was facing away from Earth. She gazed upon the Milky Way. There in the distance shone Antares, the brightest star in the Scorpius constellation. An enormous star. A red supergiant. Placed in the center of the solar system, it would engulf the orbit of Mars and Jupiter. It would make little Sol, Earth's humble sun, seem like a firefly by a raging campfire.

Antares. The scorpion's eye. Abaddon's star.

She wondered if Lailani was standing there right now, gazing at her own night sky. Gazing across the light-years at Sol. Thinking of her. Planning her revenge.

"How did it come to this?" Ben-Ari whispered.

Of course, Lailani was five hundred light-years away. If she was gazing toward Earth now, she was seeing Earth in the seventeenth century. The United States, the great empire, would not be founded for another hundred years. Mozart would not be born for another century. Galileo was just looking up at the night sky, maybe meeting Lailani's gaze.

Funny how those things worked. Funny how FTL travel changed everything.

A knock sounded on her office door.

She turned around. "Come in!"

Her chief of staff entered the room, a Frenchwoman named Amelie. She had graduated from the prestigious Julius Military Academy, fought in both the Gray War and Cyborg War, then retired as a major. Now she was pursuing a career in politics. Ben-Ari had chosen her from among hundreds of applicants. Something about Amelie reminded her of herself. Maybe an idealized version of herself. Not so jaded. Not so broken.

"Ma'am, the schoolchildren are here," Amelie said. "You wanted me to remind you."

"Ah, I forgot!" Ben-Ari said. "Of course. We rescheduled that for today."

Amelie pulled out her minicom and raised a holographic calendar. "I can reschedule, of course. We have the CEO of Energia Corporation visiting today at noon, and after that, parliament will be introducing several new bills. There's a press conference at five to discuss the events on New Siberia, and then a meeting with the board of agriculture, and … well, pretty much all week is booked, but—"

"I'll meet the children," Ben-Ari said. "It will be the only fun thing I do today. Definitely more fun than the press conference."

It was two weeks since the raid on Abaddon. By all standards, the mission had been a resounding success. The scum shipyard was annihilated. Five hundred podships were destroyed on the ground—not a single one even got in the air. Thousands of scum were dead. Ben-Ari was a soldier. She knew this mission was a great victory.

And yet … it weighed on her. Thirty of her pilots never came home. And two hundred starling civilians were dead. Her poll numbers were up. And she felt as if she bought each percent with blood.

She had always hated facing the press. She preferred leading without cameras in her face. But she had always sucked it up. Spoken to reporters. It was part of her job.

But now? Now she positively dreaded the upcoming press conference. Not because of the hard questions.

Because she felt ashamed.

They were going to ask her about the women and children on Abaddon. And Ben-Ari would answer truthfully.

All my life, I killed monsters, she thought. This time I killed people.

People? Was that right? Were the starlings people? They were part alien. They had attacked Earth. Yet did they not love their children? Did they deserve to die in darkness? What kind of war demanded children as sacrifice?

Every war, answered a voice in her head. Every war I ever fought. Every war since the dawn of humanity. It's always the children who pay the highest price of war.

"Ma'am?" Amelie's brow creased in concern. "Are you all right?"

Ben-Ari steeled herself, smoothed her suit. "Yes. Let's go. Let's meet the schoolchildren."

They called the program Spacekids. Every Friday, thirty underprivileged students got to visit Skysphere. They came from all over the world, but always from poor backgrounds. Kids who needed a boost of inspiration. Kids who would otherwise never visit space.

The kids came in a shuttle from Earth early in the morning. A teacher gave them a tour of the space station. And then Ben-Ari, the president herself, took the kids out on a tour of the Starbridge. That was everyone's favorite part. Starbridge was a circular walkway that surrounded the space station like an equator. You had to wear a spacesuit. On Starbridge, you could experience weightlessness, float out a few meters on a tether, and view Earth from above.

I was a war child, Ben-Ari thought. I was born into the Scum War. I was raised a military brat. I grew up on army bases, the daughter of a soldier. When other girls played with dolls, I climbed on tanks and swung from their cannons. Let these children be children of peace. Let them view the galaxy not in fear but with wonder.

She walked through the space station, passing by diplomats, politicians, lobbyists, generals—the thousands of people who kept her government going. Finally she entered a large hangar with glass walls, affording a grand view of the stars. An airlock led out to Starbridge.

The kids were there and waiting. Instantly Ben-Ari felt a little better. Thirty adorable kids. The future of humanity.

I wish Carl were here, she thought, missing her son so badly. She had taken him on Starbridge, of course. Twice. But his absence today hurt nonetheless. She wondered if he missed her too, or whether he was having too much fun with his dad.

The kids gazed at her in awe.

"That's her!" a girl whispered. "The president."

"Hello, kids!" she said. "My name is Ms. Ben-Ari. Yes, I'm the president of Earth."

"Hello, Ms. Ben-Ari!" they all said together.

Precious angels, she thought, smiling. A true smile. A smile of actual joy. Those were in short supply these days.

"It's lovely to meet you all," she said. "I'm so glad you could come visit our space station today. Have you been enjoying your trip so far?"

"Yes, Ms. Ben-Ari," they intoned.

"Great! Now, I have a question for you. How many of you have ever felt sad? Ever felt that your problems are heavy like a backpack full of rocks?"

Their teacher glanced at Ben-Ari, a small line appearing between her eyebrows. One child hesitated, then raised a hand. Then a few other kids raised their hands too. Finally everyone had their hands up.

"You know, I sometimes feel that way too," Ben-Ari said. "When I do, I like to put on a spacesuit and go outside the space station. Like an astronaut. When I look at Earth from above, all my problems suddenly seem so small. Like ants. And then I turn around, and I look at the stars. And I see hope. I see beauty. It makes me feel better. So who wants to put on a spacesuit and join me outside?"

This time all their hands shot up at once.

"Good!" Ben-Ari said. "Luckily, in this closet here, we have kid-sized spacesuits. And one spacesuit big enough for me. Let's be astronauts."

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The starling fleet flew through the darkness. A carrier, frigates, corvettes, and thousands of podships full of centipedes.

Lailani stood on the bridge of the HDFS Ishtar, staring ahead into the darkness. Staring toward Earth.

It was time to head back to her homeworld. But it was no longer her home.

Back on Abaddon, two hundred starlings lay in fresh graves. The tears were still hot. The pain so real. It was time to exact vengeance.

Lailani clenched those little angry fists of hers.

I'm coming for you, Einav.

Time moved differently on Abaddon. Not long had passed on Earth since the attack—only a few weeks. But Lailani had spent a year fuming. Planning. Building.

Over the past year, she had rebuilt her shipyard. And now her podships filled space. A million centipedes flew inside them. Soldiers in her war.

I will not bow down, Lailani vowed. I will not surrender to Earth. I will strike back at those who hurt me. I might be short, but I will stand tall.

For two weeks, they flew in the darkness. The Ishtar had state-of-the-art stealth technology, wrapping a shadowy bubble of dark matter around the fleet. Close enough, say from a light-year away, a telescope would detect them. But here in the vast emptiness between stars? They were invisible.

They were on the hunt.

After traveling five hundred light-years, they were near Sol, Earth's star. Ahead of the fleet, Lailani detected the Oort Cloud.

Named after Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, the Oort Cloud was a massive cloud of icy chunks and rocks. It formed a sphere around the solar system. A halo of debris. The sun was still a distant speck from here, not much larger than any other star. Its gravity was weak this far out, but just strong enough to keep the spherical cloud moving along with Sol through the galaxy. Every once in a while, a comet tore free and flew into the distance. Sometimes out into the void. Sometimes inward toward the sun and planets.

As a young soldier, Lailani had spent two years stationed in an observatory in the Oort Cloud. She had stared into the depths, guarding the solar system, watching for aliens. That space station had been decommissioned after the Alien Wars.

But there was still some human presence here. Lailani spotted the frigate ahead. The HDFS Medusa. A lonely starship patrolling the border of the solar system.

That was her prey.

Lailani's lips peeled back in a caustic grin. She saw herself reflected in the viewport, transposed over the distant frigate. Her eyes shone. Her grin widened. She looked like a deranged doll.

"Destroy her," she said. "Before she can call for help—destroy her!"

The Medusa saw them. The frigate's engines rumbled. She began to flee. Lavender lights shone on her prow. Medusa was attempting to open a wormhole to Earth, to call for aid. Radio signals would take three years to reach the planet. A wormhole only took three minutes to establish.

Lailani wouldn't give the ship three minutes.

"Storm, podships!" she cried. "Destroy!"

The podships blazed forth. They spewed acid. The corrosive jets washed over the Medusa, melting her hull.

This time Lailani didn't have a starling on the inside. She couldn't disable the shields and launch an EMP attack. There would be no boarding this ship. This was a mission of pure destruction.

The pods swarmed fast. The frigate tried to flee. More pods emerged from ahead; they had hidden behind asteroids.

The Medusa was trapped.

She tried to jump to warp speed now. Her azoth engine was priming, glowing lavender. Lailani raised a holographic screen, locked on target, and fired.

The bridge of Ishtar thrummed as the torpedoes blazed.

The Medusa's shields were flickering. The acid had melted them. Lailani's torpedoes slammed into the Medusa with blazing explosions. The shields gave a last whimper, then died.

So did the azoth engine. So did the wormhole generator.

The ship was dead in the water.

Lailani fired a last torpedo. It plowed into the Medusa's innards like a parasite and burst.

A shock wave blasted out. A cloud of debris expanded like an exploding star.

And the ship was gone.

Lailani smiled thinly. She turned around to face Centillion.

The android sat on the bridge of the Ishtar. She was humanoid, female, but thankfully not one of those androids with humanlike skin. Those hyper-realistic machines gave Lailani the willies. Centillion had hard skin like an exoskeleton, made from advanced plastics, colored white and teal. Her glass eyes stared back at Lailani.

They had captured Centillion with the starship, and the android was a valuable asset. It took some hacking, but with the right hardware and software tweaks, they got Centillion to switch allegiances. She was now a proud officer of the Starling Army.

"Centillion, change the Ishtar's energy signatures to mimic the Medusa. Then open a channel to Earth." Lailani placed a hand on her hip and smiled. "Tell them that we, the crew of the Medusa, have encountered some technical difficulties, and we'll be heading to Earth for repairs. We should be there soon."

Centillion tilted her head. "But … ma'am, the Medusa was destroyed."

Lailani's smile widened. "She will be reborn."

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

They stepped out of the space station. Ben-Ari and thirty kids. They wore blue spacesuits, and Earth reflected in their visors.

Starbridge surrounded the spherical space station like a belt. It was a narrow walkway, just wide enough for one person. The floor was glass, adding extra visibility—and an extra dose of anxiety.

A handrail ran along the circular bridge. Every spacesuit was tethered to the handrail. If anyone fell off the bridge, they would float a few meters before the tether pulled them back.

Inside Skysphere, graviton plates in the decks and bulkheads simulated Earthlike gravity. But out here, they were weightless.

"Whoa!" a kid said, floating into the air. "Zero gravity!"

His tether snapped taut. The boy flailed like a fish on a line, but he was laughing.

A few other kids clutched the railing, not daring to float free.

Ben-Ari smiled. "Actually, there's still a lot of gravity here. See how close Earth is? Earth is always pulling us toward it. But Skysphere is orbiting Earth. The two forces—the gravity from Earth and our momentum around the planet—are exactly equal. They cancel each other out. We're both falling toward Earth, and flying away from Earth, at the same speed. Free-falling feels like zero gravity. We're constantly falling toward Earth without ever reaching it."

A few of the kids nodded. They got it. Some of the younger kids tilted their heads in confusion. They were a little younger, would understand when they were older.

"Ms. Ben-Ari, have you ever experienced real zero gravity?" a child asked. They were all communicating through comlinks built into their helmets.

"Yes, if you go into deep space, you feel real zero gravity. Or at least very little gravity. Even the most distant stars and galaxies can exert minute amounts of gravity. But their tug is so light you don't even feel it."

A girl floated up toward her. "Ms. Ben-Ari, is it true you went into deep space and fought the scum and the marauders and a bunch of other alien bugs? And pow! You beat them up and saved the world!"

Ben-Ari laughed. "Something like that. But I had help from my friends."

Another child swam up. "I know about your friends! Marco and Addy and Lailani! We learned about them in school."

Ben-Ari's smile turned sad. "Yes, that's right. Marco and Addy … and Lailani."

"But isn't Lailani bad now?" a child asked.

"I heard she's a monster and half a centipede."

"I heard she's an alien!"

"My dad said that we blew up her planet, and now we have to keep blowing her up until she can never bully us again."

Ben-Ari didn't want to cry here. Didn't want to lose the joy this day promised.

She pointed at Earth.

"Look, kids. Look down at Earth. Look at our planet. From up here, doesn't it seem so small?"

They all looked. For a moment Lailani was forgotten. The kids oohed and aahed.

Ben-Ari spoke softly, gazing at their planet. "From space, Earth is a blue marble in the infinite darkness. It's a small world, fragile, a speck of dust floating on the endless waves of the cosmic ocean. Looking down on Earth from above, you see no borders. No nations. All the ways we divide ourselves—by race, religion, ideology—all fade to nothing when you view Earth from space. All our conceits, our hatreds, our tribalism—all reveal themselves to be so insignificant they're invisible. From space, we see one world. A world we all share—not just our human species but the millions of species that evolved on this blue marble in the dark. To me, space travel is not only about exploring the stars. It's also about understanding our Earth. Only from space can we truly realize that Earth is so small, that the loneliness is so vast, and that our blue marble is so precious."

It was a grand speech, she thought. Maybe a bit too Carl Sagan, but hopefully inspiring.

Then she turned back to look at the kids. A few were somersaulting through space, two kids were walking on the railing, and two boys were wrestling. So much for inspiring speeches.

"Now, look out at the stars," Ben-Ari began, hoping this part worked better. "What do you see?"

The children turned to look.

"Constellations," somebody said.

"The moon."

"A spaceship."

Other kids pointed. "Ooh, look, a big spaceship!"

"What kind of spaceship is that?"

"It has cannons! Cool! Is that a warship?"

"Can we fire the cannons?"

Ben-Ari stared at the incoming starship. It was a frigate. An actual frigate! One of the largest ships Earth operated. Only the great starfighter carriers were larger. There were plans on Ben-Ari's desk to commission a dreadnought, a ship that would dwarf even the mighty carriers. Currently only alien civilizations flew dreadnought-class ships. Ben-Ari had already rejected the plans. To be honest, even frigates were enormously expensive and ridiculously large. The frigate approaching was the size of the entire space station.

No, a dreadnought was too costly. Earth operated ten carriers, and they sucked up a huge amount of their defense budget. These large starships were a drain on resources. Ben-Ari envisioned her future fleets being smaller, more agile, relying on speed and ingenuity rather than bulk. Better artificial intelligence also reduced the need for the massive crews large warships required. In the future, she thought, wars could be fought with ships no larger than corvettes. Computers would do most of the work. Many starfighters, she thought, would be fully automated. No more need to send pilots to die in battle. The era of these gargantuan starships, with their crews of thousands, would end.

The frigate approaching looked to her like a relic. Why was it even here? The warships should be patrolling the borders of the empire.

Ben-Ari raised her forearm to her chin. Her custom-made spacesuit left her prosthetic limb exposed. She tapped a button, and a holographic screen emerged from her metallic arm. It acted as a lens, bending the light, zooming in on the frigate.

Ben-Ari read the letters on the hull. The HDFS Medusa. One of the army's older frigates.

Her frown deepened. The Medusa should be patrolling the Oort Cloud now.

She tapped another button on her prosthetic arm, interfacing with the comlink in her helmet. She sent a live video feed to Amelie, her chief of staff.

"Amelie, are you seeing this? The Medusa?"

Amelie's voice emerged from the helmet's speakers. "Yes, ma'am. The Medusa was scheduled to arrive at Earth next week for a ceremony. Colonel Morales will be retiring. Lieutenant Colonel Smith will be promoted and take command instead. I've already scheduled in your participation. An hour slot."

"Why is the Medusa here early?" Ben-Ari said. "Why wasn't I informed?"

"I'm not sure, ma'am." The sound of whooshing holographic screens came through the comlink. Amelie was probably scanning her records. "Oh, here we go. We received a transmission from the Medusa this morning. The ship's android, a Centillion unit, contacted Central Fleet Command. The Medusa requested to return to Earth early for repairs. Apparently, we've received no communication since. Perhaps due to whatever malfunction the Medusa is suffering from."

"An android contacted us? Not the commander?" Ben-Ari said. "Patch me into the bridge."

As she waited for a link, Ben-Ari stared at the starship. At the cannons lining her hull. At the torpedo bays. A chill washed over her.

Lailani has warships like this now, she remembered. The ones she stole.

"Ma'am, there's no answer," Amelie said.

Ben-Ari's heart nearly stopped. Cold sweat drenched her.

She zoomed in closer. She saw it then.

Those were Typhoon-class cannons jutting from the hull. Created in 2156. The Medusa was built in 2143.

"That's not the Medusa. That's …" Ben-Ari inhaled sharply. "That's the Lulal. One of our stolen ships." She cursed, tapped a button, and called her security chief. "Get starfighters out there! Stop that ship! Stop her if you have to blow her up!"

But it was too late.

The disguised frigate opened fire.

Ben-Ari stared, eyes wide, as torpedoes raced toward Skysphere.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Lailani stood on the bridge of the Lulal—a frigate disguised as the Medusa. She clenched her fists. With a tight, satisfied smile, she watched the torpedoes fly.

The space station hovered ahead like a disco ball. In seconds, it would shatter.

A sneer found Lailani's lips.

"Watch me destroy your toy, Einav," she hissed.

She was surprised she got this far. After destroying the Medusa, Lailani had climbed into the HDFS Lulal, another frigate. The two ships were almost identical, aside from the make of the cannons. The letters on the hull had been replaced easily enough, spelling the new name. The cannons, well … Lailani just hoped nobody noticed. It would take a serious gunnery nerd to tell the two models apart.

So here Lailani was. At Earth. And her torpedoes stormed toward Skysphere.

"Well, well, Einav," she said. "When Yom Kippur is over, and you look up to the sky, you'll find that your precious space station is …"

Lailani gasped.

She saw it now.

Small figures.

She zoomed in.

There were people there! A bridge surrounded Skysphere, exposed to space. People were on the bridge!

And there were people at the windows! Shuttles outside! The space station was open!

"No," Lailani whispered. "No!"

She ran toward the gunnery controls, spun the console toward her, and desperately scrolled through the menu. She loaded the laser gun interface.

She could still shoot the torpedoes down! She could abort the mission!

The laser cannon began heating up. A progress bar inched across the console.

"Load, load, load!" Lailani screamed.

And she knew it was too late.

Starfighters streaked toward Medusa, guns blazing. Missiles stormed through space.

Lailani stared in horror.

"What have I done?" she whispered.

* * * * *

For a split second, Ben-Ari just stared.

She saw the torpedoes flying in.

She saw the children float in their spacesuits, tethered to the bridge.

She saw the Falcon starfighters blaze forward, desperate to stop the assault. And she knew they were too late.

The torpedoes would be here in seconds.

Oh my God, Ben-Ari thought. There are thousands of people on board.

Right now she had to save these children under her care. And she had only seconds.

"Amelie, get everyone to evacuate the station!" Ben-Ari shouted in her comlink, knowing it was too late, but knowing she had to try.

While shouting, she activated her prosthetic arm. Her mechanical hand buzzed with a boost of power. It became as strong as a jackhammer.

She grabbed the rivets bolting Starbridge to the space station and tore them free.

The bridge tilted. A chunk of it peeled away from the space station like a strip of orange peel. The children screamed. They were still tethered to the railing. They flailed through space as the bridge began to detach from the station.

Ben-Ari reached for another rivet, intending to break off this entire piece of bridge—and get far from this station!

Then the first torpedo hit.

It slammed into the space station not far from her.

An explosion blazed. Blinding. White fire flared. Shattered glass and shards of metal flew everywhere. There was no sound in space, but the terrible devastation echoed through the space station, into the bridge, into Ben-Ari's boots. She heard that explosion. Heard the terror. Through the vibrating bridge, she thought she could even hear people scream.

The bridge flailed madly through space, whipping Ben-Ari and the children back and forth. Only one edge was attached to the station now. And half that station was blown away. Corpses flew into space, spinning madly. Shards of glass cascaded everywhere like dandelion seeds. One shard sliced through a child, and blood bubbled up through space. A metal beam plowed into a girl's head, crushing it, killing her instantly.

No. Oh God, no.

Ben-Ari tightened her lips.

Grieve later! Act now!

More torpedoes were coming in.

She had to get the survivors away!

She stared at the rivets attaching one end of the bridge to the station. She unhooked her tether from the railing, leaped, and shot forward.

Another torpedo slammed into the station.

Fire and death filled space. The station shook. Tore open. It was cracking like an egg.

Ben-Ari grabbed the rivet, yanked the bridge free, then shoved against the space station with both her feet.

She flew away from the space station, shoving the bridge into space.

Behind her, a third torpedo hit Skysphere.

Another explosion bloomed across the station. Another section of hull tore open. Clouds of glass and metal flew in every direction.

A piece of shrapnel hit Ben-Ari's leg. She screamed. Another piece of shrapnel sliced through a child on the bridge, cutting him open. Most of the children were still alive, still tethered to the bridge. They were all screaming.

The bridge spun through space like a derailed amusement park ride. Ben-Ari and the children spun with it. Earth seemed to whirl madly around them. Ben-Ari wanted to steady the bridge. But with no air in space, with nothing to grab, nothing could stop their mad spin.

She glimpsed the Falcons firing. Falcons were small starfighters, even smaller than Firebirds, but faster and deadlier. Their bullets pounded the enemy frigate. They were like children shooting spitballs at a rhinoceros.

Destroyers blazed forth too, joining the Falcons. Normally these heavy warships patrolled deeper in orbit, defending Earth. They had let the Lulal through, falling for the ruse. Now the destroyers roared to battle, their cannons booming, desperate to destroy the commandeered Lulal.

We all fell for it, Ben-Ari thought. Lailani outsmarted us again. Lailani is butchering us again.

Ben-Ari spun away from the battle. She was careening into the distance, tethered to the bridge with the children. She grabbed the railing, spun herself around, and stared at the battle.

Lailani's frigate was activating her azoth drive. Her engines shone purple.

"Not so close to the planet!" Ben-Ari shouted in frustration, knowing Lailani couldn't hear.

Spacetime bent around the frigate. The starlight curved. And then the Lulal blasted off into the distance, traveling faster than light.

The shock wave slammed into the burning space station, the nearby ships, and into the floating bridge. A few Falcons shattered. Chunks of Skysphere tore off, revealing honeycombs of cabins.

There were still survivors in there!

Still people alive in the station!

"Kids—I'll come back for you," Ben-Ari said.

The children looked at her, terror in their eyes.

"Don't leave us—please!"

"Ms. Ben-Ari, stay!"

"Ms. Ben-Ari, Mikey isn't moving. Is he dead?"

"The Rescue Corps will be here soon," Ben-Ari said. "Look—they're coming in already."

The shuttles were racing toward the space station, painted white and red. Hundreds of first responders were emerging in spacesuits. One rescue shuttle was flying toward the detached bridge.

Ben-Ari stared at the burning space station. She narrowed her eyes, calculating, waiting for the mangled bridge to spin into the right position.

Then she untethered herself, kicked off the bridge, and flew toward Skysphere.

Before she could reach the devastated space station, a piece of scrap metal came spinning toward her.

Dammit! She was going to hit it!

She had no jetpack. No way to change her trajectory. She raised her prosthetic arm defensively.

The scrap metal slammed into her prosthetic, shattering it.

Ben-Ari screamed. Cables sparked from the mangled remains of her mechanical arm. She spun off course, veering into the distance.

She was slewing toward a solar panel, which had flown off the station. She sneered, ignoring the pain, and kicked off against the panel.

She flew back toward the station.

She slammed into the cracking hull with a thud. The twisted metal and glass were so hot they seared her spacesuit. Wincing, Ben-Ari inched along the mangled hull. She found a gaping hole that revealed the station's innards.

She floated inside. Surprisingly, the graviton plates still worked. The deck pulled her feet down.

What remained of her prosthetic arm was sparking, shocking her. She ripped the mangled machine off her stump, hurled it aside.

She raced through the inferno. The air was gone. Corpses lay everywhere. But not everyone was dead. A few survivors cowered in the corner, wearing emergency spacesuits. The station came with hundreds of spacesuits for such emergencies.

Few people had managed to pull them on in time.

"Come on!" Ben-Ari said to the survivors in the corner. "We gotta get out before the station's core melts."

One of the survivors was lying down, holding a wound. Ben-Ari helped him up. She guided the survivors through the station toward a hole in the hull. A rescue ship was waiting there. Medics took the survivors into their shuttle.

"Ma'am, let's get you to safety," a medic said to Ben-Ari.

"There are still people inside," she replied. "I'll help you clear them out."

She ran back into the inferno. The air had fled the station. No fires burned—not without oxygen. But equipment still sparked everywhere, blinding. Steam and chemicals burst from ruptured pipes. Shards of metal flew through the air like swarms of hornets. Some decks had lost their gravity fields. Corpses floated.

She found another two survivors in a conference room. A heavy beam held them down. Ben-Ari groaned, desperately trying to lift it. With one arm, it was impossible.

"Medics!" she cried. "I need medics in Hall C! Follow my coordinates!"

She drew her sidearm, fired at a control panel. The graviton plates on the deck shut down. The beam floated off the trapped survivors, and Ben-Ari shoved it against the wall.

The medics rushed in. The survivors moaned. The beam had crushed their bones, maybe damaged internal organs too. Ben-Ari helped strap them onto litters, then carry them to a mangled airlock. She loaded them into another shuttle.

Then she went back in.

Again and again, she ran into the station, pulling out survivors. She suffered a gash on her leg. A burn on her shoulder. She kept going back in.

Finally a klaxon blared, and a warning sign emerged from a dangling speaker.

"Station core breached. Meltdown in sixty seconds. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven …"

Ben-Ari stood on a cracked deck, hesitating. Were there still survivors in this ruined space station? If so, did she owe it to them to remain? To die with them?

A captain should go down with her ship, she thought. I cannot leave while others still live.

She stood in place, squared her shoulders, ready to go down with her space station.

And then she thought of Carl.

She thought of her son growing up motherless.

Yes, she was divorcing Noah. But Carl still needed her. She still had a reason to live.

Funny, she thought as she ran through the station. At the end, I'm not thinking about living for Earth or humanity. I'm not thinking about my honor. I'm only thinking about my son.

She reached an airlock and leaped into space.

Behind her, the remains of Skysphere melted, curled up, formed a ball of molten metal and glass, and then crashed into the Pacific.

Ben-Ari spun through space. A piece of shrapnel had torn her spacesuit. It was losing pressure fast. She felt cold. So cold. The devastation spread around her. The corpses floated. Hundreds of corpses. Maybe thousands.

How has it come to this? she thought, the terror like ice inside her chest.

A rescue shuttle raced toward her. The medics pulled her inside, placed an oxygen mask on her face, got to working on her wounds. But the pain inside was worse. Because Ben-Ari knew that the chance for peace was gone. She knew this was war. A war not against aliens. A war between people.

A civil war. A war between best friends. Perhaps this would be the most painful war of all.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Ben-Ari stood in her study, facing the camera.

She spoke to mankind.

"Fellow humans. An hour ago, as dawn rose over Europe and Africa, a starling starship managed to infiltrate Earth's defenses. The ship launched three torpedoes, destroying Skysphere, the presidential space station. Four thousand people were serving aboard Skysphere at the time. We don't know the final death count. But we believe that most of them perished.

"Earlier this morning, starling forces also attacked one of our military frigates, the HDFS Medusa, which was conducting a peaceful mission in the Oort Cloud. The starship was destroyed. All seven hundred and fifteen members of her crew were killed.

"I offer my deepest condolences to the families of the victims. And I offer my heartfelt gratitude to our first responders during this terrible day. This day which will forever live in infamy.

"As president of Earth and her colonies in space, I declare war against Abaddon, homeworld of the starlings.

"We are not at war against the starling race. But we are at war against its leadership. I demand the unconditional surrender of Lailani de la Rosa, ruler of the starling nation, the return of all our stolen starships and equipment, and the complete demilitarization of Abaddon.

"Earth is strong. Our military, the Human Defense Force, is the greatest army in the galaxy. We will triumph in this war that was forced upon us. I urge de la Rosa to surrender at once—and to avoid unnecessary destruction.

"Fellow humans, the tragedy today claimed many lives. It also strengthened our resolve, our courage, and our human spirit. We will never forget our fallen. And we will never falter in our quest for justice, security, and freedom."

Ben-Ari ended the transmission.

She sat in her study for a long time, silent, staring at nothing.

* * * * *

The cave was deep and large, a bloated stomach in the depths of the underground. Its walls glittered with diamonds. Cracks in the floor revealed a gurgling sea of lava.

A massive stalagmite rose in the center of this cave, soaring halfway to the ceiling. Its top was flattened, as if some enormous knife had sheared off the point. Upon this gargantuan mesa rose a throne. A throne of dark iron, shaped like a centipede, bristly with many armrests. The throne of Abaddon.

It was in this cave that Lailani had slain the King of Many Claws. In this cave she now reigned.

From here atop her monolith, she could look down upon her people. Her nation. The starlings. She was just a tiny girl, barely larger than a child, but up here on this pillar, she was a queen. She spoke, and her voice thrummed through speakers, echoing across the cavern.

"My fellow starlings. Earth imprisoned us. Earth oppressed us. Earth kept us caged like animals. And when we came here to Abaddon, simply wishing to build a new home—Earth struck us! Earth slaughtered hundreds of our people—including children! And when we fought back? When we struck a retaliatory blow? Earth claimed we forced the war upon them!"

Lailani laughed bitterly. The crowd booed the Earthling gall.

"Now they want us to surrender," Lailani continued. "Unconditionally, they say. Ha! Well, I say this: the starlings will never surrender! We will never more be imprisoned! We will never more be slaughtered like sheep! We have a nation. We have a world of our own. We have freedom. We will never give them up!"

Now the crowd cheered. Cries rose. "Freedom! Freedom!"

Lailani raised her fist. "My people, stay strong. Time is on our side. Every day that passes on Earth—we get many days. The gift of time dilation favors us. That gives us time to prepare. To build defenses. To build more ships. To forge alliances with neighboring worlds. We will mine the vast resources of Abaddon and grow wealthy. We will purchase tools and weapons from alien civilizations. Earth thinks we're weak, just a few thousand refugees in a cave. If they strike us again, they will find that we're an army. That we're a proud nation. We will never surrender!"

They cheered. They raised their fists. They chanted. "Queen! Queen! Queen!"

Yes. On the pillar of stone, speaking to this crowd, she was a queen.

Yet that night, when the people returned to their homes, when the lights dimmed, Lailani remained on the pillar. And she felt very small and alone.

In the shadows, she sat on her throne. She remembered Skysphere exploding. She thought of the thousands of people killed, of the children on the bridge, of her own child nearly dying in a bomb shelter. The weight of Abaddon and Earth seemed to crush her shoulders, and Lailani stared into the darkness, afraid of Earth … and afraid of herself.

The story continues in Earth, Our Home (Earthrise Book 15).

Click here to read the next book in the series:

DanielArenson.com/EarthOurHome

AFTERWORD

Thank you for reading Earth in Darkness, the fourteenth Earthrise novel.

Earth, Our Home, the fifteenth Earthrise novel, continues the tale.

Want to know when I release new novels? Here are some ways to stay updated:

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Thank you again, dear reader, and I hope we meet again between the pages of another book.

Daniel

NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

EARTHRISE

Earth Alone

Earth Lost

Earth Rising

Earth Fire

Earth Shadows

Earth Valor

Earth Reborn

Earth Honor

Earth Eternal

Earth Machines

Earth Aflame

Earth Unleashed

Earth Remembers

Earth in Darkness

Earth, Our Home

SOLDIERS OF EARTHRISE

The Earthling

Earthlings

Earthling's War

I, Earthling

The Earthling's Daughter

We Are Earthlings

CHILDREN OF EARTHRISE

The Heirs of Earth

A Memory of Earth

An Echo of Earth

The War for Earth

The Song of Earth

The Legacy of Earth

KINGDOMS OF SAND

Kings of Ruin

Crowns of Rust

Thrones of Ash

Temples of Dust

Halls of Shadows

Echoes of Light

THE MOTH SAGA

Moth

Empires of Moth

Secrets of Moth

Daughter of Moth

Shadows of Moth

Legacy of Moth

REQUIEM

Dawn of Dragons

Requiem's Song

Requiem's Hope

Requiem's Prayer

The Complete Trilogy

Song of Dragons

Blood of Requiem

Tears of Requiem

Light of Requiem

The Complete Trilogy

Dragonlore

A Dawn of Dragonfire

A Day of Dragon Blood

A Night of Dragon Wings

The Complete Trilogy

The Dragon War

A Legacy of Light

A Birthright of Blood

A Memory of Fire

The Complete Trilogy

Requiem for Dragons

Dragons Lost

Dragons Reborn

Dragons Rising

The Complete Trilogy

Flame of Requiem

Forged in Dragonfire

Crown of Dragonfire

Pillars of Dragonfire

The Complete Trilogy

ALIEN HUNTERS

Alien Hunters

Alien Sky

Alien Shadows

OTHER WORLDS

Eye of the Wizard

Wand of the Witch

Firefly Island

The Gods of Dream

Flaming Dove

KEEP IN TOUCH

www.DanielArenson.com

Daniel@DanielArenson.com

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Twitter.com/DanielArenson