The Song of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 5) Read online

  THE SONG OF EARTH

  CHILDREN OF EARTHRISE, BOOK 5

  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

  AFTERWORD

  NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

  KEEP IN TOUCH

  Illustration © Tom Edwards - TomEdwardsDesign.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  Colonel Mairead "Firebug" McQueen, commander of the Firebird Fleet, watched thousands of alien warships open fire.

  Below her, Earth burned.

  Mairead stood in her cabin aboard the HDFS Jerusalem. The heavy frigate, humanity's flagship, was orbiting Earth. Mairead stared through the porthole at the devastation. At the scaly warships of the basilisk empire. At the storms of flame and fury pounding her homeworld.

  For an instant—just half a breath—Mairead forgot her duties. She froze in terror.

  It's beginning, she thought. The great war.

  Of course, humans had been fighting for Earth for generations. They had fought the scorpions in the depths of space. For almost two years now, they had been fighting the basilisks here at Earth. Some humans, like President Emet Ben-Ari, had been fighting since before Mairead had been born.

  But this was different.

  Watching the fire rain, Mairead knew this was no ordinary battle.

  This is our war of independence, she thought. Or our war of extinction.

  The instant of horror ended. And Mairead McQueen did what she did best.

  She leaped into battle.

  "All Firebirds, prepare for launch!" she shouted into her comm.

  Firebirds were humanity's best weapon, best hope. The starfighters were quick and deadly, capable of fighting in space or air. Mairead had been flying Firebirds for most of her life. Today she commanded the entire Firebird Fleet—humanity's front line of defense. Today it was her duty to save the world.

  She was already wearing her armored spacesuit. She had not removed it in days, not even to sleep. Not with tensions so high. She reached for her helmet, which lay on a table, when a blast hit the Jerusalem. The starship jolted, knocking Mairead against a bulkhead. Her helmet clattered by her feet.

  She scooped up the helmet, didn't even pause to put it on, and burst out of her cabin.

  Klaxons blared across the Jerusalem. Red lights strobed. Most of the ship's complement was down on Earth. The remaining skeleton crew was running along the corridors, racing to their battle stations.

  Another blast slammed into the frigate. The mighty warship jolted. Mairead screamed and fell. Fire blazed above her, and smoke filled the corridor. A laser beam flashed ahead, green and crackling and thrumming with energy, carving into the hull. A man screamed and died, sliced in two. Blood rose from the corpse like a red snake, funneling toward a hole in the hull, then flowed into space,

  Mairead lay on the floor, staring, frozen.

  Her eyes burned.

  Through a porthole, she saw the rest of her fleet. A thousand human starships. Burning. Falling toward Earth. Lasers hit the starships one by one, and explosions filled space.

  The enemy was everywhere. Thousands of elongated Rattlers—the basilisks' scaly warships—were flying outside. Lasers flashed. Bombs rained. This alien fleet had been orbiting Earth for a year now, blockading the planet.

  But now, the basilisks were done with a mere siege. Now they were attacking in earnest. Now they were firing everything they had, destroying Earth and her fleet.

  And Mairead saw something even worse.

  Something that froze her blood.

  Wormholes appeared around Earth. Seven massive portals, rimmed with fire.

  From each portal, new enemy warships emerged.

  Mairead knew these ships. She had seen them in the depths of space before. And now they were here, at her home.

  One wormhole spewed the organic podships of the Esporians, sentient mushrooms that loathed humanity. They were foul fungus, able to disperse clouds of toxic spores. They bred faster than rabbits, and they thrived on rotting human flesh.

  From the second wormhole: The dagger-shaped warships of the Aelonians, humanoids with transparent skin and innards of fire. They had once been human allies. Now they would fight to see humanity destroyed.

  From the third: Spiky ships like urchins, filled with hellwolves, demonic canines known for terrorizing a thousand worlds. They were larger than horses, their fangs like swords, rabid beasts feared across the galaxy.

  The fourth wormhole discharged fleshy ships like sacks of skin. These loathsome pustules carried alien blobs, living cubes of mucus that loved to digest their victims alive.

  From the fifth portal: Massive, boxy ships of metal, filled with carnivorous caterpillars. These beasts would never become butterflies. The size of crocodiles, they sprouted rings of arms around their jaws—built to grab their victims and pull them into ravenous hellmouths.

  From the sixth portal: Circular ships filled with salty water and spiky marine killers. The fish inside made sharks seem like sponges.

  From the final porthole flew more Rattlers, the serpentine warships of the Basilisk Empire. But this was no ordinary basilisk armada. The mighty Vypress, Xerka's new flagship, led this fleet. The Serpent Queen had come herself, leading this monstrous host. She would oversee Earth's destruction.

  Seven portals. Seven alien fleets. Each crueler than the last. All had united. All were bombarding the world.

  Below, Earth was burning.

  Earth had faced alien invasions before. But never something like this. Never seven armies attacking together.

  It was the end, Mairead knew. The end of humanity.

  She trembled. She couldn't breathe. The air was fleeing the pierced hull of the Jerusalem. Her skin began to blister. Her saliva boiled on her tongue.

  She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth.

  Fight. To the very end. To a death in fire and glory.

  She screamed and rose to her feet. She placed her helmet over her fiery curls and gulped down oxygen. And she ran.

  She leaped over corpses—the corpses of friends. Another laser beam hit the Jerusalem, carving through the hull. Mairead dropped to her knees and slid forward, passing under the beam, then rose and ran again.

  She burst into the Firebird hangar.

  After a long war, Earth was low on Firebirds. At the height of its power, during the Golden Age long ago, Earth had commanded thousands of these starfighters. Today they were down to dozens. Only a handful awaited Mairead here aboard the Jerusalem.

&nb
sp; And lasers were carving them up.

  Mairead skidded to a halt and stared, aghast.

  Two laser beams—as thick as her arm, crackling with green fury—were searing the hangar. They ripped up the deck, sliced open bulkheads, and tore into Firebirds. Several pilots lay dead, carved up like Christmas hams. Living pilots were scrambling into their cockpits.

  "Deploy!" Mairead shouted, running toward one of the remaining Firebirds. "Fly, pilots of Earth! Fly and fight!"

  A laser swept toward her, burning everything in its path.

  Mairead leaped over the beam. She hopped into her Firebird, slammed the canopy shut, and fired up the engine. Around her, the surviving pilots did the same. Ear-crushing electric guitars boomed inside Mairead's cockpit, the music she always played when flying—to energize her, to drown her fear.

  The airlock was mangled, its doors hanging loose, exposing space. The entire frigate was falling apart. Mairead fired her starfighter's machine guns, tearing off the loose doors.

  Then she shoved down the throttle and roared out into space.

  Five other Firebirds followed.

  They flew into hell.

  Mairead had fought in many battles. She had joined the Heirs of Earth at age thirteen, becoming the youngest soldier in its history. For fourteen years now, she had been fighting for Earth. Her Firebird had flown in the greatest battles. She had flown with the Iron Lioness at the Battle of Terminus, storming toward armadas of scorpion strikers. She had fought above the forest moon of Helios, charging against the dreadnought of Jade the Huntress. She had even fought in the Battle of Aelonia, the climactic battle of the Galactic War where a million starships had burned.

  But Mairead had never seen anything like this.

  She could not see the sky below nor the stars above. She could barely see Earth at all. Barely see the rest of her fleet.

  Only fire. Only death.

  For a year now, Xerka's Rattlers had surrounded Earth like a noose. Tightening. Threatening. But not yet attacking.

  But Earth had lost the vote at the Galactic Council. Thousands of alien species had decided—Earth belonged to the basilisks.

  Now that basilisk fleet, along with its allies, was unleashing all its wrath.

  Flying in lower orbit, the human warships were fighting back. Their cannons were pounding the enemy. More Firebirds were emerging from other motherships. But the human fleet was so small. Most of Earth's ships mere tankers and freighters, barely equipped for war.

  They were falling fast. The enemy was firing everything they had: laser beams, torpedoes, poisonous spores, blobs of acid, plasma bolts, and whirring blades tipped with explosives. The fusillade tore through the human fleet. Legendary ships—ships that had fought in legendary battles, that had liberated gulocks, that had delivered the first colonists to Earth—were burning and falling.

  But the horror in space was nothing compared to the horror on Earth itself.

  The Rattlers kept spewing spinning, flaming projectiles. The incendiaries stormed toward Earth like comets, leaving trails of fire. They slammed into the planet, raising tidal waves, shattering mountains, burning grasslands and woodlands. Burning colonies.

  Mairead took this all in within several heartbeats.

  Then she turned her Firebird away from Earth. She soared, charging toward the enemy hosts.

  Xerka's Rattlers hid the stars. Thousands upon thousands of them. They were long, undulating warships, shaped like the serpents inside them. Armored scales covered their bendable hulls. Portholes blazed upon their prows like red eyes. Cannons thrust out like fangs. Engines roared on their sterns like rattlesnake tails, giving these deadly machines their name. The largest were a kilometer long, dreadnoughts more powerful than any Earth vessel. But even the smallest Rattlers were mighty frigates, as large as the Jerusalem. And with them—thousands of other alien warships, metallic and organic, smooth and spiky, all firing their guns.

  Alone in her Firebird, Mairead screamed as she soared toward them.

  She knew she was going to die.

  She flew onward.

  "Fire on these sons of bitches!" she shouted—and unleashed an arsenal of missiles.

  Around her, the other Firebirds rose. They added their firepower to hers.

  The missiles streamed upward, moving at hypersonic speed, and slammed against the Rattlers. They pierced through armor. They drove into enemy decks. Scaly warships exploded above, raining shrapnel.

  Below Mairead, several human frigates fired their cannons. Shells the size of men pounded the enemy, tearing open more hulls.

  For a moment, Mairead dared to hope. They were outnumbered a hundred to one. But maybe—just maybe—they could win.

  And then the enemy starfighters swarmed.

  They emerged from the basilisk motherships. Hundreds of them. Each was only a few meters long, covered in metal scales. The humans called them Copperheads—tiny vessels, barely larger than the snakes who flew them.

  Despite their size, they were horrifyingly deadly.

  The Copperheads charged toward the Firebirds at dizzying speed, firing lasers, vowing death.

  Mairead growled and kicked her yoke, tossing her Firebird into a barrel roll. She corkscrewed upward, howling, dodging lasers. A beam grazed her wing. Sparks flew. She ignored the blow and kept flying.

  A Firebird exploded to her left.

  Another to her right.

  The lasers were picking them off one by one.

  "Muck you, snakes," Mairead said.

  She extended her Firebird's machine guns—and unleashed her rage.

  Her starfighter thrummed as the bullets streaked up. The barrage slammed into Copperheads, tearing through the small vessels.

  The two starfighter fleets kept charging toward each other—the Copperheads from above, the Firebirds from below.

  With a firestorm that shook space, the forces collided.

  Several Firebirds and Copperheads slammed together, exploding with showers of fire and flesh. Mairead's bird grazed a Copperhead, ripping off several scales. Her hull dented. Her canopy cracked. She rose toward a mothership, released a missile, but didn't wait to see it hit. She turned and swooped toward the Copperheads, which were now flying below her, and bathed them with hellfire.

  She was now facing Earth again.

  Her heart nearly shattered.

  The blue planet had turned red.

  Fires burned on the plains of Ontario—where Port Addison was located, the first and largest human colony. But the flames were everywhere. There were half a million humans on Earth. Only a year ago, they had been refugees. They had suffered untold pain in space. Most had survived gulocks, torture factories where aliens skinned their victims alive. Two thousand years ago, humans had lost Earth, and since then, they had languished in the darkness. Lost. Hiding. Hunted. Tortured.

  Only two years ago, they had finally found Earth. A planet many had believed just a myth. Haunted, brutalized, humanity had begun to return. To build again. To heal.

  And now this.

  Again—the fire, the agony, the death.

  Fury filled Mairead.

  It's not fair! Tears burned in her eyes. We suffered so much. Billions of us died. Alien empires, one after another, slaughtered us for sport. The centipede scum. The marauders. The grays. The Hydrian squids. The Skra-Shen scorpions. Now the basilisks. We can't even catch our mucking breath! She roared out her agony. Just give us a Ra damn break!

  But she had no time for such thoughts now.

  Right now, the world was burning. The human fleet was collapsing. Mairead had to save whatever she could of humanity—or die trying.

  A blast hit her stern.

  She grunted as smoke filled the cockpit. Her Firebird tumbled, and she wrestled with the yoke, finally steadying the starfighter.

  Another blast slammed into her.

  Her canopy shattered.

  Mairead screamed. Shards dug into her armored suit, then streamed out into the vacuum. She clenched her jaw, wre
stling with the yoke, spinning madly. Everywhere around her—thousands of warships and starfighters. Jagged debris. Lasers and missiles and bullets. Floating corpses.

  A Firebird exploded beside her.

  Ten Copperheads swooped, firing lasers, carving up a human frigate. The massive warship tore apart. Its decks plummeted toward Earth and burned up in the atmosphere.

  Mairead shouted and opened fire. She didn't even have to aim. The enemy was everywhere. Her missiles slammed into a Rattler. Her bullets tore through a Copperhead. But it was like swatting two bees in a swarm—pointless.

  Another Firebird exploded. Another frigate burned.

  And Mairead knew she was going to die.

  Her breath shook in her chest. She was only twenty-seven. She had never fallen in love. She had never gotten married, raised a family.

  It's too soon. I'm not ready.

  She fired again, unleashing her last two missiles. She was down to bullets now, and her Firebird was barely flying. Her fleet was collapsing.

  Below her, the HDFS Jerusalem began to rise.

  The mighty frigate, flagship of the human fleet, had been Mairead's home all her life. She had been born in space, born into this war—born on that very ship. She had been raised aboard the Jerusalem, spending her childhood running through the winding corridors, exploring the engine room, gazing through the portholes at the stars. Even since arriving at Earth two years ago, Mairead had spent most of her time aboard the Jerusalem, ready to pilot her Firebird at a moment's notice.

  Now the Jerusalem, that beloved home, was cracked and leaking air. The lasers had seared off several decks. More fire kept pounding her, stripping off the last of her shields. Yet still the frigate flew, rising toward the enemy armada. As smaller warships shattered and fell around her, the legendary Jerusalem kept soaring.

  A broadcast emerged from the Jerusalem. The small monitor in Mairead's cockpit was cracked, but it flickered to life, showing a grainy image. She saw General Crane, a stocky man with gray hair and a bushy mustache. For decades, Emet Ben-Ari had commanded the Jerusalem. But Emet was president of Earth now, fighting down on the surface, and Crane commanded the human fleet. Now Crane spoke to the fleet as his bridge burned around him.