The Earthling (Soldiers of Earthrise Book 1) Read online

  THE EARTHLING

  SOLDIERS OF EARTHRISE, BOOK 1

  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

  NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

  KEEP IN TOUCH

  Illustration © Tom Edwards - TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Chapter One

  Symphonica

  Jon was waiting to join the war when his brother came home in a body bag.

  At eighteen, Jon didn't want to fight. Like most boys his age, he was interested in girls, music, having fun. But he had graduated high school. His draft notice had come in the mail, folded inside a little brown envelope. In only a week, the army would take him. Break him. Train him. And send him into the fire.

  His brother, Paul, had been only nineteen. Corporal Paul Taylor had not lasted long in the army. Not even a year. That meat grinder in deep space, that beast called the Colony War, had devoured another victim. Another kid who would never see twenty.

  And still the beast was hungry.

  I wonder how long I will last, Jon thought.

  It rained during the funeral. They stood in the military cemetery—a sea of black umbrellas. They listened to the twenty-one gun salute. They watched Paul lowered underground.

  The family was there, and they wept, and army officers were there, and they stood with solemn dignity. But Jon stood apart from them.

  He stood with his friends. With the gang. The same gang Paul had belonged to. This group of misfits. This band of musicians, of poets, of dreamers. A band called Symphonica. A quartet cut down to a trio. They stood in the rain, scarcely believing, saying goodbye.

  Him, Jon Taylor. Keyboardist and composer and leader of the losers. The rain in his long black hair.

  George Williams, drummer. A giant, towering over the others, the largest boy in town, weeping like a child.

  Kaelyn Williams, petite and pale, her red hair flowing. Soprano. Angel in the rain.

  The three friends stood together. Survivors of Symphonica. They were the nerds, the outcasts, the lords of the suburbs. They grew up playing D&D and riding their bikes in the woods like stallions, dreaming of adventures in Middle Earth. They smoked weed in basements and listened to obscure symphonic metal bands from centuries ago. With their own band, they aped the ancient gods of metal. They themselves were but angels with clipped wings.

  They shared secrets. They shared hopes. They wrote and played music, and they dreamed of stardom. As if there was no war. As if there was no meat grinder in space that tore boys and girls apart. As if the little brown envelopes had not come. Draft notices. Summonses to hell.

  Symphonica. They were dreamers, and they were asleep.

  And today, in this cemetery, they woke up.

  Today they stood in the rain, saying goodbye to their guitarist, to their friend and brother, to their childhood.

  The funeral ended.

  The rain kept falling.

  They walked home through mist and shadow.

  "I still remember the day Paul left to war," Jon said later that day. "Only last year. And now he's gone."

  And in a week, I will replace him, he thought, daring not speak of it. I will stand on the front line, and I will face the enemy, and there will be nothing between me and them but a rifle in my shaking hands. And if I'm not strong enough, not brave enough, I will join Paul underground.

  They were underground now too, though not yet in graves. The friends stood in Jon's basement—his little kingdom of music like the Phantom's lair. Posters of old symphonic bands hung on the walls, relics of better days, an era before the wars in space. Nightwish. Epica. Within Temptation. Holy names. The names of the old gods. Here in the basement was a temple. A keyboard stood like an altar, and a drum set rose like an orrery of planets. A purple guitar hung from the wall like a hallowed relic.

  Paul's guitar. Silenced.

  "We should play," Jon said. "For him."

  The Williams siblings stared at him, silent.

  George Williams was so tall he stood hunched over. Even so, his shaggy red hair brushed the ceiling. A tumor in George's brain, pressing on his pituitary gland, had caused him to sprout to a prodigious size. The doctors had removed the tumor two years ago. But they could not reverse his growth.

  "I… I can't." George's voice was deep and rumbling like the drums he played. Tears flowed down his freckled cheeks. "Not without him."

  His sister patted his back. Kaelyn William was nothing like her brother. She was short, slender, a third his size. But she had the same hair, red and wavy and beautiful. It was her eyes, however, that drew the most attention. Startling eyes. One blue, the other brown. Both intelligent and alert.

  "Paul would want us to play," Kaelyn whispered. Even when she whispered, her voice was fair, angelic, a voice that could shatter hearts of iron.

  Jon approached his keyboards. His sheets of notes were waiting for him, scribbled during bouts of frantic creativity. He had been working on his rock opera for a year now. Its name appeared atop every sheet. Falling Like the Rain. The story of a fallen soldier. Jon had never known death until today. Perhaps his muse had foreseen this loss, and as he began to play, his notes took on new meaning.

  This was no longer about a fictional fallen soldier, a young man looking back upon his life as he rose to heaven.

  It was now about Paul.

  Jon played the bittersweet notes, a dirge in C minor, and George began to beat his drums—softly at first, almost hesitantly. Then faster and louder, faster and louder, and soon George was beating the drums like a blacksmith pounding hot steel. Beating the drums so madly Jon worried they would break. Beating the drums as if George could beat the enemy that had taken their friend and brother. The giant's eyes were mad, no longer wet but blazing with fury, and his beat shook the basement like artillery in the jungle.

  And then Kaelyn began to sing.

  She stood before the two boys, eyes closed, head raised, and she sang. It was a high keen, an aria, a prayer. Her voice was starlight. Her voice was angels weeping over the fallen. Her voice was beams of moonlight on the scattered pages of dead boys' poetry. It was a voice so pure that Jon could barely play his keyboards. He trembled. It was a voice that pierced him with a thousand crystal blades.

  Paul wasn't here. But they had recor
dings of his guitar. Jon turned them on, and his brother's music filled the basement—distorted shredding at one moment, then clear and tragic the next, and it was like Paul was back. Playing with them.

  And Jon had to stop playing, because tears filled his eyes. He could no longer see the keyboard.

  And George let out a great howl, and slammed his drums so hard that they broke, and a cymbal crashed to the floor.

  Kaelyn's voice trailed off. She stood still, pale, her eyes closed, a fallen angel.

  Only Paul's guitars now sounded, a song from the afterworld. The living stood listening, silently letting the ghost of their loved one play his swan song.

  The last guitar note played, then faded.

  Silence filled the basement. The music had died. Perhaps forever.

  "In a week, I'll be there, Paul," Jon whispered into the silence. "In a week, I'll be a soldier like you were. I will face the enemy." He clenched his fists. "I will make them pay. I will kill them! I will kill them for what they did!" His voice rose to a torn howl. "I will kill the bastards, and—"

  He could say no more. He lowered his head. All the tears he could not shed at the funeral now came pouring out.

  And Kaelyn was there, embracing him, stroking his hair and whispering soothing nothings. And George was there, wrapping them both in his massive arms, holding them against his chest, as comforting as a mother hen. The three stood together. The nerds. The weirdos. These lords of music and awkwardness. Symphonica broken. Friends in a war too big for them. Scared in the dark.

  "Promise me something, Jon," Kaelyn whispered, stroking his hair. "Look into my eyes and promise."

  He looked into her mismatched eyes. "What?"

  She touched his cheek. "When you're there, Jon, don't hate the enemy. Don't seek revenge. Don't become a killer. Be a survivor. Nothing more. Promise me, Jon. Promise you'll be a survivor. That you'll come home. Promise me."

  He admired her eyes in silence, the blue one and the brown one. The eyes of a girl he loved. Of a seventeen-year-old soprano he wrote his music for. Of his Christine, because he often felt like the Phantom. Of his beauty, because he often felt like the beast. The eyes of Kaelyn Williams, not only his singer, but his muse.

  And in those eyes… he saw the war.

  He saw fire and guns and enemies in the trees.

  He saw rows of graves.

  "I hate them," Jon whispered, voice shaking. "I hate them so much. For what they did to us. I hate those…" He could not stop himself. "Those slits."

  Kaelyn gasped. She took a step back, and her eyes blazed. "Do not say that word. That's a slur."

  "How can you defend them?" Jon said, voice rising. "They're the enemy! They're butchering us! They're barely even human. They have aliens helping them. Some say they themselves are part alien. Half breeds. Monsters. You see what they do." A tear fell. "What they did."

  "They're not aliens!" she said. "They're just people. They don't even want this war. It's us Earthlings who started it, and—"

  "How can you blame us?" Jon was nearly shouting now. "How can you talk like a traitor? After the funeral today! After they murdered Paul—my brother, your boyfriend—how—"

  A roar.

  A howl.

  A torn cry filled the basement.

  "Enough!"

  Jon and Kaelyn spun around. The giant stood before them, hunched over, panting, face red.

  "Enough," George repeated, voice shaking. "Please. No political debates. No fighting. Not today. Not so soon after he died. Please. Please."

  And suddenly the giant, so terrifying a moment ago, was crying, as meek as a kitten.

  Jon patted him, then looked at Kaelyn.

  "I'm sorry," he said to his singer.

  She kissed his cheek. "Promise me, Jon. That you won't think like that. That you won't kill like that. Promise that you'll stay good. Do not come home a killer. Come back pure." She wiped her eyes. "Or come back dead."

  A chill ran down his spine. He held her hand. "I promise, Kaelyn. I promise."

  That night, after the Williams siblings went home, Jon could not sleep. He crept upstairs, careful not to creak the floorboards of this old bungalow on this little cul-de-sac. He tiptoed through the kitchen and past his parents' bedroom. They were asleep or grieving silently behind a closed door. The world was asleep. Only the crickets were awake, chirping outside like tiny armies fighting tiny wars. Jon walked past photos on the wall—captured memories of a smiling young man in a battlesuit. He walked through unbearable shadows and lingering silence.

  Finally Jon climbed into the attic. A lightbulb swung from the rafters, casting yellow light. Jon opened a cardboard box, and he found a dress uniform amid mothballs, neatly folded. He found military dog tags. He reached under the uniform, and he pulled out a rifle.

  Paul's things. Salvaged from the war and scrubbed of blood and ashes. Packed in a box like a cardboard coffin.

  Now these artifacts would rot away in their box, and Paul would remain just a photo on the wall, and the house was silent. Jon's life was silent. And the silence only ended when he played his music.

  And it wasn't only Paul. Because tens of thousands of soldiers were coming home in coffins. Because every day the starships came back from space, and the military hearses drove along the highways, bringing lost boys home.

  Jon held his brother's rifle to his chest. He gripped the wooden stock, knuckles white. And that rage filled him. That hatred of the enemy. That desire to aim his gun and fire and hear the boom like a drum and watch the monsters die.

  But Kaelyn had made him promise.

  Promise me. Promise that you'll stay good.

  "I promised," Jon said. "I will come back pure. Or I will come back dead."

  He returned his brother's gun to the box, and he moved toward the window. He sat down. The crickets kept chirping, and a shooting star blazed outside like a burning starship. Jon pulled his knees to his chest, and he sat in the attic by the little window, gazing out at the stars. In a week, he would wear his own uniform, his own dog tags. He would fly up there to the stars. He would hold a gun of his own, and he would face them in the darkness.

  The enemy.

  But he would not be afraid, and he would not be a killer, because he would remember Kaelyn's mismatched eyes, and he would remember her pure voice. He would remember this night, and this falling star, and his friends. He would carry his music with him, and he would hear Kaelyn's voice even as the artillery boomed and the dying screamed.

  He realized that he was holding a music sheet, the overture to Falling Like the Rain. He must have carried it from the basement without noticing. Kaelyn had signed her name on the top, and she had kissed the page, leaving a lipstick imprint. Jon remembered that day, that flight of whimsy, that signature of her lips on his newest work.

  Paul got a little jealous, Jon remembered with a sad smile. His girlfriend kissing my music! But then we all made music together and were laughing again.

  Jon stared at the sheet for a moment, then folded it and slipped it into his pocket. He would take it with him to war. His music and his muse would tether him to home like a rope of starlight.

  This is my anchor, he thought. Right here. This house, and this music, and her. I will be in darkness, but this strand of starlight will connect me home.

  He closed his eyes, and he slept, and he dreamed of his brother lost in the jungles of an alien world, fleeing shadows among the trees.

  Chapter Two

  Maria

  Maria was toiling in the rice paddies when she saw the Earthling's plane, a wounded angel of death.

  It was hurt, the hull perforated with bullet holes, one engine dead. A wake of crimson smoke trailed behind it like blood. Maria had seen flying machines before, rumbling overhead like mechanical demigods. Every day, these horrors from Earth flew on the hunt, bombing and killing, smiting the land. For the first time, Maria saw one bleed. She was a sparrow watching a dying eagle.

  "Girls, run! To the village!"

>   Lola Mahalia was shouting, her wizened brown face raised toward the sky. She was the eldest of the farmers, indeed the eldest person in San Luna village. She waved a red handkerchief as if ringing an alarm.

  "Girls, girls! Run! Aswang, aswang!"

  Aswang. It meant demon in Tagalog, the ancestral language of the Philippines. For three hundred years now, Maria and her people had been living here on Bahay, this planet so far from Mother Earth. But the old stories remained. The old words. The old fears.

  "It's not an aswang, Lola!" Maria said, using the Tagalog word for grandmother. "It's not an angel or a demon. It's just a machine. No different from a plow or seed thresher."

  Her grandmother glowered. "Be silent, mouse. Your brain is full of such nonsense. Where do you learn these things?" The old woman pointed at the sputtering plane. "It brings the liquid fire! Run! Hide from the demon!"

  Just a broken machine, Maria thought again.

  The Bahayans didn't have advanced machines like planes or tanks, let alone starships. The Santelmos, the beloved spheres of light, had blessed the First Colonists long ago, flying them to Bahay in silver chariots. That had been centuries ago. Before Earth had learned to build such horrors of metal.

  But I've learned so much about machines in this war, Maria thought. I learned how cruel they are. I learned what wickedness they bring. And now I learn that they are mortal.

  Across the rice paddies, the farmers looked up, squinting in the sun, watching the plane. Old Mahalia was still shouting at them to flee, but they didn't heed her wisdom. They realized what Maria had realized. That this plane would not rain the napalm or poison that had slain so many. That this plane was dying.

  It was circling overhead now, sputtering smoke. Perhaps seeking a place to land among the paddies. Perhaps seeking enemies below.

  Maria could imagine the pilot's thoughts.

  Is this village safe, or does the Kalayaan hide among the peasants? Should I crash land here? Or should I try to keep flying and fall into the sea?

  One way or another, this plane was coming down.

  "It must have come from the battles in the north," Maria whispered. "Why is it coming to our village? Did someone shoot it?"