Earth Eternal (Earthrise Book 9) Read online

  "I'm with you, Addy. Always."

  "Meet you downstairs, Stinky. Bring lots of guns."

  Marco stepped out from his sensor suit, losing control of the mecha. It was a disconcerting experience, almost as dizzying as entering warp space. His consciousness shrank, pulling out of the mighty mecha and returning to his own—much smaller—body. For a moment Marco could only blink. He shook his head wildly, readjusting to his smaller dimensions, to being a mere man again. He stood inside the mecha's head, a control room filled with monitors, keyboards, and the control suit he had just vacated.

  After finding his bearings, he entered the elevator. On the way down, he stopped by the armory, a chamber in the mecha's chest. He found an armored spacesuit. It was crimson and painted with golden runes, and when he put it on, he felt like an ancient Chinese warrior. The Taolians were a bit shorter than humans, and perhaps for the first time of his life, Marco was thankful for his humble five feet and seven inches. Addy had always teased him about his height, but at least that meant he could fit into this armor. From a weapon rack he chose a railgun; it too was dark red and trimmed with gold. Finally he grabbed a sword, its pommel shaped like a lion's head.

  He stepped onto the surface of Titan. Rain was falling, thick with soot, and methane rivulets flowed across the mud. The atmosphere was so thick it felt like walking through soup. Scabby insects scuttled underfoot, the evolution of parasites humans had brought from Earth. Marco was reminded of Haven, the colony where he had spent two years; the air there too had been thick with haze and foul rain.

  He met Addy between the mechas. She too wore an armored spacesuit. She carried a railgun and her backpack. They shared a quick embrace.

  "Fuck, I could barely squeeze into this armor," Addy said. "Those Taolians were tiny."

  They probably didn't eat as many hot dogs, Marco wanted to say but didn't feel like getting punched repeatedly in the face.

  "You don't need your backpack," he said. "What have you got in there? Schoolbooks?"

  She snorted. "You know I only read Freaks of the Galaxy. Just bringing some supplies."

  Marco nodded. "All right, let's do this thing." He began walking toward the colony gateway. "We'll do it quick. We barge in, bullets spraying. We kill the grays. We save the colonists. Easy peasy. Good luck in there, Ads." He paused and looked behind him. "Ads? Addy! What are you doing?"

  She had walked under his mecha and was peering upward. "Just trying to see if he has a robo-willy. But it's too dark up there. Got a flashlight?"

  He grabbed her and dragged her away, shaking his head in disgust. "Come on."

  They stepped through the smog and rain toward the colony. The walls soared ahead, dark and rising into nitrogen clouds. Barbed wire secured the installation, and a guard tower rose above, but Marco saw only a skeleton inside.

  He and Addy kept walking, silent, scanning the area, guns pointing ahead. The old instincts kicked in. Marco had been away from the military for a long time, but a soldier remained a soldier. A soldier never forgot.

  They reached the colony gateway and froze.

  They stared.

  Marco's heart thrashed, and cold sweat washed him.

  "Those bastards," Addy whispered through clenched teeth. "Those goddamn sick bastards."

  Severed human limbs hung from the gate like a Christmas wreath. A child's head was nailed to the door, eyes gouged out and stuffed into his mouth. Severed fingers filled the empty eye sockets. With blood, somebody had scrawled a message on the doorway: Come in, apes. Treats inside!

  Marco stared, eyes burning. His chest ached. His head spun.

  Deep Being. You are not your fear. You are fire over calm water.

  "Let's kill those sons of bitches," he whispered, voice shaking.

  He and Addy shouted and kicked open the doors. They stormed inside, railguns held before them.

  A scene from hell awaited them.

  A hallway stretched ahead, drenched in blood. Intestines hung from the ceiling like party ribbons. Human corpses were nailed into the walls, their ribs cracked open, the organs removed and placed on the floor. No. Not corpses. They were alive. It was impossible. Impossible! And yet the hearts were beating on the floor. The eyes were moving. The mouths opened and closed, whispering, begging for death.

  Marco's head spun. He wanted to retch. The humans on the walls stared at him, missing limbs, their spines exposed, gutted like fish yet still whimpering. Addy stared with him, eyes wide, jaw clenched, face pale.

  Marco and Addy walked through this nightmare, staring around, not sure what to do, how to save these people.

  They were halfway down the corridor when the door slammed shut behind them.

  Another door, at the opposite end of the corridor, slammed shut too.

  Marco took a step forward. A boy hung on the wall ahead, his ribs opened like saloon doors. Just a boy. He was whispering to Marco. Tears in his eyes.

  As in a dream, Marco stepped closer.

  "Run," the boy whispered. "Run."

  That's when Marco saw what was inside the boy's chest.

  Wires. Pipes. A ticking timer.

  "Addy!" he shouted. "Run!"

  They ran down the corridor, under the dangling entrails, toward the far door. They fired their railguns, shattering the door ahead, and leaped toward the entrance, shouting, and—

  A pop louder than a cannon.

  Searing, furious sound followed by ringing like a siren.

  Fire. White fire everywhere, blasting around him, and the hammers of gods slamming into his back.

  Marco and Addy tumbled through the shattered doorway as the corridor behind them crumbled and blazed.

  The colony—Titan itself—shook.

  Marco slammed onto the floor facedown. Addy lay on her side, moaning, her visor cracked. Flames fluttered across their armor, melting the golden runes engraved onto the crimson plates. Smoke filled the chamber. Marco could barely breathe, barely move. Searing pain was clawing at his leg. Nothing but ringing—deafening ringing, wailing, a banshee cry in his ears, and his mind seemed muffled, wrapped in cotton. His knuckles were crushed; he had landed on his rifle. Addy was shouting something. He couldn't hear.

  And from the smoke ahead, they emerged.

  Countless of them, black eyes filled with glee, claws reaching out like demons from the abyss.

  The grays.

  One of the creatures grabbed Marco, claws digging through armor and flesh. Marco screamed. He could barely even hear that scream above the ringing in his ears.

  But he could hear the gray's words.

  The towering, wrinkled creature gripped him tighter, his black eyes penetrating, searing, digging through Marco deeper than the claws. The gray's voice filled Marco's mind, guttural and demonic.

  You . . . will . . . suffer.

  Marco's consciousness unfurled. The colony peeled back. The vastness of space and time spread out around him like a blooming wound, rife with terrors. He saw Earth burning. He saw Earth black and dead. He saw himself and his friends nailed into ankhs, flayed, cracked open, screaming, growing old in agony.

  The claws tightened. More grays leaned above Marco, grabbing, cutting, mocking. Their voices hissed, a cacophony in his mind.

  You . . . will . . . beg . . .

  Their banners rose over the ruins of Earth, black and crimson, as the millions perished on ankhs, screaming under a blood-red sky. A new Earth. An Earth reborn, cruel and macabre. An Earth of humanity enslaved and wretched and crawling in the mud, begging for mercy from their masters.

  The terror filled Marco.

  The visions swirled through his skull.

  The voices chanted, screamed, laughed. Everywhere—their laughter.

  And beneath—cool water. A solid stone.

  You are not your thoughts.

  He breathed.

  You are not your fear.

  He grabbed his fallen railgun.

  Breathe. Observe. Be.

  He sank into Deep Being, letting th
e nightmares flow above him like storms in a sky. He saw the grays' eyes widen in shock. And Marco fired his railgun.

  His bullets blasted out at hypersonic speed, far faster and more destructive than what a regular rifle could fire. They tore through a gray, pulverizing the creature's flesh and bones.

  The claws pulled free from his armor.

  Marco turned toward another gray and fired again, tearing through the beast, scattering bones.

  He spun to his right. Several grays had grabbed Addy, were carrying her away. He fired. Again and again. His bullets sliced through the grays' legs, ripping them off, and Addy fell.

  The creatures were everywhere. More kept emerging from the smoke. Marco loaded another magazine and fired again, slaying them. They fired back, aiming bulky black guns. Electrical bolts slammed into Marco's armor, and the pain was terrifying and white and all-consuming, and tears filled his eyes and his teeth rattled, but he kept firing through the agony. He kept killing them.

  Because that's who I am, he thought. A killer. That's what the HDF made me. That's what the scum made me. That's what the marauders made me. I was born to kill. I am a soldier.

  Addy rose beside him, panting, coughing, wounded. She fished her railgun out from the gore, and she screamed as she fired, pulverizing the grays that swarmed toward them.

  "Keep tearing through them, Addy!" Marco said. "Forward! Let's get out of this gauntlet!"

  She nodded. They walked through the smoke, blasting back grays. They found themselves in a towering, transparent dome, a plaza atop the hill. Once, perhaps, this place had been beautiful. Now death filled it. A statue of Yuri Gagarin, first human in space, lay fallen and draped with corpses. Somebody had broken off the statue's bronze head and replaced it with the severed head of a colonist. Alcoves around the plaza, perhaps once shops, now contained statues of Nefitis, twenty stone likenesses of the goddess, human hearts laid at their feet as offerings.

  A few grays lurked in the plaza, hissing. Marco and Addy took them down with a hailstorm of bullets. They stood over the corpses.

  "That's right, assholes!" Addy shouted, looking around, arms raised in triumph. She kicked one of the dead grays. "Nobody messes with Marco Emery and Addy Linden! We'll kill every last one of you fuckers!" She laughed maniacally, and tears streamed down her cheeks. Her hands were trembling. "Is that all you've got? Come on! Come on, assholes! Come face us! We've got more bullets for you! I'll kill every last fucking one of you!"

  Marco placed a hand on her shoulder. "Addy. It's all right."

  She was trembling, panting, sobbing. She gritted her teeth, whipping her head from side to side. The corpses of grays lay around them, some still twitching. From the ceiling hung other corpses—the corpses of human colonists, disemboweled, stretched wide, skin hammered into stone. The grays had made this place a temple of death.

  They're a race of Josef Mengeles, Marco thought, nausea filling him.

  "The dead colonists are all men," he said. "We have to find the women and children."

  From deeper in the colony, voices rose, speaking in an alien tongue. Laughter echoed. Creatures cackled. Marco and Addy had slain many grays, but many others still lurked here.

  Addy nodded and spat through her shattered visor. She sniffed and wiped her tears.

  "Let's go kill those assholes."

  They ran into a covered walkway, the glass ceiling affording a view of Titan's orange clouds. Methane rain pattered above, thick with organic ash. The walkway took them to another building, and they burst into a brick corridor lined with doors, perhaps the colony's living quarters.

  Screeches tore through the air. The lights shut off with a thud.

  Marco and Addy froze, guns raised, and activated the flashlights on their helmets.

  Their beams fell upon dozens of grays.

  The creatures emerged from the doorways, naked, hissing, claws red with blood. Marco and Addy shouted, firing. Their muzzles lit the shadows.

  They moved down the corridor, but the grays were everywhere, emerging from bunks, scuttling along the ceiling, bursting out from vents below. Marco and Addy's bullets tore through them.

  Screams rose ahead—these ones human screams.

  "Come on, Addy!" Marco ran, cleaving a path before him with his railgun. "Forget clearing these rooms. Prisoners ahead!"

  They raced through the gauntlet. From every door they passed, grays emerged, cackling, lashing at them. Claws tore off their armor. Claws tore their skin. Marco and Addy kept running. They reached the end of the hall, blew back a gray guardian, and burst into another dome.

  They froze.

  They had found the women of the colony.

  They stared, for a moment too shocked to move. Addy paled, and her fists clenched.

  The women were still alive, but barely. Hundreds crowded the chamber, living in squalor, their own waste covering the floor. The grays had cut off their feet, cauterizing the wounds, leaving the prisoners hobbled. Most of the women were pregnant, bellies swelling. A few were nursing babies with swollen heads, pinched faces, and oval eyes—hybrids. Some hybrids were already toddlers; one gazed at Marco curiously, chewing on a raw, severed foot.

  How long have they been here? Marco thought, nausea filling his belly. Time was relative across space. He had been on Durmia for a few months, but several years might have passed here.

  The women looked up at him and Addy. Tears filled their eyes.

  "Help us," they whispered. "Help us . . ."

  Several women lay on the ground. Grays had mounted them, were copulating with them, grunting, hissing, grinning at Marco.

  He shouted and ran. Addy ran with him. Their bullets blazed out, shattering the grays. Marco knelt by one of the women, tried to help her up. She gazed at him with terrified eyes.

  "Above you!" she whispered.

  Marco looked up and screamed.

  Hanging like bats, hundreds of grays coated the ceiling.

  The beasts leaped down, shrieking.

  Marco howled and fired his gun. Addy fired too. They slew a few grays, but others mobbed them. Addy's gun ran out of bullets first. Grays knocked into her, cut her skin. She screamed, swinging her rifle like a club. Marco's railgun ran out of ammo next. The grays were everywhere. Many carried guns, and electrical bolts slammed into Marco, burning him, knocking him down. He lay on the bloodied floor.

  And Marco knew he was going to die.

  And he refused.

  No. No!

  As the claws grabbed him, stripping off what remained of his armor, he gritted his teeth.

  No!

  The grays leaned above him, smirking, drooling. One licked him.

  "You are a precious toy," the creature hissed. "We cannot impregnate you. But we can try . . ."

  Marco clenched his fists.

  "People of Earth!" he shouted. "Grab their fallen weapons! And fight! Fight for humanity!"

  Across the chamber were dead grays, still clutching their guns. Among them cowered the human women.

  "Fight them!" Addy shouted, struggling against gray claws. "Grab guns and rise! For Earth! For Earth!"

  And across the hall, the women—pregnant, abused, their feet cut off—crawled toward the dead grays and wrenched the guns free.

  And they fought.

  And they rose up.

  Some fired their guns from the ground. Others stood on stumps, howling, blasting out electrical bolts, tearing into the enemy. The fire slammed into the grays clutching Marco. He shoved their burning bodies back, grabbed a fallen rifle, and fired too. Addy howled at his side, firing a gray gun in each hand.

  They fought—two veterans and a hundred mutilated women. They killed. They drove back the enemies.

  The surviving grays shrieked. They began snatching up the hybrid babies. One gray, perhaps in a panic, began tearing into a baby with his teeth, sucking on the entrails. Marco fired, killing the creature. The other grays tried to flee, only for the bolts to knock them down.

  The surviving humans stood a
mong the carnage. Dozens of dead women and babies lay across the floor.

  But the grays lay dead among them. And hundreds of humans still lived.

  "Fuck yeah!" Addy shouted, raising her fist. "Victory! Victory!"

  But nobody else was cheering. The women looked at one another, fear in their eyes. A child wailed.

  A woman crawled up to Marco. She grabbed his leg and stared up with terrified eyes.

  "She heard," the woman whispered, voice shaking. "She is coming."

  Addy spun toward them. "Who?"

  The woman trembled. She could no longer speak.

  From deep in the complex—laughter. High-pitched. Demonic. The surviving women wailed.

  Marco turned toward one of the survivors, a tall woman with black hair. She had managed to stand on her stumps, leaning on a rifle like a crutch. There was no mistaking the tattoos on her arms; she was a veteran, one who had killed scum. She met Marco's gaze. Her eyes were hard. Eyes that had seen much darkness, that had withstood it.

  "Lead the survivors out," Marco told her. "You'll be able to survive a short dash on the surface. Lead them into our mechas outside. You'll know what I mean when you see them."

  The inhuman laughter rose again, drawing closer. Cackling.

  "Go!" Marco said. "We'll hold her off."

  The woman stared into his eyes. "You do not know who you face. You cannot kill her."

  "You'd be surprised what we can kill," Marco said. "Hurry! Go! Lead the survivors out."

  The veteran nodded and began leading the women and children out of the dome. A few of the women managed to hobble on makeshift crutches. Most could only crawl. As they fled, the demonic laughter grew louder, closer. A voice sang, dripping with mockery.

  Ring around the rosie

  A pocket full of posies

  Ashes! Ashes!

  They all fall . . . down!

  And from a tunnel, she emerged into the dome, smiling crookedly.

  Marco took a step back and raised his gun. Addy sneered at his side, a rifle in each hand.

  The creature sashayed toward them. She was female, a beautiful woman flowing with curves. She had a human body, voluptuous and strong. Yet her head was massively swollen, twice the normal size. The head of a gray. Her eyes were oval and searing blue, her claws long. A string of babies' severed arms hung around her neck, woven like a daisy chain, still dripping blood.