Alone, Page 2

  Mounted atop her monster, Maria D’souza has become a death goddess of the jungle. She has killed more enemy soldiers than anyone. Except for Farrar, of course, but that’s why we used him as bait.

  We used to think Barkah controlled all the Springers on Omeyocan. We were wrong. There are four main tribes that we know of. Barkah’s tribe, the Malbinti, claims the areas around Uchmal. The Khochin are far to the south of our city. The Podakra are just a day’s ride to the west. The largest tribe of all, the Galanak, fill the jungle to the northeast.

  “Belligerents” is what we’ve come to call the Springers that attack us at every turn. We haven’t taken any alive yet, but based on the clothing of those we killed in battle they have members from all four known tribes, including the Malbinti. Barkah doesn’t know why some of his people joined them.

  The Belligerents don’t have uniforms, but they do have one unifying element. In addition to the jungle rags of blue, yellow and green, they all wear at least one bit of red.

  Red—the same color as the robes Aramovsky wore, as the robes in the carvings on the Observatory.

  In the past few months, the Belligerents have been burning our crops, attacking us when we go outside the walls. Whatever their reasons, the Belligerents are aggressive and trying to kill my people.

  I can’t allow that to continue.

  “Get into position,” I say to Maria. “We attack immediately.”

  Maria and Fenrir vanish into the jungle with barely a sound. How something that big can move so quietly, I have no idea.

  “Finally,” Bawden says. “Those bug-eyed bastards can’t escape this time.”

  I give her a short glance. Bawden was close with J. York, a circle boy who was killed by Belligerents a few months ago. Bawden wants revenge. Too many of my people want revenge.

  “Our allies are also bug-eyed bastards,” I say. “Do you forget that? Or do you want to cuss at the people who are fighting on our side?”

  Bawden answers with only a belch, which makes Victor laugh.

  I’ll never understand circle-stars.

  “Clear away the brush,” I say. “We go now.”

  Victor and Bawden toss aside our cover of branches. My spear is held by a bracket mounted on the cockpit’s rear wall. I yank the spear free, then raise it high and circle it in the air—the signal for my platoon to move out. Branches rustle around us as two other spider crews clear them away and prepare to leave. A dozen young circle-stars silently rise up from hidden places in the underbrush. They wear black coveralls, like me, but are wrapped in vines, their faces and hair smeared with dark mud. They make ready to march, make ready to fight.

  Including me, my platoon has twenty-one humans: nine on spiderback, twelve on foot. Maria’s squad—“D’souza’s Demons”—has three snake-wolves and their riders, along with eighteen Springers on foot. Squad Two—called “the Creepers” and led by Lahfah, Barkah’s mate—has the same numbers as D’souza’s Demons. That means we’ll attack with a combination of sixty-three troops, three spiders and six snake-wolves. We’re slightly outnumbered, but technology is on our side. And in reserve, we have two hundred Springers led by Barkah himself. I almost feel sorry for the Belligerents we’re about to attack.

  Almost.

  “Bawden, lead us out.”

  She does. Our spider rises up, the cockpit now four meters above the jungle floor. Mud drips down from the dented yellow shell and the black 05 painted on either side.

  We march to battle.

  —

  The Belligerents like to hit and run. They never fight in the open. When they started attacking our people, our crops, Barkah’s patrols and his new city of Schechak, we would ride our spiders out from Uchmal to fight them. But as fast as the spiders are, by the time we reached the conflict the Belligerents had already melted into the jungle, leaving bodies and carnage behind.

  Just over a year ago, Aramovsky led our people to war with Barkah’s father, the former Springer king. The battle was brief but bloody. Barkah and I brought our two peoples together. We made peace. While some hatred and distrust remained between our two races, we worked hard to coexist, to learn from each other so that both cultures could flourish and grow.

  Other than a few scuffles, there was little trouble.

  But six months ago, that started to change.

  Barkah’s people started to confront us. Verbally at first, then arguments turned to fistfights. Then knife fights. My people—and Barkah’s—started getting hurt. Barkah and I both punished the aggressors, trying to set an example that hate would not be tolerated.

  It’s not just the Springers who are changing. My people have grown steadily angrier. More vocal about making Uchmal “human-only,” about driving all Springers out of the jungle around our city. Whenever I hear this talk, I shut it down—as do Bishop, Borjigin and many others—but these hateful feelings are gaining momentum.

  We initially blamed our own increased hostility on the stress and anxiety caused by three starships closing in on Omeyocan. The first of those will reach orbit any day now, Spingate tells me. We don’t know what these aliens want. We don’t know where they came from. We have to assume they’re coming to kill us, bringing death just as our Xolotl brought death to the Springers.

  Now, however, I don’t think the approaching starships are the reason for these troubles. As a people, our attitudes have shifted too far, too fast—and the presence of those ships wouldn’t explain why the Springers have become more violent. I’m at a loss to explain what is happening to all of us.

  Before the Birthday Children arrived, all Springers lived underground. It was the only way they survived the endless attacks of roaming spiders, machines still following commands given to them centuries ago. Since Barkah and I made peace—and since I stopped the spiders from ravaging the countryside—most of his tribe now lives in Schechak, the first aboveground city his species has had in at least two hundred years.

  As more Springers move into that city, they have abandoned the underground villages and endless tunnels surrounding Uchmal. The Belligerents have made good use of these hidey-holes. Once the terrorists are out of sight, it’s nearly impossible to find them again.

  That’s why we had to stay hidden for days, suffering through the pouring rain, freezing our butts off—so we could catch them aboveground. We have to hit them with force before they can slither beneath the surface like the worms they are.

  It frustrates me to no end that we spend so much time trying to defeat the Belligerents. Three alien ships are coming to Omeyocan, which means the beings already on this planet should be working together to create a common defense. But instead, we fight among ourselves. Diplomacy is complicated; fighting is simple. I guiltily admit to myself that part of me—a big part—is excited this battle has come. Maybe we can eliminate our enemy, then Barkah and I can concentrate our energies on the larger threat yet to come.

  The Annoying Little Voice creeps up again: It’s too late for that. If you were a better leader, you’d have unified everyone already. I smile to myself as I put that voice in its place, lock it into the shadowy back room of my mind—something I seem to be able to do only when it’s time to fight.

  Bawden guides our spider through the jungle. Behind us are two more spiders and a dozen tireless young circle-stars armed with bracelets, rifles and their handheld weapon of choice. Somewhere off to my left, D’souza’s Demons are moving in as well.

  I smell smoke: our corn crop, burning.

  The Belligerents have eluded me for months, but now they’ve taken the bait.

  We have them.

  I rotate my right hand sharply left, then right, the hard twitch that activates my bracelet. I feel a vibration as the weapon powers up. The white stone at the base of its long point starts to glow with a soft light.

  “Bawden, keep moving forward, quietly,” I say. “Victor, get ready, see if we can take out their lookouts before they sound a warning.”

  I didn’t think the corn crop was eno
ugh bait by itself, so I ordered Farrar to build a small outpost right in the middle of the field. The presence of the outpost means that the Belligerents have to bring a larger force if they want to destroy it. But the outpost isn’t the real bait—Farrar is.

  Among Barkah’s tribe and the Belligerents both, Farrar has come to be known as meh ahn nahak. Loosely translated, it means “the digger of graves.” Many jungle battles result in hand-to-hand combat, where Farrar is deadly with his preferred weapon—a long-handled shovel sharpened to a razor’s edge. He’s almost as big as Bishop, and his skin is nearly as black as that of the Grownups. Even from a distance, Farrar is an instantly recognizable figure. I had hoped his presence might be too much for our enemy to resist.

  That meant, though, putting him and his squad of five young circle-stars in significant danger. This is war, and those are the chances a leader has to take to catch an enemy that refuses to stand and fight. Now that the trap has been sprung, all Farrar and his squad have to do is hunker down and survive the next few minutes.

  Our spider quietly steps through the underbrush, a stalking predator worthy of its namesake. Victor rolls out his neck, loosening up for the coming battle. He unslings his rifle, raises the stock to his shoulder and scans the jungle. His bracelet is a more powerful weapon, but he can fire eight rifle rounds in the time it takes the bracelet to recharge for a second shot.

  The rifles are made in Schechak’s new factories. At first, the Springers used muskets against us. Muskets have to be reloaded after every shot, while the more accurate rifles can fire ten times before reloading. Victor is probably our best marksman, although Maria is close—she can hit a bull’s-eye from fifty meters away while the hurukan beneath her tears through the jungle at a full gallop.

  Me? I’ll stick with the bracelet. Rifles kick too much. They hurt my shoulder.

  “Coming up on the clearing,” Bawden says.

  I raise my spear, point it right, then left, telling the trailing spiders to fan out. Spider 04 goes right, 02 goes left.

  The crescent-shaped clearing. The same place where Aramovsky led my people against the Springers. That battle created too many corpses on both sides for us to completely forgive each other. That’s why I chose the clearing as a site to grow crops. I hoped that if we could turn a place of death into a cradle of life, the memories of that battle might fade a bit faster. It seemed to work for those first six months. Now the Belligerents constantly attack our crops. They don’t want the field of death to grow over—hate is the only crop they want to harvest.

  Filtering through the jungle, I hear the unmistakable sounds of war. Rifle fire, echoing musket reports, the telltale hiss of bracelet beams lashing out.

  The battle has begun.

  “Bawden,” I say, “take us to full speed!”

  I grip the armored ridge with one hand. We lurch forward, the need for silence forgotten. I duck down to avoid the branches and snagging vines that slap against the metal shell. The two flanking spiders will match our speed. We’ll pull ahead of our foot soldiers, but I don’t have a choice—if we don’t close quickly, the Belligerents could either escape or overrun Farrar and his squad.

  Through the dark jungle, I see the bright glow of flames. Our spider bursts from the trees and into the clearing. Our carefully tended field of corn is a sea of writhing orange.

  We’ve surprised several Belligerents. At the sight of our powerful machines, they flee, flames silhouetting their graceful movements. Strong legs launch the Springers in powerful leaps, long tails trailing behind to balance out their thick bodies. Firelight reflects off their three eyes. Wide toad-mouths bark out what might be commands, might be screams of panic.

  Victor slings his rifle and grasps the cannon controls. I wish we didn’t have to use this horrible weapon, but the Belligerents are destroying our crops, attacking us, killing us.

  I duck down, so that only my head and shoulders are above the protective ridge. I straighten my bracelet arm, find a target, and give the order.

  “Fire!”

  I flick my fingers forward. A beam of white light lances out from my bracelet’s long point, ripping toward the closest Belligerent—I miss.

  Victor does not. The cannon’s beam is larger than mine, glows so bright it seems to dim the flames. The beam hits a leaping Springer, blasting the living creature into a hundred bits of smoking meat and bone.

  Beam-cannon fire lashes out from my left and right, tearing up thick chunks of dirt. Flaming corn spins away in pinwheeling clouds of sparks.

  I hear the terrified, pain-filled screams of our enemy.

  But I also hear muskets boom and rifles crack, see cones of flame flicking from the dark, there one second, then gone the next. One of those cones flares up just to my right: I pivot in place, as Bishop showed me, squaring my shoulders toward the target. At first I see nothing but smoke and flame, then movement, a hopping Springer silhouetted against burning corn.

  I fire.

  White light catches the Springer in midair. Over the roar of the flames and the bursts of weapons fire, I hear it shriek in the split second before it is torn in half.

  This is not the first time I’ve killed.

  It won’t be the last.

  The few Belligerents we can see realize they are cut off from the jungle. They scatter along the edge of the flames, rushing to my left. Big mistake. I hear the growling howls of snake-wolves, then D’souza’s Demons rip from the darkness and into the flickering light. She stands in her saddle, rifle tight to her shoulder, her knees bending in time with her mount’s galloping stride. She fires: I see a Springer go down.

  Her mount overruns a fleeing Belligerent. The snake trunk snaps forward. Pincers slam shut on the poor creature, bony points punching through cloth and flesh. The trunk curls up, raising the Springer high before whipping it down so fast that bones shatter on impact.

  Bawden slows our spider. We stop at the edge of the blazing corn crop. I see narrow paths through the flames. The Belligerents cleared space before they set the fires, giving themselves a way to escape where our cavalry could not follow. Smart. But this time, we are smarter.

  Far off to my right, I hear rifle fire and hurukan roars echoing over the flames.

  “Lahfah’s Creepers,” Victor says. “The Belligerents must have fled and run right into them.”

  Bawden unslings her rifle, sights down the barrel and slowly turns left, then right, looking for a target.

  “Bastards,” she says. “I hope they all die. Em, some of them could be hiding in the flames. Let me go into those paths and root them out.”

  I don’t want any more death if it can be avoided.

  “Stay in the spider,” I say. “If we see any Belligerents, try to capture them. A prisoner is more valuable than a corpse.”

  From the north, we hear distant rifle cracks. That’s Barkah’s battalion. The Belligerents fled in all directions, and in all directions we were waiting for them.

  Our corn burns. There’s no putting out this fire. It would have been better to catch the Belligerents before they set this blaze, but the large crop was part of the bait. When you want something bad enough in life, you have to make sacrifices to get it.

  “Movement,” Victor says as he swings the cannon to bear.

  I look, see a Springer hop out from the fire. Its jungle rags are smoldering; its three yellow eyes are wide with fear. Its skin is mostly red—it is so young the purple coloration that marks a teenager has barely begun to set in. A child soldier. But a strip of red cloth tied around each arm tells me this “child” is our enemy.

  “Hold your fire,” I snap at Victor. To the Springer, I shout: “Gaintox!”

  I know very little of the Springer language, but I made sure I learned their word for “surrender.”

  The Springer panics, rushes back into the burning cornfield, instantly vanishing behind shimmering flames.

  “I’ll kill it,” Bawden shouts as she leaps over the ledge.

  I instinctively reach
out to grab her, to stop her, but my fingers clutch only empty air.

  Victor tilts the spider cannon up, a reaction to keep from accidentally shooting the circle-star woman who hits the ground running. In an instant, he’s over the ridge and chasing her, rifle slung, both hands on his spear.

  The circle-stars move so fast I feel like I’m in slow motion. Spear in one hand, I swing over the rail, then descend the built-in ladder rungs. Circle-stars can leap out of the cockpit and not kill themselves, but I’m not engineered for war like they are.

  I hear shouts from the other spider crews, and from the circle-star infantry behind me that is finally reaching the clearing, yet there is no time to wait.

  What is Bawden doing? She’s never disobeyed an order before. This isn’t like her at all.

  I rush into the flames after my people. The narrow path twists and turns through the tall burning corn—I’m instantly lost in a maze of fire. Heat bakes my face and hands, stings my eyes.

  Through the shimmering haze, I see Bawden in a small open space where the fire has mostly burned down. She’s smiling, pitchfork in hand as she and the yellow-eyed Springer child soldier circle each other, each step kicking up fresh ash. The Belligerent holds a hatchet in its two-fingered hand. Bawden is at least twice as large as her terrified foe.

  From another path, two more Belligerents rush in, the rags tied around their bodies smoldering with small flames. They hold muskets tipped with long bayonets—the sharp metal shimmers with reflected firelight. The hammers of their muskets are not cocked back; the weapons are empty. The Springers are either out of ammo or haven’t had time to reload.

  I aim my bracelet, but don’t shoot. My eyes are watering and the heat makes everything shimmer madly—I might hit Bawden. I sprint toward her.

  Outnumbered three to one, Bawden attacks. She roars, jabs with the pitchfork. The young Springer flinches in terror, turns away—the sharp pitchfork tines plunge into its back. Before she can pull it free, the second Springer’s bayonet pierces her shoulder. Bawden screams in pain, but grabs the musket barrel—she and her foe struggle for the weapon.