Enemy (12 page)

     “...”

     “What is it? What’s wrong?”

     “There was a massacre around the fourth planet.”

     “The fleet?”           

     “The fleet—Simon is the only survivor.”

     “The Enemy?”

     “It’s coming. It’s coming to Harvest.”

     “No. Please, no.” Reynald’s whisper was barely audible over the breaking waves.

     “It’s coming.”

     The sky above them was torn open as Simon’s longboat plummeted to the ground.

     The longboat was immense. It landed on the beach with a storm of wind and sand, a great black sliver of metal.

     ((get on, they’re close!))

     Jennings was shocked beyond words. He stood and watched the craft land in utter disbelief, jaw agape in amazement. Was it really another Diablo vessel?

     The men in black ran to the longboat, boarded it through a hatchway. Reynald snapped from his reverie, ran toward the longboat, slowed, halted.

     Jennings was terrified. He sat alone on the beach, blood still coursing down his face. In shock, he wiped it from his eyes and wondered at the redness of his hand.

     Reynald relented. He could not blame this man for Magdalene’s death or this insane war. He was just another innocent dragged into the war against the Enemy.

     “The Enemy is coming for your planet.”

     ((HURRY.))

     “I know you don’t understand any of this. I’m sorry you had to be caught up in this—”

     ((THEY’RE ALMOST HERE.))

     “The Enemy’s coming for your planet. They’ll kill it. They’ll kill your people. They’ll kill you. They’ll steal your souls and you’ll be damned forever.”

     ((NOW.))

     “If you want to live, come with us.” Reynald looked at Jennings with his too-gray eyes. “There’s nothing we can do now for your people, your planet, your time.”

     Reynald looked to the northwest, where an ominous line of black clouds had appeared. The darkness swept upon them. The black lace of the Enemy web was already engulfing the sky.

     “There’s a storm coming.

     “If you want to live, come with us.”

     Reynald took Jennings’ hand and helped him up.

     The longboat ascended into the upper atmosphere, then into orbit, where it rejoined Simon, unseen by the Enemy.

     ((hello, reynald.))

     “Simon, I—”

     ((you don’t have to say a thing. i know she’s dead.))

     “Simon, there’s more. We—”

     ((it can wait.))

     Zero-Four joined them. He placed his hand on Reynald’s shoulder, unspoken sympathy passing between the two Judas captains. “Good to see you, Jean. Unfortunately, we’ve picked up an Enemy fleet coming in. The readings from the Stream are off the scale. We’d better get out of here. Into the stasis chambers.”

     “But we—”

     “No time, Reynald. We have to hurry.”

     Jennings stared lifelessly at a viewscreen. “Will they really kill them all?”

     Reynald joined him. “It’ll do more than kill them… The Enemy is ravenous in its hunger.”

     Jennings was pale, quiet.

     “This is for real, isn’t it?”

     “The Enemy is all too real.”

     Simon slipped into the night.

     At four thirty-seven Global Standard Time, the Enemy vessel took a position in Earth orbit, and all global communication systems planet-wide went silent.

     The storm had arrived.

     Deep within the black, laughter like screaming echoed into the void

planet of the shadows.

     ...the sun how can they...

     ...is anyone there we’re surrounded...

     ...help please damn...

     ...we need more troops...

     ...they’re everywhere...

     ...pull back now pull back...

     ...saigon is out. bangkok, manila...

     ...chicago oh shit...

     ...what the hell is that...

     ...the sunlight...

     ...new york has fallen...

     ...pentagon satcom dead...

     ...wind river...

     ...regroup don’t let it...

     ...voices get the fucking VOICES out of my…

     ...nuke it nuke it nuke it—

     ...

     silence fell, as did mankind.

     the Stream.

     a blackness moved, converged, lashed out.

     the warriors of the Judas fled before it.

     the black would harvest once more.

     another When had fallen.

     It knew only pain.

     There had been a different place once, but the memory was but a haze lurking in what had been its mind. The line between reality and fantasy became a gray area into which it retreated.

     There was no sensation of up or down in this black hell. It thought that time still existed, but it was not sure. It could see nothing, hear nothing.

     Floating, floating in an ocean of rhythmic pulses.

     It remembered the terrible loss of humanity, the invasive metal tendrils, the feel of flesh becoming silver decay, the incomprehensible mind that became its own. The incomprehensible Pattern.

     It floated in the black and wept tears of damnation into the void. It sensed that it was not alone.

     Indeed, it sensed that it was one among an infinity.

     “Geiger’s off the scale!” shouted the man in black and gray over the howling winds and the staccato voice of the radioactivity meter. Another shockwave passed over them, and the men braced themselves against the hot blast of air. The world was dust and choking and burning breaths.

     “Where’s ground zero?”

     “Probably Chicago. That fleet of Spears... Well, they must have dropped everything they had on it.”

     “How long do we have?”

     “We can’t take this level of rads for much longer. Here.” The medic held out a hypodermic spray and reached out to administer the radiation treatment. He shook his head, motioned for the medic to tend to the other troops first. “We’re almost out of antirad. After that…” The medic shook his head.

     Another man approached, looking apologetic. “Bates is fading.”

     “Let’s go.”

     The two soldiers dressed in urban warfare camouflage slipped through the shadows of the blasted-out building to the makeshift triage where the wounded lay dying and the dead were piled. Flashes of white illuminated the horizon as they walked, forearms held over their eyes to protect their vision from the atomic war being waged to the west.

     “General, how are you doing, sir?”

     “I’ve... I’ve been better, West.” His chest heaved, and a line of dark fluid trickled leisurely from the general’s mouth and nose. He gasped, body wracked in pain.

     West tried to overlook the wound, but his eyes were led back again and again by some grisly fascination. He shuddered.

     The general had been cut apart, cleanly sliced by a beam of light in a diagonal path that cut off his left arm and leg and the lower half of the right leg. Neatly cauterized intestines spilled from the gaping hole in his body. More disturbing than any of the exposed tissue was what was consuming it, a spidery, tendril-like silver substance that was replacing the flesh that it touched with a metallic copy. Bates was being turned into a silver husk. It was incredible that he was still alive.

     “Well, it looks like you’ll be in charge soon.”

     “Nonsense, General. We’ll get you patched up—”

     “Cut the bullshit. Let me die in dignity.”

     “Sir, I—”

     “Hear me out.” Bates coughed. More blood.

     “Yes, sir.”

     “West, I want... I want you to take the men...”

     Lots of blood.

     “Sir?”

     “Take the men and run. Get as far from these... things as you can... Live to fight another day...”

     “But General, Wind River’s gone, Satcom’s gone. We have to make a stand, just like when we took Montreal. Remember that? Eighth Assault won the war because we wouldn’t give up. We have to fight—”

     “No...” Bates had a body-wracking coughing fit. “You stand and fight, and you’ll die... West, live to fight another day... These things aren’t human...”

     “Of course not, General. Now try to rest.”

     Blood flowed from Bates’ eyes.

     “...run and live...”

     “General, try to rest.”

     Bates’ hand grasped up and secured a weak handful of West’s fatigue sleeve. He pulled West close, whispered into his ear. “I know what you are, West. I know you can destroy them.”

     West blinked and frowned. General Bates released his already faint grasp on West’s sleeve.

     His body slumped. West closed his eyes.

     “Rest in peace, General Bates. Bag him.”

     On the horizon behind them, the night sky was torn open by the flash of a large atomic. Lasers flickered the sky like so many fireworks. The drone of gunfire began again, and more warplanes flew overhead.

     “Doc, how are the rest of the wounded?”

     “All seventeen critical. Not a chance. Those weapons—”

     “Kill them. Put them out of their misery so we can move out. Understood?”

     Hesitation. “Yes, sir.” West turned back to the horizon. Sunlight was waking in the east. Faint sunlight. “What the hell will today bring?” he asked to no one. He faced the scene of destruction stretched before him. The earth shuddered as the fleet of warplanes fell from the sky, enveloped in a web of silver, erupting their payload uselessly on the ruins of suburbs: playgrounds and tract housing and drive-in movie theatres where children had laughed and families had dreamed and teenagers had been teenagers in the back seats of their father’s cars.