three full battle fleets. That could take anywhere from ten to forty years, depending on the population of nearby stars, and after that, real conquest would begin.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Marcus said. “The bad news is that they’re definitely free, and we have no way of knowing how many planets have already fallen. The good news is that their living planet won’t be at full strength yet. Not like it was during the war, at least. More of a big living asteroid.”

“Will they come for Earth?” Faulkland asked. “Should we be mounting defenses?”

Marcus shook his head. “No, they won’t be coming here. She’s pretty certain of that. As far as they know, our system is dead and insignificant. It’s like a hypnotic suggestion. They’ll eventually see through it, though, and we must have them on the defensive before that happens. If they get here, it’ll already be too late.

“It’s imperative that we get the ship back in working order as soon as possible. There should be enough raw material here in the asteroid belt to make repairs. Then we return to Earth and start building our own fleet. All life in the galaxy depends on it.”

“Do you know how to do any of that?” Juliette asked.

Marcus shook his head. “Not exactly, but we’ll figure it out.” The ship told him they’d figure it out together, then she passed another message that Marcus thought strange. It was a request. “She’s digging around in my head, trying to get a hang on how we process thoughts. Our language, the syntax and ways we name things. It’s all messy and very new to her. She… she wants me to give her a name.”

“Go ahead,” Faulkland said. “I’ve always had a weakness for girls’ names, myself.”

Rao looked at Marcus seriously. “Something better than Zebra-One, this time.”

Marcus ran through a string of girls’ names, but none of them seemed appropriate. This ship was more than just a vessel. She was a remembrance of things forgotten. She was a gift and a responsibility handed down from the past. Then the name came to him. “It’s only right to call her Legacy.”

Legacy approved.

Chapter 17:

Survival

What struck Jack in the first week following the invasion was the quiet. Not silence, but the serene quiet of wilderness in the absence of man. It was the quiet of civilization’s demise.

It took a little time to set in. At first, the sound of alien craft filled the air, while ground troops overran the ruins and rounded up the last survivors. Then, after less than a week, there was nothing and no one left. With their task complete, the bastards withdrew and left nothing behind but the piles of dead, the unsettling quiet and the furious howling of the dust filled wind.

As the second week began, the next thing that struck Jack was the smell. Although his gas mask kept the dust out of his lungs, it did little to obscure the stench of death. He would’ve done anything to get that smell out of his nose, but there was simply no escape. At least they were in sparsely populated rural areas; he didn’t dare imagine what the cities were like.

The invaders were still on Earth, though. That much was certain. The cycling sound of their cuttlefish craft occasionally sounded high overhead, but they never came down. They never bothered. They had better places to be than in that stinking wasteland. China was defeated, and held no more mystery for them. No more resistance.

The enemy had exclusively targeted humans, killing them and moving on, never staying longer than it took to perform the extermination. This turned out to be a boon to Jack and his makeshift team. While buildings of every kind had been laid to waste, vehicles, roads and bridges were left untouched. Food was easy enough to find and quite a few places still had water pressure. Fuel cells were scattered everywhere amongst the rubble, whole and functioing thanks to their crash-proof casings.

On the eighth day, while the team sat on the edge of yet another ruined village, Jack decided time had come to find transportation. “Anyone know how to hot-wire a car?”

He still didn’t know his new corpsmen from Adam. They were jumpsuits and gas-masks with nametags, and nothing more. That would’ve been unacceptable at any other point in his career, but no one was feeling particularly social.

One of the jumpsuits raised his hand. The tag on his chest said Chase. Jack was a little surprised there was only one, actually. The Corps attracted loads of people with troubled pasts.

“Good. Nicotine, you and Corpsman Chase head out and find us some wheels.”

“Roger. Whaddya have in mind? A flatbed?”

“Anything with some ground clearance and storage space. Windows intact if you can manage it. It’d be nice to get this mask off for a bit. I suppose a troop transport would be too much to ask.”

“Dream on.” Nikitin glanced over at Chase, and gave him a nod. “We’ll see what we can find. Meet you back here in an hour?”

“That’s fine. The rest of us are gonna round up supplies. We passed a promising looking market on the way in.”

“My Chinese isn’t too sharp,” Albright said, “but that looks like a pharmacy over there. I’d like to stock up on medical supplies if we’ve got the time.”

“Make it happen.” Jack looked at the other three corpsmen and picked one at random. “Take McGrath with you.”

“Roger.”

“Alright. That means Hartnell and Cozar, you’re with me. One hour. Get it done.”

With that, they broke. Jack waved his team on, and they headed back toward the eastern side of the village where he’d spotted the market.

He kept it well hidden, but he didn’t like the ghost towns. He had little problem in the countryside where quiet was to be expected, but walking down abandoned streets in the middle of the day was a whole different matter. A constant feeling of something missing haunted him, like he standing on a stage without actors. The feeling of emptiness was unbearable.

The market was a one-story that had partially collapsed. Several large woven baskets full of decaying fruits and vegetables sat out front, and as Jack approached the door, the smell of rotting sea food filled his mask. It was something of a welcome change.

The inside was dark and musty, and they brought out their flashlights. The pungent smell of mold joined the rotting fish. “Water first, then canned foods. Fruits, vegetables, meat. Dried goods are fine. Build a pile by the door, and we’ll load up when Nikitin and… Chase find a car.”

Something made a dull clank on the far side of the room. “Did you hear that?” one of them asked.

“Just some rubble falling,” the other answered.

Jack wasn’t so sure. He motioned to stop, then put his finger in front of his mask. Hartnell and Cozar took the hint and quieted down.

He pulled the flare gun from its makeshift holster and unlatched the safety. He wasn’t confident it would even sting one of the invaders, but it was better than nothing. He hoped it was better than nothing.

Another clank sounded, and some cans clattered to the floor. There was the sound of something scurrying. Voices?

Jack advanced along one wall and motioned for the others to take the opposite side. Their flashlights danced along shelves as they moved in on the source of the noise. Jack raised his own flashlight with the flare gun at its side and found… nothing.

He muttered, “What the hell’s going on here?”

The other two were standing opposite him now, shoulders shrugged and heads on a swivel. What was he missing?

There was another sound. Whispering? “Does anyone else hear that, or did I pick a bad time to start hallucinating?”

“I hear it,” Cozar said.

“Me too,” added Hartnell while she took a step forward. “Seems to be coming from the floor, chief. Hard to tell with this damned mask on, though.”

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