He was on his knees, grabbing his upper stomach and trying to breathe as I tried to realize what I’d done. I knew where he’d keep the package. Inside his carrier. I reached around the webbing, found a memory device, and pulled it out. It said something about Project Zephyr Recover. And some numbers. I stumbled over him, picking up the shotgun and leaving the vehicle. Stumbling across the airfield, through the smoke and gunfire.
I saw the Wild Thing one last time. In the smoke and the mist. Going from Ultra to Ultra like some angel of death, standing over them and passing by as he shot the ones still left alive. I paused to watch him, even though there was the sound of other gunfire coming from all around. Elements not us were still fighting. And he turned, standing over a dead Ultra, and stared back at me. The faceplate of his future armor was a dark mirrored lake and distantly I thought I saw a face in there. I shivered like something had just walked over my grave.
Then he turned and walked off into the mist, disappearing into what remained of the battle once more.
The ghosts came next. Apes like wraiths were racing through the smoke that smelled of cordite and chemicals, tackling the Ultras and dragging them down as more racing monkeys and apes swarmed the field all around. I didn’t care in that moment. Knowing I was kind of invisible to them. Hoping I was, really. Too tired to care anymore as I stumbled forward. Satisfied with accepting a lie that let me keep picking my feet up and putting them down to get a little closer to salvation.
I missed Hauser, but he found me in the smoke.
“Sergeant Amarcus?” he asked. His computers needed to reconcile the numbers.
I just stared at him as we trotted for the looming armored security transport ship somewhere ahead. I felt hollow. Empty.
And like the galaxy was going to be a better place now.
“I understand, Orion,” he said.
The monkeys came now. Like fast missiles. I drew a bead and fired. Clearing our left flank. I could see the ghost image of our rescue dropship ahead. Landing lights on. Engines spinning up. The Monarch in the cockpit. Hauser fired on the right. We weren’t gonna make it. The monkeys were everywhere now.
Ahead of us was a downed Ultra. Struggling on the ground. Wounded. The apes would take him.
I stopped.
“Help me, Hauser.”
We picked him up and carried him to our ship.
Why?
Because he was a human too. Just like us.
And the galaxy was different now.
The game had changed.
Humanity was becoming rare. Best to hold on to what we had.
Chapter Fifty-One
I made the flight deck. We were climbing through high atmosphere by then. Gears up, engines to full. We’d departed the starport battle turning into a slaughter of apes. The world below growing calm and peaceful as the details of its ruin lost all meaning up here among the clouds. Alarms ringing.
“Interceptors coming in!” someone shouted from the nav station.
I pushed forward toward the pilot’s station.
Handed her the memory device from Box 88.
She was flying the ship for the rendezvous with the Spider. We still had a few minutes to intercept. High above I could see some of the larger Monarch starships coming down through the atmo to cut us off.
She watched me. The Monarch. The Seeker who ruined the galaxy by making meaning meaningless. By bringing back truth. By making us believe if even just in ourselves.
She turned to the comm panel, inserted the memory device, and tapped in the docking signals array for the Spider. I watched her fingers moving across the number pad display, entering some secure login for something called Motherlode.
She turned to me.
“That’s the bank ship. Motherlode. They’re currently receiving all uploaded mem for transfer.”
I nodded. The algorithm she’d recovered from the ship would transmit in the packet. Then it would infect the upload. And in time, ruin the galaxy. And destroy the Monarchs.
If just to give humanity a chance against a new enemy.
Ahead I could see the Spider screaming through upper atmosphere ready to make the intercept. She’s a big beautiful ancient destroyer from when ships were made to stand up to fleet combat at broadsides. We got her for a song because she was derelict. Fighters were swarming but her point defenses were old-school good. Avengers were going down in smoke and flames at ten thousand feet.
She was from back in the days of the big carrier battles. Escalon. Darru Reef. Suntokur.
“This changes everything,” she whispered to me without words. Or whispered words in my head now. “No more safety net, Orion. No more Monarchs. But that doesn’t mean anything if no one believes.”
“I know,” I said. “I know that now.”
The sky was big and beautiful. We’d make the hard dock. Flee for the other side of the world. And then boost for deep space. They’d never find us in the interstellar dark. Not for twenty-five years. Things would be different then. I had a feeling, much different.
I believe.
Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. Old words. Old words that never should have died, been taken away, or been traded for the lie of a sure thing. Human words that embodied humanity. Despite everything the Monarchs had done to us. If this was the way back… then I was cool with that now. I guess.
I nodded and walked off the flight deck. I had to find out who was left alive. Who’d made it.
“Who was he?” Preacher asked when I found the Kid’s body on the cargo deck just after departure off the hot LZ. We were nearing the Spider now.
“Just a kid,” I mumbled and closed his eyes. Watching that beautiful face. All that wasted youth. He would always be that way now. Whenever I thought about him, and I think about all of them, he would always be this young and not some old ruined merc getting older
