Star stuff, p.13
Star Stuff, page 13
I dreamed this last night, Tom remembered. No, not a dream. It was real.
The woman began walking downstairs. Her song beckoned. Tom and Winter followed, guns in hand. Down and down the staircase they went, following the song, entering the cloisters. And finally—into the stone chamber with many gears on the walls.
An engine room, Tom realized. Those are the gears of great engines.
"This is not a cathedral," he whispered. "It's a starship."
"Tom, look!" Winter gripped his arm and pointed.
He saw it there at the back of the chamber. A stone slab like an altar. Animal skulls surrounded it, candles burning in the eye sockets. A woman was strapped to the altar with writhing snakes instead of ropes.
A figure hunched over the bound woman, long and gaunt and clad in crimson. His mouth was attached to her neck like a lamprey. His throat bobbed as he sucked the blood. His brides stood around him, chanting.
The Red Cardinal looked up. Blood dripped from his fangs. More blood flowed down the woman's neck.
"How dare you interrupt my feeding?" he hissed.
And then Tom recognized the bound woman.
"Floribeth!" he said, rushing toward her.
The Red Cardinal lifted a curved blade with a jeweled handle. "Stand back or she dies!"
Tom fired his gun.
A bullet tore through the cardinal's chest. His knife clattered to the floor. The old man swayed, then fell.
"I'll cover you," Winter said, aiming her rifle at the shadows. "Go free her."
Tom needed no encouragement. He was already rushing toward the altar. Floribeth lay there, groggy, her eyes hazy. Perhaps she had been drugged.
Like they drugged me last night.
A few of the brides stepped closer, holding aromatic hookahs. Purple smoke wafted. Tom felt his mind begin to fog. His legs swayed. The sweet scents of cinnamon and cloves filled his nostrils, and—
A gunshot rang out. It was so loud Tom started and nearly dropped his gun. A bullet slammed into a wall.
"Stand back!" Winter shouted at the brides. "Put those hookahs down, or my next bullet splatters a brain against the wall!"
The brides stepped back, carrying their miasma of intoxication. Winter sneered at them, thrusting her rifle, herding them away.
Tom returned to the altar. The snakes were writhing around Floribeth's limbs, binding her to the stone.
The ensign looked up into Tom's eyes. For an instant, the haze seemed to clear.
"They're here," Floribeth whispered. "The Santelmos. Saint Elmo's Fire." Her eyes filled with tears. "They protect this world …"
Tom began tugging the serpents, loosening their grip. They hissed and snapped their teeth. Tom recoiled. Handling these serpents with bare hands would not do. But he could cut through them easily enough.
He knelt beside the altar, seeking the fallen blade with the jeweled hilt.
He saw it, reached for it.
A hand lashed out. Fingers with too many joints wrapped around his wrists. A pale face stared at him, gray and deeply lined. Dark eyes blazed in deep sockets, and a scaly tongue licked sharp teeth.
"They are my angels," the Red Cardinal hissed. "They brought me here in their starship. And their starship is now my church. You will remain with us forever!" A bullet had torn through his chest, but the cardinal still managed to rise. "Awake, my angels! Awake, gods of light! Shine upon the heathens!"
The engine room began to shake. Gears churned along the walls. The snakes released Floribeth and fled across the floor, vanishing into shadows. Tom pulled the young helmswoman off the altar, held her in his arms. The walls trembled. Cracks spiderwebbed across the ceiling. Dust rained.
A humming sounded deep below. The floor vibrated and cracked. The altar rattled, and its stone top slid off like a sarcophagus lid. The heavy square of basalt shattered on the floor. Light from below flooded the room—a beam like a spotlight.
And they emerged.
The Santelmos.
Balls of furious white light.
"Run!" Tom shouted.
* * * * *
The aliens flowed from the pit—spheres of swirling, crackling energy, foretelling death.
Winter fired her gun, and one alien lost its light. It fell to the ground, a writhing black creature like a neuron, its spidery limbs flailing. But others kept emerging from the altar, and heat bathed the chamber. The brides screamed, tried to flee. One Santelmo, a sphere the size of a watermelon, plowed through a running bride. She collapsed in several pieces, her torso pulverized.
Winter fired again. Another darkened neuron fell to the floor.
"Winter, run!" Tom shouted, heading toward the door. He carried Floribeth in his arms. The helmswoman was still groggy.
"I'll cover you!" Winter said, firing again. "I—"
A Santelmo flew toward her.
Winter screamed and tried to dodge it.
The blazing sphere tore through her arm, severing it at the elbow.
Her scream turned from fear to agony.
"Winter!" Tom cried.
He placed Floribeth down, drew his gun, and fired. A Santelmo exploded, and darkened limbs splattered the walls like black noodles.
Tom ran through the debris, grabbed Winter, and pulled her back, firing all the while. Despite her horrific injury, the major was still firing her rifle—even with one arm!
They retreated from the room, guns booming, and slammed the door shut.
The door was made from thick basalt. But it would not hold the aliens back for long. Already the creatures began pounding the door. The stone was cracking. Searing white light shone through the cracks.
The companions ran down the corridor. By the time they reached the staircase, the Santelmos had shattered the door. Chunk of basalt flew. The aliens roared down the corridor like a river of molten silver.
Tom, Winter, and Floribeth raced up the stairs. As he fled, Tom kept firing his gun over his shoulder. A few more Santelmos lost their light, fell as wilted tentacles. But for every alien fallen several replaced it.
The humans ran upstairs as fast as they could. But Winter was wounded, bleeding, maybe dying. Floribeth had lost a lot of blood, could barely stay upright. The aliens were gaining on them.
"We're not gonna make it!" Floribeth cried.
"We're gonna make it!" Tom shouted. He fired his gun again, destroying another alien. "Keep going!"
He saw the top of the staircase. The entrance to the nave. Tom wasn't sure what salvation awaited aboveground. But he'd be damned if he died in the cardinal's dungeon.
If I'm going to die today, let me die under the stars.
Winter reached the nave first. Her stump swinging, she ran into the shadowy hall. Floribeth followed, plunging into the darkness.
Tom raced up the last few stairs, following the women. The doorway to the nave loomed ahead. Tom leaped toward it, and—
—his boot slipped on Winter's blood.
He tilted backward.
His arms windmilled, and he knew he was going down.
The furious light rose behind him, ready to devour him.
Floribeth leaped from the shadowy nave, returning to the staircase. She grabbed Tom, pulled him upward.
"Come on, Captain, let's get out of—"
A Santelmo—a smaller one, barely larger than a baseball—tore through her thigh.
Floribeth screamed and fell. Her leg dangled by a strap of skin and muscle. Tom roared, grabbed her, lifted her. More Santelmos came roaring toward them.
"Go, Captain!" Floribeth shouted. "Into the nave!"
The helmswoman tore herself free from Tom's grasp.
Pushing off one leg, she leaped down the staircase—toward the Santelmos.
She howled, her arms extended, and slammed into the oncoming horde.
Tom did not hesitate an instant. He would give her death meaning. He would mourn her later. Right now, he leaped into the nave and slammed the door shut, sealing the Santelmos on the staircase.
Winter was waiting for him, ashen, clutching her stump. She glanced into his eyes. She understood.
Floribeth was gone.
The siblings ran across the nave. Winter was limping. Her eyes were sunken. She had fashioned a tourniquet from her belt, but her blood was still trickling. Even with such a grievous wound, she ran onward.
A true soldier, Tom thought.
They had taken only several steps across the nave when the Santelmos shattered the door, emerging from the staircase. Lights streamed across the shadowy cathedral, and shadows scurried away like frightened animals, revealing skulking creatures in the corners.
"Open the doors, open the doors!" Tom shouted to the hunchbacked bellhop.
The dwarf gasped, pushed the huge doors open, and fled the cathedral. Tom and Winter burst outside, then slammed themselves against the doors, sealing them shut.
Seconds later, the Santelmos tore through the rose window above. Shards of stained glass rained everywhere. The aliens burst into the sky, a hundred searing little stars.
One went dark.
Then another.
Then a dozen more.
Hundreds of bullets shrieked, tearing into the aliens.
Engines rumbled. And then Tom saw it. A shuttle descending from above. The rotary gun on its prow kept pounding the enemy.
The shuttle landed, a hatch popped open, and Titania smiled from the cockpit.
"Hello, sir!" she said. "We did not hear back from you in two days, and according to protocol 57-B, as laid out in the Code of Conduct of HOPE, second edition, an officer upon the disappearance of her captain must—"
"Fly, Titania!" Tom shouted, leaping into the shuttle. He pulled Winter in with him; her eyes were already rolling back.
"Happy to comply!" the android said. "I hope it's okay that I mounted a rescue this time. Last time, you were angry at me, and—"
"Titania, fly!" Tom said.
She nodded. "Complying!"
The shuttle soared into the air, roared across the sky, and leaped in space like a breaching whale.
When Tom looked down, he could see it. Even from here in space. A beacon of light upon a dark mountain.
"That cathedral was an ancient starship," Winter whispered, leaning against him.
"It was a dormant nest," Tom said. "And we just woke up the hornets."
Winter smiled weakly. "You're not too bad in a fight, brother."
He held her one remaining hand. "Winter, I'm proud to fight at your side. Today and in the days ahead. I'm proud that you're my sister, and I love you."
She blinked tears away. "I'll try not to die today. We have a lot of catching up to do."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The old man's tale was almost told.
But there was still a final chapter. A long silence before hesitant words. A memory like an old wound, still throbbing in the cold.
The old man sat on his tattered couch. And he spoke in a low voice, eyes peering into the past.
They flew in the shuttle, the survivors of the cathedral. Tom and Winter. Brother and sister. Sharing their horrible grief.
They flew toward the village, the corner of paradise by the sea.
And they found a circle of hell.
Tom saw it from above. Smoldering huts—burned to the ground. Rice paddies—consumed by the flames. Bodies—everywhere the bodies. Along the beach. In the paddies. Some floated in the water. A few of the dead were marines. But most, hundreds of them—Bahayan bodies. Men. Women. Children. Even babies. Severed limbs lay across the sand like dead fish after a storm.
Tom landed the shuttle.
He stepped outside and inhaled the scent of death.
"What did you do?" Winter cried, leaping out behind him. She ran across the beach toward her soldiers. Her voice rose even louder, torn with anguish. "What did you do!"
A few soldiers saluted. A few laughed.
"Taught 'em a lesson, ma'am," a sergeant said. "We just—" He gasped. "Ma'am, your arm!"
Winter grabbed the man. Shook him. Shouted. Demanded answers. A few soldiers were kicking a child's head back and forth like a soccer ball. One soldier wore a necklace of ears. Winter collapsed, and medics ran toward her, pulled her onto a litter. One soldier waited until the medics carried her into a tent, then knelt, lifted a severed arm from the beach, and waved with it.
"Need a spare hand?"
A few soldiers laughed. One vomited. A wave rose over some corpses, then pulled them back into the sea.
Tom turned away.
A fog clouded his mind.
He walked along the beach. Stumbled. Swayed. Nearly fell. He had walked here with Amor de la Luna, holding her hand. Along this path, she had told him of Miguel and his splendorous cloak.
He reached the spot on the beach where they had made love.
And he found her there.
She lay naked on the sand, her black hair strewn like a puddle of midnight. Blood trickled along her leg, and her hand still held her crystal.
There were many footprints around her. Boot prints. Marines.
They had raped her, Tom would later learn. Eight of them. The last man had strangled her to death. After their fun, they had left her for the crabs.
Tom would find their names. Hunt them down. Bring them justice. It was a quest that would consume him for years.
But that was for another day.
Today was not for vengeance. Not for rage. Today was for grief.
He knelt in the sand, pulled Amor de la Luna into his arms, and wept.
A young private approached him, spindly as a scarecrow and not even twenty. Just a damn kid. God knew how he had ended up at New Siberia.
"Aw, gee, sir," the kid said. "I hope you're okay. Can I get you anything, sir?"
Tom looked up at him through the tears. The kid gulped, took a step back.
"What happened here?" Tom whispered, each word a struggle.
The kid shifted his weight and looked at his toes. "Well, sir, it got out of hand, as you can see. The girl, well … Some of the guys thought her pretty. Wanted to … you know. Have fun. She said no, and some of the guys got a bit rough, and … well, her brother showed up. Started howling something fierce. So a corporal got scared, and he shot him, and well, sir … After that, everyone was running, and firing, and some menfolk from the village, well, they ran off into the woods. Maybe to get reinforcements. And I didn't do nothing, sir! You gotta believe me. I didn't do any of this! Please, sir, remember that. I didn't do nothing."
The kid stumbled away, mumbling something under his breath, and nearly tripped over the body of a child. He approached a sergeant, and both men whispered among themselves. Tom heard something about how "the captain's lost his mind."
Tom looked back at Amor de la Luna. She lay limply in his arms, her eyes closed, her lips parted. Her crystal had fallen and lay among the seashells.
"I'm sorry, Amor de la Luna," Tom whispered. "I love you. Goodbye."
"Sir." Footsteps sounded behind him. It was the kid again. "Sir, some of the villagers escaped. Like I told you, sir. I reckon they'll be back—probably with a lot of angry folk with guns. Should we, um, set up a defensive perimeter or something?"
Tom gently laid Amor down, then rose to his feet and faced the soldiers. They gathered before him.
Rapists.
Murderers.
He would have his justice—but not today.
Today he had a planet to save.
"No. We are not digging down. We are not defending our camp. We are not defending a single grain of sand from Bahay. This is not our world. We leave now. We'll live in the shuttles until a rescue starship arrives from Earth."
"That could take months!" a soldier said.
"Then it will take months!" Tom shouted. "Then we will squeeze into the shuttles like corpses in mass graves until we suffocate! But we will not remain on this world a moment longer."
The soldiers glanced at one another, hesitant. A few growled and stroked their rifles. Tom stood his ground, staring back.
If you want to shoot, you better shoot fast, he thought, chin raised.
Nobody shot.
"You heard me!" Tom said. "Your major is wounded, and I'm commanding you now. Move! Get those shuttles ready! Go, go!"
As the soldiers got to packing their camp, Tom approached the remains of the bamboo huts. They were just piles of smoldering wood. It was enough.
He began to pile up the wood. Then drag bodies toward it. A few soldiers began to help. Including the kid.
Before they rose into space, they lit the funeral pyres. Great flames crackled, and Amor burned with them.
The shuttles soared as the fire burned.
I started a war, Tom thought. I should never have come here. And I don't know if we can ever put out this fire.
The shuttles orbited the planet, packed to the gills. Tom looked through a porthole toward Bahay. The world was a beautiful jewel of green, blue, and white. And Tom wondered if they had broken it forever.
I chased another patch for my cloak, and now old colors fade, he thought. Like Miguel in the story. But Miguel never became a lord among the stars. And we are masters of the heavens. And perhaps that is our greatest curse. I'm sorry, Amor, the love of the moon. I'm sorry, Bahay.
EPILOGUE
The old man finished his tale and leaned back on the couch.
"So there you have it," Tom said. "That's how the whole mess started. After that, things escalated quickly. A rescue ship arrived for us, yes. And soon after—another starship, this one full of troops, hellbent on avenging our dead boys. Then another. And another. The Bahayans fought back. More and more Earthlings kept coming. And the war still rages today." The old man lowered his head. "All because of my pride."
Zoe sat silently on the armchair, facing him. She had sat silently for the past three hours, letting the old man tell his tale. At first, she had tried to take notes. Then she had just listened.
"I never heard it told like this," she whispered. "Tom, I'm sorry."
The old man's eyes dampened. "It's been twenty years since Amor de la Luna died. And a day doesn't go by that I don't think of her." He lifted the framed painting. "All I have is this. A portrait I painted a year after her death. Painted from memory. Maybe I got some parts wrong. The angle of the nose, or the shape of the eyes, the width of the mouth … little details might be inaccurate. But it's all I have. A single painting. A memory of a memory. And a whole lotta guilt."
