Stars Rain Down (35 page)

"You had me at alcohol."

"Ah."

Jack took one last look at the wreckage all around, shook his head and said, "That's enough. Let's get out of here." Then he turned and started off toward the flyer.

Kai followed. "Where to?"

"I want to see this alien legion. You know where they'll be?"

"Give or take. About two days ride at our current rate."

"Would they pay any attention to one of their own flyers buzzing them?"

"Probably not, as long as you don't act too suspicious."

"Good. I'm gonna prep the flyer. Go get the others."

"Will do," Kai said, and then he got a funny look on his face. "By the way... ummm... what's a ninja?"

Jack laughed. "They were assassins who excelled at sneaking into enemy castles and eliminating targets unseen. The movies got carried away, and portrayed them as unstoppable killing machines with mystical abilities. Little boys love them."

"I learn something new every day," Kai said with a smile. Then he turned and ran off at a speed that'd make an Italian sports car blush. It took Jack the entire walk back to convince himself that what he saw wasn't some kind of hallucination.

Jack and his four alien companions traveled north from the dusty beige of the Mid East to the green hills and roiling mountains of eastern Turkey. Jack had never seen the Turkish landscape before, and the mountains there spiked out of the ground defiantly as if the Earth itself were invading the sky. The intensity of the steep mountains and gorges took his breath away, and he badly wanted to stop and explore.

He knew there wasn't any time, though, and dutifully flew on. Turkey gave way to green Georgia and then the Caucasus Mountains, a line of snow capped peaks which stood in a row like jagged teeth.

Jack found the remains of Russia on the other side, whose abandoned farmland stretched out in all directions like a patchwork quilt, so large that Jack thought he'd never see the end of it.

The colder climate and high altitudes slowed their progress, but they finally caught up with the Oikeyan legion after nearly three days. It wasn't at all difficult to find, like an insanely large herd of buffalo lumbering across the land, more than fifty kilometers deep and kicking up a cloud of dust that stretched over counties.

It was populated by strange creatures on differing numbers of legs, some the size of elephants and others as large as container ships. They were attended by erratic flyers above, which darted about in groups like flocks of birds before a storm.

Jack and the flyer he named
Felix
approached the herd cautiously from behind, nipping at their heels. "Holy crap," his disembodied voice said once he was close enough to really appreciate the scale of it.

A rumble filled the air like endless earthquakes.

"You see?" Kai asked. "We can't fight this. Even the Nefrem would have trouble standing before this kind of force."

Jack and Felix surged forward, weaving into and through the formation. He flew up alongside one of the great grey walkers, and marveled at its traincar-sized cannon. He imagined a weapon of that size could crack a mountain in two.

"We could talk to them, maybe convince them to stop," Jack and Felix said.

"Do they look like they're in a mood for diplomacy?" Kai shouted over the roar.

"There's gotta be someone in charge who could put a stop to this. Some leadership."

"There is," Kai said, "The ones you call
pilots
are in control.
The Alarhya.
But they won't listen to anyone anymore. Not even to me."

"What changed?"

"Your tactics. Your kind left Yuon Kwon mangled and broken in the field, and that infuriated the Alarhya. They hold the vehicles sacred. When the suicide bombings began, it was the final straw."

"Suicide bombings! What suicide bombings?"

"After your capture. Generators were too difficult, so the terrorists went after civilians. Markets, parks, residences. I don't blame your kind, but you see how these things escalate?"

Jack peeled away from the walker and continued on through the herd, sliding between a pair of smaller creatures and then under the long legs of another massive walking cannon. His skills in weaving through traffic had been honed to a razor's edge through years of freeway driving, and the comparatively sparse Oikeyan herd posed little challenge.

The legion inspired awe and terror in a way rush-hour traffic never had, though, and Jack couldn't imagine a way to stop it. He was watching an avalanche roll down a mountain in slow motion.

He couldn't stop the avalanche, but there was still a chance to warn the village in its path. They couldn't fight it, but they might be able to get out of the way.

Where could a couple hundred million refugees go, though? Where could they hide that the legion wouldn't hunt them down and slaughter them?

Jack's disembodied voice asked, "Do you know their game plan?"

"They're still using my organization and tactics. Did you see the long-necked Yuon Kwon at the back of the pack?"

"With lots of legs?"

"Those are the ones. Constructors. They'll build fortresses in a circle around the Ark to isolate it. Then the siege cannons move in and beat the enemy to dust. Power comes from a young city Yuon Kwon that will hang back from the fight."

"I don't see it."

"He won't come until the battle lines are secured."

Kai's description generally agreed with what Jack had seen at Al Saif. There were deep indentations in the ground where the temporary forts had sat, and Al Saif itself looked to have been blasted from multiple directions at once.

Jack and Felix continued on through the pack, studying all the many new types of Yuon Kwon he'd never seen before. There were walkers in all shapes and sizes, covered in weapons both familiar and not. The vast majority of flyers were the cuttlefish type Jack had often seen since the invasion began, but there were also groups of heavier flyers weighted down with payloads of seed-like bombs.

Jack felt a strange kinship with the Yuon Kwon all around him, and he passingly wondered what long term effects piloting Felix might have.

"So the young city... that's the legion's weak spot?"

"If it has a weak spot, then yes. The city is the lynch-pin of whole organization, but don't think it's defenseless... It'll be bristling with weaponry and have a large population of Sey Chen covering it in defensive membranes."

"Sey Chen?"

"You call them monks. They have peculiar abilities."

"And the defensive membranes? You mean like force fields or something?"

"What's a force field?"

"Never mind."

The two jackrabbits said something in the common language, quickly and tensely. Whatever they were talking about was worrying them.

"Ferash and Niko said we're picking up unwanted attention. If you've seen what you need to see, we should leave, Jack."

Jack hadn't seen what he wanted. He was hoping for the impossible: a weak underbelly that he could stab before the battle began.

He'd learned as much as he could, though, and he allowed himself to drift to the back of the pack. When he'd fallen sufficiently behind the Oikeyan legion, he pulled away and headed for the hills, to rest and think about his next move.

Whatever that would be.

Farmland gave way to the wide Russian steppe as Jack and his alien companions headed toward the Ark. The nearly flat land went on and on, covered in short tufts of grass and little else. It was the most boring country Jack had ever laid eyes on, and he'd seen some pretty boring places in his time. But this one took the boring cake and ate it with a boring glass of milk.

Worse yet, the lack of foliage hardly kept Felix well fed, and the small flyer couldn't maintain speed for as long as he could in sunnier, more abundant regions. Progress slowed to a crawl across that flat, uneventful countryside, and the only bright side was that the Oikeyan legion would undoubtedly be slowed as well.

Jack's group camped under the stars and ate reheated alien field rations twice a day. The food was a version of the same multi-colored stuff Jack had eaten in prison, but more dense and flavorful. It was bitter and nearly unpalatable, in fact, and though it provided all the nutrients he needed, his stomach constantly felt empty. From the sour look on the rhino's face, he felt the same way.

As they traveled, Kai took it upon himself to teach Jack the Oikeyan common language called Mirresh, which they used for interspecies communication. As Kai described it, every race had their own ethnic groups with their own languages and dialects, but all Oikeyans knew Mirresh, and their public discourse and law were conducted in it.

Much to Jack's surprise, it was easy to pick up; so easy that he was speaking Mirresh with a limited vocabulary within the first week. Prior to that, he'd believed himself incapable of learning a second language, let alone one from beyond the stars.

Once they could communicate, Jack got to know the three other aliens, despite his instincts warning him otherwise. The rhino's name was Dojer, and his race called themselves
Rozom.
He belonged to the worker caste, who had the long-legged bugs bonded to their blowholes as children. It caused them to grow larger and stronger than the rest of their kind, and develop a hard, silicate armor.

Much to Jack's surprise, the bug was also intelligent, but his species, known as
Marakhya,
were shy and preferred to let their Rozom do all the talking. Jack couldn't even begin to pronounce the Marakhya's name, and was glad it wasn't too friendly.

On the other hand, Dojer proved to be particularly gregarious after a short warm-up. The hulking creature was full of stories that all ended with puzzling punch-lines and a belly laugh, but they simply left Jack confused. Rozom humor apparently wasn't his cup of tea.

The two jackrabbits were a mated pair named Ferash and Niko, and their species called themselves Kitsu. If these two were any indication, the Kitsu were a playful and almost childlike race with boundless curiosity and a keen interest in machines. They hounded Jack for just a peek at his guns and other gadgets, and when he finally caved, they took everything apart and put it all back together again.

This should have infuriated him, but the two fuzzy critters did a better job cleaning and maintaining his gear than he ever had.

Jack got the impression that Ferash, the male of the pair, was a dreamer and maybe even an artist of some kind before he became a soldier. He often went off alone to stare at the horizon in deep thought. Niko, his mate, let him be during those stretches and instead spent the time avidly listening to Dojer's weird stories.

Both Ferash and Niko yearned to raise children, but thought it a mistake to bring new lives into such a troubled world.

Much to Jack's surprise and dismay, the Kitsu were also quite affectionate. Their extended families shared close living quarters and often slept in communal rooms, which Jack discovered one morning when he awoke to find both cuddled up against him. He shooed them away the first few times but it became more effort than it was worth... and besides, they were warm.

At least Dojer didn't want to cuddle on his lap; Jack didn't think he could survive it.

They reached the Ark after nearly three straight weeks of travel. Dojer, Ferash, and Niko stayed with Felix in one of the scattered copses, while Jack and Kai approached on foot.

They were soon in the vast and sprawling village that had sprung up around the underground shelter. The place filled Jack with both hope and despair; a clear example of what humanity had been reduced to, but also a testament to their will to struggle in the face of abject adversity.

The buildings were makeshift and sloppy. Impromptu dirt roads wandered everywhere, lined with firepits, all kinds of livestock, and dirt faced refugees bundled up in whatever clothes they could find. Jack felt like he was walking through a high-school reproduction of medieval times, where the students wore costumes made out of old hand-me-downs. It was mass poverty on a scale he'd never seen before, clothed in the waste of prosperous days gone by.

A great artificial mound dominated the sky beyond the village, like a mud tsunami frozen in place. Large metal hatches covered its surface, looking like pressure release valves or connectors for impossibly large hoses.

"My people are living in an ant hill," Jack said as they marched.

"What's an
ant
?"

"Small insects that live in large underground hives. Known for ruining picnics."

Kai said, "Then perhaps humans and Nefrem have more in common than we thought."

"Perhaps," Jack said, and they continued on.

It took the better part of the day to reach the Ark's southern entrance, a concrete tunnel set in the side of the mound. Large enough for three commuter trains to fit through side-by-side, it was guarded by a handful of soldiers in unmatched uniforms, and no traffic went in or out.

As they approached, one of the soldiers stepped out to meet them. His uniform was a dark green woodland camouflage, with a pattern common among Slavic countries. He said something in one of the many languages Jack didn't understand.

"English?" Jack said. "Anglistina?"

The soldier turned to his mates and spat out a mouthful of words. Another of the soldiers sauntered over and said, "Only military personnel is allowed in Ark right now. We apologize for inconvenience."

"Yeah, that's great," Jack replied. "I'm with the resistance out of Al Saif. Tell Colonel Galili that Jack Hernandez is here with information about the enemy. He'll want to see me."

The soldiers shared a couple words, and the one who didn't speak any English jogged back to the guard post and picked up an old-style wired telephone. The handset was shaped like a barbell, and Jack had only seen models like it in classic movies and period pieces. He almost laughed.

The soldier chattered then waited, then chattered again and waited some more. After twenty minutes of this, he returned, gave the English speaking soldier some instructions and finally returned to his post.