Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) (12 page)

Mira pulled three Barrier artifact combinations from her pack, ones she’d made earlier for the
Wind Star,
and tossed them to the ship’s artifact handler, a small girl, young, maybe fourteen, her eyes fearful, her hands shaking. Mira didn’t blame her.

“What’s your name?” Mira asked.

“Jennifer.”

“Jennifer, we’re going to need those, especially on the
rear,
” Mira said pointedly. “Keep an eye on the ones we have now, we’re going to burn through them quick, okay?” The girl nodded, moved for the Grounders with the new combinations.

Parker yelled to the crew across the ship. “Brace for Acceleration Sails!” He adjusted the Chinook, dialing its band of old clock hands to the right, and when he did the wind howling around them blew in a maelstrom, stronger and wider.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Afterburner,” Dresden replied. He hit the button in the box.

Rockets exploded into the air from the front of the ship, trailing long lengths of cable behind them, attached to fabric. As the rockets flew upward, they unfurled three additional sails, mixes of all kinds of colors that filled with the reinforced wind, pulling the
Wind Shear
harder, giving her more speed.

The ship rocked violently and Mira fell flat on her back. All around the ship, the crew had grabbed onto safety handles or the lines from the sails to brace themselves.

The world rocketed past outside. Mira glared at Dresden. “A warning would have been nice!”

The other Landships swept past in blurs as the
Wind Shear
blew by them. She saw the crew of the
Wind Mark
pointing and cheering as they raced past, taking the lead.

Of course, the lead in
this
assault wasn’t normally where you’d want to be. Mira hoped this worked …

“I’m doing my thing, Freebooter, you get to yours,” Dresden yelled over the roaring wind. Both he and Parker were looking at her expectantly. Time to put up or shut up.

Mira ran toward the front of the ship, where the bow tucked under, the ground racing by thirty feet below. Ahead of them, maybe a mile away now, moved the powerful line of red Spider walkers. She could see their cannons flashing, flinging forward volleys of plasma bolts, but they weren’t all headed for the Landships. They seemed to be shooting everywhere; left, right, into the sky.

Mira saw why. The small White Helix force, what was left of them anyway, had reached the Assembly and engaged. She could just make out their silhouettes against the giant shapes of the walkers, leaping and flipping between them. Streaks of color flashed through the air, explosions blossoming from the walkers.

Hopefully, they’d distract the Assembly long enough to let the
Wind Shear
do its thing.

Mira closed her eyes and reached out with her senses, searching for the presences she knew were somewhere nearby.

She found far more than she expected.

A flood of sensation, thousands of thoughts and images filled her mind, and she almost collapsed, moaning, holding her head, trying to fight the projections. The idea that she might be able to tap into the
reds’
thoughts just as she could the silvers hadn’t even occurred to her. She felt their rage … and their excitement. It had been a long time since anyone had truly
resisted
them, usually the Tone rendered a population inert long before any true challenge, yet here it was. Battle. Action.

Other sensations pulled her back and away, a thick, swirling mix of apprehension and nervousness. It was the silvers. Ambassador’s group … and they knew she was in danger. If they lost her, they lost their one link to each other, the only one they had left. Mira latched onto their anxiety, letting it push away the massive wave of sensation from the reds.

Guardian,
the projection came. It was Ambassador.
You risk much.

Wasn’t that the truth?

I need your help,
she projected back.

We were not wanted.

You’re wanted now,
she answered firmly.
Please.

There was silence from Ambassador, and the thoughts and sensations from the others swept in like the tide to fill the breach. Mira tried her best to push it away.

We will come,
Ambassador finally replied.
Where?

Mira breathed in relief and opened her eyes …

The air less than five feet in front of her exploded in plasma bolts, bursting into sparks against the ship’s Barrier. The effect field flared in prismatic color, absorbing the projectiles, but it was weakening. Every walker not engaged with the White Helix ahead of them was firing at the Landships, now just a half mile away.

Above them, the Raptors circled, roaring after the
Wind Shear,
and even with its extra sails and emergency power, it couldn’t outrun Assembly gunships. Yellow bolts peppered the
Wind Shear
’s rear end, and the Barriers flared to life there too. Mira just hoped Jennifer had the presence of mind to cycle out the Barriers as they failed with new ones.

Where?
Ambassador projected again.

Mira looked straight through the hailstorm of plasma bolts, focusing on a spot behind and right of the center of the army.

There,
she projected, staring, waiting.
There. There.
“There!”

Mira saw the flashes of light, just perceptible behind the reds as the silver Brutes teleported in, each with an additional walker for support. Mantises, Spiders, Hunters.

We are here.

Explosions flared up from behind the line of red walkers as they were hit by a volley of plasma … and Mira was overwhelmed by sensations and feelings. Shock from the reds, elation from the silvers. In spite of being outnumbered, Ambassador’s strike force seemed to revel in the fight, and she felt their lust, felt it crawl through her … and a part of her liked it.

Mira pushed the feelings back. It was getting harder and harder to tell which feelings were hers and which were
theirs,
and the implications were unsettling, but that was something to worry about later.

She looked behind them and saw exactly what she hoped. Most of the gunships had regrouped in a giant line that was chasing after the Wind Shear, their cannons blazing and hammering its rear Barriers. She saw Jennifer rip out a smoking combination from the rear Grounder and shove in a new one, the last Mira had given her.

When the Barriers they had now failed, the ship would be defenseless.

A new sensation washed over her. An awareness, a collective of a hundred or more presences, turning toward the Landships. She felt heat begin to build in her mind, it was the only way to describe it, and everything went brighter and brighter and—

A giant beam of pure, red energy burned through the air from the cannon on the huge walker. It slammed into another Landship, the
Wind Arrow,
burning through its Barrier in less than a second, and Mira shuddered as it exploded. The
Wind Shear
crew barely hung on as the shock wave hit.

“Can you signal concentrated fire on that thing?” Mira yelled.

Parker gave hand signals to the crew in the crow’s nest, who yanked loose two flags, one red, one white, and started waving them in patterns toward what was left of the armed Landships. Seconds later, the air again exploded in color as Antimatter crystals streaked toward the giant walker in the distance.

Mira projected the same instruction to Ambassador. In the distance, the silvers obeyed, their plasma bolts slamming into the huge machine right as the giant Antimatter cannon crystals hit. Fire sprayed from it in violent plumes of orange and red, but even that wasn’t enough. The walker was just too huge.

The
Wind Shear
raced forward, the Spiders unsettlingly close. Mira could see the White Helix leaping between them. Two of the machines erupted in flames and collapsed to the ground. From the way the Landship was pointed, Dresden was doing exactly what she asked, steering her
right at
the giant walker.

Another blast from its massive cannon fired. Another Landship disintegrated.

“Hold on to something!” Dresden shouted from behind … and then they were rushing past the front lines of red Spiders, dodging and weaving through them. The
Wind Shear
swayed and bounced wildly. Its last Barrier flickered once, twice, then died completely. Smoke bellowed out of the Grounders from the ruined artifacts inside. They were defenseless, but the vessel thundered ahead.

It reached the massive red walker, passed between two of its giant legs. Mira looked up, watched the underside of the machine flash by, saw its hydraulics moving, felt its outpouring of anger and surprise.

The Raptors chasing them saw what was coming.

They tried to pull up, but it was too late. They crashed into the huge walker, dozens of them, over and over, exploding in flame and debris, hammering it with more powerful blasts than any plasma bolt. The White Helix, leaping and jumping nearby, seemed to get the plan, and added their firepower to the rest.

The huge machine shuddered. Mira shut her eyes, feeling the desperation of the entities inside to stay standing … but it was all futile.

The
Wind Shear
roared out from under just as it began to tip over, groaning horribly as it fell, slamming into the ground in a symphony of contorted metal as fire blew everywhere. Dozens of Spider walkers were crushed under its girth. The ground trembled from the impact, and what was left of the gunships spiraled into the ground all around it.

The crew erupted into cheers, but Dresden held up a hand.

“Not clear yet,” he yelled. “Hold it together a little longer.”

There was still a small bit of the field to pass through, marked by an approaching slight incline. As they raced toward it, Mira looked behind.

From the wreckage of the huge red walker, a hundred shimmering, golden energy fields rose up and out, each forming a different crystalline pattern in the sky. She felt a surge of elation from the silvers in the battlefield. The tide had turned, the reds were confused … but they were all still outnumbered, still in danger.

Leave,
Mira projected.
Leave now. You’ve done well.

And you,
Ambassador replied.

She saw flashes of light as what was left of the silver Brutes teleported out and away, vanishing into thin air, taking the other walkers with them.

There were no more gunships. Mira saw more red Spider walkers falling in flames as they were swarmed with White Helix, but she could tell they weren’t staying around to fight, they were retreating, flipping and darting into the cliffs and rocks in blurs of purple, but there were many fewer than what they started with. The Landships were strategically retreating too; she could see their Antimatter cannon crystals streaking through the air and landing back on the ships where they’d launched, and, like the Helix, their numbers had dwindled. Of the eleven they’d had, now there were
four.

Mira shut her eyes, feeling the guilt and horror wash over her. They had escaped. But at great cost …

Pain suddenly overtook everything.

The sensations she had been fighting finally overwhelmed her, and she was bombarded with hundreds at once, a dizzying array of emotions from every direction. Mira felt herself fall, felt herself hit the deck, but it was all in the background.

There was nothing but the projections from the red army. Fury at being thwarted, confusion, and … something else. Curiosity. Intrigue. The delicate forming of faith, and all of it was because of
her,
she somehow knew. It was … disturbing.

Guardian,
the projections came, filling her mind, and they were not from Ambassador. These were from the others, the reds, Mas’Phara.
We believe.

Then everything went black.

10.
BEACON

MIRA WOKE UNDER THE COVERS
of a small, wooden bed built out from the smooth, flowing juniper walls of a Landship cabin and stared into the face of Max, lying on the floor beneath her. Stirred from his own sleep, the dog opened one eye to study her in annoyance, then lazily rolled over onto his back with a yawn.

Mira frowned. “Good to see you too.” Then she winced as the sensations washed over her. Anxiety and apprehension, loneliness.

Guardian …
they said.
You return.

She felt the entities relax, the sensations lessen, now that they knew she was alive, that their connection was not truly gone. They clamored for her attention, as always, trying to deduce her location, to find her, to be close, and the only thing Mira could tell about them was that they were somewhere to the south … and that their numbers had
grown.
Almost a hundred strong now. But how?

Mas’Phara,
a projection came in answer. It was Ambassador.
They believe.

In what?
Mira projected back, over the distance. Her head spun.

In you.

Mira shuddered at the response. Some of the reds must have defected to Ambassador’s side. She remembered the projections that washed over her as that giant, red machine fell. Shock, anger … and respect.
They believe …

“Got one hell of a poker face, your dog.” Mira jumped; it hadn’t occurred to her she might not be alone. Dresden leaned back on a small stool attached to the wall with brass clamps, boots propped up on a nearby desk, and he had an old book in his hands:
Journey to the Center of the Earth
by Jules Verne. “Tries to look like he doesn’t give a damn, but he almost bit our heads off in the cargo hold, wouldn’t calm down until we got him up here with you. You guys must be close.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Mira sat up, and the pain in her head returned, competing with the projections from the silvers. She forced it all away, trying to look at least half alive. Dresden didn’t need to know how weak she really was. “Where am I?”