Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) (55 page)

Olive didn’t have time to enjoy the view.

“Casper!” Olive yelled at him. He was staring behind them with everyone else.
“Eyes front!”

Directly ahead, a dozen empty gunships slammed into buildings on either side of the street. Glass rained down like a hailstorm, the structures buckled and began to fall.

Casper shoved the Chinook to full. The wind roared louder and the ship jarred as it darted forward. Olive held on. There was no other option, they were going way too fast to stop.

Everyone held their breath as the buildings collapsed and tumbled into the street, ten stories each, showers of concrete and steel raining down.

Olive gripped the railing …

The
Wind Rift
roared underneath the cascade, racing through the last space of open air that was left. Then the structures careened into the ground behind, decimating everything under them.

The gunships rained down for another minute or so, and when it was over, everything was eerily quiet. Olive ordered full stop, could see the other ships doing the same.

The crew moved for the stern, staring back the way they’d come. Fires were everywhere, crumbled buildings, and the remains of Landships and Menagerie vehicles. And farther, at an unearthly height, the energy field continued to build over the Citadel. It was the Nexus, and the sky was full of Ephemera, thousands upon thousands, floating to it, sparkling like stars.

The Citadel itself glowed and shook. Explosions flared outward from it. Olive could see why. The Nexus was growing not just outside the huge building, but
inside
as well. It was going to burst the thing like a massive balloon. Watching it, all Olive could think about was that Mira and Holt were in there somewhere.

*   *   *

IT WASN’T THE EXPLOSIONS
or Max’s frantic barking that made Holt pull away from Mira. It was the heat. And when he opened his eyes, the sensations from their kiss fading away, he saw the source.

The Nexus was
expanding.
Filling the interior of the giant structure, and it was almost on them.

“Move!” he shouted, pushing Mira forward, and whistling for Max.

They dashed back toward the center of the dais. It shook badly, detaching from its wall supports. The air above them was full of Ephemera, all rising toward the Nexus.

Holt saw the walkway they’d use earlier rip loose and plummet down. Explosions flared everywhere. Behind them, the Nexus flashed as it touched the dais, beginning to dissolve it, and it shook violently under their feet.

There was nowhere else to go. Whatever they had started, it was going to be the end of them too.

Holt looked to Mira again, and she stared back. She seemed content, in spite of it all. Her hands took his, she moved close, and the feel of her calmed him.

“It was always going to be a one-way trip, wasn’t it?” she asked.

Holt nodded. “It was.”

There was so much he wanted to say. Like she’d told Zoey, Holt wished they’d had more time, but the little girl had been right, they had
had
their time.

A huge explosion blossomed above them. A massive shower of black metal rained downward through the air, plummeting toward them. There was no escape, it would take the dais with it, and that would be that.

“Come here.” Holt pulled her against him, felt her shaking arms wrap around him. With his free hand, he pulled Max close. They shut their eyes, tightly, waiting.

The fire raced inevitably down …

… and there was a sound. Like a powerful, punctuated blast of static. In a flash of light, something big materialized almost on top of them. An Assembly walker, huge with five legs, its colors stripped away. It was dented and broken, two of its legs barely worked, the red diode on its eye was dark … but it was alive.

It had found them.

“
Ambassador!
” Mira yelled. Holt reacted, shoved her and Max farther under the walker, right as the flaming debris slammed into them.

Ambassador’s shield was gone, and it rumbled as the debris slammed into it, puncturing and ripping it apart.

The dais shook one last time … then tore loose and they were all falling in a torrent of metal.

“Hold on!” Mira yelled over the chaos.

Holt grabbed Max as they plummeted, the bottom so far below it couldn’t be seen. “Hold on to
what
?”

Then colors exploded in his mind, he felt heat wash over him. The sound again, the blast of static. Max howled in his arms … and then he was somewhere quiet.

*   *   *

THE LANDSHIPS APPEARED AT
the last, miraculous moment, thundering through the debris near the battleground, as the giant building above Avril began to shift and groan. Avril couldn’t see why from this vantage—they were still under it—but it was pretty clear what was about to happen.

The Citadel was coming down. Right on top of them.

Everywhere outside, gunships and walkers collapsed in the street or fell like meteors. They could take their chances out there, or be buried alive when the massive structure came down. It was an easy choice.

“Go for the ships!” she yelled. “Helix, grab someone and get them out of here!”

The Helix moved for what was left of the Menagerie and Regiment, then dashed them forward in blurs of purple toward the street.

Avril saw Isaac struggling with his buggy. She leapt for him, her vision covered in yellow, then started unstrapping him from the thing.

“Wait!” he yelled. “I love this thing.”

“I’ll get you a new one.” She pulled him free, then dashed them both through the opening, out of there.

Outside, looking straight up, they could see the energy of the Nexus pooling above the Citadel and
bursting through
its walls. It must be
growing.
The air was full of Assembly entities, lighting up the streets as they rose.

Avril kept moving, carrying Isaac over her shoulder, running for the ships just ahead.

Explosions rocked the Citadel, the Nexus finally burst through the thing’s exterior walls … and the inevitable began.

*   *   *

“FULL CHINOOK, HIT IT!”
Olive yelled, watching the last of the Menagerie board the
Wind Rift.
Her sails plumed outward, the ship began to roll. The same thing was happening on the neighboring blocks, the other Landships loading up and engaging full sail.

The
Wind Rift
tore back through the streets, trying to get clear of what was about to happen. The Citadel shuddered … then began to
lean.

A loud, awful groaning sound ripped the air as the whole thing started to come down, thousands of feet of black metal, caving in on itself.

Olive watched it fall right toward them. The lower parts hit and decimated the old skyscrapers there, flattening them like they were made of paper. The rest of the giant obelisk fell, its shadow looming over them, growing darker.

Behind them followed another Landship, and Olive recognized the color of its sails. It wasn’t going to make it, it was too far away.

“Dresden!” Olive yelled into her radio. “You have to hurry!”

No response. The huge structure kept falling, crushing, swallowing up acres of ruins every second with a horrible rumbling.

“Dresden!” Her voice was harsh, she felt her heart pounding. “Please, you have to—”

From the front of the
Wind Shear,
rockets exploded into the air, trailing long lengths of cable that unfurled three additional sails and yanked the ship forward, almost bringing its wheels off the ground.

Olive watched the
Wind Shear
begin to
gain
on the
Wind Rift.

The Citadel thundered down, decimating everything as the Landships raced forward, trying to get away.

The
Wind Rift
shuddered violently, every piece of it vibrating and tearing loose under the strain.

“She’s going to break apart!” Casper yelled.

“Break her apart then!” Olive yelled back, keeping her eyes on the
Wind Shear,
still gaining. “Come on, you bastard,” she said to herself, watching, gripping the railing. “Come on.” The
Wind Shear
rumbled forward, the falling Citadel on its heels. She’d never seen speed like that, never seen a crew work so well together. It was beyond inspiring.
“Come on!”

The remains of the Citadel slammed into the ground in a symphony of fractured sound unlike anything Olive had ever heard. The ruins vanished. The sky went dark. The shock wave from the impact hit, and the
Wind Rift
careened out of control.

“Brace for impa—!” Casper started, but it was too late.

The ship slammed into the side of a building, ripping the port side to shreds, flattening trees and old traffic meters before plowing into the corner of what had once been a bakery.

Olive flew forward, slammed into the helm. Casper slid by but Olive grabbed his hand, kept him from going over the side.

And then it was finished.

The horrible sound of the fall echoed in the ruins for what seemed like forever until it finally faded away. The air was full of dust and smoke, and she could hear people coughing nearby, could see shadows moving. Good. She wasn’t dead.

She pushed up, helped Casper stand, and looked at him. “Hell of a piece of piloting.”

He looked past Olive, to where the front of the ship had buried itself into the building. “I killed a bakery.”

Olive smiled, rubbed the hair on his head.

She and Casper joined the rest, exiting the ship, filing into the streets, staring back the way they’d come. The dust began to clear, and they saw a giant swath of the city that was simply gone, a massive, burning debris field that stretched for miles, the final resting place of the Citadel.

In its place was an enormous, flickering field of brilliant, glowing energy, growing bigger by the second as the Ephemera of the Assembly, the radiant, crystalline entities, entered and absorbed into it, filling it with their luminance. Silence filled the crowd as they stared in awe at the sight.

The first cheer went up. Then a red Antimatter crystal launched into the air. Then dozens. Then gunfire. Everyone cheered and yelled and hugged, a mass of people, celebrating. Even though they scarcely understood what had happened, there was something monumental about it. It was, unquestionably, a victory.

Olive moved through the crowd, watching in a daze. She saw Avril congratulating her former Helix. Saw Wind Traders shaking hands with Menagerie. Saw Masyn pull Castor to her and kiss him. Saw Isaac, with what was left of his men, sit and lean against a telephone pole and close his eyes, as if waking up from some long nightmare.

And she saw something else. A very specific Landship, its crew disembarking, joining the celebrations.

Dresden led the way and stopped when he saw her. She shook her head and moved toward him.

“Sorry I didn’t get back to you,” he said, “it was kind of a hectic—”

Olive grabbed him and pulled him down to her height and kissed him. He didn’t resist.

When she pulled away … she socked him hard in the stomach for the stress he’d just put her through. He groaned and took a wary step back. “What the—”

“You could have hit those sails anytime!”

“Flair … for the dramatic, I guess.” He winced, holding his stomach. She moved for him again, and he took another step back.

Olive rolled her eyes. “Come here.”

Dresden cautiously moved closer. “You send a lot of mixed signals, you know that?”

“Stop talking,” she whispered, and planted another one on him.

Around them the cheering and celebration continued. In the distance, the Nexus continued to grow, lighting the city, taking the place of the sun which had just set in the ocean. The Ephemera kept filling it, becoming one giant mass of radiance in the sky.

50.
WHOLE

MIRA OPENED HER EYES SLOWLY
, unsure if she was even alive. Max hovered over her, staring down dubiously, answering the question for her. She smiled and pet the dog, then he trotted away, probably to check on Holt.

Wherever Ambassador had taken them, it was far from where they’d been. Everything was strangely quiet. Thick beams of reddish orange rose into the sky. Giant cables held lengths of asphalt above the ocean. It was a bridge. A famous one, the Golden Gate, spanning what had once been San Francisco Bay. It occurred to Mira, oddly … that it might one day be again.

Mira pushed herself slowly up and looked around. The sun had set, but the light in the distance was almost as bright. The Nexus filled the sky, and the golden light that drizzled down from it lit up the glass in the buildings there, making the whole thing look like some kind of giant altar of votive candles.

Thousands of Ephemera rose up, absorbing into the energy field, one after the other, making it brighter. The sight was impossibly beautiful, and it was only the movement of Holt nearby that dragged her attention away.

The bridge was as perfectly clean as the streets. Holt was nearby, trying to stand, banged and scratched up. Max nudged him to his feet and he and Mira stared at one another in a surreal haze.

There was a weak, distorted rumbling from nearby.

Ambassador’s shell lay crumpled, smoking and sparking. They could see where the pieces of the sharpened black debris from the Citadel had punctured its armor, and they stuck out at every angle.

Mira and Holt moved it. The sparks meant the walker was still powered, but she couldn’t sense Ambassador inside. Either it was too weak … or it was gone.

She put her hand on the armor, reached into the machine. There was a weak presence there, slight color that dimmed in the dark, but it was fading.

Mira shut her eyes sadly.

It didn’t seem fair that this is how it would end. The rest of its kind were being absorbed into the Nexus and to whatever future awaited them. The thought that Ambassador, the best of them, the one who had fought from the very beginning for this moment would be left out infuriated her.