Soldiers of Callisto (Void Dragon Hunters Book 3) Read online

  “I wish I had video for you of that fight,” Patrick says reminiscently. “They were expecting us to come quietly, like yes sir, no sir. Fuck that. We knocked the bastards down, grabbed the eggs, and took off. They pursued us, but we lost ‘em in the hills. I figure they didn’t have access to military-grade sat coverage, so whoever they are, they’re not all-powerful.”

  I nod. Mercifully, EarthCOM, the agency that oversees Earth’s planetary security, is on our side—Elsa and Clay have friends there.

  “We camped out for a couple of nights, then rendezvoused with Tim and Marguerite’s plane at Lubeck airport. Man, that’s the way to travel!”

  “Your parents have a private plane?” I say to Jeremy, awed.

  “Um,” he says. “A private spaceplane, actually. Watch the video.”

  Patrick grins. “I’ll stop embarrassing you now, Jeremy. Right after I introduce Francie and Scatter to the God of the Gaps.”

  The camera pans to a wall that is mostly taken up by an oil painting. It’s a painting of a spaceship lifting off. To be precise, it’s what Jeremy just said: a spaceplane, capable of in-atmosphere supersonic transits as well as interplanetary flights. It’s delta-winged, pointy-nosed, with engines like an elephant’s balls. The painting is done in an Old Master kind of style, which works surprisingly well.

  “And now for the best part,” Patrick says. “Tim and Marguerite have offered us the God of the Gaps to come visit you on Callisto.”

  My jaw drops. “No,” I say out loud. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Transporting Void Dragon eggs through interplanetary space? Nopey nopey no. Look what happened the last time we did that.

  “Where better to hide the eggs than under their noses?” Patrick goes blithely on. “And who knows, we might even get there in time for the action.”

  Francie was right. He so wishes he was here. And all too soon, he will be. It takes less than a week to reach Callisto from Earth.

  “No,” I say. “Jeremy, email him back. Tell him to bury the eggs or something. Or heck, your parents must have a bank vault.”

  “Too late,” Jeremy says.

  “See you on Friday,” Patrick says.

  “Knucklehead,” Francie says fondly.

  “Oh, I almost forgot!” Patrick points at the screen—actually, I realize, at the person holding the camera. “You have to say hello. No, you have to. Francie’s going to see this.”

  The camera is set down on a table, pointing at the God of the Gaps painting. Patrick stands in front of it. An old man walks around the table to join him.

  “Nonno!” Francie squeals.

  “Hello, kids,” the old man says in a rich Italian accent. “Francie, if you are watching this, do not tell your mother I am here.”

  “Luigi offered to pilot the Gaps to Callisto,” Patrick says. “Their regular pilot noped out. Wonder why.” He chuckles.

  The old man—Francie’s granddad—smiles. “Exactly, so not a word to Mamma, OK? She would worry.”

  “Promise,” Francie says. She kisses her fingers and reaches out to touch the screen. One kiss for Patrick. One for her grandfather.

  The screen goes black. I say aloud, “Friday? Did he mean this Friday?” Today is Monday.

  “They might even make it before this shitshow kicks off,” Jeremy says hopefully, and I realize, duh, why the Delacroixes agreed to lend Patrick their spaceplane. To rescue their son from almost certain death. “We just have to get back to Asgard. It shouldn’t be impossible—”

  At that very moment, a violent bump shudders through the floor.

  “We’re hit,” Jeremy and I yell.

  “Nope,” Francie says, rapidly deleting Patrick’s email from Jeremy’s computer. “We’ve docked with Alfr. I saw it when I was working outside this morning.”

  We crowd outside to the first-floor verandah, together with the IT and admin divisions.

  Our starboard view is utterly transformed. Battle-Raft Alfr looms over our little pastoral world. Its armored sides slope outwards. Sailors wave from decks on a level with the roof of our building. Behind them, guns poke out from the sides of a steelclad superstructure. The grinding of engines overwhelms the sounds of seagulls and wind we are used to.

  “Now that,” says one of the IT guys, “is a raft.”

  Alfr is shaped like a catamaran with 28 keels instead of just two. Its keels have slotted into our harbors—the horizontals of our starboard-facing E. Now each strip of farm lies at the bottom of a steel canyon, partially roofed over by Alfr’s decks. They were designed this way. They fit together like puzzle pieces.

  A shadow falls over us. We all charge around to the port side of the building. An identical behemoth is edging up to Lofn on this side. Bump! Vitr docks.

  For the first time in weeks, I feel optimistic. We might even survive until Friday. The two battle-rafts protect us like parents protecting a child. Their big guns face outward. Their auxiliary ships cruise up and down across the narrow strips of sea that are still visible to Lofn’s port and stern. Surely they will rebuff the Offense before Chester the Molester and company get anywhere near us.

  5

  That afternoon we’re allowed to board Vitr. The Marines scatter to check out the battle-raft’s superior recreational facilities. Francie, Jeremy, and I, with Tancred in tow, climb up as high in the superstructure as we’re allowed.

  The air vibrates with noise. Planes are landing on Alfr and Vitr’s flight decks, disgorging reinforcements from other parts of Callisto. Marines tramp down the ramps, armored and helmeted.

  “There,” Jeremy says. “That’s our ride back to Asgard.”

  Francie gives him a sideways look. “How are you gonna persuade them to take you?”

  “The planes are just going back empty …”

  “Jeremy, that’s not the point. You are not a Marine is the point.”

  I interrupt. “Look.” Shading my eyes against the sunset, I point at the horizon.

  “Well, hello,” Francie says. “Wonder if that’s Redrum? Or Droog?”

  “Shit,” Jeremy says. “We have to get out of here.”

  The Offense raft is just a shadow on the horizon, and when we return to the flight deck, we can’t see it anymore. But awareness of the enemy’s approach crackles through the work parties belowdecks. They are loading bales of seaweed and sacks of sea barley from Lofn into Vitr’s hold as fast at they can go, trying to complete the scheduled transfer of provisions before the enemy gets here.

  As we wait for an empty winch bucket to return to Lofn in, I hear a familiar laugh.

  “I have the worst luck,” says a loud female voice. “You guys have to leave some jellies for me, OK?”

  It’s that girl from Asgard, the one who was on our crew shuttle. She’s waiting in line for a different winch bucket.

  She sees me at the same time as I see her. “Hey! Lizard guy!”

  She bounces over and— to my astonishment—hugs me. She smells like disinfectant and feels like body armor.

  “Who’s this?” Francie says.

  Francie is not one of those girls who get all competitive around other girls. She doesn’t need to. But she does take against some people, be they male or female, at first sight. She took against me, and I still feel sometimes like she’s never entirely gotten over it. I can tell immediately that she’s taken against …

  “Sara.” The girl holds out her hand, grinning, and Francie has no choice but to shake it. “I was on the same crew shuttle as you guys. Hard to forget that … lizard.”

  Tancred butts Sara’s leg, as if he remembers her, too. I don’t laugh. It is clear that rumors have spread far and fast. No one thinks he is a gene-modded lizard anymore. But if Sara understood what he was capable of, she wouldn’t be patting his head like that.

  “Oh wow, you’ve got one, too,” Sara continues, spotting Pinkie Pie on Francie’s shoulder. “It’s so freaking cute!”

  Wrong thing to say, Sara. Francie takes a step backwards. “Well, it was nice to meet
you.” She pulls me towards the winch bucket scraping against the lip of the cargo bay. She’s actually touching me. Her fingers are warm on my wrist.

  “Wait up!” says Sara, hurrying after us. “I’m coming, too. I’m rotating onto Lofn.” She touches her rifle. “If the jellies try and steal our seaweed, well, they’d have to be nuts to want to, but it’ll be the last thing they ever do.”

  “Don’t worry,” Francie says. “We’re expecting Alfr and Vitr to take the brunt.”

  Sara pulls a rueful face. “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  We are halfway down to the surface of Lofn, descending by jerks, when a thunderclap shatters the air. It’s so loud we flinch. Sara is mouthing words, but cotton wool fills my ears. I can’t hear her.

  “ … use these,” she says as my hearing returns. She pulls a handful of earplugs out of her rucksack. “I guess they didn’t issue them to you guys.”

  “What was that?” I shout, staring into the sky. All I can see is airplanes.

  Boom. I grab Sara’s earplugs and fumble them into my ears.

  An airplane falls from the sky, painting a cloudy trail on its way down to the ocean.

  It’s started.

  *

  Boom.

  Ba-da-da-da-da.

  Zzzzzoik!

  The guns go on all evening and into the night. It gets so I can tell our battle-rafts’ railguns from their missile launchers from their torpedo launchers from the guns on the Offense rafts, even when I’m trying not to think about it, even when, like now, I’m stumbling along the edge of Lofn, hanging onto Tancred with one hand, peering into the water, at bits of Lofn’s main facility.

  A lucky Offense missile obliterated it. Took off the whole stern of the raft, never-used Gauss gun and all. There went all my hours of programming.

  At least I wasn’t inside the building at the time.

  But I think Francie and Jeremy were.

  I was doing trench maintenance, so I’m wearing my wetsuit. The helmet comes in handy because bits of burning stuff are raining down on me. Steam rises when they fall into the water, making it even harder to see.

  Lurid light bathes the wreckage. Missiles are exploding in the sky, intercepted before they can reach their targets. Oily smoke fills the air, making my eyes water and my throat burn—I’ve got my visor partway open, so I can hear what’s going on around me.

  “Francie! Jeremy!” I scream into my helmet radio. It is like shouting into Victoria Falls. The comms channel is pure chaos on every frequency, radio protocol long since abandoned.

  I should have accepted Hardy and Strong’s offer of a ticket out of here. Should’ve leaned on them, threatened them to make them give Francie and Jeremy a ride, too.

  I never knew it was going to be this bad. Never knew it could be this bad.

  I stayed because of Francie and Jeremy, and now I’ve lost them anyway.

  Those are definitely bodies floating out there. Any of them could be my friends.

  I’m never going to find them.

  Tancred, can’t you see Pinkie Pie anywhere? Smell her? Hear her?

  No smelling, Tancred answers absently. Daddy, big boom-booms! He’s excited. I would have thought the noise and the constant impacts juddering through the raft would spook him. But instead, the mayhem seems to fascinate him. Tancred go see?

  NO. We are not going any closer to those big boom-booms. We’re too close as it is—

  Boom.

  —as I was saying.

  Lofn judders beneath me, wallowing in the troubled sea, and I crouch down and knit my hands over my helmet.

  Marines rappel down the sides of Vitr and plop into the trenches of Lofn like so many ducks.

  “JAY!!”

  Crap, it’s Sara. She dashes towards me across the trampled sea barley.

  “Get in the blast protection facility!” she howls, skidding up to me.

  “Have you seen Francie and Jeremy?” I scream.

  “Everyone’s to take cover! It’s an ORDER!” She drags at my arm.

  “My friends,” I yell, jerking my arm away. “Francie and Jeremy! I need to find them!”

  A bit of humanity comes back into her face as my words force her to stop reacting and think. “Jeremy, yeah. He’s over there somewhere.” She waves at the less damaged portion of Lofn. “Francie, I think she’s on Alfr.”

  “On Alfr?!”

  “She said something about her boyfriend’s brother. Maybe she went to find him?”

  Jacob Newcombe is not here, except in spirit. But Francie probably is on Alfr.

  She’s gone to avenge him.

  Before I can talk myself out of it, I pull Tancred close. OK, little scaly-butt. Guess we’re going to go see the boom-booms after all.

  Another missile slams into Vitr, and Sara yells at me again to get in the trench.

  I swing my leg over Tancred’s back.

  “Sorry, Sara, I’ll be back in a few—”

  Tancred spreads his wings and leaps into the air, with me half-kneeling and half-lying on his back.

  Lofn shrinks to a murky strip between the bulwarks of Alfr and Vitr.

  *

  Oh.

  Look at that.

  Vitr is on fire.

  That’s where all that smoke was coming from.

  Muddy red flames boil from the open cargo bays on the raft’s port side, which is facing the same way as Lofn’s (now gone) stern. The people on deck are all running one way: towards Lofn.

  Now I understand the order to take cover in the trenches. They think something on Vitr—or maybe Vitr itself—is about to blow up.

  And where’s Francie?

  Tancred! Can you find Pinkie Pie?

  All burn, Daddy!

  Crap, he loves this, doesn’t he? But he must be a sitting duck, soaring over the steel tableland of Vitr, gaining altitude on a hot updraft from the fire on board. I flinch as something whistles out of the sky. An explosion rears its mushroom head from Vitr’s flight deck.

  Beyond Vitr, two of the Offense battle-rafts hulk less than a mile away. They look like ginormous torpedoes, their decks enclosed. Gun ports along their sides wink in unison, belching fire.

  The wrecks of auxiliary ships rock on the sea in between us and them. Red-lit oil slicks stain the water. Some of the ships are still moving, like wounded animals, swiping at each other with their cannon.

  The noise is indescribable.

  The smoke is choking me.

  The funny thing is I’m not scared. Not of death. I’m scared of failing to find Francie, and I’m scared of falling off.

  That harness idea I had … I should have tried to put something like that together myself. I was afraid Tancred wouldn’t like it, but as it turns out, he’s delighted to have me riding on his back. Fierce happiness radiates from him. He’s wondering why we never tried this before.

  Well, because your wings make it really awkward, little scaly-butt. I can’t sit on his neck, I’d be too heavy, and there’s nowhere to put my legs, so I’m basically lying flat with my knees hooked around his haunches, my arms around his neck. I peer down on one side of his neck, then the other, fruitlessly trying to find Francie amid the hordes of Marines and sailors. We’re flying back over Lofn now. Over Alfr.

  Alfr is not on fire.

  It’s worse than that.

  Another of the Offense battle-rafts has grappled it.

  This one’s half again as big as the others, and it looks different—not a torpedo, but a mountain. A hideous gunmetal iceberg, with a flat top that functions as a flight deck. This must be the famous Chester the Molester.

  It looks like its hull is made out of the same material as their spaceships: pearly, catching the light of the fires on Vitr near its summit. It’s a beautiful, appalling sight.

  For hatches are opening on its near side. And out of these tears in its weird skin, Offense soldiers scramble and bounce down to the deck of Alfr like twenty-sided dice, their legs tucked up. Our projectiles sparkle on their armor
, but do not seem to do them any serious damage.

  The Offensives aren’t built to run and climb and fight like us two-leggers. They are ten-foot air-breathing jellyfish. They walk on their outer tentacles. Their bodies are bags of goo, which can quite easily be punctured. This is proof that evolution is neither convergent nor particularly smart.

  Unfortunately, their physical vulnerabilities drove the Offensives to develop armored exoskeletons for every occasion. So it doesn’t really matter what’s inside the armor. Our Marines are facing bulletproof commandos with built-in weapons that put ours to shame.

  Tancred circles lower over the Offense boarding party and the Marines now engaging them in combat on Alfr’s deck.

  Oh God, is Francie down there?

  A flash lights up one of the upper mouths in the Offense raft. An explosion spurts out, heavily salted with jelly bits.

  Someone grenaded them! That’s the way to do it! Yeah, humanity! Earth, Earth—

  “Tancred, where are you going?”

  He is soaring out past Chester the Molester. As the cacophony of the battle falls behind, I hear a loud, tuneless jingle coming from the raft. “I’m Chester the Molester and I’m here to have fun! Ravage and savage and maul everyone,” in English, over and over, to an accompaniment of oompah music. Do the Offense really enjoy this? Or do they just pretend to?

  More jellies swarm on the aft side of their raft, which slopes down to the water like a half-submerged glacier. They’re getting onto cigar-shaped boats, the better to board Alfr from every conceivable angle.

  It’s official. We’re losing.

  “Tancred, go back to Lofn! It’s too dangerous!”

  He stubbornly ignores me, flying lower and lower. We’re right over the jellies’ heads.

  Just like human beings, they never bother to look up.

  Now Tancred burn.

  And my Void Dragon breathes fire.

  It washes across the jellies on the glacier slope. Their armor turns black. Their power packs, or whatever they use, catch fire and explode. They turn into spinning fireworks, careening this way and that, crashing into each other, cartwheeling into the sea, and I pump my fist and yell, “Oorah! Got them!”

  Tancred radiates satisfaction. Burn more?