Epilogue

Rae Denham approached her meeting with Admiral Absen aboard Orion with a certain trepidation. Amid the celebration of the last week, his communications with her had taken on a decidedly chilly tone. She suspected she knew why, and wished she could avoid confirming her suspicions.

Somewhere deep down inside the half-alien goddess she’d become lurked a scared young lieutenant, still impressed by a formidable senior officer. Sometimes she wondered if someone older wouldn’t have been a better choice for blending.

Buck up, Rae. You’re not Sylvia Ilona anymore. You’re the same person that told the Pharaohs how to build the pyramids and you’re the same person that ended up, maybe more by luck than anything, saving Skull so he could, in turn, save Earth.

That made her feel a little better. Not much, but a little.

When Steward Tobias ushered her into Absen’s spartan quarters, the admiral stood up from behind his desk but did not extend his hand, and then he waved her to a seat well out of arm’s reach. Then he sat down, and so did she.

“I see from our relative positions that this visit is not to be cordial,” she said as her butt hit the cushion.

“That’s because it’s personal, not professional,” he replied with a sour expression. “Professionally I am jumping for joy that your husband sacrificed himself and your ship to save all of humanity. How else could I react? As far as I am concerned, he deserves every posthumous decoration, every possible paean of praise that humanity can bestow. But you...” Absen pointed an accusing finger.

“What did I do that was so terrible?” she asked, knowing full well the answer but not willing to concede without a fight. “I told you we all have our secrets.”

“Secrets I can accept.” Absen stood and turned to pace, but did not leave the area behind his large desk, keeping it as a barrier between them. “You led me on. You flirted with me. That was...slimy.”

“Slimy?”

“I couldn’t think of a better word.”

“I’m sorry, Henrich –”

“Don’t you dare call me that!”

“All right, Admiral. I apologize. I’m not perfect. I wanted to maintain a good working relationship with you, so I tried to thread the needle. Obviously I missed. Oh, well.” Rae threw up her hands and then stood up. “If that’s all you wanted, I’ll be going now.”

“Probably for the best.” Now Absen came out from behind the desk, but only to open the door for her. “Goodbye, Colonel Denham.” His words came out flat and final.

“Goodbye to you, Admiral Absen. Thank you for your efforts against the Meme.”

“Likewise.”

The thunk of the shutting door had a ring of finality.

Only after boarding her shuttle and separating from Orion could she think calmly, as she stared out into speckled space. She put this fresh wound aside, overshadowed as it was by the enormity of her husband’s loss. The loss of their children’s father, too. Damn you, Skull, to leave them alone. Couldn’t you have found another way?

The stars upon the black glared at her unwavering, and did not answer.

At least I have them. Like any warrior’s wife, standing at graveside saluting a flag, I have to look my children in the face and explain why he did it, and why we should all go on. I have to explain why he sacrificed himself and why we should sacrifice ourselves for a human race that barely acknowledges our membership in it. How without our help and technology, of Meme heritage and of mad scientist children, they would all be enslaved.

It seems the more the gods do for them, the more people grow to hate and fear them.

Her mouth turned up in a reluctant smile. Perhaps that’s a good reason not to play god.

***

Admiral Absen lowered himself slowly into his chair, feeling very old. The rejuvenated body of his did not fool him one bit. Decades of stress and war had aged him inside, where it counted. The one bright spot in his life lately had been this mad dream of his, that the most desirable woman in the solar system might be interested in him, and he’d just thrown all that away.

His wounds, the ones he thought had healed, had opened up again. Kathleen had been his first love, college sweethearts ending up in a fairy-tale marriage, with three wonderful children. When nuclear hell had stolen them, he thought perhaps he could recover, eventually, especially when that little seed of feeling inside himself had been briefly watered by Raphaela’s attentions.

He was wrong. Her flirtation had turned out to be a cruel, adulterous and dishonorable joke from a woman who knew full well she was still married.

Raphaela had used him. She’d incorrectly thought, he felt certain, that he needed some kind of managing, massaging, some kind of handling, to make sure he did his job.

What an insult. Perhaps a Blend really was a completely different entity, a deviant species, not human at all. Certainly the one that Huen had captured had been a traitor, an agent. While he didn’t think Raphaela was one, he now knew that she was as conniving as any Machiavelli, Richelieu or Borgia.

He took a deep breath, and prepared himself for a long hard career leading EarthFleet, defending humanity against the Meme...and keeping a close eye on her.

***

“Welcome back, First Sergeant Repeth,” the fuzzy figure said in a voice sounding like it echoed down a tin tube. “You’ll be all right eventually, but for now, we’ve shut down your cybernetics for your own safety and ours.”

A face pushed close to hers, resolving itself into a mask below medical eye protection. Why they bothered anymore, with Eden Plague and nano to cure everything, she didn’t know. Rules were rules, she imagined.

“Just relax. Actually, you won’t be able to help it,” the doctor said cheerfully, “as we’re pumping you full of happy juice.”

Time seemed to drift for a while, with hours passing in a fog before clarifying again. Eventually she could see another figure sitting by the hospital bed, but her vision was still too fuzzy to see the face. “Who?” she rasped.

Sergeant Dasko leaned forward. “Just me, Top. How you doin’?”

“I’ll live. I guess we will too, huh?”

“For now. We’re all just sealed in down here, and the civil defense chief doesn’t want to make any moves until we have to. Until we’re sure they’re gone.”

“How long?” she croaked.

“Two days, about.”

“Miller?”

“She’s like you. Next room over. You guys really cut it close, you know that?”

“Cut what close? The bugs got the techs. Killed them. We saw it on video.”

Dasko shrugged. “They must have set the fusion bomb timer after all. Lucky you guys hustled, Top. Would have been tragically ironic if you’d have died in the blast, just sitting there jawing.”

“Ten-dollar words, there, Sergeant. Guess you’re not a dumb grunt after all.” Repeth reached for Dasko’s hand. “Thanks, Jorgen. For everything. You and your people did a hell of a job.”

Dasko gripped hers. “Yeah. I guess we found out why we were buying time. Never thought I’d say it about a couple of zoomie bomb techs, but...damn.”

Repeth leaned her head back, thinking on the military people she’d known over her lifetime. “It’s not the color of your uniform that makes you a hero, Dasko. It’s what’s in here.” She slapped her free palm against her heart. “Ow.”

Dasko cough-laughed once, sadly. “Yeah. I know that.”

“So...two days. Earth might be a smoking hole. Our families might be all dead.”

“Pretty sure not.”

“Why not?” Repeth asked.

“Engineers are boring through the rock, making a shaft well away from the base. They ran an ultra-long-wave antenna up and say they have picked up some comms. Nothing definitive, but...”

“That’s good news.” Assuming it’s not just from whatever’s left after Earth was scoured clean of life.

“Sure is.” Dasko squeezed her hand once more, then let go. “I’m going to check on Captain Miller.”

“Can you send in a doctor?” Repeth asked as he stood.

“Sure.”

A moment later one of the medical staff came in. “Yes?”

“Hi, Doc. Any chance Captain Miller and I can share a room?”

The woman smiled and nodded. “I think that can be arranged.”

“And bring me a tablet please. I’d like to compose a letter to my husband.”

***

Vincent Markis stepped off the executive jet at the Carletonville airfield to see a group of at least a hundred people, complete with banners, waiting for him at the bottom of the steps. He was glad he’d had the downtime on the long trip from Australia, where the shuttle full of returning Aardvark pilots had landed, to rest and prepare for this moment. He was also glad, though feeling a bit guilty, that the Chairman’s – his father’s – official airplane had been there to carry him home.

Still, it had been four years since he left. Add the detox to rebalance the brain chemistry of all of the VR-addicted pilots... The special treatment, not to mention the full lieutenant’s bars on his shoulders, he had to admit he had earned.

Elise, his mother, had taken pride of place, tears of joy streaming down her face as she hugged him as if she would never let go. Then his father Daniel, his brother Zeke and his sister Elizabeth and Uncle Larry and Aunt Shawna and soon he lost track as many of the people he had grown up with right here on the South African research base mobbed him.

The last to do so made an impression, a body firm and curvy in all the right places with a sweet flowery aroma that made him remember he’d been celibate ever since Stevie died. “Dannie?”

The young woman squeezed him one more time before stepping back, still holding onto his hands. “All grown up,” she said, twisting left and then right as if showing off the spring outfit she wore.

“You sure are. You’re...”

“Twenty. I graduate next year. Biogenetics.” Her smile cracked the ice in his heart and his good day suddenly got even better.

“Come on, kids, you can catch up at the barbecue.” Daniel Markis’ boyish smile belied the command beneath his words as he waved the throng toward the gaggle of vans, SUVs and an official bus. “Today,” he said, raising his voice, “my son has returned, and I’m ordering him to have fun – and all the rest of you miscreants too. So...let’s have a party!”

THE END of Comes the Destroyer.

But the story isn't over yet. If you've enjoyed Plague Wars: Alien Invasion, you'll be happy to know three novelettes await you in the book FORGE AND STEEL. After that, Plague Wars: Stellar Conquest leaps forward a century in the Plague Wars universe, featuring some of your favorite characters as well as new ones.

Read on for an excerpt from FORGE AND STEEL, Plague Wars: Alien Invasion, Book 11

Excerpt from FORGE AND STEEL

Newly minted Marine Second Lieutenant Joseph “Bull” ben Tauros turned to look as an unfamiliar woman entered his platoon locker room aboard the EarthFleet assault transport Melita. He exchanged glances with Gunnery Sergeant Kang, his platoon sergeant, who shrugged.

“Can I help you?” Bull asked, walking toward the newcomer in nothing but athletic shorts.

Brown hair, a slim figure, a severe Anglo-Hispanic visage and dark, intense eyes greeted him. Those orbs never strayed from Bull’s face, despite his big bald head, naked torso and massive musculature. He easily topped out above one hundred fifty kilos. They didn’t call him Bull for nothing.

Even women who batted for the other team usually took a clinically interested look at his development. After all, the hard-won slabs of flesh were things of rarity in this age of laminated bones and combat cybernetics.

The ten-centimeter ferrocrystal Star of David medallion on a chain around his neck usually merited a glance as well.

“You Lieutenant Joseph Tauros?” the woman said, not flinching as he encroached deliberately on her personal space to tower above her.

“Joseph ben Tauros,” he corrected. “It means ‘son of the bull.’”

“That fits.” She stuck out her hand. “Jill Repeth. It means the clerks at Ellis Island couldn’t understand a Scotsman’s accent when he said ‘Repath.’ At least that’s the story I always heard. Personally, I wonder if some scoundrel ancestor of mine was running from the law and made it all up.”

Bull eyed her up and down, noting easy confidence wrapped in sharply pressed civvies adorned with an abundance of pockets. It was practical, rugged bush-style clothing, reminding him of former military who took security contractor jobs.

He didn’t take her hand. “You don’t look Scottish.”

“My mother was Hispanic. You don’t look Jewish.”

“Nobody looks Jewish. It’s a religion, not an ethnicity. I’m Israeli.”

“Nobody’s nothing but Earthers anymore.”

“That’s not what a lot of people think.”

“Then they need to think harder.” With a flat stare, Repeth closed her fingers and lifted her hand to point at Bull’s nose. “Might want to check that attitude, Eltee. We’re going to be working together and you do not want to get on my bad side.”

Bull repressed his desire to flatten the twink. No way that would end well. Either he’d put her in the infirmary, pissing off someone higher up – who’d obviously saddled him with some kind of advisor, maybe a reporter – or he’d fail to do so, which would make him look a complete fool in front of the dozen Fleet Marines around the room watching their brand-new, fresh-out-of-training platoon leader with interest.

Besides, he was old-fashioned enough to think manhandling a woman was unchivalrous.

Chuckles from behind him threatened to up the stakes, so he decided to cut his losses and avoid the game until he found out the rules. Forcing a wintry smile, he opened one meaty paw after all. “Call me Bull.”

“Reaper,” she said with a twitch of her eye, slapping her petite palm into his fist to clasp.

He applied just enough pressure to hurt, but the woman didn’t flinch. Didn’t even seem to notice, actually.

“I see you’re enhanced,” he said, letting go. “Who do you work for?”

The woman ignored the question. “You got an office? We need to talk.”

“I have a desk in the orderly room. Out the door to the left. Give me a minute to dress.” He pointed, watching her as she exited.

Laughter bubbled from the throats around him. “Chingawa, Eltee,” said Sergeant Acosta. “I think I’m in love. Leave some for the rest of us, okay sir?”

“I heard you’re in love with your right hand,” Bull replied as he donned a t-shirt, trousers, and then his tunic.

That brought more laughter, but at least it wasn’t directed at him. Bull pulled on his boots. “And I get a feeling this one would rip your prick off and feed it to you.”

Ooh, went the noises around the room, along with more vulgarities aimed at Acosta, and Bull used them to cover his own exit.

In the orderly room, he saw a lone Personnel troop tapping at a keyboard, but no Repeth. “Ma’am?” Bull called into the air, looking around.

Repeth – Reaper, he reminded himself – leaned out of the open door of the company CO’s office. “In here, Bull.”

When he entered the cramped space, he saw she was alone. She waved him to a drop seat and, once he’d eased his bulk into it, sat down on the edge of the tiny desk, which put her head on the same level as his. “Here.” She handed him a battered secure tablet.

Before he looked at the device’s screen, he said, “So I gotta babysit you? Make sure you don’t get your head blown off or eaten by a Pureling while you get some nice 4D video footage?”

“No babysitting. This ain’t my first rodeo. I’ll pull my weight and more.”

“Would be nice to know who you really are.”

Reaper rapped her knuckles on the desk. “I’m sure you can find some references to me in the Fleet databases. But, time for that later. Read the rest of the orders first. This is a rescue. Intel thinks at least six of our people are being held at a Meme outpost. I won’t get in your way. You make the tactical decisions. Your job is to get us in, recover our people and get out.”

“Then what’s your job?”

“Read the mission brief.”

Lifting the device, he looked over the orders. A short-notice raid on a Meme facility, one of thousands of living bases that had been seeded within the asteroid belt and now waited, stealthy, watching. The Marines could expect heavy resistance by Purelings, programmed warriors cloned from subject races.

The seldom-seen aliens themselves looked like giant amoebas. Teeming with free-floating memory molecules, they spread their Empire by conquest and by blending with other life forms, subsuming them and their abilities. They could build mechanical structures and devices, but they favored living ships and bases, which grew and spread on their own.

With millions of asteroids to search across quadrillions of cubic kilometers, EarthFleet stayed busy playing whack-a-Meme while they waited for the inevitable next invasion.

“So you’re not a reporter. This says you’re in charge,” Bull said, containing his irritation with difficulty.

“Overall command.”

“What are you? Some kind of spook?”

“That’s classified.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“That’s irony, coming from you, Bull. Don’t make me regret this.”

“I’m already regretting it.”

Reaper sighed and glanced upward as if pleading with a watching god. “Let’s get this over with, shall we? You’re the big bad alpha male and I’m the liability of a split-tail who’s gonna get a Marine killed trying to protect her high-value ass.” She hopped over to take the seat behind the CO’s desk and quickly slipped papers and mementos into the drawers, leaving it clear. Then she set her right elbow in the center and held up her open hand, staring at him. “Let’s do it.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Buk-buk-bukawww.” She sniffed, wiggling her fingers.

Bull stared at this crazy bitch who wanted to arm-wrestle him. She oozed confidence, and in his experience, that meant either she was batshit nuts, or she knew she could beat a fully boosted Marine. “Turn off our enhancements?”

Reaper laughed. “Fair fights are for fools. Come on, Bull. Live a little.”

“I’ll pass. You must be cheating.”

Her hands came down, rubbed together. “You’re not quite as dumb as you look.”

“You must have some really high-grade shit.”

“Beyond.” She grinned, held up one hand. Short blades perhaps two centimeters long sprouted from her fingertips, bright ferrocrystal coated in her own blood as they sliced through her skin from beneath, and then disappeared, healing quickly due to Eden Plague and, for sure, the latest combat nano in her blood.

“Ben zonah. You’re black ops.” Mods like finger-knives were forbidden to Marines. They’d just get in the way of fighting from within battlesuits.

“Direct Action, you mean? I have been. I’ve also been a Marine, and a Steward. And a few other things.” She shrugged.

Bull rubbed his jaw and flexed his hands in unconscious sympathy. Stewards were the white side of Fleet special operations, tasked with VIP protection, internal investigations and, it was rumored, sensitive anti-Blend missions. They got the best of everything.

By contrast, Direct Action operatives, General Spooky Nguyen’s special corps of door-kickers and enforcers, were...well, who knew what they were, beyond wild rumors? That’s why they called them black.

“How the hell old are you, anyway?” he asked. The rejuvenating Eden Plague made everyone appear young, so except for mannerisms and similar tiny cues, the woman in front of him could be ninety for all he knew.

“Old enough to be your mother twice over,” she said with the first genuine smile he’d seen. “Now, have we measured dicks enough, or do you want to go a couple rounds in the ring?”

“No thanks. I get a feeling I’d lose there too.”

“You might. But as you said, it’s only because I’m cheating, right?” She stared at him.

“Is that a trick question?”

“Yep. And here’s the answer. The enemy doesn’t fight fair, and neither do I. Neither should you. People don’t follow you because you can beat them in a ring or bench-press a bigger barbell. They follow you when they believe you’ll lead them to victory and, more to the point, you’ll get them home. Are you here to lead Marines and kill aliens, young butterbar, or to waste my time trying to act like the biggest, baddest bastard around?”

Bull continued to massage his hands as if he wanted to arm-wrestle after all. Eventually he grated, “I signed up to kill Meme.”

“Well, guess what? Like those orders say, you’re gonna get your very first chance. Today. And if you’re lucky, and your people do their jobs, and I watch your back, your grass-green ass won’t come home in a box.”

THE END of the FORGE AND STEEL excerpt.