Earth, Our Home (Earthrise Book 15) by Daniel Arenson

Author:Daniel Arenson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moonclipse
Published: 2021-02-15T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Lailani's fleet was smaller. Much smaller. Her infantry, meanwhile, numbered only a few thousand troops. Compared to Earth's armada, her army was miniscule.

Lailani knew this. But then again, she had always been much smaller than her enemies. When you were as small as Lailani de la Rosa, you learned to fight with stealth, trickery, and ruthlessness.

She would need to employ all three qualities in this war.

It was a war she fully intended to win.

Einav is Israeli, she mused with a smirk. The Israelis have often defeated enemies a hundred times their size. It all goes back to their little King David, I suppose. Einav should have learned. Her forces have grown fat and slow and cumbersome. The plucky little officer has become Goliath. And I plan to smite her right between her pretty green eyes.

Lailani grinned and licked her fangs.

All she needed to do was buy a sling.

And so she went shopping.

She flew in the Black Rose Viperess. She flew fast. It would take Earth two of their weeks to get here. Due to time dilation, that gave Lailani a month of deep space flight. She had some time. Enough time, she thought. But she still pushed the pedal to the metal. The merchant she sought lived deep among the stars.

It would be cutting it close.

A swarm of a hundred podships flew with her, dwarfing the little Viperess. They were traveling through no-man's-land. Out of

Abaddon's empire. Far from the Human Commonwealth. They traveled into the depths.

Her favorite store was just beyond the cosmic horizon.

It was a three-day flight. It would seem like forever.

Lailani turned toward Kai, who sat beside her. "We'll buy the sling. We'll win this war."

Her husband stared ahead. He said nothing.

"Kai." She put a hand on his knee. "You have to talk to me eventually."

It was her lower right hand. The one that had grown a few days ago. She kept her other three hands on the starship controls.

Kai looked at the hand on his knee. At the claws that sprouted from the fingertips. He looked up at her, and she saw herself reflected in his eyes. A freak. A four-armed deity. A demon with white eyes.

That's who he sees, she realized. Not a woman. Not a wife. He sees a demon.

Kai rose from his seat, left the cockpit, and vanished into the ship's little hold. It was a small ship. There were two bunks that folded down from the bulkheads. A mini-fridge. A washroom. The entire hold was no bigger than a humble hotel room. There weren't many places to hide in there.

If he doesn't start talking soon, it will be an awkward flight, Lailani thought.

Suddenly grief stabbed her, and her eyes dampened. Strange.

She had not thought herself still capable of these human emotions.

Yet here they were. Maybe grief, yearning, and sadness were universal feelings. Maybe even monsters got sad.

It was bad enough losing Tala. Lailani could not bear to lose her husband too.

Neither Tala nor Kai were dead, but they were beyond her reach, and somehow that was more terrible than if they had died.

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