Leona spun around and raised her rifle.
The creature leaped toward her.
She fired.
The bullet hit.
The scorpion slammed into Leona, snapping its jaws, knocking her against the helm.
The Nazareth swerved madly, slamming into the Rosetta.
"Commodore!" Ramses said through the comm.
"Ra damn scorpion on my bridge!" Leona cried.
A claw lashed at her. She screamed and swung her barrel into the creature's head. It didn't even leave a dent.
"I will wear your skin, Leona Ben-Ari," it hissed.
She tried to aim her rifle, but the barrel was too long. A claw pinned her arm down. The scorpion opened its jaws, ready to feed.
Leona reached into her boot, pulled out her pistol, and fired into the open jaws.
The scorpion's brains splattered the wall.
The sounds of battle still rose from the hold. There were more scorpions deeper in the ship. The marines would have to handle them. Leona rose to her feet, bleeding, and limped toward the controls.
The wormhole loomed ahead, only seconds away, a glowing sphere.
Leona grabbed the yoke and raised the ship's prow.
A striker slammed into the Nazareth, nudging her off course.
Leona howled and tugged the yoke with all her strength. She skimmed the edge of the wormhole, fell out into open space, then blasted her cannons.
The shells flew, shoving the warship back toward the portal.
For an instant, Leona saw the two corvettes ahead, fighting the strikers.
The Nazareth fell into the wormhole sideways.
Light flowed across her, and space was gone.
She tumbled through the tunnel of light.
The Rosetta, Kinloch Laggan, and the remaining Firebirds plunged in after her.
The starships tumbled down the tunnel, spinning. One burnt Firebird careened toward the edge of the wormhole, tore through the shimmering wall, and vanished. Leona was bleeding, panting, dizzy, but she grabbed the yoke, desperate to steady the Nazareth.
The wormhole shimmered all around them. The frigate was barely large enough to fit. She was sliding down the wormhole at dizzying speed, moving a light-year every second, and the ship was damaged, cracked, still spinning. Leona cried out, tugging the yoke with all her body weight, pulling the prow to the left, and—
The frigate grazed the wormhole wall.
The prow of the ship ripped through curtains of light.
Leona found herself staring—not into space but into another universe.
Blackness. Endless blackness and dark gray clouds and blobs the color of old bruises. Lightning flashed—endless storms of lightning spreading into the distance. Figures moved between the clouds, great black beasts, larger than warships, lumbering whales of tar.
Another universe.
Leona screamed and yanked the yoke sideways, blasted her thruster engines, and careened back into the ripped wormhole.
She kept sliding forward, finally flying straight. The Rosetta and Kinloch Laggan overshot her. The corvettes were charging ahead now, moving toward a distant portal. The end of the wormhole was near. A shadow at the end of the tunnel—a gateway back into her universe.
Engines shrieked behind her.
In her rear viewport, Leona saw them.
The strikers.
There were still forty scorpion warships, and they were charging down the wormhole in pursuit. Their plasma fired, and the blasts slammed into the Nazareth, nearly knocking the warship against the tunnel wall again. Another blast. The frigate jolted. She was only seconds away from the portal now.
Leona inhaled sharply.
She gripped the controls.
"Goodbye, assholes," she whispered.
She fired the cannons lining her starboard and port.
But she was not aiming at the strikers behind her.
She fired to her sides.
Around Leona, the wormhole tore open.
She charged toward the portal.
Behind her, the tunnel of light crumbled, exposing the black vastness and lightning storms. Thunderbolts slammed into the strikers, and the vessels blazed white, filled with lightning, revealing the scorpions inside. The creatures screamed. Their strikers tumbled, crackled, tore open, then vanished into the storm. In the abyss beyond, the monsters bellowed.
Leona stared, frozen in horror.
I tore through our universe. I doomed us all.
The Nazareth shot through the portal back into space.
She floated in sudden silence.
The Rosetta, Kinloch Laggan, and the surviving Firebirds joined her.
The ships turned to face the portal, gazing into the wormhole they had just plunged through.
Inside, Leona could see that dark realm of purple storms and lightning. The tunnel was gone. The wormhole was now a portal, not to another location in this universe—but to another dimension.
Leona kept waiting for the entire structure to collapse, for the portal to become a black hole and suck them in. But it remained stable. A doorway in space, leading to a realm of storms and monsters.
"All right," Leona said, feeling faint, "nobody use this wormhole anymore."
"Sort of like the toilet after Ramses uses it," said Mairead from the Kinloch Laggan.
"At least I know how to use modern plumbing," the Pharaoh said from the Rosetta. "Do you still squat in the bushes like a barbarian? With the amount of grog you drink, I'm surprised your captain's seat isn't a toilet."
She scoffed. "Shut it, coffee cake."
"Shut it both of you," Leona said, still shaken. "We lost men in there. Good men. Humans." She lowered her head. "Friends."
The corvette captains too lowered their heads. For a moment, they sat in silence, mourning.
"Rest in peace, sons of Earth," Leona said softly. "Your courage will forever guide us, and your light will—"
A striker burst from the wormhole, cracked, burnt, revealing the scorpions inside but still firing plasma.
The three human warships opened fire.
Artillery slammed into the striker, shattering scorpions, blasting the hull apart. Severed claws and stingers flew across space. Shrapnel thudded against the Nazareth, scratching the shields.
Leona slumped back in her seat, her legs shaky.
"That one was mine," Mairead said. "My shell hit first."
Ramses glowered. "How the devil do you know?"
"Because I paint dragons on my shells," Mairead said. "Easy to recognize."
Ramses fired his corvette's machine guns, tearing through a living scorpion that floated through space. "Well, you cracked the ship open, I killed the scorpions. You owe me some scryls."
The war raged, and Earth awaited, but Leona lingered here for a day. She repaired her ship—and prepared a beacon. The glowing, egg-shaped pod emitted a signal, warning ships not to enter the wormhole. She released the beacon around the wormhole, where it began to orbit, beeping out its signal. A galactic Out of Order sign.
I will tear the universe apart if I must, Leona thought. But I will reach Earth. I will bring humanity home.
They flew on through space—battered and burnt, low on ammo, still so far from home. The light-years stretched before them, filled with darkness and raging war.
CHAPTER TWELVE
He was a light-year from the front line, so close Emet could practically smell the battle. He flew toward the ancient alien relic, the place of his deepest nightmares.
I should not be here. He gritted his teeth, and his fists clenched around the yoke of his starship. I swore to never return.
And yet there it was. The Relic hovered before him. And here Emet stood on the bridge of the ISS Jerusalem, his flagship, flying back to this place of deceit and old pain.
The Relic was a starship the size of a small country. Nobody knew who had built it. Myths from a million years ago still spoke of the Relic floating in the darkness, dead and barren, its halls whispering
with wind and ghosts. The original builders were long gone. Their civilization was lost to time. Yet the Relic remained, pocked with holes, dented, burnt, an old ruin that would never fly again. It floated through space, dead but bustling with new life, like a whale's skeleton covered in crabs.
For thousands of years now, new inhabitants found shelter here. Shops clung like barnacles to the top of the Relic, known as the Sunny Side, selling everything from cutlery to androids. Shantytowns grew across the Relic's underbelly, a neighborhood called Barrel's Bottom. Here were crude huts of rusting metal, barely airtight, bristling with electrical wires, bulging with water domes and terrariums. Sandwiched between them rotted hives of sin: drug dens, brothels, fighting pits, and grog houses. Twenty million aliens from a thousand worlds lived in the Relic. This ancient, decaying starship had become a world of its own, a home to smugglers, druggers, bounty hunters, refugees, and countless other galactic lowlifes.
I should never have brought Alexis here, Emet thought. I'm so sorry, my love.
"Sir?" Rowan looked up at him. "I know this must be hard for you. Bay told me what happened here. I'm sorry. If you need anything, I—"
"Corporal, we're on duty," Emet said. "Concentrate on that. Our emotions don't matter now."
Rowan's cheeks flushed. She nodded. "Yes, sir."
Emet looked at the girl. She stood at a control panel, staring ahead at the Relic, eyes somber.
For the past few weeks, Rowan had barely left his side. Emet had insisted on it. He took her to meetings. On missions. He stationed her here on his bridge.
You must learn wisdom and strength, Rowan, he thought. You must become a true Inheritor. Someday, very soon now, you will win or lose this war for us. I must mentor you until then. But Rowan, I cannot be your friend.
Emet had known friendships before.
All those friends had died.
Duncan—his dear old Duncan McQueen, wise doctor, listening ear. Duncan—slain in the Battle of Terminus.
David Emery—an old friend, more like a brother. David—who had shared this dream. David—who had betrayed him, who had defected, who had died in a distant cave.
And Alexis. Emet's dearest friend. The friend he had married.
A friend who had died inside this ravaged, ancient starship that hovered before him.
Emet looked again at Rowan. A young, petite woman. Barely more than a girl, her hair short, her eyes serious, eager to learn and fight. A kind soul.
I loved your father, Rowan, but I cannot love you. I cannot be your friend, only your teacher, your commander. I almost sacrificed your life once. And I might need to sacrifice you again. Someday you might win this war for us. The cost will be your life. I cannot learn to love you. It will hurt too much.
He thought too of his children. Of Leona—on a quest to Earth. Of Bay—missing. Were they alive, or had they too fallen? The fear for his children was a constant demon in his belly, coiling and icy.
As the Jerusalem flew closer to the Relic, Emet slowed down. He navigated between many other starships. Thousands of vessels flew around him and docked at the Relic.
Most aliens here were of Type A2: solid, organic, and air-breathing. Type A2 species tended to congregate together, able to share space stations and worlds. Humans were of this type. But Emet saw starships carrying other types of aliens too. There were starships filled with water for aquatic species, known as Type A1—the most common type in the Milky Way. Other starships looked like huge airships, filled with thick gases. Within them flew air-dwelling floaters, aliens that commonly evolved on gas giants with no solid surface. These floating, balloon-like aliens were of Type A3, bizarre to Emet but still biological. A few of the Type A aliens were silicon-based. Nearly all, like humans, were built of carbon.
There were also drones for Type B aliens—species who had left their organic bodies behind. These aliens had uploaded their consciousness into machines. They controlled robots to navigate the stars. Some still had physical brains kept in jars. A handful even had vestigial biological bodies in storage, withering away. But most had no organic components at all; they had converted their minds into software. To Type B aliens, physical bodies were primitive, mere sacks of meat. Given enough time, many Type A aliens eventually evolved into Type B. Those who survived that long, at least. Most Type A's never made it that far, destroying themselves too soon in devastating wars.
If there were any higher types around, Emet wouldn't know. Aliens of Type C and above would be invisible to him. They had no solid form, not biological or mechanical. They were beings of energy and consciousness, living on a higher plane. According to weavers, the ancients who had built the wormholes had become a Type C civilization. They now dwelt in a realm beyond. Some believed in hypothetical Type D aliens, but little was known about them, and their existence had never been proved; they would be as gods.
Will we humans ever become Type B or C? Emet wondered. In truth, he hoped not. It disturbed him. He did not want to move humanity toward another existence, only to bring them home to an older, better life. Emet did not look to the future. He gazed toward the past.
He kept flying the Jerusalem, pushing such contemplations aside. He headed toward Rawside, the Relic's industrial neighborhood.
Here was a seedy landscape of scrapyards, warehouses, docking stations, refineries, and smuggling guilds. If Sunny Side offered a glittering front of high rises and boutiques, and Barrel's Bottom housed the lowlifes, the Rawside kept this world operating.
The Jerusalem had been a tanker in her old life, built to haul liquid and gas. She stood out in most battles, larger and bulkier than a typical warship. But here the Jerusalem seemed like the smallest kid in the playground. Freighters and tankers rumbled around her, three, four, even ten times the size.
Rowan looked around with eyes like saucers. "I never imagined starships could be this big."
Emet smiled thinly. "I never imagined your eyes could grow that big."
Her cheeks flushed. "Sorry, sir. I'm not used to seeing such wonders."
Sadness touched Emet at those words. Rowan had never seen the singing waterfalls of Lerinia, the diamond towers of Mazil, or the rainbow birds of Alisium. To her, this rundown old port was a wonder.
May you survive this war, Rowan, he thought. And may you see beauty in this galaxy. May we all survive this darkness and see light again.
Emet navigated the Jerusalem toward a scrapyard that clung to the Relic's hull. Hundreds of scrapped ships decayed here, piled up into towers, bristly with space barnacles. There were ships of every kind—freighters, tankers, cruise ships, slavers, starwhalers, even a few old warships. Not one looked younger than a century or spaceworthy. They formed an entire neighborhood, rising like fortresses, their portholes dark. Parasitic aliens clung to them, feeding off the metal. Between the stacks of ships, like a courtyard, gaped the hatch of an airlock.
It was here. Emet winced. Here that the scorpions attacked us. That Emperor Sin Kra grabbed my wife, tore her apart. That I held Alexis in my arms as she bled. That I sang to her until the light left her eyes.
He inhaled deeply and clenched his jaw.
No memories now. No pain now. I'm on duty. I'm an Inheritor. I've had years to grieve. Today I fight.
Yet he felt Rowan gazing at him with soft eyes. He clenched his hands around the yoke and flew onward.
He paused over the scrapyard. The Jerusalem hovered above hundreds of other old ships.
He switched on his communication monitor.
"Luther," he said. "Luther, it's me."
A video feed appeared on the monitor, displaying an old man in a tattered armchair. His skin was dark brown and wrinkled, and white stubble covered his cheeks. He wore a flannel shirt, a flat cap, and cargo pants stained with grease. Luther didn't look up at the camera. He was smoking a cigarette, strumming blues chords on a beat-up guitar.
Rowan gasped. "A human!"
Luther grunted, busy strumming his guitar. He still didn't look up.
"
Been a while since anyone called me human, girl." His voice was as gritty and raw as his blues. If a slab of dry meat soaked in whiskey could talk, it would have such a voice. "They call me a starling. Silly name, if you ask me. Heard it's the name of an old bird. But I can't control how folks are talkin'."
Rowan's eyes widened.
"A starling!" she whispered, turning toward Emet. "Half human, half—"
"Half alien, it's right, girl," Luther rasped. "Said my DNA's got all sliced up and mixed." He finally looked up, revealing luminous golden eyes, the irises shaped like stars. When he pulled back his cap, he revealed small horns.
"You went bald," Emet said.
Luther turned to look at him through the monitor. Those golden eyes widened, and he let out a chuckle.
"Well I'll be damned. Emet Ben-Ari is back. The Old Lion himself. How long has it been? A decade?"
"Two decades," Emet said.
Luther whistled. "Ra damn, time goes by quick when you're old and forgetful like me. And Ra damn, you're still flying that old piece of junk I sold you."
Emet patted the dashboard. He spoke softly. "She's a good ship."
"Damn right. Among the best I've sold." Luther placed aside his guitar. "You turned her into a fine warship, I see. What are those, electro-shields?
"I'd rather not say over an open comm."
Luther nodded. "Of course. 'Scuse my manners. You still got a shuttle on that thing? Come on in. I'll rustle up some flapjacks. Little Bay with ya? The boy used to love my flapjacks."
I don't even know if Bay is alive.
Emet shoved down the pain. He had to believe. That Bay was safe aboard Brooklyn. That he would return again.
"He's not here," Emet said. "But I have a hungry soldier with me."
They boarded a shuttle—the only one that remained with Brooklyn missing again—and flew into the Relic.
Luther greeted them in the airlock. What little hair he still had was white now, but his back was still straight, his shoulders still broad. Tools hung from his belt, but he carried no weapon.
"Ra damn, twenty years!" Luther said, holding out his arms. "Dammit, Emet, look at ya. Your beard is more white than blond now." He barked a laugh.
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