"The woman with blue hair!" whispered an old man. "I saw her. In the gulock, she was always there, a shadow. She walked among the scorpions. She watched from the towers and laughed. We called her the Blue Angel."
"Our group named her the Blue Ghost," said a child. "She told my family she would bring us to safety. We followed her. Only I escaped."
Emet sat, listening to all these tales, his heart heavy.
Story after story.
They were all variations of the same tale. Small human communities, surviving on Hierarchy worlds. To every world, the scorpions had come. Seeking humans. Loading them into cargo ships. Promising them safety and comfort. But ferrying them instead to the gulocks, to starvation and torture and death.
And in most of the tales, there was her.
The human woman. The witch with blue hair.
Emet thought back to the battle a few days ago.
He had seen her. It had to be her, the woman from the tales. He remembered her lounging on a throne upholstered with human skin, one leg slung casually over the armrest, smiling at him crookedly. He remembered the scorpions kneeling around her. He remembered the spark plugs embedded into her head, pulsing with blue light.
Who are you? Emet thought. Why do you serve them?
Finally all the tales were told. Emet was about to leave the hold, to return to the bridge, when he noticed one last survivor. She was a young girl, maybe ten or eleven years old. She sat in the back of the hold, drowning in shadows. Emet hadn't even noticed her until now.
He approached and knelt beside her. The girl cowered.
"Hi there," Emet said softly.
The girl clutched something to her chest—a piece of bread, he saw.
"Please don't hurt me, sir," she whispered. "I'm sorry I ate some bread. I'm sorry. Don't hurt me."
Emet's heart twisted. He had distributed bread to the survivors earlier that day. He had noticed how many of them—those who had survived the gulocks—ate furtively, hiding the leftovers in their pockets.
"You never have to apologize for eating," Emet said. "I will always feed you and protect you."
The girl trembled. She reached into her pocket, and Emet thought she would pull out more bread, maybe confess to hiding it. Instead she held a memory chip. It was the size of Emet's thumb, black and inscribed with red glyphs. A piece of alien technology.
"My daddy told me to give this to you," the girl whispered. "He took it from the scorpions. He said it's very important. They caught him. They . . ." She covered her face, unable to say more.
Emet took the memory chip. His eyes widened. He recognized the glyphs engraved onto it.
This was scorpion tech.
"Who was your father, child?" he asked gently. "Where did he find this?"
But the girl could not answer. She wept, trembling in the shadows.
Heavy footfalls sounded. Duncan approached, short and burly, wearing leather boots. The doctor could strike a fearsome figure, his chest like a barrel, his white beard wild. But as he knelt by the girl, he was all gentleness.
"Come now, child," he said. "Come with Doctor Dunc, lass. I own a wee cat named Mrs. Tribbles, and she's been lonely. Would you like to meet her?"
The girl nodded. "I love cats."
Duncan took her hand, and as they walked toward the exit, he gave Emet a somber look.
He grieves, Emet knew. Every one of these stories shattered his heart. Every one of those we could not save weighs upon him. As they weigh upon me.
Heart heavy, Emet returned to the bridge, leaving the refugees with a few of the younger Inheritors, soldiers with kind smiles and bright eyes, men and women to provide comfort in the shadows.
A soldier not only kills an enemy. A soldier also comforts those who cower, offers a shoulder to cry on, kind eyes for a wounded heart, and hope for the hopeless.
The Jerusalem was a large ship, but her bridge was humble, a chamber not much larger than a bedroom. The floor and walls were raw, unadorned metal. A viewport stretched across the front wall, displaying a view of space ahead. Other monitors displayed stats from inside and outside the ship. Drawers and shelves held computers, cables, and weapons. Emet had been spending most of his time here. Without a permanent base, without a home planet, here was his headquarters. Often he slept on the bridge, slumped in his chair, ready to wake and respond to any emergency, be it enemy ships, an engineering malfunction, or a call for help from a human community.
Through the viewport, he could now see the rest of his fleet. A handful of starships, mostly old freighters and tankers and cattle cogs, bought from scrap yards and converted into warships. They had a handful of starfighters too, most of them a century old, modeled after Earth's classic Firebirds from two thousand years ago. With the new refugees, these ships were now crowded. Emet would need to buy more ships from Old Luther, his scrap dealer. He needed more food too. Much more. A temporary base, perhaps a place to spend a year or two, to grow crops, to heal.
Emet turned away from the view. He looked at the wall, where he had hung a framed photograph—the only personal touch on the bridge.
The photograph showed him as a younger man, no white to his hair or beard. His wife stood by him, the beautiful Alexis, her skin light brown, her hair black and lustrous. Their children stood by their sides. Bay was seven years old in the photo. He had Emet's light hair, pale skin, and blue eyes, but he was graceful and slender like his mother. In the photograph, Bay was hiding his bad hand inside his jacket, always so ashamed of his disability. Leona stood by him, ten years old. She had inherited her mother's darker colors, but she was tall and strong like her father, a natural warrior.
Those had been happier days, the photo taken on a sunny world. Back before Emperor Sin Kra, lord of the scorpions, had slain Alexis. Back before Bay had run.
Emet touched the glass pane.
So many of us lost families, he thought. So many grieve. Every human left in the galaxy has a tale of tragedy. I must find them all. I must bring my people home.
He looked at the memory chip in his hand. It was no larger than his thumb, yet surprisingly heavy. Emet knew the tongue of Skra-Shen. He could read the glyphs on the device.
The Human Solution.
How had the girl's father come by this? Was there a human resistance within Hierarchy space, the way the Heirs of Earth fought for humanity in Concord lands?
"How do I access the information on this chip?" Emet said to himself. He owned several computers. His drawers were filled with adapters and translators. Yet none would work with Skra-Shen technology.
He stared more closely at the chip, wondering if he could build an interface, hack into this device. What secrets did it contain?
The Human Solution.
Emet shuddered. He winced in sudden pain. The image flashed before him again: the strikers firing on the Rawdigger cog, tearing it open, and the hundreds of refugees spilling out, dying in space, so close to salvation. Deeper memories bubbled up, his wife screaming, reaching out to him, and—
An alarm blared, tearing Emet away from his thoughts.
He turned toward his security monitor.
Incoming starship.
Instinctively, Emet reached for Thunder, the double-barreled rifle that hung across his back. Even now, even here, he still reached for that old weapon.
He took a deep breath and let his hand drop. He recognized the starship on the viewport.
"Leona," he said. "You're back."
At once, a weight lifted from him. Whenever Leona came home safely from a mission, Emet felt half as heavy.
He watched her starship approach. It was a rusty old starwhaler, far smaller than the Jerusalem. Decades ago, Leona's starship had hunted starwhales, great animals who swam through space, feeding on stardust. Emet had purchased the rusty vessel from Luther's scrap yard, had given the ship to Leona on her eighteenth birthday. She had already been a capable pilot, even back then. All Inheritor ships bore the names of old Earth settlements—cities for frigates,
towns for the smaller corvettes. Leona had named hers Nantucket, a town mentioned in Moby Dick, her favorite book. She had tattooed a line from that book across her arm. I love to sail forbidden seas. It seemed appropriate that she should pilot an old whaler.
Emet opened a communication channel, hailing the Nantucket.
"Welcome home, daughter!"
Leona appeared on the monitor. "Home, Dad? I'm approaching our fleet, which floats in cold, dark space. Our home is on Earth."
His smile widened. "Well, welcome to our fleet which floats in cold, dark space then."
She grinned. "Better."
There was weariness to Leona's grin. Her eyes were sunken. But her back was still straight, and her hair was thick, wild, and curly as ever. Like him, she had a lion's mane. Many called Emet the Old Lion; she was the Young Lioness. But while Emet's hair was blond, streaked with white, Leona had inherited her mother's colors. She looked so much like Alexis.
I wish you could have known your mother longer, Leona, Emet thought. I'm so sorry you had to grow up like this, here in the cold and darkness.
"Dad, I've got seventeen refugees aboard the Nantucket," Leona said. "We encountered some resistance. From the Peacekeepers."
As the ship got closer, Emet noticed the scars on its hull. Those would cost money to fix. Scryls were in short supply these days. Emet had almost a thousand humans on his ships now. Water and food cost a fortune on the black market, and they needed weapons too, and medicine, and someday another ship, and—
But enough for now. Right now his daughter was home. That was all that mattered.
"We've picked up many refugees while you were gone, Leona," Emet said. "Hundreds of them. Our ships are brimming. But we'll find room and board for seventeen more. Bring them aboard the Jerusalem. Doc will look at them."
Duncan's bearded face appeared around a doorway. "Doc is up to his bloody eyeballs with patients."
Emet suppressed a smile. "Doc, I keep telling you, get one of the village healers to help you. There are a few among the refugees."
He snorted. "Village healers? Next you'll tell me to consult astrologers." With a shake of his bald head, Duncan vanished around the corner again, grumbling something about needing no damn help from anyone.
Emet opened the Jerusalem's hangar, and he sent out two Firebird starfighters to escort the Nantucket back toward the fleet. Not that Leona needed the escort. She was the best damn pilot in the fleet, skilled at flying both small starfighters and larger, heavier corvettes like the Nantucket. She had even begun to take shifts helming the Jerusalem, a vessel the size of an aircraft carrier from old Earth. Leona was twenty-seven, a deadly warrior, a legendary pilot, a heroine of humanity—and yet Emet still worried about her. Still felt the need to protect his little girl.
Soon the Nantucket was back among the fleet. They flew in defensive formation, the larger warships in the center, the smaller fighters circling them. It was barely an army. It was barely even a militia. It was humanity's only hope.
A shuttle ferried Leona onto the Jerusalem, and she met Emet on the bridge. Her uniform was tattered, and sand clogged her rifle.
"You're limping," Emet said.
She nodded. "Lost a heel."
He stared at her thigh. He could make out the shape of a bandage under the pant leg. "Peacekeepers?"
"Mucking Tarmarin claw. Fought a bastard in the arena." She grinned. "You should see him. What's left of him, at least. Which isn't much." She limped closer and embraced him. "It's good to be back, Dad. My Ra! All those refugees in the hold! I've never seen so many. They're so thin. So scared. What happened to them?"
"Scorpions," Emet said.
They spent a few moments swapping tales. Emet told her of the Rawdiggers' help, of the battle at the border, of the refugees' stories. Leona spoke of the events on the desert world of Til Shiran, of beating the gladiator, winning money for the Inheritors, finding human survivors.
Emet met her eyes. "You didn't hear any news of Bay, did you?"
Leona's eyes darkened. She shook her head. "I searched every tavern, brothel, and gambling pit I passed by. Just the types of places he'd like. Nothing."
Emet's throat tightened. He nodded. Every time Leona went down to a planet, seeking human survivors, he hoped she would find Bay. It had been ten years since that horrible day. Since Bay's heart had broken. Since he had stolen a shuttle from the Jerusalem's hangar and fled. Sometimes they heard clues—a barfly who had grogged with Bay, a druggie who had smoked with him, an android prostitute who had comforted him for a night. By the time the Inheritors arrived, Bay was always gone, lost in some other den of sin.
"May someday my son come home too," Emet said softly. "May someday you both greet me here on my bridge."
Leona placed a hand on his shoulder. She was a tall woman, but she still stood half a foot shorter than him, and she had to look up into his eyes. "We'll find him. We'll be a family again. May all our lost children come home."
Emet felt the weight of the alien memory chip in his hand. His heart felt heavier.
The Human Solution.
"Leona," he said, raising the chip. "We need to hack into Skra-Shen tech."
Leona scoffed. "Good luck with that, Dad. We've tried, remember? Last time we grabbed a piece of their tech, we spent weeks at it. None of our technology can crack it."
"But there is one who can help," Emet said, staring into her eyes.
Leona frowned. "No. Dad?" She took a step back. "No."
"It's the only way."
Leona inhaled sharply. "She's a goddamn psychopath!" She growled. "She's likely to turn us in, or kill us herself with twisted dark magic, or—"
"For the right amount of money," Emet said, "she'll help. You won thirty thousand scryls slaying the gladiator. That should cover it."
Her eyes blazed. "Dad! That money is for food. For water. For weapons. Especially with these new survivors, and—"
"And there are possibly millions of humans out there we can still save." Emet grabbed her arm. "Leona, I am not asking you. I am telling you. That is our path. This is my command."
Leona stared into his eyes in silence, face hard. Then she pulled her arm free, spun on her heel, and marched off the bridge.
Emet stood alone, staring at the doorway.
Long ago, I gave Bay an order. He refused. He left. And ten years later, he's still lost.
Emet clenched his fist, and he hated. He hated that the scorpion emperor had slain his wife. He hated that this war had driven Bay away. He hated that it was driving Leona away. He hated that the refugee girl cowered. He hated that hundreds were huddling in his ship, broken souls. He hated that millions still needed him. He hated what this war had done to him, turning him into a haunted man, constantly reaching for his gun. He looked at the framed photograph again. A smiling family, standing on solid ground under blue sky. A lie. Nothing but a Ra damn lie, a ghost of what might have been, of what might never be again.
He looked into space. He gazed upon his fleet. He sought Earth in the distance, but the blue marble was as lost as he was.
A blue witch. A creature with hair as blue as Earth. Emet shuddered. A demon in human form.
He remembered seeing that creature aboard the scorpion ship. A woman with alabaster skin, with blue hair, with mad eyes.
"Who are you?" Emet whispered.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jade walked across the scorched planet Ur Akad, heart of the scorpion empire. The hot, sandy wind ruffled her blue hair, stung her cheeks, and billowed her cloak of human skin. Jade smiled crookedly. After a long hunt in the darkness, she was home.
The jagged plains of her homeland spread before her. The land was searing bronze and burnt yellow, sprouting mesas and boulders that pierced the sky. Mountain ranges rose like spine ridges, and canyons plunged like scars. Winds howled, slamming into cliffs, forming and reforming dunes like ripples of burnt flesh. Kali Karan, the Red Sun, blazed on the horizon, a massive wound in the sky, dripping its light like bl
ood. Shamash Karan, the White Sun, crackled overhead, smaller but hotter, brighter, crueler.
The scorpions, her brothers and sisters, scuttled and shrieked across the landscape. Millions of them climbed the jutting mesas, spawned in canyons, and rutted in the sand. Thousands of their starships, the mighty strikers, hovered above, filling the sky. Myriads more stormed across space, ruling the Hierarchy with an iron claw. Long ago, the Skra-Shen had been small, barely larger than Jade's hand. Long ago, they had competed with many other predators on their planet, many other hunters between the worlds.
But we rose, Jade thought. We grew larger, stronger. We took over this planet. And we took over the Hierarchy, a mighty axis of power. And soon the galaxy will be ours. She clenched her fists. And the humans will be gone!
Hatred blazed through her.
Humans!
She growled and spat. She loathed them. She loathed them with the fire of ten thousand suns.
"All this glory," she hissed. "The might of the empire. The vastness of the galaxy. All is infested with rot." Blood rushed to her cheeks, and her heart pounded. "Vermin infect the galaxy. But I will wipe them out."
Jade looked down at her own body. She wore the form of a human, a trickery to deceive them. But her skin was not frail like theirs, not like the cloak she wore, the pelt she had ripped off a living victim. Her skin was white as alabaster and hard as steel, formed from the same material as a scorpion's shell. Her claws were long and sharp, made for slicing through human flesh, for flaying them as they screamed. Her hair billowed in the sandy wind, long and blue.
The Blue Witch, they call me. She laughed. How the humans love me, then fear me!
She still remembered her scorpion form. Still remembered slicing into her victims with pincers, stinging them with her tail, injecting them with venom. Her father had broken her. Had shattered her into a thousand pieces. Had reformed her into this new shape, this new shell.
Go walk among the humans, Emperor Sin Kra had told her.
She had stood before him, dripping blood, shaped like the vermin. I am hideous.
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