The Heirs of Earth

by Daniel Arenson

Alice reached out a cable and stroked Leona's hair.

  "When you came to me last time, I would not sell you the scorpions' algorithm, and your mate overheated and could not be rebooted. I cannot undo that algorithm, but let me transfer you a new packet of information." Her eyes narrowed. "Nearby, there is a hardware installation called Paradise Lost. Many beings of flesh dwell there. Two of those beings are Homo sapiens. But exterminators are heading toward Paradise Lost, planning a massive purge. Those Homo sapiens need you."

  Leona winced. She glanced at her father. "Can we spare a single ship to save two humans? When so many need us across the border?"

  "Leona," Alice said, and her voice hardened. "One of those humans is named Bay Ben-Ari. Your brother."

  Leona's heart seemed to stop.

  She and Emet stared in stunned silence.

  Bay. My brother. He's alive. He's—

  Alice screamed.

  Leona started, spinning toward her. "Alice, wh—"

  Alarms blared.

  The room trembled.

  "They followed you here!" Alice shrieked. She began to spin madly, eyes wide. "Scorpions, scorpions, scorpions!"

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  "Scorpions—here in Hacksaw Cove?" Emet said. "Nonsense. This is Concord space. The scorpions wouldn't dare invade."

  But Alice was spinning rapidly, screaming.

  "Scorpions! Scorpions! Scorpions!"

  From outside, rose the screams of other hackers. Hacksaw Cove trembled.

  "No, Dad, this isn't Concord space," Leona said, gripping her rifle. "This is no man's land. This place doesn't even officially exist."

  She grabbed the memory chip and pulled it free from the wall. She and Emet stared at it together. It was bleeping and flashing.

  The scorpions can track their chip, Leona realized, heart sinking. There's a tracking beacon on the Ra damn chip.

  Emet stared into her eyes. Clearly, he realized the same thing.

  "Run!" Emet said. "To the Nantucket!"

  They raced out of Alice's shop an instant before plasma bolts blasted it.

  The shop exploded behind them.

  Leona and Emet leaped through the cavernous interior of Hacksaw Cove. It was filled with cables, gondolas, a thousand hacker shops—and a swarm of strikers.

  As she fell, Leona activated her cybernetic time-twister.

  Time slowed down around her. She fell in slow motion through hell.

  The strikers filled the asteroid. They swarmed through the chamber, ripping cables. Gondolas fell and shattered. The strikers were firing everywhere, bombarding hack-shops. Aliens screamed, voices deep and distorted. Shards of glass and metal filled the chasm. To Leona, the shards seemed to hover as gently as snowflakes. Corpses burned.

  Her father was tumbling down beside her. To Leona, he seemed to be falling as slowly as a stone sinking in molasses. Even as he fell, Emet aimed Thunder, his mighty rifle. Bullets flew from Thunder's two barrels, rippling the air, sailing toward a striker. Leona watched the bullets glide by like leaves on the wind.

  The scorpion ship was turning toward them, cannons hot. All around, severed cables dangled, sparking. Gondolas shattered, filling the air with more glittering shards.

  And there ahead, at the piers—the ISS Nantucket.

  The time-twister was searing her skull.

  Grimacing, Leona reached for a severed cable. It twisted like an irate snake, spraying sparks.

  The pain was too much. Leona deactivated the time-twister before it could fry out—or crack her skull.

  Time returned to normal.

  The shards of glass, which had glided like snowflakes, now flew like bullets. The alien screams rose in pitch. And Leona was falling so fast her head spun.

  Screaming, Leona grabbed the cable. It burned her palm. She reached down to her father, and he grabbed her wrist.

  They swung on the cable.

  The striker fired, and the plasma bolt missed them. It hit a shop above, and chunks of metal hailed.

  Emet fired Thunder again, hitting the striker's engine. It exploded, and the shock wave tossed Leona off the cable.

  They fell.

  Every striker in the cavern was turning toward them now, cannons red-hot.

  And from a thousand shops, the drones buzzed forth.

  The tiny, weaponized machines fired guns. Bullets slammed into strikers, barely harming them. The scorpion ships fired back, but the drones were everywhere, swarming like bees, dodging the assault. Bullets slammed into striker exhaust ports. Engines exploded. One striker tried to rise, only to crash through drones, tilt, and entangle in cables.

  Leona and Emet, still falling, reached out and grabbed drones. They clung to the flying machines, legs kicking.

  Inside hundreds of hacker pods, Leona saw aliens typing furiously, controlling the drones. The hackers were fighting from inside their shops, piloting their war machines, pounding the strikers with bullets, lasers, and shells. There were only a handful of strikers, but they were already adapting. Instead of attacking the swarm of drones, the strikers began firing on the shops honeycombing the walls.

  The hackers inside screamed as they burned.

  Leona's head pounded. She dared not activate her time-twister again. She gritted her teeth, clung to the drone with one hand, and managed to load Arondight.

  A striker flew toward her.

  She fired.

  Her bullet entered the striker's cannon an instant before a plasma bolt shot out.

  The cannon exploded.

  The striker fell, a hole in its prow. Scorpions spilled out from the ship, burning and shrieking. The ruined striker slammed into the central stalk of cables that rose like a coiling tree through the cavern.

  Fire blazed.

  Cables tore, buzzing with electricity, and then the power went out, and the asteroid plunged into darkness.

  Firelight flared. The strikers kept pounding the drones. The tiny ships swarmed everywhere. In the orange light, the strikers turned back toward Leona and Emet.

  "Leona, get rid of the chip!" Emet shouted.

  "I can't!" she said. "We haven't saved the info—"

  "The enemy is still tracking it!" Emet roared. "Toss it—now!"

  The strikers' cannons were heating up again.

  Wincing, Leona hurled the memory chip.

  The strikers spun toward it like a pack of wild dogs toward a hare.

  They opened fire, destroying the chip.

  Leona released the drone she held. She fell, then caught another drone, one that was flying upward. She soared past the severed stalk of cables. She swung forward, caught another drone, then another, making her way toward the piers. Emet followed, also swinging from drone to drone. They landed on the dock and raced toward the ISS Nantucket. Hundreds of drones flew all around, firing at the strikers.

  The pier stretched out before them, leading toward the Nantucket at its edge. Leona and Emet ran.

  Scorpions leaped down from a striker above. The aliens landed on the pier ahead of Leona and Emet, hissing.

  The two Inheritors stood side by side. Their blue overcoats billowed back. They raised their rifles and fired.

  The scorpions—there were three—bounded across the pier.

  Bullets slammed into one, shattering its exoskeleton, tearing off a claw.

  Jake screamed, legless.

  Her wedding burned.

  Leona shoved that memory aside.

  No memories now. No fear. No pain. Just this moment.

  The scorpions reached them.

  One of the arachnids reared before Leona, jaws opening, revealing teeth like daggers. Leona fell onto her back, raised her rifle, and fired into the open maw.

  Her bullet shattered a tooth and tore through the scorpion's pallet.

  The alien dropped onto her, pincers snapping.

  Leona howled, rolled aside, and fell off the pier.

  She fell several meters, landed on a drone, and rose back up, gun blazing. The scorpion leaped off the pier towar
d her. Her bullets slammed into it.

  The scorpion fell back. Leona jumped back onto the pier and fired again. Again. The scorpion screeched. Each bullet shoved it back a step. Leona fired bullet after bullet until the scorpion fell off the opposite side of the pier. It burned in the battle's crossfire.

  Emet stood nearby, battling two scorpions, one at each side. He was firing Thunder with one hand, Lightning with the other. His pistol was wide and heavy, the size of a drill, and rather than bullets it fired electrical bolts. But it could not break through scorpion exoskeleton. One of the beasts reached Emet, and its pincers opened, and—

  Leona fired Arondight's last bullet.

  She cracked the scorpion's pincer, diverting the attack.

  The massive claw grazed Emet's leg, ripping skin and flesh, but fell short of severing the limb.

  As Emet concentrated his fire on the other scorpion, Leona leaped up, grabbed a drone, and tugged it down. She hurled the machine at the scorpion with the cracked pincer. The beast screeched, clawing at the drone. The drone peppered it with bullets. Both scorpion and drone fell from the pier.

  With a final shot, Emet slew the last scorpion. It had taken several magazines to take down the bastard.

  Father and daughter paused for a single breath. The battle still raged around them, strikers and drones whirring through the hollowed-out asteroid.

  "To the ship!" Emet said.

  They ran down the pier toward the Nantucket.

  They were steps away when a figure leaped down from above, blocking their path.

  A woman.

  A human woman.

  She landed at a crouch, then straightened and smiled crookedly. Her long blue hair billowed, revealing the shaved side of her head where implants shone.

  "Hello again, pests." The woman licked her teeth. She raised her hands, and claws burst from her fingertips. "Come to die."

  Leona was out of bullets, but she raised her fists. "Who are you?" she shouted over the roaring battle.

  The woman's smile widened, tapering to points—a demonic smile. "Don't you know my name?"

  Time flowed back. Memories pounded into Leona, so powerful she was there again, viewing her childhood.

  Playing with her friend.

  With David Emery's eldest daughter—a wild girl with a wide smile.

  Leona blinked, returning to the present.

  "Jade," she whispered. "Jade Emery. My old friend. What happened to you?"

  Jade shrieked—a cry so loud Leona covered her ears and grimaced. Teeth bared, claws gleaming, Jade leaped into the air, then came swooping toward the Inheritors.

  Bellowing, Emet hurled himself forward.

  He slammed into Jade.

  Emet was a large man, especially for this era of hunger and want. He stood several inches north of six feet, and was still burly and powerful despite his age. Jade stood a foot shorter and probably weighed half as much. Emet should have crushed her like a truck slamming into a bicycle.

  Instead, he hit her like a truck into a wall.

  He fell back, reeling. Jade smiled, still standing, and smoothed her outfit of black wires.

  Leona roared and leaped forward too. Out of bullets, she swung Arondight like a club.

  The wooden stock slammed into Jade's jaw. It was a blow so powerful it should have shattered the skull and scattered teeth. Instead, the stock cracked.

  Jade smiled at Leona, blew her a kiss, then lashed her claws.

  As the claws tore into her shoulder, Leona screamed.

  Emet rose to his feet, groaned, and grabbed Jade in his powerful hands. He tried to pull her back, but he looked like a man trying to move a statue of solid marble. Jade spun toward him, snarled, and shoved him. Emet flew off pier and crashed onto a gondola below.

  "What the hell are you?" Leona shouted, bleeding. "What did they do to you? You used to be my friend!"

  Jade laughed. "I was never your friend, human. I was bred in the fiery pits of Skra Shaday. I rose to command fleets! I am the slayer of humans. I am the nemesis of Earth. Die now, human."

  She grabbed Leona's throat and squeezed.

  Leona gasped for air, found none. She kicked and punched Jade, but it felt like attacking stone. Jade's hand tightened. Leona floundered. Stars floated before her eyes. She tried to speak, could not. Blackness began to spread around her vision.

  Jade tilted her head, pouting. "Are you trying to beg? Yes, I think I'd like to hear that."

  She released Leona's throat and slammed her down onto the pier. Leona gulped down air. Before she could rise, Jade placed her steel-tipped boot on Leona's chest, pinning her down. The weight nearly snapped Leona's ribs. She gasped for another breath.

  Jade examined her fingers. She tilted her head, watching the blood dripping off the claws—Leona's blood.

  "You humans are so weak. Skin like paper. How have you ever survived this long?"

  Leona lay on the pier, the boot crushing her chest. "You . . . are . . . human."

  Jade's face flushed. She howled, teeth bared, hair crackling.

  "Die, pest!"

  Jade raised her claws high, bloodlust in her eyes.

  Engines rumbled behind her.

  As Jade drove her claws toward Leona, the ISS Nantucket stormed forward, flying a meter above the pier.

  The claws were a centimeter away from Leona when the Nantucket—a starship the size of a yacht—plowed into Jade.

  Leona lay on her back, gasping for air, as the Nantucket flew above her. She felt like a woman from an old Western, tied to the train tracks, watching a train roar above her. Her hair and cloak billowed.

  The Nantucket passed over Leona, then spun around and hovered, engines rumbling. Behind the ship, the strikers and drones were still fighting. There was no sign of Jade—nothing but a splatter of blood and clump of blue hair on the Nantucket's prow.

  She must be dead, Leona thought. Nobody could have survived that.

  Emet was at the helm, beckoning Leona. The ship's airlock was open. Leona rose to her feet. Clutching her wounded shoulder, she ran and jumped into the Nantucket.

  An instant later, a striker fired on them. Plasma blazed across the Nantucket's shields. Alarms wailed. The ship tilted, nearly crashing.

  "Get us out of here, Dad!" Leona shouted, running onto the bridge.

  The ship rumbled forward. Drones parted before them. The Nantucket stormed toward the tunnel leading out into space.

  A striker rose to block the exit. It fired plasma. A blast slammed into the Nantucket, knocking them back.

  Emet pulled the Nantucket downward, dodging more bolts. Leona fired their cannons, pounding the striker. The enemy ship jolted but withstood the assault. It faced them again, cannons hot.

  Leona glanced at the Nantucket's stats.

  Shields were down at five percent.

  She winced.

  The next blow will destroy us.

  The striker's cannons turned toward them, and Leona cringed.

  A hundred gears flew through the air.

  The striker fired, but its bolts hit the gears instead of the Nantucket. More gears slammed into the striker, a barrage of them, blinding the ship, clogging its cannons, slamming into its engines. The striker spun madly, a bison beset by hornets.

  Leona gasped and looked up. In one of the burnt hacker pods, she saw her. Alice.

  The living gear was charred, bleeding, half of her gone. On the outside, she looked like metal, but on the inside, she was pulsing organs. Her eyes met Leona's.

  The speakers on the Nantucket crackled to life, and Alice's voice emerged.

  "I have detonated the nuclear reactor in the heart of the asteroid. It is over for us of Hacksaw Cove. Yet we will live onward in the virtual worlds. There are more realities than this, layer upon layer, universe within universe. Fight for this one, Emet and Leona. Fly, Heirs of Earth! Fly and fight them."

  "Come with us!" Leona said.

  "I cannot die," Alice said. "I will live eternally in worlds beyond. Farewell
."

  With that, the alien fell from her pod and tumbled toward the pit. Below, the nuclear reactors were already churning, grumbling, ready to blow.

  "All right, we're outta here!" Emet said, shoving down the throttle.

  The Nantucket charged. Leona fired her cannons, knocking aside the last striker, and they burst into the tunnel.

  They streamed forward, crossing several kilometers of tunnel within instants.

  Fire roared behind them.

  They burst out into space.

  Behind them, the nuclear reactors blew.

  The asteroid vanished under searing light.

  Emet activated the warp drive and they blasted forward, moving at millions of kilometers per second.

  Leona checked the rear monitor. Behind them, the asteroid was gone, leaving pulsing light like a star.

  As her adrenaline wore off, pain flared. She grimaced and clutched her wounded shoulder. It would need stitches. Emet too was wounded, bleeding from his side and temple. The blood matted his beard and stained his coat, turning the blue fabric purple.

  "It was Jade," Leona whispered, her hands shaking. "The Blue Witch. The one who was rounding up humans. Jade Emery, my old friend."

  What happened to you, Jade?

  "She's gone now," Emet said. "Whatever the hell the scorpions did to her, she's gone. Wiped out in the nuclear blast. And so is the memory chip."

  Leona gasped and bolted upright. "But . . . Dad! I can't remember any of the locations of the gulocks, or the flight paths, or any of it! Just the one flight path tomorrow, the one near the border. And . . ." She leaped to her feet. "And Bay, Dad! Did you hear what Alice said? Bay is alive! He's at Paradise Lost! And—"

  Suddenly she felt woozy. Her blood kept flowing. She fell back into her seat.

  "First things first, we rejoin our fleet," Emet said, clutching the ship's yoke. "We get Doc to patch us up." His eyes narrowed. "And then we bring everyone home."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "They sent robots to repair me!" Brooklyn said. "Robots! I told you, Bay, I only like organic mechanics. Robots carry viruses."

  Bay sighed. "They only installed a new wing, Brook."

  "So? You can catch a virus through a wing. There are computerized sensors in wings, you know. And those robots were rusty and full of crumbs and ants. Can you check my wing for ants?"