The Heirs of Earth

by Daniel Arenson

  Then the duct detached from the ceiling.

  It plunged down toward the rumbling, churning furnaces.

  Bay leaped from the collapsing duct, reached out his good hand, aimed for the chimney where Rowan waited . . . and missed.

  He fell toward the fire.

  Rowan leaned out from the chimney and grabbed his wrist.

  "God, you do weigh as much as an elephant!" she cried, tugging back with all her strength.

  Bay kicked, dangling over the pit of hellfire, his legs kicking.

  Behind him, the bonecrawlers spilled out from the collapsing duct. They flailed and squealed. One grabbed Bay's leg, and he grimaced and kicked madly. Rowan was tugged downward, nearly falling from the chimney. Even Fillister was hoisting Bay up, pulling his shirt. Bay kicked, slamming his foot into the bonecrawler's head. The beast tore free.

  The bonecrawlers fell into the furnace below. Pistons grabbed them, tearing off their skin, shattering their round bones. Fire engulfed them. Flames roared upward, and smoke filled the furnace room. The broken duct gave a final creak, then fell off the ceiling, crushing burning bonecrawlers.

  "Pull me up!" Bay said, still dangling by the wrist.

  "Great idea!" Rowan said, straining, pulling him with both her hands. "Why didn't I think of that?"

  If she had been holding him by the bad hand, he could have swung his good arm upward the grabbed the chimney's rim. As it was, Rowan had to keep tugging until he could swing his legs into the chimney. He collapsed beside her, breathing heavily.

  For a moment, they both sat in silence, catching their breath.

  Finally Rowan spoke. "That . . . was . . . awesome! You almost fell into the pit like Gandalf after battling the Balrog!"

  "Speak English!" he wheezed.

  "You almost fell like Indiana Jones off the rope bridge into the pit of crocodiles in Temple of Doom! Which is, by the way, a far better movie than the original reviewers thought. Though the third installment is, I would argue, superior to both first and second films. Best to ignore the fourth Indiana Jones film, though, and—"

  "Rowan?"

  She blinked at him. "Yeah?"

  "Shut up." He slumped against the chimney wall. "Just . . . let me breathe for a moment."

  Rowan zipped up her mouth and tossed away the invisible key.

  For a moment, Bay breathed.

  Rowan unzipped her mouth. "We should really go now. There might be more. Up this chimney, we'll find a quick route to the hangar."

  Bay nodded. "My starship is ready."

  They climbed the chimney, moved through a network of ducts, and eventually reached a grate above them. They shoved it aside with a clatter. Covered with ash and blood, they crawled out into the hangar of Paradise Lost.

  The hangar, normally bustling, was eerily silent.

  The robot mechanics were gone. The slot machines were dark. Even the marshcrab clerk in his office was gone. A few starships sat here, engines shut down.

  Brooklyn was there. She saw Bay and her lights turned on.

  "Bay—" the starship cried, then fell silent.

  Rowan made to run across the hangar, but Bay grabbed her.

  "Wait," he whispered.

  Rowan froze.

  They stood still, staring. Bay knelt, lifted the grate, and slung his bad hand through the rods. He raised the metal grate as a shield. He was out of bullets. With his good hand, he held the lever from the ducts, wielding it as a club.

  Rowan looked at him, eyes huge. "You look like Aragorn from—"

  "Shush!" he said.

  Rowan shushed and clutched her knife.

  A shriek sounded below them. Bay looked down to see a bonecrawler climbing out from the duct. He and Rowan stepped away hurriedly, moving deeper into the hangar. Another bonecrawler emerged from a doorway. A third rose from behind the slot machines. Some crawled on the ceiling.

  "It's a trap!" Rowan whispered.

  "Yes, I figured that much," Bay whispered back.

  "It's a catch phrase from Star—" She groaned. "I'll explain later."

  They stood back to back, spinning slowly in circles. The bonecrawlers blocked every exit. The aliens raised their heads, the skulls eerily humanoid, the skin stretched tight across them. Their long bodies contracted and expanded like accordions, propelling them forward. In the open light, they were even more hideous, their skin warty and hairy, their jaws filled with sharp teeth and saliva. Bay's heart sank to see a bonecrawler inside Brooklyn. The hideous alien stared through the windshield.

  Bay wished he still had bullets. He only had his metal grate and lever. Rowan stood by him, knife raised. Bay had only seen her crawling until now. She was even shorter than he had expected. At a humble five-foot-eight, Bay was not particularly tall, but Rowan didn't even reach his shoulders. She probably stood under five feet.

  "Well, how do we get out of this one?" Bay said.

  Rowan winced. "You don't happen to have any flamethrowers in your pockets, do you?"

  "Sorry, babe, forgot them in my other pants."

  The bonecrawlers moved closer, hissing and grinning, when a rumble sounded in the shadows. Deep. Loud. The aliens shrieked and scuttled back, then lowered their skull-like heads.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  A shadow stirred.

  The rumble rose louder.

  From behind a rusty freighter, the creature emerged.

  Bay felt the blood drain from his face.

  "Muck," he whispered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Bay and Rowan stood in the hangar, staring at the creature emerging from behind the starship.

  Bay struggled not to faint.

  By Ra.

  The creature was a bonecrawler, but several times the normal size. Its skull would not have shamed a tyrannosaurus. Its body was lined with spikes, and it reared like a cobra about to strike. Saliva dripped between teeth like katanas, sizzling when it hit the floor. The creature had large eye sockets, each the size of Bay's head, but they were draped with taut skin, and its eyes were just vestigial bumps, barely more than moles. The creature sniffed, nostrils flaring, and grinned toothily.

  A boneking, Bay realized. These were rare beasts, the alphas of the species. He had heard they were only a legend, but now this monster reared before him.

  "Hello, pests," the boneking hissed, voice like serpents slithering over bones. "I've always wanted to hunt your kind."

  Great, Bay thought. It can talk.

  "Whatever Belowgen is paying you, we'll double it," Bay said.

  The creature coiled forward. A white tongue emerged and licked his jaws. "I am not interested in pest gold. Only your blood and bones."

  The beast lunged.

  Rowan screamed.

  Bay raised his shield.

  The alien slammed into the grate with the power of a god. Bay shouted in pain, his arm almost dislocating. The grate's bars slid up his arm, banging his elbow and shoulder. The creature's teeth snapped, grabbed the grate, and tore it free. The boneking raised his head and tossed the grate aside. It slammed into a slot machine, and scryls spilled across the floor.

  Bay and Rowan retreated, but smaller bonecrawlers snapped behind them. The towering king rose ahead, drooling and licking his chops.

  "Brooklyn!" Bay cried. "Fire your cannons! Fire on him!"

  But his starship was shut down. The smaller bonecrawler twisted inside her, cackling, tearing out cables and control panels.

  The boneking circled the two humans, his long body forming a ring around them. He was the largest alien Bay had ever seen. His spiky head loomed above. His saliva dripped, sizzling hot where it hit Bay and Rowan. They cried out in pain.

  The creature leaned down, teeth gleaming.

  "And now, I feed," the boneking hissed.

  Bay winced, reached into his pocket, and pulled out his minicom. It beeped.

  The boneking snorted. "What is that, pest?"

  Bay gave a thin smile. "Your kind uses sonar to see, right? That's why you guys
screech so much. When your underlings were chasing me, I made sure to record a few choice screams."

  He hit a button on his minicom.

  It released a chorus of bonecrawler screeches recorded in the ducts.

  The boneking reared, then drove his head downward, jaws snapping.

  Bay and Rowan leaped aside, and the massive head missed them, cracking the floor instead. The creature was blind.

  Bay and Rowan leaped over his tail. Bay held his minicom high, playing the recorded screams.

  "Fillister!" Rowan cried. "Record more screams and play them back!"

  The tiny dragonfly nodded, then turned on his own small speakers, releasing more recordings of the screeches.

  The boneking whipped from side to side. He snapped his jaws, trying to grab Bay and Rowan, but couldn't see them.

  "We're blinding him!" Bay said. "So long as we emit sounds at this frequency, he can't see us!"

  "Now who's being obvious?" Rowan said.

  The smaller bonecrawlers too snapped blindly. A few let out screams of frustration, only adding to the din. From their perspective, the hangar was filled with pulsing waves of visible sound. It would be, Bay imagined, like a human trying to see in a room filled with blinding spotlights.

  "Come on, Rowan!" Bay said.

  They ran toward Brooklyn.

  They hurdled over the blinded bonecrawlers, reached the small starship, and Bay yanked the hatch open.

  A bonecrawler sprang out onto them.

  Like a Ra damn snake in a can, Bay thought.

  He swung his lever, clubbing the creature's head. It fell to the floor, and Rowan leaped onto the alien, shouting and stabbing in a fury, slicing between its ribs. The girl had looked innocent enough in the ducts, but she fought with speed and fury.

  She's like a little honey badger, Bay thought.

  He turned back toward Brooklyn, climbed into the starship, and found another bonecrawler inside. The alien slammed into him, clawing, biting, knocking Bay against the broken dashboard. The ship was a wreck. The bonecrawlers had pulled out every piece of electronics. Bay wrestled with the creature, grabbed a fallen shelf, and swung it. He kept clubbing the bonecrawler, knocking it back, and made his way to the bridge.

  He found what he sought.

  His box of ammo.

  He reached for the box, ready to load his pistol.

  A bonecrawler bit his leg.

  Bay screamed. The beast yanked backward.

  The box fell and bullets spilled everywhere.

  The bonecrawler was dragging him across the hold. Bay screamed, bleeding, reached out, and managed to grab a single bullet. The bonecrawler swung him against the wall, and Bay grimaced. He slid down and hit the floor with a thud.

  The bonecrawler reared above him.

  Bay put his bullet through its face.

  Hurriedly, he grabbed more bullets and leaped outside. Rowan stood with her back to the starship, lashing her knife, desperate to hold back bonecrawlers. Bay fired round after round, tearing them down. He grabbed Rowan, pulled her into the starship, and slammed the hatch shut.

  For a moment, they panted, safe inside Brooklyn.

  But the bonecrawlers surrounded them. The aliens slammed against the starship from every side. Their leader, the towering boneking, swung his head, clubbing Brooklyn with his massive skull. The starship tilted. The boneking swung his head again, and Brooklyn flipped over.

  Rowan and Bay screamed, falling onto the ceiling.

  "This is just like Jurassic Park!" Rowan shouted.

  "I have no idea what you're talking about!" Bay made his way to the dashboard, but Brooklyn was dead, all her electronics ripped out. It would take days to fix. "Dammit."

  "Should I get out and push?" Rowan asked.

  Bay handed her his pistol. "Load more bullets. Fire on anything that makes its way inside. I'll try to fix her cannon at least."

  He pulled at the cables and broken panels, wincing. It was a hot mess of sparking electronics. He tried to push controls back into place, to reattach broken cables, but the boneking kept lashing at the ship. They flipped over again. Bay hit his head against the floor. He saw stars. Soon Rowan was screaming, firing her pistol.

  "Bonecrawlers aboard!" she cried.

  Her bullets rang out, slamming into the creatures.

  "Hold them back!" Bay said.

  "I can't!"

  "Another minute, and—there!"

  Bay managed to reattach the weapons system. It bleeped back to life. He hit the right button, and a cannon extended from Brooklyn's prow.

  He opened fire.

  Massive shells, each the size of his fist, flew out in a fury, ripping through bonecrawlers in the hangar. They tore through the creatures. Bones and skin flew across the hangar. Gore splattered the walls.

  The boneking reared and howled, towering before them, his head grazing the hangar's ceiling.

  "For Earth," Bay whispered.

  He fired again.

  His shells slammed into the boneking, and the beast shattered.

  His massive skull hit the deck, and blood oozed between his jaws. He rose no more.

  Bay slumped down, wheezing.

  Rowan lowered her gun. A dead bonecrawler lay before her. She limped toward Bay. Her dragonfly fluttered above her shoulder, one wing bent.

  "Are they all dead?" she whispered.

  Bay nodded, barely able to speak. He managed to pull Rowan into his arms. "They're all dead, you crazy little honey badger."

  She gave him a sidelong frown. "Whatchu talkin' bout, Bay?"

  He laughed and closed his eyes, heart still pounding. Rowan laid her head against his chest, and he held her close. Soon he realized that she was weeping.

  He stroked her short brown hair. "It's over now," he whispered. "I'm going to fix this ship. And we'll fly away from here. We'll fly somewhere hidden. Somewhere safe. Somewhere far from everyone."

  Rowan smiled at him through her tears. "We're going to the Fortress of Solitude?"

  "I never know what you're talking about."

  She grinned, pulled out the Earthstone, and let it shine. "You will."

  He covered her hand with his, and they held the stone together.

  Engines rumbled.

  For an instant, Bay dared hope that it was Brooklyn coming back to life. But no—these were deeper, more powerful engines, and the sound came from outside.

  "What fresh hell is this?" he muttered.

  He stepped outside of Brooklyn, and Rowan followed. The dead bonecrawlers lay everywhere. Wind blasted as a starship came flying into the hangar. Bay recognized the model. It was an armored delivery ship, about three times Brooklyn's size, almost too large to fit into the hangar. Somebody had refitted the ship for war, adding new shields, mounting cannons, and attaching engines worthy of a warship. The starship thumped down onto the hangar floor, crushing bonecrawlers.

  That was when Bay saw the writing on the hull.

  Human letters.

  ISS Cagayan de Oro.

  Below the letters appeared a symbol—a blue planet with golden wings.

  It was an Inheritor ship.

  Bay's heart burst into a gallop. His fingers began to shake.

  "Bay, what's wrong?" Rowan whispered. "You look like you saw a ghost."

  A hatch on the Cagayan de Oro opened.

  Bay took a step back.

  A man stepped out of the warship. He was tall, burly, and in his mid-fifties. His yellow beard was strewn with white. Shaggy hair, gold and silver, spilled out from under a black cowboy hat. The man wore thick boots, brown trousers, and a long blue overcoat with brass buttons. When a bonecrawler rose, twitching with its last breath, the man fired an old-fashioned, double-barreled rifle with a wooden stock. The powerful bullets tore off the bonecrawler's head.

  Slowly, the man turned toward Bay and met his eyes.

  Emet Ben-Ari nodded. "Hello, son."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  "You're coming back with me to the Inheritor fleet,
" Emet said. "And that's final."

  Bay shook his head, jaw clenched. "Muck this. Muck this shit!" He rose from the barstool. "I'm done. Done!"

  But Emet pulled him back down. "Sit down, Bay. Drink your grog. And talk to me."

  They sat in Drunken Truckers, the seedy tavern in Paradise Lost where Bay had first met Rowan. The girl now stood at the doorway, holding one of Emet's pistols. The gun was the size of a power drill, and Rowan had to hold it with both hands. But if any other exterminator showed up, it would punch holes into them. And the wall behind them. And probably the next wall over.

  The sight of that gun, and the heavy rifle Emet carried across his back, had sent the other patrons fleeing. Even the stick insect bartender gave them a wide berth, retreating into the shadows after taking their order. It wasn't every day, Bay supposed, that Admiral Emet Ben-Ari, the galaxy's most notorious terrorist, crashed your bar.

  "Uh, yo, man, I'm not interested in talking to you." Bay shoved his grog away. "Or grogging with you. Or, you know, being in the same space station, star system, or galaxy with you. All right?"

  He rose to leave again. But again his father grabbed him.

  "Sit. Down." Emet's voice was as hard as his eyes. "I didn't fly for light-years, leaving my fleet, for you to act like a child. You're coming home with me. And that is not up for debate."

  "The hell I am!" Bay glared at his father. "How the hell did you find me anyway?"

  Emet scoffed. "You're not exactly inconspicuous. Strutting around casinos and brothels? Getting drunk and high and mucking vemale holograms? They sent out a call for exterminators across a parsec."

  "Uh, yeah, and I took care of them," Bay said. "Did you see all those dead bonecrawlers all over the hangar? I killed them. And Rowan did too. I don't need you to come here to protect me, or—"

  "I didn't come here to protect you," Emet said. "I came here to bring you home."

  "What home?" Bay rose to his feet, his eyes burning. "What home, Dad? Oh, your little fleet? A handful of rusty starships? Bouncing from world to world, hunted everywhere, terrorists? That's what they call you, Dad. Not freedom fighters. They call you terrorists. Is that the home you're speaking of?"

  Emet's face flushed. He bared his teeth, and his fists clenched. "It's more of a home than you have here. Look at yourself, Bay. You're twenty-four. An adult. The age I was when I founded the Heirs of Earth. And you're strung out, addicted to drugs and grog. Don't deny it. I can see it in your eyes. Addicted to virtual girls. Addicted to gambling. I didn't come here to protect you from exterminators. I came here to protect you from yourself."