Admiral Melitar, the Aelonian who had hailed the Jerusalem, greeted Emet.
"Welcome aboard the Iliria, Emet! Thank you for joining me on my ship."
Emet bowed his head. "Thank you, Admiral. It's an honor to be your guest."
The admiral was even taller than Nelitana, standing a good eight or nine feet tall. Admirals from other species were here too. A mushroom the size of a tree, deep purple trimmed with white, stood on the bridge. He was an Esporian; his species flew the fleshy pods that hovered outside. There was a white crystal with a thousand shimmering panels. This was a Silicade—a species that communicated by refracting light into meticulous wave lengths and patterns. There was a Gourami that floated in an aquarium, its indigo tendrils swaying. A Tarmarin was rolled up into a scaly ball in the corner, perhaps uninterested in the conversation. Two magnetic balls spun around each other near the back, crackling with electricity; Emet didn't recognize that species.
The giant mushroom puffed out a cloud of spores—its way of speaking. As Emet suppressed a cough, a computer translated the message.
"He is a wanted terrorist!" The Esporian blew another cloud of spores. "With great shivering pleasure, my pods shall decompose his ships of rusting metal."
The living crystal shimmered, refracting light into blue and yellow patterns. A translation computer picked up this language too.
"I agree with the fungus. We Silicades are beings of order, and humans are creatures of chaos, wanderers with no home of their own. An abomination. Let us sear them away, then return their energy and atoms to the cosmos, before we continue on to sear the Skra-Shen."
Emet faced the crystal. He raised his chin.
"How many scorpions have you killed before?" he said, and the crystal was silent. Emet turned toward the fungus next. "And you? How many of their ships have your pods destroyed?" The mushroom too remained silent, and Emet nodded. "I thought so. But I have fought the scorpions many times. My people have been fighting them for years. We have destroyed their ships, slain them in battle. We have video footage to prove it. The footage does not merely prove the worth of humanity in battle. It also shows Skra-Shen battle formations, tactics, weapons, intelligence you should study before the battle. You need us. More than we need you. We've not flown here to be insulted but to fight. To fight at your side. To—"
Admiral Melitar raised his hand. "Admiral Ben-Ari."
Emet turned toward the Aelonian and bowed his head. "If I misspeak, Admiral, it's out of passion, not pride."
The glowing alien knelt, bringing himself to eye level with Emet. "I know what many in the Concord say of humans. I know they mock humanity for lacking a homeworld. I know that your people have suffered oppression and hardship. I am not unsympathetic to the cause of humanity. While many scorn your people, I have found humans to be intriguingly earnest, capable even of nobility." The others on the bridge scoffed, but the Aelonian continued. "Do you truly wish to fight? It is likely that many of your ships will not return."
Emet nodded. "We humans have never shied away from sacrifice. Millions of my people suffer in Hierarchy lands. The scorpions have been slaughtering them. Harvesting their skin. This is a war all humans will fight."
"See how the humans are bloodthirsty!" said the Tarmarin, finally unfurling. "How they crave war and bloodshed!"
Melitar raised a hand. "He is concerned for his people, General! He is no different from you or me."
The scaly alien sputtered. "A pest? No different from us?"
"Does he not care for his young?" said Melitar. "Does he not yearn for his homeworld?"
"Homeworld?" The other aliens laughed. "The humans have no homeworld."
"We do!" said Emet. "We come from a world called Earth. A world across the galaxy, on the edge of Concord space. A world we were exiled from. We've been lost for thousands of years, but we yearn to return home." He looked at the Aelonian admiral. "We will prove humanity's worth in this war. In return, grant us safe passage to Earth. Acknowledge Earth as the homeworld of humanity, and accept us again into the alliance of nations. Name us a Concord species. You will find us valuable and noble partners."
The aliens all looked at one another.
Finally the Silicade spoke. "We could use their intelligence."
The mushroom scoffed. "I suppose they are valuable fodder."
At that moment, Emet was glad Duncan wasn't there. The doc would threaten to chop up the Esporian and serve him on a pizza. And if Duncan's daughter were here—the wild Mairead McQueen—she would likely already be aiming her pistol.
Melitar nodded to Emet. "Fight with us, humans, and if we win this war, I will convey your request to my superiors. The request of an admiral is not easily dismissed. I will do my best to grant you a stage at Concord Hall, where you may speak of your people's hardships and dreams, of your yearning for Earth. The greatest leaders in the galaxy will hear your plea."
"That's all I can ask for," Emet said.
"But know, Emet Ben-Ari, that this war will be long and hard, and perhaps we will not survive. Even should we win this battle, it is likely the first of many. The Hierarchy is mighty, and for years, it has been arming for war. It is possible that the entire Concord, this great gathering of civilizations, will not withstand the fire. Perhaps Concord Hall will no longer stand when you're ready to speak there. All peaceful, wise civilizations are now in peril."
"Then truly we must all fight together," said Emet. "I'll return to my ship now. We'll reach Terminus within an hour. I'll prepare for battle."
Melitar held out his hand, palm raised, and Emet placed his own hand upon it.
"Fight for Earth," said the Aelonian, "but also for all civilization. A shadow falls across the galaxy. May we cast it back with light."
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Jade stood on the bridge of the Venom, her personal dreadnought, overseeing her conquest.
She nodded.
"Good. Very good. Without a drop of blood spilled, we've claimed our first Concord world."
Around her, the scorpions hissed and clattered.
"We want blood!" one demanded.
"We want to feast on enemy bones!"
"We want human skins!"
They rustled across the bridge, scuttling over boulders, stone pillars, and sand pits. They rutted in canyons. They clung to the ceiling. The Venom's innards mimicked their environment—a hot, sandy pit.
Sitting on her throne, Jade raised her hand. "Fear not, my fellow scorpions! You'll have blood and bones and skin. The foul Concord swarm will soon come. The arrogant Aelonians and their allies fly here as we speak. We will feast upon them!"
"And humans!" cried the scorpions. "We want human flesh!"
"You will have it," Jade said. "The Heirs of Earth fly with the enemy." She laughed. "Humans who think themselves warriors. Who think they can fly with other nations. We will flay them as they scream, and their blood will soak our sand. They will be ours to torment. Their leader, Emet Ben-Ari. His daughter, the foul Leona. The wretched pest, Rowan Em—"
Jade's head suddenly spun. Her implants whirred. She clutched her head.
A face flashed before her—a young woman with short brown hair, with large brown eyes, peering at her from the bridge of the Jerusalem.
Pain flared, and another image rose. A girl with the same brown hair, the same brown eyes, a toddler in a glittering cave.
Lies. Lies! Human treachery! They had infected her mind, were haunting her, hacking her implants.
Jade screamed. She pounded her fist against her head. Electricity sparked. She grabbed a rod, plugged it into an implant, and released a bolt of power. The pain overwhelmed her. The memories faded.
"Huntress?" a scorpion said, eyes narrowed. "Are you weak?"
Jade took a shuddering breath. She leaped off her throne, grabbed the scorpion, and clawed its head open. As the scorpion howled, she peeled him, pulling the shell back, revealing the brains. She stabbed again until the creature lay still.
"Never doubt my
strength!" Jade tossed the peeled shell aside. "The Concord will learn that. The humans will learn that."
She left her bridge. She marched through her flagship, a vessel mightier than any Concord dreadnought, a terror that could dwarf the puny warships the humans flew. Scorpions clattered across the tunnels and lurked in chambers, sharpening pincers, devouring raw meat, and preparing for war. Jade entered the hangar, a cavernous hall where stood a hundred starfighters. She entered one of the triangular vessels, pulled a lever, and blasted out into space.
Terminus Wormhole shone nearly, a gateway leading deep into Concord space. Thousands of her warships hovered by the Wormhole, guarding it. Nearby hovered Akraba, a swampy planet where lived the marshcrabs, the latest addition to the Hierarchy.
Between them hovered Paradise Lost, the space station.
The station that had called for exterminators.
That had complained of a human girl hiding in the ducts.
Jade flew toward this glittering, garish installation, this eyesore in space, a cluster of neon lights and graffiti.
She flew into the station's hangar. A hundred scorpions were already here. The slot machines, decaying alien gamblers, hookah pipes, graffiti, and filth had been cleaned from the hangar. Hierarchy banners now hung from the walls, depicting a red stinger on a black field. Scorpions stood on the floor, taking formation as Jade emerged from her striker. They bowed, heads pressed to the floor, tails held high, as Jade walked between them.
Jade shook her head in disgust. She had heard tales of this place. Gambling? Grogging? Drugs and prostitutes? The Skra-Shen had no such vices. Truly, the Concord was a place of sin. She would purify it.
A towering alien clattered toward her across the hangar. He was a marshcrab, a beast with ten long, thin legs like stilts. He had an exoskeleton, much like scorpions, but so much frailer, covered with bumps and fissures. His red body perched atop his legs, higher than Jade's head.
"Are you Belowgen?" she said. "Are you the creature that runs this place?"
The alien reached her. His black eyes, mounted on stalks, narrowed. His voice was gruff. "I am! Who are you?"
"Impudent fool!" hissed a scorpion guard, raising his stinger, but Jade held him back.
"I am Jade, Blue Huntress, Admiral of the Skra-Shen, daughter of Emperor Sin Kra," she said. "I've heard you have a human problem. I've come to fix it. Show me your humans!"
I need them alive, she thought. I need to interrogate them. To peel their skin. To ask them about a girl with short brown hair from a glittering cave.
Belowgen tilted his head. "But . . ." The marshcrab sputtered. His eyestalks moved down and up, taking her in. "But you are human!" He reared, claws rising. "You are a filthy pest!"
Scorpions hissed.
Jade howled.
She leaped into the air, rebounded off the ceiling, and plunged toward the crab. She sliced off his eyestalks, then grabbed his legs and snapped them off, one by one, screaming as his innards spilled.
She marched back toward her striker, trembling with fury.
"Commander, what—" a scorpion began.
She roared, lifted the scorpion, and tossed it out into space.
She climbed into her striker and flew. Her hands shook around the controls. She flew back toward her flagship, the mighty Venom. Once she was back aboard, she turned the dreadnought toward Paradise Lost.
She leaned forward, sneering, and fired her cannons.
She screamed as she fired.
Blast after blast of plasma pounded into the space station, tearing it apart. Neon signs shattered and spiraled through space. Metal pods, which clung to the central stalk like barnacles, tore free and tumbled, burning, spilling out aliens. Jade roared in fury, still firing, ripping off more and more of the pods—brothels, bars, drug dens, casinos. With every blast, she tore off another establishment, sending it hurtling into the darkness. She didn't even care that a hundred scorpions were aboard Paradise Lost. She kept firing, finally revealing the central stalk, the original space station the depravity had grown around.
She increased her rate of fire, and holes blazed across the cylinder, and the entire space station tore in two. Engines and furnaces exploded. Shards of metal blasted out, and a shock wave pulsed through space. The Hierarchy fleet rocked like boats on a stormy sea, peppered with debris.
When Jade finally stopped firing, Paradise Lost was gone. Only a cloud of shrapnel and smoke remained.
The other scorpions on the Venom's bridge were staring at her. Silent.
Jade clenched her fists.
"I am Skra-Shen!" she shouted. "I am a scorpion! I am not a human!"
She turned toward the wormhole, waiting.
"Come to me, humans." She laughed, eager for their blood. "Come and die. I will destroy the galaxy if I must. But I will kill you all!"
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The Concord fleet flew through space, heading to war.
And for the first time, humanity flew with it.
Two thousand years ago, Emet knew, humanity had become a galactic power to reckon with, her fleets striking enemies even on distant worlds. A hundred thousand starships had flown under Earth's banners, and humanity had stood proudly among the mightiest civilizations of the Milky Way. The Golden Lioness had reigned over Earth's Golden Age.
But then we lost Earth, Emet thought. We died. Our few survivors scattered. We became weak. Hunted. Hated.
Now, for the first time in two thousand years, humanity flew to war. Not as rebels. Not as partisans working in shadows. They flew among other civilizations, proud of their humanity, no longer hiding.
And they flew to their greatest battle.
This might be the end of the Heirs of Earth, Emet thought. This might be the end of all hope. But if the scorpions win this war, we all die. Civilization itself will perish, and evil will overrun the galaxy. Today we'll fight not only for Earth—but for the galaxy.
He stood on the bridge of the ISS Jerusalem, gazing out at the rest of the fleet. Tens of thousands of starships flew here. The silvery ships of the Aelonians. Fleshy podships. Glittering crystal ships. Scaly ships like dragon eggs. Ships filled with water. Ships of iron and stone. Ships of many alien civilizations, come together under the Concord banner.
And us. The Heirs of Earth.
Humanity contributed only fifteen warships to the effort. Fifteen used freighters and tankers, refitted with shields and cannons. Fifteen ships that represented a species, a hope, a dream.
Emet turned away from the bridge and entered the Jerusalem's hold.
He had never divided the Jerusalem into corridors and chambers. Here was still the great, cavernous space where the tanker had once shipped fluids and gasses. Today his best warriors stood here, brave men and women, a mix of marines and pilots. They all wore the brown and blue. They all bore rifles, pistols, blades, each warrior choosing their favorite weapons. They looked at him, eyes somber, ready for war.
Emet had left most of his people, including the survivors of the gulock, on a Concord base a light-year back, a safe place to wait out the battle. Only the warriors flew to battle. Emet had handpicked the platoon that now served aboard the Jerusalem. Here were the strongest and bravest of his warriors.
Mairead was here. The fiery redhead would fly a Firebird, commanding the starfighter wings. Her fellow pilots stood behind her, wearing jumpsuits, wings pinned to their chests. Mairead's father, Duncan, served as combat medic. Fifty marines stood farther back, men and women ready to fight, even give their lives to the cause. Here were heroes. The salt of the earth. All these Inheritors had fought the scorpions before. Some, like Duncan, had been fighting with Emet for decades.
The youngest among them was Private Rowan Emery.
She was also the shortest. She made even the squat Duncan seem tall. She had raided the children's clothes for her uniform, and her pistol—a beautiful weapon of polished brass and sanded wood—seemed as large as a rifle in her hands. But she too stared at Emet with courage a
nd determination. Her shoulders were squared, her back straight.
Did I make a mistake bringing her here? Emet thought. But then he looked into her brown eyes. No. You deserve to be here, Rowan. To fight for your people. You've been fighting all your life. I trust you as much as any of my warriors.
Emet took a step closer. Monitors on the walls displayed the interiors of his fourteen other warships. He could see all his officers, waiting for him to speak. Captain Ramses al Masri sat aboard the ISS Rosetta, a fast and deadly corvette. Leona was commanding the Nantucket, another corvette, flying nearby. The other starship commanders were here too, all ready aboard their warships. They looked at Emet through their viewports, solemn.
Emet spoke, his voice carrying across his small fleet.
"Heirs of Earth, warriors of humanity! Long ago, we lived on our homeworld, on a blue planet called Earth. Long ago, an enemy stole our home, banished us to the stars. For eighty generations we suffered, lost, hunted everywhere. We scattered across a thousand worlds. We survived in isolated communities—on distant planets, on hidden moons, in asteroids and space stations. Hiding, desperate to survive. For the first time, in our generation, we joined together. We dared to dream of Earth, to seek our way home. We began to collect our species from across the galaxy, to unite, to gather Earth's lost children. Yet as we pursue this noble task, a cruel enemy has arisen. As we seek to save humans everywhere, they seek to slay us. Within the past few years, the scorpions have slain millions of humans. Every one of those losses grieves me. Every one is a world entire lost to the fire. Let us remember them in a moment of silence."
They all lowered their heads, silent for a long moment.
Emet spoke again.
"Today we fly to war. Yet not a war to reclaim Earth. That battle still awaits us. We fly to face the scorpions in battle. The cries of our fallen brothers and sisters compel us. We will fight for their memory, in their honor. We do not fight to avenge them, for we care not for vengeance. We fight to save those humans who might still live, who still cry out for salvation. We do not forget our holy words: Wherever a human is in danger, we will be there."
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