The Heirs of Earth

by Daniel Arenson

  As she loaded another magazine, she scanned the clouds, seeking some sign of rescue, of an Inheritor vessel plunging down after her.

  A corporal fell beside her, firing his last bullets, a claw in his leg. Another Inheritor cried out and fell, a marshcrab claw impaling his chest. The aliens clattered and laughed and covered the swamp.

  A distant sound rose—rumbling engines.

  Leona looked up at the clouds, praying.

  And there.

  There above!

  A starship was flying down, still wreathed in cloud.

  Thank Ra, Leona thought. Dad!

  Across the swamp, the crabs looked up and shrieked. Their cries rose louder—cries of terror. With a great clatter, they began to flee. They raced through the mud, over the fallen Nantucket, and back into the trees.

  Coral laughed. "Flee before the light, creatures of darkness!"

  Leona looked up again at the descending starship.

  Her heart sank.

  Oh hell.

  It wasn't an Inheritor starship after all.

  It was a striker.

  The scorpion vessel descended until it hovered above the mud. Its engines rumbled, and heat bathed Leona. Slowly the striker lowered itself and thumped onto a patch of grass and reeds.

  "Stay near me," Leona said to the other Inheritors, not removing her eyes from the striker. "Ready your guns. Coral, keep your dagger shining. When they emerge from inside, we fire. We fire everything and we will kill them."

  A hatch on the striker rattled, then creaked open, and the scorpions emerged.

  By Ra.

  Leona gazed in shock.

  Coral screamed and blasted a beam of light from her dagger.

  An instant later, Leona fired her rifle, and soon the others were firing too—just a handful of Inheritors, shouting and firing together.

  The scorpions raced toward them. But these were no usual Skra-Shen. These ones wore mech suits, shells of steel plates and luminous cables. Machine guns were mounted on their backs, and the beasts opened fire. Bullets shrieked.

  "Fall back!" Leona cried. "Take cover behind the Nantucket!"

  The humans ran.

  Bullets tore into one Inheritor, and the man fell.

  Two more humans cried out, torn apart by the bullets.

  Only Leona and Coral made it behind the Nantucket, panting. One bullet had grazed Coral's leg, and another had pierced her arm. The weaver panted, bleeding, eyes wide in her muddy face. Her tattoos were dimming as her blood flowed.

  More bullets flew, pounding into the Nantucket, rattling the starship.

  "Ma'am, what do we do?" Coral said. "Is this the end?"

  "Not today!" Leona said. "We do not die here. Not in this swamp. Into the Nantucket!"

  She leaped toward a crack in the hull and wriggled inside. Coral followed. The scorpions made their way around the ship, still firing the machine guns on their backs. Bullets blazed through the cracks in the hull. Leona ran to the stern, wading through mud and corpses. Some of these dead were her friends. She forced herself not to look, not to mourn. Not now. She reached the stern, saw the cabinet there—

  "Ma'am!" Coral cried. "Scorpion in the ship!"

  "Hold it back! Cover me!"

  Coral's tattoos were dim now, but she lifted a rifle from a dead Inheritor and opened fire. Leona grabbed the cabinet. The door was half buried in mud. She grimaced, shouting, tugging with all her strength. Finally the cabinet door budged, opening a crack. More scorpions were crawling into the hold. Bullets whizzed and nearly deafened Leona. She pulled out the flamethrower. She spun back toward the battle.

  "Coral, down!" she shouted.

  The weaver hit the floor, and Leona activated her flamethrower.

  A torrent of fire gushed forth, roared over Coral's back, and slammed into the scorpions.

  The beasts squealed.

  Their armor heated, turned red, then melted, searing the aliens' exoskeletons. The scorpions screamed, tried to leap toward Leona, but she flipped the flamethrower to a higher setting. The fire slammed into the aliens, knocking them back, roaring through the hold. Coral crawled back and rose beside Leona, singed and sweaty and panting.

  Finally the fuel ran out. The fire died, and Leona tossed the flamethrower aside.

  The scorpions slumped to the floor, twitching. Their exoskeletons had melted like plastic left in a hot car, sticking to their gooey innards. They raised their melted heads, tried to move forward, to still fight, but could not. They were melting onto the floor.

  Coral cringed and lifted her rifle, ready to put them out of their misery.

  "No." Leona pulled the rifle down, her eyes hard. "Let them suffer."

  Coral looked at her, shock in her eyes. But Leona refused to budge.

  Let them suffer like I suffered.

  "Are they all gone?" Coral whispered. The weaver's eyes were haunted, her cheeks smeared with mud. Her fingers trembled around her rifle. Weavers were skilled healers, but Coral had not yet healed her wounds, perhaps too weary. "Are—"

  Creaking sounded outside.

  A deep laugh rolled like thunder.

  A clawed leg reached into the crashed starship.

  Leona and Coral opened fire at once, but the bullets glanced off the hard shell.

  Leona frowned. That was no ordinary scorpion shell.

  "An albino," she whispered.

  The scorpion entered the burnt hull, hissing between fangs like daggers. A white scorpion with two tails. A scorpion with one blazing white eye.

  No, Leona thought, trembling. It can't be.

  But it was.

  It was him.

  Before her stood the scorpion who had killed her husband.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The albino scorpion stood in the charred hold of the Nantucket, his two tails flicking. He stared at Leona with a single white eye and grinned.

  "Hello again, Leona." His voice was like shattering glass, and he licked his chops with a dripping red tongue. "I always knew we'd meet again."

  She stared, rifle raised, barely able to breathe.

  "Sartak," she hissed through a clenched jaw.

  The scorpion laughed, a sound like snapping bones. "So you remember. I knew you would remember my name. And I remember you, Leona. I remember you well. How you screamed!" He raised his pincer. "I still remember plunging this claw into your thigh. Tell me, sweetness, do you still bear the scar?"

  Leona could not believe this. She stared, shock pulsing through her. It was another flashback. Had to be. It could not be real, he could not be here, not after all this time.

  "You died," she whispered. "We saw your corpse."

  The creature tossed back his head, laughed, and cracked open.

  Leona grimaced. Coral stared with wide, terrified eyes.

  The scorpion's white exoskeleton tore off, falling in pieces like an eggshell. A new creature slithered out, bearing a glimmering new shell, wet and pinkish. He stared at Leona, hissing, dripping.

  "You saw my old shell that day," Sartak said. "I grow quickly. It is the blessing of my deformity. With every shell I shed, I emerge stronger, harder than before. And hungrier. I shed my first shell on your wedding day. Devouring your husband gave me that strength." He reached into the shards of his old shell, then pulled out a human skull. He tossed it at Leona. "Here, Leona! A belated gift for you. I saved it all these years. The head of your beloved Jake."

  The skull rolled and stopped at Leona's feet.

  She stared down at it.

  A dental filling on a molar. A line across the temple where a bullet had once grazed him. It was him. Her husband. Her Jake.

  Leona screamed and fired Arondight at the scorpion. Her bullets ricocheted off the alien's new shell. One scraped across her arm. Coral was shouting at her side, blasting funnels of air at Sartak, but the scorpion withstood the assault.

  "You cannot hurt me, humans!" Sartak said. "As I have shed my shell, I will peel off your skin, and I will laugh as you beg for death.
Come, Leona! Come join your husband."

  He leaped toward her.

  Leona activated her time-bending implant.

  Pain blazed through her skull. She was so weak and wounded she nearly passed out.

  The scorpion was soaring through the air toward her, moving so slowly. Leona stepped aside. The scorpion slammed into the weapons cabinet behind her, denting the metal door. Its tails lashed, spraying venom. One of the stingers whipped, and Leona ducked, dodging it.

  Another stinger lashed toward Coral. The weaver tried to dodge but was wounded, slow, weak, her tattoos barely visible now. Leona kicked, sweeping Coral's legs out from under her. The weaver crashed down, and the tail whipped over her head, slicing strands of her white hair.

  Leona's head was pounding. She would have to deactivate her time-twister soon. But Ra, the scorpion was fast. Already he was leaping back toward her. Coral was moving in slow motion. So were the flying bullets. But Sartak was fighting as fast as ever. Leona's implant had no effect on him.

  Leona fired her rifle. The bullets flew, rippling the air. They shattered against the scorpion, and Leona aimed for the beast's single eye.

  She fired the shot.

  And Sartak dodged it.

  He dodged it!

  He dodged a bullet moving faster than sound!

  And she realized with dread: He has a time-twister too.

  For the first time, Leona noticed that a silver rune shone on Sartak's shell. A rune similar to the ones tattooed onto Coral.

  The scorpion's rune was shaped like an hourglass.

  "He's a weaver!" Coral shouted, her voice deep and slow and distorted. "That's why his shell is white!"

  Before Leona could react, the albino scorpion barreled into her, knocking her down.

  Leona hit the ground, screaming, landing on the discarded shell. A claw tore into her leg, and she bellowed in pain. Her time-twister shut down.

  "Yes, scream for me, Leona," Sartak hissed, drooling onto her. "I love the sound of your screaming. For the past ten years, I've been dreaming of it. I will make you scream so much . . ."

  His claw hooked a piece of her skin and began to peel it.

  Leona yowled.

  "Beg me!" he hissed.

  Leona stared into his one eye. "Muck. You."

  But he pulled his claw. And she screamed for him. And he laughed.

  "We are only beginning. We—"

  Coral leaped onto Sartak's back, lashing her silver dagger. Her tattoos were dim, but light still flowed down her arms, through the dagger's blade, and into the scorpion.

  The creature cried out in pain.

  Aether, Leona thought. Aether hurts them, we—

  The light flowed through the alien into her, and Leona arched her back, screaming. She kicked wildly, managed to toss off the scorpion, then knelt, panting, coughing. She tasted blood. The world spun.

  Apparently aether hurts humans too, Leona thought.

  Coral's cries of pain brought Leona back to her senses. She turned to see Sartak attacking the weaver, tails lashing.

  Coral was pointing her dagger, but she was finally out of aether. Evidently, one could run out of aether like bullets.

  Coral's eyes were sunken, her tattoos nearly invisible against her dark skin. The scorpion squirted venom. The spray flew toward Coral, and the weaver screamed. The venom sizzled through her coat, burning her skin. Coral lashed her dagger, but a claw slammed into her, tearing her arm. She fell.

  "Hear your pest friend scream, Leona!" Sartak said. "Watch me slay her like I slew your husband. Your turn will come."

  He raised both stingers high, prepared to impale Coral.

  Leona took a deep breath.

  She closed her eyes.

  She diverted her full attention to her time-twister.

  She activated it at full force.

  She had never given the implant so much strength. It rattled in her skull. She thought her brain would tear, her skull shatter. She was beyond pain, beyond terror.

  The world slowed more than ever before. Every heartbeat was an era.

  The stingers were moving downward.

  Leona moved forward, tears in her eyes. A strip of skin hung loose from her leg, but she barely felt it. There was a supernova in her head.

  Hands shaking, barely existing, she grabbed Coral and pulled her back.

  With all her strength, Leona dragged the weaver, then shoved her out of the cracked hull into the mud.

  The stingers slammed down into the deck, embedding themselves in the metal.

  Leona stared at Jake's killer.

  "You killed him," she whispered. "But you cannot kill humanity. Earth is eternal."

  The weapons cabinet was ajar. Leona raised her gun. She fired.

  As the bullet pulsed forward, rippling the air, Sartak shrieked. He tried to stop the bullet, but his stingers were still embedded in the floor. He could not reach it.

  Leona grabbed Jake's skull, grabbed Sartak's discarded shell, and ran.

  Her time-twister shattered in her head, and time resumed its normal flow.

  Leona leaped out of the starship as her bullet entered the weapons cabinet.

  She landed atop Coral, shielding the girl with her body, driving her into the mud. Leona pulled the discarded scorpion shell over her back, then covered her ears.

  The Nantucket exploded behind her.

  Even with her ears covered, the sound was deafening.

  The shock wave pounded against the two Inheritors, shoving them deeper into the mud. Shrapnel hailed down, slamming into the scorpion shell above them. Fire blazed. Burning shards of metal landed around them, sizzling in the marshlands, boiling the mud. Trees caught fire. Birds, insects, and marshcrabs fled.

  Silence.

  Ringing.

  Coral shifted in the mud and looked up at Leona. "Is—"

  Another explosion sounded.

  Then another.

  Then the world itself seemed to shatter, and burst after burst of explosions popped.

  "Run!" Leona shouted.

  They ran, the shell held above them. Behind them, the bombs and torpedoes aboard the Nantucket—not just the personal weapons in the cabinet—were exploding.

  The inferno raged behind them. They raced through the mud, ran between burning trees, leaped over a hill, and flattened themselves in a valley. When Leona glanced over her shoulder, she saw a mushroom cloud. Bits of metal and scorpion shell pattered down around them.

  "The first explosion was the grenades in the cabinet," Leona said, barely hearing herself over the ringing in her ears. "Those were the torpedoes meant for enemy ships."

  Coral touched her ears and winced. "Are you sure they weren't meant to destroy planets?"

  "Just be thankful I wasn't flying the Jerusalem," Leona said. "That ship has nuclear weapons."

  "You must never fly it," Coral said.

  Leona nodded. "All right. I never . . ."

  She could not complete her sentence. Suddenly Leona was weeping and trembling. She lifted her husband's skull from the mud and cradled it.

  Coral wrapped her arms around Leona. They were both burnt, bleeding, but for a moment they just embraced.

  "I avenged you, Jake," Leona whispered, holding his skull. "I killed him. I killed the monster that took you from me. I will give you a burial in space. You will rest among the stars."

  Coral placed her hand atop Leona's. The girl stared into her eyes.

  "No," Coral said. "You will bury him on Earth." She nodded. "Now come on! We gotta climb that mountain to get a signal, right? Let's go!"

  "You're wounded," Leona said. "You should rest."

  Coral shook her head. "Too murky down here. Up the mountain, I'll be closer to the stars. I will heal. We both will. Come."

  The weaver started to march toward the mountain.

  Leona followed through the marshlands. She was lost in the wilderness, abandoned on an enemy planet across the galaxy. But today she was one step closer to Earth. One step closer to heali
ng.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Emet stood in the Jerusalem's hold, Thunder in hand, as the scorpions swarmed into the starship.

  "Fire!" Emet shouted and pulled his trigger.

  Across the hold, his fifty warriors fired their own weapons.

  The drills had left gaping holes in the floor and ceiling, revealing the enemy's boarding vessels. The scorpions leaped through the holes into the oncoming bullets.

  Blood filled the Jerusalem.

  Humans and scorpions died.

  Railguns pounded the enemy. Claws tore through flesh.

  Here were the best warriors in the Heirs of Earth. They fired railguns, powerful weapons that knocked the scorpions back. One man lost a leg but still fought, roaring for Earth as he fired two pistols. A woman lost an arm to a pincer, but still she swung an electric blade, slicing through scorpions. Several men raised flamethrowers and filled the enemy's boarding vessels with flame, roasting the scorpions still inside.

  Emet stood with his back to the bulkhead, firing his rifle, knocking back scorpions with his mighty two-barreled assault. The creatures pounced toward him. He stood, firing again and again, tearing them down. When Thunder ran out of bullets, he fired his pistol. When his pistol too ran out, he knelt, grabbed a magazine from a dead Inheritor, and kept fighting. Scorpion corpses piled up at his feet.

  "This is the flagship of the Heirs of Earth!" he said. "You will not take it."

  Another scorpion bounded toward him. Emet fired his rifle, blowing off the beast's head.

  As he fought in the hold, the Jerusalem was still battling the enemy's warships. Duncan was still on the bridge, piloting the ship. Rowan was still firing the cannons, pounding the enemy forces. The Jerusalem kept swerving, jostling as the cannons boomed. Emet couldn't see the battle from here, but he could imagine thousands of starships still careening over Akraba, battling for dominance.

  The last scorpion in the hold scuttled toward him, and Emet slew the beast with a single bullet.

  He spat.

  He looked across the hold. Thirty Inheritors had survived the battle and stood over dead scorpions. The enemy's boarding vessels were still attached to the hull like leeches.

  "Get more flamethrowers," Emet said. "Fill their vessels with fire. There might be more scorpions inside."