The Heirs of Earth

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Emet entered the bridge of the ISS Cagayan de Oro, sat at the helm, and turned to look at Rowan.

"Ready, Private Emery?" he said.

Rowan hesitated at the doorway, wearing her new Inheritor uniform, her pistol at her side. She nodded, lips tight, and saluted.

"Ready, sir."

She took her seat beside him, and Emet nodded.

"Then let's go," he said, smiling at her.

Rowan wiped tears from her eyes. "Let's go," she whispered.

Emet started the engines and began taxiing the starship across the hangar, heading toward the exit. Beyond the force field, the stars shone. Emet knew what this moment meant for Rowan.

For fourteen years, she hid in this wretched space station, he thought. Nearly all her life. For the first time, she'll have freedom. She'll fly among the stars.

He looked at the girl. She was staring ahead, eyes shining. There was goodness to the child. There was courage and strength and honor.

She looks so much like her father, he thought.

His heart twisted.

You broke my heart, David, he thought. But I still love you. And I promise you, I will do whatever I can to keep your daughter safe.

He looked out to space and his heart felt heavy.

Of course, Rowan had a sister too. A sister named Jade. And that one was, perhaps, beyond his help.

Jade. The girl who—

Pain stabbed Emet's chest like an ice pick.

Not now. He would not let that old memory surface.

He tightened his lips, pushed down on the throttle, and the Cagayan de Oro flew out into space.

The space station grew smaller behind. Soon it was just a sparkling cylinder in space, glowing with a neon halo.

All around the Cagayan de Oro, this small corvette-class warship, spread space. Akraba, a greenish-brown planet, hovered in the distance. Terminus Wormhole shimmered above. A spiral arm of the Milky Way spread like a path before them. The stars shone.

Rowan rose from her seat, walked toward the viewport, and gaped.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Emet said.

Tears filled the girl's eyes. "I've never seen so many stars. There must be hundreds of them!"

Emet smiled. "A bit more than hundreds."

The starlight filled her eyes, and she smiled sadly. "Back in Paradise Lost, you could never see anything through the windows. Too many neon lights. But sometimes I would climb the ducts to the very top of the space station, near the antennas, and peer through a little porthole the size of my hand. I could see two or three stars sometimes. That's the most I ever saw. I used to imagine that one of them was Sol. Earth's star. Our star." She spun toward Emet, eyes wide. "Can we see Sol from here?"

"I'm afraid not, Rowan," he said. "We don't know exactly where Sol is. But we've come up with good estimates. We think it's all the way across the galaxy, too far to see from here. Everything that you see here—all this splendor outside the viewport—is just a tiny, tiny fraction of the stars in the Milky Way. The galaxy is vast, filled with billions of stars and thousands of alien civilizations."

Rowan slumped into her seat. "Thousands of alien civilizations who want us humans dead." She looked at him. "Why, sir? Why do so many hate us? What have we ever done to them?"

Emet leaned back in his seat, piloting the ship at a leisurely speed. "It's because we have no planet of our own."

She cocked an eyebrow. "They hate us because we're homeless?"

His voice was soft. "They don't truly hate humans, Rowan."

She scoffed. "I beg to differ, sir. For aliens who don't hate us, they sure seem hell-bent on killing us."

"They hate problems in their own lives, their own societies," Emet said. "To aliens, we humans are scapegoats. Are the marshcrabs having trouble managing Paradise Lost, dealing with dwindling guests, lackluster profits? Rather than take responsibility, they can blame the human in the ducts. Are the scorpions frustrated at the strength of the Concord, at the cost of running an empire? Rather than blame their own ambition, they blame the humans. Every planet has a problem. Drought. Disease. War. Corruption. Nobody likes blaming themselves, so they blame us. And what can we do? We're powerless. We have no homeworld. We're not members of the Concord or the Hierarchy. If they seek to strike us, we cower, we die, and we cannot resist."

Rowan's eyes narrowed, and she sneered. "But now we have an army. We have the Heirs of Earth."

Emet nodded. "That's why your father and I argued. Why we parted ways. Your father was a pacifist. He believed that humanity should find a distant world, far from other civilizations, and live there in hiding. I believe that we need an army, that we need to find Earth, our homeland, and fight for it. I believe that without Earth, without weapons and warships, we will forever be hunted."

That is not the entire truth, Emet thought. But he dared not say more. Dared not remember. Not now.

Rowan looked at her lap. "Did my father really defect? Really betray you? Really steal the Earthstone?" Her hand strayed to touch the crystal hanging from her neck.

Emet thought for a long moment. Finally he spoke carefully. "No. He did not betray me. He did not steal from me. He simply believed in a different path." He looked Rowan in the eyes. "Someday, Rowan, when you're old enough, you too will have to choose a path. You will be faced with two roads. You will have to choose if, like my son and your father, you wish to vanish into the shadows. Or if you wish to charge into the fire."

"Charge into the fire," she said. "In a heartbeat."

"It's easy to say such things on a day of peace. Once the fire burns, we learn our true character."

"I haven't been very brave in my life," Rowan said. "I've spent my life hiding. A few times, I wanted to escape. To stowaway on some alien ship, maybe hitchhike across the galaxy. But I remained in the ducts. With my movies and books and dreams. I'm done hiding, sir. I've hid enough for a lifetime. I won't run from battle. I won't be like my father. I fought the bonecrawlers in Paradise Lost, and I will always fight for Earth." She chewed her lip. "I hope that when the fire burns, I'm still as brave."

She shivered and looked out the starboard porthole toward Hierarchy space.

Emet nodded. He spoke with a low voice. "Yes, there it is. The Hierarchy. You've spent the past fourteen years in its shadow. No place is more dangerous for humans."

"Is that where Earth is?" she whispered.

"Thankfully, no," Emet said. "We believe the Earth lies across the Concord, on the other side of this great alliance. But millions of humans still live in the Hierarchy, the descendants of Earth's exiles. The scorpions have been butchering them." He clenched his fists. "They've slain millions already."

Rowan gasped. "What?" She leaped to her feet. "Millions of humans still live? Millions killed? Then we have to go there! We have to attack! We have to save them!"

Emet's eyes were dark. "It's beyond our power to defeat the Hierarchy. The Heirs of Earth pilot only a handful of ships. Even the Concord, an alliance of ten thousand mighty civilizations, cannot defeat the Hierarchy. But we've been doing what we can. My daughter, Leona, is leading an attack behind enemy lines, even as we speak, seeking to save a few hundred humans. We cannot save the millions. But we will save whoever we can—and bring them home to Earth."

Rowan sang softly.

Someday we will see her

The pale blue marble

Rising from the night beyond the moon

Calling us home

Calling us home

Her voice faded, and she narrowed her eyes, peering across the border into Hierarchy space.

"Sir," she said, "the starlight is doing something funny. Curving strangely."

Emet stared.

He inhaled sharply.

Again that pain in his chest—a stabbing blade of ice.

He shoved a lever, diverting all available power to his ship's shields.

And from the darkness, they appeared.

Strikers.

Thousands of strikers, emerging from warped space.

"Scorpions!" Rowan cried.

The enemy ships charged, emerging from the Hierarchy . . . and into Concord space.