The Heirs of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 1)

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The ISS Nantucket lay in the marsh of Akraba, cracked and smoldering, filled with mud and death.

Buzzzz.

Leona blinked, struggling to bring the world into focus. She waved at the sound, winced in pain.

Hummmmm.

She floated. She sank. All the world—cracked metal and pain in her leg.

Her thigh ached.

Her wound throbbed.

The scorpion was clawing at her leg, chortling, as her husband lay dying.

"Jake," she whispered. "Jake, I'm sorry."

Buzzzz.

Hummmm.

The insects were feeding on his corpse. The engines of afterlife were rumbling.

"Commodore!" A voice from the haze. "Commodore, can you hear me? Leona!"

She blinked. It was Coral speaking. She knew her. Coral Amber, a girl with lavender eyes, platinum hair, and a secret power. A girl she had met on a desert world.

"What are you doing here?" Leona whispered. "It's my wedding day." She wept. "There's blood on my dress."

She doubled over.

A shotgun wedding, yes. Two seventeen-year-olds, so young, so scared.

Sartak, an albino scorpion with two tails, laughed. Blood splattered the beach. Her husband lay dying and she knelt on the sand, clutching her belly, as the blood poured between her thighs.

"I have to move you, Leona." The voice spoke again, fading away, growing weaker. "Come on. Out into the open. You must gaze into the sky."

Hands grabbed her under the arms and pulled.

Leona screamed.

The pain in her belly!

"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears on her cheeks. "I buried him. I buried him in the water. My child. And the waves washed him away into the sea." She wept. "I love to sail forbidden seas . . . Someday I will sail there again. My child is waiting for me."

The waves carried her. They brought her to soft soil, and she lay, gazing up at clouds, and the rain fell upon her, and Leona smiled.

"Let the aether in, Leona. Breathe. Let it flow. Let it heal."

Strands of starlight shone.

Liquid luminosity flowed into Leona.

She cried out. It burned.

"Breathe, Leona, daughter of Earth," whispered a luminous figure. "Let the aether heal you. Be one with the Cosmos. Be one with the light."

Leona took a deep, shuddering breath, letting the light flow through her, and her pain faded. Her vision cleared. She was lying in mud. Coral knelt above her, her lavender eyes filled with light. Her tattoos were glowing, coiling across her dark skin. The light flowed from Coral's hands into Leona, easing the pain. Healing her. Lighting her path.

Slowly the light faded, and Coral took a shaky breath. The weaver fell back into the mud, ashen, her fingers shaky.

"It takes a lot out of a weaver," she whispered. "Thank the ancients. You are healed."

Leona blinked, the fog lifting from her mind, and looked around her.

The fog of her mind had perhaps parted, but there was certainly enough real mist around her. She sat on a tussock that rose from a swamp. The marshlands spread around her in every direction, shadowy and rank. Rain drizzled, insects chirped everywhere, and the smells of mud and moss filled her nostrils. The air was thick as soup. Trees with long, coiling roots rose around her. They reminded her of mangroves, trees she had seen in the Earthstone, but these trees were far taller, rising like the pillars.

The buzzing and humming sounded behind her. Leona turned and winced.

The Nantucket, her beloved starship, lay smashed on the planet surface. Her hull had cracked open. Her bridge was shattered. She was half-sunken in the mud. A few of her cables still sparked, producing the sound. Several other Inheritors from her crew stood by the ship, nursing their wounds. Through the cracked hull, Leona glimpsed the rest of her crew, dead eyes staring.

She raised her eyes. The clouds hid the sky. If the battle continued, it was hidden.

"Thank you, Coral," she said, looking back at the weaver. "Your magic saved my life."

Coral smiled wanly. She looked thinner than before, as after a long illness. "I told you, ma'am, I don't deal with magic. I'm not a soothsayer but a weaver of the holy light. I am one with the cosmos."

"Well, whatever the hell you are, you saved my ass," Leona said. "I owe you my life."

"And you saved my life on Til Shiran," Coral said, eyes shimmering. "I was slowly dying in the desert. You showed me the luminous path. We are forever in each other's debt. We are forever cosmic sisters."

Leona nodded. "Cosmic sisters. I like that. Of course, I'd like it better if we weren't stuck on the ass end of the cosmos."

Leona rose to her feet—too fast. She swayed, and Coral had to rush forward and catch her. Even after the healing, Leona's body was bruised and cut. When she tested a few steps, she could walk. No bones were broken. Her head spun, but slowly it was clearing.

Cursing, she stumbled toward the Nantucket's cockpit, but the controls were smashed beyond use. The engines were dead. She flipped open her minicom, trying to connect to her fleet. But it was no use. With these thick clouds, she wasn't signaling anyone.

She turned toward Coral and the three other Inheritors—the last survivors of her crew.

"Grab whatever weapons you can from the Nantucket," she said. "Water and food too. Anything that's too heavy to carry, you leave behind."

Coral frowned. "Where are we going, ma'am?"

"To find higher ground. See that smudge on the horizon? That looks like a mountain. We might get a signal from there."

"And . . . the dead?" Coral said.

Coral's voice shook the slightest. Fear filled her eyes. Yes, Coral was a weaver, a wielder of a secret power Leona didn't understand. Yet she was still only a private, new to war. The other surviving Inheritors looked at Leona too, older and gruffer, but also scared. She saw the fear in their eyes.

"I want a volunteer to remain with the fallen," Leona said. "We'll not bury them in this swamp. We'll get aid. We'll find a starship to rescue us. We'll give our fallen heroes a proper funeral in space and send their bodies to rest among the stars." She looked at the smashed starship, at the dead inside. "They gave their lives for Earth. They fell with honor. They are—"

She fell silent and tilted her head.

A clattering sounded among the trees.

She spun around, aiming Arondight, but saw nothing.

The others raised their rifles too. They stared around, eyes narrowed.

"Comma—" Coral began.

Leona raised a finger to her lips.

There! She heard it again. More clattering. Creaking. Mud swishing.

The creature rose from behind the starship, dripping mud and moss.

"A marshcrab," Leona muttered. "I mucking hate those things."

She had seen a few marshcrabs in space before. Despite the sad state of their homeworld, they were a sentient, technological species—mostly using stolen tech. In space, the giant crabs were bright red. But here, in their own soupy environment, their exoskeleton was a rusty brown. With their long, thin legs, they looked a lot like mangrove roots, blending into their environment.

"Hey, buddy!" Leona said to the crab. "Do you happen to have a working communicator on ya?"

The marshcrab climbed over the Nantucket. Its eyestalks tilted toward her. Its legs were taller than Leona. Its body was small and covered with a warty shell; most of the creature was just legs.

"Hey, I'm talking to you, bub!" Leona said.

"Commodore!" Coral grabbed her arm. "Look!"

Leona turned and cursed. More marshcrabs were creeping from the trees. They had been there all along, Leona realized, hiding among the roots. Leona winced.

"Hear me, marshcrabs!" she said. "I am Commodore Leona Ben-Ari of the Concord forces. I wish you no harm! If you return me to my people, I will—"

"Concord scum!" one of the marshcrabs said.

"Filthy humans!" rasped another.

"Invaders!" cried a third marshcrab. "Invaders!"

"Slay them! Slay them!"

The creatures scuttled toward the humans, sneering.

Leona rolled her eyes. Oh bloody hell.

"Inheritors, fire!" she cried.

Their bullets rang out, slamming into the marshcrabs. Leona tore a leg off one beast, but it kept running.

A claw thrust toward her. Leona swung Arondight, parrying the blow, then fired again, hitting the marshcrab's underbelly. Its shell cracked, and its innards leaked. Leona leaped back, barely dodging the falling alien.

More marshcrabs were advancing. Leona kept firing, tearing them down. They were easy kills compared to scorpions, but by Ra, there were a lot of them. More kept emerging from the trees, rising from the mud, and appearing from the fog.

The other Inheritors were firing too. Bullets tore off the marshcrab legs, shattered their shells, and sent the beasts clattering down.

Coral fought with a different weapon. Her tattoos shone, and light flowed down her arm and into her silvery dagger. When she aimed the blade, pulses of light blasted out and slammed into marshcrabs, searing holes into their shells.

Dead aliens quickly sank into the mud, but new marshcrabs rose to replace them. Dozens, soon hundreds of the creatures surrounded the handful of Inheritors. An individual marshcrab wasn't much of a threat to a trained Inheritor. An army of marshcrabs was a different matter.

"They're too many!" Coral said.

Leona grimaced. Firing with one hand, she pulled out her minicom again. Damn it! Still no signal.

Had anyone seen the Nantucket crashing? Would her father arrive to save them?

A marshcrab lunged toward her, and she fired, knocking it back. But another rose behind her, and its leg knocked her down. Another leg kicked Arondight away. Lying on her back in the mud, Leona drew her pistol and fired, again, again, punching bullets through the crab until it fell dead. Another rose behind it.

I want to die on Earth, Leona thought. Not become crab food. Come on, Dad, where the hell are you?

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.