The Heirs of Earth

CHAPTER FIVE

Bay Ben-Ari flew his clunky starship across space, and the living asteroids charged in pursuit.

"This is Ra damn mucking great," Bay muttered, shoving the throttle down. "I just had to play Five Card Bluff with smugglers." He groaned. "Never play Five Card Bluff with smugglers!"

He glanced at his rear-view monitor. Three asteroids were tumbling through space after him, leaving fiery wakes. But these were no simple rocks. These were grugs. Living asteroids.

Long ago, according to legend, grugs had been simple rocks, no different from ordinary asteroids. Their molten cores had churned for eras, rumbling with energy, evolving into a life of stone and magma. Holes appeared on their craggy surfaces, blazing with fiery lenses—eyes that could see far. Cracks stretched beneath the eyes, revealing gullets full of molten stone—jaws to devour prey. Today the grugs roamed the galaxy, traveling from star to star, always hungry.

Still, despite looking like ancient volcano gods, they were mostly harmless.

Bay didn't fear the grugs, these imposing yet dimwitted boulders. No. Grugs were not a problem. It was the creatures inside the grugs that wanted Bay dead.

Lights flashed on Bay's monitor. Ringing filled the cockpit.

"Um, dude?" his starship said. "They're calling you. Want me to answer?"

Sometimes Bay regretted installing speakers on his starship. The vessel was named Brooklyn, and she had an accent to match. Bay found it incredibly annoying.

"Do not answer," he said.

"They keep calling, dude."

"Ignore them!"

The ringing continued. Letters flashed on his monitor: Incoming Call.

Bay tried to ignore the lights and sounds. He dared not remove his hand from the throttle, determined to maintain his speed.

The beeping grew louder.

The letters flashed.

Incoming Call! Incoming Call!

"Dude, they keep calling," Brooklyn said. "They really wanna talk to you."

Cursing, Bay swung his left hand toward the control panel. He tried to uncurl his fingers, but it was no use today, not with his nerves. Even on the best of days, he struggled to unfold his left fist. His right hand was long-fingered, dexterous, quick as a snake snatching eggs. But he had been born with a bad left hand. It was deformed, curled inward, a tight bundle of knuckles and pain. On some days, Bay could just manage to hold a knife, if he carefully slid the handle between the stiff fingers. Most days the damn hand was just a lump of his rage and pain.

Beep! Beep!

"Brooklyn, can't you shut that noise off?"

"No can do, dude. I'm just an interface. Can't even hang up the phone. You took away my admin privileges, remember?"

"Because you kept flying us in the wrong direction!"

The starship huffed. "I don't like where you fly. Casinos, brothels, drug dens." The ship shuddered—actually shuddered, clattering the bulkheads. "They have sleazy ports crawling with ants. Not a place for a lady like me. We'd never fly there if it were up to me."

"Then you don't get admin status!"

Inwardly, Bay was cursing his decision to downgrade Brooklyn's privileges. He could have used her flying abilities now. With one hand, he wasn't doing a spectacular job. But he didn't have time to muck around with her algorithms now.

Clutching the throttle with his right hand, he slammed his left hand against the control panel, trying to hit the Reject Call button. But it was no good. One of his knuckles hit the wrong button—Accept Call.

"Muck!" Bay blurted.

"Oh, lovely," Brooklyn said. If she had eyes, she would have rolled them.

A hellish image appeared on the monitor. It looked like a stew of rock, fire, and meat. Bay understood. He was seeing the inside of a grug.

On the outside, a grug was stone and iron and ice—a lumpy asteroid. On the inside, it was soft flesh, sizzling puddles of acid, and boils that leaked molten rock.

And there, inside this hellish womb, sat the ugliest, nastiest creatures in the galaxy.

"Weegles," Bay muttered. "I mucking hate weegles."

The parasites stared at him. They cackled.

"Says the pest!" they chanted, voices shrill.

Weegles were small creatures, not much larger than a human toddler. But damn, they were ugly. The parasites had soft pale bodies, many legs, nasty claws, and twitching antennae. Bay didn't know their origin, but they had parasitized the grugs long ago, feeding off the warmth and energy inside. They used the living asteroids as starships, rolling from planet to planet, port to port, gambling and whoring and cheating at cards. Bay had never met a weegle with a decent profession. They were loan sharks, enforcers, drug pushers, and pimps.

"Fellas!" Bay said, waving his twisted hand. "Nice to see ya. You're looking extra, uh . . . wormy today. Been drinking all your stomach bile?"

"Spare us your toadying," the weegles said. "You owe us fifteen thousand scryls. Pay up. Or our grugs will swallow you whole, and we will digest your flesh over centuries."

"How can your grugs—in plural—devour me whole?" Bay said. "You have three asteroids. There's only one of me."

"Then we'll slice you into three pieces and devour you that way!" the weegles shrieked. "Do not think that you can fool us with your tricky words, pest. We beat you at Five Card Bluff, and your bet was fifteen thousand. Pay now or die."

Bay grumbled. "Muck you guys. You cheated, yo."

"That is irrelevant!" they screeched. "You still lost. You still owe us. Since you refuse to pay with scryls, you will pay with flesh. We will enjoy drinking your stomach acids."

The transmission died.

Bay groaned. "Drink this!" he said to the blank monitor, grabbing his crotch.

"Really, dude?" Brooklyn said. "That was crude. You should have said something like: Why don't you drink coffee instead?" The starship paused for effect. "Poisoned coffee."

"That is horrible, Brooklyn. Ra damn, you need a humor upgrade."

"I need an upgrade like I need a poisoned cup of coffee!" The starship laughed.

"Brooklyn, please shut up."

The living rocks were charging forward again, even faster than before. More than ever, Bay wished he had two working hands. He could have flown and fought at the same time. But there was no use using the ship's weapons now, not if he hoped to keep piloting.

He had won quite a few scryls down on the grimy moon of Koralon Ceti, a lawless world overrun with casinos and fighting pits. The tiny crystal skulls, each the size of a bean, jangled in his pack. The skulls came from the heads of starflies, pesky buggers bred on some distant, heavily-guarded world. The Concord Mint harvested the starflies, cleaned their skulls, and released them into circulation. It was one of the few currencies—along with slaves and fuel—accepted across all Concord worlds, this alliance of planets where Bay wandered.

None of these planets were his home. Bay had no home. He was a human. Among all sentient species in the galaxy, only humans had no homeworld. Even the damn weegles had a planet of their own somewhere. Bay had spent his life wandering from world to world, station to station. Since running away from his father at age fourteen, he had been flying this starship between casinos and brothels, gambling, saving, hoarding.

He was twenty-four. Someday, maybe even by his thirtieth birthday, it would be enough.

Enough money to buy a new hand, he thought. A prosthetic that can type. That can hold tools. That can hold a woman. And then I'll settle down. I'll get a decent job somewhere. I'll find a secret world where weegles, exterminators, and Peacekeepers can't find me. I'll find a real human girl—not a robot, not a vemale hologram, but a real woman, flesh and blood, a human like me. And I'll have peace.

He blinked away tears. He looked at his pack full of tiny, chinking crystal skulls. None of those dreams would come true if the weegles caught him.

And the asteroids were gaining on him.

Bay cursed his slow starship. To be honest, the ISS Brooklyn was not a starship at all, not a true one. Brooklyn had originally been a mere shuttlecraft, a small vessel used for ferrying a handful of passengers between a mothership and planet. Bay had stolen the shuttle years ago from his father, the legendary Admiral Emet Ben-Ari.

Some called Emet a hero, others an outlaw. The Concord Peacekeepers called him a terrorist mastermind. Whatever the case was, Emet Ben-Ari claimed to be descended from the Golden Lioness herself, the mythical leader of Earth who had slain many aliens. Emet now commanded the Heirs of Earth, a fleet of twenty starships and five hundred human warriors—the only human army in the galaxy.

Bay had no guilt over stealing one measly shuttle.

Fine. Maybe a little bit of guilt. But not enough to return the vessel.

Bay had modified the shuttle, of course, adding an azoth engine for warp speed, mounting cannons onto the prow, and installing a rudimentary AI system, one normally used on larger vessels. Like a true starship, Brooklyn could now fly faster than light, fight in a battle, and—regrettably—sass the pilot. The Inheritors named their starships after old Earth cities. So Bay had chosen a borough. Earth's Brooklyn had not been a true city, and this was not a true starship. The name fit.

This tiny vessel, not much larger than a van from old Earth, was Bay's only home.

For a decade now, Bay had lived in this cramped space, wandering from world to world, fleeing exterminators, bounty hunters, creditors, and even his father. Sadly, cardsharps chasing him was nothing new. It was life.

The starship piped up again.

"Proximity alert!" Brooklyn said. "Dude, proximity alert!"

The grugs were getting uncomfortably close. One of the asteroids belched, spewing molten rock. Bay cursed and yanked the joystick, tugging Brooklyn sideways. He dodged the spray, but droplets sizzled against the hull.

"Dude!" she cried. "I was just painted!"

Another grug charged from their port side, jaws snapping. Bay swerved, narrowly escaping the chomping stone jaws. A third asteroid tumbled from above, chortling, and Bay floored the throttle. Brooklyn blazed on afterburner. They just barely dodged the rolling stone.

Bay slammed at his communicator, hailing his attackers.

"Boys, boys!" he said, sweating now. "We can work this out. Maybe over a nice round of ale. I'm buying. And—"

"Devour him!" the weegles shrieked. "Grugs, swallow him whole!"

"Again with the plural!" Bay shouted, hanging up on them. Boring conversation anyway.

The grugs were snapping their jaws, banging into one another, desperate for the meal. One asteroid chomped on Brooklyn's wing, clipping the edge. The starship howled and careened.

It was a moment before Bay could right the ship. He pulled the joystick toward his chest, soaring, desperate to rise higher, to flee the beasts. The asteroids roared below him, jaws open like baby birds hungry for the worm. Inside their mouths, waiting deep in the gullets, the parasites waited.

Bay couldn't outrun these beasts. He'd have to pay up. Or fight.

"Mucking hell," Bay muttered, spinning Brooklyn around.

He faced the enemy.

"Um, dude?" Brooklyn said.

He shoved the throttle down, charged toward the grugs, and released the joystick.

"Dude!" Brooklyn screamed. "You're gonna get us killed!"

Bay grabbed the cannon controls.

He opened fire.

He had splurged a year ago. After snatching the golden watch off a dead exterminator—a tentacled son of a bitch who had tried to remove Bay from a bar—he had spoiled Brooklyn, buying her a good pair of cannons. Now shells the size of fists flew toward the grugs, leaving trails of fire.

The living asteroids shut their mouths and eyes, becoming balls of featureless stone.

The shells exploded against the beasts, chipping off bits of rock but otherwise doing the grugs no harm.

And now they were only meters away.

"Ra damn it!" Bay said.

He released the cannons. He grabbed the joystick. He tried to veer in time, and the grugs opened their jaws again, and—

He slammed into stone.

Sparks blazed across the starboard, blinding him.

Alarms blared.

The engine died.

A wing snapped off.

Brooklyn screamed.

Bay worked in a fury, reigniting the dead engine, shoving the throttle again. More grugs surrounded him. He managed to break free, to spurt outward like a wet fish from grabbing hands. But he was spinning madly. The stars spun around him. Only by miracle was the hull not breached, but ugly dents deformed it, and Brooklyn would not be flying through an atmosphere anytime soon.

"My wing!" Brooklyn said. "It's gone. I've been savaged!"

"There go my card winnings," Bay said. "It'll cost the full fifteen thousand scryls to replace your wing."

"Tough cookies," Brooklyn said. "Life is a hooch."

Indeed it was. And the grugs were still pursuing him.

Bay dared not face the aliens again. Maybe, with two hands, he could have piloted the ship and fired the guns. But until he could afford that prosthetic—which would cost more than ten starship wings—he would be running, talking, or outsmarting the bad guys.

Talking was pointless with grugs. Running was doing him no good. So it came down to smarts. The weegles were clever little parasites—not the most eloquent but cunning. Their hosts, the grugs, were no more sentient than chickens. The living asteroids cared for nothing but eating and breeding—which involved two grugs banging together until they chipped off baby rocks.

Bay couldn't help them with breeding, but as for food . . .

"They don't eat meat," he muttered. "The parasites eat meat. The asteroids just eat . . ." He gasped and scanned space, eyes narrowed. "Bingo."

He saw it in the distance. A cloud of luminous dust. The Cat's Paw nebula.

It was a small nebula. Not much larger than a planetary system. Bay sometimes used it for navigation. It was formed of glowing hydrogen, helium, and various ionized gasses—a grug's favorite foods.

"And you're hungry, aren't you, boys?" Bay muttered, flying toward the nebula. "This chase is wearing you out. You're mucking famished."

He held the throttle down with his elbow, allowing him to type.

"You know," Brooklyn said, "if you gave me admin status back, you wouldn't have to operate me with one hand."

"You know," Bay said, "if you shut up, I won't have to mute you."

"Hardy har har. So funny I forgot to laugh."

Typing furiously, Bay redirected power from weapons and shields toward the engine. He burst forward with renewed speed. He charged toward the nebula, bending spacetime around him. He was still paying off his warp drive, would be paying it off for years. It was easily the most expensive component on the ship, even more than the damn AI. But speed was priceless. Today speed would save his life.

The nebula grew larger ahead, shimmering gold and blue. Pillars reached outward like claws, tipped with young stars, giving the Cat's Paw nebula its name. From afar, it had seemed so small, a mere splotch in space, barely visible, but now it loomed before him, filling his viewport, a gleaming stellar nursery.

And the grugs saw it too.

The asteroids opened their jaws, revealing their innards of molten metal. Tongues of lava emerged to lick their chops. Their eyes widened. Drooling, the grugs swerved toward the nebula's delicious stew of gasses.

Inside the asteroids, the parasitic weegles were tugging on the beasts' tongues and cheeks, trying to redirect their hosts toward Brooklyn.

Bay opened a comm channel. "Trouble with your rides, boys?"

The weegles were shrieking something, but Bay could barely make out their voices. The grugs were howling with hunger. Their stomachs rumbled. The beasts were big and dumb but smart enough, apparently, to have learned one word.

"Food!" they rumbled. "Fooood!"

Bay slowed his starship. He turned Brooklyn around to watch the asteroids roll into the nebula. They began to feast.

"Hungry buggers," Brooklyn said. "Reminds me of you when you're eating."

Back on Earth, Bay had heard, the largest animals had been the whales. Despite their girth, they had subsided on plankton, creatures so small they were invisible. A handful of species roamed the cosmic oceans like the whales back home, and they too fed on the tiniest of meals—the atoms that floated through space and the microcosmic creatures that swam among them. The nebula's gasses swirled as the asteroids rolled through them like pigs in mud. Their stone jaws were opened wide, devouring the meal.

Inside the asteroids, the parasites were still shrieking, ordering the grugs to return to battle. Their hosts normally obeyed them, but during chow time, the asteroids ignored everything else.

Including Bay.

"Hey, boys!" Bay said, speaking into his comm. On his monitor, the weegles turned to face him. "Time for dessert."

Bay fired his cannons.

His aim was true. His shells flew into the open, feasting mouths of the grugs.

The grugs, still busy feeding, swallowed the projectiles.

An instant later, the shells exploded inside them.

On his monitor, Bay glimpsed the weegles torn apart before the transmission died. Through his viewport, he saw the grugs crack open, spilling lava, stomach acids, and bits of dead parasites.

The asteroids groaned, cracks gaping open across their stone bodies, revealing their raw insides. They coughed, spewing out burnt weegles. The parasites floated through the nebula. A few still twitched, then fell still. The wounded grugs rolled away to lick their wounds, vanishing into the nebula's depths.

Bay leaned back in his seat. He heaved a sigh of relief.

"Time for dessert?" Brooklyn said. "Time for dessert? Dude, that was a horrible."

"Shut up." Bay rubbed his temples.

The starship continued as if she hadn't heard him. "I mean, you could have tied it back into the card game. Something like: Read 'em and weep, boys! Or: You got worms, and here's your medicine!"

"Mine was snappier," Bay said.

"Or: Your breath stinks, have a Tic Tac!"

"I'm going to switch you off," Bay said.

He hit the mute button. Brooklyn flashed angry messages across the monitor, but Bay ignored them. She would give him hell later, but for now, he needed silence.

He rubbed his eyes. He was tired. He needed a drink. He needed a vemale or two, holographic girlfriends who could shove the loneliness aside for a night. His bad hand throbbed, but worse were the memories.

Fire in the grass.

Screams.

"Bay!" Her voice in the distance, and Bay running after her, lost in the smoke. Her skeletal hand, reaching to him, and—

Bay pounded his stiff hand against the dashboard. Pain blasted up his arm like a bullet, exploding in a crescendo across his shoulder. He winced and ground his teeth. Good. Pain drowned the memories. After every battle he fought, from bar brawl to space scuffle, those damn memories sneaked up on him.

He kicked his starship back into warp gear. He flew away from the nebula, one wing missing, hull dented, limping but still flying.

Maybe it would have been kinder to let the weegles devour me, he thought.

A moment of pain, then no more pain ever again. It was tempting.

But no. Eaten by weegles? There were better ways to die. With any luck, he'd be dead within a year, dull with grog and drugs, a vemale or two in his arms.

Bay looked down at his backpack. He nudged it with his foot, revealing the treasures within. Fifteen thousand scryls shone there—crystal skulls the size of marbles.

I'll have to buy Brooklyn a new wing, he thought. So much for buying myself a new hand. For buying a house. For buying a way out of this life.

His eyes stung. A new hand? A new house? What were they worth without Seohyun? Again he could hear her voice, calling to him, see her charred hand. He wanted to remember her smile, her sparkling black eyes, but he saw the burnt hair on her skull, and—

Again Bay pounded his own hand against the dashboard, letting the pain shove her away.

No. Don't think of Seohyun now. Don't fall into that pit.

He clenched his teeth and flew faster. He charged through space, his ship rattling, his fist clenched around the joystick. He was no longer fleeing cardsharps now, but he was still running. He was still fleeing terror.