The scorpions shoved her into a vehicle. She could not see, but she heard engines rumbling, her ears popped, and she vomited. She trembled, and blows struck her, and she passed out.
Hours passed, maybe days, maybe years. A blur of shadows and pain and beatings.
Once she thought she saw light. She peeked through a hole in her sack, and she saw a rattling window. Through it—grassy plains in the night, silvered with moonlight. Towns and cities and roads below her, clusters like stars, strands of pale gray between them. She was flying. Then more claws, and a scorpion shaking her, and she screamed and passed out again.
She fell. She spilled out of her sack, hit the floor, and woke up with a scream. She was in a bustling, grumbling, oily station, a place of pipes and smoke and bricks. When she tried to stand up, the scorpions knocked her back down. They kicked her, stabbed her, yanked her up by the hair. Ayumi looked around her, dazed, swaying, struggling to focus her eyes.
She had worried the scorpions had taken her into space. But she was still on Paev, the planet Ayumi had been born and raised on.
This had once been a train station, it seemed. Ayumi could still see the train tracks and a few locomotives, their steam engines cold. There was a ticket booth, a platform, a few kiosks, but they were deserted.
The station had been converted into a spaceport.
A handful of rectangular starships stood across the train tracks, and several more hovered above, engines rumbling. They were built of black metal, the hulls emblazoned with Hierarchy sigils. Skra-Shen ships. But these were no strikers, no slick warships, but boxy cargo vessels.
Deathcars, Ayumi realized. She had heard of such ships. Human cattle cars.
Posters hung on the station's brick walls, displaying caricatures of twisted, ugly humans. Captions appeared under the drawings, written in the Paevins' sharp script.
Humans go home!
Blame humans for the war!
The Hierarchy wins when humans die!
Seen a human? Report!
There were several scorpions moving about the station, but there were Paevins too. The bipedal felines wore military uniforms with Hierarchy symbols on the sleeves, and they held muskets and batons. They stared at Ayumi, disgust in their eyes.
"I'm not to blame," she whispered to them, bleeding. "I didn't cause the war. Please. I'm Paevin too. I was born here. Help me."
The felines approached her, and hope sprang in Ayumi. They would help her, shelter her, feed her, tend to her wounds.
But instead the cats grabbed her. Their claws were smaller than scorpion pincers but still drew blood.
She screamed and they laughed.
One cat leaned in close. He hissed into her ear.
"You ruined our planet, pest. Now you will pay. Hail the Hierarchy!"
The cats dragged her along the train tracks toward a waiting deathcar. They manhandled her up a ramp and opened a hatch.
Humans were inside.
A lot of them.
The deathcar wasn't large, no larger than a steam train's railcar. But there must have been hundreds of humans packed inside. They began spilling out, only for the Paevin soldiers to shove them back in, to shock them with electric batons, to laugh. As the cats worked, the scorpions watched from a distance, cackling.
The humans were crammed together, limbs entwined, bodies crushed. They gasped for air. They tried to reach out, to beg, but could barely move their arms. A mother raised her baby overhead, trying to save it from being crushed. Several children lay dead underfoot, trampled.
"Get in."
The soldiers shoved Ayumi against the mass of humans. Ayumi fell back out, only for a baton to slam into her back. Electricity crackled across her. She yowled.
The door slammed shut behind her, banging against her back, squeezing her in, shoving her more tightly against the people inside.
Darkness fell.
Ayumi stood, trapped between the door and a man in front of her. Her face pressed into the man's chest. She couldn't breathe. He was crushing her. They were all crushing her. Her lungs didn't have room to expand. She tried to cry out, could not. Across the deathcar, the others were crammed in just as tightly. Blood and human waste pooled on the floor.
"Where are you from?" the man asked, the one who was crushed against her.
"Palaevia City," she whispered, hoarse, barely able to speak.
"We heard the scorpions liquidated Palaevia last year," the man said.
"I hid," Ayumi said. "In an attic. For a long time. Months, I think. Maybe a year."
The engines rumbled.
The deathcar rose.
This time Ayumi knew: they were leaving Paev behind.
Tears flowed down her cheeks.
She was twelve years old, maybe thirteen by now, and she had never known another planet. For her first twelve years, she had known only Palaevia Enclave, that prison inside the cats' city. For another year—the attic only a few streets away. That had been her life. A lifetime spent within a kilometer.
Now they were taking her to another world. To a fate unknown.
Jade's voice echoed in Ayumi's ears.
I want their skin!
The starship flew for hours. Maybe days. It felt like years.
Ayumi fell asleep, maybe she passed out. There was no room to lie down, to sit. The crowd pinned her against the wall. A hive of misery, of death, of despair. Piss and shit and blood and vomit on the floor. Bodies on the floor. An old woman dead on the floor. A woman giving birth on the floor. A baby dead on the floor. Feet on corpses.
Thirst.
There was so much thirst.
Heat.
It was so hot.
Disease. Fever. They coughed, trembled, swayed. The disease spread through the ship, and they emptied their bowels and coughed and trembled, and more died. More bodies on the floor. There was no more floor now, just an oozing pool of filth and death. Feet on rot. Ayumi stood on bodies, but still the crowd pinned her to the wall, and she struggled to breathe. So much thirst. So much heat. No air. No air. And more dead.
Days. It had to be days. It had to be years.
She lost consciousness again, and this time she slid between the sticky flesh of the people around her. She thudded onto the floor. Splashed onto the floor. Lay among the dead until hands grabbed her, pulled her up, shook her.
"Stay alive, Ayumi," they said. "Stay alive!"
She nodded, eyes rolling back.
"I promised to see Earth," she whispered. "I promised."
"Stay alive."
"I will, Father. I will . . ."
Days. Eras.
And the engines rumbled and the deathcar shook.
And they landed.
The hatch opened, and her nightmare began.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"Again!" Emet barked. "Faster this time."
Rowan brushed back her damp hair and wiped sweat off her brow. "I can't—"
"You can!" Emet said. "You must. Faster!"
The girl glared for a second. But then she nodded.
"Bloody hell, you are a slave driver," Rowan muttered. "Sir."
The sun beat down, filling the ravine with heat and light. Grass carpeted the canyon floor, and vines covered the walls. Insects buzzed everywhere, as thick as raindrops. Helios was a hot, humid moon. It orbited a hot blue gas giant which, in turn, orbited a hot white sun. No sentient life lived here. They were half a parsec from the front line. And that front line was moving closer every day.
Emet peered up at the searing white sky. He could just make out his fleet, tiny white specks like pale satellites. The Heirs of Earth were up there, orbiting just beyond the atmosphere, waiting for allies and enemies. Neither had yet arrived.
He looked back down at Rowan. She stood before him, the grass rising past her knees. Burrs clung to her vest, and sweat dampened her short brown hair. Scratches, bruises, and mosquito bites covered her exposed arms.
Farther back, the metal cage rattled. The leafy vines covering it ru
stled madly. The stench of the animal within wafted through the ravine.
"You're Ra damn right I'm a slave driver," Emet said. "And you'll be thankful. As mean as you think I am, your sister will be worse. Ready?"
"Just a min—"
Emet hit a button on his controller, and the cage door opened.
The hellbull emerged, bellowing and kicking.
Rowan winced and scrambled back, cursing.
Hellbulls weren't much larger than people, but damn, the animals were mean. Coarse green fur covered them, providing camouflage on this grassy world. Not that the beasts needed it. Emet doubted any predator would mess with these creatures. They didn't have a real name. As far as Emet knew, no other humans had ever seen these animals, endemic to Helios. Emet had dubbed them hellbulls because they resembled small, muscular bulls, complete with horns. And because, well, they were hellish.
Cursing up a storm, Rowan retreated from the animal. She held up her magnetic blanket like a matador holding a red muleta. The hellbull kicked at her, and Rowan stumbled back, dodging the hoofs. She retreated another few steps, tripped over a tree root, and fell down hard.
"Damn it, on your feet!" Emet barked.
"You're worse than the hellbull!" she said, struggling to rise.
She tossed the magnetic cape.
The hellbull dodged the cloth and drove his horns into Rowan.
The girl screamed, falling backward.
"Damn it, Corporal!" Emet said. "How are you going to trap your sister if you can't even trap a dumb animal?"
She lay on the grass, eyes wide, and the bull charged again, hoofs about to crush her bones.
Emet cursed and fired his rifle, putting a bullet through the hellbull's brain. The animal thumped onto the grass, a smoking hole in its skull.
Rowan struggled to her feet, wincing, and opened her shirt. Two dents pressed into her bulletproof vest. She was trembling.
"It hurts," she said.
Emet sighed and lifted the magnetic cape. It had coiled shut. Tufts of grass and twigs and a handful of insects peeked from folds in the cloth.
"Congratulations," he said. "You've managed to trap some grass. You can eat it as salad tonight. I'll be eating that dead bull." He shook his head in disgust. "If this had been Jade attacking you, we'd both be dead right now."
Rowan winced, tugging off her bulletproof vest. "Ow. Damn. I think the animal might have cracked a rib." She grimaced. "Damn."
Emet sighed. "Let me see."
The bull had hit her bottom ribs. The skin was tender and red, but no ribs had been cracked.
"You're fine," he said.
"It hurts."
"So?" Emet glared at her. "So what if it hurts? Are you going to curl up and cry, girl? Are you going to give up because of a little pain? This isn't Paradise Lost. You can't hide here in a duct, whimpering in the shadows. You're an Inheritor now. A warrior of Earth. Act like it!"
Rowan stared at him, mouth open, rage in her eyes. Her cheeks flushed.
And then her eyes dampened. She began to cry.
Ra damn it.
Emet cursed her tears. Cursed himself for the pity that rose in him. He had not trained the girl properly. He had given her too much responsibility too fast. Yes, she was an Inheritor now. But still just seventeen. A girl who, until a few months ago, had never met another human.
He sat down on a boulder. He patted the stone beside him, and Rowan joined him.
"Do you think me harsh?" Emet said.
Rowan wiped her eyes. She shook her head. "No." She thought for a moment, then nodded. "I lied. Yes. You are harsh, sir. You're tough and terrifying and . . ."
She looked him, voice trailing off. She didn't need to say more. Emet saw the rest of her words in her eyes.
And you blasted me out of an airlock.
He gazed at the tall grass and creeping vines. Wind blew through the canyon, rustling the vegetation.
"My parents died when I was only twelve, did you know?" Emet said.
She shook her head.
"I was lucky," Emet continued. "I knew them for twelve years. Longer than you knew your parents. We lived on a cold, icy world. Nothing like this place. Barely a scrap of vegetation anywhere. We hunted local wildlife and ate the meat and organs raw. Ice and snow and rock everywhere. We had no fuel for fire. There were thermal springs on that planet, but the native sentient species had claimed those spots. They built domed cities there, filled with heat and life. We humans were cast out into the cold."
"I'm sorry," Rowan said softly.
"We were happy enough," Emet said. "I was, at least. My father taught me to hunt, and by age ten, I'd be going out to the icy plains alone, a rifle on my back. I would travel for hours on a motorized sled, hunting. Nothing but me and white mountains and sheets of snow for hours, sometimes days. Quiet solitude and stark, startling beauty. As I got older, I would go out longer and longer. I said it was to catch larger beasts, but in truth, I needed that solitude. I was always a solitary one. I think you know something about that."
Rowan bit her lip. "For a long time, I was like that. Even now, with humans around me, often I want solitude."
"One morning I set out on a hunt," Emet said. "I loaded my sled with gasoline and supplies, and I headed across sheets of ice toward the mountains. For days I stalked a great bear the size of a whale, following its tracks across valleys and hills and icy planes. It was a landscape untouched by sentience, primal and pure. Four days later, I returned to my village and found it gone. Wiped out. Every man, woman, and child slaughtered. Including my family."
Rowan looked at him with pity. "The scorpions?"
He shook his head. "No. This was years before the war. The natives had lost a child. Days later, they found out he had fallen into a lake and froze under the ice. But at first, they had blamed the humans outside their heated domes. So they came to our village. A mob. They slaughtered everyone, stole everything, burned what they couldn't steal. I remained alone in the world. As far as I knew, I was the last human in the galaxy."
She lowered her head. "I'm sorry, sir."
"That day, my childhood ended," Emet said. "For months, I survived alone in the wilderness. I was a good hunter. A survivor. But winter was coming, and I knew I could not survive the storms on my own. And the solitude, which I once craved, was even worse than the cold. I sneaked into a trading ship and smuggled my way off the planet. For years, I traveled between the stars, doing odd jobs on starships, serving as janitor, gunner, mercenary. By age seventeen—your age—I was already good at killing for hire."
She blinked. "I'm not very good at that yet."
"Whenever I could, I visited human communities," Emet said. "All of them had hard stories. Every one. Some were walled off in enclaves. Others suffered attacks from mobs. Some humans were slaves. Many communities had been wiped out. When I arrived, I found nothing but ashes, sometimes just a lone survivor huddling in the ruin. My wife was such a survivor. I found her on an asteroid colony, curled up among the dead."
"And . . . my father?" Rowan whispered, daring to meet his gaze. "Where did you meet him?"
"Ah, your father." Emet leaned back, and a thin smile tugged at his lips. "He was a wild one. David Emery was another mercenary. One of the few men I met who wasn't cowering, afraid, hiding in shadows. Your father was a fighter. A damn good soldier. We fought well together. For years, we fought side by side. Your father, Rowan, became more than a friend. He was like my brother."
She stared at her feet. "Until he betrayed you."
Emet sighed. "David Emery did what he felt was right. After years of war, he didn't want to fight anymore. We led the Heirs of Earth together as equals. But he grew weary of battle. No, not weary. That's the wrong word. David was never weary. He became . . . optimistic. He believed that humanity could still find peace, could find a place to hide, to live free. Not on Earth. We both knew Earth was thousands of light-years away, that other civilizations had claimed it, that many battles lay between us and our homewor
ld. But David believed we could find a new world, maybe a small moon like this one, and settle down, hide away from the galaxy." Emet sighed again, a deeper sigh this time. "I called him an idealist, a dreamer, a fool. He called me a warmonger. We fought. And he left. He left with a hundred others. With Jade. With your mother—and you in her belly. With the Earthstone."
"And he died," Rowan whispered. "My dad found a world to hide on. And the scorpions found him. I remember."
Emet placed a hand on her shoulder. "Rowan, I am harsh, and I am tough on you, because I still believe what I believed then. That our war is not over. That we all must become hard if we're to survive. The weak perish in this galaxy. Only if we're strong, if we fear no pain, can we hope to win, to bring about a generation that will grow up on Earth, that will know freedom and peace. We are the last generation of exile. We are the greatest generation. And therefore our curse—and privilege—is to suffer hardship and keep marching on. Despite the pain. Despite anyone who stands in our way."
Rowan rose to her feet. She stared at him, eyes damp, lips wobbly, and Emet thought she would weep again. But Rowan tightened her lips and saluted, slamming her left fist into her right palm. The Inheritor's salute.
Emet returned it.
"For Earth," he said.
"For Earth," Rowan repeated.
She walked around the hellbull carcass and lifted the rolled-up cape. Emet pressed a button on his controller, and the blanket released its magnetism and unfurled. Rowan shook off the plants and dirt inside, then looked at the nearby cage. There were still three hellbulls inside, snorting and pawing the ground.
"Ready?" Emet said.
Rowan assumed a fighting stance and raised the cape.
"Ready, sir."
He hit another button on his controller.
The cage opened again. Another hellbull emerged, charging toward Rowan.
She sidestepped with a dancer's grace, raised her cape, and draped it across the animal.
The magnetic cape wrapped around the animal and tightened, trapping its legs.
The animal crashed down, wrapped up inside the cloth. It thrashed madly, moving across the grass, but couldn't escape.
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