Rowan screamed and released the ladder. She slipped, banged against the shaft, and landed in Emet's arms.
He pulled her back into the engine room, and Rowan panted, weeping. Emet held her at arm's length, staring at her, eyes narrowed.
"Rowan, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"
"I . . ." She gulped. "I thought I was back in Paradise Lost, trapped in the ducts. I'm fine now. I'm . . ." Tears flowed over her words.
Emet hesitated, then pulled her into an embrace. She held him tightly, her cheek against his chest. He kept his arms around her until her heartbeat calmed, until she no longer heard the marshcrabs among the engines. Emet had always scared her—this tall, beefy man with the shaggy hair, this old lion with the hard eyes. This man who had blasted her out of an airlock, whom she sometimes thought a monster. Yet now she felt so safe in his wide arms, with his heart beating so close to her cheek, a warm and comforting rhythm.
She looked up into his eyes.
"I hid for fourteen years in a duct," she said to him. "Life here still takes some getting used to."
"Most people would be catatonic after what you've lived through, Rowan," Emet said softly. "You're doing remarkably well. I'm proud of you."
She leaned her cheek against his chest again, feeling his heartbeat. "I used to be so scared of you, sir. When I first saw you, you terrified me. I thought you were more a beast than a man. And after the Battle of Terminus, when you almost killed me, I hated you. For a long time, I hated you." She looked into his eyes. "But I was wrong, sir. To fear you or hate you. You're a good man. I was two years old when the scorpions killed my father. But you're like a new father to me. I feel safe when I'm with you."
Emet looked down at her, his arms still wrapped around her.
"My job is to train you." His voice was low and comforting like distant thunder. "To harden you. To prepare you for battle. To be your commander, to send you into hell if I must. That is the sacrifice we must make. But know this, Rowan. Your father was like a brother to me. And you are like a daughter."
She smiled and wiped her eyes. "Thank you, sir. I feel better now. Shall we train some more?"
"Not today." He shook his head. "Go rest. Watch your movies. Read your books."
"With all due respect, sir, I prefer to train," Rowan said. "I've had years to read and watch movies. Today I will prepare for battle. May I take a shuttle down to Helios?"
Emet nodded, and soon Rowan was flying down to the planet. She landed in the canyon, the place where they planned to capture Jade. For hours, Rowan ran through the brush, climbed the cliffs, lifted heavy stones, and hunted the hellbulls. Soon enough, Jade would come. Doomsday would be here.
Rowan hoped she could bring her sister back to sanity.
But if I cannot, Jade, if you are beyond my help, I will fight you. She wiped sweat off her brow and stared at the sky. And I will win.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
All around Leona, the galaxy was falling apart.
Three human starships. The Nazareth, the Kinloch Laggan, the Rosetta. Three beacons of hope. They flew through a fraying universe, seeking a home.
At every wormhole, the scorpions were emerging.
At every major star system, fleets clashed.
Even the vast emptiness of space, the light-years of darkness and nothingness, now brimmed with agony, with charging fleets, with the husks of burnt starships and the floating corpses of soldiers.
"The war is everywhere now," Leona said softly. She sat on the bridge of the Nazareth, guiding the frigate onward. "The front line might be far behind us. But the battles are everywhere. No place is safe."
Ramses's face appeared on the monitor to her left. He was flying in the Rosetta off her port side. The pharaoh stroked his pointy beard. "Maybe it had to be this way. Only out of chaos can new order be born. Only from ashes can the phoenix arise, reborn. From this horrible tragedy, this inferno, this bloodshed, Earth will rise."
Leona smiled sadly at her dear Pharaoh. "From devastation to reclamation." Her voice was soft. "But it hurts. That millions of our brothers and sisters perish in the gulocks. That thousands of worlds are blinking out. Sometimes it feels like there can be no light after so much darkness."
Ramses nodded. "Those in darkness always feel this way. In the twenty-first century, a race of alien centipedes devastated Earth, slaying three billion humans. Those in the darkness that followed saw no light. Yet from that destruction rose President Einav Ben-Ari, the heroine who elevated Earth to glory, who built a human empire. Your own ancestor. After her death, only two centuries after the centipede attack, the Hydrian Empire attacked Earth. The squids butchered six billion—nearly all of us. Only a handful of humans fled into exile. Some think only a few thousand humans made it out. In that shadow, they saw no light. Yet they flourished. From those few frightened refugees rose new human communities across the galaxy, and we multiplied into millions. Now new darkness falls. Now the scorpions kill millions of us. Now they destroy entire civilizations. Now again we struggle to see light. But dawn will rise. Earth will rise."
Leona's smile widened. "You are wise, my dear Pharaoh. And ever the optimist."
A grin split his face. "The optimists build futures. And I intend to build a new world on Earth, a civilization to rival the grandeur of ancient Egypt."
A second monitor turned on. Mairead's freckled face appeared, a cigar in her mouth. She was flying the Kinloch Laggan, smallest but fastest of their three ships.
"You and your pyramids," said the young pilot. "You only had pyramids because slaves built them. What are you gonna do, enslave Leona and me?"
"I'd have better luck taming a pair of honey badgers," Ramses said.
"You better believe it, mate." Mairead winked. "Ain't nobody gonna tame us. Optimists can muck off. So can pessimists. It's warriors who build worlds." She raised her pistol and twirled it around her finger. "And I'm the deadliest killer in the galaxy, bub. It's from the ruins of battle that we shall arise. From the ashes of war—glory! You said it had to be this way? Damn right. Let the old universe burn. Was a mess anyway."
Leona glared at the young redhead. "Millions are dying, Mairead."
She glared back, but now Mairead's green eyes were damp. "Millions always die, Commodore. Throughout all of Ra damn history—it's genocide after genocide, destruction after destruction. The centipedes. The spiders. The squids. Now these damn scorpions. Ramses says he's an optimist? Not me. I'm a killer. Because you need killers. Because only killers can survive. This is a cosmos of death, and I'm an agent of death."
"I fight for life!" Leona said. "Always for life."
"Is that why you're flying a warship armed to the teeth with missiles?" Mairead asked. "Life? Life is a luxury. We soldiers kill and die and slog through blood so that others may live. So be it." She turned away. "I'd rather be a living killer than a dead dreamer."
Mairead cut off the transmission. The monitor went dark.
Somebody hurt you, Leona thought, gazing through the porthole at Mairead's warship. May you someday find peace, Captain Mairead "Firebug" McQueen. May we all find peace.
"Well, that certainly put a damper on my upbeat message of hope," Ramses said, breaking the awkward silence. "Anyway, Commodore, what say we organize a feast tonight for the troops? We need a morale boost. I'm well stocked with Arabian coffee beans on the Rosetta. Well, synthetic powdered beans, but we must make do in these times of privation. I'll be glad to share with the soldiers in your and Firebug's ships. I'll cook too. For everyone. First time we'll have a proper meal—Egyptian delicacies, of course—and after dinner, we can—"
He frowned and shut his mouth.
"What?" Leona said.
Ramses stared ahead. "There. What's that? A nebula?"
Leona stared too. She saw it now. A sphere in space, black yet shimmering with a ring of light. No, not a nebula. Her ship's sensors were going wild. The object ahead was close. And growing closer and larger.
"It looks almost like a black hole
," Leona said. "But it's right ahead of us. And it just popped out of nowhere. Impossible." She shuddered. "We better give it a wide berth. Turn to our port. Follow me."
She turned the Nazareth, and the bulky frigate creaked and groaned in protest. The two corvettes followed, smaller and more agile.
The black hole expanded.
Lighting flashed around it.
It soon grew large enough to swallow a warship.
Leona stared at the thing. "What's that inside? It's—"
Her breath died.
It's not a black hole, she realized. It's . . .
"A wormhole!" she shouted.
And from inside, the strikers emerged.
Dozens of them. A hundred, maybe more.
The scorpion ships fired their guns.
"All power to shields!" Leona said. "Ramses, Mairead, shiel—"
The plasma slammed into them, spraying across the three warships like red waves against boulders.
The Kinloch Laggan turned toward the enemy first, blasting its cannons. The corvette raced toward the strikers.
"Mairead, defensive position!" Leona said, but the corvette was already charging.
The Kinloch Laggan slammed into a striker, ramming the warship, blasting out shells.
An instant later, a striker rammed into the Nazareth, and Leona cried out and fell to the deck, and the bridge shook.
Another striker plowed into her other side.
Leona cursed. In a real warship, there would be a gunnery station, a helmsman, a crew of officers, both living and robotic. But the Nazareth had been a freighter only a few years ago, and an old, clunky one at that. The Heirs had quickly modified her for war, but she was still too damn slow, built for hauling cargo, not fighting a battle. By the time Leona pulled herself back into her seat, more plasma was slamming into the Nazareth, melting the shields, and the frigate spun through space.
Leona grabbed the triggers for her cannons.
She fired all her guns, port and starboard, not even aiming, just blasting out a hailstorm of death.
The shells flew and slammed into the strikers at her sides, exploding so close they rocked the Nazareth.
As the debris cleared, Leona saw the Rosetta and Kinloch Laggan battling hundreds of strikers. The enemy ships were still streaming out of the strange dark wormhole.
This isn't one of the ancient wormholes, Leona thought. The scorpions figured out how to build their own tunnels.
"Fall back!" she shouted. "Ramses, Mairead, back! We're getting out of here. Now!"
The strikers were still mostly organized around the wormhole. Only seven or eight blocked the humans' retreat. The three Inheritor warships turned to flee, cannons firing.
Perhaps the Nazareth was slow and clunky. But now her girth was all Leona wanted. The freighter-turned-frigate plowed into the enemy strikers, knocking them aside, as the corvettes hammered them with hellfire.
The Inheritor ships broke free.
Engines roaring, they charged into the distance.
Behind them, the enemy followed, plasma firing.
"Where the hell did those buggers come from?" Mairead shouted, her face reappearing on the monitor by Leona.
"I don't know," Leona said. "But they knew we were here. They were able to open a sort of wormhole. Damn it!"
She fired her aft-cannons, knocking a striker back into its comrades. But the other strikers still pursued. The Nazareth could not outrun them for long.
"Well, mates, looks like we go down in glory," Mairead said, speaking around the cigar in her mouth. "I always knew I'd go down in a brawl. Figured it would be pissed in a pub, but this'll do."
"No," Leona said. "No! We do not die here! Our mission is to reach Earth. We will complete our mission."
They raced forward, unable to divert full power to speed. Their cannons still fired. Their shields still took heavy punishment. The scorpions chased in a mass of metal and fire, the hundreds of ships forming a triangle in space.
"Commodore!" Ramses said. "You remember my suggestion to ditch the Nazareth? We can extend a jet-bridge in midflight. You and your crew can join me on the Rosetta."
"Extending a jet-bridge will slow us down," Leona said, firing more shells from her stern. Her ammo was getting dangerously low. "And we'd be too vulnerable if we space walked."
"Then we die in glory!" Mairead said. "As warriors for Earth! It's good to die for our homeworld."
"Nobody is dying today," Leona said. "Today we live!" She pointed. "There. Make for that star. With me."
She swerved, turning toward a nearby red dwarf. The corvettes turned with her, and the enemy followed. They raced onward, exchanging fire with the enemy as they flew. Another plasma blast hit the Nazareth, rattling the frigate. The Kinloch Laggan took a blast to the underbelly. The plasma left seared, ugly scars.
"Commodore Ben-Ari!" Ramses said. "My scanners are showing an active battle in that star system. A massive battle."
Leona smiled grimly, leaning forward in her seat. "Exactly."
"Hell yeah!" Mairead whooped. "That's what I'm talkin' about. You are a crazy hooch, Commodore! I approve."
Leona stared ahead, something halfway between smile and grimace on her face. A purplish-gray alien planet came into view.
"Esporia," Leona said. "Homeland of the Esporians."
"Ra damn mushrooms," Mairead said. "Ramses, you wanna cook us mushrooms tonight?"
On the monitor, Ramses looked queasy. "Esporians. I hate Esporians. Commodore, these creatures hate humanity. These creatures killed . . ." He grimaced. "People who were dear to me."
Pain twisted his voice. Leona remembered reading the Pharaoh's files. Ramses came from a nearby system, one in the Esporian's sphere of influence.
"Hang in there, Ramses," she said. "This is the only way. The Esporians might hate us humans. But they're still part of the Concord, and right now, they hate the scorpions more."
The Inheritors raced toward the purple planet, taking continuous fire. The back shields were nearly gone now, and Leona kept firing at the enemy, desperate to hold them off. She had to reach Esporia, that moldy planet ahead.
It grew larger in her viewport. Esporia was a damp world with a dense atmosphere of carbon and oxygen. Moss, mold, and mushrooms covered the entire planet in a thick rug. Some said the fungus roots dug for hundreds of kilometers under the surface, maybe even reaching the planet's core. It was a single ball of decay.
On this planet, the Esporians had evolved.
Leona had seen a few Esporians on her travels. The mushrooms stood taller than humans, grayish and purple and malodorous. They were freakishly intelligent, probably more so than humans, but theirs was a cold, calculating, ruthless intellect. They did not hide their ambition for domination, and many worlds had fallen to their rot, had become balls of mold and fungus like Esporia.
Many human communities had been lost to these attacks. Leona had been to a human village overrun with Esporians. She had burned the mushrooms and fished out the bones of children.
But the Esporians still fly under the Concord banners, she knew. They are scorpion killers.
As she approached, she saw the battle ahead.
Esporia was under attack.
Wormholes were opening around the planet—not the shimmering ancient wormholes, the stations in the Tree of Light, but the new black portals of the enemy. Strikers were spilling out, firing at the planet.
The Esporians were not a meek species. They fought back—hard.
Their pod ships surrounded their planet, millions of them. These were not ships of metal like most species flew. Here were organic, fleshy vessels, round and rancid. The pods opened pustules and fired countless spores. The spray hit strikers, clinging to the starships and eating through the metal. On Esporia's surface, organic volcanoes opened their vents and spewed pus into the atmosphere. The geysers slammed into strikers in orbit, tearing through the ships.
"It's disgusting," Mairead said. "Their entire planet is like a huge ass pim
ple."
"You would know something about those," Ramses said.
Mairead glowered. "Yes, from that time we served together on the Jaipur and I saw you naked in the shower."
"Oh please." Ramses rolled his eyes. "My nude divinity was the most glorious sight you have ever seen. Savor the memory, Firebug."
They flew toward the battle, and the strikers followed.
And the Esporians noticed.
A hundred of the fleshy pod-ships came flying toward the Inheritors. Their pustules bloomed open, revealing fiery innards.
"Commodore, are you sure this is smart?" Ramses said, wincing. "The mushrooms look angry."
"They look delicious," Mairead said. "Fresh risotto, coming right up!"
"Do not attack them," Leona said. "Fly! Forward! Fly between them."
She flew toward the pod-ships, wincing.
The pustules blasted out spores.
Leona screamed and tugged on her ship's yoke, raising the Nazareth. The two corvettes soared at her sides.
The cloud of spores flew beneath them like pollen and coated several pursuing strikers.
At once, the scorpion starships began to rust and break open. Whatever those spores were made of, they were terrifyingly corrosive, eating through the metal within seconds. The strikers veered madly, slamming into each other, crumbling, spilling out scorpions.
Leona kept flying forward, passing over the pod ships. She stormed into the battle.
All around her, strikers and pods clashed.
Plasma blazed like dragonfire, torching pods, peeling open the fleshy ships and exposing the Esporians within. The sentient mushrooms screamed as they burned. More jets of fire rained onto the planet's surface, burning through the forests of fungus and lichen. The organic volcanoes below—massive lifeforms the size of Everest—belched up sizzling globs, and the streams tore through strikers. Clouds of spores flew through space, clinging to hulls, eating through the metal. Everywhere—fire and flesh, metal and meat, death and destruction.
Through this inferno, the three human starship flew.
The strikers chased them. But the Inheritor ships zigzagged between geysers of acid, and the rancid pillars slammed into strikers, carving through them. The human ships shot under clouds of spores, then over swarms of pod ships, then around raining storms of plasma.
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