Rowan grimaced.
Emet winced and gritted his teeth.
Silence.
He held his breath.
They prepared to land inside the canyon, to screech to a stop right beside the hidden tunnel and escape shuttle.
A striker burst out from the smoke above.
Bolts of plasma flew toward the Byzantium.
Emet cried out, cursed, tried to dodge the attack. Rowan screamed and fired her cannons. Plasma bolts slammed into the Byzantium, knocking the ship aside, and they spun in the air, flipped upside down, and righted themselves again. Their cannons blazed, taking down the striker, but a last bolt of plasma hit them, destroying an engine, and they were falling, crashing.
"Hold on!" Emet shouted. "Rowan, ho—"
They slammed onto the ground above the canyon.
They tore through dirt, trees, and boulders.
The Byzantium came to a halt—hundreds of meters away from the canyon, from the trap they had set.
Their engines gave a last moan, then died.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Byzantium lay on the ground, smoldering, her engines dead.
Rowan and Emet stared at each other, silent for a moment.
Then Rowan leaped from her seat, raced out of the cockpit, and into the hold. Devastation awaited her: half the company of Inheritors was dead, lying on the deck amid scorpion corpses. For now, Rowan ignored the fallen, ignored the horror. She raced through the carnage, reached the airlock, and burst outside.
She stared around her.
They had landed a hundred meters, maybe more, away from the canyon.
A tremble seized her.
We need to land inside the canyon, she thought. We need to trap Jade near the hidden tunnel we drilled into the cliff. We need to take her to our escape shuttle. She took shaky breaths. Up here, we will fail.
Rowan looked above her. Smoke and clouds hid the sky. On the horizon, starships were tumbling down, wreathed in fire, slamming into a burning landscape. The battle thundered. Any moment now, Rowan knew, Jade would descend with her strikers.
Up here we're dead. Just like our damn engines.
Emet raced outside toward her. Blood dripped from a gash on his chin.
"We'll trap her here," he said. "We'll figure it out."
Rowan shook her head. "We'll continue as planned. Get back onto the bridge, sir."
She left him, hurried back into the ship, and yanked open the hatch to the engine room. The shaft plunged downward. The last time Rowan had climbed this hatch—at least the identical one on the true Jerusalem—panic had seized her, and memories of bonecrawlers and marshcrabs had spun her head. Today Rowan climbed down with a single thought: Get those engines back up and running.
She entered the engine room.
Last time Rowan had seen such a room, she had marveled at it, wandered among the machinery, found beauty and elegance in its design. It seemed far larger and more complex now.
She pulled out her pocket watch and pressed its button.
"Fillister," she said, "I'm going to need your help. And fast."
"Right-o, guvna!" said the dragonfly.
The small robot shot forward and buzzed around, scanning the engine room. Rowan joined him, looking for damage.
"There!" She pointed. "That turbine is busted. It's jamming the engine."
"And these cables are toast," Fillister said.
"Ignore those, those are just cooling cables," Rowan said. "We just need a single burst of speed, that's it. Can you grab me that screw? Damn it! We're going to need to patch up the coils there too—you do those, and reattach the spark. I'll get the turbine unjammed! Hurry!"
They worked furiously. With every heartbeat, Rowan worried that Jade would arrive, would burn them down. Yet her fingers were steady. Her mind focused, nearly in a trance. She didn't need to fly. She didn't need anything to last longer than a second—just that single burst of power.
She yanked the jammed turbine free. Fillister reconnected the coils and cables.
Rowan hit the comm on her lapel. "Admiral, sir, I'm going to give you a burst!"
His voice emerged. "Roger that, Corporal, I'm on the bridge and holding the yoke."
Rowan inhaled deeply and pulled a lever.
Fire blazed.
She screamed, knocked back.
The engine gave a single burst of fury, and then the bad turbine tore free and flew across the room, slamming into pipes before crashing down.
It was enough.
The Byzantium screeched across the ground, engines—what remained of them, at least—sputtering.
Rowan raced up the ladder into the hold. Her teeth rattled. She fell, rose again, and clung to a handle by a porthole.
The Byzantium rumbled forward, ripping up grass and soil, uprooting trees, and finally reached the edge of the canyon.
The last fumes burned inside what remained of the engines, pushing them over the edge.
They roared down into the canyon, and Rowan screamed and clung with all her might.
* * * * *
The Byzantium dived into the canyon.
They fell a few meters, sputtered forward, then slammed against a cliff. Boulders tumbled. Their starboard hull tore open with a spray of sparks and a cascade of stones.
Smoke and dust and rocks filled the ship. Klaxons wailed, then fell silent as the speakers fell from the bulkheads.
Emet shoved down on the brakes. He realized he was screaming.
They swerved, hit the other side of the canyon, cracking the hull, rose with a burst of fire, then slammed down hard.
Emet's seat tore free. He flew toward the ceiling, slammed against the metal, and fell. He banged his shoulder against a control panel and roared in agony. What remained of the Byzantium skidded across the canyon floor, ripping up stones, banging between the walls. Boulders rained behind them. Rocks slammed into the roof, denting the metal. Ahead, through the storm of dust, Emet saw the red boulder rising along the canyon's ledge—his marker.
He hit the reverse thrusters with all his strength.
The starship screeched along the stone. The engines were dead but momentum shoved them onward. Sparks showered. Dust and bits of stone flew. They scraped forward, tearing open, until half the hull was gone, exposing the canyon walls.
In a cloud of dust, the Byzantium fell still.
They were only a hundred meters off target.
Emet jiggled the throttle, giving them a tiny burst of power, just a wisp of a fume.
They jerked forward, then were still again.
They were right beside the secret tunnel in the canyon wall—the place they would drag Jade into, the place where their armored shuttle awaited.
"Rowan?" Emet spoke into his comm. "Rowan, are you all right?" Silence from the engine room. "Rowan?"
She groaned through the speaker. "Sir. Ow. I broke every bone in my body. Even bones I didn't know I had. Just kidding. But I did fall down on Fillister. Thank goodness I only weigh as much as a pancake."
Emet couldn't help but smile. He exhaled in relief.
He left the cockpit and entered the hold. A nightmare awaited him. Half the marine company had perished in the battle and crash. Corpses and blood were everywhere. Rowan stumbled across the deck, bleeding from her elbows and a gash to the head. Emet limped toward her, every muscle and bone aching.
"Rowan," he rasped. "Rowan, look into my eyes. Are you all right?"
She raised her head. She looked into his eyes. Her face was bruised, blood dripped down her temple, and her lip was split. But she stared at him steadily.
"We're inside the trap," she said, voice hard. "We're alive. We're ready." She smiled crookedly, though terror filled her eyes. "Now we wait for Jade."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Rowan stood in the crashed starship, waiting for her sister to arrive.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. She placed her hand on Lullaby's handle, seeking comfort from the pistol, then pulled her hand away.
>
I don't want to kill you, Jade. I want to bring you home.
The canyon was eerily quiet. The engines on the Byzantium were dead—for good this time. Rowan could still hear the battle far above, but the explosions were muted, limited to a handful of starships that were falling toward the planet, crashing beyond the horizon. Here in the canyon, the wind moaned, and a few severed cables crackled.
Rowan ran across the hold of the ship. Dead scorpions and humans lay on the bloody deck, corpses mangled. The bulkheads were torn open, revealing craggy canyon walls. The airlock door had fallen off, and Rowan stared outside. She could see the curtain of vines on the cliff, hiding the tunnel where her shuttle awaited.
A hundred Inheritors had survived the battle and crash. Silently, the soldiers stepped through the airlock into the canyon, then hid behind trees, boulders, and veils of moss—hiding spots they had pre-prepared.
Rowan stood in the center of the hold, taking deep breaths. Emet came to stand at her side.
Together, they waited inside the shattered starship, facing the airlock, silent.
Rowan reached over her shoulder for the canister. She pulled it down so it hung at her side. Within an instant, she knew, she could pull out the cape and toss it. The movement had become as natural as breathing.
They kept waiting.
Silence.
"Sir?" Rowan whispered.
"Corporal?" Emet said.
"If I die today, sir—"
"You are not dying today, Corporal."
"But if I do, sir," Rowan said, "it has been an honor."
Emet nodded. "The honor is mine, Corporal. But now focus on the task. Jade will soon be here."
They stood in silence for another moment, waiting.
She won't come, Rowan thought. Oh God, she's not coming. She thinks we're dead already. Or she suspects a trap. Or—
Engines rumbled far above.
Rowan stepped outside the airlock onto the canyon floor. She looked above.
Three small strikers were descending.
Her breath caught. She turned to look at Emet, who still stood in the fallen Byzantium's airlock.
"It's not the Venom," she said, then instantly realized the foolishness of her words. "Of course not. The Venom is too large for an atmosphere." She stared back at the sky. "Landing craft. Three of them."
Emet beckoned her. "Come, Rowan, back into the Byzantium."
His voice was calm, in control, but Rowan heard the underlying tension. Even Emet was scared.
She took a shaky breath. The engines rumbled above. They had planned to meet Jade inside the hold, reasoning that the bulkheads offered more protection, but suddenly Rowan desperately wanted to be outside in the canyon. Better yet, they should have remained above the canyon, up there in open space. Rowan was too constricted down here. She was trapped. She was trapped like in the engine room, like in the ducts of Paradise Lost, and the monsters were approaching in the darkness, and—
Calm yourself.
She took a deep breath.
You are ready.
The engines roared outside, and smoke filled the canyon.
Through the cracked hull, Rowan saw three small strikers—each was no larger than a bus—land in the canyon.
Rowan gulped and struggled not to draw her pistol.
The strikers were motionless. Their engines purred. For a long time nothing happened.
"Jade!" Rowan suddenly blurted out. "Jade, I'm here!"
From outside—silence.
She suspects a trap, Rowan thought. She knows. Oh God, she knows.
She clenched her fists.
"Jade, come talk to me!" Rowan said. "We'll work this out!"
Atop the canyon, Rowan knew, other Inheritors were hiding among the boulders, aiming rifles. A hundred more hid across the canyon. A dozen waited inside the concealed tunnel with the shuttle.
The canyon remained silent. Not a man or scorpion moved.
Then—she heard thumps. Rowan glanced outside and saw a hatch open on a striker.
A cannister rolled out onto the canyon floor.
"Grenade!" Rowan cried.
She leaped back and covered her head with her arms.
But no explosion followed.
A static crackling sounded.
Rowan removed her arms and stared outside. A light projected from the cannister, and a holographic image of Jade appeared. The astral huntress smirked.
"Hello, Rowan!" the hologram said. "You didn't truly expect me to come down there into your trap, did you? Such a silly little pest."
Rowan inhaled sharply. She ran to the edge of the airlock and stared at the hologram. "Sister! Listen to me. We must talk. Face to face. Come down to me! We will speak." Her eyes filled with tears. "We're sisters, Jade, you must believe me, you—"
"Silence!" the hologram shrieked. "I've had enough of your mind games, you pathetic little liar. You tried to trap me. To hunt me." Jade cackled. "But now you've become the hunted." The hologram turned toward the scorpions in the canyon. "Scorpions! Bring her to me. Bring her alive and every other human you find. Sin Kra will torture them himself."
And from the strikers' hatches, the scorpions emerged.
Rowan screamed and opened fire.
The scorpions leaped toward her. Dozens were pouring from their ships. The smoke parted above and more strikers descended, hovered over the canyon, and spewed hundreds of scorpions into the gorge.
Jade's hologram stared into Rowan's eyes, smiled crookedly, and vanished.
Rowan fired in a fury, bullet after bullet, taking out scorpions until she ran out of ammo. As she knelt to reload, Emet stood over her. With one hand, he fired Thunder, his double-barreled assault railgun. With the other hand, he fired Lightning, his electric pistol.
The rest of the Inheritors fought with them. They ran out of the Byzantium's hold, firing rifles and pistols, swinging swords and clubs, roaring for Earth. They emerged from their hiding spots inside and above the canyon, hammering the enemy. They fought with all the courage of humanity.
We are humans, Rowan thought as she fired her pistol, shouting, blasting down the leaping scorpions. We survived war after war, invasion after invasion. We survived the centipedes, the spiders, the grays. We survived the squids that destroyed our world. We survived two thousand years of nightmares in the dark. For thousands of years, courage has been our torch. Courage now!
"Courage now!" she said. "For Earth!"
"For Earth!" the soldiers cried. "For Rowan Emery! For Emet Ben-Ari!"
Here in the canyon, as hundreds of scorpions descended upon them, they fought with the greatest courage of Earth, with their homeland's light shining within them.
And in the canyon, they fell.
Soldier after soldier tumbled down the cliffs, died on the ground, burned in the ruins.
For every scorpion slain, several Inheritors fell. The aliens cackled, skinning wounded soldiers, devouring the flesh within, laughing. Laughing with cruelty as the blood splashed them.
Rowan watched them die. Men and women she had trained with, befriended. The last free humans in the galaxy. They had followed her here, believed in her. And around her, they died.
"Jade!" Rowan cried, but nobody answered. The hologram was gone. Jade was still in the Venom high above, waiting.
Rowan kept firing until her gun clicked, out of bullets. She reached into her pocket for another magazine, found that she was out.
The scorpions surrounded her. Two of the creatures pounced. Their claws grabbed her. Rowan screamed, flailing.
Bullets slammed through one scorpion's head, shattering the skull, splattering brains. A bolt of lightning slammed into the second scorpion, knocking it back. Rowan saw Emet standing nearby, holding his rifle and pistol, their muzzles smoking.
"Rowan, into the tunnel!" Emet cried.
Rowan looked toward the cliff wall. The curtain of vines had burned away. She saw the stone door there. One Inheritor keyed a code into a hidden panel, and the round door
slid open, revealing the tunnel. A spray of venom hit the man, and he crashed down, head melting. Other Inheritors knelt above the corpse, firing railguns at the scorpions, breaking the beasts into shards of hot exoskeleton.
Emet walked over corpses toward the tunnel, firing both weapons with every step.
"Rowan!" he shouted. "With me! Into the tunnel! We're getting out of here."
She stood by the Byzantium's airlock. She stared at him. The battle seemed to spin around her. More Inheritors died at her feet. A man fell down the cliff and thumped onto the ground nearby, and scorpions leaped onto the corpse.
"But I haven't met Jade yet," Rowan said.
Emet fired his rifle, knocking a scorpion back, and reached the tunnel. He stood by the entrance. Rowan stood across the gulf, still by the Byzantium's airlock. The distance between them was only a few steps, but it seemed a light-year.
"Rowan!" Emet reached out toward her. "Rowan, come—"
A stinger sprayed his arm with venom.
Emet howled and pulled his sizzling arm back. He ripped off his coat, roaring in agony, slapping off the acidic droplets. Already his arm was blistering. He tried to step toward Rowan, only for a scorpion to leap onto him, to knock him back. He fired Lightning, and the pistol tore through the scorpion, hurling it against the wall.
"Rowan!" Emet cried again, reaching across the distance. More and more scorpions were scuttling into the canyon now. More and more Inheritors were dying. "Rowan, to me! Run! I'll cover you. Run! To the tunnel!"
She stared at him, daring not leave the airlock.
"I have to talk to Jade," she whispered. A tear flowed down her cheek. "Emet, I have to."
He placed one foot into the tunnel. "Rowan! To me, Corporal! That is an order! We have to run, to live to fight another day. We're getting out of here!"
Emet tried to run toward her again, but three scorpions leaped onto him. They slammed him down. Rowan gasped and let out a sob as their claws tore into Emet. She stepped back into the airlock, knelt by a dead Inheritor, and grabbed a rifle. She fired, slaying the scorpions that were cutting Emet.
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