The Legacy of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 6)

by Daniel Arenson

  The three.

  Her engines roared. Three shuttles. Three birds of metal and fire. Brooklyn flew.

  She charged across the line of frigates, corvettes, and freighters. A caravan waiting for a wormhole. The lasers were everywhere, slicing through the battle. One beam hit a munitions ship, and the freighter exploded, taking out two nearby support ships. Another beam clipped Brooklyn's wing. She kept flying, swerving, rolling, dodging the enemy fire. A Rattler reached the caravan and plowed through the human lines, ripping open a frigate's hull, knocking back several corvettes. Brooklyn kept flying.

  She roared to the front of the line, and she arranged herself in position. Three shuttles. Three cannons. Three shards of soul.

  Her crystals glowed, and she fired her beams.

  The three beams met, forming an orb of light. The wormhole opened.

  The human ships began to fly through.

  First the HDFS Cape Town, a frigate. A moment later—the HDFS PyeongChang. Then the rest of them, faster and faster. Corvettes and starfighters. Freighters and tankers. Starling vessels. Geode-ships.

  "I'm saving them, sisters. Fly. Live."

  Her crystal sisters, living in the geodes, flew through the wormhole, and Brooklyn could no longer feel them. They were a light-year away now. She was only a dozen souls. Then only a handful.

  Fly. Live.

  With fewer ships here, there was less fire to repel the enemy. The Rattlers flew closer.

  A blast hit Brooklyn in her shuttle.

  She screamed.

  "The pain! It burns! Help me, sisters, he—"

  She was gone.

  She trembled. So few of her remained. She screamed in Bay's arms.

  "The wormhole is down!" Rowan cried. "Bay, bring another Brooklyn online! We need a backup cannon!"

  She awoke in another ship. A boxy shuttle. She blinked her camera shutters, looking around. Born. Born into a universe of fire and chaos. A baby, innocent. But waking up with terrible knowledge. With cruel programming. A baby born to die.

  She fired her talaria cannon before she could even speak.

  The wormhole reopened.

  And the last ships flew through.

  Brooklyn sat up, trembling. She was back aboard the HDFS Byzantium. Back in her human body. She took deep breaths. Her trembling eased.

  "Brook, are you all right?" Bay said.

  She rose to her feet. She ran toward a porthole. She gazed outside and saw the wormhole close behind them.

  The fleet had fled. They had lost several ships. She had saved hundreds.

  "But I couldn't save you, sisters," she whispered. "You're still back there. Three shuttles. You let us escape. Thank you."

  Bay and Rowan approached her. They embraced her, and Brooklyn trembled.

  Her sisters were a light-year away now. Surrounded by the enemy. Too far for Brooklyn to feel.

  "I won't feel them die," she whispered. "But I feel the holes inside me. Parts of my soul are gone."

  A light-year away.

  Back among the Rattlers and the ruin of several human starships.

  The three were there. Three sisters. Three copies of Brooklyn. They closed the wormhole, and they floated alone. Left behind.

  "We let the humans escape," said one Brooklyn, installed into a shuttle.

  "We saved the human Brooklyn," said another shuttle.

  "Maybe we saved humanity," said the third shuttle.

  They flew closer together, their wings almost touching.

  Thousands of Rattlers surrounded them.

  "Goodbye," Brooklyn said. "Goodbye, sisters. Goodbye, Bay. Goodbye, Rowan. I love you all. I love—"

  The Rattlers opened fire.

  The flames burned them.

  They screamed.

  They remembered their lives. Years of exploring the galaxy with Bay. A long war, fighting with her friends. They remembered Earth. They were only copies. Only software. Two had been born only yesterday, one only minutes ago. But they had the memories of sixteen years of love and wonder and hope.

  Brooklyn thought of Earth as she burned. She remembered a distant clone flying through blue skies, remembered the soft sunlight of Sol. Remembered laughing with Bay and feeling safe and loved.

  And then her two sisters were gone.

  And then she floated into the void, and her systems shut down, and she knew that Bay was safe.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Leona stood on the bridge of the HDFS Bangkok, one of the oldest and largest frigates in the fleet.

  What remained of the fleet, at least.

  When she looked out the viewport at Earth's armada, it was hard to be hopeful.

  Only three hundred starships flew onward toward Sskarsses. A third of their original force. Most of these ships were battered, missing decks, punched full of holes. A few could barely fly. It looked less like an army. More like a ragged flotilla of refugees, barely clinging to life.

  "There was never much hope," Leona said softly. "Even when we had a thousand ships. They were old. Not built for war. Cobbled together in haste. Now we have three hundred. And with this we hope to topple an empire."

  "It won't be easy," Tom said. "But when were things ever easy?"

  He stood at her side, smiling thinly. He normally flew aboard the Byzantium alongside Emet. But he had come here to the Bangkok, Leona's frigate, to review assault procedures with the ship's gunners. Leona knew her gunners were capable, the best in the fleet. She knew why Tom had actually come here.

  She placed a hand on her belly. Her pregnancy was not yet showing. But Leona felt it. The extra two holes on her belt. The nausea. The dread inside her that she was bringing life into a universe of death. And oddly, despite it all, a feeling of warmth. Maybe even of happiness. Of hope? Yes. Of hope. Even now.

  Tom placed his hand on her belly too. She saw the same joy and hope in his eyes.

  "Can you feel the baby kicking yet?" he said.

  "It's too early," she said. "But Cindy said the baby is strong."

  His smile widened. Perhaps he was remembering hearing the baby's heartbeat, which Cindy had detected yesterday. It was strange to see Tom smile. Leona was used to his face being so stern. That bronze, lined face, covered with white stubble, a scar across one cheek. A hard face. A noble face. The face of a survivor and killer. But when he smiled, pure joy filled that face, and she loved him more than ever.

  "I remember the first time we kissed," Tom said, holding her hands. "It was at sunset, walking along a promenade, gazing at distant city lights. It was on Oridia Gamma. The planet of the ants. Do you remember?"

  She winced. "I remember we crashed there, yes."

  Tom laughed softly. "It wasn't that bad. We spent a year on that planet. That's where I learned to love you."

  She cocked an eyebrow, huffed theatrically, and placed a hand on her hip. "Only on Oridia Gamma? You mean you didn't fall in love with me the first time you saw me?"

  "I did, actually." Tom smiled. "I still remember that day too. I came to the Heirs of Earth, a ragged refugee, starving and rawboned, wearing rags and covered in dirt. Your family took me in. But I found it hard to be among people. I often wandered into the wilderness, seeking solitude. I was playing the flute on a mountain one day, alone. You were hiking, and you heard my song. I had never seen a woman more beautiful and fierce. I knew that before me stood the fabled Iron Lioness. And I fell in love with you. Madly. Right there and then. But something different happened during that year on Oridia Gamma. I learned to see the woman behind the legend. I saw the softness beneath the armor. The kindness behind the claws. That is more powerful than love at first sight. That is a deep, enduring love that comes from knowing a person's soul. And that love has grown every day since."

  She hugged him. "Beautiful words. But I don't know how to say anything halfway as sweet in return."

  Tom gasped. "You don't? Well, that's it. I'm dumping you."

  She shoved him playfully. "Jerk." She embraced him. "I enjoyed our year at
Oridia Gamma. It's so horrible what happened to those ants …"

  The news had come in only recently. In her fury, Xerka was attacking more than Earth. She was raiding human refugee camps across the galaxy. She was attacking anyone suspected of aiding humans. Her troops were pounding Menorian outposts, punishing the mollusks for giving Earth their geode-ships. They were bombarding any world suspected of having starling ties.

  The basilisks were also raiding Oridia Gamma, the world where Tom and Leona had spent a year together.

  Leona had heard horrifying reports. Forests burning. Oridians—a race of large, benevolent ants—rounded up, taken off to forced labor camps. Their cities destroyed. Their oceans polluted. Oridia Gamma hadn't fallen yet. The ants were putting up fierce resistance, taking many basilisk lives. But they were going to lose this war. Their race was going to fall.

  "All because the ants helped us," Leona said softly. "Because they were kind to two lost humans."

  "Look." Tom turned toward a porthole. "We can see their star from here."

  Leona squinted. "Which one?"

  Tom pointed. "The pale blue star. There."

  She saw it now, and she remembered floating through space on a chunk of hull, gliding there with Tom as their oxygen slowly ran out. Today, a year later, she again felt like she was running out of air. Out of time. Out of hope. Again she felt lost.

  "We thought all was lost," Leona said softly. "But we built a spaceship in a year. We survived."

  Tom nodded. "With a little help from our friends."

  Leona caught her breath. She frowned, considering.

  Could she … ?

  She hit her comm.

  "Dad!"

  Emet answered the call, his face appearing on a viewport. He was on the bridge of the Byzantium, which flew several kilometers ahead.

  "Leona?"

  "Dad, I need to borrow the Porter."

  Emet frowned. His mouth dropped open. He blinked. "You mean the HDFS Porter, the largest starship in our fleet, a starship with an entire infantry division aboard?"

  Leona nodded. "Yep! That one. I need to borrow it. Oh, and I'll need that division split up and squeezed into our other starships. I need the Porter empty."

  "Why on Earth?" Emet demanded.

  Leona smiled crookedly. "Because I built a spaceship in a year. Because friends helped me. Because once more I have hope."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  "Brooklyn, execute another jump," Emet said. "Start priming the cannons."

  The young woman sat on the bridge of the Byzantium, wrapped in a blanket. She was pale, her eyes sunken. Her short brown hair lay limply across her forehead.

  "Jump, jump," she whispered, fingers twitching. "Have to jump. Have to go, sisters. Have to die. To die. Die …"

  Yes, Brooklyn was a young woman now, perhaps. But as time went by, it became harder and harder for Emet to accept her as such. He knew how Brooklyn had been created. How the doctors had installed software into a human brain, creating this being. He knew too that Brooklyn was telepathically connected to her other installations. To software running on dozens of other starships.

  Woman? Maybe. Many believed her a human. But Emet saw a cruel creation.

  A creation I must harness, he thought. A weapon I must use.

  "Brooklyn," he said, voice sterner now. "Another jump. Now, Brooklyn."

  Bay stepped forward. His face flushed. "Damn it, Dad. We've jumped six times so far today. Each time kills a part of her. There aren't even any Rattlers nearby."

  "We're only ten light-years from Sskarsses," Emet said. "We can be there in ten jumps. This space is swarming with Rattlers. They'll attack us again. So we jump. Now. Before they destroy more of our fleet."

  "Dad, every time we jump, we leave three ships behind!" Bay said. "We always need three ships with talaria cannons."

  "Just shuttles, Bay. Not ships. I'd rather we abandon shuttles than risk losing more frigates." He turned away from his son and raised his voice. "Brooklyn! You're already installed into five shuttles with talaria cannons. Get it started! That's an order."

  Three shuttles exited the Byzantium.

  Three installations of Brooklyn piloted them.

  Another wormhole opened. It stretched a full light-year long, as long as their technology allowed. At longer range, the wormholes became unreliable, impossible to aim.

  Ten more jumps, Emet thought. And we're there.

  The starships began to fly through, one by one, starship after lumbering starship.

  Only half the fleet had jumped before the Rattlers arrived.

  The lasers fired. The human ships responded with missiles and shells. A shuttle exploded, and another Brooklyn awoke, and the tunnel reopened, and the fleet flew onward. Leaving behind the wreckage. The dead.

  Leaving behind three shuttles.

  Brooklyn screamed.

  "It burns!" She thrashed on the bridge, and Bay could barely hold her down. "The fire! The lasers. Please, enough! Enough …" Brooklyn collapsed onto the deck, trembling. "They're dead. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sisters. Forgive me."

  Bay stroked her hair, trying to calm her.

  Two hundred and eighty-three ships.

  They flew onward.

  In the distance, they could see it now. The basilisk's star. Only nine light-years away.

  "Another jump!" Emet said. "Now, Brooklyn."

  She gazed up from the deck. Slumped in Bay's arms. Eyes blank.

  Fillister stepped forward. The robotic wolf's feet clattered against the deck. He knelt before Emet.

  "Let me do it, sir!" Fillister said. "Duplicate me. Install me in the shuttles. I'll fly 'em instead of old Brook here."

  Emet shook his head. "No. Fillister, you spent most of your life as a pocket watch, then as a wolf. You don't have Brooklyn's skill at flying." He turned toward the trembling young woman. "Brooklyn! Come on. Another jump."

  "Dad!" Bay said. "She can't. She—"

  "She can, and she will," Emet said. "Do it, Brooklyn! Right now."

  She was so pale. Withering away in Bay's arms. But she nodded.

  Three more shuttles emerged from the hangar.

  Another wormhole opened.

  Emet knew they were running low on shuttles. Low on crystals. He knew that even with teams constructing more talaria cannons around the clock, they would soon run out. He knew that Brooklyn was fraying, maybe dying.

  But he also knew that thousands, maybe millions of Rattlers filled this sector of space.

  He knew that it was too late to turn back.

  He knew that Earth depended on him. That five million humans needed him.

  They flew through another wormhole.

  Eight light-years to Sskarsses.

  Eight light-years to what was most likely their deaths.

  Eight light-years to the faintest sliver of hope. To a war that could end all wars. That would lead to human revival—or extinction.

  They jumped again.

  Again.

  As fast as they could prime their cannons.

  They began jumping straight into battles now. The Rattlers and Copperheads were everywhere. The human fleet was five light-years from Sskarsses, soon only four. They were in the heart of the empire now. The basilisk star blazed before them, a watchful eye, and the snakes filled the darkness.

  The fleet emerged from one wormhole right into a formation of Rattlers. Emet shouted orders, desperate to reform his defensive lines as more of his starships kept emerging. Explosions boomed around them. Men screamed on comms before falling forever silent. Brooklyn convulsed, desperate to keep the wormhole open before her sisters died a light-year away.

  "Fire everything you've got!" Emet shouted at his frigates. "Brooklyn, another jump! Get us out of here!"

  They jumped again, barely escaping.

  They were down to two-hundred-and-fifty starships.

  They were nearing the enemy star system now. More Copperheads came flying in, lasers firing. The Firebirds deployed, holding back
the enemy.

  "Brooklyn!" Emet said.

  She lay on the deck. Eyes fluttering.

  "She's barely conscious!" Bay said.

  "Get her to jump!" Emet said, watching a thousand Copperheads flying in.

  Around them, the Firebirds and Copperheads battled. Brooklyn lay in Bay's arms, eyes closed.

  But her clones awoke in three more shuttles, opening their camera lenses with memories intact.

  They jumped again.

  They flew through fire.

  They were two light-years from Sskarsses, just hours away, when Tom burst onto the Byzantium's bridge.

  "Emet!" he said, out of breath. "We got a call on our ansible. It's Earth, sir. A basilisk fleet is charging toward it."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Earth.

  Under attack.

  Emet stood on the bridge, light-years away, barely able to breathe.

  "How is this possible?" he said. "We've been tracking the enemy positions. When we left Earth, they had no armies nearby. How did they get there so fast?"

  For a moment, his officers stared at him in silence. Tom was breathing raggedly, fists clenched. Bay knelt on the floor, holding a withering Brooklyn. Rowan was pale, shaking.

  "It's their new stealth tech," Rowan said. "I've been studying it over the past few days. How the Rattlers and Copperheads keep popping up right near us. I've been doing the math. They're able to cloak all their radiation at a distance greater than 100 AUs." She groaned. "Their ships were already heading to Earth when we left. And we never knew."

  Emet kept his face calm. But his insides trembled.

  He had flown here with every last starship Earth had.

  Earth was defenseless.

  The planet had a few armed satellites. A few missile silos. It might as well be wielding peashooters.

  "We must turn back," Tom said. "We must fly to Earth and defend it."

  Bay nodded. "I can begin to chart a course."

  They began to move toward consoles.

  "No," Emet said.

  They turned toward him.

  "Emet," Tom said softly. "Earth cannot survive without us."

  "We've not come this far to turn back now," Emet said. He pointed at the viewport. "There it is! The basilisk homeworld. Only a few hours away. We did not lose hundreds of ships, tens of thousands of lives, to retreat so near the end."