"Sir!" she cried.
He rose, bleeding, deep gashes on his limbs. He stared into her eyes.
"I'm not leaving you, Rowan," Emet said. "I am not leaving you! We're getting out of here. Both of us."
He began walking toward her again through the sea of scorpions.
He's going to die for me, Rowan thought.
She cried out, jumped out the airlock, and ran toward him across the gulf.
The enemy was everywhere. Dozens, hundreds all around, thousands scurrying above the canyon, countless strikers in the sky. The beasts filled the gorge like a river. Barely any humans still fought. Rowan ran, trampling over corpses, until she reached Emet.
He grabbed her arm, firing his rifle with his free hand.
"Now come on, Rowan!" he shouted, pulling her.
They ran toward the tunnel, firing in every direction as the enemy swarmed in.
Emet reached the tunnel first and leaped inside. Several other Inheritors were waiting in the shadows. Behind them, Rowan saw the waiting shuttle, the vessel that could take them back into space. Standing in the shadows, Emet beckoned Rowan.
"Corporal!" he cried.
She stood outside the tunnel on the canyon floor.
He stared into her eyes, and he understood.
"Rowan!" he shouted.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears in her eyes, and shoved the tunnel door.
He tried to reach her. He was too slow. The round stone door slammed shut, sealing Emet inside. Before he could open it, Rowan fired her gun, burning the control panel. The door remained locked.
Rowan spun around, her back to the door, and faced a hundred scorpions in the canyon. They covered the cliffs, the ground, the fallen Byzantium. The other Inheritors all lay dead. Rowan faced the enemy alone.
"Rowan!" Emet was shouting behind the door, pounding on it. His voice was muffled. "Rowan, damn it! Rowan!"
Chin raised, eyes damp, she stepped toward the scorpions. She dropped her pistol, and she raised her hands. The aliens crept near, staring, hissing.
Images flashed before Rowan's eyes—visions of herself hanging in chains, tortured, dying for the amusement of Emperor Sin Kra.
And memories.
Memories of her childhood. Playing with Jade. Hugging her. The humanity she had seen briefly in Jade's eyes in the Jerusalem's airlock.
Courage now. Courage for my sister. For Earth.
"Take me to her," Rowan said. "I am Rowan. Take me to Jade."
The scorpions grabbed her. They stared with burning eyes, licking her, cutting her. They dragged her away from the cliff, up a hatch, and into a striker.
"Rowan!" she heard Emet cry. He was still trapped in the tunnel.
Rowan stood inside the striker. The scorpion claws wrapped around her arms and legs. The aliens slammed the striker's door shut, and darkness flowed over her world.
Engines rumbled.
The striker rose.
Rowan stood in the shadows, trapped in the scorpions' grip, and took a deep breath.
"Jade," she whispered, "I'm coming back to you. We'll be together again."
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The darkness spread before them.
The ISS Nazareth floated through the black. A single starship in the void. A lone survivor. Heading to Earth. Heading home.
Leona stood in her cabin, silent, staring into a mirror.
"Who do you see?" she whispered to herself.
A tall woman. Olive-toned skin. A wild mane of curly brown hair. Brown trousers, a blue overcoat, a pistol on her hip. Three stars on her shoulders—a commodore. A warrior. An Inheritor.
"Who do you see?" she repeated, softer now.
A leader. A leader of two hundred men and women. Perhaps they were all that remained. Perhaps she led all of humanity.
She looked closer.
She saw a bride, broken, bleeding.
She saw a girl, exiled, dreaming of slaying her enemies.
A dreamer. Yes. She saw a dreamer.
She pulled back her sleeve and looked at the tattooed letters on her arm.
"I love to sail forbidden seas," she whispered.
A line from an old book of Earth. Leona had always dreamed of seeing her homeworld again, of saving humanity, of rebuilding her species on their ancestral planet. But she had dreamed deeper dreams too. Smaller, more personal, perhaps more powerful. Dreams of sailing the ocean, not the darkness of space. Dreams of feeling the sun on her back, of sailing from port to port, of exploring the forbidden seas from the tales.
She looked at her model ship in a bottle, and she touched the seashell that hung around her neck. It was smooth under her fingers. A piece of home. A gift from Earth.
"We're close now," she said to her reflection. "Closer than we've ever been. And I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what we'll find."
Would Earth be desolate, awash with radiation and disease?
Would their homeworld be a frozen wasteland, a swamp, a desert like Mars?
Were the basilisks now colonizing Earth, and were their starships patrolling its orbit?
In the Earthstone, Leona had seen a clement Earth, beautiful and lush with life, a world of misty valleys, flowering meadows, and warm seas. But that had been thousands of years ago. Within weeks, she would be there. She would see.
I'm a dreamer, she thought. But will this turn into a nightmare?
A pounding came at her cabin door.
Leona spun toward it. Her heart pounded just as hard.
She opened the door, and a young private stood there, panting. He was a boy of fifteen, eyes wide, still filled with some light, some innocence, despite the horror they had all lived through.
"Commodore Ben-Ari!" he said. "Commodore, quick!"
Leona's heart pounded against her ribs.
"What is it?" she barked. "Scorpions? Somebody else?"
"It's . . ." The private opened and closed his mouth several times, lost for words.
Leona grabbed his shoulders. "Speak!"
The boy was shaking, cheeks flushed.
"A star!" he finally blurted out. "A star, ma'am. Our star. It's Sol. It's rising in the distance."
Leona rushed out of her cabin, raced down the corridor, and burst onto the bridge. Mairead and Ramses were already there, standing at the viewport, gazing out into space. Leona ran to join the two captains.
"Look, Commodore," Ramses said softly. "Look.
"It's beautiful," Mairead whispered. Tears filled her green eyes.
The Nazareth was flying at warp speed. The stars at their sides were blurred, stretched out like the tails of asteroids. But directly ahead was their destination. Their lodestar. Their port of call.
There before them, a single pale dot, it shone.
"Sol," Leona whispered. "Our home star."
She had seen it before with Rowan's powerful telescope—a mere pixel on a small monitor.
This was different.
Now Leona was not just viewing a pixel, a processed image filtered through cables and microchips, displayed electronically on a screen.
She stood, gazing upon the sun with her naked eye.
A mote of luminous dust. A speck so small she could barely make it out. It was the sunrise, and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
"For the first time in two thousand years," Leona whispered, "human eyes gaze upon the sun."
Tears flowed down her cheeks. Other officers and soldiers joined her on the bridge. The news had spread across the warship. Around Leona, the others wept. A few fell to their knees. A few whispered prayers. They stood on the bridge, a handful of humans, perhaps the last, but also the first of a new era.
That star was one in trillions. It was the most important star in the cosmos. It was still weeks away. It still lay across enemy space. It was as close and real as a beloved memory of childhood.
Leona grasped her seashell pendant, her relic from home. The others gathered around her, wonder in their eyes. They placed their arms around one anothe
r. They stood together in awed silence, shedding tears in the light of a distant dawn.
The story continues in An Echo of Earth (Children of Earthrise III).
Click here to read the next book in the series:
DanielArenson.com/AnEchoOfEarth
AFTERWORD
Thank you for reading A Memory of Earth. I hope you enjoyed the novel.
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Thank you again, dear reader, and I hope we meet again between the pages of another book.
Daniel
NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON
EARTHRISE
Earth Alone
Earth Lost
Earth Rising
Earth Fire
Earth Shadows
Earth Valor
Earth Reborn
Earth Honor
Earth Eternal
CHILDREN OF EARTHRISE
The Heirs of Earth
A Memory of Earth
An Echo of Earth
The War for Earth
THE MOTH SAGA
Moth
Empires of Moth
Secrets of Moth
Daughter of Moth
Shadows of Moth
Legacy of Moth
KINGDOMS OF SAND
Kings of Ruin
Crowns of Rust
Thrones of Ash
Temples of Dust
Halls of Shadows
Echoes of Light
REQUIEM
Dawn of Dragons Requiem's Song
Requiem's Hope
Requiem's Prayer
The Complete Trilogy
Song of Dragons Blood of Requiem
Tears of Requiem
Light of Requiem
The Complete Trilogy
Dragonlore A Dawn of Dragonfire
A Day of Dragon Blood
A Night of Dragon Wings
The Complete Trilogy
The Dragon War A Legacy of Light
A Birthright of Blood
A Memory of Fire
The Complete Trilogy
Requiem for Dragons Dragons Lost
Dragons Reborn
Dragons Rising
The Complete Trilogy
Flame of Requiem Forged in Dragonfire
Crown of Dragonfire
Pillars of Dragonfire
The Complete Trilogy
ALIEN HUNTERS
Alien Hunters
Alien Sky
Alien Shadows
OTHER WORLDS
Eye of the Wizard
Wand of the Witch
Firefly Island
The Gods of Dream
Flaming Dove
KEEP IN TOUCH
www.DanielArenson.com
[email protected]
Facebook.com/DanielArenson
Twitter.com/DanielArenson
A Memory of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 2) Page 28