Sure, keep telling yourself it's about Brook. Bay glanced up at the neon signs promising untold sins. Not about yourself. Not about Seohyun.
"Cover charge and stay out of my way." Bay shoved the tiny skulls at the marshcrab. "I'll stay out of yours."
The giant crab huffed, snorted, but then snatched the money. Bay walked past him and into the station.
Someday I'll be rich, Seohyun, a boy had said long ago.
Seohyun had kissed him. I don't need you to be rich, silly. Just to be here with me. To lie like this forever on the grass, finding shapes in the clouds.
He walked by many establishments: exotic massage parlors where seductive aliens, perfumed and naked, worked with many hands; fighting pits where crowds roared, betting on tiny gladiators who held cutlery as weapons; casinos where dead-eyed old aliens, some rotting away, played slot machines that sucked your blood as payment; and opium dens where patrons sprawled on the floor, drooling and inhaling purple smoke. Here were hives of inequity and despair. Hives of forgetting.
Bay had to save his money. He knew that. To buy Brooklyn her new wing. To save for his new hand, a costly prosthetic that could interface with his nerves. To find a grassy world again, a world of sunshine and growing things.
But Seohyun wouldn't be there.
Bay approached a bar, a shadowy joint between a pet shop and an adult movie theater. Neon letters shone, dubbing the place Drunken Truckers. Above the letters appeared two neon starships, smashing into each other again and again, complete with animated flames. Bay was no trucker, but their bars tended to offer cheap grog. He stepped inside.
It was a dark, dusty place, the floor littered with smashed bottles and cigarette butts. A monitor in the corner showed a robot boxing match. A slug slumped at the bar, nursing a pint of khlur—an alien brew of fermented stomach acids. A furry creature with eight legs hung from the ceiling, spinning a small animal in his claws, nibbling on the meal. A green humanoid danced topless in a cage. She flickered out of reality. A burly alien thumped a projector, and the green stripper reappeared in all her holographic sleaze.
Bay slammed a few scryls onto the bar. The crystal skulls jangled.
"Yo, any bartender here?" Bay said, craning his neck over the bar.
The coat hanger moved toward him. At least, Bay had mistook it for a coat hanger at first. Damn giant stick insects.
"We don't serve humans here," the woody alien said.
"This human tips well." Bay nudged the scryls across the counter. "Grog. The strongest you got. And none of that khlur crap. Hit me."
The stick insect filled a dirty mug. Bay grogged. It tasted like gasoline and sweat, but it reeked of alcohol, so it would do.
Old words surfaced in his memory.
One day we'll own a farmstead of our own, Seohyun. One day I'll buy you the sky.
She nestled against him. I don't care about the sky. I'm a girl of the earth.
Bay slammed down his empty mug. "Another!"
He grogged the second mug. The grog didn't taste as horrible this time. The room began to spin, but the pain in his bad hand was fading, the twisted muscles loosening.
Bay! She ran through the flames. Bay, it hurts.
"Hit me." Bay slammed down more scryls. They clattered across the bar.
His father glared. We are leaving, and you are coming with us, and that is that.
She died because of you!
He wept—a boy of fourteen. He ran across the hangar. He stole the shuttle. He grogged a fourth cup.
By the fifth cup, Bay couldn't see straight. He stumbled into the washroom and pissed an ocean. As he stepped by the holographic stripper, she gave him a kiss.
"Scryls for a dance, honey?" the hologram said.
Bay ignored her. He didn't want no damn hologram. He wanted . . .
I'm a girl of the earth. I want the sky always above me.
He staggered out of the bar. He swayed down the corridor, passing by the pet shop where reptiles, birds, and insects gurgled and cawed in cages. A few aliens bumped into Bay. They grumbled. One shoved him.
"Mucking pest!" A living plant walked by him, shedding leaves.
A liquid alien rolled by inside a mobile aquarium. "Who let a pest aboard?"
A man-sized snail slithered on the wall. "First pests in the washroom vents, now this!"
Bay ignored them all. He was used to stares, shoves, insults. He was human. To these aliens, it was like seeing a cockroach.
Once we were masters of a planet. The thought emerged through the groggy haze. Once we had fleets, power, respect. My father believes we can have that again. That we can find Earth, that we can—
But Seohyun had died.
And Bay wanted nothing of that war. That dream was dead. Dead like everything else Bay had ever had.
He found his way to a virtual reality chamber, the kind you hoped they steam cleaned after each use. He paid with a fistful of scryls, spilling them, and the tiny skulls clattered across the floor. He barely remembered making his way into a VR chamber, but soon he was lying on a mattress that reeked of disinfectants. The walls were bare except for some graffiti. Somebody had drawn rude spirals tipped with circles. Alien dicks always reminded Bay of springs.
He picked up the sensors from the floor, wiped them off, and strapped them on. He pulled on his 3D glasses.
"Yo, um, interface?" he said. "Activate."
A hologram appeared before him, featuring the interface. Bay reached out with his good hand. The left hand was curled up against his chest, throbbing and useless. He had paid for only one vemale tonight. Two chicks at the same time cost a pretty penny.
The interface offered him many species, everything from slimy slugs to living plants. Bay scrolled until he found the option for human. He then scrolled through possible bodies, ranging from petite to cartoonishly curvy. Bay chose his woman a body—short and slender. From the next menu, he picked long black hair, almond-shaped eyes, and a kind smile. With each selection, his hologram took shape.
I'm a girl of the earth.
And she materialized before him. Seohyun—risen again. Smiling sweetly. She nestled against him, and with his sensors, he could actually feel her.
"Hey, handsome," she cooed. "Can I suck your—"
"Hush," Bay whispered. His eyes watered. It was too painful to hear her speak like this. It was too painful to shatter the illusion.
"Just hold me," he whispered. "Hold me and sleep."
The virtual girl closed her eyes, smiling softly. She curled up in his arms, warm and soft. The illusion was complete—her breath against him, her hair flowing between his fingers. And Bay wept.
A small, choked sound sounded above him.
He frowned and looked at the ceiling.
There was an air conditioning vent directly above. And a face was peering through it.
Bay gasped. He made eye contact.
She was a teenage girl. She had short, messy brown hair and large brown eyes. The girl gasped, covered her mouth, and her face vanished. Bay heard her crawling through the duct above, fleeing.
That had been no virtual girl.
A human.
She was human.
It had been years since Bay had met another human.
"Yo, wait up!" Bay said, rising to his feet. "Girl!"
He yanked off the VR sensors, and the virtual Seohyun vanished. Bay leaped toward the ceiling, tried to grab the vent, but couldn't reach. He cursed his modest height, wishing he were as tall as his father.
"Yo, girl!" he cried.
Fists pounded on the wall, coming from the room next door. A deep voice grumbled. "Keep it down in there! I'm trying to fertilize some holographic eggs in here."
Bay sat down, head reeling. A girl in the ducts. A human. Another human. Around her neck—a crystal amulet. She was so familiar. Bay knew her face. He had seen her before, seen that jewel . . .
His head spun. Too much grog filled him, too much pain. He fell back onto the mattress. His eyes rolled back,
and Bay slept. He dreamed of rolling grasslands and spreading fire.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Commodore Leona Ben-Ari stood in the desert canyon, sword raised, as a hundred thousand aliens howled for her death.
Why does this damn thing keep happening to me?
Leona brushed back her mane of curly brown hair, then charged forward, roaring and brandishing her blade.
The beast stood before her, twice her size. Tarmarins had evolved here on the desert world of Til Shiran, and their scales were the same brownish-gold as the sand, the canyon, the sky, and almost everything on this sweltering planet. The sun blinded Leona, and the heat drenched her with sweat, but the scaly monster facing her probably felt quite comfortable. He snorted as she charged, claws glinting.
"I will teach you the meaning of pain, pest," the Tarmarin said.
Leona vaulted off a boulder, soared into the air, then swooped, her blade pointing toward him.
Like an armadillo, the Tarmarin curled up into a ball.
At least, if armadillos were built like a Ra damn tank, Leona thought.
Her blade slammed into the hard scales, nearly snapping. It didn't even leave a dent. Pain reverberated up Leona's arm.
She fell back and hit the dirt, legs sprawled out. She held her shield in one hand, sword in the other, and the sandy wind blew across her.
The Tarmarin unfurled, limbs and spiny head emerging from the ball of scales. It swung down its claws. Leona rolled, but a claw still scraped across her thigh, reopening her old wound, and she yowled.
The crowd cheered.
Aliens from across the planet had come to watch the fight. It was not every day, after all, that a human battled in Broken Bone Canyon. Most of these aliens had never seen a human, but they had all heard the tales. Heard that humans were demons. That they drank the blood of baby aliens. That they could turn into cockroaches, withered crops, and spread disease. Whenever a starship crashed, they blamed human saboteurs. Whenever a child got fever and perished, they blamed humans for poisoning the wells. Whenever a stock market tanked, they spoke of humans hoarding the wealth.
Yet to actually see one of these villains? To see a human killed in real life? And to see no less than Leona Ben-Ari herself, the daughter of Admiral Emet, the human warlord feared across the galaxy?
Yes, this fight had attracted a crowd. Tiers of seats had been carved into the canyon cliffs, forming an amphitheater. Thousands of aliens had come to see the spectacle.
Most were Tarmarins, the native species, aliens with sharp claws, long teeth, and a natural coat of tawny scales. But Til Shiran was an important planet along trading routes. No fewer than three wormholes shone in its sky just beyond the planetary rings. And so this desert world, cracked and dry as it was, attracted aliens from a thousand Concord worlds. Many other species had come to watch Leona killed.
Sluggers—mollusks the size of men—sat in the amphitheater, sipping from buckets of fermented intestines. A few Esporians clung to their seats—sentient mushrooms—experiencing the fight through vibrations in the canyon. Trillians sat on a balcony—living musical instruments who communicated by plucking their own strings. The sunlight reflected in Silicades, a race of sentient crystals. These living minerals had no eyes, but they could see images in reflected light. Not every alien was solid. There were liquid aliens who sat in bulbs of water, gaseous aliens confined to atmosuits, and aliens formed of intelligent electromagnetic pulses that moved between hovering balls. There were even a handful of Aelonians—tall, glowing humanoids with transparent skin, the most powerful race in the Concord.
There were no humans in the crowd.
Humans were not allowed among "civilized" aliens.
But this human can fight, Leona thought, leaping back to her feet. This human is proud.
She raised her sword and shield.
The Tarmarin gladiator charged toward her, claws lashing.
Tarmarin scales normally bristled like porcupine quills. Only when rolling into balls did the scales lie flat, armoring their bodies. Now, as the gladiator charged, his scales thrust outward, revealing the soft flesh beneath. Leona tried to thrust her sword, but it felt like pointing a butter knife at a charging rhino.
The Tarmarin leaped toward her, and Leona raised her shield.
She caught the claws against her shield. Leona screamed, digging her heels into the sand.
Yet the beast was powerful. He shoved her back. Her heels dug grooves in the canyon floor. She grimaced, pushing against her shield, desperate to hold him back. Leona was a tall and powerful woman. She had trained for years with the Inheritors, lifting weights, battling fellow warriors, becoming strong, fast, fierce. Yet this beast was larger and stronger, and his tail whipped around her shield and stung her hip.
"Muck!" Leona cried.
The crowd roared. They tossed refuse at her—rotten food, soiled diapers, body waste.
"Pests go home!" an alien shouted.
"Kill the pest!" cried another, and the chant swelled across the crowd. "Kill the pest, kill the pest!"
Leona growled. She narrowed her eyes, ignoring the fear. She had battled tough aliens before. She had defeated the evil mushrooms in the salt mines of Esporia. She had slain snowbeasts on the mountains of Isintar. She had even battled scorpions on—
And suddenly Leona was there again.
Ten years ago.
The memories became real.
The albino scorpion reared before her, a Skra-Shen lord named Sartak, a deformed beast with two tails. His pincers lashed.
Her husband, her beloved Jake, cried out her name. His legs were gone.
Jake! she cried, blood flowing onto her white dress, a lost girl on a distant beach.
The Tarmarin whipped his tail again, stabbing her side. Leona hit the ground, jolted back into the present. The canyon walls spun around her, covered with roaring aliens. The sun beat down, searing her. Sand, sweat, and blood coated her.
Leona ground her teeth.
No more pain, she told herself. No more memories. No more loss.
She rolled, dodging the Tarmarin's claws, then leaped up.
She thrust her sword.
So fast she barely saw him move, the Tarmarin rolled back into an armored ball. Once more, his scales flattened, locking into place, coating him with an impregnable shell.
Once more, Leona's blade hit his scales, sparking.
"Coward!" she said.
The crowd laughed. Their chanting continued. "Kill the pest, kill the pest!"
Leona tightened her lips.
I should use my implant, she thought.
A year ago, she had paid a fortune—enough to buy an entire starship—to install a small cybernetic implant, no larger than a coin, in her brain. When activated, it slowed her perception of time. Her enemies appeared to move in slow motion. But it also hurt like a jackhammer in her skull. And the higher she cranked the time-twister, the harder that jackhammer pounded. The last time Leona had used the implant, she had ended up in bed for three days, a wet cloth wrapped around her head.
Better save it for later, she thought. I'm not jackhammering my skull for a damn armadillo.
Roaring, Leona pounded her sword down again and again, hacking at the beast. The wind billowed her curly brown hair, her sweat dripped, and she kept swinging her sword like an axe. Nothing could break through the Tarmarin's scales. She might as well be hacking solid iron. The scales interlocked perfectly, leaving the faintest lines where they met, too thin to even thrust her blade into.
When Leona paused for breath, the Tarmarin's limbs popped back out. His scales bristled, becoming sharp spikes. He lashed his claws.
One claw scraped across her arm, and Leona screamed.
She stumbled backward, blood dripping. The Tarmarin approached, drooling, licking his jaws.
"Die now," he hissed. "I'll enjoy devouring your flesh."
Leona raised her shield.
The Tarmarin's claws slammed against it, shattering the shield into a thous
and shards. The pieces stung her.
Leona panted. They had given her no armor. She wore merely brown cargo pants and a blue shirt, Inheritor colors. They had taken her gun. They had even taken her damn cowboy hat. All Leona had was her chipped blade, and it was useless against those Ra damn scales.
As the crowd chanted, the Tarmarin kept advancing, claws lashing. Leona howled, parrying each blow. But she was tired. She fell to one knee, barely blocking another blow. The claws kept slamming down with a fury, and she held her blade overhead, teeth grinding, desperate to hold him off. Her blade chipped again. Sand flew, blinding her.
Sand like on a distant beach.
And again—she was back there.
A young bride. A mother-to-be. Only seventeen and so scared.
The albino scorpion rose above her. Her husband screamed. The stinger burst through his chest, and the scorpion tore him apart, flaying, feeding. Leona knelt on the cold floor, bleeding between her legs, the stars going dark above.
No. Not now.
Leona shoved that memory aside.
"I am no longer that girl," she hissed between gritted teeth. "I am Commodore Leona Ben-Ari, an Inheritor, a warrior of Earth!"
Holding her sword up with one hand, she grabbed a pebble.
She thrust the stone up, embedding it under one of the Tarmarin's erect scales.
She swung her blade, and the Tarmarin rolled up into an armored ball again.
But one of its scales—the one with the stone underneath—was unable to lock into place. It remained distended. A chink in the armor.
Screaming, Leona knelt, then thrust her sword upward with all her strength.
The blade drove under the exposed scale, shattered the pebble, and sank deep into the alien's flesh.
Blood spurted.
The crowd gasped.
Leona roared wordlessly, shoving herself up from her knees, driving the blade deeper. It felt like cutting through raw leather, but she kept shoving, muscles straining, until the blade sank down to the hilt.
She stepped back, panting, leaving the sword embedded in the Tarmarin.
The scaly ball uncurled. The alien lay on the canyon floor, limbs sprawled out, sword impaling him.
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