Daniel Arenson - The Heirs of Earth (Children of Earthrise Book 1)

She turned away. She walked toward a porthole. She stood in silence, staring into space.

Emet didn't know how to comfort her. How to comfort any of them. Every man, woman, and child here had lost so many loved ones, had suffered so much. Some were beyond healing. Some would not last the night.

"Did you see a woman?" Emet asked a few survivors. "A woman with white skin, with blue hair, with implants in her head?"

A bald man cowered. "The ghost."

An old woman looked away, trembling. "The Blue Witch."

"Who is she?" Emet said.

But they would not answer. They wept and prayed. It seemed like mention of this woman terrified them even more than scorpions.

Duncan placed a hand on Emet's shoulder. "Drop it for now, lad. They're too hurt right now. We'll get our answers. Not today."

Emet nodded, gazing at the misery around him.

We have it bad in the Concord, he thought. But we live in paradise compared to humans in the Hierarchy.

Weeping filled the hold. Praying. Despair.

But fury filled Emet.

Fury against the scorpions. Fury against ten thousand other alien civilizations who treated humans like vermin. Fury that Earth had fallen, that David—his best friend—had stolen the Earthstone. Fury that even now, after so many years of fighting, they did not even know where Earth was, if they could ever find their planet again.

Fury that his wife had died.

Fury that Bay, his only son, had left him.

Fury at himself, at his weakness, that he commanded only a few old tankers that had barely survived a skirmish.

A handful of strikers almost destroyed our entire fleet, he thought. How can we survive? How can we find our way home?

Emet worked throughout the night, doing what he could to clothe, feed, and shelter the survivors. He took a shuttle and traveled from ship to ship, letting the other survivors see him, hearing their stories.

Once we were mighty. Now we are this—broken, dying, the last sparks of a great flame.

Yet that fire still burned. The torch of humanity had been passed down for thousands of years. It was Emet's duty to keep carrying that torch. To take his people home.

A few hours later, he was back aboard the Jerusalem , still moving among the survivors, when an old bearded man began to sing. His voice was hoarse at first, then grew stronger. The woman with black eyes turned away from the viewport. Her eyes were now damp, and she added her voice to his. Emet joined them. Soon they were all singing, and through the communicator, Emet heard them singing on the other ships too. The Heirs of Earth flew through space, lost in darkness, alone in shadow, but their song was loud and pure. A song of Earthrise. The song of humanity.

Into darkness we fled

In the shadows we prayed

In exile we always knew

That we will see her again

Our Earth rising from loss

Calling us home

Calling us home

CHAPTER FIVE

Bay Ben-Ari flew his clunky starship across space, and the living asteroids charged in pursuit.

"This is Ra damn mucking great," Bay muttered, shoving the throttle down. "I just had to play Five Card Bluff with smugglers." He groaned. "Never play Five Card Bluff with smugglers!"

He glanced at his rear-view monitor. Three asteroids were tumbling through space after him, leaving fiery wakes. But these were no simple rocks. These were grugs. Living asteroids.

Long ago, according to legend, grugs had been simple rocks, no different from ordinary asteroids. Their molten cores had churned for eras, rumbling with energy, evolving into a life of stone and magma. Holes appeared on their craggy surfaces, blazing with fiery lenses—eyes that could see far. Cracks stretched beneath the eyes, revealing gullets full of molten stone—jaws to devour prey. Today the grugs roamed the galaxy, traveling from star to star, always hungry.

Still, despite looking like ancient volcano gods, they were mostly harmless.

Bay didn't fear the grugs, these imposing yet dimwitted boulders. No. Grugs were not a problem. It was the creatures inside the grugs that wanted Bay dead.

Lights flashed on Bay's monitor. Ringing filled the cockpit.

"Um, dude?" his starship said. "They're calling you. Want me to answer?"

Sometimes Bay regretted installing speakers on his starship. The vessel was named Brooklyn, and she had an accent to match. Bay found it incredibly annoying.

"Do not answer," he said.

"They keep calling, dude."

"Ignore them!"

The ringing continued. Letters flashed on his monitor: Incoming Call.

Bay tried to ignore the lights and sounds. He dared not remove his hand from the throttle, determined to maintain his speed.

The beeping grew louder.

The letters flashed.

Incoming Call! Incoming Call!

"Dude, they keep calling," Brooklyn said. "They really wanna talk to you."

Cursing, Bay swung his left hand toward the control panel. He tried to uncurl his fingers, but it was no use today, not with his nerves. Even on the best of days, he struggled to unfold his left fist. His right hand was long-fingered, dexterous, quick as a snake snatching eggs. But he had been born with a bad left hand. It was deformed, curled inward, a tight bundle of knuckles and pain. On some days, Bay could just manage to hold a knife, if he carefully slid the handle between the stiff fingers. Most days the damn hand was just a lump of his rage and pain.

Beep! Beep!

"Brooklyn, can't you shut that noise off?"

"No can do, dude. I'm just an interface. Can't even hang up the phone. You took away my admin privileges, remember?"

"Because you kept flying us in the wrong direction!"

The starship huffed. "I don't like where you fly. Casinos, brothels, drug dens." The ship shuddered—actually shuddered, clattering the bulkheads. "They have sleazy ports crawling with ants. Not a place for a lady like me. We'd never fly there if it were up to me."

"Then you don't get admin status!"

Inwardly, Bay was cursing his decision to downgrade Brooklyn's privileges. He could have used her flying abilities now. With one hand, he wasn't doing a spectacular job. But he didn't have time to muck around with her algorithms now.

Clutching the throttle with his right hand, he slammed his left hand against the control panel, trying to hit the Reject Call button. But it was no good. One of his knuckles hit the wrong button— Accept Call.

"Muck!" Bay blurted.

"Oh, lovely," Brooklyn said. If she had eyes, she would have rolled them.

A hellish image appeared on the monitor. It looked like a stew of rock, fire, and meat. Bay understood. He was seeing the inside of a grug.

On the outside, a grug was stone and iron and ice—a lumpy asteroid. On the inside, it was soft flesh, sizzling puddles of acid, and boils that leaked molten rock.

And there, inside this hellish womb, sat the ugliest, nastiest creatures in the galaxy.

"Weegles," Bay muttered. "I mucking hate weegles."

The parasites stared at him. They cackled.

"Says the pest!" they chanted, voices shrill.

Weegles were small creatures, not much larger than a human toddler. But damn, they were ugly. The parasites had soft pale bodies, many legs, nasty claws, and twitching antennae. Bay didn't know their origin, but they had parasitized the grugs long ago, feeding off the warmth and energy inside. They used the living asteroids as starships, rolling from planet to planet, port to port, gambling and whoring and cheating at cards. Bay had never met a weegle with a decent profession. They were loan sharks, enforcers, drug pushers, and pimps.