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

"To find higher ground. See that smudge on the horizon? That looks like a mountain. We might get a signal from there."

"And . . . the dead?" Coral said.

Coral's voice shook the slightest. Fear filled her eyes. Yes, Coral was a weaver, a wielder of a secret power Leona didn't understand. Yet she was still only a private, new to war. The other surviving Inheritors looked at Leona too, older and gruffer, but also scared. She saw the fear in their eyes.

"I want a volunteer to remain with the fallen," Leona said. "We'll not bury them in this swamp. We'll get aid. We'll find a starship to rescue us. We'll give our fallen heroes a proper funeral in space and send their bodies to rest among the stars." She looked at the smashed starship, at the dead inside. "They gave their lives for Earth. They fell with honor. They are—"

She fell silent and tilted her head.

A clattering sounded among the trees.

She spun around, aiming Arondight, but saw nothing.

The others raised their rifles too. They stared around, eyes narrowed.

"Comma—" Coral began.

Leona raised a finger to her lips.

There! She heard it again. More clattering. Creaking. Mud swishing.

The creature rose from behind the starship, dripping mud and moss.

"A marshcrab," Leona muttered. "I mucking hate those things."

She had seen a few marshcrabs in space before. Despite the sad state of their homeworld, they were a sentient, technological species—mostly using stolen tech. In space, the giant crabs were bright red. But here, in their own soupy environment, their exoskeleton was a rusty brown. With their long, thin legs, they looked a lot like mangrove roots, blending into their environment.

"Hey, buddy!" Leona said to the crab. "Do you happen to have a working communicator on ya?"

The marshcrab climbed over the Nantucket . Its eyestalks tilted toward her. Its legs were taller than Leona. Its body was small and covered with a warty shell; most of the creature was just legs.

"Hey, I'm talking to you, bub!" Leona said.

"Commodore!" Coral grabbed her arm. "Look!"

Leona turned and cursed. More marshcrabs were creeping from the trees. They had been there all along, Leona realized, hiding among the roots. Leona winced.

"Hear me, marshcrabs!" she said. "I am Commodore Leona Ben-Ari of the Concord forces. I wish you no harm! If you return me to my people, I will—"

"Concord scum!" one of the marshcrabs said.

"Filthy humans!" rasped another.

"Invaders!" cried a third marshcrab. "Invaders!"

"Slay them! Slay them!"

The creatures scuttled toward the humans, sneering.

Leona rolled her eyes. Oh bloody hell.

"Inheritors, fire!" she cried.

Their bullets rang out, slamming into the marshcrabs. Leona tore a leg off one beast, but it kept running.

A claw thrust toward her. Leona swung Arondight, parrying the blow, then fired again, hitting the marshcrab's underbelly. Its shell cracked, and its innards leaked. Leona leaped back, barely dodging the falling alien.

More marshcrabs were advancing. Leona kept firing, tearing them down. They were easy kills compared to scorpions, but by Ra, there were a lot of them. More kept emerging from the trees, rising from the mud, and appearing from the fog.

The other Inheritors were firing too. Bullets tore off the marshcrab legs, shattered their shells, and sent the beasts clattering down.

Coral fought with a different weapon. Her tattoos shone, and light flowed down her arm and into her silvery dagger. When she aimed the blade, pulses of light blasted out and slammed into marshcrabs, searing holes into their shells.

Dead aliens quickly sank into the mud, but new marshcrabs rose to replace them. Dozens, soon hundreds of the creatures surrounded the handful of Inheritors. An individual marshcrab wasn't much of a threat to a trained Inheritor. An army of marshcrabs was a different matter.

"They're too many!" Coral said.

Leona grimaced. Firing with one hand, she pulled out her minicom again. Damn it! Still no signal.

Had anyone seen the Nantucket crashing? Would her father arrive to save them?

A marshcrab lunged toward her, and she fired, knocking it back. But another rose behind her, and its leg knocked her down. Another leg kicked Arondight away. Lying on her back in the mud, Leona drew her pistol and fired, again, again, punching bullets through the crab until it fell dead. Another rose behind it.

I want to die on Earth, Leona thought. Not become crab food. Come on, Dad, where the hell are you?

As she loaded another magazine, she scanned the clouds, seeking some sign of rescue, of an Inheritor vessel plunging down after her.

A corporal fell beside her, firing his last bullets, a claw in his leg. Another Inheritor cried out and fell, a marshcrab claw impaling his chest. The aliens clattered and laughed and covered the swamp.

A distant sound rose—rumbling engines.

Leona looked up at the clouds, praying.

And there.

There above!

A starship was flying down, still wreathed in cloud.

Thank Ra, Leona thought. Dad!

Across the swamp, the crabs looked up and shrieked. Their cries rose louder—cries of terror. With a great clatter, they began to flee. They raced through the mud, over the fallen Nantucket , and back into the trees.

Coral laughed. "Flee before the light, creatures of darkness!"

Leona looked up again at the descending starship.

Her heart sank.

Oh hell.

It wasn't an Inheritor starship after all.

It was a striker.

The scorpion vessel descended until it hovered above the mud. Its engines rumbled, and heat bathed Leona. Slowly the striker lowered itself and thumped onto a patch of grass and reeds.

"Stay near me," Leona said to the other Inheritors, not removing her eyes from the striker. "Ready your guns. Coral, keep your dagger shining. When they emerge from inside, we fire. We fire everything and we will kill them."

A hatch on the striker rattled, then creaked open, and the scorpions emerged.

By Ra.

Leona gazed in shock.

Coral screamed and blasted a beam of light from her dagger.

An instant later, Leona fired her rifle, and soon the others were firing too—just a handful of Inheritors, shouting and firing together.

The scorpions raced toward them. But these were no usual Skra-Shen. These ones wore mech suits, shells of steel plates and luminous cables. Machine guns were mounted on their backs, and the beasts opened fire. Bullets shrieked.

"Fall back!" Leona cried. "Take cover behind the Nantucket !"

The humans ran.

Bullets tore into one Inheritor, and the man fell.

Two more humans cried out, torn apart by the bullets.

Only Leona and Coral made it behind the Nantucket , panting. One bullet had grazed Coral's leg, and another had pierced her arm. The weaver panted, bleeding, eyes wide in her muddy face. Her tattoos were dimming as her blood flowed.

More bullets flew, pounding into the Nantucket , rattling the starship.

"Ma'am, what do we do?" Coral said. "Is this the end?"

"Not today!" Leona said. "We do not die here. Not in this swamp. Into the Nantucket !"

She leaped toward a crack in the hull and wriggled inside. Coral followed. The scorpions made their way around the ship, still firing the machine guns on their backs. Bullets blazed through the cracks in the hull. Leona ran to the stern, wading through mud and corpses. Some of these dead were her friends. She forced herself not to look, not to mourn. Not now. She reached the stern, saw the cabinet there—

"Ma'am!" Coral cried. "Scorpion in the ship!"

"Hold it back! Cover me!"