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

"They are true memories," Rowan said. Hesitantly, she reached out and touched Jade's arm. "We are sisters."

Snarling, Jade grabbed her.

Rowan yelped.

Jade knocked her onto the bloody floor, then drove her knee into Rowan's chest. Rowan gasped for air.

"You vermin," Jade hissed, leaning down, drooling above her. "You will not call me sister!" Her claws tightened around Rowan's arm, drawing blood.

Nearby, Emet was crawling across the floor, trying to reach the control panel. With a growl, Jade grabbed him, pulled him back.

"I can see the doubt in your eyes, Jade," Rowan whispered. "You would have killed me already, or taken me captive, but you hesitate."

Jade cackled. "I enjoy seeing you suffer. Pain is so beautiful when it's drawn out."

Rowan closed her eyes. Voice weak and trembling, she began to sing. A nearly-forgotten song of childhood. A song from a glittering cave. The song their parents used to sing them. A song of Earth, and a song of family.

Someday we will see her

The pale blue marble

Rising from the night beyond the moon

Cloaked in white, her forests green

Calling us home

Rowan opened her eyes and looked at her sister through a veil of tears. Jade was staring, eyes wide and damp. Rowan continued singing.

For long we wandered

For eras we were lost

For generations we sang and dreamed

To see her rise again

Blue beyond the moon

Calling us home

Jade was trembling now. She released Rowan and fell back, sitting in the blood, trembling. Rowan continued with a soft voice, completing her song.

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

Her song ended.

No, not my song, Rowan thought. Our song. The song of all humans, lost in darkness, dreaming of home.

Jade looked at her, eyes damp.

"Rowan?" she whispered, voice trembling. "Is it you, sister?"

"It's me." Her tears fell. "It's me, Jade. I love you."

"I'm scared." Jade's voice was barely a whisper, cracking. "I'm scared, Rowan."

Shaking, sobbing, Jade reached out to embrace her. Rowan opened her arms.

Then Rowan realized that Emet had reached the control panel.

The leader of the Heirs of Earth grabbed a lever. He turned to look at the sisters.

"I'm sorry, Rowan," Emet said, eyes hard yet haunted. "But I cannot let her claim this ship."

He pulled the lever.

The ship's airlock blasted open.

"No!" Rowan screamed. "Jade, hold on!"

Outside, she saw the battle spinning across space, the thousands of starships still flying and firing. The vacuum began sucking out everything from the Jerusalem —the air, the corpses, the fallen weapons, the blood. It grabbed Rowan like an invisible fist, pulling her toward space.

Desperately, Rowan tried to grab something, anything. She gripped a corpse, but it rushed by beneath her. She reached out, clutched a rifle, but the vacuum tore it from her grip. Air whooshed over her. Duncan's corpse flew above, spun, then vanished into the darkness.

Jade too was trying to grab something. She clawed at the floor, trying to puncture holes, but there was too much blood. She was flying backward, scrambling for purchase, screaming.

"Jade!" Rowan cried.

The air lifted Jade above the floor, pulling her through the hold. She flew like a leaf on the wind.

As she flew by, Jade stared at Rowan with wide eyes.

"You lied!" Jade screamed. "You betrayed me, liar!" Her voice twisted with agony, becoming inhuman. "You betrayed me!"

And then Jade was gone, sucked out into space. She vanished into the chaos of the battle.

An instant later, the vacuum pulled Rowan out into space too.

Rowan reached out and grabbed the airlock's rim. Air was still blowing over her, ruffling her hair, billowing her clothes. Emet came flying out a second later, scrabbling for purchase. He managed to grip the rim too, and he stared into her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Then the last few corpses flew from inside and slammed into them, knocking both Emet and Rowan out into open space.

All sound vanished.

The storming wind, the roar of battle—gone.

Just silence.

Rowan floated.

She wore no spacesuit.

Space embraced her.

She looked around her. The Concord starships were falling fast. The enemy was everywhere, stretching into the distance, battalion after battalion of strikers. Barely any human ships still flew.

There was pain now. Rowan's skin was beginning to freeze, her lungs to scream for air. She looked around, trying to find Jade, but couldn't see her. Rowan tried to kick, to make her way to another ship, but there was nothing to swim through in the vacuum.

She pulled Fillister out of her pocket. Her hands were so cold now. Blistering. But she managed to turn him on, and the pocket watch turned into a dragonfly.

Goodbye, she wanted to whisper, but she could form no sounds. She felt the saliva boiling on her tongue. Fillister bustled around her, was crying out in silence. He grabbed her, tried to pull her, but he was too small, too weak. They floated together, moving farther from the Jerusalem . Moving into the emptiness. And her skin was so pale, so ashen, freezing now.

So I die among the stars, Rowan thought. The beautiful stars that I so often dreamed of seeing.

She tilted her head back and gazed up through a void in the battle. She saw them there. The stars. A great spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Earth was somewhere out there, one of those distant lights, and it was beautiful. It was so beautiful.

I will not die on Earth. But I will die gazing upon your light.

And from those distant stars, it emerged.

A starship.

A small starship, no larger than a shuttle. It charged into the battle, rippling spacetime around it, knocking back strikers. A starship with a new wing.

The Brooklyn .

"Bay," Rowan whispered with no voice, reaching toward his ship. "Bay . . ."

The small ship came to hover beside her and Emet. The airlock opened, and there stood Bay, wearing a helmet. He reached out and caught Rowan's hand, and he pulled her inside, then grabbed Emet.

He closed the airlock, and air flowed around Rowan.

She lay on the floor, breathing deeply, and the world went dark, and she sank into the shadows.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

They pulled her into a striker.

For a long time, Jade didn't breathe.

Claws jabbed her. Electrical wires shocked her.

When she finally gasped for air again, her fists clenched.

She tricked me. She betrayed me.

Jade rose to her feet, shaking with weakness and rage.

"Liars!" she howled, fists raised.

Scorpions surrounded her, gazing at her. Her true siblings.

"I am one of you!" she said. "Do you hear me? I am one of you!"

The scorpions nodded, but she saw the doubt in their eyes.

Jade fell to her knees, lowered her head, and remembered a glittering cave, an old song, and the eyes of a sister.

* * * * *

Emet struggled to his feet, gasping.

He was alive.

Rowan was alive.

They had spent less than a minute in space without spacesuits. An eternity. Their skin was cold and blistered. Their eyes were bloodshot. They were probably suffering from ebullism, hypoxia, hypocapnia, and a bucket full of other space sicknesses.

But they were alive.

Emet gulped down air, standing in the airlock of the Brooklyn .