"We want to see these streets shining," purred a feline humanoid. She licked her paw. "I want to be able to eat off them. Clean them, filthy things!"
The aliens kept laughing. Some spat on the cobblestones, and some emptied chamber pots on the road, splashing the humans. Whenever a human tried to rise, there was a foot, hoof, or talon to shove them down, to force them to keep cleaning. Winged aliens buzzed above, snapping photographs and laughing. The crowd kept growing as news spread.
Fists clenched, chest tight, Leona looked toward the Peacekeepers. It was their job to keep order in the galaxy! Yet the armored brutes were simply watching the spectacle, leaning from guard towers and standing atop their tank. They had enough dignity not to join the jeers, but their eyes glittered with amusement.
Leona gripped her rifle. Her hands shook.
"Wherever there are humans in danger," she whispered, "the Heirs of Earth will be there."
She brushed sand off her trousers, revealing the brown fabric. She dusted her coat, revealing the blue cloth. Inheritor colors. The soil and sky of Earth. Colors that meant hope. To most aliens, the Heirs of Earth was a terrorist organization. To humans in peril, these colors meant salvation.
Leona took a few steps back.
She raised her chin.
Then she charged forward and leaped off the balcony.
CHAPTER TEN
Leona soared through the air, legs kicking, leaving the balcony behind.
Below on the cobbled boulevard, the crowd of aliens looked up, wailing in shock. The humans who knelt, cleaning the road, raised their eyes and gasped.
Several winged reptiles flew above the crowd, cawing as Leona vaulted toward them. Leona grabbed one in mid-flight, wrapping her hands around its scaly legs. The creature squawked and flapped its leathery wings, and Leona tugged it downward, using the beast as a parachute. Her boots hit the cobblestones, and she released the reptile. The alien flew away, screeching.
The crowd erupted. Some laughed. Other aliens cried out in fear.
"She has a gun!" somebody shouted. "A pest with a gun!"
"Let her clean the road too!" cried a furry giant.
The Peacekeepers leaned forward. The tank turned, caterpillar tracks clanking, and its cannon faced Leona.
Leona glared at them all. "Stand back!" she said. "These people are no longer yours to torment. Stand back or my bullets sing!"
On the road, still kneeling, the humans looked up at her. Their eyes were wide. Their mouths hung open. The humans on this planet all looked similar. They had mahogany skin, long straight hair, and bright eyes that ranged from indigo to lilac. This community must have been living here for centuries, maybe even thousands of years, isolated from the rest of humanity, forming a new ethnicity. Before her was a new human nation, evolved to survive on this searing desert world.
During their long exile, the old races of Earth had intermingled and reformed, branching off into new ethnicities. Leona herself came from a mixed family. She had the olive skin and curly brown hair of her mother, perhaps remnants of Earth's old Mediterranean, South American, or Middle Eastern cultures. Meanwhile, her father and brother had pale skin and blond hair, echoes of Northern Europe. But those old distinctions no longer mattered, if they ever did.
Today all humans must unite, Leona thought. Today we are all one race, one species, and must stand together against our enemies.
Leona recognized the woman from the canyon, the one who had watched Leona fight.
She's a strange one, Leona thought, gazing at her curiously.
In some ways, the young woman looked like the other humans of Til Shiran. Her skin was dark brown. Her features were delicate. Her eyes were lavender. But there the resemblance ended.
Despite her youth, the woman's hair was silvery white, the color of moonlight. The aliens had forced the woman to clean the road with her hair. But even the dirt could not dull its shine. It flowed like strands of starlight. Silvery tattoos coiled across the woman's cheek, neck, and arms like filigree. They too gleamed. The girl seemed almost like a fairy creature, ethereal and enchanted, and even her degradation could not mar her grace.
The other humans were all older, some elderly, and Leona wondered what had happened to the other young people of this world. Had they all fled? Or been killed?
Leona reached her hand down to the humans.
"Rise, friends," she said. "I am Commodore Leona Ben-Ari, daughter of Emet, descendant of Einav the Golden Lioness. I'm an Inheritor. We are all children of Earth. You need no longer kneel."
Yet still they knelt. They lowered their eyes. Leona saw the bruises, the cuts. She knew that years of trauma had beaten the terror into them. Leona had emancipated humans before. Many still danced with the demons, years later.
Perhaps they will never be healed, Leona thought. Perhaps only their children or grandchildren will stand tall. For their sake, for these future generations, I must bring them all home. To Earth.
"Rise," she said.
The young woman with the silver tattoos rose first. Sand coated her white robes and white hair, but she still stood straight, shoulders squared. Runes were embroidered into her white robes with silver thread, ancient symbols of power. There was fear in her lavender eyes, but defiance too. Yes, there was courage to this one. There was power in those eyes.
"I am Coral Amber," the young woman said. "Weaver of aether. I saw you fight in the arena, Leona." Fire kindled in her eyes. "You are blessed by the light."
A weaver!
Leona suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. She had heard of the weavers, a strange religion some called a cult. She had always dismissed them, thinking them a bunch of kooks. Leona didn't believe in anything supernatural, no mysterious consciousness in the void, no numinous energy one could weave. Hers was a world of blood, sweat, and tears. Yet right now, there were more pressing concerns than theological debates.
The other humans glanced at one another, still kneeling, still afraid. Leona held out her hand to them.
"Rise, friends," she said. "Stand tall with me."
Before she could say more, one of the Peacekeepers clanked toward her. Though the Tarmarin already had natural scale armor, he wore the body armor of the corps. Each planet had its own color of Peacekeeper uniform. Here in the desert, they wore tan robes over black plate armor.
"Do you have a license for that rifle, pest?" the Peacekeeper said, clattering closer. "Only members of recognized Concord militias may carry weapons."
Leona stared at the alien. "I am an officer in the Heirs of Earth. And you will stand down."
"Heirs of Earth?" The Peacekeeper snorted and reached for his gun. "Damn terro—"
Leona put a bullet through his head.
The Peacekeeper slammed onto the cleaned cobblestones, dirtying them with yellow blood.
Leona looked around her, raising her smoking gun. "Peacekeepers, put down your weapons!" she shouted. "Your duty is to protect all sentient life." She gestured at the humans kneeling around her. "Here you have sentience! Here you have life to protect! And you have watched them debased and done nothing. You betrayed your duty. You acted like scorpions! You will disperse this crowd now, or I will—"
"You will do nothing!"
The voice rang through a megaphone. The tank came rolling toward Leona, caterpillar tracks crushing insects with a series of tiny pops. An obese Tarmarin sat atop the tank, so large his Peacekeeper armor did not properly close, and even his scales seemed ready to burst off. He pointed a clawed finger at her.
"Do nothing but clean the road with your fellow pests, that is," the Peacekeeper said, speaking through his megaphone. "Kneel, ape! Kneel and clean the road with your filthy rag of hair."