The ISS Jerusalem had once been a tanker, a vessel tasked with ferrying fuel between worlds. When Emet had bought her, she had already been decades old, rusting in a scrap yard. He had patched her up, lovingly working away the kinks and dents, scraping off the rust, installing shields and cannons and battle-class engines, turning her into a machine of war. On the outside, she was now a mighty frigate. The Jerusalem had become the flagship of his fleet, a symbol of hope for humanity.
But on the inside, the starship still showed her humble origin. Her hold was a vast, cavernous place, once used for storing her cargo. Often she had ferried fuel. At other times, she had ferried water, taking the precious liquid to dry worlds. Once, Emet had heard, she had carried grain to a planet undergoing drought. Today no water, fuel, or grain filled the Jerusalem. Today, in this cavernous hold, huddled survivors of humanity.
There were three hundred. They had come from deep in Hierarchy space. Sitting around Emet, they shared their stories.
"The scorpions came for us at night," whispered a woman. She sat wrapped in a cloak, a kerchief hiding her wispy hair. Her eyes were sunken. "We were two thousand humans, hiding on a cold world of snow and icy mountains. There were native aliens there, tall and coated with white fur. They kept us humans isolated, walled off like lepers. But we had peace. We had some food. We traded with the natives. With our smaller hands, we were good at mending, stitching, sewing. They needed our skills. Then the scorpions came." She lowered her head. "The natives led them to us. Aliens we knew, our friends and neighbors—they betrayed us, brought the scorpions to our homes. A few of us tried to fight. The scorpions flayed them alive. We all heard them scream. Then they took the rest, loaded them into cargo ships. Only five of us escaped. We walked for so many days through the snowy mountains, and the scorpions were always in pursuit. Some of us starved. Some froze. Some fell to the scorpions." She wept. "I left my village with five of my children. By the time I found a smuggler ship to ferry me away, I had only one left."
She clutched that one child in her arms, weeping, unable to continue her tale.
A man spoke next. It was impossible to determine his age. He might have been young, but he was withered down to bones, his face like a skull draped with skin, a deathly mask.
"The scorpions came to our hideout too. There were seven of us, living among aliens on a forested world. It was a hard life, but we got by. We foraged for nuts and sold them to the natives. One day we arrived at the local village to sell our nuts, only to find that the natives had betrayed us. The scorpions were there. They're seeking humans everywhere. They took me and my family. They crammed us into a cargo ship with thousands of other humans, captives from many worlds. They took us to a rocky moon. A gulock, we called it. And they . . ." The skeletal man shuddered. "They tortured us. They starved us. They laughed as we bled. Every day, they skinned a human alive. They made us watch. They used the skins to coat their thrones. I watched them skin my wife and children. I watched their flayed bodies live for hours. The scorpions let me live, because I was strong. I could work in their mines, dig for ore, and load the metal into Rawdigger ships. A Rawdigger helped me escape, but it was too late. Too late to save my family . . ." He wept.
A young girl spoke next. "I'm an orphan. I lived in an orphanage with thirty other humans. One day a woman came to us. A human woman! She was very beautiful. She had long blue hair and very white skin, almost like an android. I could see metal parts on the side of her head, where the hair was shaved. She seemed kind. She said she would take us to visit our parents, that she had found them alive. She loaded the other orphans into a ship, but I saw the scorpions inside. I ran. She chased me, but I'm small and quick. I never heard from the other children again."
"I saw the woman too," said a man. "She walked through our city. It was a city of a million aliens, but dozens of humans lived there too, hiding in gutters and basements. The woman with blue hair seemed kind. She told us she would bring us to a place of safety, a haven for humans. I followed her." The man winced and hugged his emaciated knees, the kneecaps prominent on the stick-thin limbs. "We all followed her. We went into her ship. But she took us to a gulock. There was so much agony. Those who starved to death were lucky. The unlucky screamed as the scorpions peeled off their skin. A few of us fought. My brothers lay against the barbed wire fence, dying so that I could climb over them, so that I could escape. I wandered the wilderness for weeks before finding a Rawdigger ship. The Rawdiggers helped us. The Blue Witch betrayed us."
"The woman with blue hair!" whispered an old man. "I saw her. In the gulock, she was always there, a shadow. She walked among the scorpions. She watched from the towers and laughed. We called her the Blue Angel."
"Our group named her the Blue Ghost," said a child. "She told my family she would bring us to safety. We followed her. Only I escaped."
Emet sat, listening to all these tales, his heart heavy.
Story after story.
They were all variations of the same tale. Small human communities, surviving on Hierarchy worlds. To every world, the scorpions had come. Seeking humans. Loading them into cargo ships. Promising them safety and comfort. But ferrying them instead to the gulocks, to starvation and torture and death.
And in most of the tales, there was her.
The human woman. The witch with blue hair.
Emet thought back to the battle a few days ago.
He had seen her. It had to be her, the woman from the tales. He remembered her lounging on a throne upholstered with human skin, one leg slung casually over the armrest, smiling at him crookedly. He remembered the scorpions kneeling around her. He remembered the spark plugs embedded into her head, pulsing with blue light.
Who are you? Emet thought. Why do you serve them?
Finally all the tales were told. Emet was about to leave the hold, to return to the bridge, when he noticed one last survivor. She was a young girl, maybe ten or eleven years old. She sat in the back of the hold, drowning in shadows. Emet hadn't even noticed her until now.
He approached and knelt beside her. The girl cowered.
"Hi there," Emet said softly.
The girl clutched something to her chest—a piece of bread, he saw.
"Please don't hurt me, sir," she whispered. "I'm sorry I ate some bread. I'm sorry. Don't hurt me."
Emet's heart twisted. He had distributed bread to the survivors earlier that day. He had noticed how many of them—those who had survived the gulocks—ate furtively, hiding the leftovers in their pockets.
"You never have to apologize for eating," Emet said. "I will always feed you and protect you."
The girl trembled. She reached into her pocket, and Emet thought she would pull out more bread, maybe confess to hiding it. Instead she held a memory chip. It was the size of Emet's thumb, black and inscribed with red glyphs. A piece of alien technology.
"My daddy told me to give this to you," the girl whispered. "He took it from the scorpions. He said it's very important. They caught him. They . . ." She covered her face, unable to say more.
Emet took the memory chip. His eyes widened. He recognized the glyphs engraved onto it.
This was scorpion tech.
"Who was your father, child?" he asked gently. "Where did he find this?"
But the girl could not answer. She wept, trembling in the shadows.
Heavy footfalls sounded. Duncan approached, short and burly, wearing leather boots. The doctor could strike a fearsome figure, his chest like a barrel, his white beard wild. But as he knelt by the girl, he was all gentleness.
"Come now, child," he said. "Come with Doctor Dunc, lass. I own a wee cat named Mrs. Tribbles, and she's been lonely. Would you like to meet her?"