Soon the Nantucket was back among the fleet. They flew in defensive formation, the larger warships in the center, the smaller fighters circling them. It was barely an army. It was barely even a militia. It was humanity's only hope.
A shuttle ferried Leona onto the Jerusalem, and she met Emet on the bridge. Her uniform was tattered, and sand clogged her rifle.
"You're limping," Emet said.
She nodded. "Lost a heel."
He stared at her thigh. He could make out the shape of a bandage under the pant leg. "Peacekeepers?"
"Mucking Tarmarin claw. Fought a bastard in the arena." She grinned. "You should see him. What's left of him, at least. Which isn't much." She limped closer and embraced him. "It's good to be back, Dad. My Ra! All those refugees in the hold! I've never seen so many. They're so thin. So scared. What happened to them?"
"Scorpions," Emet said.
They spent a few moments swapping tales. Emet told her of the Rawdiggers' help, of the battle at the border, of the refugees' stories. Leona spoke of the events on the desert world of Til Shiran, of beating the gladiator, winning money for the Inheritors, finding human survivors.
Emet met her eyes. "You didn't hear any news of Bay, did you?"
Leona's eyes darkened. She shook her head. "I searched every tavern, brothel, and gambling pit I passed by. Just the types of places he'd like. Nothing."
Emet's throat tightened. He nodded. Every time Leona went down to a planet, seeking human survivors, he hoped she would find Bay. It had been ten years since that horrible day. Since Bay's heart had broken. Since he had stolen a shuttle from the Jerusalem's hangar and fled. Sometimes they heard clues—a barfly who had grogged with Bay, a druggie who had smoked with him, an android prostitute who had comforted him for a night. By the time the Inheritors arrived, Bay was always gone, lost in some other den of sin.
"May someday my son come home too," Emet said softly. "May someday you both greet me here on my bridge."
Leona placed a hand on his shoulder. She was a tall woman, but she still stood half a foot shorter than him, and she had to look up into his eyes. "We'll find him. We'll be a family again. May all our lost children come home."
Emet felt the weight of the alien memory chip in his hand. His heart felt heavier.
The Human Solution.
"Leona," he said, raising the chip. "We need to hack into Skra-Shen tech."
Leona scoffed. "Good luck with that, Dad. We've tried, remember? Last time we grabbed a piece of their tech, we spent weeks at it. None of our technology can crack it."
"But there is one who can help," Emet said, staring into her eyes.
Leona frowned. "No. Dad?" She took a step back. "No."
"It's the only way."
Leona inhaled sharply. "She's a goddamn psychopath!" She growled. "She's likely to turn us in, or kill us herself with twisted dark magic, or—"
"For the right amount of money," Emet said, "she'll help. You won thirty thousand scryls slaying the gladiator. That should cover it."
Her eyes blazed. "Dad! That money is for food. For water. For weapons. Especially with these new survivors, and—"
"And there are possibly millions of humans out there we can still save." Emet grabbed her arm. "Leona, I am not asking you. I am telling you. That is our path. This is my command."
Leona stared into his eyes in silence, face hard. Then she pulled her arm free, spun on her heel, and marched off the bridge.
Emet stood alone, staring at the doorway.
Long ago, I gave Bay an order. He refused. He left. And ten years later, he's still lost.
Emet clenched his fist, and he hated. He hated that the scorpion emperor had slain his wife. He hated that this war had driven Bay away. He hated that it was driving Leona away. He hated that the refugee girl cowered. He hated that hundreds were huddling in his ship, broken souls. He hated that millions still needed him. He hated what this war had done to him, turning him into a haunted man, constantly reaching for his gun. He looked at the framed photograph again. A smiling family, standing on solid ground under blue sky. A lie. Nothing but a Ra damn lie, a ghost of what might have been, of what might never be again.
He looked into space. He gazed upon his fleet. He sought Earth in the distance, but the blue marble was as lost as he was.
A blue witch. A creature with hair as blue as Earth. Emet shuddered. A demon in human form.
He remembered seeing that creature aboard the scorpion ship. A woman with alabaster skin, with blue hair, with mad eyes.
"Who are you?" Emet whispered.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jade walked across the scorched planet Ur Akad, heart of the scorpion empire. The hot, sandy wind ruffled her blue hair, stung her cheeks, and billowed her cloak of human skin. Jade smiled crookedly. After a long hunt in the darkness, she was home.
The jagged plains of her homeland spread before her. The land was searing bronze and burnt yellow, sprouting mesas and boulders that pierced the sky. Mountain ranges rose like spine ridges, and canyons plunged like scars. Winds howled, slamming into cliffs, forming and reforming dunes like ripples of burnt flesh. Kali Karan, the Red Sun, blazed on the horizon, a massive wound in the sky, dripping its light like blood. Shamash Karan, the White Sun, crackled overhead, smaller but hotter, brighter, crueler.
The scorpions, her brothers and sisters, scuttled and shrieked across the landscape. Millions of them climbed the jutting mesas, spawned in canyons, and rutted in the sand. Thousands of their starships, the mighty strikers, hovered above, filling the sky. Myriads more stormed across space, ruling the Hierarchy with an iron claw. Long ago, the Skra-Shen had been small, barely larger than Jade's hand. Long ago, they had competed with many other predators on their planet, many other hunters between the worlds.
But we rose, Jade thought. We grew larger, stronger. We took over this planet. And we took over the Hierarchy, a mighty axis of power. And soon the galaxy will be ours. She clenched her fists. And the humans will be gone!
Hatred blazed through her.
Humans!
She growled and spat. She loathed them. She loathed them with the fire of ten thousand suns.
"All this glory," she hissed. "The might of the empire. The vastness of the galaxy. All is infested with rot." Blood rushed to her cheeks, and her heart pounded. "Vermin infect the galaxy. But I will wipe them out."
Jade looked down at her own body. She wore the form of a human, a trickery to deceive them. But her skin was not frail like theirs, not like the cloak she wore, the pelt she had ripped off a living victim. Her skin was white as alabaster and hard as steel, formed from the same material as a scorpion's shell. Her claws were long and sharp, made for slicing through human flesh, for flaying them as they screamed. Her hair billowed in the sandy wind, long and blue.
The Blue Witch, they call me. She laughed. How the humans love me, then fear me!
She still remembered her scorpion form. Still remembered slicing into her victims with pincers, stinging them with her tail, injecting them with venom. Her father had broken her. Had shattered her into a thousand pieces. Had reformed her into this new shape, this new shell.
Go walk among the humans, Emperor Sin Kra had told her.
She had stood before him, dripping blood, shaped like the vermin. I am hideous.
But her father had stroked her cheek. You are beautiful in any form, for your deadliness is your beauty. Go and deceive them.