Her father was tumbling down beside her. To Leona, he seemed to be falling as slowly as a stone sinking in molasses. Even as he fell, Emet aimed Thunder, his mighty rifle. Bullets flew from Thunder's two barrels, rippling the air, sailing toward a striker. Leona watched the bullets glide by like leaves on the wind.
The scorpion ship was turning toward them, cannons hot. All around, severed cables dangled, sparking. Gondolas shattered, filling the air with more glittering shards.
And there ahead, at the piers—the ISS Nantucket.
The time-twister was searing her skull.
Grimacing, Leona reached for a severed cable. It twisted like an irate snake, spraying sparks.
The pain was too much. Leona deactivated the time-twister before it could fry out—or crack her skull.
Time returned to normal.
The shards of glass, which had glided like snowflakes, now flew like bullets. The alien screams rose in pitch. And Leona was falling so fast her head spun.
Screaming, Leona grabbed the cable. It burned her palm. She reached down to her father, and he grabbed her wrist.
They swung on the cable.
The striker fired, and the plasma bolt missed them. It hit a shop above, and chunks of metal hailed.
Emet fired Thunder again, hitting the striker's engine. It exploded, and the shock wave tossed Leona off the cable.
They fell.
Every striker in the cavern was turning toward them now, cannons red-hot.
And from a thousand shops, the drones buzzed forth.
The tiny, weaponized machines fired guns. Bullets slammed into strikers, barely harming them. The scorpion ships fired back, but the drones were everywhere, swarming like bees, dodging the assault. Bullets slammed into striker exhaust ports. Engines exploded. One striker tried to rise, only to crash through drones, tilt, and entangle in cables.
Leona and Emet, still falling, reached out and grabbed drones. They clung to the flying machines, legs kicking.
Inside hundreds of hacker pods, Leona saw aliens typing furiously, controlling the drones. The hackers were fighting from inside their shops, piloting their war machines, pounding the strikers with bullets, lasers, and shells. There were only a handful of strikers, but they were already adapting. Instead of attacking the swarm of drones, the strikers began firing on the shops honeycombing the walls.
The hackers inside screamed as they burned.
Leona's head pounded. She dared not activate her time-twister again. She gritted her teeth, clung to the drone with one hand, and managed to load Arondight.
A striker flew toward her.
She fired.
Her bullet entered the striker's cannon an instant before a plasma bolt shot out.
The cannon exploded.
The striker fell, a hole in its prow. Scorpions spilled out from the ship, burning and shrieking. The ruined striker slammed into the central stalk of cables that rose like a coiling tree through the cavern.
Fire blazed.
Cables tore, buzzing with electricity, and then the power went out, and the asteroid plunged into darkness.
Firelight flared. The strikers kept pounding the drones. The tiny ships swarmed everywhere. In the orange light, the strikers turned back toward Leona and Emet.
"Leona, get rid of the chip!" Emet shouted.
"I can't!" she said. "We haven't saved the info—"
"The enemy is still tracking it!" Emet roared. "Toss it—now!"
The strikers' cannons were heating up again.
Wincing, Leona hurled the memory chip.
The strikers spun toward it like a pack of wild dogs toward a hare.
They opened fire, destroying the chip.
Leona released the drone she held. She fell, then caught another drone, one that was flying upward. She soared past the severed stalk of cables. She swung forward, caught another drone, then another, making her way toward the piers. Emet followed, also swinging from drone to drone. They landed on the dock and raced toward the ISS Nantucket. Hundreds of drones flew all around, firing at the strikers.
The pier stretched out before them, leading toward the Nantucket at its edge. Leona and Emet ran.
Scorpions leaped down from a striker above. The aliens landed on the pier ahead of Leona and Emet, hissing.
The two Inheritors stood side by side. Their blue overcoats billowed back. They raised their rifles and fired.
The scorpions—there were three—bounded across the pier.
Bullets slammed into one, shattering its exoskeleton, tearing off a claw.
Jake screamed, legless.
Her wedding burned.
Leona shoved that memory aside.
No memories now. No fear. No pain. Just this moment.
The scorpions reached them.
One of the arachnids reared before Leona, jaws opening, revealing teeth like daggers. Leona fell onto her back, raised her rifle, and fired into the open maw.
Her bullet shattered a tooth and tore through the scorpion's pallet.
The alien dropped onto her, pincers snapping.
Leona howled, rolled aside, and fell off the pier.
She fell several meters, landed on a drone, and rose back up, gun blazing. The scorpion leaped off the pier toward her. Her bullets slammed into it.
The scorpion fell back. Leona jumped back onto the pier and fired again. Again. The scorpion screeched. Each bullet shoved it back a step. Leona fired bullet after bullet until the scorpion fell off the opposite side of the pier. It burned in the battle's crossfire.
Emet stood nearby, battling two scorpions, one at each side. He was firing Thunder with one hand, Lightning with the other. His pistol was wide and heavy, the size of a drill, and rather than bullets it fired electrical bolts. But it could not break through scorpion exoskeleton. One of the beasts reached Emet, and its pincers opened, and—
Leona fired Arondight's last bullet.
She cracked the scorpion's pincer, diverting the attack.
The massive claw grazed Emet's leg, ripping skin and flesh, but fell short of severing the limb.
As Emet concentrated his fire on the other scorpion, Leona leaped up, grabbed a drone, and tugged it down. She hurled the machine at the scorpion with the cracked pincer. The beast screeched, clawing at the drone. The drone peppered it with bullets. Both scorpion and drone fell from the pier.
With a final shot, Emet slew the last scorpion. It had taken several magazines to take down the bastard.
Father and daughter paused for a single breath. The battle still raged around them, strikers and drones whirring through the hollowed-out asteroid.
"To the ship!" Emet said.
They ran down the pier toward the Nantucket.
They were steps away when a figure leaped down from above, blocking their path.
A woman.
A human woman.
She landed at a crouch, then straightened and smiled crookedly. Her long blue hair billowed, revealing the shaved side of her head where implants shone.
"Hello again, pests." The woman licked her teeth. She raised her hands, and claws burst from her fingertips. "Come to die."
Leona was out of bullets, but she raised her fists. "Who are you?" she shouted over the roaring battle.
The woman's smile widened, tapering to points—a demonic smile. "Don't you know my name?"
Time flowed back. Memories pounded into Leona, so powerful she was there again, viewing her childhood.
Playing with her friend.
With David Emery's eldest daughter—a wild girl with a wide smile.
Leona blinked, returning to the present.
"Jade," she whispered. "Jade Emery. My old friend. What happened to you?"
Jade shrieked—a cry so loud Leona covered her ears and grimaced. Teeth bared, claws gleaming, Jade leaped into the air, then came swooping toward the Inheritors.