Bellowing, Emet hurled himself forward.
He slammed into Jade.
Emet was a large man, especially for this era of hunger and want. He stood several inches north of six feet, and was still burly and powerful despite his age. Jade stood a foot shorter and probably weighed half as much. Emet should have crushed her like a truck slamming into a bicycle.
Instead, he hit her like a truck into a wall.
He fell back, reeling. Jade smiled, still standing, and smoothed her outfit of black wires.
Leona roared and leaped forward too. Out of bullets, she swung Arondight like a club.
The wooden stock slammed into Jade's jaw. It was a blow so powerful it should have shattered the skull and scattered teeth. Instead, the stock cracked.
Jade smiled at Leona, blew her a kiss, then lashed her claws.
As the claws tore into her shoulder, Leona screamed.
Emet rose to his feet, groaned, and grabbed Jade in his powerful hands. He tried to pull her back, but he looked like a man trying to move a statue of solid marble. Jade spun toward him, snarled, and shoved him. Emet flew off pier and crashed onto a gondola below.
"What the hell are you?" Leona shouted, bleeding. "What did they do to you? You used to be my friend!"
Jade laughed. "I was never your friend, human. I was bred in the fiery pits of Skra Shaday. I rose to command fleets! I am the slayer of humans. I am the nemesis of Earth. Die now, human."
She grabbed Leona's throat and squeezed.
Leona gasped for air, found none. She kicked and punched Jade, but it felt like attacking stone. Jade's hand tightened. Leona floundered. Stars floated before her eyes. She tried to speak, could not. Blackness began to spread around her vision.
Jade tilted her head, pouting. "Are you trying to beg? Yes, I think I'd like to hear that."
She released Leona's throat and slammed her down onto the pier. Leona gulped down air. Before she could rise, Jade placed her steel-tipped boot on Leona's chest, pinning her down. The weight nearly snapped Leona's ribs. She gasped for another breath.
Jade examined her fingers. She tilted her head, watching the blood dripping off the claws—Leona's blood.
"You humans are so weak. Skin like paper. How have you ever survived this long?"
Leona lay on the pier, the boot crushing her chest. "You . . . are . . . human."
Jade's face flushed. She howled, teeth bared, hair crackling.
"Die, pest!"
Jade raised her claws high, bloodlust in her eyes.
Engines rumbled behind her.
As Jade drove her claws toward Leona, the ISS Nantucket stormed forward, flying a meter above the pier.
The claws were a centimeter away from Leona when the Nantucket—a starship the size of a yacht—plowed into Jade.
Leona lay on her back, gasping for air, as the Nantucket flew above her. She felt like a woman from an old Western, tied to the train tracks, watching a train roar above her. Her hair and cloak billowed.
The Nantucket passed over Leona, then spun around and hovered, engines rumbling. Behind the ship, the strikers and drones were still fighting. There was no sign of Jade—nothing but a splatter of blood and clump of blue hair on the Nantucket's prow.
She must be dead, Leona thought. Nobody could have survived that.
Emet was at the helm, beckoning Leona. The ship's airlock was open. Leona rose to her feet. Clutching her wounded shoulder, she ran and jumped into the Nantucket.
An instant later, a striker fired on them. Plasma blazed across the Nantucket's shields. Alarms wailed. The ship tilted, nearly crashing.
"Get us out of here, Dad!" Leona shouted, running onto the bridge.
The ship rumbled forward. Drones parted before them. The Nantucket stormed toward the tunnel leading out into space.
A striker rose to block the exit. It fired plasma. A blast slammed into the Nantucket, knocking them back.
Emet pulled the Nantucket downward, dodging more bolts. Leona fired their cannons, pounding the striker. The enemy ship jolted but withstood the assault. It faced them again, cannons hot.
Leona glanced at the Nantucket's stats.
Shields were down at five percent.
She winced.
The next blow will destroy us.
The striker's cannons turned toward them, and Leona cringed.
A hundred gears flew through the air.
The striker fired, but its bolts hit the gears instead of the Nantucket. More gears slammed into the striker, a barrage of them, blinding the ship, clogging its cannons, slamming into its engines. The striker spun madly, a bison beset by hornets.
Leona gasped and looked up. In one of the burnt hacker pods, she saw her. Alice.
The living gear was charred, bleeding, half of her gone. On the outside, she looked like metal, but on the inside, she was pulsing organs. Her eyes met Leona's.
The speakers on the Nantucket crackled to life, and Alice's voice emerged.
"I have detonated the nuclear reactor in the heart of the asteroid. It is over for us of Hacksaw Cove. Yet we will live onward in the virtual worlds. There are more realities than this, layer upon layer, universe within universe. Fight for this one, Emet and Leona. Fly, Heirs of Earth! Fly and fight them."
"Come with us!" Leona said.
"I cannot die," Alice said. "I will live eternally in worlds beyond. Farewell."
With that, the alien fell from her pod and tumbled toward the pit. Below, the nuclear reactors were already churning, grumbling, ready to blow.
"All right, we're outta here!" Emet said, shoving down the throttle.
The Nantucket charged. Leona fired her cannons, knocking aside the last striker, and they burst into the tunnel.
They streamed forward, crossing several kilometers of tunnel within instants.
Fire roared behind them.
They burst out into space.
Behind them, the nuclear reactors blew.
The asteroid vanished under searing light.
Emet activated the warp drive and they blasted forward, moving at millions of kilometers per second.
Leona checked the rear monitor. Behind them, the asteroid was gone, leaving pulsing light like a star.
As her adrenaline wore off, pain flared. She grimaced and clutched her wounded shoulder. It would need stitches. Emet too was wounded, bleeding from his side and temple. The blood matted his beard and stained his coat, turning the blue fabric purple.
"It was Jade," Leona whispered, her hands shaking. "The Blue Witch. The one who was rounding up humans. Jade Emery, my old friend."
What happened to you, Jade?
"She's gone now," Emet said. "Whatever the hell the scorpions did to her, she's gone. Wiped out in the nuclear blast. And so is the memory chip."
Leona gasped and bolted upright. "But . . . Dad! I can't remember any of the locations of the gulocks, or the flight paths, or any of it! Just the one flight path tomorrow, the one near the border. And . . ." She leaped to her feet. "And Bay, Dad! Did you hear what Alice said? Bay is alive! He's at Paradise Lost! And—"
Suddenly she felt woozy. Her blood kept flowing. She fell back into her seat.
"First things first, we rejoin our fleet," Emet said, clutching the ship's yoke. "We get Doc to patch us up." His eyes narrowed. "And then we bring everyone home."
CHAPTER TWENTY
"They sent robots to repair me!" Brooklyn said. "Robots! I told you, Bay, I only like organic mechanics. Robots carry viruses."
Bay sighed. "They only installed a new wing, Brook."
"So? You can catch a virus through a wing. There are computerized sensors in wings, you know. And those robots were rusty and full of crumbs and ants. Can you check my wing for ants?"