He found what he sought.
His box of ammo.
He reached for the box, ready to load his pistol.
A bonecrawler bit his leg.
Bay screamed. The beast yanked backward.
The box fell and bullets spilled everywhere.
The bonecrawler was dragging him across the hold. Bay screamed, bleeding, reached out, and managed to grab a single bullet. The bonecrawler swung him against the wall, and Bay grimaced. He slid down and hit the floor with a thud.
The bonecrawler reared above him.
Bay put his bullet through its face.
Hurriedly, he grabbed more bullets and leaped outside. Rowan stood with her back to the starship, lashing her knife, desperate to hold back bonecrawlers. Bay fired round after round, tearing them down. He grabbed Rowan, pulled her into the starship, and slammed the hatch shut.
For a moment, they panted, safe inside Brooklyn.
But the bonecrawlers surrounded them. The aliens slammed against the starship from every side. Their leader, the towering boneking, swung his head, clubbing Brooklyn with his massive skull. The starship tilted. The boneking swung his head again, and Brooklyn flipped over.
Rowan and Bay screamed, falling onto the ceiling.
"This is just like Jurassic Park!" Rowan shouted.
"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Bay made his way to the dashboard, but Brooklyn was dead, all her electronics ripped out. It would take days to fix. "Dammit."
"Should I get out and push?" Rowan asked.
Bay handed her his pistol. "Load more bullets. Fire on anything that makes its way inside. I'll try to fix her cannon at least."
He pulled at the cables and broken panels, wincing. It was a hot mess of sparking electronics. He tried to push controls back into place, to reattach broken cables, but the boneking kept lashing at the ship. They flipped over again. Bay hit his head against the floor. He saw stars. Soon Rowan was screaming, firing her pistol.
"Bonecrawlers aboard!" she cried.
Her bullets rang out, slamming into the creatures.
"Hold them back!" Bay said.
"I can't!"
"Another minute, and—there!"
Bay managed to reattach the weapons system. It bleeped back to life. He hit the right button, and a cannon extended from Brooklyn's prow.
He opened fire.
Massive shells, each the size of his fist, flew out in a fury, ripping through bonecrawlers in the hangar. They tore through the creatures. Bones and skin flew across the hangar. Gore splattered the walls.
The boneking reared and howled, towering before them, his head grazing the hangar's ceiling.
"For Earth," Bay whispered.
He fired again.
His shells slammed into the boneking, and the beast shattered.
His massive skull hit the deck, and blood oozed between his jaws. He rose no more.
Bay slumped down, wheezing.
Rowan lowered her gun. A dead bonecrawler lay before her. She limped toward Bay. Her dragonfly fluttered above her shoulder, one wing bent.
"Are they all dead?" she whispered.
Bay nodded, barely able to speak. He managed to pull Rowan into his arms. "They're all dead, you crazy little honey badger."
She gave him a sidelong frown. "Whatchu talkin' bout, Bay?"
He laughed and closed his eyes, heart still pounding. Rowan laid her head against his chest, and he held her close. Soon he realized that she was weeping.
He stroked her short brown hair. "It's over now," he whispered. "I'm going to fix this ship. And we'll fly away from here. We'll fly somewhere hidden. Somewhere safe. Somewhere far from everyone."
Rowan smiled at him through her tears. "We're going to the Fortress of Solitude?"
"I never know what you're talking about."
She grinned, pulled out the Earthstone, and let it shine. "You will."
He covered her hand with his, and they held the stone together.
Engines rumbled.
For an instant, Bay dared hope that it was Brooklyn coming back to life. But no—these were deeper, more powerful engines, and the sound came from outside.
"What fresh hell is this?" he muttered.
He stepped outside of Brooklyn, and Rowan followed. The dead bonecrawlers lay everywhere. Wind blasted as a starship came flying into the hangar. Bay recognized the model. It was an armored delivery ship, about three times Brooklyn's size, almost too large to fit into the hangar. Somebody had refitted the ship for war, adding new shields, mounting cannons, and attaching engines worthy of a warship. The starship thumped down onto the hangar floor, crushing bonecrawlers.
That was when Bay saw the writing on the hull.
Human letters.
ISS Cagayan de Oro.
Below the letters appeared a symbol—a blue planet with golden wings.
It was an Inheritor ship.
Bay's heart burst into a gallop. His fingers began to shake.
"Bay, what's wrong?" Rowan whispered. "You look like you saw a ghost."
A hatch on the Cagayan de Oro opened.
Bay took a step back.
A man stepped out of the warship. He was tall, burly, and in his mid-fifties. His yellow beard was strewn with white. Shaggy hair, gold and silver, spilled out from under a black cowboy hat. The man wore thick boots, brown trousers, and a long blue overcoat with brass buttons. When a bonecrawler rose, twitching with its last breath, the man fired an old-fashioned, double-barreled rifle with a wooden stock. The powerful bullets tore off the bonecrawler's head.
Slowly, the man turned toward Bay and met his eyes.
Emet Ben-Ari nodded. "Hello, son."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
"You're coming back with me to the Inheritor fleet," Emet said. "And that's final."
Bay shook his head, jaw clenched. "Muck this. Muck this shit!" He rose from the barstool. "I'm done. Done!"
But Emet pulled him back down. "Sit down, Bay. Drink your grog. And talk to me."
They sat in Drunken Truckers, the seedy tavern in Paradise Lost where Bay had first met Rowan. The girl now stood at the doorway, holding one of Emet's pistols. The gun was the size of a power drill, and Rowan had to hold it with both hands. But if any other exterminator showed up, it would punch holes into them. And the wall behind them. And probably the next wall over.
The sight of that gun, and the heavy rifle Emet carried across his back, had sent the other patrons fleeing. Even the stick insect bartender gave them a wide berth, retreating into the shadows after taking their order. It wasn't every day, Bay supposed, that Admiral Emet Ben-Ari, the galaxy's most notorious terrorist, crashed your bar.
"Uh, yo, man, I'm not interested in talking to you." Bay shoved his grog away. "Or grogging with you. Or, you know, being in the same space station, star system, or galaxy with you. All right?"
He rose to leave again. But again his father grabbed him.
"Sit. Down." Emet's voice was as hard as his eyes. "I didn't fly for light-years, leaving my fleet, for you to act like a child. You're coming home with me. And that is not up for debate."
"The hell I am!" Bay glared at his father. "How the hell did you find me anyway?"
Emet scoffed. "You're not exactly inconspicuous. Strutting around casinos and brothels? Getting drunk and high and mucking vemale holograms? They sent out a call for exterminators across a parsec."
"Uh, yeah, and I took care of them," Bay said. "Did you see all those dead bonecrawlers all over the hangar? I killed them. And Rowan did too. I don't need you to come here to protect me, or—"
"I didn't come here to protect you," Emet said. "I came here to bring you home."
"What home?" Bay rose to his feet, his eyes burning. "What home, Dad? Oh, your little fleet? A handful of rusty starships? Bouncing from world to world, hunted everywhere, terrorists? That's what they call you, Dad. Not freedom fighters. They call you terrorists. Is that the home you're speaking of?"