A scorpion clattered across the field toward Leona's deathcar. Red spirals were drawn onto his shell, denoting him an overseer.
"Come on, come on, you lazy scum!" the alien said. "Unload the vermin. We've got skins to harvest!"
The scorpion grabbed the deathcar's hatch and yanked it open.
The alien froze, staring at Leona and a hundred Inheritor warriors inside.
"Hum—" it began before Leona put a bullet through its brain.
"For Earth!" she cried, leaping out from the deathcar.
"For Earth!" cried her warriors.
Hundreds of Inheritors stormed out from the ten deathcars—the entire marine force of humanity. Their bullets flew, and their cries shook the gulock.
"For Earth! For Earth!"
Leona shouted with them, firing Arondight, screaming as she tore through scorpions.
"For Earth!"
A planet she had never seen.
"For Earth!"
A planet lost in the darkness, its coordinates unknown.
"For Earth!"
A world some thought only a myth.
"For Earth!"
Her homeworld. The beacon of her heart.
The scorpions raced toward them. Dozens of them. Maybe a hundred. The Inheritors stood with their backs to the deathcars, firing their railguns, and bullets slammed into the aliens. A few scorpions braved the barrage, reached the troops, and lashed their pincers. Inheritors fell, shouting, firing their guns even as they died. Hot shards of exoskeleton flew. Blood splattered the field.
"Release the motorcycles!" Leona shouted. "Charge through them!"
Three deathcars opened their hatches, and the motorcycles emerged.
The metal beasts roared forth, fire spurting from their exhausts. Cannons were mounted onto their handlebars, blasting out bullets. Blades were attached to their wheels, spinning madly. Inheritors in black armor rode the machines, howling for war. The scorpions rose to meet them, but the motorcycles tore through the beasts, their scythed wheels ripping off claws.
A scorpion raced over the corpses and vaulted toward Leona. She raised her rifle and fired. Her bullets slammed into the beast's head, but it kept flying toward her.
Leona leaped aside, and a claw scraped her side, cracking her body armor. She cried out, swung Arondight, and slammed the barrel against the alien. The scorpion crouched and thrust its stinger.
Leona howled and swung Arondight again, parrying the lashing stinger. It hit the ground beside her, sputtering venom. Pinning the stinger down with her rifle, Leona drew her sidearm and fired a bullet into the beast's leering jaws. Blood and brain and shell splattered.
She looked around her. Many Inheritors lay dead already. Doc was fighting at her side, bellowing, swinging a club with one hand and firing a pistol with the other. The motorcycles were still roaring, charging through the lines of scorpions. But as Leona watched, a scorpion leaped onto a motorcycle, tore the rider apart, then tossed the machine into the air. The motorcycle slammed down onto two Inheritors, crushing them.
Sudden wails rose, deafening, a sound like howling ghosts.
Leona looked up at the guard towers. Klaxons were blaring.
"They're calling for reinforcements!" Leona shouted. "Hurry, free the captives! Get them into the ships!"
She had only moments, perhaps, before more scorpions arrived. She ran, fired Arondight, and tore off a scorpion's legs. She reached a fallen motorcycle, its rider dead. Ignoring the terror, Leona pulled the dead man off, then mounted the motorcycle and roared forth.
She charged across the spaceport. The whirring blades on her wheels tore through lines of scorpions. She fired the machine guns mounted onto the handlebars, ripping a path through the enemy. When she rode too close to a guard tower, a scorpion swooped from above. She swerved, fired her rifle, and knocked it aside. She kept roaring forth.
Another scorpion jumped down from a guard tower. Leona swerved, and the scorpion hit the ground and scuttled after her. She spun around, burning rubber, and fired blast after blast. The creature fell, torn apart.
Leona raised her eyes toward the guard tower. The cannons rose there, monuments of metal. They were made to fire on invading ships; they could not point downward. But the klaxons were still blaring, and scorpions were still emerging from domes and holes, charging toward the spaceport.
Leona narrowed her eyes, aimed the motorcycle's machine gun, and fired a barrage at the guard tower's top. Machinery burned, and the alarm died. But she knew it was too late. If there were any more scorpions on this planet, they would soon swarm. If there were more strikers in this star system, they would soon attack.
Duncan ran toward her, bleeding from a gash on his forehead. "Lass, there are too many scorpions! More than we expected. They knew we were coming. This is a trap!"
Leona growled. "Then we'll break the trap! Roll out the flamethrowers."
Duncan turned toward the deathcars. "Flamethrowers!"
Inheritors emerged from within, wearing heavy black armor. They wielded massive flamethrowers and spurted forth an inferno. Scorpions shrieked, falling back. They were apex predators, intelligent and vicious, but they still had animal instincts, and they still feared fire.
Leona kicked her motorcycle back into gear. She rode across the scorpion lines, firing bullets.
"Riders, with me!" she cried. "Shove these bastards into the fire!"
The other motorcycles joined her. They roared back and forth, guns firing, herding the scorpions toward the flamethrowers. The arachnids shrieked, burning. Their exoskeletons withstood the flames, but their inner flesh was melting, dripping from cracks in their armor. A few scorpions tried to flee past the motorcycles, only for the machine guns to mow them down.
"Good," Leona said. "You're trapped between machine guns and fire. Now die, you mucking bastards."
Tears of fury burned as she fired her machine gun, as she drove more and more of the beasts into the flame. The scorpions fought hard. Many emerged from the gauntlet, claws lashing, and tore down Inheritors. Even from the flames, they thrust their stingers, spraying venom that melted through armor, skin, and bone. And still more emerged from holes, never ending.
Leona clenched her jaw.
Can we not defeat them? Are we not mighty enough?
She grabbed a grenade from her belt. She hurled it, and three scorpions tore apart, their shards flying. At her side, Duncan swung his electric club, knocking a beast down. Around her, a few Inheritors were running out of bullets. A few flamethrowers were sputtering.
Icy fear gripped Leona's chest, and she stared at the scorpions that still lived. They were crawling over their own dead, licking their jaws.
"More humans to harvest," one hissed.
"More skin pelts!"
The beasts laughed, shrieked, and lunged into battle.
Leona fired her last magazine, taking down a scorpion, and then drew her knife.
We cannot win. Her breath shook. I was wrong to come here. She raised her blade high and bared her teeth. But I will die fighting.
Suddenly a distant cry rose beyond the smoke.
"The Heirs of Earth!"
A second voice rose.
"The Heirs of Earth are here! The Heirs of Earth rise!"
Hundreds of voices cried out together. A gust of wind blew the smoke away, and Leona's eyes dampened.
"The prisoners," she whispered, tears in her eyes. "The prisoners are rising up."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Naked, starving, tortured, the gulock prisoners charged to battle.