She nodded.
"Good. Very good. Without a drop of blood spilled, we've claimed our first Concord world."
Around her, the scorpions hissed and clattered.
"We want blood!" one demanded.
"We want to feast on enemy bones!"
"We want human skins!"
They rustled across the bridge, scuttling over boulders, stone pillars, and sand pits. They rutted in canyons. They clung to the ceiling. The Venom's innards mimicked their environment—a hot, sandy pit.
Sitting on her throne, Jade raised her hand. "Fear not, my fellow scorpions! You'll have blood and bones and skin. The foul Concord swarm will soon come. The arrogant Aelonians and their allies fly here as we speak. We will feast upon them!"
"And humans!" cried the scorpions. "We want human flesh!"
"You will have it," Jade said. "The Heirs of Earth fly with the enemy." She laughed. "Humans who think themselves warriors. Who think they can fly with other nations. We will flay them as they scream, and their blood will soak our sand. They will be ours to torment. Their leader, Emet Ben-Ari. His daughter, the foul Leona. The wretched pest, Rowan Em—"
Jade's head suddenly spun. Her implants whirred. She clutched her head.
A face flashed before her—a young woman with short brown hair, with large brown eyes, peering at her from the bridge of the Jerusalem.
Pain flared, and another image rose. A girl with the same brown hair, the same brown eyes, a toddler in a glittering cave.
Lies. Lies! Human treachery! They had infected her mind, were haunting her, hacking her implants.
Jade screamed. She pounded her fist against her head. Electricity sparked. She grabbed a rod, plugged it into an implant, and released a bolt of power. The pain overwhelmed her. The memories faded.
"Huntress?" a scorpion said, eyes narrowed. "Are you weak?"
Jade took a shuddering breath. She leaped off her throne, grabbed the scorpion, and clawed its head open. As the scorpion howled, she peeled him, pulling the shell back, revealing the brains. She stabbed again until the creature lay still.
"Never doubt my strength!" Jade tossed the peeled shell aside. "The Concord will learn that. The humans will learn that."
She left her bridge. She marched through her flagship, a vessel mightier than any Concord dreadnought, a terror that could dwarf the puny warships the humans flew. Scorpions clattered across the tunnels and lurked in chambers, sharpening pincers, devouring raw meat, and preparing for war. Jade entered the hangar, a cavernous hall where stood a hundred starfighters. She entered one of the triangular vessels, pulled a lever, and blasted out into space.
Terminus Wormhole shone nearly, a gateway leading deep into Concord space. Thousands of her warships hovered by the Wormhole, guarding it. Nearby hovered Akraba, a swampy planet where lived the marshcrabs, the latest addition to the Hierarchy.
Between them hovered Paradise Lost, the space station.
The station that had called for exterminators.
That had complained of a human girl hiding in the ducts.
Jade flew toward this glittering, garish installation, this eyesore in space, a cluster of neon lights and graffiti.
She flew into the station's hangar. A hundred scorpions were already here. The slot machines, decaying alien gamblers, hookah pipes, graffiti, and filth had been cleaned from the hangar. Hierarchy banners now hung from the walls, depicting a red stinger on a black field. Scorpions stood on the floor, taking formation as Jade emerged from her striker. They bowed, heads pressed to the floor, tails held high, as Jade walked between them.
Jade shook her head in disgust. She had heard tales of this place. Gambling? Grogging? Drugs and prostitutes? The Skra-Shen had no such vices. Truly, the Concord was a place of sin. She would purify it.
A towering alien clattered toward her across the hangar. He was a marshcrab, a beast with ten long, thin legs like stilts. He had an exoskeleton, much like scorpions, but so much frailer, covered with bumps and fissures. His red body perched atop his legs, higher than Jade's head.
"Are you Belowgen?" she said. "Are you the creature that runs this place?"
The alien reached her. His black eyes, mounted on stalks, narrowed. His voice was gruff. "I am! Who are you?"
"Impudent fool!" hissed a scorpion guard, raising his stinger, but Jade held him back.
"I am Jade, Blue Huntress, Admiral of the Skra-Shen, daughter of Emperor Sin Kra," she said. "I've heard you have a human problem. I've come to fix it. Show me your humans!"
I need them alive, she thought. I need to interrogate them. To peel their skin. To ask them about a girl with short brown hair from a glittering cave.
Belowgen tilted his head. "But . . ." The marshcrab sputtered. His eyestalks moved down and up, taking her in. "But you are human!" He reared, claws rising. "You are a filthy pest!"
Scorpions hissed.
Jade howled.
She leaped into the air, rebounded off the ceiling, and plunged toward the crab. She sliced off his eyestalks, then grabbed his legs and snapped them off, one by one, screaming as his innards spilled.
She marched back toward her striker, trembling with fury.
"Commander, what—" a scorpion began.
She roared, lifted the scorpion, and tossed it out into space.
She climbed into her striker and flew. Her hands shook around the controls. She flew back toward her flagship, the mighty Venom. Once she was back aboard, she turned the dreadnought toward Paradise Lost.
She leaned forward, sneering, and fired her cannons.
She screamed as she fired.
Blast after blast of plasma pounded into the space station, tearing it apart. Neon signs shattered and spiraled through space. Metal pods, which clung to the central stalk like barnacles, tore free and tumbled, burning, spilling out aliens. Jade roared in fury, still firing, ripping off more and more of the pods—brothels, bars, drug dens, casinos. With every blast, she tore off another establishment, sending it hurtling into the darkness. She didn't even care that a hundred scorpions were aboard Paradise Lost. She kept firing, finally revealing the central stalk, the original space station the depravity had grown around.
She increased her rate of fire, and holes blazed across the cylinder, and the entire space station tore in two. Engines and furnaces exploded. Shards of metal blasted out, and a shock wave pulsed through space. The Hierarchy fleet rocked like boats on a stormy sea, peppered with debris.
When Jade finally stopped firing, Paradise Lost was gone. Only a cloud of shrapnel and smoke remained.
The other scorpions on the Venom's bridge were staring at her. Silent.
Jade clenched her fists.
"I am Skra-Shen!" she shouted. "I am a scorpion! I am not a human!"
She turned toward the wormhole, waiting.
"Come to me, humans." She laughed, eager for their blood. "Come and die. I will destroy the galaxy if I must. But I will kill you all!"
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The Concord fleet flew through space, heading to war.
And for the first time, humanity flew with it.
Two thousand years ago, Emet knew, humanity had become a galactic power to reckon with, her fleets striking enemies even on distant worlds. A hundred thousand starships had flown under Earth's banners, and humanity had stood proudly among the mightiest civilizations of the Milky Way. The Golden Lioness had reigned over Earth's Golden Age.
But then we lost Earth, Emet thought. We died. Our few survivors scattered. We became weak. Hunted. Hated.
Now, for the first time in two thousand years, humanity flew to war. Not as rebels. Not as partisans working in shadows. They flew among other civilizations, proud of their humanity, no longer hiding.