"Duncan, you have the bridge," Emet said. "Rowan, keep those cannons firing!"
He raced into the hold.
His platoon was waiting there, fifty Inheritor marines, guns ready. The starboard and port bulkheads thrummed as the cannons kept firing. Above and below them, the hull shook as the enemy boarding vessels began to drill.
Emet took a deep breath. He raised Thunder in one hand, Lightning in the other. Around him, his fellow warriors aimed their weapons.
With shrieking metal and showering sparks, drills tore through the hull.
The gates of hell opened, and the scorpions leaped in.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The ISS Nantucket lay in the marsh of Akraba, cracked and smoldering, filled with mud and death.
Buzzzz.
Leona blinked, struggling to bring the world into focus. She waved at the sound, winced in pain.
Hummmmm.
She floated. She sank. All the world—cracked metal and pain in her leg.
Her thigh ached.
Her wound throbbed.
The scorpion was clawing at her leg, chortling, as her husband lay dying.
"Jake," she whispered. "Jake, I'm sorry."
Buzzzz.
Hummmm.
The insects were feeding on his corpse. The engines of afterlife were rumbling.
"Commodore!" A voice from the haze. "Commodore, can you hear me? Leona!"
She blinked. It was Coral speaking. She knew her. Coral Amber, a girl with lavender eyes, platinum hair, and a secret power. A girl she had met on a desert world.
"What are you doing here?" Leona whispered. "It's my wedding day." She wept. "There's blood on my dress."
She doubled over.
A shotgun wedding, yes. Two seventeen-year-olds, so young, so scared.
Sartak, an albino scorpion with two tails, laughed. Blood splattered the beach. Her husband lay dying and she knelt on the sand, clutching her belly, as the blood poured between her thighs.
"I have to move you, Leona." The voice spoke again, fading away, growing weaker. "Come on. Out into the open. You must gaze into the sky."
Hands grabbed her under the arms and pulled.
Leona screamed.
The pain in her belly!
"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears on her cheeks. "I buried him. I buried him in the water. My child. And the waves washed him away into the sea." She wept. "I love to sail forbidden seas . . . Someday I will sail there again. My child is waiting for me."
The waves carried her. They brought her to soft soil, and she lay, gazing up at clouds, and the rain fell upon her, and Leona smiled.
"Let the aether in, Leona. Breathe. Let it flow. Let it heal."
Strands of starlight shone.
Liquid luminosity flowed into Leona.
She cried out. It burned.
"Breathe, Leona, daughter of Earth," whispered a luminous figure. "Let the aether heal you. Be one with the Cosmos. Be one with the light."
Leona took a deep, shuddering breath, letting the light flow through her, and her pain faded. Her vision cleared. She was lying in mud. Coral knelt above her, her lavender eyes filled with light. Her tattoos were glowing, coiling across her dark skin. The light flowed from Coral's hands into Leona, easing the pain. Healing her. Lighting her path.
Slowly the light faded, and Coral took a shaky breath. The weaver fell back into the mud, ashen, her fingers shaky.
"It takes a lot out of a weaver," she whispered. "Thank the ancients. You are healed."
Leona blinked, the fog lifting from her mind, and looked around her.
The fog of her mind had perhaps parted, but there was certainly enough real mist around her. She sat on a tussock that rose from a swamp. The marshlands spread around her in every direction, shadowy and rank. Rain drizzled, insects chirped everywhere, and the smells of mud and moss filled her nostrils. The air was thick as soup. Trees with long, coiling roots rose around her. They reminded her of mangroves, trees she had seen in the Earthstone, but these trees were far taller, rising like the pillars.
The buzzing and humming sounded behind her. Leona turned and winced.
The Nantucket, her beloved starship, lay smashed on the planet surface. Her hull had cracked open. Her bridge was shattered. She was half-sunken in the mud. A few of her cables still sparked, producing the sound. Several other Inheritors from her crew stood by the ship, nursing their wounds. Through the cracked hull, Leona glimpsed the rest of her crew, dead eyes staring.
She raised her eyes. The clouds hid the sky. If the battle continued, it was hidden.
"Thank you, Coral," she said, looking back at the weaver. "Your magic saved my life."
Coral smiled wanly. She looked thinner than before, as after a long illness. "I told you, ma'am, I don't deal with magic. I'm not a soothsayer but a weaver of the holy light. I am one with the cosmos."
"Well, whatever the hell you are, you saved my ass," Leona said. "I owe you my life."
"And you saved my life on Til Shiran," Coral said, eyes shimmering. "I was slowly dying in the desert. You showed me the luminous path. We are forever in each other's debt. We are forever cosmic sisters."
Leona nodded. "Cosmic sisters. I like that. Of course, I'd like it better if we weren't stuck on the ass end of the cosmos."
Leona rose to her feet—too fast. She swayed, and Coral had to rush forward and catch her. Even after the healing, Leona's body was bruised and cut. When she tested a few steps, she could walk. No bones were broken. Her head spun, but slowly it was clearing.
Cursing, she stumbled toward the Nantucket's cockpit, but the controls were smashed beyond use. The engines were dead. She flipped open her minicom, trying to connect to her fleet. But it was no use. With these thick clouds, she wasn't signaling anyone.
She turned toward Coral and the three other Inheritors—the last survivors of her crew.
"Grab whatever weapons you can from the Nantucket," she said. "Water and food too. Anything that's too heavy to carry, you leave behind."
Coral frowned. "Where are we going, ma'am?"
"To find higher ground. See that smudge on the horizon? That looks like a mountain. We might get a signal from there."
"And . . . the dead?" Coral said.
Coral's voice shook the slightest. Fear filled her eyes. Yes, Coral was a weaver, a wielder of a secret power Leona didn't understand. Yet she was still only a private, new to war. The other surviving Inheritors looked at Leona too, older and gruffer, but also scared. She saw the fear in their eyes.
"I want a volunteer to remain with the fallen," Leona said. "We'll not bury them in this swamp. We'll get aid. We'll find a starship to rescue us. We'll give our fallen heroes a proper funeral in space and send their bodies to rest among the stars." She looked at the smashed starship, at the dead inside. "They gave their lives for Earth. They fell with honor. They are—"
She fell silent and tilted her head.
A clattering sounded among the trees.
She spun around, aiming Arondight, but saw nothing.
The others raised their rifles too. They stared around, eyes narrowed.
"Comma—" Coral began.
Leona raised a finger to her lips.
There! She heard it again. More clattering. Creaking. Mud swishing.
The creature rose from behind the starship, dripping mud and moss.
"A marshcrab," Leona muttered. "I mucking hate those things."
She had seen a few marshcrabs in space before. Despite the sad state of their homeworld, they were a sentient, technological species—mostly using stolen tech. In space, the giant crabs were bright red. But here, in their own soupy environment, their exoskeleton was a rusty brown. With their long, thin legs, they looked a lot like mangrove roots, blending into their environment.