"Hey, buddy!" Leona said to the crab. "Do you happen to have a working communicator on ya?"
The marshcrab climbed over the Nantucket. Its eyestalks tilted toward her. Its legs were taller than Leona. Its body was small and covered with a warty shell; most of the creature was just legs.
"Hey, I'm talking to you, bub!" Leona said.
"Commodore!" Coral grabbed her arm. "Look!"
Leona turned and cursed. More marshcrabs were creeping from the trees. They had been there all along, Leona realized, hiding among the roots. Leona winced.
"Hear me, marshcrabs!" she said. "I am Commodore Leona Ben-Ari of the Concord forces. I wish you no harm! If you return me to my people, I will—"
"Concord scum!" one of the marshcrabs said.
"Filthy humans!" rasped another.
"Invaders!" cried a third marshcrab. "Invaders!"
"Slay them! Slay them!"
The creatures scuttled toward the humans, sneering.
Leona rolled her eyes. Oh bloody hell.
"Inheritors, fire!" she cried.
Their bullets rang out, slamming into the marshcrabs. Leona tore a leg off one beast, but it kept running.
A claw thrust toward her. Leona swung Arondight, parrying the blow, then fired again, hitting the marshcrab's underbelly. Its shell cracked, and its innards leaked. Leona leaped back, barely dodging the falling alien.
More marshcrabs were advancing. Leona kept firing, tearing them down. They were easy kills compared to scorpions, but by Ra, there were a lot of them. More kept emerging from the trees, rising from the mud, and appearing from the fog.
The other Inheritors were firing too. Bullets tore off the marshcrab legs, shattered their shells, and sent the beasts clattering down.
Coral fought with a different weapon. Her tattoos shone, and light flowed down her arm and into her silvery dagger. When she aimed the blade, pulses of light blasted out and slammed into marshcrabs, searing holes into their shells.
Dead aliens quickly sank into the mud, but new marshcrabs rose to replace them. Dozens, soon hundreds of the creatures surrounded the handful of Inheritors. An individual marshcrab wasn't much of a threat to a trained Inheritor. An army of marshcrabs was a different matter.
"They're too many!" Coral said.
Leona grimaced. Firing with one hand, she pulled out her minicom again. Damn it! Still no signal.
Had anyone seen the Nantucket crashing? Would her father arrive to save them?
A marshcrab lunged toward her, and she fired, knocking it back. But another rose behind her, and its leg knocked her down. Another leg kicked Arondight away. Lying on her back in the mud, Leona drew her pistol and fired, again, again, punching bullets through the crab until it fell dead. Another rose behind it.
I want to die on Earth, Leona thought. Not become crab food. Come on, Dad, where the hell are you?
As she loaded another magazine, she scanned the clouds, seeking some sign of rescue, of an Inheritor vessel plunging down after her.
A corporal fell beside her, firing his last bullets, a claw in his leg. Another Inheritor cried out and fell, a marshcrab claw impaling his chest. The aliens clattered and laughed and covered the swamp.
A distant sound rose—rumbling engines.
Leona looked up at the clouds, praying.
And there.
There above!
A starship was flying down, still wreathed in cloud.
Thank Ra, Leona thought. Dad!
Across the swamp, the crabs looked up and shrieked. Their cries rose louder—cries of terror. With a great clatter, they began to flee. They raced through the mud, over the fallen Nantucket, and back into the trees.
Coral laughed. "Flee before the light, creatures of darkness!"
Leona looked up again at the descending starship.
Her heart sank.
Oh hell.
It wasn't an Inheritor starship after all.
It was a striker.
The scorpion vessel descended until it hovered above the mud. Its engines rumbled, and heat bathed Leona. Slowly the striker lowered itself and thumped onto a patch of grass and reeds.
"Stay near me," Leona said to the other Inheritors, not removing her eyes from the striker. "Ready your guns. Coral, keep your dagger shining. When they emerge from inside, we fire. We fire everything and we will kill them."
A hatch on the striker rattled, then creaked open, and the scorpions emerged.
By Ra.
Leona gazed in shock.
Coral screamed and blasted a beam of light from her dagger.
An instant later, Leona fired her rifle, and soon the others were firing too—just a handful of Inheritors, shouting and firing together.
The scorpions raced toward them. But these were no usual Skra-Shen. These ones wore mech suits, shells of steel plates and luminous cables. Machine guns were mounted on their backs, and the beasts opened fire. Bullets shrieked.
"Fall back!" Leona cried. "Take cover behind the Nantucket!"
The humans ran.
Bullets tore into one Inheritor, and the man fell.
Two more humans cried out, torn apart by the bullets.
Only Leona and Coral made it behind the Nantucket, panting. One bullet had grazed Coral's leg, and another had pierced her arm. The weaver panted, bleeding, eyes wide in her muddy face. Her tattoos were dimming as her blood flowed.
More bullets flew, pounding into the Nantucket, rattling the starship.
"Ma'am, what do we do?" Coral said. "Is this the end?"
"Not today!" Leona said. "We do not die here. Not in this swamp. Into the Nantucket!"
She leaped toward a crack in the hull and wriggled inside. Coral followed. The scorpions made their way around the ship, still firing the machine guns on their backs. Bullets blazed through the cracks in the hull. Leona ran to the stern, wading through mud and corpses. Some of these dead were her friends. She forced herself not to look, not to mourn. Not now. She reached the stern, saw the cabinet there—
"Ma'am!" Coral cried. "Scorpion in the ship!"
"Hold it back! Cover me!"
Coral's tattoos were dim now, but she lifted a rifle from a dead Inheritor and opened fire. Leona grabbed the cabinet. The door was half buried in mud. She grimaced, shouting, tugging with all her strength. Finally the cabinet door budged, opening a crack. More scorpions were crawling into the hold. Bullets whizzed and nearly deafened Leona. She pulled out the flamethrower. She spun back toward the battle.
"Coral, down!" she shouted.
The weaver hit the floor, and Leona activated her flamethrower.
A torrent of fire gushed forth, roared over Coral's back, and slammed into the scorpions.
The beasts squealed.
Their armor heated, turned red, then melted, searing the aliens' exoskeletons. The scorpions screamed, tried to leap toward Leona, but she flipped the flamethrower to a higher setting. The fire slammed into the aliens, knocking them back, roaring through the hold. Coral crawled back and rose beside Leona, singed and sweaty and panting.
Finally the fuel ran out. The fire died, and Leona tossed the flamethrower aside.
The scorpions slumped to the floor, twitching. Their exoskeletons had melted like plastic left in a hot car, sticking to their gooey innards. They raised their melted heads, tried to move forward, to still fight, but could not. They were melting onto the floor.
Coral cringed and lifted her rifle, ready to put them out of their misery.
"No." Leona pulled the rifle down, her eyes hard. "Let them suffer."
Coral looked at her, shock in her eyes. But Leona refused to budge.
Let them suffer like I suffered.
"Are they all gone?" Coral whispered. The weaver's eyes were haunted, her cheeks smeared with mud. Her fingers trembled around her rifle. Weavers were skilled healers, but Coral had not yet healed her wounds, perhaps too weary. "Are—"