Leona grabbed Jake's skull, grabbed Sartak's discarded shell, and ran.
Her time-twister shattered in her head, and time resumed its normal flow.
Leona leaped out of the starship as her bullet entered the weapons cabinet.
She landed atop Coral, shielding the girl with her body, driving her into the mud. Leona pulled the discarded scorpion shell over her back, then covered her ears.
The Nantucket exploded behind her.
Even with her ears covered, the sound was deafening.
The shock wave pounded against the two Inheritors, shoving them deeper into the mud. Shrapnel hailed down, slamming into the scorpion shell above them. Fire blazed. Burning shards of metal landed around them, sizzling in the marshlands, boiling the mud. Trees caught fire. Birds, insects, and marshcrabs fled.
Silence.
Ringing.
Coral shifted in the mud and looked up at Leona. "Is—"
Another explosion sounded.
Then another.
Then the world itself seemed to shatter, and burst after burst of explosions popped.
"Run!" Leona shouted.
They ran, the shell held above them. Behind them, the bombs and torpedoes aboard the Nantucket—not just the personal weapons in the cabinet—were exploding.
The inferno raged behind them. They raced through the mud, ran between burning trees, leaped over a hill, and flattened themselves in a valley. When Leona glanced over her shoulder, she saw a mushroom cloud. Bits of metal and scorpion shell pattered down around them.
"The first explosion was the grenades in the cabinet," Leona said, barely hearing herself over the ringing in her ears. "Those were the torpedoes meant for enemy ships."
Coral touched her ears and winced. "Are you sure they weren't meant to destroy planets?"
"Just be thankful I wasn't flying the Jerusalem," Leona said. "That ship has nuclear weapons."
"You must never fly it," Coral said.
Leona nodded. "All right. I never . . ."
She could not complete her sentence. Suddenly Leona was weeping and trembling. She lifted her husband's skull from the mud and cradled it.
Coral wrapped her arms around Leona. They were both burnt, bleeding, but for a moment they just embraced.
"I avenged you, Jake," Leona whispered, holding his skull. "I killed him. I killed the monster that took you from me. I will give you a burial in space. You will rest among the stars."
Coral placed her hand atop Leona's. The girl stared into her eyes.
"No," Coral said. "You will bury him on Earth." She nodded. "Now come on! We gotta climb that mountain to get a signal, right? Let's go!"
"You're wounded," Leona said. "You should rest."
Coral shook her head. "Too murky down here. Up the mountain, I'll be closer to the stars. I will heal. We both will. Come."
The weaver started to march toward the mountain.
Leona followed through the marshlands. She was lost in the wilderness, abandoned on an enemy planet across the galaxy. But today she was one step closer to Earth. One step closer to healing.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Emet stood in the Jerusalem's hold, Thunder in hand, as the scorpions swarmed into the starship.
"Fire!" Emet shouted and pulled his trigger.
Across the hold, his fifty warriors fired their own weapons.
The drills had left gaping holes in the floor and ceiling, revealing the enemy's boarding vessels. The scorpions leaped through the holes into the oncoming bullets.
Blood filled the Jerusalem.
Humans and scorpions died.
Railguns pounded the enemy. Claws tore through flesh.
Here were the best warriors in the Heirs of Earth. They fired railguns, powerful weapons that knocked the scorpions back. One man lost a leg but still fought, roaring for Earth as he fired two pistols. A woman lost an arm to a pincer, but still she swung an electric blade, slicing through scorpions. Several men raised flamethrowers and filled the enemy's boarding vessels with flame, roasting the scorpions still inside.
Emet stood with his back to the bulkhead, firing his rifle, knocking back scorpions with his mighty two-barreled assault. The creatures pounced toward him. He stood, firing again and again, tearing them down. When Thunder ran out of bullets, he fired his pistol. When his pistol too ran out, he knelt, grabbed a magazine from a dead Inheritor, and kept fighting. Scorpion corpses piled up at his feet.
"This is the flagship of the Heirs of Earth!" he said. "You will not take it."
Another scorpion bounded toward him. Emet fired his rifle, blowing off the beast's head.
As he fought in the hold, the Jerusalem was still battling the enemy's warships. Duncan was still on the bridge, piloting the ship. Rowan was still firing the cannons, pounding the enemy forces. The Jerusalem kept swerving, jostling as the cannons boomed. Emet couldn't see the battle from here, but he could imagine thousands of starships still careening over Akraba, battling for dominance.
The last scorpion in the hold scuttled toward him, and Emet slew the beast with a single bullet.
He spat.
He looked across the hold. Thirty Inheritors had survived the battle and stood over dead scorpions. The enemy's boarding vessels were still attached to the hull like leeches.
"Get more flamethrowers," Emet said. "Fill their vessels with fire. There might be more scorpions inside."
His men nodded, grabbed flamethrowers, and aimed into the holes in the hull.
They filled the boarding vessels with liquid death.
Inside, scorpions—perhaps the pilots of the vessels—screamed and fell through the fire, burning.
Inside one vessel, laughter rose.
Emet frowned.
He stared at a hole on the ceiling, which a boarding vessel had drilled. The laughter came from inside. An Inheritor stood below, pumping the enemy vessel full of flame, but the laughter continued.
Blue and white flashed.
A creature leaped down through the hole, passed through the fire, and landed atop the Inheritor with the flamethrower. Claws lashed. The Inheritor's severed limbs slapped onto the floor.
Emet fired his railgun.
His bullets hit a fiery demon, but the creature still laughed. The demon advanced toward him, ablaze, arms outstretched. Emet fired bullet after bullet. The other Inheritors were firing on the flaming beast too, doing no harm.
"Hello, Emet!" she cried, emerging from the fire.
A woman with glimmering alabaster skin—skin like a scorpion's exoskeleton. With implants on her head. The fire had burned her clothes and hair away, but Emet recognized her.
"Jade," he said.
The Inheritors charged toward her with blades and clubs.
Jade laughed and leaped into the air.
She moved like lightning. She rebounded off the ceiling, off the walls, her claws lashing. She dodged every blade, every electric prod. Her claws tore through Inheritors, severing limbs and heads, ripping torsos open.
Warriors screamed.
Some tried to flee into the burnt-out boarding vessels, others onto the bridge.
Jade reached them all, ripping them apart, laughing as their blood splattered.
"For Earth!" they cried as they died.
Jade bit out a man's throat, then spat out flesh. She looked up at Emet, licked the blood off her lips, and smiled.
There is nowhere to hide, Emet knew. If I die, I die fighting.
He roared and lunged toward her.
He swung Thunder into her head. The blow knocked Jade's head back; it should have cracked her skull. But Jade merely straightened her neck with a creak and smiled.
Emet swung the rifle again, slamming the wooden stock into her temple. The wood shattered. Jade laughed.