The Heirs of Earth Read online

  THE HEIRS OF EARTH

  CHILDREN OF EARTHRISE, BOOK 1

  by

  Daniel Arenson

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  AFTERWORD

  NOVELS BY DANIEL ARENSON

  KEEP IN TOUCH

  Illustration © Tom Edwards - TomEdwardsDesign.com

  Win a beautiful poster of the cover art, signed by the author!

  DanielArenson.com/Win

  CHAPTER ONE

  On a cold dark night, the angels of death came with fire.

  Their starships plunged through the clouds, leaving wakes of flame. Their engines rumbled like hellish beasts hungry for flesh. Their wings tore the sky.

  They found us. God above. They're here.

  David stood on the rocky ground, staring up at the flaming shards of black metal, these chariots of vengeance. His breath died.

  For years we hid. For years we cowered. For years we survived.

  His chest shook. His legs seemed bolted onto the stony ground of this godforsaken planet. He managed to move his hand—it felt like bending steel—and grab his railgun.

  But somehow the bastards found us.

  The ships swooped, still blazing with atmospheric entry, shedding fire and ash like reptiles shedding skin. There were dozens. Maybe hundreds. As they drew nearer, doffing the last of their fiery cloaks, they revealed their true forms: black triangles the size of buildings. Red portholes blazed upon them like wrathful eyes.

  To David, watching from below, they seemed less like starships and more like gods of wrath and retribution.

  The hunters.

  The bane of humanity.

  The scorpions.

  For so long, David had run, had hidden. Now his judgment day had come.

  No.

  David gritted his teeth.

  I fled the war. But I'm still a fighter. I'm David Emery, descended of heroes from old Earth. He sneered. And I will fight.

  He snapped out of his paralysis. He raised his railgun, a heavy assault rifle mounted with a grenade launcher.

  He fired.

  A grenade soared skyward at hypersonic speed. Even years after defecting, David's aim was still true. The shell slammed into a starship.

  An explosion filled the sky. Shards of metal hailed onto the planet, hissing, digging holes through the rock. The wounded ship lurched and slammed into its neighbor. Both vessels careened, belching smoke and flame and a million sparks like cascading stars.

  Yet hundreds of ships still descended, and more kept plunging through the clouds that forever draped this cursed world, and the sky burned.

  David could not shoot them all.

  He turned and ran.

  He raced past his buckets of truffles and worms. He had been collecting the food for his family. Truffles and worms were the only edible things that grew on this world. David had chosen this place for its desolation. Harmonia was a distant planet, far from the front line, its soil barren of precious minerals, its sky forever wreathed in ash. A dead, forgotten world, useless to the great powers that fought among the stars. An oasis where he had hoped to survive.

  How had the enemy found him? Had somebody betrayed him? Had the aliens intercepted their lone trading starship, captured the pilot, tortured him?

  Right now that didn't matter.

  Right now seventy-eight humans underground needed him.

  Right now David Emery must do what he had always done. What all humans, their homeworld fallen, must do.

  He must keep surviving.

  As he ran, his amulet swung on its chain. The Earthstone. The memories and soul of humanity. Yes, this amulet too he must protect. This was a treasure that could not, must not, fall into enemy claws. The fate of humanity hung around his neck.

  David reached the cave. He spun around to see enemy starships landing on the planet. Their hatches opened. The aliens stirred within.

  David aimed his railgun and fired.

  A shell flew into one ship. Flames roared and creatures shrieked. David spun away and leaped into the cave.

  He raced down the dark tunnel.

  "Scorpions!" he shouted. "Warriors, arise! Scorpions!"

  Warriors? They were those who had fled the war. Cowards, some called them. Traitors, others said. But tonight they would fight. Tonight they would be warriors again. One last time—for humanity, for the remnants of this endangered species, hunted and dispersed among the stars. For a memory of Earth.

  David kept running. Behind him, he heard the aliens scuttling in pursuit, their claws clattering down the tunnel. Their stench filled the cave. God, the stench of them—a miasma like burnt skin and ash and ammonia, the stink of piss on a smoldering campfire.

  The smell summoned memories like demons, and again David was back there, fighting with the Inheritors, battling the aliens in their hives. Again he heard his comrades scream. Again he felt their blood spray him, hot and coppery. Again he saw the claws rise, tearing his brothers apart, and—

  David shoved the memory aside.

  You still have family, he told himself. Defend them. Survive!

  "Warriors, rise!" David cried again.

  And from the depths of the caves, they emerged. Twenty men in body armor, holding railguns. They were thin, haggard, hungry. They were perhaps cowards. They were those who had defected, had fled the war, seeking safety in darkness.

  So let us now be heroes, David thought. One last time. If we must die, let us die with honor.

  David joined his comrades. The cave tunnel was just wide enough for three men to stand abreast. David knelt, gun pointing ahead, and a man knelt on each side. Three more men raised railguns over their heads.

  Before them, like demons surging from the abyss, they charged.

  Shrieking.

  Eyes blazing.

  Hungry for the meals to come.

  Here they were. Those who had slain David's brothers, who had slain countless humans. Those he could never flee.

  Some called them the Skra-Shen, their true name. Others called them the flayers, for they adorned their lairs with the skins of their victims. Some whispered in fear of the bloodclaws or shadow hunters.

  To humans, they had just one name. The name of an
animal from old Earth, said to resemble these aliens from the depths. A name that filled every man, woman, and child with horror.

  Scorpions.

  The scorpions from Earth were small, David had heard. No larger than his hand. The aliens that charged toward him were the size of horses. Black exoskeletons coated them, harder than the toughest steel. Their pincers gleamed, large enough to slice men in half. Their eyes blazed—red, narrow, flaming with malice. Stingers curled over their heads, dripping venom.

  They came from deep in Hierarchy territory, from a planet no human had ever seen. Some claimed the scorpions had emerged from a black hole, while others whispered of beasts from another dimension. They were apex predators. They had conquered countless worlds, yet humans were their favorite prey.

  And now they raced toward David and his comrades, screaming for flesh.

  David shouted and opened fire.

  His railgun roared with fury and flame, and a shell exploded against a scorpion.

  An instant later, his comrades fired too, screaming, blasting hypersonic lead against the enemy.

  In old legends of Earth, the mythical heroes used gunpowder to fight the monsters from the darkness. Railguns were far deadlier. They used electromagnetic hellfire to launch bullets powerful enough to tear through buildings. One bullet hit the cave wall and plowed a hole through the stone, vanishing in the darkness.

  Yet even these mighty weapons barely dented the scorpions' exoskeletons. One bullet sank into a creature's head, but only an inch deep, not even slowing the alien. Another bullet ripped off a claw, yet even that digit kept crawling, snapping, thirsty for blood.

  David could barely breathe. His head spun.

  We're going to die. We're all going to die here.

  The scorpions' stingers rose.

  Venom sprayed.

  The humans screamed.

  A blast of venom hit someone at David's side. The man howled as his face melted. The features dripped off, revealing the bone, until the skull too dissolved. Another venomous spray hit a man behind David, and the warrior bellowed, clawing at his face. The skin came free in his hands. Droplets sizzled against David, burning through his pant leg, through his skin and flesh, eating at his thigh bone like worms through wood.

  David screamed and kept firing, launching both bullets and grenades, unable to stop the aliens. A scorpion reached the defenders. A pincer grabbed a man and lifted him high. The claw tightened, slicing the man clean in two. Entrails and blood spilled, and the scorpion tossed the two halves aside, laughing. Another warrior charged forward, face gone but still firing his gun, only for claws to rip off his limbs.

  The carnage spread around David—fire, smoke, burning skin, scattered gobbets of flesh. In the old tales, battles were glorious and noble and pure, yet here was a nightmare.

  And from the inferno, rose a voice.

  A voice David recognized.

  A voice gritty, hissing, a voice like flames crawling over sand.

  A voice from David's deepest, darkest memories.

  "Hello again, old enemy." Metallic eyes blazed through the smoke. "David Emery . . . the coward tries to roar."

  Around him, the last defenders of the cave fell. David remained alone. He clenched his jaw, knelt, and grabbed a grenade from a dead man's belt.

  David was bleeding, maybe dying. But he had no time for pain.

  He hurled the grenade above the hissing, cackling creatures. He aimed not at them—but at the ceiling.

  He turned and ran.

  Behind him, the explosion rocked the tunnel. Fire washed across David's back. Stones rained. Shock waves pounded him, knocking him down. Sound pulsed across him like waves, the roar of a god, rising louder and louder until something shattered in his ears and the world was ringing sirens and white light.

  David lay for a moment, maybe dying, blanketed in stones and heat and pounding sound.

  He forced himself up, leaving blood on the stones, and turned to see that the tunnel had collapsed behind him.

  For an instant, he dared to hope. Dared to believe that the boulders had buried the scorpions. That perhaps he had redeemed himself, had slain the beasts.

  Then the stones shifted. Cackles rose behind them. Dust flew and rocks tumbled. Behind the blockage, the scorpions were still alive.

  And they were digging.

  David limped deeper into the cave, barely able to run now, his ears ringing, his legs bleeding. He had only moments, he knew, until the scorpions surged again.

  I have to get you out.

  His blood kept flowing.

  I have to save you, my family.

  He limped onward, past and present blending. The ghosts of his dead brothers danced before his eyes, and behind him the creatures howled.

  He stumbled into the crystal cavern, the home he had built here for his community. When David had found this place two years ago, he had thought it beautiful. Silver and indigo quartz covered the walls. Crystalline stalagmites rose like the towers of a gleaming city. Stalactites shimmered, shining with internal fire. Glowing microbes lived inside the crystals, filling them with blue and lavender light. David still remembered the day he had brought his family here, how his wife's eyes had widened in wonder, how little Jade had laughed with joy.

  Across the cave, the colonists were whispering prayers. Some held weapons with shaky hands. Others held their children. A few dozen humans—thin, haggard. Long ago, they had defected. Yes, maybe they were cowards. David had chosen life over courage. Yet had death now found them?

  David's family huddled under an overhanging shelf of lavender and indigo quartz. His wife, Sarai, clutched a rifle. Her eyes shone with courage. She was a petite woman, yet strong and fierce when defending her family. Her golden braid hung across her shoulder, showing the first few silver hairs. David still remembered the day they had met, children on a faraway moon, collecting seaweed on an alien shore, food for survivors fleeing from world to world.

  Their two daughters stood by Sarai, two lights that lit David's life, that shone so brightly even here in the shadows.

  Jade was their eldest, six years old. She looked so much like her mother, her hair golden, her eyes green. And like her mother, she was fearless, her knees and elbows always scraped from running through the caves, climbing narrow tunnels, and diving into deep rivers. Hers was a spirit of adventure. Even now, the girl bared her teeth, and she clutched her crystal sword, her favorite toy. Even at six, Jade was prepared to fight for her family. Perhaps, in another life, she might have grown into a warrior.

  But we left the war, David thought. How could I have known the war would follow me here?

  Rowan, his youngest daughter, was nothing like her sister and mother. This one took after David. She had his eyes, solemn and dark. Her brown hair was cut short like a boy's. Even at two years old, she was willful and insisted on cutting it short, on looking just like her daddy. Like David, she was thoughtful, reflective, perhaps wise. Rowan loved reading books, coloring, and building with blocks rather than wrestling, leaping, or running like her sister. In another life, perhaps, she could have grown to become an artist, a writer, a thinker.

  "Be brave, Fillis'er," Rowan whispered to her robot, holding the electronic dragonfly. "I protect you."

  The dragonfly buzzed in her hands, wings fluttering. "I will be brave, Rowan. Would you like to practice counting? Or the alphabet?"

  David's eyes dampened. He had bought the dragonfly for Rowan on his last trip to a trading outpost, a dangerous journey to gather food, medicine, and information. It had come installed with full artificial intelligence, a conscious companion. The little robot sang with Rowan, read her stories, practiced letters and numbers with her. David had even taught Fillister to interface with his starship, to load information from its libraries, even remote-start its engines. In many ways, Fillister had become a family member.

  "Fillis'er, be brave," Rowan repeated. She held the robot close, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Daddy, Fillis'er is scared."
/>   Sudden fury filled David.

  Humanity had once lived on Earth. Once they had ruled an entire planet, their homeworld. Once they had flown fleets to war, had defeated any enemy that dared challenge them. Once the legendary Einav Ben-Ari, the Golden Lioness from the tales, had cast vicious aliens back into the shadows.

  But that had been long ago.

  The Golden Lioness had seen Earth rise to glory, but she was gone now, and so was Earth.

  Both heroine and homeland were now mere legends, perhaps only myths, ancient tales humans whispered of in darkness when all other hope was lost. Some said Earth was just a fiction, that humans had always been homeless, had always wandered across the galaxy, pests for aliens to hunt.

  Once perhaps humans had been many. In the old stories, those you whispered in darkest nights, billions of humans had stood united. But nearly all humans were gone now. Today the last survivors hid—on distant worlds, on castaway moons, inside forgotten asteroids, in rusty space stations. Today the scorpions hunted them everywhere. Today they were like mice who hid in walls, fearing the cats.

  Once David had dared to dream. Once had fought with the Heirs of Earth. Once he had believed in a leader, a hero who claimed to be descended from Einav Ben-Ari herself, who claimed he could find Earth, could bring humanity home.

  After his brothers had died, David had lost hope in those dreams, in that leader.

  But tonight I will dream again, he thought. Tonight I must survive.

  "David!" said Sarai, rising to her feet. Fear filled her eyes, but she stood strong and tall, rifle in hands, her children at her sides. "How many—"

  "Hundreds," David said. "We evacuate. Now. To the port! Run!"

  In the tunnel behind David, rocks tumbled. The scorpions screeched, and their claws clattered anew.

  David scooped up Rowan, and the solemn toddler clung to him, her dragonfly buzzing in her fist. Sarai lifted Jade, and the older girl snarled, green eyes blazing, her crystal sword held high. Across the hall, other people lifted their children, their elders, their ill and wounded.

  The humans ran.

  They raced through the glittering cavern, passing by quartz crystals the size of starships, between gleaming columns that could support cathedrals, and across a stream where luminous caterpillars wove lavender webs. For two years, this had been their home. For two years, they had found safety, beauty, even some joy here. Now, behind them, the columns shattered as the scorpions raced into the chasm, and crystals came crashing down like shattering chandeliers.