By Daniel Arenson
MAIREAD “FIREBUG” MCQUEEN LOVED THREE THINGS: a good romp in bed, an ice-cold beer, and killing aliens.
Today she was hoping for all three.
She leaned back in her Firebird’s cockpit, kicked off her boots, and slapped her bare feet onto the dashboard. She tossed back her red hair, lit a cigar, and took a puff.
“All right, lads,” Mairead said, speaking into her comm. “We do this quick and easy. We’ll be in and out before they know what hit ’em.” She glanced out the cockpit at the starfighter beside her. “Sort of how you bang a lass, Pharaoh.”
Ramses “Pharaoh” al Masri, the pilot flying nearby, flipped her off. Mairead gave him a wink.
She shoved down the throttle, and her Firebird blazed forth.
“Try to keep up, lads.” She blew a smoke ring, charging through space. “Last one there does our laundry.”
Ramses stormed forward at her side, his starfighter just barely keeping up. She could practically hear him cringe through the comm.
“I’m not touching your unmentionables,” he said.
Mairead snorted. “Unmentionables? What the muck are you, the Queen of England?”
“You know I’m descended of Egypt’s great pharaohs,” Ramses said. “Show some respect.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll show you my freckled arse if you beat me to the planet.”
The other Firebirds raced close behind them. They were fifteen starfighters, an entire squad, all under Mairead’s command. She was only twenty-three. She was the youngest pilot here. But she was also the best damn pilot the Heirs of Earth had.
And she never let anyone forget it.
Even now, as she charged to battle, Mairead gave a showy barrel roll. Her starfighter’s twin engines left a double helix of fire.
Mairead loved serving on large starships like the ISS Jerusalem, cavernous frigates one could get lost in. She loved fighting on planets, the sun baking her hair, the ground firm beneath her feet. But she loved flying her Firebird. This small starfighter, just large enough for one pilot—this was true freedom.
The fleet’s hulking warships were far behind her now. Only a handful of Firebirds flew here. Around Mairead spread the galaxy in all its splendor. Countless stars. A great spiral arm that spilled across the distance. Nothing but open space and adventure.
And somewhere out there, beyond the darkness, too far to see, Earth waited.
At least, that’s what the legends said. Mairead wasn’t sure she believed Earth existed. Oh, she had said her vows like everyone else. When she had joined the Heirs of Earth, she had professed her belief in Earth, had sworn to bring humanity home. But it seemed laughable. An actual homeworld for humanity?
There were thousands of alien civilizations in this galaxy. They all had planets of their own. All but humans.
For thousands of years, we wandered the darkness, Mairead thought. Hiding. Hunted. Dying. A species without a home.
So no, maybe Earth did not truly exist. Maybe, as many claimed, humans had always been homeless, doomed to forever wander the galaxy, fleeing the hunters.
But Mairead was no animal of prey. She would not be hunted.
I am the huntress, she thought.
And there ahead she saw it. Their destination.
From here, it was only a green dot, soon growing into a sphere. The jungle world of Saropia.
“If the galaxy has an arsehole, it’s this planet,” Mairead muttered.
“Language!” Ramses said.
She scoffed. “Sorry, Mother.”
The fifteen Firebirds flew closer.
Saropia grew larger, soon filling half their field of vision. A rainforest covered the equatorial regions, fading to grasslands, deserts, and finally hinterlands and frozen poles. It was a nice world, as far as they went. Most worlds were lifeless, airless chunks of rock. Saropia was lush with life. That was its blessing—but also its curse.
Pretty much every plant and animal on the planet would kill you.
“Why the hell did humans ever bother settling here?” Mairead muttered.
“They didn’t settle here,” Ramses said softly. “They’re hiding here.”
“Mucked up place to hide, if you ask me,” Mairead said. “They say there are mosquitos the size of horses, venomous trees with claws on their branches, and Ra damn dinosaurs. Dinosaurs, Pharaoh! Giant reptiles who’ll bite off your tadger if you pull it out to piss.”
“Language!” Ramses said again. “But yes, you’re right. Nobody in their right mind would settle Saropia. Which is why, I presume, the human colonists chose it. The Peacekeepers Corps, the Skra-Shen Empire, or anyone else who hunts us would have to be mad to visit. Of course humans would hide here.”
“Lovely idea,” Mairead muttered. “At least until the dinos start chomping their wee tadgers, and we’re called in to save ’em.” She sighed. “No matter. I’ve always wanted to kick a dino up the arse. Good day for it.”
They flew onward toward the planet. The call had come in only yesterday. Only a few words, sent into the darkness.
Only fifty of us remain. We are human. We are hunted. Help us, Heirs of Earth!
And so the Heirs of Earth were coming to help.
Whenever humans were in danger—the Heirs of Earth would be there.
We are a homeless species, Mairead thought. Endangered. Scattered across a thousand worlds. Aliens hunt us everywhere. But we are not powerless. We have the Heirs of Earth.
The fifteen starfighters plunged into the planet’s atmosphere, ionizing the air. They dived down like flaming comets, moving faster than sound. The rich, yellow sky spread around them, filled with golden haze and blankets of silver clouds. They slowed down, then dived through the clouds, emerging into curtains of rain. The wet sheets swayed and shimmered around them. Jungles spread below, covering the land, parting only for a snaking river. It felt like flying through an oil painting, still wet and blending and changing with every brush stroke.
Freedom, Mairead thought. Beauty.
She wondered what Earth looked like—assuming it was real. She had never seen Earth, of course. No human had in two thousand years. But she had heard tales. They said Earth’s sky was blue, her forests green, her fields golden. The description sounded drab to Mairead. She imagined that in real life, Earth would have a million shades like this planet, but less like a dramatic oil painting. More like a watercolor painting, gentle and beautiful.
Maybe Earth is real, Mairead thought. Maybe someday I’ll fly in that sky too. Maybe someday I’ll fly not to battle but to—
Dark shapes rose from the jungle ahead, tearing her from her thoughts.
Mairead leaned forward, staring.
“What the hell?” She squinted. “Are those enemy ships or...”
Ramses, flying beside her, inhaled sharply. “Dinos!”
Mairead’s eyes widened. “Bloody hell. The size of them!”
The beasts came flying toward the starfighters, twenty or more. Yes, these were living creatures, their wings massive. Giant, flying reptiles. They were not true dinosaurs, of course. They were aliens. But the nickname served them well. The animals were primitive, prodigious, and pissed off.
“They’re taking battle formations,” Mairead said.
Ramses snorted. “They’re just animals, Firebug.”
“Yeah, well, I know a damn Kummerow Gambit assault formation when I see one.” Mairead sneered and switched on her cannons. “Prepare for a battle, lads!”
The flying dinosaurs were close now. Only seconds away. Each creature was easily the size of a Firebird starfighter. Their jaws thrust out, lined with teeth like swords. Their claws gleamed. Their wings stirred the rain.
Ramses cleared his throat. “Firebug, may I remind you that the Heirs of Earth forbid harming native alien lifeforms. Our mission is to save humans, not to—”
The flying dinosaurs opened their jaws and blasted out fire.
The flaming jets spun like tornados, crackling, spraying sparks.
Mairead cried out and jerked her yoke, swerving. She dodged a jet. She nearly slammed into the Firebird beside her. The others were desperate to flee too. One Firebird tried to rise, but another starfighter flew directly above.
A fiery jet washed over the Firebird.
The pilot screamed.
The cockpit melted under the blaze. The starfighter careened and plunged toward the jungle.
“Kill those scabby wallopers!” Mairead cried, pulling her triggers.
Her Firebird’s Gatling guns fired. A hailstorm of bullets flew toward the flying beasts. The other Firebirds charged, releasing more volleys.
Several dinos fell, wings riddled with bullet holes. The other aliens scattered, soared, and vanished into the clouds.
The remaining Firebirds kept gliding over the forest.
“Come back, ya bastards!” Mairead shouted at the clouds. “Firebirds, chase the damn dinos. We’ll kill every last—”
“Firebug!” Ramses said. “This is not our mission.”
“They killed Captain de Vries!” she cried. “It’s personal now. It’s—”
Suddenly, from the clouds above, descended a rain of fire.
Flaming pillars slammed into two more Firebirds.
Two more pilots screamed, their starfighters shattering.
Muck! Mairead thought. The dinos were learning.
She sneered, tugged back her yoke, and soared into the clouds.
The dinos were waiting there. Ra damn. There were a hundred or more now. When they saw Mairead entering their cloudy domain, they unleashed a torrent of hellfire her way.
Mairead screamed and barrel-rolled.
She spun madly, wings like a propeller, scattering clouds. The dinosaur fire spurted around her, grazing her hull, charring one wing.
Die, you bastards.
Mairead released two missiles.
The missiles flew, screaming through the clouds, leaving fiery wakes … and missed.
They missed!
Of course they missed, Mairead thought. The missiles were heat-seeking. The dinos were coldblooded reptiles.
And they reached her Firebird.
The beasts grabbed her hull, scratched her fuselage, pecked her wings. By Ra, the animals were huge. They were larger than her starfighter. Their red eyes stared through her cockpit, and she saw intelligence.
She dipped out of the clouds. Three of the animals clung to her, weighing her down. Her hull dented. One of the beasts raised its massive jaw. It had a snout like a damn battering ram.
The dino thrust its snout forward, slamming it into her cockpit.
The transparent canopy shattered.
Mairead screamed.
The wind whipped her, billowing her red hair. Shards of plastic stung her. Her ship tumbled through clouds and rain and smoke. The dino clung to her starfighter, shrieking. Its snout reached into her shattered cockpit, each tooth like a katana.
One of those teeth scraped Mairead’s arm, and blood spurted.
Her starfighter plunged downward, careening, tumbling toward the forest.
The beast opened its jaws wide, screeching so loudly Mairead screamed in agony.
She drew a pistol from her belt.
“Eat lead, hooch.”
She fired on automatic, emptying a magazine into its open jaws.
Its brains splattered across her dashboard. Its body slumped off her prow and tumbled down.
Mairead was near the ground now, far below the other Firebirds. Two dinos were still gripping her fuselage, shoving her toward the forest.
Mairead struggled not to pass out. She could barely breathe. The G-force was pounding her. Wind shrieked through the shattered canopy, whipping her face with rain, each drop like a hornet's sting. With a shaky hand, she reached toward her bloody dashboard. She flipped a red switch.
Her engines roared on full afterburner. Searing, white-hot fire burst out from her exhaust.
The two dinos screamed and released her Firebird.
Mairead wanted to grab her helmet and oxygen tank. She had no time. She spun around, faced the two burnt dinos, and opened fire.
Her missiles slammed into them at point-blank range.
The missiles exploded as she soared.
The dinos splattered her starfighter with a million chunks of gooey meat.
Mairead grabbed her helmet, put it on, and inhaled deeply. She flew higher and found the rest of her squadron battling the last few dinos.
She rejoined the fight, sneering.
She flew with furious speed, bullets flying, missiles blasting, slaying the beasts. She was Captain Mairead McQueen. She was the best damn pilot humanity had. And she proved it in this alien sky.
Finally the last dinos turned to flee.
This time they did not come back.
Mairead sent a missile after them, taking out one of the cowards. The others squawked and vanished around a mountain.
“Yeah, you better run, you scabby bastards!” she said.
The dinos had taken out five of her Firebirds. Five of her friends. A third of her squadron.
A squadron we need to fight the damn scorpions who hunt us across the galaxy, she thought. The humans on this planet better be worth it.
“Come on,” Mairead said into her comm, shoving down the rising horror. “Let’s find these humans and get the hell out of here.”
The rest of the fleet kept flying. Ramses was still here. That was good. Mairead would never admit it, but she was relieved. She liked Pharaoh. Even if he sometimes beat her at cards.
They flew several times faster than sound. The forests and rivers streamed beneath them. Finally they saw it ahead—the valley the Mayday had come from. The words from the distress call returned to her.
Only fifty of us remain. We are human. We are hunted. Help us, Heirs of Earth!
Mairead shuddered.
In the valley below, she saw signs of civilization. A collapsed barn. Trampled fields. Ravaged gardens and fallen huts. A town had been here.
A human town.
Mairead saw the skeletons.
“What the hell happened here?” she said. “Did the damn dinos do all this? They’re only animals. They should care about nothing more than eating and mucking. What made them go berserk?”
Ramses inhaled sharply. “Look!”
The Firebirds glided through sheets of rain, emerged into a sunlit field, and saw it.
Mairead lost her breath.
Dinosaurs. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. An entire army of alien dinosaurs.
These were not the aerial ones. Here were large land animals, each one the size of a damn T-rex. They were charging, attacking a stone silo from all sides.
Atop the silo, Mairead saw them.
Humans.
“Kill the damn reptiles!” she shouted.
She flew above the beasts and released her bombs.
Dinosaurs exploded below.
Her fellow Firebirds dived and released their own ordnance.
Explosions rocked the valley. Chunks of dinosaurs flew.
The beasts below roared. The valley shook. Hundreds of the reptiles raised their heads and blasted up fire.
Flaming pillars soared like volcano fire.
Mairead jerked her yoke from side to side, swerving around a thousand columns of flame. She flew closer to the ground, firing bullets. Dinosaurs fell, their fire dying. She carved a path through the flaming pillars.
Atop the silo, the last few humans were fighting too. They had cannons, rifles, grenades. Dead dinosaurs were piled up around them.
Mairead didn’t understand it. Clearly, the humans had been living here for years. After all, they had built a town, barns, had plowed the fields. What had caused the dinosaurs to go mad, to attack like an army?
And since when did damn animals blow fire?
She had no time to contemplate it further. The beasts below were regrouping. The massive reptiles forgot about the silo now. They were concentrating their fire on the starfighters. A jet slammed into a Firebird, and the pilot screamed. His starfighter plunged down, slammed into several dinos, and exploded. Another starfighter shattered in midair.
The starfighters rose and swooped again and again, exhausting their missiles and bombs, finally firing only bullets. Dinosaur corpses piled up. But more of the animals kept emerging from the jungle, swarming across the valley, and attacking both the silo below and the starfighters above.
“What the hell?” Mairead shouted, dodging another fiery jet.
“Firebug, we have to flee!” Ramses said. “We’ll come back with heavy bombers. We’ll—”
“By the time we get back, every damn colonist in that silo will be dead!” she shouted.
Mairead rose and dived again, firing bullets. She swerved around another flaming jet. Sparks flew into her shattered cockpit, singing her.
Mairead narrowed her eyes, examining the valley.
The dinosaurs are moving like soldiers, she thought.
But it was impossible. They were dumb animals. Had to be. Mairead had read every report about this planet, knew the wildlife was vicious but mindless.
And yet she saw it now. The dinosaurs were moving in units. Brigades. Battalions. Swarming at the vanguard, protecting the flanks, spraying fire.
There was something vaguely familiar about that.
Mairead gasped.
Memories flooded her.
Two years ago. She had been only a lieutenant. She had attacked a planet overrun with scorpions. She had seen a thousand of the beasts attack a human settlement. The Heirs of Earth had failed to save those humans, and Mairead had never forgotten that defeat. A scar from that day still stretched across her left ribs.
These dinosaurs move like scorpions, she thought.
“They’re drones,” she whispered.
“What?” Ramses said, flying above her now.
“The dinosaurs!” she shouted. “They’re Ra damn drones! The scorpions must have done something to them. They’re controlling their brains somehow.”
“Firebug, listen to yourself!” Ramses said. “Zombie dinos?”
She ignored him. She spoke into her comm. “All pilots! Surround the valley, face inward, and blast out an EMP attack. Disrupt all signals on every frequency. If there are any radio signals flying here, I want them jammed. If there are any electronics in this valley, I want them fried. Go! Now!”
The Firebirds spread out, flying in rings around the valley.
Mairead turned on her EMP system—a weapon designed to disrupt alien tech. Admiral Emet had insisted on installing these systems on all Firebird fighters. Mairead had always thought them useless, but now she was willing to try.
“Fire!” she cried.
She blasted out EMP pulses from her starfighter.
Around the valley, the other Firebirds bathed the valley with electromagnetic radiation.
It was harmless to flesh. But it was devastating to electronics.
For a moment, nothing happened.
The starfighters kept flying, pounding the valley with pulse after pulse.
And then the dinosaurs fell.
Wave after wave of them collapsed.
Soon the valley was covered with dead aliens.
Mairead exhaled in relief. She landed her Firebird by the silo, crushing a dead dinosaur’s tail. She climbed out of the cockpit and leaped onto the grass.
The dead reptiles spread around her. From down here, they seemed even larger. Most were larger than her starfighter. There were various species. Some were carnivores with massive toothy jaws. Others were herbivores, and they were even larger, lying across the valley like beached whales.
Mairead approached one of the dead dinos. She frowned.
“What the hell?”
There was an electronic device lodged into the dino’s head. It looked like a spark plug. The round tip crackled, glowing blue. Mairead grabbed the device, placed her foot against the lizard’s carcass, and tugged back with all her strength.
The implant came free with a spurt of blood. Cables stretched out from it, running through the wound and into the dinosaur’s head. Mairead spent a while fishing out the cables. It felt like pulling out a damn tapeworm. The cables finally came free, tips sparking.
The other starfighters landed in the field, and their pilots emerged. Ramses approached her.
“What the devil is that?” the tall man said.
Mairead stared at the bloody implant and dangling cables. “Scorpion tech. The scorpions were controlling them.”
She couldn’t suppress a shudder. The Skra-Shen, the giant scorpions from deep space, were the greatest enemies humanity faced. Mairead had fought dozens of alien species. None were as vicious as the scorpions.
Ramses stroked his pointy beard. “Damn. I can’t believe this.”
Mairead raised an eyebrow. “Why not? You know the scorpions are a technological species. If they can build starships, they can build crude mind-jacks.”
“Not that,” Ramses said. “I mean: I can’t believe you were right about something.”
She punched him. “Oh, shut the hell—”
Suddenly she stepped back, inhaling sharply. She drew her pistol.
Ramses frowned. “What?”
“I just realized something,” she whispered. “If the scorpions controlled the dinos, that means—”
Before she could complete her sentence, the ground cracked open. And the beast emerged.
A creature of claws. Of pincers larger enough to slice a man in half.
A Skra-Shen.
A scorpion.
It was smaller than the dinos—the size of a horse rather than a whale. But here was the species that had conquered half the galaxy, that was hunting humans everywhere. It was deadlier than a hundred dinosaurs.
Mairead opened fire, screaming.
Her other pilots drew their own pistols. Bullets peppered the scorpion.
It kept running, claws tearing up dirt and dead dinosaurs. The shots ricocheted off the scorpion’s exoskeleton, doing it no harm. The scorpion raised its stinger and shot a jet of venom. A pilot screamed and fell, clutching at his face, his skin melting.
Mairead turned and ran.
The scorpion leaped among the pilots, clawing, tearing them apart. Their bullets slammed into it again and again, doing nothing.
Mairead leaped into her Firebird and kick-started the engines.
“Hey, arsehole!” she shouted over her shoulder at the scorpion. “I’m going to bomb you from the air!”
She was out of missiles. She was out of bombs.
Luckily, the scorpion didn’t know that.
The beast left the pilots and bounded across the valley toward her.
The scorpion leaped toward the starfighter, pincers opening wide.
Mairead switched on the afterburner.
Searing streams of white-hot inferno blazed over the creature.
She kept the starfighter on the ground, engines blazing, the fire washing across the alien. The exoskeleton melted. The soft flesh inside boiled. By the time Mairead powered down, there was nothing left of the scorpion but shards of shell and ashes.
Mairead stepped out of her Firebird and spat onto the smoldering remains.
“Arsehole,” she said.
The colonists finally emerged from their silo. They were only about thirty, Mairead saw, and her heart sank. The message had said there were fifty.
The colonists approached the surviving pilots, embraced them, and some even fell to their knees and wept.
“Thank you,” they said, tears falling. “Thank you, Heirs of Earth.”
Mairead looked around her. She had thought this planet beautiful from above. Now she saw desolation. Crashed starfighters. The bodies of friends. Plumes of smoke rose, and the stench of death filled her nostrils.
Mairead lowered her head.
Earth is real, she thought. It must be real. Because I cannot believe in a galaxy where all planets are places of despair. I must believe. That we have a good home. That we will someday return.
She pulled out her comm and hailed the fleet. Soon a transport vessel glided down to the valley, and the refugees climbed in. The shuttle rose, flanked by starfighters, taking the refugees up to the main Inheritor fleet.
But Mairead stayed on the planet. The shuttle had brought her a replacement cockpit canopy. She would need a few hours to work, to repair her ship.
To her surprise, Ramses remained planetside with her.
“Don’t you have any girls to woo up in the fleet?” Mairead said. She stood on a ladder, leaning over her cockpit, working with a wrench.
“Undoubtedly,” he said. “But somebody needs to guard your ass down here while you work.”
She leaned into the cockpit, reaching for a screw. “Yeah, well, keep your eyes off my arse while I work.”
“Please,” Ramses said. “There are much more pleasant things to look at down here. Rotting dinosaur corpses, for one.”
She turned from the cockpit to flip him the bird.
Ramses opened his pack. He pulled out a silver, filigreed dallah with a long spout.
“Firebug, take a coffee break with me,” he said. “I’m brewing a batch of the finest Egyptian beans, seasoned with cardamom. The drink of the gods.”
She scoffed. “Coffee is for sissies. I drink Scotch.”
“Mairead,” he said, voice softer now. “Join me.”
She gazed into his eyes, silent for a moment. She put down her wrench, climbed off the ladder, and sat beside him.
He brewed the coffee, which he served in small porcelain cups. The drink was very dark, thick, and bitter. And, Mairead had to admit, it was heavenly. As they sipped, the corpses lay around them, smoldering, and ash rained from the sky. For a long time, they drank in silence.
“Mairead,” Ramses finally said. “Are you all right?”
Mairead cursed the damn tears that flowed down her cheeks. “No,” she whispered.
Ramses put down his cup. Mairead tossed her own aside and embraced him, clinging to him desperately, crushing him in her arms. Her tears flowed. Ramses wrapped his arms around her and stroked her long red hair.
“None of this is right,” he said softly. “I know. But we have to believe. That Earth is out there. That we’ll see her again. That we’ll bring everyone home.”
Mairead sniffed. “I believe. Earth is real. We’ll find her someday. We’ll fly there together through blue skies over green hills. We’ll see all the places from the legends. The rolling oceans. The soaring mountains. The highlands of Scotland.”
“The golden desert of Egypt,” Ramses said, “and the glory of the pyramids.”
“Home,” Mairead whispered. “That’s why we fight, isn’t it? For home.”
“For home,” he agreed. “Now let me help you with your cockpit. You’re a damn fine pilot, Firebug, but a horrible mechanic.”
Normally she would have punched him. Today she laughed.
They fixed her cockpit. They soared back into space, flying their Firebirds. They rejoined the Heirs of Earth, humanity’s only fleet. A group of twenty warships. A handful of starfighters. A few cargo hulls. That was it. A humble fleet, far from home. The last remnants of humanity’s ancient glory. A group of refugees, their homeworld lost in shadows.
With bursts of light, the starships ignited their warp drives. They blasted into the distance, seeking a mythical star and a lost home.