United as One

by Pittacus Lore

  “Heartening,” Lawson responds.

  “They want to occupy Earth, not blast it to inhabitability,” Lexa continues. “Doesn’t knowing that give us some advantage?”

  “Could Setrákus Ra be bluffing?” Lawson asks.

  “It’s true that my people want to occupy,” Adam says with a thoughtful frown. “In all likelihood, the fleet isn’t capable of another intergalactic trip. They need to stay here. But if you think that somehow limits their willingness to destroy even dozens of cities, you underestimate them.”

  “So we’re back to a doomsday countdown,” Lawson replies. “Once you attack Ra, we have to assume that countdown stops and the destruction begins.”

  “What happens when he recovers and realizes his deadline passed while he was licking his wounds?” Six interjects. “He’ll attack then anyway.”

  “Exactly.” Lawson nods. “The attacks are an inevitability either way. That doesn’t mean we want to hurry them up. We want to be as ready as we can be. Get as many civilians to safety as possible. Use every minute of this delay you’ve given us.”

  “You want us to wait,” I say, gritting my teeth. Although I still need more time to collect Legacies, I’m eager for a fight. Right now, it’s what I’m living for. Sitting through this meeting has been difficult enough. “How long?”

  “It isn’t easy coordinating a series of international strikes against a technologically superior opponent,” Lawson says. “We’ve received the cloaking devices your team recovered from Mexico, and our science guys are attempting to reverse engineer them.”

  Lawson’s people have probably spent more time with those cloaking devices than I have. Lexa—who I only met in person this morning—brought the Mogadorian technology to me first thing. They don’t look all that impressive. Solid black boxes with a few inputs and wires, about the size of a paperback book, but they’re the key to the human armies having a chance. We turned most of them over to Lawson a couple of hours before this meeting. We kept the one already installed in Lexa’s ship, and I set one aside for myself.

  “I can help with that,” Adam says to Lawson. “I know the tech fairly well.”

  “I appreciate that, Mr. Mog,” Lawson replies. “Even if we do crack the devices and put them into production, we’ve still got to get this tech into the hands of our allies around the world. Now that we know what they look like, other countries, particularly India, have had some success knocking down the Skimmers during skirmishes and stripping out the cloaking devices themselves. Assuming we get beyond the shields, we’re still assessing whether we’ll be better served attempting to board these warships or rely on ballistic missiles.”

  “Neither approach will be easy,” Adam replies.

  “Can’t you just nuke them?” Nine asks.

  Lawson’s eyes narrow. “We’re evacuating our imperiled cities, young man, but there are still people down there. Nuclear warfare is off the table here in America. I can’t say the same for other countries. . . .”

  “Bad enough to blow up those giant ships over the cities,” Daniela mutters.

  Lawson holds up a hand. “One problem at a time. Regardless of what approach we take, the cloaking devices remain our biggest hurdle. We’re working with an incredibly small stockpile when we need one per ship or one per missile. And then there’s the small matter of getting them into the hands of our allies.” Lawson pauses for breath. “How long will it take to have enough on hand to mount an attack on the warships?”

  “All of them?” I ask. “At once?”

  “That’s how this operations plays out, John. We hit them all at once to maximize our only advantage . . . the element of surprise. If we let them know we can break their shields too early, the parameters change. They might step up their attacks. Right now, they’ve got a boot on our necks; they think we’re pinned, out of the fight. They don’t know we’ve still got a knife up our sleeve. But we need that tech. And we’re up against a ticking clock. Unless you know how long Setrákus Ra will be in this vat of his?” he asks, looking at Ella.

  Ella shakes her head.

  “Then you understand how precarious our situation is,” Lawson concludes. “We’ll likely get one shot at this, and it needs to be soon.”

  I take all this in, a little on my heels. Lawson doesn’t paint a very rosy picture. Maybe I’m not in the right mind-set to help coordinate an international counterattack. Luckily, I’ve got backup.

  Six peers down the table at Ella. “There are new Loralite stones growing across the Earth, right?”

  “Yes,” Ella says. “I can sense them.”

  Six snaps her fingers. “There you go. We use those to deliver the cloaking devices around the world.”

  Lawson looks at me. “These are the stones you mentioned to the LANEs in your . . . ah . . . psychic briefing, yes?”

  I nod.

  “Hmm.” Lawson glances at the map over his shoulder. “Once we caught wind of those, we encouraged our international partners to lock down as many of them as they could find.”

  I cock my head. “You did?”

  “Yes, John, of course we did. That said, some leaders have outright laughed at me when I asked them to divert resources to guarding some magical rocks. Not to mention, we only know the location of a fraction of these Loralite growths.”

  “How many human Garde have been intercepted?” I ask, my voice cold.

  “A few,” Lawson replies cagily. “For their own protection. Most of them are still overseas. Assuming we survive the next few days, maybe we can discuss how you’ll train them. With proper supervision, of course.”

  I don’t like this. It feels like we’re giving away too much too easily, turning over the Loralite locations to Lawson, not to mention the fledgling human Garde he’s so interested in. Still, what choice do we have? Practically speaking, using the Loralite stones is our only way to get a counterattack ready fast.

  “We’ll help you locate the rest of the Loralite,” I tell Lawson. “Once we’re ready to move the cloaking devices.”

  Lawson smiles at my reluctant concession but moves on quickly. “That’s transport squared away. It still doesn’t solve the problem of quantity.”

  “If we can’t make them quickly enough, we’ll just have to get you more,” I say, the beginning of a plan starting to take shape in my head.

  Nine flashes me a wolfish grin. “Maybe we should go somewhere that we know will have a lot of them.”

  “And where is that?” Lawson asks.

  “One of the warships,” I reply.

  “Didn’t I just explain—?” Lawson snaps, frustration breaking through his patient granddad routine for a moment. He gets hold of himself quickly. “If we attack them—any attack—we risk them laying waste to another one of our cities.”

  “What if we could get in and out of one of their warships without them even noticing?” I pose this to Lawson, but it’s Six who I’m looking at. She smiles at me. I smile back. “What if we could get you a battalion’s worth of cloaking devices before the Mogs even notice they’re missing?”

  “That . . .” Lawson rubs a hand across his jaw, considering. “That I could live with.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HERE’S THE TO-DO LIST.

  Sneak aboard a Mogadorian warship.

  Steal every cloaking device they’ve got without tipping off the Mogs.

  Arm the governments of the world for one big counterstrike.

  Meanwhile, learn every Legacy I can wrap my mind around.

  Kill Setrákus Ra.

  Not necessarily in that order. Especially not the “learn every Legacy” one. Because if I’m going to sneak aboard a Mog warship the way I’m planning, there’s one Legacy in particular I’m going to need first.

  I have to learn how to fly.

  The meeting breaks up after I promise General Lawson we’ll have a plan in place to covertly attack a Mogadorian warship by the end of the day. Hopefully, Ella was right and Setrákus Ra will be out of action for at least
that long. It’s barely even noon yet, and I feel like we’ve already burned too much of the day.

  As everyone hurries through the hallways of Patience Creek to go about their tasks, I pull Adam aside. He looks pale as usual, with the addition of some dark circles around his eyes. Everyone at that meeting had a little bit of similar wear on them. Invasion fatigue is setting in.

  “You all right?” I ask him. “What did they do to you?”

  Adam stares at me, shaking his head. “I’m fine, John. It was nothing. I should be asking how you’re doing.”

  I figured that was coming. Everyone who knew Sarah—from Sam to Walker—all of them keep looking at me like I might fall apart at any second. I hate that. I don’t want to be coddled. I want to fight. I was at least hoping that when it came to Adam, I’d get a pass on the sympathy. Never thought I’d be yearning for some cold Mogadorian logic.

  “I’m dealing,” I tell him, and am surprised by how much edge is in my voice.

  “All right,” Adam replies, obviously getting the hint. He holds up his hands to show me his wrists where the handcuffs are still attached to them. “You mind getting these the rest of the way off?”

  “Yeah, sure. Forgot about those.”

  “It was more about delivering a message to that Lawson guy than getting me out of chains,” Adam says. “I get it.”

  “Well,” I reply with a small smile. “You did look uncomfortable.”

  “So did all those soldiers.” Adam laughs. “It was a good move. You showed strength.”

  I light up my Lumen again, this time focusing it so that it’s limited just to the tip of my index finger. Careful not to burn Adam, I melt through the lock mechanisms on the cuffs until they fall open.

  “What kind of questions were they asking you?” I ask while Adam rubs some feeling back into his wrists.

  “Like I said, it wasn’t so bad. They wanted to know weapon and ship schematics. They wanted to know about the structure of the Mogadorian government and military, which is easy because they’re basically the same thing. They wanted to know what will happen to Mog society if Setrákus Ra is killed.” Adam shrugs. “I would’ve told them all these things even if they hadn’t put me on lockdown and kept me up all night.”

  “Huh,” I say, thinking for a moment. There was actually a question in there that I’d never thought to ask myself. “What will happen when we kill Setrákus Ra?”

  Adam smiles at me, appreciating the certainty in my voice. Then he runs a hand through his stringy black hair, looking thoughtful.

  “Well, I don’t remember a time when there wasn’t a . . . ‘Beloved Leader.’ I’ve got no concept of what our world was like before. Hell, I doubt my parents would even remember. Setrákus Ra rewrote our history books, so, according to them, we weren’t much more than animals before he came along and ‘raised us up.’”

  “I guess it’s too much to ask that they’d just give up and go away,” I reply.

  “Without strip-mining Earth like they did Lorien, the fleet doesn’t have enough fuel to go anywhere.” Adam pauses thoughtfully. “Over a long enough timeline, though, they might go away. . . .”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For all his bluster in that so-called Great Book of his, Setrákus Ra never actually fixed the fertility problems we trueborn experience. He can grow an endless number of vatborn soldiers. Doesn’t change the fact that the trueborn birth rate is totally stagnant.”

  “So the trueborn will slowly die off,” I say, trying to keep my voice suitably grim considering the company, but really feeling nothing for the slow extinction of Mogadorians. “And the vatborn?”

  “As far as I know, the secret to creating them would die with Setrákus Ra.” Adam sees my smile and holds up a cautioning hand. “You need to realize a few things about my people, John. First, the vast majority completely buy in to Setrákus Ra’s twisted idea of Mogadorian Progress, and all of them believe that Setrákus Ra is unkillable. That’s the only thing that’s kept them in line all these centuries. When you kill him, you’ll cut off the vatborn and maybe get a few of the Mogs like me to lay down their weapons—”

  “You think there could be others like you?” I ask, interrupting. I always thought of Adam as unique and considered his seeing the light a side effect of his brush with Number One.

  He looks away. “I . . . don’t know. I’ve met others who I thought . . . maybe . . . I’m not even sure they’re alive at this point.” Adam waves this off. “The point is, even without Setrákus Ra, you’ll still have a heavily armed race of zealots who believe might makes right. How I imagine it going down? First, the trueborn decide who’s strongest by blowing each other up with Earth as their battlefield. Then whoever survives tries to pick up where Setrákus Ra left off. There are a lot of generals, like my father, who would think they’re next in line.”

  “They won’t succeed,” I say absently. In truth, I’m thinking about the idea of Mogs blowing themselves up. If only we could speed that part of the process along.

  “In the long term, no. That’s still years of conflict, John. Here on Earth.”

  “Humanity would be collateral damage,” I say, considering the effects of a Mogadorian civil war. The loss of life would be like New York City all over again. Unless the Mogs did their fighting over cities that were already evacuated . . .

  “Anyway, first we’ve got to actually kill Setrákus Ra, right?” Adam says, patting me on the back. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “I’m going to throw everything I’ve got at him,” I say. “And then some.”

  “We’ll help, too, you know. You’ve got friends in this.”

  I nod. “Yeah. Of course. I know that.”

  Adam starts walking towards the elevator and motions for me to follow. “You got another few minutes? There’s something else I want to show you.”

  I raise my eyebrows and follow after him. The military types coming and going down the brightly lit halls give the two of us a wide berth. I wonder which one of us they’re more afraid of.

  I did a cursory exploration of the Patience Creek facility when I first arrived, familiarizing myself with the important areas—the officer sleeping quarters where we’re staying, the barracks, the holding cells, the gym, the garage—and glossing over the areas where the military are doing their thing. I’m not sure what Adam could’ve discovered in the brief time he was being held prisoner that I haven’t already seen. Then again, a place built as a hideaway for spies would have a lot of secrets.

  “After they interrogated me, they took me down here,” Adam explains as we ride the elevator down two levels. “I guess they didn’t have much hope of this project paying off, so they stuck it out of the way.”

  The level that we exit onto is mostly storage. I passed it over pretty quickly during my walk through. Half the lightbulbs in the hallway need changing. Adam brings me by a few rooms completely filled with dusty crates of dry rations and boxes of Tang, plus a storage space cluttered with seventies-style beach chairs and a moth-eaten volleyball net. Finally, we turn a corner, and Adam opens a door into a room cluttered with stacks of books. A library. At a glance, I realize that most of these yellowed hardbacks are dedicated to topics a spy might find useful in a post-apocalyptic pinch: volumes on gardening, electronics repair and medical treatment.

  I flinch. The small room is filled with the harsh and guttural sounds of Mogadorians barking at each other.

  On a desk in the middle of the room, there’s a wide piece of electronic equipment that looks vaguely familiar. The Mog voices emanate from that. It’s about the size of a car dashboard and covered with strange knobs and gauges. The thing looks like someone recently set fire to it and then dropped it off the side of a building. It’s hooked up to a tangled mess of wires and batteries, apparently drawing a lot of power.

  Then it hits me. What I’m looking at is the control console of a Mogadorian Skimmer, ripped out from the rest of the ship. The console is powered on, thanks to some
complex wiring, and that means the communicator is active.

  Seated in front of the dissected console is an olive-skinned guy who I’d put in his early thirties. His dark hair is cut short, and his cheeks are losing ground to a few days’ worth of stubble. I think I’ve seen him before, although I can’t quite place where and when.

  “Adam, you’re back,” the man says, nodding tiredly. “Been pretty quiet.”

  I turn to Adam and raise an eyebrow.

  “This is Agent Noto,” Adam tells me. “Formerly of MogPro.”

  That’s where I know him from. He was part of the group that Walker brought to Ashwood Estates after they turned on the Mogs.

  “I was worried you wouldn’t be coming back when the soldiers hauled you off earlier,” Noto says. “Got pretty Orwellian for a minute there.”

  Adam smiles at me. “See? I told you my detainment wasn’t all bad. I made a friend. I’ve been helping Noto with his Mogadorian language skills.”

  “You speak their language?” I ask, taking a fresh look at the man.

  “I was liaison to the Mogs during my MogPro days,” Noto explains. “Picked up a few phrases here and there. I can understand so long as they talk slow and at a kindergartner’s level.”

  I step farther into the room, peering at the open notebooks fanned out on the desk. They’re filled with symbols I recognize as Mogadorian letters, each of those represented by a phonetic translation.

  “We’re monitoring the communication between the Mogadorian warships,” Adam says. “I’ve encrypted this module so they won’t have any idea we’re listening in.”

  “With the security you downloaded onto here, we could broadcast back to them, and they still wouldn’t be able to find us,” Noto says admiringly.

  Now I realize why Adam looks so utterly exhausted. It wasn’t just the interrogation keeping him up all night. He’s been sitting here listening to these Mog transmissions, knowing he’s the only one who can translate them.

  “How long does it take to teach basic Mogadorian?” I ask him with a glance at Noto.