United as One

by Pittacus Lore

  “Okay, how long before they notice we just took out their whole grease monkey division?” Six asks, walking closer now that Dust is watching the doors.

  Adam shrugs. “Depends when the next patrol’s supposed to go out.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, striding towards the double doors. “You focus on getting those cloaking devices detached. I’ll see to the rest of the ship.”

  “Be careful,” Six says.

  And then I’m through the doors, BK and Dust on my heels. The short hallway outside the hangar is empty, so I take a moment to crouch down and speak to the Chimærae.

  Watch my back, I tell them. I can do this as long as none of them get behind me, take me by surprise. And we don’t want any of them getting through to Adam and Six.

  As I speak, both Chimærae transform into more imposing creatures. They’re both still doglike, but they’re thickly muscled and razor clawed, with durable, leathery skin and wicked fangs. The only way I can tell them apart is from the streak of gray fur that runs down Dust’s spine.

  “Good look, boys,” I say, and stand up and start deeper into the warship.

  There’s an airlock on the next door that requires some strength to turn. Through that, the hallway opens up, red lit and austere, with doors branching off on either side of me. There’s a pair of Mogadorians walking right towards me, the two of them studying a digital map of Niagara Falls.

  I fly forward, stab the first one through the eye and grab the other one around the throat.

  “Which way is the bridge?” I ask him.

  He points straight ahead. I snap his neck.

  I don’t want any of these bastards getting behind me, so I take each room one by one. I’ll save the bridge for last.

  The first area I step into looks like a barracks. The walls are honeycombed, with narrow pill-shaped beds. The vatborn basically sleep right on top of each other. There are hundreds of Mogs here now, at rest, many of them hooked into intravenous lines of that black ooze Setrákus Ra loves so much, augmenting themselves while they doze. I suppose they sleep in shifts, resting up for the next assault.

  Today, their alarm clock is a fireball.

  I hold out both my hands and let as much fire rush out from my fingertips as I can manage. I let loose until my clothes actually begin to smoke. Soon, there’s a wall of fire crackling out from me, roaring into the room. I smell burned plastic and a rotten roasting smell that I know is that black ooze boiling.

  The fire begins to spread beyond my control. It occurs to me that I don’t want to do any irreparable damage to the ship. As soon as that thought crosses my mind, the sensation in my hands changes. I go from pouring fire into the room to spraying the charred space with crystals of ice and frost.

  One of Marina’s Legacies. Hadn’t even realized I picked that one up. It works so similarly to my Lumen, it’s just like throwing a car into reverse.

  What Mogs managed to escape their bunks and avoid getting torched are soon picked off by a volley of icicles.

  Rampaging through the barracks gets their attention. As I exit, a small squad of warriors rushes down the hall towards me. BK and Dust dispatch them quickly, pouncing out from adjacent rooms just as the Mogs draw near.

  The Mogs aren’t prepared for this, I realize. They’re not prepared at all.

  Now they know how it feels.

  I turn invisible before stepping through the next set of doors. Immediately, I’m greeted by a robotic voice alternating between English and Mogadorian. “Surrender or die,” says the voice. “Put down your weapons.” “Beloved Leader.”

  It’s a language course, I realize. The Mogs are drilling their English skills. And that’s not all. . . .

  Deeper into this room, I spot a firing range. People-shaped targets scream and run against an ever-changing backdrop of famous Earth cities: New York, Paris, London. There’s a digital readout for the shooter’s score, which currently sits at zero on account of the program being abandoned.

  The Mogs training here—they heard me coming. They’ve quit their tasks and formed two groups on either side of the doorway, blasters at the ready. If I had walked in here, they’d have lit me up.

  Too bad. I’m a different kind of target.

  I quietly step into the middle of the room and turn visible. The Mogs yell—surprised—and open fire. Quickly, I turn invisible again and fly up, over their blaster fire. They end up shredding each other in the crossfire.

  The survivors I finish off while floating over them. Stabbing down with Five’s blade, blasting them with fire and ice at close range, turning others to stone with a glance.

  A few of them try to book it out of the room. BK and Dust wait outside, greeting them with claws and gnashing teeth.

  At some point while I’m clearing out the training room, a shrieking alarm begins to go off. It echoes through the entire ship and is accompanied by a rhythmic flashing of the dull red lighting that runs across the walls and ceilings.

  No more element of surprise. Now they know I’m coming.

  When I start making my way towards the bridge, the passageway is conspicuously empty of enemies. Prowling a few steps behind me, both BK and Dust let out growls of warning. The Mogs have almost surely fallen back into a defensive position, a choke point, where they can throw all their firepower at me.

  Well, let’s see what they’ve got.

  Two high double doors stand in front of me. Beyond them is the bridge. The alarm continues to blare; the lights continue to flash.

  When I get within twenty feet of them, the doors open with a hydraulic whoosh.

  Through the doors is a wide staircase that leads up. Above the staircase, I can just barely glimpse the domed windows of the bridge’s navigation area, the blue sky of Canada visible. The ship is controlled from here. Surely, the trueborn commander is up there somewhere.

  On the stairs, between me and my goal, are about two hundred Mogadorians. The first row on their stomachs, the next row on one knee, the next row standing, the row behind them on the first step, and on and on, filling the entire staircase. Each of them holds a blaster pointed in my direction.

  Once upon a time, this would have terrified me.

  “Come on!” I scream at them.

  The hallway crackles with energy as hundreds of blasters are fired off at once.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “YOU THINK HE’S ALL RIGHT?” ADAM ASKS.

  I take my eyes off the door leading out of the hangar for a moment to shoot Adam a look. He doesn’t notice on account of his face being buried in a tangle of wires and cords. He’s lying on his back beneath the ripped-open dashboard of a Skimmer. His hands work quickly to disconnect the cloaking device.

  “John’s still alive, if that’s what you mean,” I reply. So far, a new scar hasn’t burned its way across my ankle.

  Adam sits up. I stand nearby, hunkered low, the cockpit of this latest Skimmer popped open. I’m carrying a Mog blaster and have my aim leveled on the door, just in case any Mogs should manage to get by John and interrupt what we’re doing. So far, it’s been quiet.

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Adam replies.

  “You mean psychologically,” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  We climb out of this Skimmer and move on to the next one. I place the detached cloaking device inside a toolbox that we emptied out, stacked next to the others that we’ve filled.

  “I think he’s doing about as well as any of us,” I say. “I mean, what do you expect?”

  “I don’t know,” Adam admits. “But he scares me a little bit.”

  I don’t respond to that. I’d be lying if I said the changes that have been taking place in John lately weren’t a little frightening. He’s still the same guy I’ve known, relied on, loved—just, with an edge. With power. And a hunger for revenge.

  Maybe that’s exactly what we need right now.

  An alarm begins to whine, and the lights in the docking bay flash off and on. Adam snaps free a
nother cloaking device before looking up at me with raised eyebrows.

  “I take it that’s a bad sign,” I say.

  Adam shrugs. “It’s the high alert. For intruders or attacks.”

  “So they know we’re here.”

  “They were always going to find out eventually, right? If John’s going at the same rate he did down here, that alarm’s about twenty minutes too late to do any good.”

  We move on to the next Skimmer, my grip now a little tighter on the blaster handle. Before we climb aboard, something catches my attention. A buzzing from the docking bay’s communications array. I touch Adam on the shoulder.

  “What is that?”

  He cocks his head to listen but can’t hear over the alarm. We jog over to the control panel in time to hear a brusque voice barking in Mogadorian. Adam immediately looks towards the wide-open entrance of the docking bay, the one we came through, blue sky and crisp air out there.

  “The Skimmers on patrol detected the alarm; they’re asking for confirmation.”

  As Adam says this, a couple of the small scout ships come into view, gliding towards the landing zone.

  “Great,” I say. “Get ready for a fight.”

  “Not necessarily,” Adam replies. His fingers hover, poised over a red button on the control panel.

  The two ships zoom closer. I put my hand on the back of Adam’s neck, ready to make us invisible at a moment’s notice. But just as the Skimmers are about to reach the docking bay, Adam hits the button. Two heavy blast doors snap closed like steel jaws right in front of the Skimmers, sealing off the landing zone. The Skimmers never have a chance to change course. There’s a jolt as both ships slam into the side of the much larger warship. Adam and I rock back and forth from the force. I can hear the ships explode on impact, and a thin tongue of fire manages to slip in between the thick blast doors.

  “That should keep them out for a while,” Adam says. He throws a few more switches on the control panel to lock the blast doors in place.

  “Nicely done,” I say. “Now we only have to worry about the couple thousand Mogs we’re trapped in here with.”

  As if on cue, the ship-side door to the docking bay swings open. I immediately turn my blaster in that direction, finger half depressing the trigger.

  “Easy, it’s just me,” John says.

  John strides into the room, BK and Dust right on his heels looking monstrous. The two Chimærae stand guard at the door, teeth bared, ready in case any Mogs followed John through the ship. John’s breathing pretty heavily, and he’s literally smoking. His shirt has caught on fire in places, and there are blaster burns on his shoulders, arms, chest and legs. He doesn’t even seem to notice. Adam and I exchange a look.

  “John, are you—?” I shake my head, feeling like it’s moronic to ask if he’s okay. “You’re hurt.”

  John pauses in front of the rack of Mogadorian weaponry. He looks down at himself, like he hadn’t even noticed.

  “Oh yeah,” he says. He starts running his hands over the wounds he can see on his arms, using his healing Legacy to mend them, then pauses. He squints for a moment, and the injuries across his body all simultaneously begin to close.

  “Whoa, that’s new,” I say.

  “Yeah,” John replies, looking a little surprised himself. There’s a distance in his eyes, like he’s still coming down from the adrenaline of the battle. “Everything seems . . . easier since I began really using my Ximic.”

  Adam creeps over to the door to check the hallway. He makes a point of scratching behind Dust’s ears when he does, which makes a sandpaper noise thanks to Dust’s bestial form. Dust’s massive tail thumps on the metal floor.

  “Easier,” Adam repeats, noting John’s condition. “Did you . . . did you already kill them all?”

  John crouches down in front of the weapons rack. He shoves aside blasters and battery packs, searching for something.

  “No. There are a lot of them,” he says simply. “I’m regrouping. So are they. They won’t survive another round.”

  “What’re you looking for?” I ask.

  “Grenades or anything explosive,” he says. “Something I can throw at them.”

  “There’s some fuel cans there,” I point out.

  John looks over at the tanks used to refill the Skimmers. He hoists one with his telekinesis. “That’s perfect. I think.” He glances at Adam. “The ship can sustain one of these exploding, right?”

  Adam purses his lips. “Probably. I wouldn’t want to fly it into outer space afterwards, but it should handle Earth’s atmosphere fine.”

  “Great,” John replies. He looks over at the box filled with cloaking devices. “You guys doing good?”

  “Almost finished,” I say.

  Just then Dust lets out a low growl, and Adam ducks out of the doorway. BK arches his back and gets low, ready to pounce. From where I’m standing, I can hear the airlock door just outside the docking bay open.

  “Got some coming in,” Adam whispers.

  “They think I’m hurt,” John says, and rolls his eyes. “Figured they’d send a few to get the drop on me.”

  John strides right into the doorway and, a second later when it opens, unleashes a beam of rippling silver energy from his eyes. I run to his side in time to see a dozen or so Mogs with blasters, all of them now turned to stone, crowding the hallway outside the door. John raises his hand, and the air gets cold. A barrage of railroad-spike-sized icicles fly from his palm, disintegrating the stone Mogadorians.

  “You learned that one too, huh?”

  “Some Legacies are clicking into place easier than others.”

  With the Mogs dispatched, John turns to me. It’s like he just swatted a fly.

  “I’m about to take the bridge,” he says. “I could use your help.”

  Moments later, we’re following John through the segmented halls of the warship. It looks like a war zone in here. I have to cover my mouth and nose with the crook of my arm on account of how much Mogadorian ash is in the air, not to mention the acrid black smoke that pours from one section where it looks like an inferno erupted.

  “You did all this?” I ask.

  John nods. He brought one of the fuel tanks with him, carrying it along with his telekinesis.

  “What do you need that for?” I ask, nodding to the tank. “Seems like your Lumen was working pretty well.”

  He flexes his hands in answer. I notice that his skin is bright pink, like he just soaked his hands in hot water. Apparently, that didn’t heal with the rest of his wounds.

  “Might have overdone it with the fire,” John says thoughtfully. “Fried some nerve endings or something.”

  “So I guess you still have some limits.”

  “Apparently.” John frowns at the thought. “Anyway, there’s a bunch of them barricaded in front of the bridge. It’s a bottleneck. I went toe-to-toe with them for as long as I could. Decided I needed to get creative.”

  “Kill smarter, not harder,” I say dryly.

  It’s just a short walk through more debris and carnage to the hallway that leads to the bridge. John stops us short with a raised hand, not letting us go around the corner.

  “Figure they’re shooting anything that moves at this point,” John says.

  “Logical strategy,” Adam replies.

  John turns his gaze towards the fuel tank, and the air in the passageway gets cold. Slowly, a shell of ice begins to form around the metallic keg until the canister isn’t even visible anymore. When the frozen wrecking ball is complete, John forms sharp icicles across its surface. Some of these crack and break off, and John has to redo the work.

  “I haven’t exactly mastered this,” he says while Adam and I look on.

  “You’re doing fine,” I reply. “Shit. Better than fine.”

  After a few minutes’ work, John has a spiked boulder of ice with a fuel core.

  “You’re going to chuck that at them,” I observe.

  John nods. “You want to help me out? C
ould use the extra telekinetic force.” When I nod, John turns towards Adam and the Chimærae. “This probably won’t get them all, but it should shake them up. When you hear the explosion, come in hot.”

  “You got it,” Adam responds, arming a blaster he picked up in the docking bay.

  John takes my hand, then floats the ice-covered fuel tank in front of us so we can both rest a hand on it. We turn invisible, disappearing the tank along with us, and edge around the corner. My hand starts to get numb, but the temperature doesn’t seem to bother John.

  There are blaster burns all over the walls from John’s earlier skirmish with this entrenched bunch of Mogs. At the end of the hallway, over a hundred vatborn are crowded up and down a short staircase shoulder to shoulder. The air in between us and them is hazy with particles. Their blasters are leveled, ready to fire, but all they see is empty hallway.

  That changes when John and I send the ice ball speeding towards them. It turns visible as soon as it leaves our touch and must look like a boulder appearing from thin air. We shoved it into the Mogs, crushing the first of them. Then we swipe it from side to side, impaling a bunch more on the spikes.

  The Mogs recover from the surprise quickly and begin firing at our icy weapon. They blow off the spikes and begin chipping away at it. Some of them start to look confident.

  But then one of them shoots into the center and detonates the fuel tank.

  The resulting explosion knocks me off my feet. John falls to the side, banging his shoulder against the wall, but keeps his balance. My ears ring. The hallway is filled with choking black smoke, at least until I conjure up some wind to blow that bad air towards the Mogadorian bridge. As Adam helps me to my feet, I see BK and Dust charge down the hall, pouncing on the few stragglers that survived the explosion.

  “That worked better than expected,” Adam says.

  “Ow. No shit,” I reply.

  From the bridge, we can hear shouts in Mogadorian. These aren’t battle cries. These are screams of desperation, and they’re being responded to by a cold female voice that I’d recognize anywhere.