I nodded sadly and turned back to watch the ritual. I was eager to take the whole sight in, but Brandon pulled me out to the edge of the airstrip.
“He has been admitted. The Eight is now Nine,” he said. “Funny thing is, Elder Loridas wasn’t fazed at all. When I said the ninth had arrived, he turned to me and looked at me as if he’d known he was coming all along.”
I turned back to the collected Mentor Cêpans, to the Garde arrayed on the ground, to the ship that would take them off this planet. I feared what my own fate would be, but was determined not to let Brandon see my fear. I wanted to make a gracious and noble exit.
“Go,” I said. “I’ll join the perimeter guard.”
The suns were just starting to come up, the dusk colored by the flame and smoke of the planet’s destruction.
“Good luck up there,” I said.
“Stop,” said Brandon. I turned back. “You’re coming with us.”
“Me? There’s not room.” I felt my heart rise in my chest. But I couldn’t go along. “What about the rest of the people here? The ones who have been fighting all along? The ones who actually believed?”
“The boy needs a Mentor. You brought him here. He trusts you. And the bond has taken place—I can sense it. It has to be you.”
“But I haven’t been trained.”
“The only thing any of us really need to know is to always put our Garde’s survival ahead of our own.” Brandon cast a glance back at the boy. “And it looks like you’ve got that part down.”
Another explosion rumbled about a mile off, bringing our gaze across the sky to the approach of a massive Mogadorian ship. What looked like little wisps were parachuting out of the ship and landing gently, soundlessly on the ground.
But of course, that was a trick of distance and perspective. They weren’t wisps. They were Mogadorian ground troops. And there was nothing gentle about them.
My fate had been decided. We rushed to the rest of the group to board the ship and leave our beloved Lorien before it was too late.
CHAPTER 16
“Oof.” Barely awake, I was already in agony.
The boy had just stepped hard on my legs, and was now jumping up the rest of my body, crushing my stomach, then my ribs.
“Wake up,” he said, still jumping painfully all over me. It was a hell of a way to wake up in the morning, but I was starting to get used to it.
“Wake up,” repeated the boy, who we had all started to call “Nine.” He was bright-eyed, playful, and so full of energy that five minutes in his company was enough to make me pray for his bedtime.
Nine and the other young Garde had made a quick recovery from the horrors of that awful night, barely a month ago, when Lorien had fallen to the Mogadorians. The other Mentor Cêpans couldn’t believe the childrens’ resilience. We envied it. None of us would ever get over what we’d seen.
“I’m getting up,” I said, swinging my legs over the bed and swiping my Kalvaka T-shirt off the hook on the wall. All of the other Mentor Cêpans were stuck with their LDA tunics, but I had only my street clothes from my last night out in Lorien.
“You’re too slow,” said Nine, yanking my arm as I tried to finish dressing.
“Sorry, buddy,” I said. “Had a late one last night.”
“What else is new?”
I looked up to see Brandon, smiling at the edge of the partition separating my sleeping quarters from the rest of the ship. Brandon was always getting on my case for being a late riser, for always being the last Cêpan socializing into the wee hours in the ship’s canteen. If Brandon had gone to bed there was always Kentra, or one of the others.
“Today’s the first day of pre-combat training,” he said. “I’ll take Nine, it’s not a problem.”
“Pre-combat? Already?” I had a hard time understanding that they were already going to start conditioning some of the Garde as warriors. Brandon and Kentra had explained it was just simple calisthenics and drills at this point, but still. The kids were so young.
I saw Four, Brandon’s Garde, poking his head out from behind Brandon’s back. He shyly put his hand out for Nine to take, inviting him to walk to pre-combat together.
Seeing this, I hoped Nine would take Four’s hand. It was a sweet gesture.
“Prucawbat! Rawr!” squealed Nine, and jumped back onto the bed, either unaware of Four’s overture or too keyed up to notice.
I smiled, simultaneously exhausted by and proud of my Garde’s hyperactivity. I scooped Nine off the bed and put him on the floor.
“You go off with Brandon and Four, okay? I’ll see you at One-on-Ones after.” One-on-Ones were training and development sessions between Mentor Cêpans and their Garde. It had been decided that my One-on-Ones with Nine would be overseen by another Mentor Cêpan, owing to my inexperience and lack of training. But even with Brandon or Kater breathing down my neck, One-on-Ones were my favorite time of the day: just me and the kid.
The large ship had an open plan with no walls, but in the interest of our privacy and sanity, programmable holographic partitions separated areas of the cabin into “rooms.”
The canteen was one such space, located close to the ship’s cockpit. It was nearly empty when I finally got there, and the food options were slim: a packet of freeze-dried karo fruit; a plate of mushy, lukewarm flurrah grain.
Ah, I thought. The perils of oversleeping.
I settled for the Karo and took a seat next to Hessu, the only Cêpan there. Hessu was the oldest of the Cêpans, and shy to boot. I never knew what to say to her so I just nodded at her and ate my breakfast in silence.
As tended to happen when I had a moment to myself, my thoughts drifted to the events back on Lorien, both the things I had witnessed—the destruction of the capital; those heartbreakingly muddy tears on Nine’s grandfather’s cheeks—and those I had only imagined: my parents’ chalet in Deloon blasted by Mog missiles; Devektra, finally succumbing to the Mogadorian ground troops while valiantly defending her beloved city.
I also thought back to the ship’s takeoff, watching out the window as we pulled up and over the airstrip. The Elder Loridas, who had insisted not to be taken on board, faded to a dot on the ground as we breached the planet’s atmosphere, with the fighting Lorien Defense Forces and Kabarakians still down there, holding off the advancing Mog horde.
The first few days in space had been the worst. We Mentor Cêpans had all huddled in the canteen together, our impatient, traumatized charges in our laps, waiting for word from the ship’s pilot about the fate of Lorien. Brandon had explained that the vast majority of the council, the academy and the LDF had been killed in the first wave, but there were bound to be survivors, heroes like Devektra who would fight off the invading forces no matter how bad the odds. It had been decided by a vote that once we had reached a distance of relative safety, the ship would hang back, watch, and wait. If there were any sign that the defeat of Lorien was incomplete, that whatever resistance movement had formed stood even a meager chance of survival, we would turn back and aid however we could.
But after many sleepless days and nights, the pilot emerged into the canteen from the front of the ship and shook his head. “From the ship’s scans . . .” he said, fighting back tears. “There’s nothing. Nothing’s left.”
For every horror I had endured, that was the worst, the most devastating.
Slowly but surely, things improved. And as dark as my thoughts got, it was hard to stay down when we had nine rambunctious, energetic kids all around us, every second of the day.
“She’s sick,” announced Hessu. I almost did a double take: Hessu never spoke without first being spoken to.
It took me a second to realize she must be talking about her Garde, the girl we called “One.”
“I woke up in the middle of the night with a bad feeling, so I went to the children’s quarters to check, and sure enough when I touched her forehead it was hot. A bad fever.” Hessu’s aversion to eye contact was just part of her personality, but the intens
e way she avoided my look made me fear the worst.
“Where is she?” I asked. “Is she okay?”
“She’s in the Autodoc.” Because no one on board had any medical knowledge, the ship had been outfitted with a small climate-controlled area called an Autodoc. It monitored a patient’s vital signs and administered medicine as needed through the air vents. “Machine says she’ll be fine.”
“Well then,” I said, relieved. “That’s good.”
Hessu merely shrugged. Her mouth was pursed, bitter-looking, like she’d been sucking on something sour.
“She’s going to die,” she said.
I froze in my seat, speechless. It felt like Hessu’s words had sucked all of the oxygen out of the room.
“She will die. I’m certain of it.”
“Hessu, I’m sure she’ll be fine—”
She turned at me, a look of rage and contempt burning on her face. “I don’t mean now, you idiot!” She began to laugh bitterly. “Don’t you realize, we’re all going to die?”
My blood turned to ice. What was this woman getting at?
“Right. Right,” she said. “You haven’t been fully briefed yet, how would you know? This is a suicide mission. We are going to some distant planet to hide from the Mogadorians, to run from them, to make whatever pathetic efforts to survive we can make before they hunt us down and kill us. It’s useless. I don’t know why we’re even bothering.”
Her words seeped into my brain like a poison, but I tried to focus on the matter at hand: her hysteria. “You need to calm down,” I said.
“Easy for you to say. You’re last. You and your boy get blessed last out of sheer luck, because you were running late!” The bitter laughter came back. “While me and my girl . . . we’re first. First blessed, first to die.”
The laughter gave way to tears, and Hessu threw her face into her hands. I fought through my own horror and embraced her.
We stayed like that for a while. I rocked her in my arms while the terrifying truth of our situation bled into my heart.
Later, I made my way down the virtual corridor, towards the empty barrack in which my One-on-Ones with Nine were held. I felt like a fool. For allowing myself to be optimistic about the Elders’ plan for us all, for believing that the road ahead would be any brighter than the one behind us. To hear it from Hessu, it was only going to get grimmer once we reached our destination.
And I felt like a fool for not inquiring deeper into the nature of the ritual Loridas had performed on Nine. I had foolishly assumed it was just some meaningless pagan blessing. But according to Hessu it was much more than that. It was a protective spell that granted total immunity to the children. All except One.
Her blessing was just a link to the others. She was not invulnerable. Once she died, Two would be vulnerable. Once Two died, Three would be vulnerable. On and on up the chain of their precious young Garde.
Put in those terms, it no longer felt like any kind of blessing at all. It felt like a curse. And it made me sick just thinking about it.
I paused outside the barrack’s door and looked out the window of the ship. All I could see were stars. We still had many galaxies to travel before we reached our destination. We were heading to Earth. A planet that was far from perfect. It was nothing like Lorien had been.
But even with all the terrible stories I’d heard about Earth’s misery, about the war, the famine, the pollution, I was looking forward to it, at least a little bit. I still remembered that transmission I’d watched on the night of Quartermoon, before I’d made the fateful decision to take Daxin’s band and leave the academy, and I knew that Earth couldn’t possibly be all bad.
I entered the barrack to find Nine waiting on the floor, his back to the virtual door. Adel, Seven’s Mentor Cêpan, sat in a chair in the corner, having been assigned supervisor duty for the day.
“Hey, Adel,” I said, giving her a smile and a little wave. Adel waved back.
At the sound of my voice, Nine jumped up, whirled around and raced right at me, grabbing me by the knees.
Nine looked up at me, his eyes gleaming. “Sandor?” he asked, drawing my name out and wagging his head back and forth. “Are we going to play today?”
I looked down at him and smiled.
“Yeah, buddy,” I said. “We’re going to play.”
EXCERPT FROM THE RISE OF NINE
THE LEGACIES DEVELOP IN
CHAPTER 1
6A. Seriously? I look at the boarding pass in my hand, its large type announcing my seat assignment, and wonder if Crayton chose this seat on purpose. It could be a coincidence. The way things have gone recently, I am not a big believer in coincidences. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marina sat down behind me in row seven, and Ella made her way back to row ten. But, no, the two girls drop down beside me without saying a word, and join me in studying each person boarding the plane. Being hunted, you are constantly on guard. Who knows when the Mogadorians might appear?
Crayton will board last, after he’s watched to see who else gets on the plane, and only once he feels the flight is absolutely secure.
I raise the shade and watch the ground crew hustle back and forth under the plane; the city of Barcelona is a faint outline in the distance.
Marina’s knee bounces furiously up and down next to mine. The battle against an army of Mogadorians yesterday at the lake, the death of her Cêpan and finding her Chest—and now, it’s the first time in almost ten years that she’s left the town where she spent her childhood. She’s nervous.
“Everything okay?” I ask. My newly blond hair falls into my face and startles me. I forgot I dyed it this morning. It’s just one of many changes in the last forty-eight hours.
“Everyone looks okay,” Marina whispers, keeping her eyes on the crowded aisle. “We’re safe, as far as I can tell.”
“Good, but that’s not what I meant.” I gently set my foot on hers and she stops bouncing her knee. She offers me a quick apologetic smile before returning to her close watch of each boarding passenger. A few seconds later, her knee starts bouncing again.
I feel sorry for Marina. She was locked up in an isolated orphanage with a Cêpan who refused to train her; she was stuck with a Cêpan who had lost sight of why we are here on Earth in the first place. I’m doing my best to help her, to fill in the gaps. I can train her to control her strength and when to use her developing Legacies. But first I’m trying to show her that it’s okay to trust me. Not only did she just lose her best friend, Héctor, back at the lake, but, like me, she lost her Cêpan right in front of her. Both of us will carry that with us forever.
The Mogadorians will pay for what they’ve done. For taking so many who we’ve loved, here on Earth and on Lorien. It’s my personal mission to destroy every last one of them, and I’ll be sure Marina gets her revenge, too.
“How is it down there, Six?” Ella asks, leaning over Marina.
I turn back toward the window. The men below the plane begin to clear away their equipment, conducting a few last-minute checks. “So far, so good.”
My seat is directly over the wing, which is comforting to me. On more than one occasion I’ve had to use my Legacies to help a pilot out of a jam. Once, over southern Mexico, I used my telekinesis to push the plane a dozen degrees to the right, only seconds before crashing into the side of a mountain. Last year I got 124 passengers safely through a vicious thunderstorm in Kansas by surrounding the plane with an impervious cloud of cool air. We shot, unharmed, through the storm like a bullet through a balloon.
When the ground crew moves on to the next plane, I follow Ella’s gaze toward the front of the aisle. We’re both impatient for Crayton to board. That will mean everything is okay, at least for now. Every seat is full but the one behind Ella. Where is he? I glance out at the wing again, scanning the area for anything out of the ordinary.
“Six?” Marina asks. I hear her buckle and unbuckle her seat belt nervously.
I lean down and shove my backpack under my seat. It’s practi
cally empty so it folds down easily. Crayton bought it for me at the airport. The three of us need to look like normal teenagers, he says, like high school students on a field trip. That’s why there’s an open biology textbook on my lap.
“Yeah?” I respond.
“You’ve flown before, right?”
Marina is only a year older than I am. But with her solemn, thoughtful eyes and her new, sophisticated haircut that falls just below her shoulders, she can easily pass for an adult. Right now, however, she bites her nails and pulls her knees up to her chest like a scared child.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s not so bad. In fact, once you relax, it’s kind of awesome.”
I’ve flown dozens of times, and everything has gone fine. However, this is the first time I’ve done it without using my invisibility Legacy to sneak on board. I know I’m much stronger now. And I’m getting stronger by the day. If a couple of Mog soldiers charged at me from the front of the plane, they wouldn’t be dealing with a meek young girl. I know what I’m capable of; I am a soldier now, a warrior. I am someone to fear, not hunt.
Marina lets go of her knees and sits up straight, releasing a long breath. In a barely audible voice, she says, “I’m scared. I just want to get in the air.”
“You’ll be fine,” I say in a low voice.
Finally, Crayton squeezes down the aisle, carrying a black briefcase. He’s wearing eyeglasses and a brown suit that looks too big for him. Under his strong chin is a blue bow tie. He’s supposed to be our teacher.
“Hello, girls,” he says, stopping next to us.
“Hi, Mr. Collins,” Ella responds.
“It’s a full flight,” Marina says. That’s code for everyone on board looks okay. To tell him everything on the ground appears normal, I say, “I’m going to try to sleep.”
He nods and takes his seat directly behind Ella. Leaning forward between Marina and Ella he says, “Use your time on the plane wisely, please. Study hard.”
I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: The Last Days of Lorien Page 9
