Hunt for the Garde

  And then there’s Mirra. Is her vision of the future really better than Jax-Har’s? Or any other commander’s in our army?

  I want a third choice. Or I want to know what to do. Or I want to go back to the time before I met Adamus, when I was like Mirra, so unquestioningly devoted to Beloved Leader that I was blind to everything else.

  But I can’t tell her any of that. I’m not sure she’d let me walk away if I said no.

  So I nod.

  “What do you propose we do?” I ask. “You’re talking about leading a mutiny against Captain Jax-Har.”

  “We don’t have enough time to act before going to Niagara Falls,” she says. “But we must be swift. There are other officers on my side. True believers. We aren’t alone.”

  “Who?” I ask. It’s hard to fathom the idea that some sort of rebellion has been happening under my nose. More confusing is the very idea that other people on the ship—officers no less—are even entertaining the idea of a coup.

  What’s becoming of my people?

  “I’ll make my move during the officers’ meeting tonight,” she continues. “You shouldn’t have to do anything, but if things go bad, be ready to back me up and take down any who oppose us. When it’s done, get us back to Toronto as quickly as you can.”

  She leans in to me. “We’re in the right here. We’re doing this for Beloved Leader.” She actually smiles. “He’s going to be so proud of us. He’ll give us entire states to cull and reap.”

  She steps back into the elevator, letting the door finally close.

  “Everything will work out according to his plans, Rexicus. You’ll see. Remember, strength is sacred.”

  It’s the second time today I’ve heard the quote, though I can’t tell if she’s using it to mock Jax-Har or out of complete faith in the Great Book. Probably a mixture of both.

  The words repeat in my head. Not in her voice, but in Adamus’s. It feels like a long time ago that he said the same thing to me, when I was battered and broken, barely able to stand as we walked away from Dulce and into the desert. At the time, the sentiment had kept me going, reminding me that Beloved Leader expected my best, that it was my duty to fight and grow stronger for my people.

  Now as I look at Mirra’s manic expression, I’m wondering if the words could have another meaning.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  WE GO BACK TO THE BRIDGE IN SILENCE, BUT my head is whirring.

  “Everything check out?” Denbar asks when we walk in, though from his tone I don’t think he really cares.

  “Fine,” Mirra says, stealing one last knowing look at me before heading to her station beside the captain’s chair.

  The sun is high in the sky by the time Jax-Har stomps onto the bridge. His skin is pallid, and the portions of white around his black eyes are bloodshot. Knowing Mirra’s stance on what’s happening, it’s easy to see how she’d view him as a madman, a blasphemer. He looks like someone at his wit’s end, even more than he did an hour ago at our meeting. He’s fully aware of what he’s about to do.

  “Is the course set?” he asks.

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  “Nothing from West Virginia?” he asks Denbar.

  “Negative, sir.”

  Jax-Har is quiet for a few moments. Then he turns his tired eyes back to me.

  “Take us to Niagara Falls,” he says.

  I nod and tap on the terminal in front of me. The warship starts to move, picking up to a casual speed. There’s no need to rush or show off. We’re so close already.

  “ETA fifteen minutes, sir,” I say.

  Mirra stares at me. She nods a little when I notice and then walks over to one of our science officers and disappears into the hallway with him, saying something about Loralite deposits. I turn back to my terminal and pretend to busy myself going over numbers and data I already know by heart.

  It’s usually quiet on the bridge, but today the silence feels unnatural, heavy. I guess we all know what this means, that in some ways we are disobeying orders, even if we’re probably doing what’s best for the Mogadorians—or at least what makes sense.

  It’s strange, when I really think about it, that something so seemingly simple as moving a short flight away from our stationed location could be viewed as an act of betrayal or a lack of faith. Mirra isn’t exactly an outlier when it comes to fanatical devotion to Beloved Leader. That’s our entire mindset, how we’re raised to think from birth. To even be considering the idea that Beloved Leader is fallible is fundamentally anti-Mogadorian. This sort of conflict doesn’t exist for us—can’t exist based on the way our society works.

  And yet, here we are, flying over Lake Ontario.

  I glance back at the captain, who’s doing his best to look composed even though his fingers thump along the sides of his chair. He has no idea what Mirra has in store for him. I hardly know. I can barely wrap my head around it. But I can feel something in the air, kinetic. Change.

  What does that mean for me? Am I really going to help Mirra take down our captain? Or sit by and watch it happen? Who else does she have on her side? Would the troops listen to her? Probably, if she convinced them that Jax-Har was a traitor.

  I could tell the captain about her now and stop her little insurrection. I don’t know that Mirra would be any better than Jax-Har. Perhaps worse in the long run. She wants to bathe in the blood of our enemies, which happen to be billions of humans on a planet I’ve come to kind of like as it is.

  Who do I side with?

  Who would Adamus side with?

  I’m not sure where this question comes from, but I know the answer immediately. He’d get off this damned warship and find the Loric. He’d help stop whatever we Mogadorians had in store, knowing that whatever our plans were, they’d no doubt end with blood flowing in rivers across the planet below. The planet we grew up on. The only one we really know as home.

  My terminal beeps.

  “Approaching target destination,” I say.

  We break through a cover of clouds, and then, suddenly, it comes into view.

  I don’t know what I was expecting—fire, death, fighting—but all I see are the waterfalls, a river rushing over a cliff, crashing down and rejoining itself. Raging, continuing, only temporarily disrupted.

  As we get closer, I can also make out three downed Skimmers, but the falls are so breathtaking that I have to be consciously looking for the wreckages to spot them.

  Mirra comes back to the bridge, the science officer beside her. He looks . . . unchanged. I catch Denbar staring daggers into Mirra. It’s only when the captain motions to him that he takes his eyes off of her.

  “Send the fleets I assembled down to inspect the stone,” Jax-Har says. “See if we can get a sample. And launch the first air patrol units. Keep an eye out for any hint of movement. If the Loric show, we won’t be taken by surprise. Don’t give them time to even realize we’re here. Fire at will.”

  “Yes, sir!” someone replies.

  “Officer Saturnus, I want you mapping the movements of the Mogadorian fleet in North America. Not just warships, but Skimmers, scouting parties—anything and everything. There were . . . objections when I announced our plans earlier.”

  Of course there were. I wonder if he’s afraid that other ships have come after us or just wants to know if they’ll follow our lead. Maybe both.

  “Won’t Beloved Leader be thrilled?” Mirra asks flatly.

  Jax-Har looks at her with a blank expression on his face.

  “Yes,” he says. “Forever may he reign.”

  The rest of the day passes in a blur. Our patrols don’t detect anything unusual. I’m unsure whether or not the science division is able to carve off a rock sample. Jax-Har is basically silent in his captain’s chair. Mirra keeps finding excuses to leave the bridge. I can only imagine what she’s doing.

  Tracking our fleet’s movements keeps me busy, and I’m able to bury myself in the work, trying not to think about the future. That all changes when I break for dinner, t
aking my meal back to my room. I don’t touch my food, though, just sit on my thin mattress and try to make sense of everything happening. Something is going down at the officers’ meeting tonight. In the end, either Jax-Har or Mirra will be leading our ship.

  Mirra said I don’t have to do anything. That she’ll handle it. Maybe I should just let them kill each other and wait for the smoke to clear before I choose a side. No matter who’s commanding, my role won’t change. I’ll still be standing at my terminal, watching the destruction of Earth from hundreds of feet above the cities. That’s surely the endgame for both of them. Complete takeover. In the long run, it doesn’t matter who’s in control. I’m on a warship. We were built to destroy.

  My thoughts go back to what Adamus would do. Completely abandon our people. It wouldn’t be too hard, as a trueborn officer, to take a Skimmer, pull out the tracking systems and head for open sky. I could maybe try to track down Adamus and see what he was doing—though, if the entire Mogadorian fleet can’t find him, I’m not sure if I’d have any luck.

  Or I could just fly somewhere far away from the warships, could probably keep a hood on and pulled over my face enough that people would think I was just a pale, tattooed human. I could get by on my own somehow. Somewhere.

  But even if I do disappear, so what? We’ve got this world surrounded. We’re primed for full invasion. Our peace with the humans is a sham. Eventually we’ll be everywhere. I’d only be buying myself a year or two before my fellow Mogadorians found me and tortured me as a traitor. I’d be constantly looking over my shoulder, wondering if they were on to me.

  A memory comes. The last time I saw Adamus. We’d already freed the Chimæra, and just needed to get them and Adamus out of there before anyone found him. I was helping. I’d killed several vatborn to ensure his safety. I told myself at the time that it was because I had a debt to Adamus after he’d pulled me out of the rubble at Dulce and saved my life. That this was the only reason I was helping him.

  But that wasn’t true. I think I realized it even then. I’d already paid my debt. I’d pulled him onto a moving train when he was almost certain to fall and rescued him from being captured when the Mogs came for us outside of Manhattan. Hell, just the act of busting him out at Plum Island and not letting him rot in a cell made up for him giving me water in the desert. No, I was helping him for another reason.

  I liked Adamus. Adam. I wanted him to survive.

  These feelings went against everything I knew, and they don’t make any more sense to me now, in the warship. But as I think about what happened on Plum Island, I know without any doubt that I made a huge mistake there. Adamus offered me the chance to go with him, and I refused. I told him war was in my blood and that my place was with the Mogadorians, my purpose to dominate and destroy. I told him that the next time I saw him, we would be enemies.

  Only, deep inside, I wasn’t sure about any of that. And now I realize I should have joined him.

  I lie back down on the mattress and stare at the ceiling. Tomorrow, no matter what happens, I’ll still be Mogadorian. Adamus may have found a way out, a new place in the world, but I made my decision that night.

  Besides, I’m just one person. One Mog. It’s not like I’m really going to make a difference. Not when there are so many other warships hovering over this planet.

  I wonder how many more Jax-Hars are out there in the sky right now. How many Mirras.

  And maybe more importantly, how many Mogadorians like me. Are they out there, in their bunks and barracks, feeling lost too?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MIRRA IS THE ONLY OTHER PERSON IN THE council room when I arrive for the night’s meeting. She’s bent over a tablet, examining readouts like she always is. As though it were a perfectly normal night.

  I take a seat beside her out of habit, realizing too late that this is no doubt a terrible idea.

  “Good evening,” I mutter.

  “Hello,” she says.

  She glances at me from the corner of her eye and then does a double take.

  “You look troubled,” she says.

  Her face is the blank, severe stone I’m used to from her. Eyes narrowed slightly, as if she can see my every thought.

  “Just worrying about what Beloved Leader must think of our change in position,” I say, which isn’t technically a lie.

  She seems satisfied by this.

  “Don’t worry. Everything’s in order. Just sit back and witness.” She pats her blaster. “For Beloved Leader.”

  The door behind us opens, and others start to file in.

  Dread fills me, settling in my stomach, cramping. My eyes dart around between the dozen officers at the table, trying to figure out who the other allies Mirra mentioned to me might be. And who might push back against her. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t really talked to many of them or gotten to know them, but I can’t imagine any of these trueborn as mutineers.

  I hope for Mirra’s sake that I’m wrong. Then for Jax-Har’s sake that I’m not.

  And then I find myself asking Beloved Leader for strength and guidance, without even realizing that I’m doing it until I’m murmuring verses from the Great Book under my breath.

  My fingers graze the grip of my blaster. Sweat’s starting to prickle on my body, and I close my eyes and try to calm down. I think of the quiet, still water of Lake Ontario and the rushing falls just below us. I try to let those thoughts drown out all the mental alarms going off in my brain.

  Jax-Har comes in with Denbar. I catch only the last bit of their conversation, but I hear enough to know that several other captains are furious with what he’s done. This must weigh heavily on him. I can see it in his bent posture, in his swollen, bruise-colored features. I almost feel bad for the guy.

  “Let’s begin,” he says. His voice is hoarse, like he’s been yelling all morning. “Officer Saturnus, update me on the fleet’s locations.”

  “There’s been no movement among the warships, sir,” I say. “Skimmer patterns appear to be normal as far as I can tell.”

  “No one headed our way?”

  “Negative, sir.”

  “What did the other captains have to say about your decision to abandon your post?” Mirra hisses.

  “Most respect my boldness and agree about the strategic value of the Loralite,” the captain says. He doesn’t seem concerned about her tone at all.

  Before I can even process how odd it is that he didn’t snap back at her, putting her in her place, she continues.

  “And the others? Those who don’t agree?”

  “I’d say they likely have no business commanding a ship.” He locks eyes with her, staring her down. “I’d say they’re so afraid of disobeying Beloved Leader that they don’t see opportunity when it presents itself. They have forgotten that the teachings of the Great Book preach the honor not only of loyalty, but of boldness and making use of all possible resources.” His upper lip peels back in a snarl for an instance. “I’d say they are a disgrace to the Mogadorian people.”

  Mirra doesn’t respond, but I can feel the heat rising off of her.

  “If you have something else to say, my lost little executive officer, now is the time,” Jax-Har says with a hint of a smile.

  “Bastard!” Mirra shouts as she stands and pulls out her weapon. Another officer a few seats down gets to his feet as well.

  That’s when the first blaster goes off.

  The shot hits its target with perfect precision, burning a hole straight through the middle of Mirra’s right bicep. Her weapon clatters onto the table. Then a second shot, disarming the other standing officer.

  Mirra’s eyes go wide, incredulous. She stares at the officer across the table from her, the one who fired.

  “No, Balda, you—,” she starts.

  “Serve Beloved Leader,” the officer says, finishing her sentence for her. “And whomever he sees fit to put in command.”

  She looks around the table. Almost everyone has a weapon drawn on her. Only a few people
look confused. The other officer who stood with her glances at the door.

  It’s obvious from the look on Mirra’s face that several of the people pointing weapons at her were those she’d considered to be her allies in this. In her plight to prove her own loyalty, she underestimated that of her peers.

  She turns to me. The shock on her face changes to worry, her brow scrunching together. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t have to. I know she’s condemning me, condemning all of us.

  I don’t even have the guts to keep watching; I look away.

  “He is a traitor,” she screams, pointing at our captain. “He will lead you off the path of Mogadorian Progress. Do not follow him blindly!”

  Jax-Har, for the first time in days, laughs.

  “Hail our Beloved Leader,” Denbar says.

  “Forever may he reign,” Jax-Har adds.

  And then everyone opens fire.

  Mirra’s body falls back, toppling over her chair. Her ally goes down as well. I keep my eyes on the table in front of me, not wanting to look back and see their bodies, wishing that the trueborn fully disintegrated like the vatborn do, or that I was anywhere else in the galaxy.

  I’m a fool for not leaving with Adamus.

  Silence fills the room. It takes a few seconds for me to realize that everyone’s looking at me.

  Denbar’s got his blaster aimed at my face.

  “Whoa,” I say. “I didn’t . . . I mean . . .”

  I can’t seem to construct a sentence. I raise my hands in front of my chest—a completely un-Mogadorian thing to do, offering up surrender.

  “We know she tried to recruit you,” Jax-Har says. He speaks calmly, like his second-in-command didn’t just attempt a failed coup. “The others came to me, one by one. You did not. And yet, you didn’t so much as reach for your weapon when she stood. Tell me, commander: Where do your allegiances lie?”

  My pulse beats in my head.

  “If I questioned your leadership, I wouldn’t have brought us to Niagara Falls,” I say slowly, enunciating each word. “I trust in Beloved Leader’s wisdom. I trust in your command.”