What about after Sam and I move on? They’re predators. If we leave them alive, eventually they’ll find prey.
As I’m considering this, Sam nudges me, pointing towards a nearby alley that will let us avoid the Mogs. “Come on,” he says quietly. “Before they get too close.”
I stay rooted in place, considering our odds. There are only twelve of them, plus the ship. I’ve fought bigger groups before and won. Granted, I’m still fatigued from an afternoon spent battling nonstop, but we’d have the element of surprise on our side. I could take down the Skimmer before they even realize they’re under attack, and the rest would fall easily.
“We can take them,” I conclude.
“John, are you nuts?” Sam asks, grabbing my shoulder. “We can’t fight every Mog in New York City.”
“But we can fight these ones,” I reply. “I’m feeling stronger now and if something goes wrong I’ll just heal us after.”
“Assuming we don’t, you know, get shot in the face and killed outright. Battle to battle, healing us right after—how much of that can you take?”
“I don’t know.”
“There’s too many of them. We have to pick our battles.”
“You’re right,” I admit grudgingly.
We dart down the alley, hop a chain-link fence and emerge on the next block over, leaving the Mogadorian patrol to its hunting. Logically, I know Sam is right. I shouldn’t be wasting my time with a dozen Mogs when there’s a greater war to be won. After an exhausting day, I should be conserving my strength. I know all this is true. Even so, I can’t help feeling like a coward for avoiding the fight.
Sam points up at a sign for First Street and Second Avenue. “Numbered streets. We’re getting closer.”
“They were fighting around Fourteenth Street, but that was at least an hour ago. The way they were going at it, they could’ve gone in any direction from there.”
“So let’s keep our ears open for explosions and creative cursing,” Sam suggests.
We only make it a few more blocks uptown before crossing paths with another Mogadorian patrol. Sam and I huddle behind a delivery truck, abandoned carts of fresh-baked bread still sitting on the off-loading ramp. I poke my head around the front of the truck, taking a head count. Once again, there are twelve warriors with a Skimmer supporting them. This group behaves differently than the last one, though. The ship hovers in place, its spotlight fixed on the shattered front window of a bank. The Mogs outside all have their blasters pointed into the building. Something has them spooked.
I recount the pale heads glaring in the spotlight. Eleven. Only eleven where there were definitely twelve before. Did one of them just get ashed without me noticing?
“Come on,” Sam says warily, probably thinking that I’m spoiling for a fight again. “We should go while they’re distracted.”
“Hold up,” I reply. “Something’s happening here.”
With the others covering them, two Mogs stalk towards the front of the bank. They stay low, weapons at the ready, looking for something beyond the reach of the Skimmer’s spotlight.
When they reach the bank’s threshold, both Mogs toss their blasters into the air. The entire squad pauses, frozen, stunned by this development.
It’s telekinesis. Someone just disarmed those Mogs with a Legacy.
I give Sam a wide-eyed look. “Nine or Five,” I say. “They’re pinned down.”
Spurred to action, the rest of the Mogs open fire on the darkness of the bank. The two disarmed warriors are lifted off their feet, again by telekinesis, and used as shields. They disintegrate in the flurry of their squad’s blaster fire. Then a desk comes flying out from within the bank. Two Mogs are crushed by the airborne furniture, and the rest backpedal for better cover. Meanwhile, the Skimmer maneuvers closer to the street, its guns coming around, angling for a shot inside the bank.
“I’ll take the ship, you take the warriors,” I say.
“Let’s do it,” Sam replies, nodding once. “I just hope it’s not Five holed up in there.”
I spring out from behind the truck and run toward the action, firing up my Lumen as I go. The nerve endings in my hands feel fried. I can actually feel the heat from my own Lumen, like I’m waving my hand over a candle. The pain is bearable, an obvious side effect of overdoing it today. I push through, quickly tossing a fireball at the Skimmer. My first attack explodes their spotlight, darkening the street. The ship is knocked off course just as it unloads on the bank, the heavy blaster fire carving chunks off the brick side of the building. With the main gun distracted, I hope to see Nine charge out from the bank and join the fray.
No one comes out. Maybe whichever Garde is inside is injured. After a long day of fighting each other and the Mogs, they’re probably more worn out than me.
I hear a sizzle of electricity behind me—Sam firing off his blaster—and watch as the two closest Mogs go up in clouds of ash. Seeing us coming from behind, another Mog tries to duck behind a parked car. Sam yanks him out of cover with his newfound telekinesis and lights him up.
One of the Mogs screams a burst of grating Mogadorian words into a communicator. Probably radioing for help.
Broadcasting our location—that’s not good.
I bound up the hood of an SUV parked conveniently beneath the Skimmer. On my way, I lob a fireball at the Mog with the communicator. He’s engulfed by flames and is soon nothing more than ash pooled around some melted gear. Even so, the damage is done. They know we’re here. We need to get out of here quick.
I leap from the roof of the SUV, putting a huge dent into the metal as I push off. At the same time, I hit the Skimmer with a telekinetic punch. I don’t have the power to bring the ship down, but I hit it hard enough so that one side of the saucer-shaped craft dips low, towards me. I land right on top of the thing, two Mogadorian pilots staring at me in shock.
A few weeks ago, it might’ve felt good to see the Mogs recoil in fear. I might’ve even said something funny, borrowed some quip from Nine’s playbook before killing them. But now—after the terror they’ve unleashed on New York—I don’t waste the breath.
I tear the cockpit door loose from its hinges and send it flying into the night. The Mogs try to unbuckle from their seats, groping for their blasters. Before they can do anything, I unleash a funnel of white-hot fire. The Skimmer immediately begins to careen out of control. I leap free of the ship, landing hard on the sidewalk below, my tired legs barely supporting me. The Skimmer smashes into a storefront across the street and explodes, black smoke rising out from the store’s shattered window.
Sam runs up next to me, his blaster pointed at the ground. The rest of the area is clear of Mogs. For the moment.
“Twelve down, like a hundred thousand left to go,” Sam says dryly.
“One of them got off a distress call. We gotta go,” I tell Sam, but even as I say this, I feel the same light-headedness from earlier creeping on. The rush of battle gone, my fatigue is now back. I have to support myself on Sam’s shoulder for a minute, until I get my bearings.
“No one’s come out of the bank,” Sam says. “I don’t think it’s Nine in there. Unless he’s hurt, it’s way too quiet.”
“Five,” I growl, moving cautiously towards the bank’s busted entrance. I’m not sure I can handle a fight with him at this point. My only hope is that Nine’s done a good job of softening him up.
“There,” Sam says, pointing into the darkened lobby. Someone’s moving around. Whoever it is, they appear to have spent the battle hiding behind a sofa.
“Hey, it’s all clear out here,” I call into the bank, gritting my teeth as I shine my Lumen inside. “Nine? Five?”
It isn’t one of the Garde who cautiously steps into my beam of light. It’s a girl. She’s probably about our age, only a couple of inches shorter than me, with a lean sprinter’s body. Her hair is pulled back in tight rows of braids. Her clothes are scuffed up either from the fight or the general chaos, but otherwise she looks unhurt. Tossed over the girl’s left sh
oulder is a heavy-looking duffel bag. She looks from Sam to me with wide brown eyes, eventually focusing on the light shining from the palm of my hand.
“You’re him,” the girl says, inching forward. “You’re the guy from TV.”
Now that the girl is close enough to see, I shut off my Lumen. Don’t want to be lighting up our location for the Mog reinforcements that are on their way.
“I’m John,” I tell her.
“John Smith. Yeah, I know,” the girl says, nodding eagerly. “I’m Daniela. You really killed the hell out of those aliens.”
“Uh, thanks.”
“Was there someone else in there with you?” Sam cuts in, craning his neck to look past her. “A dude with anger issues and a habit of taking off his shirt? A gross one-eyed guy?”
Daniela cocks her head at Sam, eyebrows raised. “No. What? Why?”
“We thought we saw someone attack those Mogs with telekinesis,” I say, looking Daniela over again, feeling equal parts curious and cautious. We’ve been tricked before by potential allies.
“You mean this?” Daniela reaches out her hand and one of the dead Mogs’ blasters floats to her. She plucks it out of the air, resting it against the shoulder not supporting her duffel bag. “Uh-huh. That’s a new development for me.”
“I’m not the only one,” Sam breathes, looking at me with wide eyes.
My mind is cycling through possibilities so quickly that I’m struck speechless. I might not have understood the why of it, but Sam getting Legacies made sense to me on a gut level. He’s spent so much time around us Garde, done so much to help us—if any human was going to suddenly develop Legacies, it would be him. The hours since the invasion have been so crazy that I didn’t really have time to think about it. Didn’t need to, really. Sam with Legacies just seemed logical. When I imagined other humans besides Sam getting Legacies, I’d been thinking of people we know, people who have helped us. I was thinking of Sarah, mostly. Definitely not some random girl. This girl, though, Daniela, her having Legacies means something bigger than I imagined has happened.
Who is she? Why does she have powers? How many more like her are out there?
Meanwhile, Daniela is staring at me with that star-struck look again. “So, um, can I ask why you picked me?”
“Picked you?”
“Yeah, to turn into a mutant,” Daniela explains. “I couldn’t do this shit until today when you and the pale guys—”
“Mogadorians,” Sam clarifies.
“I couldn’t move stuff with my mind until you and the Moga-dork-ians showed up,” Daniela finishes. “What’s the deal, man? None of the other people I’ve seen out here have powers.”
Sam clears his throat and raises his hand, but Daniela ignores him. She’s on a roll now.
“Am I radioactive? What else can I do? You got those flashlight hands going on. Am I gonna be able to do that? Why me? Answer the last one first.”
“I—” I rub the back of my neck, overwhelmed. “I have no idea why you.”
“Oh.” Daniela frowns, looking down at the ground.
“John, shouldn’t we get moving?”
I nod when Sam reminds me of the impending Mogadorian reinforcements. We’ve already stood here talking for way too long. Standing in front of me—and next to me, for that matter—are . . . what exactly? New members of the Garde? Humans. It’s like nothing I’ve ever contemplated. I need to wrap my head around the new status quo quickly, because if there are more human Garde out there, they’re going to be looking for guidance. And with all the Cêpan dead . . .
Well, that leaves us. The Loric.
First things first, I need to make sure Daniela stays with us. I need time to talk with her, to try figuring out what exactly triggered her Legacies.
“It’s not safe here, you should come with us,” I tell her.
Daniela looks around at the destruction that surrounds us. “Is it gonna be safe wherever you’re going?”
“No. Obviously not.”
“What John means is that this particular block is going to be crawling with Mogs any minute now,” Sam explains. He starts walking away from the bank, trying to lead by example. Daniela doesn’t follow and so I don’t either.
“Your sidekick’s nervous,” Daniela observes.
“My name’s Sam.”
“You’re a nervous guy, Sam,” Daniela replies, one hand on her cocked hip. She’s staring at me again, sizing me up. “If more of those aliens come, won’t you just blow their asses away?”
“I . . .” I find myself having to recycle the pick-your-battles logic that made me bristle so much when Sam used it on me. “There are too many to keep fighting. It might not feel like it now because you’ve just started using them, but our Legacies aren’t a limitless resource. We can push too hard, get tired, and then we’re no good to anyone.”
“Good advice,” Daniela says. She remains rooted in place. “Too bad you couldn’t answer any of my other questions.”
“Look, I don’t know why you have Legacies, but it’s an amazing thing. A good thing. It’s destiny, maybe. You can help us win this war.”
Daniela snorts. “Seriously? I’m not fighting any war, John Smith from Mars. I’m trying to survive out here. This is America, yo. The army will take care of these weak-ass dust aliens. They got the drop on us, that’s all.”
I shake my head in disbelief. There’s seriously no time to explain to Daniela everything she needs to know about the Mogadorians—their superior technology, their infiltration of Earth’s governments, their endless amounts of disposable vatborn warriors and monsters. I never had to explain those things to the other members of the Garde. We always knew the stakes, we were raised understanding our mission on Earth. But Daniela and the other newly minted Garde who might be wandering around . . . what if they aren’t ready to fight? Or don’t want to?
An explosion shakes the ground under our feet. It emanates from a few blocks away, but is still powerful enough to set off car alarms and rattle my teeth. Thick smoke darker than the night sky floats into view from the north. It sounds like a building just collapsed.
“Seriously,” Sam says. “Something’s headed our way.”
Another explosion, closer, confirms Sam’s suspicion. I turn desperately to Daniela.
“We can help each other. We have to, or we won’t survive,” I say, thinking not just of the three of us, but of humans and Loric. “We’re looking for our friend. Once we find him, we’re going to get out of Manhattan. We heard the government’s established a safe zone around the Brooklyn Bridge. We’ll go there and—”
Daniela waves off my whole plan, stepping towards me. Her voice is raised, and I feel her telekinesis buffet my chest, like a jabbing index finger.
“My stepdad got roasted by those pale scumbags and now I’m out here looking for my mom, alien guy. She worked down here. You saying I should drop all that and join your army of two, running around my city that you played a part in getting blown up? You saying the friend you’re looking for is more important than my mom?”
Another explosion. Closer, still. I have no idea what to say to Daniela. That yes, saving Earth is more important than saving her mom? Is that my recruitment speech? Would I have listened to that if someone said it about Henri or Sarah?
“Oh my God,” Sam says, exasperated. “Could we at least agree to all run in the same direction?”
And that’s when the reinforcements come into view. It isn’t a squadron of Skimmers or warriors come to kill us.
It’s the Anubis.
CHAPTER
FOUR
THE MASSIVE WARSHIP, BIGGER THAN AN AIRCRAFT carrier, becomes visible in the night sky when it’s still five or so blocks away. It pushes slowly through the acrid smoke its recent bombings kicked up. Sam and I had been able to stay ahead of the Anubis earlier that afternoon, fighting our way south as it slowly prowled the skyline to the east. But now, here it is, looming up the avenue, right in the direction of Union Square.
I c
lench my fists. Setrákus Ra and Ella are on board the Anubis. If I could just get on there, maybe I could fight my way to the Mogadorian leader. Maybe I could kill him this time.
Sam stands at my side. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s a bad idea. We need to run, John.”
And as if to punctuate Sam’s declaration, a sizzling ball of electric energy gathers in the barrel of the Anubis’s huge hull-mounted cannon. It’s like a miniature sun building up within the barrel, and for a moment it lights the surrounding blocks in a ghostly blue. Then, with a sound like a thousand Mog blasters going off at once, the energy erupts forth from the cannon, shearing through the façade of a nearby office building, the twenty-story structure almost immediately collapsing inwards.
A wave of dust rolls down the street towards us. Coughing, the three of us have to shield our eyes. The dust might give us some cover, but that doesn’t really matter when the warship has a gun that can demolish whole buildings. The Anubis lumbers closer, already prepping for another shot. I’m not sure if Setrákus Ra is aiming at heat signatures in the buildings or if he’s just destroying things at random, hoping to hit us. It doesn’t matter. The Anubis is like a force of nature and it’s headed in our direction.
“Hell with this,” I hear Daniela say, and then she takes off.
Sam follows her and so do I, the three of us retreating the way Sam and I just came from. We’ll have to find another way to track down Nine. If he’s still in the area, I hope he manages to ride out this bombing.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Sam yells to Daniela.
“What? You guys are following me now?”
“You know the city, don’t you?”
Another building explodes behind us. The dust is thicker this time, choking, and my back gets pelted by small chunks of plaster and cement. The explosions are too close. We might not be able to outrun the next one.
“We need to get off the street!” I shout.
“This way!” Daniela yells, hooking a sharp left that momentarily takes us out of the deluge of building debris that funnels down the avenue.