United as One (10 page)

I'm on my own here.

Thanks to being fireproof, I'm not concerned with Five's literally flaming skin. It's the way his hands are crushing my windpipe that I really have to worry about. Every time Five dashes me against a new surface, his grip slackens a bit, and it gives me a chance to breathe. With the way he's buffeting me around, it's a constant struggle to keep getting oxygen.

“Beloved Leader came to me in a dream!” Five shouts right into my face. The socket of his missing eye is completely filled with fire. “He said he'd forgive me if I told him how to find you. I told him I'd do even better and kill you myself!”

A snarl of rage builds in my aching throat. Enough!

I pound both of my fists down on Five's forearms in an effort to break his grip. He grunts but doesn't let go of my neck. We go careening into a wall, then the ceiling, always with me cushioning the hit for Five.

I lean my head back, make sure my eyes are aimed
directly at Five, and let loose Daniela's stone-vision.

He's too fast. As soon as the beam leaves my eyes, Five gets one of his hands up to block me from blasting him full in the face. That's one less hand around my neck, though. Five lets out a creepy little laugh as his hand turns to stone, then mashes that newly leaden appendage right into my face. He keeps the pressure on, covering my eyes so that I can't get off another shot with the stone-vision.

Still, it's an opening. I can breathe now with only one of Five's hands holding my throat. Not only that, but I've managed to gain some leverage. I grab him around the neck and twist, spinning us so that he takes the brunt of the next fall. We crash into something—it must be the floor, I still can't see—and I immediately make sure that I keep Five pinned. In control now, all my weight thrown against Five, I throttle him against the floor over and over.

His stone hand drops away from my eyes, and I can see the look of pain cross his face. The flames covering his body blink out, leaving behind fragile, normal skin. I don't stop. I keep slamming him. Now it's Five gasping for breath.

“John—John—look down!” he manages to wheeze out.

Another trick, probably. But there's something about the way Five says it, all that malice gone from his voice.

I glance down and see the floor, fifteen feet below us. I'm not slamming Five against the ground at all; I'm pressing him against the ceiling.

I'm flying. In complete control.

“You said—you said heat of the moment,” Five croaks. “I thought some motivation might—might help you learn. Do it—do it by instinct.”

I don't know what to say. I let a deep-breath whistle through my teeth and my fury dissipates, while still holding Five against the ceiling. Slowly—in control now—I float us down to the ground. I glance around. We're in a hallway in the infirmary section of the base. It's all but deserted over here. Distantly, I hear footsteps racing down a nearby hall. Probably Nine and the soldiers trying to catch up.

“There were better ways to do that,” I say, turning to Five. I ignore the fact that he's completely naked, all his clothing having burned off when he turned his skin into fire.

“Can't argue with results,” Five replies, hunched over. He holds up the hand I turned to stone in front of his face. I can tell by the way his arm muscles flex that he's trying to move his fingers but isn't able. “This feels weird.”

Five turns his entire body to stone to match his hand. When he turns back to normal, the stone hand stays the same. He frowns.

“Shit. Is this permanent?”

“I don't know,” I tell him. “I could try healing it.”

“Please do,” he says, and holds out his hand.

I take Five's arm and let my healing Legacy pour into it. It takes a little more effort than normal; my Legacy has to work through the cold stone and find some live tissue to rebuild. Eventually, the stone starts to crumble away, revealing smooth skin underneath.

“Maybe just leave my pinkie,” Five says suddenly, like an idea just occurred to him. “I don't need my pinkie.”

I make a face. He wants me to leave his finger so he'll always be able to turn his body to stone. I shake my head.

“Not going to happen.”

“Come on, John,” he says, and grins at me. There's blood on his teeth. “Don't you trust me?”

In answer, I heal his hand the rest of the way. I don't let go of his arm just yet.

“When we were fighting, you said Setrákus Ra came to you in a dream. Was that just you trying to fire me up?”

“No, that happened,” Five states. “I didn't accept his offer, though. I'm done believing what that old bastard says.”

Before I can press Five further, Nine barrels around the corner in a full sprint. With my enhanced hearing, I can make out another dozen sets of running feet a few seconds behind him. I can also hear the telltale clicks
of automatic weapons. I immediately hold up my hands in Nine's direction and put myself between him and Five. After Five's stunt, I don't want this situation to get anymore out of hand.

“I'm all right!” I shout. “It was just a misunderstanding!”

Nine skids to a stop, his fists balled. He puffs out his cheeks with exertion, then raises one eyebrow, looking past me.

Behind me, Five grunts in surprise.

“Uh, John—,” Five manages.

I turn around to find Five standing as still as a statue. He's barely even breathing. An icicle hovers in the air right in front of his face. The point glints in the brightly lit hallway, sharp as a dagger. The frozen shard is a hair away from Five's remaining eye.

Marina stands a few feet behind Five, far enough back that he wouldn't be able to reach out and grab her. Her dark hair is a tangled mess matted to one side of her face. She looks like she just woke up, except for the eyes—those are wide and glaring, focused on Five.

“Marina, easy—,” I start to say. She doesn't even hear me.

“What did I tell you, Five?” Marina asks, her voice cold. “What did I say would happen if I ever saw you again?”

“WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE SAVING THE WORLD
from evil aliens and instead we're going to die in a plane crash!” Daniela moans, her face pressed to the nearest window. “So messed up!”

“We are not going to die,” Lexa snaps from the cockpit. “I can land this thing without power. It just won't be pleasant.”

Unpleasant seems like it might be an understatement. A glance out the window shows me that we're still awfully high up, the tops of trees pointy green spears down below. Lexa has us gliding in lazy circles, trying to slow our descent as much as possible. Without power, the ship rocks back and forth with every gust of wind, and I can feel Lexa jerk the controls every time that happens, to keep the ship's nose from going down. So far, she's been able to keep us relatively steady. Once we hit those trees, though, we're going to be bounced about like crazy.

Sam stands in the middle of the aisle. He looks panicked. I can't blame him, since this abrupt descent is pretty much his fault.

“This ship is fucking cursed,” I mutter to myself.

“Turn on!” Sam yells for like the twentieth time. “Ship! I command you to turn back on!”

“It's not working. Systems are still off, and I'm totally locked out,” Lexa calls back from the cockpit. “Maybe try asking nicer.”

Sam clears his throat, and his voice goes up an octave, like he's talking to a baby. “Ship? Please turn back on?”

Nothing happens.

“Goddamn it, turn on!”

I grab Sam by the shoulders and make him look at me.

“You're just yelling right now; you get that, right? You need to focus. Stop freaking out and use your Legacy.”

“I don't know how, Six. Yelling is seriously all that's worked for me so far.”

“You did it before with the game player. Just—I don't know. Visualize?”

“I'm going to get us all killed,” Sam groans.

“I have seen very few futures where that occurs, Sam,” Ella interjects. She's still calmly seated in her chair. Sam stares at her.

“See? Very few,” I say to Sam.

Sam swallows hard. “Not helpful.”

The ship suddenly lurches to the right. Lexa curses
and bangs against the steering column, trying to correct course. We definitely just picked up some downward velocity.

“Six, maybe you could help me out with the wind situation?” Lexa calls over her shoulder.

“Good idea,” I reply. I start to step away from Sam. His eyes widen immediately, like I'm abandoning him. I grab his shoulders and squeeze. “Relax. You can fix this. I'm just gonna slow us down a bit so you have more time.”

I go to the nearest window and concentrate on the weather outside. It's a clear-blue sky out there. I focus on the wind—it's blowing hard at this altitude, but not so strong that I can't control it. Instead of buffeting against the side of our ship, I command the wind to change directions, pushing it across the ship's underbelly, cushioning us. Combined with Lexa's careful navigation, soon we're circling gently, like a leaf caught up on a breeze.

I've slowed us down. This ship still probably weighs half a ton. I won't be able to keep us gliding around forever, not without some help from the engines. It's only a matter of time.

I'm sure Sam knows this. He keeps at it, trying different tones of voice, commanding the engines to start back up. The ship's not listening, though.

In my peripheral vision, I notice Ella gets out of her seat. Little flecks of blue energy spit from the corners of her eyes. She holds Bandit under one arm; the raccoon was
losing his mind as we started to crash. As soon as Ella picked him up, he calmed right down. I don't know what he's so worried about anyway—unlike the rest of us, he can sprout wings.

Ella studies Sam for a moment. She nods once, like she's come to a conclusion.

“Before, you said you pictured the inner workings of the video game player and that helped, right?” she asks.

“I said they popped into my head eventually,” Sam replies. He runs both of his hands across his scalp. “I don't know how it happened.”

“Okay,” Ella replies. “Give me a second.”

Sam blinks at her, trying to work some moisture into his mouth. He watches as Ella strolls casually towards the cockpit. I half turn to watch, too, still giving most of my attention to padding the wind.

“This thing's gotta have parachutes, right?” Daniela asks me.

“Don't worry,” I reply, watching Ella. “I think we've got this.”

Daniela looks at me like I'm crazy. She's not used to this whole close-calls thing.

“You know how this ship works, right?” Ella asks Lexa, standing right at the pilot's elbow. “You could, say, picture the engine?”

“What? Yeah, I guess,” Lexa answers, although she's more focused on navigating us towards a patch of flatland
newly visible on the horizon. It won't be enough space to land us clean, but at least we won't be getting thrown between trees.

“Could you do it right now?” Ella asks patiently. “Just—visualize the engine or the power system or . . . I dunno. Whatever you think Sam screwed up.”

“I'm kind of busy with . . . ,” Lexa responds sharply, then thinks better of it. She makes sure the controls are pointed in the right direction before leaning back for a second and closing her eyes. “Okay, I'm pictu—”

Lexa breaks off suddenly with a shudder, like a chill just went up her spine.

“Thanks, got it,” Ella says.

Lexa reopens her eyes. She squeezes the bridge of her nose for a moment before wordlessly refocusing on her controls. “That was weird,” she mutters.

“Sam, I'm going to send this image over to you,” Ella says, peering back at Sam from the cockpit.

“Send it to me how?” he replies, though the answer should be obvious. Telepathically. Sam's head jerks back, and his eyebrows shoot up. “Oh. There it is.”

“Try your Legacy now,” Ella suggests. She leans against the cockpit entrance and gently strokes Bandit's fur. She's so confident, I let my grip on the supporting winds slip a little. Our ship dips suddenly to the left. Daniela's the only one who notices—she lets out a quiet moan of despair; everyone else is focused on Sam.

His eyes are glazed over, and he stares into the distance, like there's something floating out there that only he can see. His lips move wordlessly, rapidly, as if he's whispering a quick count to one thousand.

“Ship, turn on and stabilize, return control to pilot,” he says confidently.

Immediately, there's a whir of activity under our feet. The ship's engines turn back on, and there's a satisfying chorus of buzzes and beeps from the cockpit. We level off and begin to gain altitude.

“All good!” Lexa yells. “Crisis averted.”

I lunge away from the window and squeeze Sam. “You did it!”

Sam smiles dazedly at me, like he's not sure what he even did. “I did it,” he repeats.

“You didn't kill us, hooray,” Daniela adds sarcastically.

“I felt like I was supercharged or something,” Sam says, his gaze drifting towards Ella. “Like I was connected to the machine. I could make out all its workings. . . .”

Ella shrugs. “I only plucked out what was in Lexa's mind and gave it to you. That's all.”

“So it seems like you have to understand the machine before you can control it,” I say, thinking out loud.

“But with the Game Boy, I just sat with it, thought about it, and eventually the wiring came to me,” Sam counters. “And shutting down the ship, that was a total accident. Like an overreach.”

“You also talked funny this last time,” Daniela says. “Like a robot.”

“Did I?” Sam asks, and raises an eyebrow at me.

“You did,” I reply. “Seems like we've still got some work to do figuring out this Legacy.”

“Man, I need a Cêpan,” Sam says, rubbing the back of his neck.

Lexa clears her throat. “Look alive, everybody. We're closing in on Niagara Falls, and I've already got visual on two—no, make it three—Skimmers.”

Everyone in the back immediately falls silent and gets serious. The thundering majesty of Niagara Falls becomes visible down below as Lexa makes a quick pass overhead. Unsurprisingly, the falls are completely devoid of tourists. With the world at war, no one has time for sightseeing.

I make out a shimmer of cobalt blue on the grassy mountainside adjacent to the falls. That's the newly grown Loralite stone, the one our new Garde teleported in with.

And parked around it? The three Skimmers that Lexa spotted.

“You see 'em?” Lexa asks.

“Yeah,” I reply. “Not seeing any movement, though.”

“Hold on; let me enhance the image.”

I hear Lexa tap out a few commands on her console. A moment later, the view from the window blurs and then expands. Now we're zoomed in on the Loralite stone and the ships surrounding it. The camera, which must be
mounted on the underside of our ship, effortlessly tracks the stone as we glide through the air above.

“Whoa,” Daniela says. “Cool.”

Now I can make out more details of the three Skimmers. Only one of them actually looks intact, with its ramp extended and cockpit doors open. The second Skimmer has a ribbon of black smoke curling away from its engine, like something recently exploded there. And the third Skimmer is overturned on its side, half in the rushing river that leads to the falls. The ship shudders even now; any minute the current will take it over the edge.

It looks like the Mogadorians got more than they bargained for. Even so, I don't see any signs of life below. That makes me nervous.

“How do you want to play it?” Lexa asks.

I think her question over for a second. “Bring us down in the open. Our approach wasn't exactly subtle. Anyone with eyes probably spotted us already.”

“You'd think the Mogs would be shooting at us by now,” Sam says, frowning at the scene on screen as Lexa brings us around for a landing.

“Could be an ambush,” I say.

“Or they could've had more ships. Maybe we're too late. They could've already nabbed these kids and jetted back to their warship,” Daniela suggests grimly.

“Let's hope not,” I reply.

Lexa sets us down as close to the Loralite stone as
possible, near the undamaged Skimmer. Now that we're on the ground, she returns the windows to normal. Ella stares out at the glowing stone, seemingly mesmerized.

“We need to help the government secure the rest of these places,” she says after a moment. “If the Mogs find them first, the new Garde could end up teleporting right into their hands.”

“Could you make contact with them again?” I ask. “If they're coming to fight, maybe we could tell them all to teleport here.”

Ella shakes her head. “My range isn't that strong anymore,” she says.

“We could post it on YouTube,” Sam says dryly.

“No YouTube, ever,” I reply. “We'll just have to trust Lawson and his people will do right by them.”

“Glad I'm with you guys and not detained,” Daniela says.

Lexa puts us on an angle so that our exit ramp will open towards the falls. That means no threats will be able to come from behind us, and we'll be able to use the ship for cover if this is an ambush. Any Mogs looking to attack us will be coming from the small patch of evergreen forest to the north. That little forest is half-flooded by the river as it rages its way towards the falls, so we should have an advantage if we keep to the solid ground.

“Ready?” Lexa asks.

I nod, and she deploys the ramp. No one starts shooting.
I'm not sure I'd hear blaster fire over the cacophony of the waterfall anyway.

“Adam should be on the comm,” I say to Lexa. “Call in, tell him we've arrived and see if he's picked up any Mog chatter. Otherwise, keep the ship ready to haul ass in case we need to leave in a hurry.”

“You got it,” Lexa replies.

I extend my arm, and Regal immediately lands on my forearm, his talons careful not to clutch too tightly.

“Scout it out,” I tell the Chimæra, and he swoops away, through the exit and into the blue sky. I start towards the ramp after him, motioning to Daniela. “Come on, get up front with me. Anything that seems hostile, go ahead and turn it to stone.”

Daniela smirks, but I can tell that she's nervous. “Let's do this.”

With Daniela and me leading the way, we edge our way down the ramp. I glance to the side quickly, sensing motion, but it's just Sam picking up a jagged rock from the river with his telekinesis.

He shrugs at me. “In case I need to clobber someone,” he says quietly.

Daniela's gaze darts about as we make our way around the front of our ship and approach the burned-up Skimmer. Bandit trundles alongside us as we move slowly north. The raccoon has gotten bigger since we landed, puffed up, his claws now a vicious length. He scratches at the dirt, ready
to charge at the first sight of danger. His claws kick up a chalky gray substance that I immediately recognize.

Mogadorian ash. Pretty fresh, considering it hasn't all blown away yet. And there, next to the ash, the left-behind weapons of some killed vatborn. There was definitely a fight here, and the Mogs took casualties.

“The newbies did some damage,” I say.

“No kidding,” Sam replies, eyeing the smoking Skimmer. On closer examination, it looks like a grenade went off right in the ship's cockpit. Something exploded, that's for sure. I'm just not sure what.

I glance behind us and see Ella drifting away from our tight little group. She's headed towards the Loralite stone, which would put her right out in the open.

“Ella,” I hiss. “Stay close.”

She waves at me without looking away from the stone. “I'll be fine, Six.”

Sam and I exchange a look.

“I guess you get pretty daring when you can see the future,” Sam says.