The Fate of Ten

Adam looks over his shoulder at me. “How’s that?”

I use my telekinesis to lift a crumbly section of dirt and stone up from the pit, then chuck it into the jungle. It’ll be easier to dig through now that Adam’s broken up the dirt, but it’s still going to be a pain in the ass. I give him an approving nod.

“It’s a start,” I tell him.

He stands up. “I’m going to go look for . . . a shovel.”

Adam can barely finish his thought, his eyes suddenly pinned to the sky behind me. I whip around, hearing the sound of an engine.

No. It can’t be. It’s too soon. We aren’t ready.

“Six?” Marina asks, her voice catching. “What is that?”

It’s a ship. Sleek and silver, without the hard angles and guns like the other crafts I’ve seen the Mogs flying. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, yet it’s also oddly familiar.

The ship’s coming in fast, and it’s headed right for us.

Chapter FOURTEEN

“SCOUTS?” MARINA ASKS ME. I CAN FEEL HER ice Legacy kicking back on, in case we need to fight this new arrival.

“That’s not a Mog ship,” Adam says, stepping up beside me.

“No,” I reply, because I’ve already figured that out. I put my hand on Marina’s arm. “It’s okay. Don’t you . . . don’t you recognize it?”

“I . . .” Marina trails off as she takes a closer look at the incoming ship. The spaceship zips in over the trees and pivots effortlessly in the air, cutting its speed with a flourish over the recently cleared Mogadorian runway. Although it’s dented and scuffed, and even has a bit of rust on the edges, the ship still shines a glittering silver, its armored paneling made from materials not found on this world. It hovers for a moment, the sun glinting off the cockpit’s tinted windows, and then gently lands.

“That’s one of ours,” I say. “Like the one that brought us here. To Earth, I mean.”

“How is that possible?” Adam replies.

“Are these our reinforcements?” Marina asks, not taking her eyes off the ship. “Did John mention anything about this?”

“He said he was sending Sarah, Mark and something else . . .” I answer them both dazedly. “Something we’d have to see to believe.” Who could be piloting a Loric ship? Where did it come from? I take a halting step forward.

A metal ramp unfurls from the back of the ship and I tense up. I have a hazy memory of running up a ramp like that as a child, Katarina at my side, explosions and screaming in the background. Here we are again, in the middle of a second Mogadorian invasion, and once again there’s a Loric ship in front of me. Only this time, I don’t know whether I should be running towards it or away from it. Even though John told me help was coming, I can’t shake the feeling this could be a trap. My paranoia has gotten me this far, no reason to ignore it now.

“Get ready for anything,” I tell the others. “We don’t know what’s coming out of there.”

And then a familiar beagle bounds down the ramp.

Bernie Kosar, tongue hanging out of his mouth, leaps onto me first, his front paws braced against my legs. His tail is a blur as he greets Marina next and then even jumps onto Adam. I hear an unfamiliar sound and quickly realize that it’s the Mogadorian laughing.

When I look back to the ship, Sarah Hart now stands at the top of the ramp, her arms open in greeting and a smile on her face.

“Hey, guys,” Sarah says casually. “Look what we found.”

Marina lets out a laugh of delighted surprise and jogs forward, meeting Sarah at the bottom of the ramp and immediately wrapping her in a tight hug. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Sarah—she’d already gone off on her secret ex-boyfriend mission when Marina and I returned from Florida. She has her blond hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and her smile is bright, but there are some lines under her eyes, which I notice are a little red-rimmed the closer I get. Sarah’s also sporting some fresh scrapes and bruises that her big smile can’t hide. Yeah, she’s happy to see us, but she’s also tired, stressed and a little beat-up. Regardless, she looks better than we do—filthy from a couple of days in the jungle, sunburned and exhausted. But I don’t hold it against her.

“You’re here,” I say to Sarah, hugging her, too. In truth, I’m a little distracted. I still can’t take my eyes off the ship.

“It’s good to see you, Six,” Sarah replies, squeezing me despite the sweat and grit. “John said you could use some help and a lift. We brought both.”

Who exactly the “we” is becomes apparent a second later. The Mark James who exits the ship behind Sarah is a hell of a lot different from the guy I briefly fought alongside in Paradise. He’s retired the whole gel-haired-jock thing. Mark’s dark hair is longer and scruffier. I think he may have lost some weight, his muscles leaner now than I remember. He’s got an overtired look on his face and squinty eyes that suggest he’s not used to so much sunshine.

“Whoa, shit,” Mark says, stopping halfway down the ramp. “You’ve got one of them behind you.”

“That’s Adam,” Sarah replies. “I thought I told you about him.”

“Yeah, I guess you did,” Mark says, shielding his eyes while he openly stares at Adam. “It’s just spooky to see one of them, you know, hanging around like a normal. Sorry, bro,” Mark adds, nodding to Adam.