The Fate of Ten

Marina stays next to me as I crawl forward to approach the others. Mark and Adam lie on their stomachs, side by side, just to the right of the fallen log. They’ve got their blasters pointed out and are using a block of stone for cover. I notice bloodstains on Mark’s shirt and remember that he took a piece of shrapnel to the chest right before I got knocked out.

I touch his shoulder. “You okay?”

He shoots a grateful look in Marina’s direction. “I’m good. Really don’t want to make a habit of that, though. You?”

“Same.”

Sarah is right up against the fallen log, peeking out from behind it. Phiri Dun-Ra is shoved in next to her. She wasn’t crushed by any of the debris that landed in our area, which just seems unfair. The Mogadorian is still unconscious or, more likely, playing possum. I make sure to check her bonds quickly before sliding in next to Sarah. She gives me a look—tight-lipped, squinty-eyed. It reminds me a lot of John’s brave face, actually. The one where he’s scared shitless but wants to keep fighting anyway.

“What’re we going to do, Six?” Sarah asks.

“Stay within arm’s length in case we need to go invisible,” I say, not just to Sarah but to everyone. “We’ve still got a plan.”

Mark snorts at that and his hands shake a little on his blaster’s grip. He’s got the detonator for our explosives in the dirt next to him.

“There’s no Sanctuary to protect,” Marina says forlornly.

“We can still take the Anubis,” I reply. “And there’s still Ella.”

“Man, I can’t see shit from back here,” Mark adds.

I turn invisible so that I can poke my head out from behind the log without running any risk of being seen. I get a way better view of the landscape than what Mark and Adam can see from their spots behind cover. The dust from the Anubis attack is still settling in the clearing; between that and the sunset, the entire area is cast in a gritty golden haze. Three thick plumes of black smoke curl into the air—booby-trapped Skimmers that had their bombs explode when the Anubis discharged its fury. However, even though some of them are flipped over or knocked into distant areas, I still see a bunch of the Skimmers that we set to blow.

So we might still be able to salvage one of our traps to fight off the Mogadorians. But the pit we spent so much effort digging is gone. Or, more accurately, it has gotten a whole lot bigger.

The land where the Sanctuary sat for centuries is now a smoking crater. It’s about sixty feet deep with stubborn chunks of the temple’s bricks still rooted in the ground and small fires from the Anubis’s cannon blast only now guttering out in the heat-baked dirt. That force field was in place precisely so something like this wouldn’t happen. We made it into the Sanctuary and this is the result. Total destruction.

Unless . . .

Still invisible, I climb up onto the log so I can get a better angle on the crater. Sarah flinches at the noise I make and brings her blaster up in my direction.

“Relax, it’s just me,” I whisper quickly. “I’m trying to get a look at something.”

“What do you see?” Marina asks.

I see a mellow blue glow that emanates from the very center of the crater. I see the stone lip of the well where we dropped our Inheritances, the place where the Entity emerged from.

I hop down from the tree trunk and turn visible again. I want Marina to see the hope in my face because it’s very real.

“The well is still there,” I tell her. “He didn’t or maybe couldn’t blow it up. The Entity is fine.”

“Really?” Marina replies, wiping her hands across her face.

“Seriously,” I say. “We’ve still got an extraterrestrial god to protect.”

“Thing should be protecting us,” grumbles Mark.

“What if he wasn’t trying to blow it up, though?” Sarah wonders. “What if the whole point is to, like, get at it? What if he had to clear the temple away?”

“Shit,” I reply, because that theory makes a lot of sense.

“They’re coming down,” Adam hisses in warning.

The Anubis slowly moves closer to the ground. Even with the temple destroyed, the massive warship is still too big to land in the clearing. All the same, the warship hovers so that it’s centered right over the crater. Gears clank as two wide metal gangways extend from the sides of the Anubis, a couple of sliding doors opening at their tops. From there, ranks of Mogadorians begin exiting the ship. They look to be the usual breed of vatborn warriors, all of them dressed in black body armor and toting blasters. The Mogs exit the ship with speedy efficiency and begin securing the area. We’re outnumbered at least ten to one and it won’t be long until they either discover our position or find the bombs we’ve attached to the Skimmers.

“We have to attack now!” I whisper harshly to the others. I reach over and pull Adam close. “We’ll go invisible and flank them. You guys detonate the bombs and get them distracted. Marina, are any of the guns we set up still in position?”

Marina narrows her eyes in concentration, then nods once. “Some. I’ll make it work.”

Mark sets aside his blaster and picks up the detonator, arming our explosives. Three-quarters of the bulbs don’t light up at all, indicating that we lost those bombs in the Anubis attack.

“Ready,” Mark says.

“Remember, if it goes bad, run for Lexa’s ship,” I remind them.