United as One

I cock my head. “Right now?”

Adam nods, his lips in a tight line. “John has asked me to go back to our warship and destroy this mountain. If you don’t kill Setrákus Ra—he wants me to bring it down even if you’re still in here.”

I think this over for a moment. “Okay. So?”

“So?” he replies, incredulous.

“Yeah, so what? If we don’t kill Setrákus Ra, then we’re probably dead anyway, right?” I shrug. “Do what he told you.”

“What about living to fight another day?”

“I think we’re about out of more days, don’t you? Time to end this, one way or the other.”

If Adam has any more protests to make, they’re cut off by a flash of light on the monitors. Both of us turn to watch as our warship opens fires on the Mogs outside, John and the others safely ensconced under what looks like a stone turtle shell.

“They’ll be in soon,” I say. “Let’s get down to meet the—”

My sentence finishes in a wet cough. I look down at myself, puzzled by a sudden pain in my chest.

There’s a sharpened tentacle of oily Mogadorian ooze protruding from under my left breast. It went in my back, between the shoulder blades. I can feel it, itchy and burning inside me. Nicked a lung, probably. My breath wheezes out of me, blood on my lips.

“Oh” is all I think to say.

“Six!” Adam shouts.

“Oh, how I hoped it would be you two,” says a familiar voice behind me.

I turn my head because I’m unable to move the rest of my body, impaled as I am by a tentacle. Phiri Dun-Ra stands in the control room doorway. Her Augmentation is just like John described: a sickening mass of writhing black ooze that’s attached to her shoulder where her arm should be.

She’s killed me. I can’t believe it.

Dust acts the quickest. He lunges away from Adam’s side, his wolf form growing huge, gray fur bristling over his muscular back, teeth gnashing. He hits Phiri Dun-Ra with his massive front paws and knocks her off her feet. His teeth snap in front of her face, but she manages to lean her head back just enough to avoid getting bitten. One of her tentacles wraps around Dust’s snout, muzzling him. The others begin to stab at his body. Still, the Chimæra struggles, clawing at her and pressing his weight down.

As a result of Dust’s attack, Phiri’s tentacle snaps out of me. I would probably fall over if Adam wasn’t there to catch me. He presses a hand to my wound, helping me to lean against the wall. My blood bubbles over his hand, and I can tell by the panic in his eyes that it doesn’t look good.

“Six, we need to get you to Marina or John—”

Adam’s cut off by a yelp, and then a heavy weight smashes into both of us. It’s Dust, thrown by Phiri Dun-Ra’s sick appendage. His fur is soaked with blood, piercings from Phiri’s tentacles all over his rapidly shrinking form. He tries to stagger to his feet and almost makes it before his legs buckle. Dust’s dark eyes settle on Adam as he lies down on his side, whimpers once and then is still.

Adam screams.

Phiri Dun-Ra has only now gotten back to her feet, her face and chest covered in Dust’s claw marks. Adam takes up his blaster and fires. He gets her once in the chest, but the next two shots are absorbed by her tentacles. She ducks back out the doorway, running for cover.

Six! It’s Ella’s voice in my mind. I’m sending the others up to help you!

No! I think back, forcing myself to stand. We’ve got this. Tell them to focus on Setrákus Ra.

But—

I imagine Phiri Dun-Ra taking control of my or Adam’s Legacies, using them to get behind the rest of our friends, then wiping them out. I call to mind John’s secret orders to Adam, how he’s supposed to destroy the mountain base if anything goes wrong. And I think about the time Ella herself leaped into a torrent of Loric energy because she knew it meant defeating Setrákus Ra.

Priorities. Sacrifices.

We stop Phiri Dun-Ra here. We make sure the others don’t have any surprises creeping up behind them.

I stagger to my feet even though it isn’t easy. When I try to take a deep breath, my body’s response is to fill my chest with a shooting pain. It feels like I’ve got a stitch in my entire left side. I can still fight, though.

I have to.

I cover my wound with one hand as best I can and limp after Adam. He’s already barreled his way into the hallway, enraged, chasing after Phiri Dun-Ra. He squeezes off a couple more blaster shots. She leaps up, her tentacle wraps around a stalactite and she yanks herself over Adam’s attack. Then she slings herself back at Adam.