United as One

“What’re they saying?” John asks Adam as we gather ourselves and march towards the bridge.

Adam strains to listen. Small fires, piles of ash and chunks of rapidly melting ice litter the staircase. We ascend cautiously.

“The commander, he’s reporting that his ship is under attack. He’s begging for reinforcements. He wants to speak with Beloved Leader,” Adam translates.

“Are reinforcements coming?” John asks.

Adam shakes his head. “She’s blaming the commander. Telling him he shouldn’t have left his posting in Chicago. Says this is punishment for his lack of faith, that he’s not worthy of command.”

I snort. “Give us a little credit, Phiri. Come on.”

We stride onto the bridge like we own this warship because, frankly, we do. There’s a domed-glass ceiling that sweeps down to the floor, so we can see a wide vista of Niagara Falls. There are a dozen little stations with attached chairs, each of these occupied by a Mogadorian tasked with flying the warship rather than fighting. The commander, dressed in a severe black-and-red uniform that’s covered in more ornaments than anyone else, stands in front of a holographic display that’s currently broadcasting an image of Phiri Dun-Ra’s ugly face. She actually sees us enter the room before any of the other Mogs and, without another word to the commander, cuts off her signal.

“Guess she didn’t want to chat,” I say.

Most of the Mogs immediately leap away from their stations and bring blasters to bear on us. I rip the guns out of their hands with my telekinesis, and John impales each of them with a javelin of ice. These are trueborn Mogs, not the endless vatborn, and so they don’t disintegrate quite so quickly as the others. In fact, some of them only melt away partially, leaving behind half-formed corpses.

The commander, wild-eyed, in a gesture that he must know is futile, draws a sword like the one Adam’s father used to carry around and screams at us.

“You’ll never take my ship—!”

Before he can even finish his sentence, a burst of Mogadorian blaster fire takes the commander’s head off. We all spin towards a young Mog holding a blaster, his face a mixture of relief and resignation. John raises his hand to dispatch this last-surviving trueborn with an icicle.

“No!” Adam shouts, and stomps on the floor.

A seismic wave causes the entire warship to lurch, and the floor where Adam slammed his foot down crumples like tinfoil. John is actually knocked off his feet, but only for a moment. He uses his flight Legacy to float upright, looking bewildered as he stares at Adam.

“Don’t—don’t kill him,” Adam says.

The Mog in question, probably about our age and well built, his dark hair cut short, tosses aside his blaster and falls to his knees in front of us.

“My name is Rexicus Saturnus,” the Mog says, although I’ve got a feeling Adam already knows this. “And I am at your mercy.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE GUY GOES BY REX FOR SHORT.

It turns out this is the second time Adam saved his life. The first was after an explosion at Dulce Base. Adam nursed Rex back to health after that, and the two traveled together for a while. Rex eventually helped Adam gain access to the Mogs’ Plum Island facility, which is where they were experimenting on our Chimærae. He even helped Adam escape once the Chimærae were freed. Rex justified this as paying his debt to Adam rather than betraying his fellow Mogs, even though it was both.

“Do you think we can trust him?” Nine asks me.

“Adam does,” I reply. “They spent weeks together. Adam nursed him back to health.”

“Yeah, but . . .” Nine lowers his voice. “Like it or not, he’s one of them.”

We stand on the bridge of the warship, cleared now of everyone but our people. We’re flying the warship slowly up the Niagara River, looking for a safe place to land so that we can pick up the squadron of Canadian Special Ops. Lexa flew Nine and the others up here once the sky was cleared of straggling Skimmers and the Mogadorian ground troops were eliminated.

The warship took care of them all without even unloading the full power of its energy cannons. Adam and Rex handled the weapons, working together.

“He killed his commanding officer,” I tell Nine. “He helped us finish off the Mogs outside the warship.”

“Desperation,” Nine responds. “Dude would’ve done anything to save his own ass. You know those trueborn ones don’t give a shit about the vatborn. He’d probably blow up a million of them if it meant he could keep breathing.”