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Phiri Dun-Ra. Someone, probably the ship’s captain, has Phiri Dun-Ra on the communicator.
“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.”
“Maybe.”
Nine and I stand on the commander’s perch overlooking the various stations down below. From here, we can watch Adam and Rex pilot the ship and talk between them without being overheard. Six and Marina are down below with the two Mogs, looking over the controls and talking with Adam.
“You don’t think they’re capable of change?” I ask Nine. “Adam changed.”
“Yeah, but I always thought that was because he banged Number One or something.”
I give him a tired look.
“What?” he replies.
I shake my head. “Anyway, Rex is only one Mog. Even if he wanted to betray us, what do you think he could really do?”
What I leave unspoken is that I’ve just killed an entire ship’s worth of Mogadorians. One left alive isn’t going to stop what I’ve got planned. As for my question about Mogadorians learning to change, I’m not sure I want to know the answer to that myself. It’s easier if I imagine them as vicious enemies that would never listen to reason, that are incapable of knowing justice or mercy. But the more I get to know Adam and now Rex, the more I see of Mogadorians like that one who died thinking his “god” Setrákus Ra had abandoned him, the more I wonder if they haven’t just been completely brainwashed as a people. Given time, could they change? I’m not going to stop fighting and ask the invaders if they’d like to be rehabilitated. It’s too late for that. But I wonder what will happen once I cut off the head of their twisted society—once I kill Setrákus Ra.
I intend to find out soon.
“He doesn’t have any bad intentions.”
Nine visibly jumps, and my shoulders tighten as Ella creeps up behind us. She smiles a bit, and for a moment I wonder if she’s having some fun with how spooky she’s been lately. Her eyes spark with Loric energy as she scans the two of us.
“Goddamn, Ella,” Nine says, catching his breath. “Did you read his mind or something?”
“Yes,” she responds. “He has harbored doubts about the morality of his people ever since he first encountered Adam. He’s been too frightened to act on them until you gave him an opportunity, John.”
“Well, that’d make me sleep easier if I planned to sleep anywhere on this gross-ass ship,” Nine says, already losing interest. “Maybe we should just have Adam talk all nice to the rest of the Mogs, huh? Go all social worker on ’em.”
Ignoring Nine, I turn to Ella. “The Loralite stone near the falls that you turned off. Can you reactivate it?”
“Yes,” she replies.
“Then let’s go.”
“Okay, bye,” Nine says, frowning as we exit.
I lead Ella through the empty halls of the warship. The traces of my battle with the ship’s crew are everywhere: burns, debris, damaged panels. The two of us don’t say anything until we’re almost at the docking bay. Ella finally breaks the silence.
“You’re mad at me.”
I run a hand through my hair, find it sticky and matted with sweat. “I . . . no. Yes. I don’t know.”
“You wish I had warned Sarah. Or warned you.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?” I slow my walk down and turn towards her. “In your visions—”
“I told you; I’m not looking at the future anymore.”
“When you were, then. Did you see me like this? Did you see what I’d become?”
“W
hat have you become, John?” Ella asks, tilting her head.
I bite the inside of my cheek before answering. I remember the looks I was getting from Six and Adam during our attack on the warship.
“Something my friends are afraid of.”
Tentatively, Ella reaches out and brushes her fingertips against mine. “They aren’t afraid of you, John. They’re afraid for you.”
I shake my head. Whatever that means. I’ve already wasted too much time here. There’s still so much to be done.
Of course, even though I’m doing my best not to show it, I’m feeling tired in a way that I’ve never felt before. It’s beyond exhaustion. It’s like my every atom is splitting apart, like I’ve exploded, except my body doesn’t know it yet. Pushing so much power through me, using so many different Legacies, it takes a toll. I was running on adrenaline by the end of the battle.
But I’m still standing. That means I’m still fighting.
