The team joined him at the table at his invitation.
“I’m currently focused on the Los Angeles region,” Wisecoff said. “There are four domes there.” He pointed out the largest image in the middle of the table. “I’ll zoom in on the edge closest to Los Angeles that started at LAX.”
The satellite image zeroed in on the northeastern edge of the pale blue dome. On the outside of the dome were buildings, streets, and houses. Right at the boundary separating the outside from the inside was a wall of black smoke rising into the sky. On the inside of the dome, there was only blackened earth. Everything was gone.
“We’ve tried to penetrate the dome, but have been unsuccessful. Anytime we get close, a ray of some kind shoots from the central tower they’ve built in the center of the dome. The ray destroys anything close to the dome, on the ground or in the air. There doesn’t seem to be any defense against the ray or the dome.”
“We saw a dome similar to this one the last time we faced the queen,” Matt said. “There’s no guarantee that what worked then will work again, but we can try.”
The general looked skeptical. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Caroline, bring your team into my office.”
They headed to the door to his office at the back of the room.
This is the office of a general? Jesse thought as she looked around the empty room. There’s only a table with a folding chair behind it and fifteen folding chairs lining the walls. There isn’t even a picture on the wall.
The general looked at the expressions on the faces of the Alpha-6 team. “We don’t have time for decorations. We’re at war.” He sat down behind the table and motioned for the team to be seated. They pulled chairs away from the wall and joined him at the table.
“What have you heard?” Steve asked.
“I got a call from General Small. He said he was sending me a special team and I should listen to their story, that you had some experience with the aliens and we might learn a few things from you before the real action begins.” He glanced at Caroline. “When I heard that my niece was going to be with you, I said I would give you a few minutes. What do you have for me?”
“What I’m about to demonstrate is only one of our powers,” Jesse said. “The fact that we have these powers must be kept top secret. No one can know. Is that understood?”
“I understand,” the general said.
“I noticed there was a woman in a wheelchair working at a computer station in the corner of the room out there,” Jesse said. “Bring her in here.”
“That’s Lieutenant Krasnicki. Why?”
“I want to demonstrate something to you. Please have her come in.”
A minute later, the lieutenant wheeled in and saluted her commanding officer. “Yes, sir? What can I do for you?”
Jesse approached the woman. “What is the extent of your injuries?”
Taken aback, Krasnicki looked at the general.
He nodded his approval.
“I was hit by an IUD in Afghanistan and have been paralyzed from the waist down ever since,” she said. “The general and I have served together for over twenty years, and he’s kept me by his side since the explosion. Why?”
“I need to demonstrate something to the general,” Jesse said. She pulled her chair up next to the wheelchair and sat down beside the lieutenant. She put her arms around the woman and held her tight for a minute or so. Krasnicki looked at the general in bewilderment. He shrugged his shoulders.
Jesse kept her eyes closed until she released the woman. She looked at Krasnicki. “I think we’re ready.”
“Ready for what?” Krasnicki asked.
“You can get up now,” Jesse said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Get up? Are you crazy?”
“No, you can get up and walk again.” Jesse stood up and put out her hand to help Krasnicki to her feet.
“Oh . . . oh . . . no,” Krasnicki said. “I can’t.”
Jesse took her hand and lifted her out of her chair.
“I . . . I can walk. I can walk!” A little unsteady, she made her way over to a chair against the wall and sat down. With tears in her eyes, she looked at Jesse. “Thank you. You’re a saint.”
“General, we are truly wizards,” Jesse said as she placed her chair back at the general’s table. “We have many powers. My healing power is only one of them. Now, Lieutenant Krasnicki, you’ll need to remain in your wheelchair until this battle with the aliens is over. Can you do that?”
“I’ve been in that chair for years,” she answered. “A little longer won’t be an issue.” She stood up, sat in the wheelchair, and left the room.
The general’s mood had changed. He looked at the Alliance with anticipation. “What else can you do?”
“Well, basically, Matt has powers over objects,” Jesse began. “He can move objects with his mind.”
“You mean telekinesis?” Wisecoff asked.
“Yes,” Jesse said. “He can also re-form objects into different shapes and materials. Jeremy has power over the elements. He can create lightning and storms. He can also use his mind to talk to animals. Steve has extreme strength and can fly. As you saw, I have healing powers, and I can disappear. I haven’t covered all we can do. I’ve only touched on the main points. We’re still learning, so we may find new abilities that we haven’t used yet. In summary, we are truly wizards. Some of the talents are shared between us. However, when we use a power belonging to one of the other Alliance members, the power is a fraction of the original. For example, I can move objects like Matt, but they move more slowly, and I don’t have the range of distance he has. I’m stronger than I would be normally but not nearly as strong as Steve.”
“We prefer to keep our powers secret,” Matt explained. “We know people will see us in action and see what we can do, but we don’t want to advertise. The way it works is, you see us in action and soon after, you’ll forget what we did. If we advertised, it would become common knowledge and we would never be able to have any kind of normalcy in our lives.”
“Yeah, the social media freaks would never let us off the hook,” Steve said.
The general looked at Jesse like he was still not quite buying the story. “You can disappear?”
Jesse disappeared. She reappeared on the other side of the room.
Chapter 14
Next Time, I’ll Kill You
“This is total insanity,” Steve said as he threw a baseball-sized rock at supersonic speed, creating a sonic boom.
“You can’t do that, Steve,” Caroline said. “The whole base goes on alert when they hear the sonic boom. Be patient.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Steve said. “General Wisecoff’s letting the Torron army get bigger and stronger by the hour, and we sit?”
“I hate to admit it, but Steve has a point,” Jeremy said. “The Alliance needs to begin testing the perimeter of the domes. We could learn a lot if we could get close enough.”
“He’s trying to build up his forces too,” Caroline said with concern in her voice. “The real battle hasn’t started. He needs to take advantage of the lull in activity.”
“Really?” Steve said. “Okay, you’ve watched the satellite images with us. Which army is building fastest? Huh? Which one? Torron’s army is flowing in by the tens of thousands every day. I believe the last number I heard was in the neighborhood of fifty thousand each day. On top of those coming out of the portals, there are thousands of Americans entering the domes. She’s recruited dissident Americans to follow her. This is what she does. She finds the lowest of the lowest and recruits them. She promises them great wealth and power if they join with her. She’s done it before, and she’s doing it now. Now, tell me, is the general’s army growing that fast?”
Caroline gave it some thought. “No. It takes time to get all the moving parts in place.”
“We’ve been patient,” Jeremy said. “The general isn’t listening to us. He believes the goal is to defeat the Torron army.”
�
�It’s not?” Jack asked. “If it isn’t, what is the goal?”
“The goal is to push the queen back to Gandoral, where she came from,” Matt said. “Ultimately the Alliance must push her back behind the Gates of Horgon, where we can lock her in. Once that’s accomplished, both Gandoral and Earth will be safe again.”
“What about her army?” Jack asked. “We have to deal with that, don’t we?”
“Yes, we must minimize the loss of life,” Jesse said. “Certainly, that’s a high priority, but we have to figure out how to get to Torron. We have to neutralize her. Once she falls, the entire Torron army will be swept back to Gandoral.”
“Okay, tell me what you want,” Caroline said. “I’ll talk to my uncle and get the resources you need.”
~~~
“No, I said.” General Wisecoff was adamant. “They’re only sixteen years old. I’m not sending kids into harm’s way. I don’t want to hear about this again.”
“The Alpha-6 team is going with or without your help,” Caroline said. “If I don’t go with them, they’ll go on their own. Sergeant O’Rinski and I are assigned to protect them and help them in any way possible. We can’t stop them.”
“I’ll stop them.” Furious, the general pointed at the military police in the room. “Arrest the Alliance and throw them in the brig.”
“You can’t,” Captain Strong said.
“I just did,” Wisecoff said as he sat down at his desk. “Don’t take advantage of our relationship, Captain. I have a war to prepare for. You’re dismissed.”
~~~
“They aren’t going to like you carving on their walls,” Jesse said to Steve.
Steve stood near the back wall of the cell, shooting laser beams from both eyes, carving a poem into the concrete wall. It read as follows:
Here I sit. Feel I failed. Came to fight. Instead I’m jailed.
Smoke from the laser carving set off the smoke alarm. The automatic sprinkler system began spraying water all over the small prison. Steve used his laser beams to weld the sprinkler in their cell closed, and they waited for the guards.
Caroline and Jack came through the door and spoke to the Alliance through the cell bars.
“What’s going on?” Jack asked.
“What happened?” Caroline asked.
“We’re leaving, and you can tell your uncle we don’t want his help,” Steve said.
Matt looked at the back wall and stretched out his right hand. It only took a couple of seconds for a hole in the wall to open. The Alliance went through the wall as it turned to sand. Caroline and Jack ran out of the brig and saw the Alliance starting to cross the camp.
Caroline caught up with them. “Where are you going, and what’s your plan?”
“The Alpha-6 team is about to steal that V-22 over there.” Jesse pointed to a different craft than the one they had come in on. “You’ll fly us to the nearest dome and let us do what we need to do. Get us there and stay out of the way.”
“You can’t just steal an air force plane,” Jack said.
“Sarge, we can and we will,” Steve said. “You can tell your superiors we took you hostage and you had no choice, or you can stay here.”
Five Humvees roared up between the Alliance and the V-22. Half a dozen soldiers got out of each Humvee and aimed their rifles at the Alliance. No one moved.
A jeep raced into the area, and General Wisecoff got out. “I’m not letting you leave this base. Captain, I told you to stand down.”
“This is not her decision,” Matt said as he stepped forward. “We’re taking her and Jack with us.” He looked back at her. “We’re kidnapping her and the sergeant. They have no choice.”
“I won’t let you leave,” Wisecoff insisted.
Jeremy took a deep breath and let it out with a big sigh. “Okay . . . we’re not in the military. As much as we appreciate all that you do, we respectfully request you let us go without us causing more damage than we need to.”
“You cannot go, and you surely cannot take the captain and sergeant with you against their will.” Wisecoff was adamant.
Matt looked at Steve. “Okay then.”
At the same time Steve began to rise off the ground, Matt waved his hand across the soldiers in front of him. The soldiers had their eyes and weapons glued to Steve as their weapons turned to water and hit the ground. Matt turned to the general’s jeep, pointed his hand, and flipped the jeep upside down. Then he waved his hand at an M-1 Abrams tank rumbling by, and the entire tank turned to water. The crew that was inside found themselves sitting on the ground, soaking wet.
“Should we continue?” Jesse asked as she walked up to the general. “We could destroy this entire base. You can’t kill us, and you can’t stop us. What you can do is support us.”
The general looked around. “You’re criminals. You’ve destroyed government property, and you’re kidnapping military personnel. You’ll go away for a long time.”
Matt turned the jeep back on its wheels. He waved his hand, and the damage repaired itself. He waved his hand across the water at the soldiers’ feet, and the water gathered back together and the weapons lay on the ground in front of the soldiers. The crew of the tank had moved away from the large puddle of water. He waved his hand again, and the water came flowing out of the crew’s clothing and joined with the water on the ground, pulling itself back into a tank.
“There,” Jeremy said. “All is back to normal. We respectfully asked your permission to leave. The Alpha-6 team has a job to do, and we need to go now, without any more delays.”
A soldier picked up his weapon and started firing at the Alpha-6 team.
Steve and Matt both reacted at the same time. With lightning speed, Steve took the weapon away from the soldier and tackled him to the ground. He ended up standing with one foot on the soldier’s neck. Matt looked in the direction of the oncoming bullets and turned them into white feathers. They slowed down and floated to the ground. However, one bullet did get through and hit Jack in the chest. He went down hard.
Jesse hurried to his side and pulled him into her lap. “Stay with me, Jack,” she said softly. “Stay with me. You’ll be okay in a minute.”
She held him tight. The bullet had gone through his rib cage and was lodged in one of the chambers of his heart. Jesse watched the bullet wound as she held him. First, the bleeding slowed to a trickle. Then the bullet squeezed itself out of the wound, and the hole sealed over. Within thirty seconds, the healing was complete.
Even though there was blood everywhere, Jack stood up and smiled. “General Wisecoff, sir, I’m on the right team.”
“We can’t help you if we can’t learn what is going on with Torron and her army,” Matt said.
“If you won’t follow my orders—and it’s obvious you won’t—then I might as well support you,” Wisecoff said. “General Small said to give you all the support you needed. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. I’m still not. Captain, carry on.”
Steve helped the soldier who had fired his weapon to his feet. To his surprise, the soldier was six inches taller and outweighed Steve by a hundred muscular pounds. Steve looked him in the eye. “Next time you pull a weapon on Alpha-6, I’ll kill you.”
The general and all the soldiers left the area.
Alpha-6 ran to the V-22 and took off for the closest dome at the Oakland International Airport.
Chapter 15
Trojan Wheelbarrow
The Mega-Crystal was showing the dome over LAX.
“How are the dome expansions going?” Torron asked as she entered the room.
“All of the expansions are completed except for the one we’re in,” General Hasmin answered.
“Expand our shield,” Torron said.
The display in the Mega-Crystal changed to an aerial view of the lake dome. The dome extended halfway across the lake and a half mile into the forest. Thousands of US troops and equipment were rolling in a mile or so west on the farthest end of the lake. Every now and then, an explosion t
ook place on the surface of the dome.
Jensen began clicking the keyboard, making the only sound in the room. He stopped keying in the command and hit Enter. As the dome grew, the part in the water created a boiling effect as it moved to the far shore. The water on the inside of the dome turned black and became solid, while the water on the outside remained unaffected. The Torron soldiers extended their base out onto the level black mass. The part of the dome crossing land reduced everything it came in contact with to a black dust. Smoke rose from any structures, and plant life being destroyed.
“Tell me again, what is the maximum size of the dome?” Torron asked.
“It’s a two-mile radius,” General Hasmin said. “We can expand beyond a two-mile radius, but the effectiveness of the shield degrades rapidly, so two miles is the limit.”
“How long before the outer wall of the dome reaches the enemy camp?” Torron asked.
“The expansion grows at about three miles per hour,” Jensen responded. “The dome will be consuming the enemy camp in about twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be back in fifteen,” Torron said and went to the royal residence.
~~~
A runner from the front line burst into the command tent. “The dome is expanding!” he exclaimed. “We parked a Humvee near the dome. When the dome expanded enough to get to the Humvee, it completely destroyed the vehicle. It didn’t crush it or melt it. It disintegrated it. It ate it up and converted it from a solid directly to carbon dust. It’s eating up everything in its path. The dome is moving in this direction at about two to three miles per hour. It’ll be here in fifteen to twenty minutes. We need to get out of its way.”
Orders spread quickly and the retreat began.
~~~
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