“If he picks up enough speed . . .” Jasmine turned to Benny. “It’s all over. We can’t let him.”
“We won’t,” Benny said. Finally, it was obvious what they needed to do. “Pinky, we’re chasing that mother ship. As fast as we can. We’ll stop him. No matter what.”
22.
Tull’s mother ship shot past the battlefield and the Orion followed it, the only ship that could hope to catch the gargantuan asteroid that would collide with Earth and cause, as Trevone had called it, an extinction event. Vala’s giant rock vessel could have matched its speed perhaps, but in their supercharged ship, Benny, Jasmine, and Ramona were the only ones who stood a chance of coming between Tull and the planet.
Earth was getting bigger and bigger in front of them as they chased the great Alpha Maraudi ship.
“What do we do, what do we do?” Jasmine repeated to herself.
“Fire the cannon every chance you’ve got,” Benny said. “The second it’s recharged.”
“Gladly,” Pinky replied, and the bridge shook as a gold blast shot through space and took out a chunk of the mother ship.
It didn’t slow.
“Pinky, tell the reinforcements not to try and stop him,” Jasmine said. “They can’t do anything to damage his ship, and if they try they might end up getting destroyed.”
“Or get in our way,” Benny added.
“They should break apart any sizeable pieces we break off him, though.”
“On it,” Pinky said. “Ramona, will—”
“Already patching you in,” she said.
“I’ve calculated a trajectory,” Pinky said. “Unless he moves, he’ll crash into the Drylands, near the Pacific coast.”
A flash of worry shot through Benny as he wondered where his caravan was, but he swallowed it down, reminding himself that the Drylands was huge, an entire third of the United States. Surely they weren’t anywhere near where the colossal hunk of rock might hit.
And if he didn’t focus and stop the ship from crashing at a cataclysmic speed, it wouldn’t matter.
“Get us closer,” Jasmine said. “We might be able to do more damage at that range. Flank it and aim for the crater in its side this time.”
The Orion’s hyperdrives surged, until they were beside the ship. Pinky fired. Tull tried to evade the blast, but it caught the bottom of his asteroid. It looked like an entire floor was taken out.
But still the ship hurtled forward.
“We don’t have enough time,” Jasmine said. “The cannon isn’t going to stop him.” She looked to Benny, biting her bottom lip.
He knew what she was thinking. They were too close now, and could get one, maybe two more shots from the Orion. That was it. The cannon could only hope to knock a few more chunks out of the asteroid. None of their other Space Runners could stop it, even if they were capable of catching up to the mother ship. Benny closed his eyes, desperately trying to think of any way they could keep this from happening, any miracle they could call upon to save Earth. His mind was an overcharged engine. Neither of his gloves would help against something so large. They had no Space Runners to hurl at the asteroid, exploding against its exterior, and even that had done minimal damage the first time they’d faced the mother ship. All they had was the Orion.
But maybe that was enough—an enormous ship by human standards, powered by hyperdrives like the universe had never before seen. More powerful than a fleet of Space Runners combined, capable of propelling them into hyperspeed.
What damage could something like that do if it hit Tull’s mother ship—and then exploded?
It suddenly became clear to Benny what they had to do.
“Pinky,” he said. “Listen to me. We have to get in front of Tull. It’s our only option.”
“Are you crazy, Benzo?” Ramona asked. And for the first time since he’d known her, she seemed genuinely full of fear, gaping at him in horror.
“We can outrun him,” he continued. “Get as close to Earth as possible and then turn around. Push the hyperdrives as hard as they’ll go. Overload them. Ignore every safety protocol built into Dr. Bale’s ship.”
“And hit Tull’s asteroid head-on,” Jasmine said. Then she started nodding. “If we can overcharge the hyperdrives and they blow up, the extra force will definitely slow him down. A collision like that . . . If we’re inside Earth’s atmosphere, it could potentially keep his craft from doing any damage to the planet outside of the immediate crash zone.”
“Or maybe blow up the mother ship completely,” Benny said.
Jasmine swallowed and nodded. “It’s brilliant.”
“No. It’s just the only thing we can do.”
Pinky paused for only a moment, calculating. And then she thrust a finger toward the hallway. “You’re both right. But I’m not destroying this ship with you on it.” She said. “You have to go. Escape pods. I’ll show you the way. Run! Now!”
It took a second for Benny to understand what she was saying—he hadn’t even had time to figure out how they might get off the ship themselves. But then instinct kicked in and he was pulling Ramona out of her chair and pushing her forward, chasing after Jasmine, following the blinking red light strips in the hallway showing them where to go.
They ran. Of all the schematics they’d memorized, they’d never paid much attention to the escape pods, had never imagined they were something they would ever need to use. The wide halls of the ship seemed endless now as their boots hammered against its floors. Pinky led them through a stairwell, into another hallway, all along the way the red flashing lights showing them where to go.
The Orion shook around them.
“We’re entering Earth’s atmosphere,” Pinky shouted in their collars. “You have to run faster. Go!”
“Mute, Pinkz,” Ramona gasped. “I’m dying.”
But somehow they managed to push even harder. Benny’s chest was burning and his sides cramped. No one said anything else. They didn’t have the breath to speak.
The first escape pod they came to was a metal rectangle capable of seating a dozen soldiers, lined with seats full of buckles and armrests full of buttons. The three of them strapped themselves in. As Benny fastened the last restraint, he opened his mouth to tell Pinky they were ready. But he didn’t have to. She was already firing the pod, sending them hurtling out into the air above Earth.
Jasmine screamed. Benny joined her. Ramona turned green, closed her eyes, and shook her head as they plummeted, spinning. Benny was sure they were going to crash at any moment, the entire escape pod exploding against Earth before they even knew if they’d stopped Tull.
Instead, hyperdrives kicked in and landed them so softly Benny didn’t even realize they were on the ground until lights started flashing around him and the door they’d come through slid open, light pouring into the pod.
Ramona looked like she was ready to puke, slumping back in her chair and moaning. Jasmine and Benny looked at each other.
“Outside!” Benny said, ripping the restraints off and racing for the door.
The heat was shocking, the midday sun blaring down, threatening to roast them in their space suits, but Benny barely noticed it as he covered his eyes and searched the sky. A shadow passed over the sun; and Benny saw it, the path of Tull’s ship as it shot past them overhead, bearing down on Earth. And then, as if rising from the sand itself, the silver glint of the Orion, moving so quickly that it was little more than a slash against the sky.
“Come on,” Benny said.
Jasmine stood beside him, whispering some anxious prayer.
The ships collided.
The Orion hit the asteroid head-on, its front half smashing, the bridge obliterated, fire and metal filling the air. A half second later, the giant hyperdrives—burning so brightly that for a moment they outshone the sun—lost stability and overheated. The explosion seemed to happen in two parts to Benny. First, he saw the asteroid ship break apart as the smoke and debris from the initial collision was suddenly shot out in every
direction. Tull’s ship was blown apart. Several seconds later a roaring wall of sound washed over him as the force of the blast threw him and Jasmine backward, across the golden ground and into the side of a nearby dune, where they were half covered in sand.
Benny scrambled to his feet just in time to see the remaining chunks of the mother ship fall to Earth somewhere—maybe a few miles away from them. They moved quickly through the air, but he could see them, could watch their descent.
After the ships and asteroids he’d seen race through space in the last few days, the hunks of debris almost looked like they were moving in slow motion as they descended upon his planet.
They hit. The ground quaked beneath him, sand shifting across the dunes. Jasmine wobbled on her feet as she hurried to his side.
But after a few seconds, the shaking stopped. The desert began to settle.
And then it was quiet.
Benny and Jasmine stood there side by side, staring at the dust rising in the distance. Benny had no idea how long they were like this, quietly watching as the air became still. And then they hurried up the tallest nearby dune. As they came to the top, the hulking remains of the ship began to come into view, a few alien crags of rock buried in the desert, the tips barely visible in the distance, beyond rolling hills of sand.
“Is that it?” Benny finally asked. “Is it over? Did we do it?”
“I think so,” Jasmine said.
From somewhere behind them, Ramona made an exploding noise with her mouth. They turned to see her leaning against the side of the escape pod, her face pale.
“So long, hologhost,” she said. “Emergency SOS activated.” She let her head hit the metal of the doorframe. “Never flying again.”
Benny snorted. But Jasmine didn’t react. She was looking at something in the distance.
“That was fast . . .” she murmured.
Benny followed her gaze, until he spotted what she had her eye on: a tiny dark blip against the sky. It was heading toward them from the direction of the downed mother ship. A Space Runner, he assumed, wondering who would be picking them up. Hoping it was Hot Dog or Drue. Or even better, both.
But as the speck got closer, he realized it was neither.
He realized too late that the approaching ship was jet-black, a flying shard of obsidian, with two great gold-tipped wings that curled up at the ends like tentacles, cutting through the air. Benny didn’t have to wonder who was piloting. He could tell just by looking at the craft.
It was Tull. And he was heading straight for them.
“Find cover!” Benny shouted, but he was well aware of how useless the command was. They were out in the Drylands—there was nothing around for miles and miles but sand and a tiny escape pod.
Ramona didn’t hesitate, darting back inside the box that had dropped them onto Earth.
“See if there’s some way to fly that thing,” Jasmine called back to her. “Or if you can call for help.”
Tull would be upon them soon and they had nowhere to run, no cover to take except inside the escape pod, and how long could that hold up against an Alpha Maraudi ship? If Tull fired, would they stand a chance? And if the pod was destroyed, had someone already tracked their emergency signal? Would they be stranded in the Drylands?
All these thoughts sped through Benny’s mind. He took one look back at the pod, and then started sprinting away from it.
Jasmine followed him. “What are you doing?”
“He’s obviously spotted us,” Benny said. “If he shoots at me, I can dive out of the way. I’ve rolled down these hills a million times, and we need Ramona to keep at it in that pod. You should get inside.”
But Jasmine kept chasing him. “I can roll, too, you know.”
Benny nodded to her, and then looked back at Tull.
“Be ready to go,” Benny said.
Only, Tull didn’t fire on them once he was in range. Which didn’t make sense to Benny, causing him to wonder if he’d judged the situation all wrong. The black ship flew overhead, as if it planned on ignoring them completely and—
It happened so quickly that Benny didn’t realize what was going on until it was too late. Something fell from the dark ship, covered in heavy plates of gemlike armor.
Commander Tull.
“Oh, crap,” Benny muttered a beat before the alien landed between him and Jasmine, an Alpha Maraudi commander made of rage and muscle.
There was a whipping sound, and suddenly Benny was in the air, a tentacle wrapped around his neck, choking him. Before he could react, Tull was ripping off Benny’s silver glove, crushing it in his thick hand, while at the same time another tentacle slapped against the side of Jasmine’s head, knocking her down the dune.
Benny’s legs flailed and his hands were around his neck, trying to pry Tull off him to no avail as the commander tightened his grip, raising Benny even higher.
“You I will kill with my own hands,” Tull spat. His mask was missing—maybe lost in the crash—and his red pupils were sparks of fire in the light, his third eye burning into Benny. “You who I should have caged the first time you dirtied my ship.”
Benny gagged, trying to kick at the alien’s face, but it was no use. He was too far away. His eyes were starting to water as he shoved his hands in his pockets in a desperate attempt to find anything to help.
His fingers grazed the one remaining shard of Maraudi rock Vala had given him.
Without thinking, he grabbed it with his gold-gloved hand and threw it forward, willing it to grow. The rock expanded, clobbering Tull in the face.
Benny slipped out of his grip. The commander cried out and whirled his head around, two tentacles ramming into Benny’s stomach, sending him sailing off the top of the dune, rolling down the hill the opposite side that Jasmine had fallen.
Benny coughed, half because his throat hurt and half because he’d inhaled what felt like a pound of sand.
But Tull didn’t stop. He leaped, landing on the ground a few yards away from where Benny was scrambling to get to his feet.
“You don’t need Earth anymore,” Benny choked out. “Why did you come here? We saved your planet. Just because you wanted revenge? Or because you were mad at us for doing something you couldn’t?”
“You think this has to do with pride?” Tull asked. He wheezed an out-of-tune laugh. “You shortsighted human. This is for the Alpha Maraudi. Like everything I do. You may have saved our planet for now, but what if another sun expands? One that cannot be stopped. Or some other calamity occurs? No. We need this planet. We need a sanctuary.”
“You’d kill all of us so the Alpha Maraudi could live? Just in case?”
Tull didn’t hesitate. “It’s not even a choice.” As he spoke he charged forward with surprising agility for someone so big. This time he had Benny’s space suit collar in his hand, pulling him off his feet. “I would do it again and again, as many times as it took. What worry should I have about you when I have my own kind to keep safe?”
Benny actually laughed. He’d heard this exact speech before, only it was Dr. Bale or Senator Lincoln and they were talking about humanity. Or Elijah, forsaking Earth to save his scholarship winners. Or even people back in the caravan who had forgotten that they, too, had once wandered into the Drylands alone looking for help or a place to call home.
And despite all that, somewhere in the back of his mind he could still hear his father’s words on repeat, drowning out the other voices: We’re stronger together.
“You think you’re so much better than us,” Benny said. “But you’re more human than you can imagine. Not like the EW-SCABers. Not like the Pit Crew or even Elijah now. Or my family. Or my father. You’re the worst of us.”
The blue eye burned brighter. For a few seconds, the desert seemed completely silent and still. Then Tull brought Benny’s face close to his. His too-wide mouth gaped and his tentacles flared and a heart-rattling roar that shook Benny’s core came from somewhere deep within the commander. All Benny could do was yell back, refusi
ng to face whatever came next without a fight.
There was a flash of something out of the corner of Benny’s eye, and suddenly he was on the ground. Tull stumbled, and fell. What was left of his right foot was smoking, like it had suddenly caught fire. Benny scrambled backward, wiping flecks of alien spit off his face as he put as much distance as possible between himself and the alien, eyes searching the sky.
Drue Bob Lincoln the Third hung out of the window of a weaponized Space Runner floating a few feet off the top of the dune. He gave Benny a thumbs-up. “Aw, yeah! Perfect shot.”
Hot Dog’s car came to a stop beside him. She opened the door and yelled down. “Dude, you tried the boss fight without us? Lame.”
“It wasn’t by choice,” Benny shouted back, keeping his gaze on Tull.
In the blink of an eye, there were a dozen Space Runners—all EW-SCABers from the Taj—hovering over the scene and aiming their mining lasers at the alien commander.
Hot Dog and Drue landed near Benny as a maroon Space Runner shot over the dune. In seconds, Benny’s two friends and Elijah West were standing beside him.
“Keep your weapons trained on the commander,” Elijah yelled up to the Space Runners. He turned to Benny. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” Benny said.
“The asteroid storm!” Jasmine shouted, cresting the dune, Ramona at her side, the two of them slipping over the sand. “What happened?”
“It’s under control,” Elijah said.
“Those EW-SCABer alums can fly,” Hot Dog said.
Drue shrugged. “We’ve got nothing to be jealous about.”
“Wait . . . you shot Tull while he was holding me?” Benny asked, incredulous, replaying what just happened in his mind.
“Dude, I’m the best, you know that.”
“What if he’d moved! Or turned?”
Drue put a hand on his shoulder. “But he didn’t, Benny.” Then he grinned. “Besides, I was aiming at his feet. You were fine.”
“Oof,” Ramona said as she and Jasmine joined them. “Too pale. CPU frying.”
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