Return to Zero

by Pittacus Lore

  The skimmer wobbled as it descended, flares of crimson energy arcing loose from where a chrome panel had ripped off under the left wing. The ship’s nose bobbed upwards as the pilot tried to pull back and slow down, but the skimmer still hit the track at high velocity, divots of dirt and rocks kicked up in its wake, armor shrieking in protest as it peeled off the ship’s underside.

  At least, Kopano thought, he wouldn’t have to run laps for a while.

  As the vessel skidded to a stop, Kopano was right there to meet it. Debris bounced off his hardened skin as he charged. He couldn’t see through the skimmer’s gleaming front windows, but he knew how these ships were laid out. He knew the cockpit was right in the front.

  Kopano loosened his molecules just as he reached the ship and passed straight into it, through armor, through alien circuits and overheated engine parts and straight into the cockpit. He grinned at the surprise on the Mogadorian pilot’s face. It must have been a strange sight, his ghostlike form emerging from her controls. She even let out a startled scream.

  “Boo,” Kopano said.

  He went solid just long enough to grab the pilot by the shoulders—she wore some kind of obsidian armor that was icy to the touch—and then turned them both transparent. He registered, quickly, that there wasn’t a regiment of Mogs waiting in the space behind her. In fact, the skimmer seemed empty. Odd.

  Still holding the Mog pilot, Kopano kept up his momentum. He phased them straight through the back of her pilot’s chair, which she hadn’t even finished unbuckling from, and then out the ship’s side wall.

  The Mogadorian screamed again, this time in anger. “Get off me, fool!”

  “As you wish.”

  When they hit the track, Kopano turned them both solid and flung the Mogadorian to the ground. She landed hard on her shoulder and Kopano thought he heard a bone break.

  “Hello,” Kopano said, standing over the Mog. “I am the welcoming committee. Stay down and I won’t hurt you anymore.”

  Even as he said these lines—pretty badass, he thought, if only there were more people around to hear, that would’ve been cool—Kopano was trying not to blatantly stare at this Mogadorian girl. He’d never seen one of the aliens in person before.

  Her skin was pale gray, almost the color of stone. The sides of her head were shaved, a coil of ink-black hair that probably reached to her waist when loose piled atop her skull. A jagged tattoo started at her collar, reached up her neck and curled around her ear. She wore patchy black body armor that was dented in so many places it couldn’t be very effective, including a hole in the breastplate where the previous wearer must have been shot or stabbed right in the heart. The Mog was also young. Probably Kopano’s age, assuming the Mogs aged the same way as humans. Sixteen or seventeen, tops. That was strange, too. He’d never seen a young Mogadorian before. Only the vicious, belligerent bald things that exploded into ash all over the news.

  The Mog rolled away from him and hopped to her feet. She was as tall as him and extremely skinny, her armor too loose at the joints. The Mog did something to the arm that she’d landed on, wrenching the shoulder like she was popping it back into place. She grimaced and flexed her fingers.

  “Ow,” she said dryly.

  “I told you to stay down,” Kopano replied, this warning a little shakier than his last. She was a pretty intimidating sight.

  In response, the Mog detached what looked like a small club from her belt. She gave it a shake and the handle extended in both directions. One end opened up like a flower, terminating in a spiked mace head made of pure obsidian. She flipped the weapon from hand to hand.

  “I’m not here to fight you,” the Mog said, but then seemed to reconsider. “Unless this is part of it?”

  “You’re not . . . ?” Kopano cocked his head. “Wait. Part of what?”

  “The training,” she replied. Then, she grinned, her sharp canines glinting. “Of course. An initiation. Such was the way on my planet too.”

  And then she came at him, swinging the mace for Kopano’s chest. He hardened his molecules and let the blow connect with his sternum, smiling confidently.

  Pang. The mace-head bounced off Kopano with a noise like a cymbal. He skin wasn’t broken, but it hurt. An icy sensation spread through his torso, causing Kopano to stumble back.

  “Ow,” Kopano grunted. “What is that thing made of?”

  In response, she swung again and this time Kopano went intangible. The mace passed through him and this—somehow—was even more painful than the last strike. He felt the freezing cold spread throughout his body. The feeling shocked him and it was all he could do not to turn solid with the mace still inside him. He leaped back, panting and holding his chest.

  “Okay,” he said. “Give me that.”

  With his telekinesis, Kopano yanked the mace away from the Mog. She let out a cry of surprise as the handle ripped loose from her fingers. The weapon spun towards Kopano, under his control.

  And then it stopped. Held in midair.

  He stared at the Mogadorian. Her hand was extended, her gaze focused on the mace. She was pulling it back to her.

  “You’re . . . you’re telekinetic,” Kopano whispered. He didn’t know why he was whispering.

  “Do you always talk so much during battle?” the Mog asked.

  They struggled over the mace, the weapon bobbing in the air between them. She was strong. Maybe as strong as Kopano, he thought. Maybe stronger.

  “Okay, I think that’s enough, you two.”

  The voice came from over Kopano’s shoulder, back in the direction of the skimmer. The Mogadorian girl wasn’t alone after all.

  A ramp jerkily extended from the skimmer’s belly, not reaching all the way to the ground as the wrecked spacecraft continued to belch smoke. The speaker hopped down from there and approached. He wasn’t Mogadorian. He looked human, with shaggy blond hair and a patchy beard to match. There was a cut on his eyebrow that he only noticed when a trickle of blood dribbled into his eye. He waved a hand over the wound, healing it.

  “Rough landing,” the guy said.

  “I warned you all the skimmers were damaged,” the Mog said sullenly.

  “It’s fine. No harm done.”

  He looked human, but he wasn’t. Kopano knew exactly who the Mog’s passenger was, would’ve recognized him anywhere. He heard the slap of metal on skin as the Mog’s mace flew back into her hand, Kopano too star-struck to care about maintaining his end of the telekinetic tug-of-war.

  “Hey, I’m—”

  “John Smith,” Kopano blurted. “You’re the John Smith.”

  “Yeah,” John replied, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “Would you mind bringing us to Professor Nine?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TAYLOR COOK

  ADMINISTRATION BUILDING

  THE HUMAN GARDE ACADEMY—POINT REYES, CALIFORNIA

  “UNTIL THE ONGOING ISSUE WITH THE ACADEMY’S leadership is resolved—that’s me he’s talking about, I’m the issue—it would be prudent for all Academy support staff to remain off campus. Salaries will be paid in full during this work stoppage.”

  Nine glanced up from the email displayed on his laptop, shaking his head. Taylor, seated in the chair across from his desk, chewed the inside of her cheek.

  “When did Greger send that?” she asked.

  “This morning,” Nine replied, shutting the laptop with more force than necessary. “This is bullshit. I fought an intergalactic warlord and now I’m getting owned by an empty suit with an iPhone.”

  “How much staff have we lost?”

  “I don’t know,” Nine snapped, standing up and going to the window. “Dr. Chen and Malcolm are trying to keep people working. Figured the request to stay would be better coming from a—from a human,” he said bitterly.

  “At least the Peacekeepers haven’t come to drag you away yet,” Taylor offered.

  “Yeah. Not yet, at least. Not until Karlsson clears all the normies from campus.” He tapped his metal fin
gers on the glass. “I wonder how many Peacekeepers I can take.”

  “How many we can take,” Taylor corrected. “Let the staff go if they want to go. We don’t need them. You original Garde got by just fine training yourselves.”

  Nine turned back to look at her. She was expecting to see the usual brow-furrowed anger curdling Nine’s face, the macho bluster she was so used to. Unexpectedly, though, there was a deep sadness in his eyes.

  “This is going to make me sound like a grandpa,” Nine said. “But I really wanted a better life for you guys than what we went through.”

  “You’re trying—”

  The walkie-talkie on Nine’s hip crackled to life. “Nine? Come in.”

  That was Malcolm. Three little words, but Taylor didn’t like the tension there.

  “I read you,” Nine replied into the device. “What’s up?”

  “A Mogadorian skimmer just crashed out by the track.”

  Nine’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re kidding.”

  Taylor stepped closer. “Could it be Isabela and the others? Maybe they came back?”

  “We’ve got a visual,” Dr. Goode said. “Kopano appears to be engaged in a battle with a Mog warrior.”

  Nine’s mechanical hand tightened around his walkie-talkie, the plastic creaking. “It’s just one shit storm after the next.”

  Taylor was already heading for the office door. “We have to get out there.”

  “Elevator’s too slow,” Nine said, waving Taylor back to him as he popped the window. “This way.”

  Nine hooked her around the waist and, with his antigravity, booked it down the side of the building. After teleporting across the world and transforming into wind, Taylor didn’t even blink.

  On the ground, Maiken skidded to a stop in front of them, tufts of grass kicked up in her wake. Rabiya clung to the speedster in the piggyback position, stumbling loose when Maiken came to a stop.

  Maiken’s words came out fast and breathless. “There you guys are! Rabiya! Kopano! The track! Mogadorians!”

  “Damn, slow down, we already know,” Nine said. “Rabiya? Get us there.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied as she funneled energy into the ground, a chunk of Loralite rising up.

  Maiken’s eyes were wide as she looked at Taylor. “Are we being invaded again?”

  Taylor thought back to her experience in Siberia. Howling Mogadorians lurching out of the darkness with their energy weapons, gunning down soldiers next to her as she sprinted through the snow, other people’s blood warm on her face. She shuddered, but tried not to let Maiken see.

  “If they’re invading, they chose the wrong place,” Taylor said coldly.

  “Ready,” Rabiya announced.

  They all linked hands—Maiken somewhat reluctantly—as Rabiya touched the newly formed Loralite stalagmite. There was a flash of blue, a disorienting spinning sensation and then they were on the track. Twenty yards ahead of them, acrid black smoke curled up from a wrecked skimmer.

  There was a Mogadorian girl standing right in front of Taylor. She must have been inspecting the Loralite stone because she leaped back with a startled cry when the four of them materialized around it. The Mog was tall, lean and angry-looking. She carried a weapon that looked like a souped-up version of one of those medieval head-whackers.

  Reacting fast, Taylor made to shove the Mog with her telekinesis. But then, she noticed Kopano. He was just standing there over the Mog’s shoulder, a stupid grin on his face. There was a guy with him, blond and with a scruffy beard, immediately familiar.

  “Oh, there he is,” the blond guy said to Kopano, nodding at Nine. “Perfect timing.”

  “Guys!” Kopano hollered, raising his arms in triumph. “Check it out! It’s freaking John Smith!”

  For a minute there, when John and Nine were bro-hugging each other and laughing, Taylor actually thought that things were looking up.

  “Damn, John, it’s good to see you,” Nine declared. He eyed the Mogadorian girl. “I get the feeling this is going to be one hell of a story.”

  “Yeah,” John replied. “Long story short, I need your help. Can we go somewhere away from the burning ship?”

  He needed their help.

  John Smith needed their help.

  Maybe if she was more like Kopano—a total fangirl—that simple statement would’ve thrilled her.

  But it just pissed Taylor off.

  They left the skimmer behind and teleported back to campus. Taylor caught John looking at her in that same strange, wistful way that he had when she met him briefly in South Dakota.

  “I remember you,” John said, when Taylor caught him staring. “You’re a healer.”

  “Taylor Cook,” she said, reminding him of her name.

  “That’s right,” John said. “How’s it been going?”

  Taylor snorted, no idea how to answer that question. She opted for honesty. “Pretty shitty, actually. There’s a global conspiracy under way to enslave our people.”

  John scratched his cheek, looking away. “Yeah. We should talk about that.”

  “After we get to your thing,” Taylor said dryly. “Which I’m sure is very important.”

  Kopano caught up with them, slinging an arm around Taylor’s shoulder. “Taylor told me all about how you saved her from Harvesters,” he said, smiling brightly at John. “It sounded very badass. I wish I’d been there to see the looks on their faces.”

  “It wasn’t that big of a deal,” John said. “I just happened to be passing by.”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t that big of a deal,” Taylor agreed, shrugging off Kopano’s arm as she picked up speed. “I’ve been in much worse trouble since. We all have. But I guess you weren’t ‘passing by’ those times.”

  Kopano gave her an incredulous look. John swallowed, not replying. He didn’t say much of anything the rest of the way to the administration building.

  They all packed into Nine’s office on the top floor. Lexa, Malcolm and Nigel came up from the subbasement to join them. The adults hugged John and greeted him warmly, like a long-lost relative had come back home. Agent Walker joined them as well, although she got a brisk handshake instead of a hug.

  Nine settled in behind his desk. John, Malcolm and Lexa sat down in the chairs in front of him. Kopano flopped down on the leather couch to the side, right next to the Mog girl, like he’d completely forgotten that they’d been brawling ten minutes ago. Walker stood over Kopano’s shoulder. The Mog, to her credit, looked as anxious about this whole situation as Taylor felt. Maiken and Rabiya both lingered by the door to Nine’s office, not sure if they should stay or go, neither wanting to miss anything. Nigel leaned against the wall, his arms crossed, not making any acerbic remarks for once. Taylor, meanwhile, stood behind Nine. A security feed on Nine’s computer showed a team of Peacekeepers coming over the fence to investigate the smoldering skimmer and set up a perimeter.

  “Just gave Greger another reason to bust in here,” Taylor muttered.

  Nine gave her a look. “He’s already got all the reasons he needs. Chill.”

  “My original plan was to land their entire ship here,” John said sheepishly, overhearing. “But then I decided stealth was a smarter approach considering everything going on with the Earth Garde.”

  “What do you mean ‘entire ship’?” Nine asked.

  Before John could respond, the Mog let loose a low, ominous growl. Everyone turned in her direction. It took Taylor a moment to realize that the noise wasn’t a threat; it was her stomach rumbling.

  “I—I apologize,” the Mog said. She shifted uncomfortably, her armor scratching the upholstery. “Would it be possible to get some food?”

  Nine stared at the emaciated warrior for a moment. “Maiken? Could you see what’s left over from lunch?”

  “Sure,” Maiken replied, and dashed off.

  Taylor knew how Maiken worked. At hyperspeed, it might only take her a minute or two to grab a snack and then she’d spend an equal amount of time spreading gossip.
The way she talked, soon everyone would know that John Smith was here with a strange Mogadorian girl.

  That might actually improve morale, Taylor thought. Nothing bad could happen to them if John Smith himself were around. At least, that’s what many of the students would believe.

  “We should probably start with your new friend,” Nine said. “I’m trying real hard to be cordial and shit, but you know I’ve got a standing policy to smack down any Mog I see.”

  “Your ward already tried that,” the Mog said with a side-eye directed at Kopano. “It did not go well for him.”

  “Ward,” Nigel repeated, chuckling. “Do all Mogs talk like aristocrats? No wonder Mum liked them so much.”

  Kopano frowned at the Mog. “Um, I think I was winning.”

  “You were not,” she stated.

  “Shut up, all of you,” Nine said, looking at John. “Why did you bring one of them here, dude? What’s going on?”

  “She can speak for herself,” John replied.

  The Mog hopped to her feet. Everyone’s eyes tracked her, ready for trouble—well, except for John, who seemed mostly amused. She bowed deeply at the waist.

  “I am Vontezza Aoh-Atet, trueborn daughter of the deceased General Aoh-Atet, co—”

  “Commander of the Mogadorian warship Osiris,” Taylor finished, not even realizing she was speaking aloud until everyone in the room was staring at her.

  Vontezza cocked her head. “You know me, human?”

  “Yeah, I’m a big fan of your podcast,” Taylor said. “Actually, I was on a Mog warship—or what was left of it, anyway—in Siberia. Your ship was hiding behind the moon, sending out a broadcast on loop.” She looked in John’s direction. “Asking for him.”

  John nodded. “Yeah. I heard it, too. Eventually.”

  Vontezza’s gaze lingered on Taylor, sizing her up. Taylor stared back. After a moment of that, Vontezza seemed satisfied and turned back to Nine, resuming her overly formal speech.

  “Number Nine of the formidable Loric Garde. Your mercy is legendary.”

  Nine snickered. “It is?”

  “I told her she didn’t have to do this part,” John said. “She insisted.”