by Adam Holt
No, the Ascendant had isolated us. We would fight them alone.
A SLICE OF NORMAL IN A PIE OF WEIRD
We shivered in silence, listening for snapping twigs. All the while I kept my dad’s number on my hologlass display and called it every few minutes just to hear his voice, deep and full, on the voicemail. “You’ve reached Commander Mike Harper of the Space Alliance. I’m on assignment in Switzerland currently and will return your calls as soon as possible.” I decided to call him one last time, to leave him a final goodbye message before the Ascendant found us, but something went wrong.
As I was blinking my eyes to make that final call, an incoming call appeared on the screen at the last moment. I couldn’t stop the blink and accidentally hit “accept” instead of “decline.” Dangit.
The caller wasted no time in hologramming me into a room. The mineshaft disappeared, and I found myself transported into an unlikely location: a tidy bedroom with framed artwork on the walls, stuffed animals on the bed, and an Upthruster in the corner. That should have told me everything that I needed to know, but the shift disoriented me. Whose room was this?
“Behind you, Tully.” There, Janice Chan, my classmate, leaned against her desk, looking stressed. Or was it angry? She adjusted her black-rimmed glasses, narrowed her eyes, crossed her arms, and tapped her foot. I was speechless.
“Don’t just stand there with your mouth open and your teeth chattering,” she said. “Sit your hologram butt down.” She pointed to a chair and I did as instructed.
“Uhhh, why are you calling me, Janice?”
“Seriously? Tully, you’re in huge trouble!”
“The entire Earth knows that,” I said.
“I’m not worried about the Earth. I’m worried about our group project! You and Sunjay haven’t done a thing yet,” she said. She waved her hand and the assignment details popped up on the hologlasses: “Remember the Three for Survival Project? Instructions: Find and research three places in the solar system that can support human life. Then present your plan with your partners in class.”
Was I ever in school? It was like a forgotten dream from another life, but it was as real as an Ascendant warrior to Janice. Somehow she didn’t know that I was the target of a worldwide manhunt.
“School’s not that high on my priority list right now, Janice,” I said.
“Bangers!” she said, throwing up her arms. “It’s a third of our grade this semester. That trip to Florida toasted your brain!”
“Probably true,” I said. “Look, this isn’t a good time. I guess you didn’t hear the big announcement?”
“What big announcement? Like you and Sunjay are messing around with my uncle’s Upthruster, not doing any work?”
“Wait, how did you know that?” I said a bit too loudly. Dr. Chet Chan was Janice’s uncle. Their family was full of genius scientists and inventors. Aunt Selma put a hand on my arm to quiet me.
“Ha!” Janice said, proud that she had figured us out. “I knew it. You and Sunjay are in Hawaii, sitting on the beach drinking milkshakes and Upthrusting yourselves to death. My uncle would not approve.”
“Of course he wouldn’t. But you didn’t hear the stuff about—oh, never mind. Go on.” I decided to let her vent. It was like a slice of normal in a big pie of weird.
“So, I locked myself in my room after school, just me and a cup of chamomile tea, and did this.” She flipped off the lights. In her room a number of planets and moon appeared, bobbing in front of my eyes. “I’ve found holographic maps of half the moons in the solar system all by myself, and I could do the rest all by myself and get an A for our group. But. But I just won’t do it. It’s time you and Sunjay do something other than travel around and have fun.”
“Believe it or not, Sunjay and I might know something about this project. Maybe not as much as you, but listen, some stuff happened today—”
“Oh, stuff happened! Sorry to hear that. My life is soooo boring and stuff never happens to me.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I whispered. “We really want to contribute.”
“Listen, I know you are sad about Tabitha. I respect her a lot and hope we find her. Everybody does. But you, Tully, have to keep moving on, and right now ‘moving on’ is finishing—or starting!—the Three for Survival Project. Tabitha would want you to do that. That’s why I chose you and Sunjay as partners. I’m the responsible one in group projects. That’s my reputation. And you two guys are as flaky as my stepmom’s croissants. That’s your reputation. If I have to supervise you guys every step of the way, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Janice finally finished her rant.
“Janice,” I said, “I’ll see what I can do. I know that’s a bad answer, but if you don’t hear back from me tomorrow, you’ll understand why.”
“Oh, you’ll hear from me,” she said, pulling her hair back in a ponytail.
“Either way,” I continued, “you should know that you’re a great group partner.”
Her expression softened for a second, like the compliment had hit home. It was true, and we both knew it, but she shook her head again.
“You know, Tully Harper, you’re smart when you want to be. I know life is a mess for you and Sunjay, and I want to help you out. I want you to impress everyone with this project, but you’ve got to pull your weight.”
Pull my weight, I thought, sitting in Janice’s room, but I wasn’t really there. I was in a mineshaft beside Sunjay with his pickaxe and Aunt Selma with her shotgun, and me with nothing in my hands to fight the Ascendant—all of us huddled together. I wanted to pull my weight more than anything.
“That’s all I ever try to do,” I told Janice. “Just send us a to-do list or something. We’ll get something done.”
“Ciao, then. I’m off to bed,” she said.
Click.
Janice, that slice of normal, disappeared. It was nice to feel like the old me for a moment—assignments, grades, stressed out group partners. I wanted to stay in her room longer, not because of the warm fuzzies, but because of her holographic maps. Those might have come in handy. I should have asked something about them. She might have better guesses about the Ascendant’s home world than Sunjay and me.
Then the whole weird pie returned. Somewhere nearby a twig snapped in the woods. Snow crunched underfoot. Murmurs in a foreign tongue. I pocketed my hologlasses and flexed my hands.
SHADOW IN THE SNOW
A soft purple glow lit the inside of the mineshaft. We peeked through the slats and saw the source—a black staff on his way up the ridge. Another one appeared a few hundred yards to the right. The hulking figures clomped through the snow in heavy snow boots and tunics. They would have looked silly, but their arms were bare and flexed, holding those “magic batons” in front of them. Stars, they should be popsicles by now, I thought.
The Ascendant in front of us moved methodically. When his black staff glowed more brightly on one side, he turned that way. It seemed to be guiding him toward something. Straight toward us? He said something to his partner in a low grumble, and then produced a small globe that floated into the air. Like a Chinese lantern, it lit the forest. He scanned the ground and headed past us, following his lantern…and the track that my aunt had created. Her diversion worked. Finally some good news! I felt relieved, hearing him thump past us in the snow, but Sunjay grabbed my arm. I had taken my eye off the other black staff. He was moving in from the right under cover of darkness.
Lit by his staff, he was a dark phantom against the snow. We backed away from the entrance as he approached, his staff buzzing. Then he stopped a few yards from the mineshaft.
Sunjay tightened the grip on his pickaxe. Aunt Selma raised the gun to her shoulder. And I, well, I thought about the color red. Red, red, red, red, red. That sometimes brought on the power. No luck. The only color that filled my mind was gray, the only picture a gray sphere—the sleeping Sacred. How much would it take to awaken it before this Ascendant was upon us? The temptation rippled over my sk
in like the Ascendant’s tattoos, and my hands felt warmer. It seemed that the Sacred started to dimly glow, like a spark still alive in a dying coal. That power still lived in me, too. It was ready to burn its way to the surface and light this forest on fire if it needed to. And it does! I thought. It’s time. I won’t let them take anything else from me.
Plink! A sharp noise interrupted the vision. Sunjay had his hand on my shoulder. Nooooo! He mouthed to me, like he could read my mind. He was right. I could burn down the forest. Harm was as likely as good. But what had caused the sound? On the ground beside him was his axe.
The Ascendant must have heard it fall. He stepped out of view of the front of the mineshaft and positioned himself directly above us on the ridge. His staff buzzed. Then boards on the front of the shaft began to creak. Words in a strange language. Then one of the boards flew off as if an invisible hand ripped it aside. Then another. Sunjay had revealed our location. Or I had. Either way, another nail pulled away and then a board, but the Ascendant stopped. He yelled again. Something was wrong.
A small avalanche of snow flowed down the mountain from above, and then the Ascendant tumbled down the hill with someone else. The someone else yelled. The Ascendant grunted. A fight began. We heard a thud and another thud as they rolled down the hill.
“Now or never!” Aunt Selma yelled. As quick as a comet, she dove through the opening of the mineshaft and we followed. What we saw amazed us. A cloaked figure grappled with the massive Ascendant. It didn’t look like a fair fight, but the Ascendant struggled to stay on his feet, even though he was a foot taller and broader than the shadow figure. Aunt Selma charged toward them. The Ascendant saw her coming and, with a powerful thrust, he tossed the stranger aside, aimed the staff at Aunt Selma, and blasted her into the woods.
The stranger swept the Ascendant’s feet and pounced on him. They tussled in the deep snow with the staff between them, the stranger’s cloak flying. Finally, the stranger raised his knee to the black staff. It cracked and shot sparks. With nothing between them, the Ascendant grabbed the other man in a bear hug and squeezed. Both of them let out cries.
Now or never is right! I thought, looking at my friend. Sunjay tossed the pickaxe aside and threw a jumping kick at the Ascendant. With the stranger still in a bear hug with one arm, the Ascendant grabbed Sunjay by the face before the kick landed. He laughed. Then he threw Sunjay into the snow. I ducked behind a tree, reached into the deep snow, and found a softball-sized rock. Why not?
I was a few feet higher up the mountain, so just like the shadowy figure had done, I leapt from my perch. The rock I held above my head, and with a scream, brought it down upon the Ascendant’s head.
“Arrrghaaaahhh,” he said, which must be Ascendant for “concussion.” He staggered and released the stranger who finished what I started: an uppercut that snapped back the alien’s head. The Ascendant crumpled. The stranger stood over the Ascendant for a moment and then wheeled toward me. I threw the rock at his head but he dodged it and took a step toward me.
“Tully, the enemy of your enemy is your friend,” he said. With that, he threw back the hood of his cloak. It was then that I could see his profile: a stiff jaw, stern eyes, and a red-streaked crew cut. It wasn’t Goldcap. It wasn’t a stranger at all.
It was my dad. We heard a birdcall from nearby and moments later Buckshot Lewis appeared, wearing a snow-covered cowboy hat.
“You took down the other one?” my dad asked. Buckshot nodded and produced a package of zip ties.
“Just like calf ropin’, cap’n,” said Buckshot, tying up the stunned Ascendant and throwing his hands in the air when he finished. “Y’all could’ve saved some of the action for me here though.”
“How the?—” I started, shaking my head in disbelief.
“Sunjay, you okay over there? Selma?” my dad asked. They limped toward us with their weapons. I tackled my dad in a bear hug into the snow.
“Stars, I have missed this face,” my dad said, smiling at me. Then he grimaced. “Easy, Tully. I may have a cracked rib. Not sure.”
“But, but you’re both in Switzerland.” I was so confused.
“Apparently not. Sorry that we couldn’t call ahead. I’ll explain later. So we knocked out two Ascendant. How many remain?”
“One alien ship and one more ugly,” said Aunt Selma, grimacing. “I think Goldcap shot the fourth one.”
“That’s good news,” my dad said. “We’ll leave him for the Alliance.” Then he walked toward the mineshaft.
“Uh, dad, that’s the wrong way,” I said. “Dad?”
He ignored me and scrambled up the hill into the mineshaft. He emerged with a box of dynamite wrapped in a faded American flag. I jumped back.
“Dad, you trying to kill us? That’s dire dangerous,” I said.
“More dangerous than you know,” he said. “Help your Aunt Selma. She’s limping pretty bad.”
On the way back to the cabin we made a plan to take out the remaining Ascendant. I would “give myself up” because I was voted “least likely to be killed.” Great title, right? Then the others would surround the Ascendant and attack.
“No explosives?” I asked my dad.
“Nope,” he said, patting the box of dynamite. Patting dynamite. That can’t be a good idea.
The whole thing sounded like bad really, but we didn’t have to put our terrible plan into action. When we reached my aunt’s cabin, her front yard was a battlefield of trucks and trees and holes in the ground, all smoldering and smoking. The alien ship looked undisturbed, but the Ascendant and the mob were nowhere to be seen.
“What happened?” Sunjay asked.
My dad came upon a clue in the wreckage. There were two black staffs strewn beside two piles of dust. No, ashes.
“Someone incinerated our enemy,” my dad said. “See, look at the footsteps here. He came from the woods and took them out before they could react.”
“So Tully has alien friends, too,” said Aunt Selma.
“No way,” I said.
“You’ve got one, as I recall,” my dad said. He reached down and picked up a black handle. When he pushed a button on the side, a glowing purple blade appeared in his hand.
Chills went up my spine. Someone did save us. The same someone that cornered me in the newsroom. My guardian alien angel. He had once been a devil. He was paying his dues for all the bad things he had done.
Aunt Selma tried to take a step forward and her leg buckled. She cursed. Now that we were in the light, I could see the burn marks on her leg from the Ascendant blast. My dad took a look. It was worse than we thought. I could smell the burns and remembered how it felt to be burned. I stretched my scarred hands. The Sacred’s words came back to me: You must pass through shadow and flame before you see her again.
“There’s no time to waste,” my dad said, looking at Aunt Selma’s wounds. “We’re getting you to a hospital.”
“Too much danger and distance,” she grunted. “You and Buck take the plane and the boys and get out of here. Leave me, Mike.”
“No,” he said.
“There’s no other way,” she said. “I can tough it out.”
“Not a chance,” he said.
I looked around: the only transportation we had was a half-burned truck and Aunt Selma’s old plane that couldn’t hold the five of us. Even if we left her and took the plane, chances were we would be captured upon landing. I felt so hopeless: the best we could do was escape for a few hours before someone recognized alien virus boy and his friends. But I was missing something. It was in the defiant look in my dad’s red flecked eyes—a look that told me this wasn’t the end of anything. This was the beginning. The very beginning.
He addressed us all. “You’re thinking that we are going into hiding. You’re thinking that they will catch us tonight, aren’t you? Well, if we get caught, it won’t be tonight. It won’t be tomorrow. If anyone catches us, it won’t be within a million miles of here.”
I was confused. My dad doesn’t e
xaggerate. It wasn’t until I saw him move that I understood his plan. Carrying the box of dynamite wrapped in the American flag, my dad turned away from us and toward the alien ship. He mounted the ramp and disappeared into the side of the ship. Sunjay scrambled after him. Buckshot and I supported Aunt Selma and we made our way toward the ship. No one hesitated.
Some people you just can’t stop following—not because of where they are headed, but because of who they are.
AWAY TEAM BETA –
MOVEMENT NOTED.
PLEASE REPORT ON STATUS OF LOCATION THREE.
- GT
ALIEN CONTROLS AND HOSPITAL VISITS
“Okay, okay. Just slow down, Sunjay. I’ll answer your questions,” said my dad, “but first we have to learn how to fly this ship.”
From what we could see, the Ascendant ship’s interior was one dome-shaped room with a flat circular floor, all done in black and purple. It was no larger than a living room and a lot less comfortable. Around the room ran a black ledge that acted as a bench. You had to lean forward to sit. My dad and Buckshot motioned for us to sit down while they felt along the walls above our heads. A purple light lit the whites of their eyes as they inspected.
My dad ran his hands along the smooth walls for clues to the ship’s controls. Every so often a symbol would glow at his touch; a compartment would open when he touched the symbol. We fidgeted on the uncomfortable benches watching him open drawers and bins full of weapons, spare parts, and alien doo-dads.
“This isn’t a ship. It’s a clown car!” said Sunjay. “How do they all fit in here?” It was hard to believe the giant Ascendant flew across the universe in such a small ship. It was a fraction of the size of the Lion’s Mane.
“Let’s just call it the Mini-Mane,” Sunjay said. That name stuck.
“Hey, Dad,” I asked, “while you’re walking in circles looking for the steering wheel, could you tell us how you both got from Switzerland to Middle of Nowhere, Alaska so fast?” I asked. “Did you steal a plane or something?”