The Last 8

by Laura Pohl

  “I’m heading in. Just get those damn things off my tail!”

  A blast hits one of my wings full on, and the ship turns, almost slamming into the base. I scream and grab the wheel, pulling the ship up so it doesn’t hit.

  “Shields are failing!” Rayen screams.

  “Tell me about it!”

  The case with the bomb slides toward me, and I hold it down with my foot, my whole body cold.

  Another blast hits and I know that I don’t have long. I loop the ship around, making a turn. Two enemy ships collide, bursting into pieces. It’s strange to see a collision like that in space—there’s no fire and no explosion, with no oxygen to make it burn. The ships are destroyed on impact, their pieces floating in zero gravity.

  I zoom past the debris, and I can see an opening in the ship. I have to go for it. Another blast shoots past me, striking near the opening.

  “Shut down their weapons, for fuck’s sake!” I shout.

  “We’re trying!” they shout back.

  There’s another blast, this one hitting the left wing. It sends my ship hurling toward the opening. And then I’m through. But enemy ships follow me, and there’s nowhere for me to go as they shoot in my direction again, tearing off part of their own base in the process.

  A string of curses escapes my mouth. “If this keeps up, there isn’t going to be anything left of this ship for us to blow up!”

  “Got it! They’re down!” Avani confirms. The alarms on my panel are still blaring, warning me about my damaged wings, but I can still fly the ship, and now their whole weapons system is finally down.

  I accelerate through the hole, and Rayen comes back to my side.

  “How much time have we got?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. We still need to set the bomb to self-destruct.”

  She nods and looks over her shoulder. “They’re retreating.”

  “Thank God,” I murmur, slamming on the accelerator until the ship is going flat out. “You guys ready?”

  There’s silence over the comm unit.

  “Guys? Where are you? Come in.”

  More silence.

  “What do we do?” I ask.

  “Stick to the plan. They might have been captured.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “No, but we’re almost done.”

  Prioritize, my brain screams inside my head. I’ve got everything I need to blow this ship to smithereens now that the shields and weapons are down. And if Brooklyn and Avani have been captured… The aliens will be too distracted by them to worry about my bomb. It’s an advantage.

  My hands sweat on the wheel as I pull my ship inside to dock on one of the main pillars of the mother ship, just as we planned. Our bomb isn’t powerful enough to blow the whole ship apart, of course. The aliens aren’t dumb enough to not notice a bomb that big. But if a main pillar blows, and they can’t stabilize the ship in time, they’re done for.

  If Brooklyn finished what she promised to do, then all their systems are blocked, and they won’t be able to do anything about it.

  They won’t be able to save themselves.

  I slow the ship down and bring it to a complete stop, breathing hard until I’m back in control. Rayen and I look down at the case that holds the bomb that’s going to set everything off. The last thing we need to end this.

  Violet told us how it works and made sure that we knew how to set it. We take it out of the case, and my hands are steady, even though I’m holding a uranium rod that has the capacity to blow a small city to dust. We place it on the pillar and turn it on. The timer appears, and I set it for two hours from now. That should give us enough time.

  I nod at Rayen, and we watch the countdown begin. One hour and fifty-nine minutes till it explodes.

  “Brooklyn?” I say again into the comm unit.

  There’s nothing but static.

  Chapter 49

  “Flint? Violet?” I ask. “Come in please. We’ve got the timer set.”

  There’s no answer.

  I start getting nervous, my heart not reacting well to the threat. No one is responding, and the bomb is ticking in the background.

  “Let’s go back to the Arc,” Rayen says, looking me straight in the eye. “That’s the plan—we’re all supposed to meet up at our ship. If the others aren’t there, then we’ll decide what to do.”

  I lead the way into a corridor, my heart pounding in my eardrums, adrenaline pulsing and rushing through my veins as I hold my stunner rifle up to my shoulder, not daring to lower it.

  The base is not as dark as I imagined it would be. It looks more like a hospital than a spaceship. It’s white and silver, almost tasteful in its colors. Andy’s map is imprinted in my brain, and I try not to make a sound as I turn a corner, but I don’t meet any aliens.

  The silence creeps me out. Every single cell in my body is warning me against going any farther. I don’t know whether it’s my genetics or something else that’s warning me of danger ahead.

  We climb, uneasiness crawling under my skin, and there’s still no answer on the comm unit. We’re almost to our ship when Rayen stops me.

  “Did you hear that?” she asks.

  I didn’t hear anything, but I pause and listen.

  “What if this is a trap?”

  I wait, licking my lips. It could be. But with no way to contact the others, the only safe place to go is back to our ship.

  Those aliens better not have touched Sputnik.

  Rayen and I follow each other through the corridors, not running but not tiptoeing, either, until we reach the docking bay where we left the Arc.

  The instant we enter the bay, a piercing noise blasts out.

  The noise in my head is too much, and I fall to my knees. Rayen doubles over behind me.

  The alarm goes on and on, and it’s too painful. My vision goes blurry. I try to fight it, but it’s a relentless, piercing sound, and I feel something wet and warm seeping from my ear. I touch it, and my fingers come up red.

  My eyes are full of tears, and I’m begging for the pain to stop. Eventually, the world goes black.

  * * *

  When I come to, there are two metal guns pressed to the sides of my head, and my hands are tied behind my back. I’m on the cold spaceship floor, and as I sneak a glance to the side, I can see four other people down here with me. Not all of them are conscious yet.

  Aliens hold the metal guns. I see eight of them in the room, guarding five of us. Rayen is also awake. I try to catch her eye, but there’s not much I can do in my current position. They’ve taken our weapons, with the exception of Abuelo’s gun, which I still feel pressed to my back. They must have missed it.

  But Abuelo’s gun isn’t going to help us now.

  “Ah, they’re awake,” says a strange, slithering voice, and I realize that it’s a sound I can only hear in my head.

  I look up to the front of the room and see what looks like a huge insect, double the size of the other aliens, sitting in a white chair. Her face is an imitation of human—her eyebrows are angled and cruel, and her four blue eyes stare right at me. I know that her form is just covering what she truly is inside, but it’s still unsettling.

  She’s their queen.

  “Are you listening?” she asks, and then I hear that piercing noise in my head that makes me want to scream, to beg for her to stop.

  The alien behind me pulls me up by the hair, forcing me up on my knees to look at the queen.

  I nod my head, and my friends do the same. They’re all awake now and struggling with the pain. We’re tied down and badly hurt. Avani’s ears are bleeding onto her green shirt, forming a puddle of blood on her shoulder. None of us try to move.

  “Good,” the queen says, her voice echoing inside my head. “So you have the ability to comprehend. Do you understand me?”r />
  I nod my head again, so that she won’t come back at us with that piercing noise. I wonder if that’s how she controls the other aliens. However she does it, she’s got them all in perfect file. And somehow, I know that she can see us.

  “Of course I see you,” she says, as if she’s reading my thoughts. “I am, after all, your queen.”

  The terrible noise starts up again, and I bend over toward the floor. When the noise stops, I try to straighten up, but I still feel it lingering in the background, as if it could start again any second. The queen holds her chin up.

  “You are indeed monstrous creatures,” she says.

  “Look who’s talking,” Brooklyn manages with a gasp, then she doubles up in pain. The queen seems to be able to hurt her just by looking at her, and then the piercing noise starts all over again.

  I try to clear my thoughts. I don’t think that the queen can really control us the same way that she can control them. We are not part of her hive.

  And that’s what makes us strong.

  But two people are missing from this equation—Andy and Violet. Where the hell are they? They’re the ones who were supposed to end this.

  “Where is she?” the queen asks. “The last one.”

  We don’t have to be geniuses to know that she’s referring to Andy.

  “She surrendered,” Brooklyn says. “Or didn’t you find her in one of your ships?”

  The queen snarls and moves forward to stand in front of Brooklyn. Her legs are powerful, made of sharp metal that glints like blades.

  “She will not be able to hide for long,” the queen hisses. “There is no way out of my ship. And if she ever wants to see you again, she will come.”

  The queen snarls again and returns to her throne. Another wave of pain hits, squeezing my lungs and my brain, so that my whole body is on fire.

  I cry out, tears in my eyes, and then I see Andy enter the room.

  Facing the queen, she looks so small. Human, even. There’s nothing that distinguishes her from us.

  “Let them go,” Andy says firmly. “We’ve disabled all your ship’s systems. This whole thing will explode in one hour.”

  Andy risks a glance at me. I give her the smallest of nods.

  “I thought you’d run,” the queen says, not moving one inch in her throne.

  She clicks a leg against the floor, and three aliens immediately surround Andy. They face her, guns at the ready, but they don’t dare touch her.

  “Well, well,” the queen says. “I did not expect you to look so pathetic.” She doesn’t move a muscle, and neither do the aliens holding us hostage.

  “What do you want?” Andy asks.

  “You know what we want,” the queen replies, her voice calm. “We have come a long way for you, Andromeda.”

  “Let my people go.”

  The queen scoffs, or at least that’s what it sounds like, a choking noise made by an insect. “These are not your people. They have Hostemn DNA. They belong to me.”

  “They belong to no one,” Andy says firmly. “Let them go and abandon planet Earth. Then we won’t kill you.”

  The queen laughs. “Kill me? All that your ancestors have done for eons is run. You can’t destroy an army as powerful as ours.” She laughs again, her face distorted. “And what makes you think that we cannot deactivate the destruction of our very own ship?”

  Andy doesn’t look at us directly. Just to prove her point, the queen screeches again, and we writhe in pain.

  We have been rendered useless by our DNA. The one weapon that we had has been taken from us.

  “Let them go,” Andy repeats, “and we will talk.”

  The alien behind me clicks its gun, readying it to fire.

  “Let them go, or I will use the Burst.”

  The queen turns to Andy again, evaluating her from head to toe. Then she laughs. “You?” she says. “You’re not even grown. You’re much too small. Too fragile. You look human. One swipe from my leg and I would kill you.” She pauses. “Seize her.”

  The aliens approach Andy, but she opens her arms.

  “I’m not afraid,” she says.

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I know your ancestors,” the queen spits. “A bunch of spineless cowards who would let us die rather than share their knowledge of how to save our planet.”

  “You destroyed your planet on your own,” Andy counters. “Why should they have helped you, when—even after you had destroyed everything—you still would not negotiate peace?”

  “There is no peace to Us. There is only Us. And those who will not become a part of Us must perish.”

  Andy takes a step back, breathing hard. Suddenly, she starts glowing, and the queen stands up, alarmed. Instead of looking powerful, Andy looks like she’s in pain, trying hard to concentrate on whatever it is that she’s doing.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” the queen says. “You will kill them. You will kill your friends. You will kill everything that is not your species.”

  The queen advances until she’s standing face-to-face with Andy. She reaches out a hand, touching Andy’s face, and the girl recoils.

  “Leave Earth behind, and I will do nothing to harm you,” Andy says, her hands balled into fists. “Go and leave us in peace.”

  “But we need you,” the queen replies, raising her eyebrows. “Why not strike a deal, Andromeda, last of the Universals? We all know that your species doesn’t fight, even though you have the power to. Stay on our ship. Provide Us with answers. Give Us the power of the universe, and we will let your friends go.”

  Rayen tries to move, but the queen turns to her, and she starts seizing on the floor.

  “Andy, don’t,” Avani says, but the queen silences her.

  Andy looks at us and then back at the queen.

  “Stay, and they live,” the queen repeats.

  It’s an offer that, before, Andy might have accepted. She might still accept it. I don’t know.

  There is nothing that we can do.

  “Your weapons are powerless against Us,” the queen says, and I can hear her voice everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. “You made a mistake, thinking that you could fight Us. No one can fight Us.”

  And she’s right. We made a dumb mistake, thinking that we could get through their defenses, that we could defeat their queen. Not realizing that our DNA might give her power over us. Not thinking about anything other than getting our home back.

  I try to lift myself up, to take deep breaths. Flint is unconscious by my side, and I pray silently that she’ll kill us quickly, so that no one will feel a thing.

  Just end this.

  End this.

  And then the door blasts open, and everyone turns to look as the last human girl on Earth steps through it.

  Chapter 50

  Violet walks into the room holding a stolen alien gun and approaches the queen, holding the barrel close to her stomach, where we know their weak point is. She doesn’t hesitate. There is no mercy in Violet’s eyes, and instead of trembling, she’s firm and steady.

  “What have we here?” the queen asks.

  Violet clicks the gun, ensuring that the slightest shift of her finger will blow the queen’s cover right off of her. “Don’t move,” she hisses.

  The queen closes her eyes, but the piercing noise doesn’t reach us this time, and it obviously doesn’t affect Violet. The queen opens her eyes again, and I swear I see a flash of surprise in them.

  “Human,” she spits. “How dare you defy us?”

  “How dare you invade my home?” Violet’s reply is fierce, full of fire. This isn’t about rescuing us—it’s about striking back at them for everything that has happened. This is about getting revenge for Earth.

  Violet keeps her gun pressed to the queen. Nobody in t
he room dares to move.

  Violet meets my eyes, and I try to give her the slightest of nods. My ears are bleeding and my brain feels like mush, but I trust my own instincts. Whatever DNA is inside my body, I know that it will heal any injuries that I take here. I just need to find the right time.

  If Violet makes a move against the queen, the aliens will shoot us. That’s what she’s trying to avoid, but we could get shot anyway. If she doesn’t kill the queen, then we’re all as good as dead. I doubt that any bargain we can offer is good enough.

  Everything hangs in the balance.

  “Let’s make a trade,” the queen suggests. “You take all these hybrids. They may live on your planet, if their lives are worth so much to you. But the Universal shall stay here.”

  “She’ll do no such thing,” Violet says, looking up at Andy. In the blink of an eye, she shoots.

  The queen’s cover skin explodes into dust, dissolving in the thin air of the spaceship, exposing the metal skeleton that these aliens have built for themselves.

  But to my horror, instead of the pulsating green organ that gives them life, I see nothing but metal. The queen has a tight, protective cage all around her body.

  She’s impervious.

  The queen smiles, and Violet stumbles, shooting the gun again as she falls on her back. She doesn’t stop shooting. Each shot hits the queen, but nothing comes close to hurting her, and the blasts simply vanish into nothingness. She raises herself up on her six enormous, razor-sharp legs, ready to strike.

  Andy rushes toward them, putting herself between Violet and the queen.

  “Stop!” Andy screams. “I will do it.”

  The queen snarls and lunges for Andy, who stumbles away, not ready for a fight. But she provides a distraction, and for a second, the queen’s grip on our minds loosens. Then the whole room goes to hell as Rayen rises from her position and knocks her head against the metal head of the alien holding her hostage, making it stumble back. She grabs its gun and starts firing. But with a single look from the queen, Rayen is back on the floor, trembling and shaking, her screams piercing our ears.

  We’re outnumbered. More aliens start crawling in through a side door, and there’s no way that we can fight them off. Laser blasts zoom past us, and we try to avoid the blows. And standing at the middle of it all is Andy, frozen.