The Revenge of Seven
Page 39
‘Also,’ Adam says. ‘you’re in what my people call a Skimmer. It isn’t built for interplanetary travel, so it isn’t quite a spaceship.’
Nine makes a loud snoring noise. ‘Is this dude about to give us a lesson in Mogadorian aviation or something? The hell?’
‘You know I can hear you, right?’ Adam replies over the mic. ‘And no, I am not.’
‘Sorry about Nine,’ I say, giving him a dirty look over my shoulder. ‘Does this thing come with ejector seats?’
‘Yes, actually,’ Adam replies.
‘Whoa, now,’ Nine says, edging forward so his butt isn’t entirely on the seat. ‘Don’t get any ideas, Six.’
I shush Nine when I hear a series of clanking noises emanating from the ship’s underbelly.
‘What is that?’ I ask.
‘Don’t worry,’ Adam replies. ‘I just remotely put up your landing gear.’
When the clanking finishes, two small panels on the steering wheel slide aside, revealing thumb-sized buttons positioned so they can be pressed at the same time as the elevation triggers.
‘You should see a couple of buttons,’ Adam continues. ‘Depress them to accelerate. Simply let them go to brake.’
I grip the steering wheel more tentatively than before and gently squeeze the buttons, careful not to hit the triggers on the wheel’s underside. The Skimmer zips forward, then lurches to a stop when I let the button go.
‘It’s like a video game,’ Nine says, leaning over the back of my chair. ‘Any idiot could work this thing. No offense, Mog guy.’
‘None taken.’
I press down the accelerator a little more forcefully and the ship shoots forward. A diagnostic on the screen starts flashing – a warning in any language – right before I scrape the bottom of the Skimmer against the top of a tree. I hear branches breaking and, craning my neck, see them hit the ground below.
‘Oops,’ I say, and glance sidelong at Marina.
‘Six, I swear,’ she says, flashing me a half-panicked look.
‘You’ll want to get some more elevation,’ Adam says. ‘And, um, consider steering.’
Nine laughs and leans back. I pull the trigger for vertical and we rise up higher. As we clear the dense trees of the swampland, the horizon becomes visible. A laser-fine dotted line appears on the cockpit glass, superimposed over the view, like a trail.
‘I’ve plotted your course,’ Adam says. ‘Just follow the line.’
I nod and give the ship some juice, following the laser-path north.
‘All right, boys,’ I say. ‘Here we come.’
The flight from Florida to Washington takes about two hours. On Adam’s instructions, I keep our altitude low enough that we won’t be picked up on satellites or accidentally cross paths with any airplanes, but high enough that there won’t be a rash of UFO sightings along the Eastern Seaboard. Although, considering how serious the threat of all-out Mogadorian invasion seems, maybe we should let our stolen ship be seen, shoot off some fireworks, warn the locals.
After the initial rush of elation at hearing John and Sam, at knowing our friends are alive, the conversation turns grim. Over the radio, they describe what went down at the John Hancock Center. After that, John tells us about what he saw in the nightmare vision he shared with Ella and why he thinks Setrákus Ra doesn’t want to hurt her. John’s pieced together a theory that Ella could be related to Setrákus Ra and that the Mogadorian ruler could actually be some kind of twisted Loric, the banished Elder mentioned in Crayton’s letter. I’m not ready to grapple with that yet.
Once John’s caught us up, it’s our turn to fill in the others on what happened in Florida. Even over the radio, I can tell John’s trying not to press us too much. I think about the days that John’s been living with a fresh scar on his ankle, wondering which one of us wouldn’t be making it back – as much as it hurts to talk about, he deserves to know what happened to Eight. However, neither Marina nor Nine are very forthcoming, so it falls to me to describe how Five betrayed us, how he murdered Eight technically by accident, but only because he was actually trying to murder Nine. I was unconscious for most of the fight, so I keep the description bare bones, just the facts, not sugarcoating anything. Then, I give them the details of rescuing Eight’s body from the Mogadorian encampment and tell them about what Five did to his Mogadorian pal. When I’m finished, a grim mood settles inside the cockpit and we ride in silence until we reach suburban D.C.
I land the ship in the middle of a basketball court. We’re in a fancy-ass suburban development, one made extraordinarily eerie by all its darkened windows and general emptiness. The cockpit opens for us and Marina flashes me a relieved look as she stands up. Carefully, Nine picks up Eight’s body and climbs out of the ship. Marina stays close to him, her hand on Nine’s elbow, making sure that Eight doesn’t get jostled too much. It’s still hard to believe that’s our friend in that body bag, and it feels wrong to be carrying him around so much.
‘Your travels are almost over,’ I overhear Marina whisper to Eight’s body. She must feel the same as I do.
Marina and I hop down to the ground and turn around to help Nine lower Eight’s body. Instead of passing Eight down, Nine squints into the darkness around us.
‘Whoa,’ he says. ‘There are, like, some random creatures watching us right now.’
Nine makes a loud snoring noise. ‘Is this dude about to give us a lesson in Mogadorian aviation or something? The hell?’
‘You know I can hear you, right?’ Adam replies over the mic. ‘And no, I am not.’
‘Sorry about Nine,’ I say, giving him a dirty look over my shoulder. ‘Does this thing come with ejector seats?’
‘Yes, actually,’ Adam replies.
‘Whoa, now,’ Nine says, edging forward so his butt isn’t entirely on the seat. ‘Don’t get any ideas, Six.’
I shush Nine when I hear a series of clanking noises emanating from the ship’s underbelly.
‘What is that?’ I ask.
‘Don’t worry,’ Adam replies. ‘I just remotely put up your landing gear.’
When the clanking finishes, two small panels on the steering wheel slide aside, revealing thumb-sized buttons positioned so they can be pressed at the same time as the elevation triggers.
‘You should see a couple of buttons,’ Adam continues. ‘Depress them to accelerate. Simply let them go to brake.’
I grip the steering wheel more tentatively than before and gently squeeze the buttons, careful not to hit the triggers on the wheel’s underside. The Skimmer zips forward, then lurches to a stop when I let the button go.
‘It’s like a video game,’ Nine says, leaning over the back of my chair. ‘Any idiot could work this thing. No offense, Mog guy.’
‘None taken.’
I press down the accelerator a little more forcefully and the ship shoots forward. A diagnostic on the screen starts flashing – a warning in any language – right before I scrape the bottom of the Skimmer against the top of a tree. I hear branches breaking and, craning my neck, see them hit the ground below.
‘Oops,’ I say, and glance sidelong at Marina.
‘Six, I swear,’ she says, flashing me a half-panicked look.
‘You’ll want to get some more elevation,’ Adam says. ‘And, um, consider steering.’
Nine laughs and leans back. I pull the trigger for vertical and we rise up higher. As we clear the dense trees of the swampland, the horizon becomes visible. A laser-fine dotted line appears on the cockpit glass, superimposed over the view, like a trail.
‘I’ve plotted your course,’ Adam says. ‘Just follow the line.’
I nod and give the ship some juice, following the laser-path north.
‘All right, boys,’ I say. ‘Here we come.’
The flight from Florida to Washington takes about two hours. On Adam’s instructions, I keep our altitude low enough that we won’t be picked up on satellites or accidentally cross paths with any airplanes, but high enough that there won’t be a rash of UFO sightings along the Eastern Seaboard. Although, considering how serious the threat of all-out Mogadorian invasion seems, maybe we should let our stolen ship be seen, shoot off some fireworks, warn the locals.
After the initial rush of elation at hearing John and Sam, at knowing our friends are alive, the conversation turns grim. Over the radio, they describe what went down at the John Hancock Center. After that, John tells us about what he saw in the nightmare vision he shared with Ella and why he thinks Setrákus Ra doesn’t want to hurt her. John’s pieced together a theory that Ella could be related to Setrákus Ra and that the Mogadorian ruler could actually be some kind of twisted Loric, the banished Elder mentioned in Crayton’s letter. I’m not ready to grapple with that yet.
Once John’s caught us up, it’s our turn to fill in the others on what happened in Florida. Even over the radio, I can tell John’s trying not to press us too much. I think about the days that John’s been living with a fresh scar on his ankle, wondering which one of us wouldn’t be making it back – as much as it hurts to talk about, he deserves to know what happened to Eight. However, neither Marina nor Nine are very forthcoming, so it falls to me to describe how Five betrayed us, how he murdered Eight technically by accident, but only because he was actually trying to murder Nine. I was unconscious for most of the fight, so I keep the description bare bones, just the facts, not sugarcoating anything. Then, I give them the details of rescuing Eight’s body from the Mogadorian encampment and tell them about what Five did to his Mogadorian pal. When I’m finished, a grim mood settles inside the cockpit and we ride in silence until we reach suburban D.C.
I land the ship in the middle of a basketball court. We’re in a fancy-ass suburban development, one made extraordinarily eerie by all its darkened windows and general emptiness. The cockpit opens for us and Marina flashes me a relieved look as she stands up. Carefully, Nine picks up Eight’s body and climbs out of the ship. Marina stays close to him, her hand on Nine’s elbow, making sure that Eight doesn’t get jostled too much. It’s still hard to believe that’s our friend in that body bag, and it feels wrong to be carrying him around so much.
‘Your travels are almost over,’ I overhear Marina whisper to Eight’s body. She must feel the same as I do.
Marina and I hop down to the ground and turn around to help Nine lower Eight’s body. Instead of passing Eight down, Nine squints into the darkness around us.
‘Whoa,’ he says. ‘There are, like, some random creatures watching us right now.’
