“Thanks, got it,” Ella says.
Lexa reopens her eyes. She squeezes the bridge of her nose for a moment before wordlessly refocusing on her controls. “That was weird,” she mutters.
“Sam, I’m going to send this image over to you,” Ella says, peering back at Sam from the cockpit.
“Send it to me how?” he replies, though the answer should be obvious. Telepathically. Sam’s head jerks back, and his eyebrows shoot up. “Oh. There it is.”
“Try your Legacy now,” Ella suggests. She leans against the cockpit entrance and gently strokes Bandit’s fur. She’s so confident, I let my grip on the supporting winds slip a little. Our ship dips suddenly to the left. Daniela’s the only one who notices—she lets out a quiet moan of despair; everyone else is focused on Sam.
His eyes are glazed over, and he stares into the distance, like there’s something floating out there that only he can see. His lips move wordlessly, rapidly, as if he’s whispering a quick count to one thousand.
“Ship, turn on and stabilize, return control to pilot,” he says confidently.
Immediately, there’s a whir of activity under our feet. The ship’s engines turn back on, and there’s a satisfying chorus of buzzes and beeps from the cockpit. We level off and begin to gain altitude.
“All good!” Lexa yells. “Crisis averted.”
I lunge away from the window and squeeze Sam. “You did it!”
Sam smiles dazedly at me, like he’s not sure what he even did. “I did it,” he repeats.
“You didn’t kill us, hooray,” Daniela adds sarcastically.
“I felt like I was supercharged or something,” Sam says, his gaze drifting towards Ella. “Like I was connected to the machine. I could make out all its workings. . . .”
Ella shrugs. “I only plucked out what was in Lexa’s mind and gave it to you. That’s all.”
“So it seems like you have to understand the machine before you can control it,” I say, thinking out loud.
“But with the Game Boy, I just sat with it, thought about it, and eventually the wiring came to me,” Sam counters. “And shutting down the ship, that was a total accident. Like an overreach.”
“You also talked funny this last time,” Daniela says. “Like a robot.”
“Did I?” Sam asks, and raises an eyebrow at me.
“You did,” I reply. “Seems like we’ve still got some work to do figuring out this Legacy.”
“Man, I need a Cêpan,” Sam says, rubbing the back of his neck.
Lexa clears her throat. “Look alive, everybody. We’re closing in on Niagara Falls, and I’ve already got visual on two—no, make it three—Skimmers.”
Everyone in the back immediately falls silent and gets serious. The thundering majesty of Niagara Falls becomes visible down below as Lexa makes a quick pass overhead. Unsurprisingly, the falls are completely devoid of tourists. With the world at war, no one has time for sightseeing.
I make out a shimmer of cobalt blue on the grassy mountainside adjacent to the falls. That’s the newly grown Loralite stone, the one our new Garde teleported in with.
And parked around it? The three Skimmers that Lexa spotted.
“You see ’em?” Lexa asks.
“Yeah,” I reply. “Not seeing any movement, though.”
“Hold on; let me enhance the image.”
I hear Lexa tap out a few commands on her console. A moment later, the view from the window blurs and then expands. Now we’re zoomed in on the Loralite stone and the ships surrounding it. The camera, which must be mounted on the underside of our ship, effortlessly tracks the stone as we glide through the air above.
“Whoa,” Daniela says. “Cool.”
Now I can make out more details of the three Skimmers. Only one of them actually looks intact, with its ramp extended and cockpit doors open. The second Skimmer has a ribbon of black smoke curling away from its engine, like something recently exploded there. And the third Skimmer is overturned on its side, half in the rushing river that leads to the falls. The ship shudders even now; any minute the current will take it over the edge.
It looks like the Mogadorians got more than they bargained for. Even so, I don’t see any signs of life below. That makes me nervous.
“How do you want to play it?” Lexa asks.
I think her question over for a second. “Bring us down in the open. Our approach wasn’t exactly subtle. Anyone with eyes probably spotted us already.”
“You’d think the Mogs would be shooting at us by now,” Sam says, frowning at the scene on screen as Lexa brings us around for a landing.
“Could be an ambush,” I say.
“Or they could’ve had more ships. Maybe we’re too late. They could’ve already nabbed these kids and jetted back to their warship,” Daniela suggests grimly.
“Let’s hope not,” I reply.
Lexa sets us down as close to the Loralite stone as possible, near the undamaged Skimmer. Now that we’re on the ground, she returns the windows to normal. Ella stares out at the glowing stone, seemingly mesmerized.
“We need to help the government secure the rest of these places,” she says after a moment. “If the Mogs find them first, the new Garde could end up teleporting right into their hands.”
“Could you make contact with them again?” I ask. “If they’re coming to fight, maybe we could tell them all to teleport here.”
Ella shakes her head. “My range isn’t that strong anymore,” she says.
“We could post it on YouTube,” Sam says dryly.
“No YouTube, ever,” I reply. “We’ll just have to trust Lawson and his people will do right by them.”
“Glad I’m with you guys and not detained,” Daniela says.
Lexa puts us on an angle so that our exit ramp will open towards the falls. That means no threats will be able to come from behind us, and we’ll be able to use the ship for cover if this is an ambush. Any Mogs looking to attack us will be coming from the small patch of evergreen forest to the north. That little forest is half-flooded by the river as it rages its way towards the falls, so we should have an advantage if we keep to the solid ground.
“Ready?” Lexa asks.
I nod, and she deploys the ramp. No one starts shooting. I’m not sure I’d hear blaster fire over the cacophony of the waterfall anyway.
“Adam should be on the comm,” I say to Lexa. “Call in, tell him we’ve arrived and see if he’s picked up any Mog chatter. Otherwise, keep the ship ready to haul ass in case we need to leave in a hurry.”
“You got it,” Lexa replies.
I extend my arm, and Regal immediately lands on my forearm, his talons careful not to clutch too tightly.
“Scout it out,” I tell the Chim?ra, and he swoops away, through the exit and into the blue sky. I start towards the ramp after him, motioning to Daniela. “Come on, get up front with me. Anything that seems hostile, go ahead and turn it to stone.”
Daniela smirks, but I can tell that she’s nervous. “Let’s do this.”
With Daniela and me leading the way, we edge our way down the ramp. I glance to the side quickly, sensing motion, but it’s just Sam picking up a jagged rock from the river with his telekinesis.
He shrugs at me. “In case I need to clobber someone,” he says quietly.
Daniela’s gaze darts about as we make our way around the front of our ship and approach the burned-up Skimmer. Bandit trundles alongside us as we move slowly north. The raccoon has gotten bigger since we landed, puffed up, his claws now a vicious length. He scratches at the dirt, ready to charge at the first sight of danger. His claws kick up a chalky gray substance that I immediately recognize.
Mogadorian ash. Pretty fresh, considering it hasn’t all blown away yet. And there, next to the ash, the left-behind weapons of some killed vatborn. There was definitely a fight here, and the Mogs took casualties.
“The newbies did some damage,” I say.
“No kidding,” Sam replies, eyeing the smoking Skimmer. On closer examination, it looks like a grenade went off right in the ship’s cockpit. Something exploded, that’s for sure. I’m just not sure what.