Amber
Remy didn’t want to watch the final battle. She opted to go to the safety of a bomb shelter with other civilians. They were given food, weapons, and several vehicles to try and escape and fend for themselves if things went south. It surprised me that she didn’t want to stay with me, but knowing she’d come to feel compassion for some of the Baelese, maybe it would be too hard to watch thousands of them extinguished. Maybe it felt like genocide to her. And perhaps it was.
I wanted to be more like Remy. I wanted to be able to give the benefit of the doubt and work together with our alien neighbors, but after everything that had happened, we couldn’t trust them as a whole. They’d killed almost our entire population. Something told me they wouldn’t be happy as our “equals.” As sad as it was, and a massive waste of intelligent life, we couldn’t take the chance. Everyone on those ships was under the impression that Earth was theirs, and that the humans who were left could be used as slaves.
Not happening.
Our soldiers had worked straight through the day and night, allowing each other one-hour cat naps in shifts. They had stockpiled all weapons, gotten every missile, bomb, and other flying deadly things pointed upward, gassed up the jets, and had passenger planes ready to go if we lost and needed to escape. According to Matt, the three enormous ships had entered Earth’s orbit during the night. But they’d surprised us by going three different directions.
One seemed to be headed for France. The other for Russia. And the last for Nevada. Everyone around the world was ready, and as far as we could tell, the Baelese had no idea what was about to greet them.
I joined Matt and Officer Sean with the tech-comm crew at the top of a nearby mountain. We had a great view for miles, and clear signal radius. Our jets were lined up, and allied forces from around the U.S. had shown up mere hours before with jets of their own. But Rylen was not in one of them.
During his cat nap, I’d joined him in a room. He fell asleep the instant his head hit my lap. I ran my fingers through his short, blond hair, gently scratching his scalp. Ry slept like a rock as I ran a finger over the lines of his jaw and face. His breath hit my inner thigh, and I let myself stare at him. I loved him so much, it ached, because I knew tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed. And there could never be another for me.
Now, he was on his way to Area 51. He’d spent hours there yesterday, and reassured me all was well. This ship, unlike the one at Dugway, had not been damaged, and was an earlier model, therefore easier to maneuver. Still, when he left two hours ago, I dry heaved, thankful I hadn’t eaten anything yet.
His parting words still filled my ears.“I’ll see you soon, Pepper.”
I was holding him to it.
Our lookout place reminded me of the watch tower at Dugway, only much, much higher. I looked out through the glass with high-powered binoculars. Even early in the morning, as soon as the sun came up, the air became hazy with heat. The land on the horizon shimmered like a mirage. I stared out at the sky, heart in my throat, but so far nothing happened.
Waiting was the worst. At least I thought it was. And then Officer Sean said, “It’s time,” and I realizedthatwas the worst.
Tension crystalized in the warm air, making our breaths brittle as all of us stared out, standing. Before I could spot anything in the air, all of our jets lifted off and shot up, the sound splitting the air. Where was it? And then Matt cursed low and I swung my binoculars toward the horizon. I would never, ever forget what I saw. The stuff of nightmares.
It came slowly, blocking the sun like a turtle shell stretching across a huge expanse of the horizon. As it moved into view, I couldn’t even breathe. That thing . . . it was too big. Humans could not even fathom putting something like that into the air, something the size of a freaking town. How the hell was it hovering?
Our guys didn’t waste any time. I jumped and let out a small yelp as the jets flew by, hitting both sides of the mother vessel. Orange fireballs lit up, but when they subsided, nothing was there. No damage. Our flyers were nothing more than mosquitos on a horse.
Sean let out a string of cusswords, very unlike him. That was my sign that this was not good. The craft suddenly shifted higher, as if it were thinking of taking off, but the jets came around again, and along with a secondary assault from land, explosions covered the bottom, sides, and top of the ship. There’s no way it could survive that. But just like before, when the flare-ups cleared, no damage.
“Oh, my God,” I cried. “How do we break into it?”
And then something truly awful happened. Two laser beams of fiery light shot out of the massive craft, and jets on either side went into tailspins, crashing into the desert terrain. I screamed and covered my mouth as everyone around me yelled and scrambled, trying to send comms and figure out what to do next.
“We have to get inside,” Sean said. “That’s the only way. We might have to let the damn thing land or we’ll waste all of our munitions.”
Those jets smoking on the ground. I couldn’t stop trembling. I’d wanted Rylen to fly one. That could have so easily been him.
On a crackly speaker came a familiar voice. “I’m going up.” Oh, no.
“Look,” Matt said, pointing. “He’s really flying that thing! Holy shit . . .”
I lifted my binoculars, bouncing against my eyes with the shake of my hands. And sure enough, the ship we’d found at Area 51 was in the sky. It looked so small compared to the other one.
“Fite,” Sean called into the transmitter. “Fire when ready.”
I held my breath as Rylen’s ship tilted and a cylindrical gun protruded from the side. He shot, and the Baelese ship moved faster than I thought possible. The round of fire missed it, just barely, and hit the side of a mountain, sending up dirt and debris.
Rylen cursed on the radio.
“Fire again!” Sean ordered. But all he got in return was a static sound.
I pressed a hand to the glass, frantic. “Rylen!” Why wasn’t he firing?
A crackly sound came at us, his words breaking up. “—an’t shoot . . . locked up.”
