CHAPTER 021
“The core of the planet?” Sabik asked, incredulous. “How are we supposed to stop that?”
“I don’t know . . . ,” Elara responded, feeling lost. “I mean . . . I thought it would be like last year, with terraforming bombs.”
Elara and Suue had returned from their trip inside Elara’s head and had recovered from their journey. The two girls felt more or less okay, though Elara’s head was pounding from the confusing ordeal. Now they were resting on the ship’s bridge, seated at the various computer stations and terminals.
Knot ground her large stone hands together, nervous. “Do we have enough time to stop Dulonia from exploding? Or maybe warn someone?” the Grix said.
Suue shook her head. “According to the Watchman’s memories, the planet’s core will detonate in less than an hour. Then the terraforming energy will sweep across the planet, converting everything—every blade of grass, every building, every person—into raw energy. The resulting explosion will be powerful enough to unlock the time stream and help the Frils escape from their prison.”
“Acid neutralizes the chemical reaction . . . ,” Elara pushed. “Maybe we can insert a compound into the planet’s core?”
Beezle shook her head. “There is no such acid that could survive that. Anything would boil away instantly.”
“Besides . . . ,” Suue added. “It would just add more pressure to the planet core. Even if you stop the energy wave, the chain reaction would probably blow the world up.”
Elara blinked, slowly standing up. “Wait . . . blowing up the planet. That could work.”
Beezle quickly shook her head. “Oh! No, Elara . . . Blowing up planets is very bad! That is what we are trying to stop! Was your brain maybe damaged by the mind link?”
Elara shook her head. “No, seriously . . . listen. If there is an atomic reaction of terraforming energy inside the planet’s core, we might be able to stop it by venting the excess pressure off into space!”
Sabik looked at Elara like she had grown an extra set of eyes. “You mean like . . . volcanoes?” The Suparian shook his head.
“It’s Terraforming 101!” Elara said with growing excitement. “If we vent the pressure of the planet core, we can interrupt the process before it can really start to build! And any contaminated matter we could purge in the process!”
“In theory . . . ,” Beezle considered. “In theory, it could work. But the process would damage the world severely. I do not think this is a viable solution.”
Elara felt frustrated, but rather than argue she sat back down. “Okay. Okay, maybe that’s true. But . . .”
She paused, gathering her thoughts, thinking back to the previous school year. Back then, she had discovered that a series of waves could stop rapid terraforming energy. A “wave packet” it was called. One could theoretically stop an energy cascade with a second cascade—like when two waves hit each other in the water, they cancel each other out.
Elara quickly began typing at the computer terminal, ideas buzzing in her head. “Does Dulonia have a magnetic core?”
Suue furrowed her brow, thinking. “I believe so. I mean . . . yeah. I remember reading about that back when I visited the capital—”
“Got it,” Elara interrupted as she continued to type. After a moment, the large floor-to-ceiling monitor began displaying a series of wavelengths. “Look,” Elara said excitedly. “We don’t need to physically destabilize the chemical process. The chemicals are just a catalyst. We need to stop the energy reaction—and we can do that by creating a nullifying wave!”
“Aah . . . ,” Beezle said, “that is very interesting. The energy wave we generate would be the opposite frequency of the destructive terraforming wave!”
“Yes!” Elara said, typing some more. The monitors shifted, showing Dulonia Prime on the screen. Three red lights appeared at different positions on the globe, all connecting to create a triangle. “See!” Elara exclaimed, getting more and more excited. “The planet of Dulonia Prime has three poles rather than the standard two—which actually helps us create a comprehensive net of wavelengths.”
“An electromagnetic pulse generator—like the one I used to take out the ship,” Suue said, seeing where Elara was going. “But the planet . . . I mean, that could be more destructive than the terraforming bomb!”
“Right!” Elara agreed. “Except this will occur inside the planet core! It will erase the terraforming bomb wave! The two will cancel each other out completely! No one on the planet would ever even know it happened!”
“So, we just have to set up broadcast terminals.” Sabik scratched his chin. “A lot easier than volcanoes.”
“And a lot less destructive,” Suue agreed. “It’s . . . a plan, anyway.”
“We have transmitters on board,” Knot added. “Lots of them. It wouldn’t take long to adapt them to create a portable broadcast . . . but we will need an energy source to power the wave.”
Elara pulled out the chrono-hopper. “I can handle that.”
Knot furrowed her brow. “And you know how to use that thing now?”
“Only a little,” Elara admitted. “But I was in the Watchman’s mind. I think I managed to pick up a few things he didn’t mean for me to see.”
Elara punched a few more buttons on the console. The screen showed three points of cascading energy flowing toward the planet’s core, meeting in the center, then bouncing backward. “See . . . ,” she continued. “As long as we make sure all three transmitters are linked, I can just power the whole thing wirelessly from one of the locations.”
“And this will save the planet . . . today?” Suue asked, still skeptical. “What’s to stop the Watchman from doing it all over again?”
Elara shook her head. “The Watchman told me himself. He became who he is after seeing his world destroyed. But if that never happens . . . ,” Elara said, cracking her knuckles together. For the first time in a long time, she had the feeling that things might really be getting better. That there might be hope.
The ship was in distant orbit of Dulonia. Close enough to launch the scary transport tubes, while just out of range for anyone to detect the ship as a threat. In the hangar, Elara stood in one transport tube, ready to launch. Nearby, Suue and Sabik stood inside another, while Beezle and Knot were waiting in a third. There was a large console controlling all the tubes, with Sapple and Xavie monitoring.
Elara and the two groups preparing to transport each held a large pole—roughly seven feet in length. All three poles had radar dishes attached, as well as a fair amount of wiring and electric bits that had been hastily cobbled together.
“We plugged in the coordinates,” Sapple said, looking very uncomfortable. “But . . .”
“This is a terrible idea,” Xavie added. “No one on board really knows how to use this stuff.”
“So there’s a super-strong chance you’re just going to squish into the surface of the planet,” Sapple continued.
Elara shrugged, trying to hide her nervousness. “Hey, if we stuck to only doing what we knew how to do, the universe would be a very, very boring place.”
Beezle looked uncharacteristically frowny. “I supplied you the manual. You did read it, correct?”
Xavie looked apologetic. “It’s over two hundred thousand pages long. You gave it to me, like, ten minutes ago. So . . . I did not.”
“Oh,” Beezle said. “Oh no.”
“Activating!” Sapple yelled, throwing a large and impressive-looking lever. “Everyone hold on to your molecules.”
The tubes rocketed out of the spaceship at an impossibly fast speed. Elara felt every atom of her body start to shake. She had closed her eyes instinctively but managed to open them for a brief second to see the surface of the planet coming up at her tiny metal space tube superfast. “Why . . . ?” she whispered to herself. “Why would anyone think it was a good idea to travel like this?”
She closed her eyes and waited to either land or turn into a smudge on the surface of the world below.
She did not turn into a smudge.
Elara carefully lifted her face up out of the mud. The transport tube had been . . . rougher than her previous journey. And she had to take a very long minute to catch her breath.
The first thing Elara noticed was the sky—a green sky with pastel blue clouds. She stood up and finally staggered to the top of a hill. A hill, which likely meant a view. She could get her bearings . . .
. . . though she was pretty certain she knew what she would see.
And she was not disappointed. A massive bubble city, sitting nestled in a distant valley.
It looked exactly like Elara had seen in the Watchman’s memories. Even the clouds were in the same positions.
Suddenly Elara remembered her mission. There was no time to wait. The explosion could happen any second. Elara risked a quick look at the time. It had been almost ten minutes since she had arrived. Hopefully, her friends had gotten their antennae locked in place.
Elara slammed her antenna into the ground as deeply as it would go. Quickly unraveling the coiled wires, she stretched them out and anchored them to the ground as well. These would help stabilize the frequency of the wavelength—hopefully.
Elara glanced at the sky. Not long . . . not long at all. She hit the button on her communicator. She wouldn’t be able to reach the ship—it was too far away. But the two teams were on the planet, even if they were all on opposite hemispheres.
“Beezle? Knot?” she called. She waited a moment. Static. “Sabik? Suue? Anyone there?”
Nothing.
Elara began to panic. And then her breath escaped her as she heard the sound of a familiar laugh . . .
The Watchman was here.
“How . . . ?” Elara started to ask.
“What is there to stop me from coming here, Elara? You of all people know I am not bound by space or time!” He flicked his wrist, flourishing the chrono-hopper in his hand. It buzzed and emitted a green light.
“I’m going to save this planet!” Elara protested loudly, positioning herself between the Watchman and the antenna.
“Elara . . .” The evil version of Groob sighed loudly. “Could you possibly be more heroic? Rocketing yourself across the galaxy to a doomed planet with nothing but some metal sticks to save you?”
Suddenly her comm system shot out a burst of static. It was Knot—though the interference made it difficult to hear. “We’re”— zzzt—“position . . . ,” Elara heard her friend shout. “Sabik says”—zzzt—“ready, too!”
Elara pulled the chrono-hopper from her jacket pocket, staring directly at the Watchman, waiting for him to make some kind of move.
“I’m sorry,” Elara said, the softness in her voice quite real. “I know that saving your world will mean that you’ll never exist. But no matter how many you think you’re saving by letting your world die . . . it’s not worth the price. The Frils will be stopped. Just like before.”
Elara pressed the button on the chrono-hopper, and a charge of electricity poured out of it and into the antenna. The makeshift wave generator glowed with power, the sensor lights attached to the side all igniting with crimson symbols, broadcasting to the two sister devices across the globe. The radar dish turned and slid downward, as it was designed to do, locking into place. The lights all turned blue, and the wave began to broadcast.
It was done. The wavelength would interfere with the atomic conversion cascade. The Frils wouldn’t be freed. The planet would survive.
“I imagine that you’re probably congratulating yourself?” the Watchman asked, his smile locked in place.
Elara blinked and looked around. “You’re still here?” she asked with dawning horror. “How can you still be here? The wavelength. . . . should work.” A sense of dread kicked in. “They have to work,” she whispered.
The evil version of Groob laughed. “They will work amazingly well,” he answered. “More perfectly than you might have imagined. You are quite brilliant, Miss Vaughn. Have no doubt of that.”
“Then . . . ,” she stammered uncertainly, “ . . . then how can you still be here?”
“I was like a professor to you in that other reality. That other version of me? Correct?” The Watchman smiled. “Then I want you to think carefully. You are attempting to stop an explosion at the heart of the planet with energy waves.” The evil time traveler leaned in, his smile widening. “Who was it then, who told you there was a terraforming bomb at the heart of this world?”
Elara’s brow creased. “It was . . . you. I accessed your memories. When you shared your memories with me . . . I . . . I went back in and looked deeper . . .”
“And saw what?” The Watchman tapped the side of his head with one finger. “You only saw what I wanted you to see, my dear girl.”
Elara felt the ground shake. She looked around frantically, trying to think. The wave she had just broadcast into the center of the planet. It was meant to cancel out the opposing wavelength from the terraforming bomb. But . . .
“There is no terraforming bomb,” Elara said, her voice hoarse and thin. “There never was a bomb. Your world. Dulonia Prime is destroyed by . . . oh no . . . no . . .”
Groob looked out across the horizon, a touch of sadness in his mad eyes. “By three wavelength generators, all firing at once, projected into the heart of the planet. Oh yes.”
“The destroyer of my world, Elara Adele Vaughn, is you. It has always been you.”