John blinked.
Seconds slipped by. He tried to speak. Nothing came out of his mouth but a choking noise.
“Emmie . . . Emmie — you can’t do this,” he finally managed to gasp.
“Please, Emmie, no,” Kaal echoed. “What about your friends? What about us?”
Behind him, shocked murmurs ran through the students.
“Is she serious?” John heard Lishtig groan. “Why does she want to go off with that waste of molecules? Is she losing her mind? This is ridiculous.”
“Beats me,” Gobi-san-Art replied, shaking his head. “I always thought Emmie Tarz was, you know, pretty cool. Not the type to go and do something like this.”
“Well, I’m not at all surprised,” Mordant Talliver interrupted in a whisper loud enough for everyone to hear. “Why would the stupidest girl in school want to stay? She made a complete mess of the inspection, too. I don’t know. If you ask me, dropping out before she gets kicked out is probably the smartest thing Emmie has ever done.”
John fought down an urge to turn around and punch the black-haired boy. Instead, he glanced at Kaal.
The Derrilian’s face was frozen in horror. As if the destruction of his planet’s knowledge wasn’t bad enough, his friend had just betrayed them.
John guessed at how he must feel. Like his world was crumbling around him. He had always admired the Sillaran girl’s strength and courage. Even though he’d only known her for a handful of weeks, he couldn’t begin to imagine life without her.
It just didn’t seem possible that Emmie would walk away from Hyperspace High, and all her friends, so easily.
“Emmie,” he choked again, reaching toward her. “Don’t go.”
His friend didn’t seem to hear. She ran a hand through her silvery hair, hooking a wayward strand behind a pointed ear. Then she smiled up at Ogun. “I just realized in the last few minutes,” she said, “I’m terrible at learning and sick of getting the absolutely worst grades in every single class. Every day I try my best, and every day I do worse than before. Why should I spend years feeling like a failure when I could help conquer the universe with a great warlord?”
John’s heart sank farther. He had known that Emmie struggled with most of her classes, but never guessed that she was so unhappy.
Why didn’t she say something? Kaal and I could have helped.
John watched miserably as Ogun smiled down at Emmie. “You are wise beyond learning,” the warlord said. “At my side you will rise to greatness and glory above anything Hyperspace High could offer.”
“Thank you, Master Ogun,” said Emmie. “I may not be a good student, but I am an excellent pilot.”
“Then perhaps one day you shall command my fleet.”
Emmie bowed her head. “It would be an honor.”
“Your classmates would do well to follow your example,” Ogun continued, staring around. “Who else will join this wise young Sillaran? Who else will follow me and write their name across history?”
Lishtig was the first to speak. “I wouldn’t follow you anywhere,” he snorted.
“That’s right!” said John. “Emmie can do what she likes, but I would never join up with a thug like you.”
“That goes for me, too,” said Kaal. “I’d rather die.”
“And very soon, you will!” roared Ogun, flames of anger spouting from his nostrils once more. “Until then, you will watch as the knowledge of Kerallin falls into my grasp.”
The warlord turned away. “Move the scholars onto my ship,” he commanded, pointing at four of the droids. “The rest of you, hurry up and continue your packing. While you do that, I will personally ensure that these children do not escape.”
As four soldier droids clanked through the library doors, Ogun gripped Emmie’s shoulder. “Your first task will be to help pack up this library,” he said. “And then we will load the globes onto my ship.”
“Certainly, Master Ogun,” said Emmie, bobbing her head again. “After the test the scholars put me through earlier, it will be a pleasure to steal their globes.”
The warlord roared with laughter, as Emmie climbed a row of shelves and began throwing planets into his waiting hands.
“You and I are going to get along very well!” he called up to her. “You know, the half-Gargon boy thinks you’re stupid, but they said that about me when I was at Hyperspace High. We will show them how stupid we are when we rule the skies.”
Emmie threw more globes. Ogun caught them, gently placing each globe into a packing crate.
“No one could say you are stupid, Master Ogun,” she said. “Robbing the Library of Kerallin is a stroke of genius. They say that knowledge is power. If that’s true, you’ll become the most powerful being in the universe in one stroke.”
“None but me would dare hatch such a plan,” replied the warlord. “It is good that you see the simple brilliance of it.”
“You’re right, Master Ogun. At Hyperspace High the teachers make everything so complicated, don’t they?” Emmie went on. “Real genius is always simple.”
John frowned. Why was Emmie talking like this? The way she was fawning over Ogun, his friend sounded exactly like Mordant’s Serve-U-Droid, G-Vez.
As if reading his thoughts, Kaal quietly stepped closer. “What’s she doing?” he whispered in John’s ear.
“I don’t know,” John whispered back. “I’ve never seen her act like this before.”
“It doesn’t change anything,” Kaal said. “We can’t give up now. We still have to stop Ogun. And then, afterward, maybe we can talk to Emmie. Maybe we’ll be able to make her see that there’s still a place for her at Hyperspace High.”
John nodded his head slightly. “You’re right,” he said, watching Emmie. “This isn’t anywhere close to over yet.”
Carefully, he looked around. Emmie and Ogun were emptying shelves of globes rapidly. Farther away, the remaining six soldier droids were doing the same.
Hundreds of planets had already been boxed up and were waiting to be taken to Ogun’s warship.
“We could take out the droids,” John said from the corner of his mouth. “It can’t be that hard.”
“Too dangerous,” Kaal replied. “How many globes will get broken if we start fighting in here? Plus, we’d still have him to deal with.” He nodded at Ogun.
“And Emmie, too,” John whispered sadly. “I don’t want to fight Emmie.”
“If we can get out of the library, we could sabotage Ogun’s ship, take the scholars, and fly the pyramid into orbit,” Kaal suggested. “If the scholars managed to get a message out to Hyperspace High, the Galactic Council fleet will be on the way. Ogun will be stuck here until they arrive.”
John bit his lip thoughtfully. “That could work,” he said. He had to admit that Kaal’s idea was a good plan, even if the idea of leaving Emmie behind horrified him.
She’s made her choice, he reminded himself. If Ogun gets away, the entire galaxy might fall. How long until he gets to Earth?
“Okay,” he whispered. “Let’s do it. Spread the word.”
John’s eyes remained fixed on Ogun, as Kaal leaned over behind him and whispered instructions in Lishtig’s ear.
In turn, Lishtig whispered to Gobi, who passed the message on to Mordant. The message spread.
Within a few minutes, Kaal leaned forward. “Ready,” he whispered. “We’ll go slow. Run for it if he sees us.”
Without replying, John began moving silently toward the door. Risking a look away from the warlord, he glanced at the exit.
Miles away.
Quickly, he returned his gaze to Ogun. The warlord was busy, placing globe after globe into crates while boasting about his exploits to Emmie.
“On Jaheera-Six, we faced an army of two hundred thousand,” he said, chuckling. “They quickly fell to my forces. I took the rest of the planet within days and destroyed every one of their capital cities as a punishment.”
John took another step. Then another. Slowly, quietly, the small group of students was moving toward the door.
Emmie looked down. “Forgive me, Master Ogun,” she said, sounding slightly ashamed. “I can’t quite reach the next shelf. Could you give me a boost?”
“By my hands, you will be lifted to ever greater heights,” Ogun said. “Why not begin now?” Chuckling, the warlord reached up a taloned hand for Emmie to step into.
But instead, her hand gripped his wrist. In a breathtakingly fast blur of movement, Emmie swung down, using her own momentum to twist the warlord’s arm up behind his back.
“If you think I would ever abandon Hyperspace High for you, you really are stupid!” she yelled in the warlord’s ear, pulling his arm up with a creak of bones.
“Fool! I will kill you for this!” Ogun bellowed, his voice a mixture of pain and fury. “You will die. You will all die.”
A sheet of flame billowed from his scaled snout, pouring onto the shelves. The fire caught, spreading along the shelves. One by one, globes shattered in the heat.
In the center of the fire, Emmie clung to Ogun’s arm, twisting his arm higher up his back, her face a mask of anger. “You know, I learned this move in Plutonian Karate lessons at Hyperspace High!” she shouted. “Isn’t that interesting? Looks like not everything they teach there is useless.”
“Get off me, you miserable traitor!” roared Ogun, heaving beneath her, plunging dangerously close to the flames.
Emmie jerked his arm up another few inches, making the enraged warlord squeal in agony. “On your knees or I’ll break it,” she commanded.
“I will never surrender to a child,” the warlord muttered.
For a few seconds, John and the rest of the class were frozen, stunned by the ferocity of Emmie’s whirlwind attack.
Now, they leapt forward to help, coughing and choking on the thick smoke engulfing the library.
Kaal’s foot lashed out, cutting Ogun’s legs from beneath him. The warlord slammed face-down on the floor with an “Oof!” as air was forced out of his lungs.
Still, Emmie gripped his arm, her legs on either side of his broad back.
John jumped, adding his weight to Emmie’s and pinning the warlord’s body to the ground. “Good to have you back, Emmie!” he yelled. “I really thought we’d lost you for a moment there.”
“As if!” Emmie yelled back. Looking down at Ogun, she shouted, “Will you just keep still, you space thug?!”
On either side of them, Lishtig and Gobi-san-Art leapt past the thrashing, bucking figure on the marble floor. Dodging flames and yelling, “Hyperspace High!” they launched themselves at two soldier droids that were rushing to help their master.
With a crash, both went down. Through the smoke, John heard more fighting as the students moved into the library to deal with the rest of the droids.
“Idiot children!” the warlord screeched. “Even if you defeat me, the Library of Kerallin will burn. All the scholars’ knowledge will be lost.”
With another roar, more flames belched from his snout. Another shelf caught fire.
Coughing, John looked around. Ogun was right: the library was rapidly turning into an inferno. Already, the smoke was making it difficult to breathe. Within a few minutes, it would mean death to remain inside.
Higher up the shelves, globes shattered, sounding like gunshots and raining splinters of glass. Coming from farther along the shelves, John could hear more shouting. For a split second he remembered Professor Raydon’s class, wishing he could flick a zero-gravity switch. The deafening noise of screams would soon put the fire out.
Pushing the thought out of his head, he bellowed, “We have to get out of here, Emmie!” It was hard to be heard over the roar of fire. “The library’s lost.”
Emmie looked up at him, her face lined with the strain of keeping Ogun locked in the Plutonian Karate hold. Her navy-blue eyes reflected dancing flames.
“No,” she said. “It’s not lost yet. Use the Earth, John.”