I took Aramovsky back to his cell. He argued, said he wanted to go out and fight with everyone else, but I reminded him we would be fighting side by side with the Springers, and that they would probably kill him on sight.
When I put him in, I let Spingate out. She’d heard the alert horns, knew why I was there. We didn’t say a word to each other.
Bishop is in the streets, getting our units into position. If the aliens land troops, we need to be ready.
Harman and Nevins stayed in the spiral stairwell below the antenna pillar. If the aliens attack the pillar, they are willing to rush out and make repairs.
Gaston is once again in his favorite spot, standing atop the Well wall.
Above the Well, the glowing display of Omeyocan, slowly spinning. A yellow dot comes slowly closer—the Goblin.
“No sign of the Dragon,” Spingate calls out. “Or the Xolotl.”
Gaston huffs. “Big surprise. As usual, when a fight comes, our progenitors are nowhere to be found.”
Spingate is on the platform. Her belly, swollen. I would have killed her and the baby both. Milton Cathcart is with her, his eyes fixed on the icons floating above his pedestal. He’s assumed Halim’s duties, I suppose. Spingate has little Kevin in her sling. In a back corner of the room, Joandra Rigby leans against the wall, arms crossed. She’s glaring at Spingate, glaring with pure venom.
Joandra, too? Is there anyone not turning into a horrible person?
I’m down on the floor, standing with Peura at a student pedestal. He’s trying to reach the Xolotl.
“Ometeotl,” Gaston calls out, “do we have a targeting solution?”
“Not yet, Captain Xander. The Goblin is not yet in range. ETA to firing solution, forty-two seconds. Grandmaster Zubiri reports that the Goff Spear is loaded and ready to fire.”
A red ring appears on the display, the image of Omeyocan at its center.
“That red line is the Goff Spear’s outer range. Once the Goblin crosses it, we can destroy it.”
The yellow dot is coming closer. It looks like we have a few minutes before it reaches the red line. I don’t want this battle to end the same way as the last. I’m hoping the Xolotl can help us somehow.
Peura’s hands are covered in light. He’s moving glowing icons, working the controls. I wish I knew what he was doing so I could assist—I feel so helpless.
He shakes his head. “The Xolotl isn’t responding to pings, or anything else. I think it’s beyond the horizon.”
“Because it’s gone,” Gaston calls out. “Didn’t you hear me? Those cowardly bastards ran away as soon as the Goblin started approaching. Matilda wants nothing to do with a space battle.”
Matilda wants me to live, but not so badly that she’s willing to fight those that attack us. Why am I not surprised?
We’re on our own.
We’ve always been on our own.
Movement by Gaston’s feet draws my attention—a black rope, looped over the Well’s edge. I hadn’t noticed it before. From inside the Well comes Huan Chowdhury’s voice.
“Gaston, get out of the way!”
Gaston looks down into the shaft.
“You okay, Huan?”
“Get out of the damned way or I swear I will stab you in the balls!”
“I’ll take that as a no,” Gaston says, then walks a few steps along the circular top, his attention again returning to the display above him.
I squeeze Peura’s shoulder. “Keep trying,” I say, and walk to the Well.
Huan Chowdhury climbs up the rope, climbs up fast. He falls more than swings over, lands hard on the floor. I take a knee next to him.
“You’re trembling,” I say. “Did you see something down there?”
He’s in a fetal position, shaking hands close to his chin. He wears a canvas climbing harness over his black coveralls. Every inch of him is covered in dirt and mud. His big teeth chatter. Not from the temperature, from fear.
“Huan!” I give his shoulders a shake. “I don’t have time for this! What did you see?”
“Didn’t…didn’t see anything. Just felt something, down there with me.”
He’s acting like this because he got spooked?
I grab his harness, use it to sit him up. I thump his back against the Well wall, maybe a little too hard. People like me face down guns and hatchets, fight the real enemy, while people like Huan cower at shadows? Whatever he has to tell me, it better be good.
“You didn’t see anything,” I say. “Tell me what you felt, then.”
“Been going through the tunnels.” He’s talking slowly, forcing his words through quivering lips. “End of the tunnel…wasn’t hard dirt…I was able to push through it into another tunnel complex, one I hadn’t seen before. It’s wet. Wet and warm”—his eyes lock onto mine—“it felt like breath.”
My bottled-up anger swells, it pushes, looking for a way out.
“And that’s it? You felt a warm draft and you panicked?”
He shakes his head hard. “No, it was more than that, I…I heard a voice. It was my mother. She said Don’t be afraid.”
His mother? She’s probably been dead as long as my mother has. Could he have heard Springers? They were in the Observatory long before we were. Maybe there’s another way into those tunnels. But no, if it was Springers, there’s no way Huan could mistake them for his own mother. He must have imagined it.
“Forget the voice,” I say. “Did you actually see anything?”
He shakes his head again. “No. I was too scared, I ran.”
He missed his godsdamned mommy. I needed this idiot boy to find information critical to our survival, and all he can do is piss his pants because he’s afraid of shadows? What would he do if he ever faced real danger?
I yank Huan to his feet, shove him toward the door.
“Get out of my sight, you coward.”
Still trembling from the fear of what he saw down there—and, perhaps, his fear of me—Huan sprints out of the Control Room.
“Goblin approaching firing range,” Gaston says. “Em, if you’re done intimidating little kids, think maybe we can focus on the alien race that’s trying to kill us?”
The yellow dot of the Goblin creeps closer to the red line. When it gets there, I will give the order to fire—thousands of intelligent beings will die. It is an order I do not want to give.
There has to be another way.
I run back to Peura. The boy is still trying. He’s on the verge of hyperventilating.
“You can’t reach what isn’t there,” I say. “Instead, can you use the antenna to talk to the alien ship?”
“I…I don’t know. I’ll try.”
“Don’t bother,” Gaston says. “We’ll blow that ship out of the sky before they can launch an attack. Besides, they’re aliens—even if we can reach their ship we can’t communicate with them.”
Gaston doesn’t even want to try to stop this battle from happening? That’s not like him. Or rather, that’s not like the Gaston I used to know. Is this really how he wants to be, or is this unknown anger affecting him like it affected Bishop and Spingate?
Like it affected me.
I lean in close to Peura. “Don’t worry about Gaston. Just try, all right?”
He nods, and once again his hands are a glowing blur.
On the big display above the Well, the Goblin has almost reached the red line.
“Ometeotl,” Gaston says, “show me the Goblin’s probable maximum firing distance, and also maximum probable distance from which it can launch atmospheric-capable craft.”
Two more lines appear. A purple one—marked MISSILE ZONE—appears a bit inside the red one that signifies Goff Spear’s outer range. A blue line—marked LAUNCH DISTANCE—is farther inside the purple.
Gaston reaches out and touches the purple line, his fingers kicking up multicolored sparkles. He turns to look down at me.
“If the Goblin gets here, they can start firing. We don’t know if they’ll ignore the Observatory like the Basilisk did.”
“Peura, hurry,” I say quietly. “We have to talk to them now!”
He looks at me, wide-eyed, shaking his head. Stupid Em—this kid’s nerves are shot, pressuring him isn’t going to help.
“Take a breath and keep trying,” I say, forcing myself to sound calm. “Just do your best.”
Peura nods and gets back to work. I see sweat beading on his forehead, wetting his black hair.
“The Goblin is entering Goff Spear range,” the room calls out.
On the display, the glowing yellow dot touches the red line.
“Em, we’re ready,” Gaston says. “Give the command to fire.”
I close my eyes. I don’t believe in gods—I don’t even believe the God of Blood is real and I felt it compel me to do violence—but for the first time I pray, pray to a god I know nothing about.
Tlaloc, please, help us—please don’t make me murder thousands, make them talk to us.
There is no answer.
“Em, stop screwing around,” Gaston says. “The Goblin is almost in missile-launch range.”
I open my eyes. Sure enough, the yellow dot is past the red line and approaching the purple one.
“I’m sure I reached them,” Peura says. “I’m sure of it. No response.” He looks at me, shaking his head. “Em, I know they received our signal. If they wanted to reach us, they could.”
Gaston glares down at me. “Em, give the godsdamned order to fire!”
The Goblin is almost to the purple line.
Every race that’s come here has come to kill. The race populating the Dragon seems to control the Goblin, and even if they didn’t, why would either race be any different from the Vellen, Springers and humans? These aliens are coming because of the same signal that brought us.
I tried to communicate. They didn’t respond.
If I wait, my people die.
Kill your enemies and you are forever free….
“Ometeotl,” I say, “fire the Goff Spear.”
The room thrums, pulses. I hear that buzzing sound, drowning out all other noise. Like before, my hair stands on end, my teeth and bones vibrate.
The room’s air is sucked out and rushes back in.
The noise ceases, as does the thrumming vibration.
A red streak flashes out from Uchmal toward the Goblin.
“Increase magnification on target ship,” Gaston says.
The display above him changes. We see the Goblin’s green front, the yellow symbol etched there. I realize that I will never get a chance to know what that symbol means.
The wait is agonizing. The red streak draws closer. It seems an eternity before our weapon connects. The Goblin swells, swells, swells…then rips apart.
“Target destroyed,” the room says.
Cathcart and Peura whoop with joy. Gaston shakes his fist at the image of the ship breaking into a hundred pieces.
But something is wrong….
“Possible contact,” Ometeotl says. “Significant interference from the detonation. There may be a solid mass beyond it.”
“Oh no,” Gaston says. “Ometeotl, tell Zubiri to reload the Goff Spear, right now! And ask her how long until we can fire again!”
Spingate takes a reactive step back from her pedestal. Her arms wrap protectively around little Kevin.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
No one answers.
I walk to the Well wall and look up at Gaston.
“Gaston, what is it?”
He points to the wreckage of the Goblin.
“The Dragon,” he says. “We couldn’t see it because it was in the blind spot behind the Goblin.”
Through the cloud of wreckage, I see the Dragon’s plain white flat front coming closer.
Our radio telescope’s waves radiate out in an ever-expanding sphere—when that sphere hit the Goblin, anything behind the ship was invisible to us.
The evil of what I just witnessed…
“They used the Goblin as a screen,” I say. “They knew full well we would destroy it. They sacrificed thousands of lives to get closer to us.”
“Zoom out,” Gaston says.
The image above him changes: Omeyocan, the blue LAUNCH DISTANCE line, beyond that the purple MISSILE ZONE line, the red line of the Goff Spear’s outer range.
The Dragon’s green dot passes through the red line.
“Grandmaster Zubiri is reloading,” Ometeotl says. “Eight minutes, twelve seconds before the Goff Spear can fire again.”
“Gods,” Spingate says. “That’s not enough time.”
We watched, transfixed, as the green dot passes through the purple MISSILE ZONE line.
And keeps going, without firing any weapons.
I understand their strategy—the Dragon is going to launch landing craft, then retreat out of our range before we can destroy it. They will try, anyway—they don’t know how long it will take us to reload. Whatever race is on that ship, it’s a race that is willing to gamble.
The Dragon closes in on the purple line.
“Ometeotl,” I say, “do you acknowledge my absolute authority?”
“Yes, Empress Savage.”
“Then I transfer authorization to fire the Goff Spear to Captain Xander Gaston.”
“Order understood and implemented, Empress Savage.”
The green dot reaches the purple line.
As soon as it does, dozens of tiny green dots fly away from it.
“Ships launched,” Ometeotl says. “Twenty-one small fighter craft and six larger craft—most likely transports. Approximately seventeen minutes until they reach Uchmal.”
I can do no more here.
“Gaston, don’t activate the antimissile batteries until you get my signal, understand?”
He nods without looking at me. “I know the plan, Em. And if I get a shot at Dragon, I’ll kill it. Now get out there and kick some ass.”
Is this the last time I will see him? The last time I will see Theresa?
I look to the platform. Theresa’s eyes meet mine.
“I believe in you,” she says. “Please come back to us.”
I hope I do.
Without another word, I leave to join my troops.