29

The trolls continued their honor guard position all the way back to the ruins of the base. We stopped under the trailing arms of the jellylike Conglomerate starship. Two raptors ran out of a nearby airlock, danced around the trolls, and tried to grab me. The ghost responded, invisible limbs shoving one of them rudely back.

“You stopped moving,” Amira said. “Are you okay?”

“There are two raptors here.” They aimed their energy rifles at me. “They seem to be arguing with the ghost.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t speak invisible alien,” I snapped. “But I think maybe they want me dead.”

A massive hand swung from the sky and slapped a raptor. It flew across the dirt and bounced several times, and the second troll stepped forward and crouched aggressively in front of the other raptor.

It slung its rifle and stepped back.

The other raptor stood up and visibly shook itself, then slunk off.

“I’ve been working hard on updating some heads-up display software to patch in and show you something,” Amira said. “You’re going to need it. You’re in the strike zone and you have five minutes before the barrage starts.”

“I’m not getting away,” I said. I’d been fighting the ghost all the way here. In addition to broken wrists, I now had contu­sions all over my body. A slight concussion from rattling my head around left me slightly out of it. The ghost was stronger and faster.

My visor flickered and rebooted. The information about my suit and charge levels faded. It came back on, and the lunar surface around me changed. It was overlit by large pools of red light.

“Red is impact, timers are above them. The arcs are the trajectories.”

A four-minute timer hung above the red bull’s-eye I stood in. I looked above me. Three minutes until the Conglomerate ship got hit. Lines of silvery thread led away from the center of the impact pools off into the dark sky.

Nine different silver lines led to the alien ship. Another ghostly one appeared as I watched. Each came in from a different angle or vector.

“Now, for getting you away from the ghost, I need you to hug it and get the charge port in your heels firmly against its surface. I’m going to discharge your power into it, and when I do that, it will temporarily overwhelm it. Or startle it. I hope. It’s the best I can do.”

She sounded so apologetic, I felt duty-bound to respond with energy. But I was tired, and hurting, even despite the painkillers I’d had the suit pump into me. “Thank you, Amira.” I looked up. Two minutes.

“If that happens, you run. Stay out of the red zones. Debris is still an issue. You’ll have to work hard, the suit will be mostly dead or dying after the discharge of energy.”

“Okay.”

One of the long tentacles unfurled itself from the starship and reached down for the ground. I watched it descend all the way down to meet us. The flat tip hit the ground in front us, kicking up lunar dust. I gently shifted my feet down, angling them to touch the ghost’s invisible surface.

“Tell me when you’re ready,” Amira said.

Sixty seconds.

The ghost and trolls waited for the dust to settle, then stepped forward onto the flat tip of the tentacle. I pressed my boots firmly against the ghost.

Forty seconds.

The tentacle contracted, transparent musculature showing veins the size of bridge cables pumping fluid underneath its skin, and we slowly rose.

I watched the lunar surface drop away.

Thirty seconds.

“Now,” I told Amira.

My boots exploded with arcs of electricity. The ghost danced and writhed in pure blue light, and its viselike grip on me broke.

I shoved off and out from the platform tip of the tentacle and into free fall, streaming electricity as I fell.

When I hit the ground on my back I lay there, the air knocked out of my chest, gasping.

Fifteen seconds. “Did it work?” Amira asked.

“Yes,” I hissed. One of the trolls let go of the tentacle and stepped out over the side to fall down after me. I got up. The armor wasn’t too heavy, but there was no assistance. It was just me and my own muscle.

The troll struck the ground in front of me.

I turned and ran back the other way in a halfhearted loping bounce. I just needed to get out from under the ship, even if it meant heading farther into the strike zones. The pool I stood in had a countdown of a minute.

Seven seconds. A troll leapt over me and landed in front of me. We faced off.

Five.

It stopped looking at me and glanced up.

Three, two.

One. Something flashed along the silver line so quickly I barely saw it and struck the side of the Conglomerate ship. The entire jellylike structure shivered as the capsule ripped out the other side. Debris hung in the air over us, yanked out of the ship’s insides. “It’s a hit!” I shouted, and regretted it. Pain spiked through my ribs from the effort.

A figure leapt out away from the tentacle. It was no longer invisible; I could see limbs. Two legs, two arms, a head. The flat gray armor looked mundane now.

The second impact and third hit the Conglomerate ship. It began to move, wobbling and struggling to get away.

“Devlin, run!”

I turned and bounced away, looking at the red pools. Twenty seconds. I veered in a circle, leading the troll around and into it. The now visible ghost followed. I’d burned out its camouflage and gotten away, but it was mobile again. And coming for me. Shit.

Ten.

Amira shouted excitedly. “Kinetic energy is an angry bitch!”

The ship was no longer directly overhead and debris was hitting the ground everywhere, pieces of the ship falling away. A whole tentacle detached and draped itself over the base.

Crickets boiled out from the ship and the base, leaping and running for safety.

“Devlin, Ken? Are you okay?”

I doubled back, away from the next target. The troll followed. I stopped at the edge, turned back to it, and raised my hands. The ghost stepped forward, out from under the troll’s legs.

The lunar surface exploded as the impact I was waiting for happened. I flew through the air, cartwheeling hard enough to black out, then jar back to life as I struck the surface. I bounced several times.

There was no troll anymore, just a black stain where it had stood. Impacts were hitting constantly, the ground shaking every few seconds as payloads Amira had sent up in various orbits were all now converging to hit at almost the same time, even though they’d been launched at different intervals.

The ghost had been flung with me. It lay still, arms and legs spread at unnatural angles. I crawled over, glancing around at the impact points on Amira’s heads-up display to see if it was safe as I worked my way toward safety. Sixty seconds before this area would get hit by another of Amira’s capsules.

I looked at the ghost as I passed by, and froze.

His face was covered in blood.

But it was a he.

It was a person.

There was a dead human being in Conglomerate armor lying on the ground. The ghost was human.

Was this a trick? What did it mean? Had Conglomerate forces been to Earth? When? Or was it some kind of parallel evolution?

Or was this Conglomerate species molded to look human so it could invade or rule Earth?

I didn’t know. I grabbed the body and pulled it along with me, grateful for the lower gravity.

Thirty seconds.

I stumbled and fell as I ran out of the area as best I could and—

Wham!

—another impact threw me clear as I clutched the ghost’s body. Rocks and dirt rattled against my armor.

I scrabbled along farther, getting clear of the impact zones. I was on my ass, pulling the ghost after me. I watched the Conglomerate ship fall slowly into the base, vomiting gas and fire as it burned and I scooted slowly away.

My heads-up display flickered and died.

No air scrubbing now. I would just breathe the air left inside until I passed out. I wasn’t sure how long that would be, but I was sure it wasn’t long enough for me to make it back to the launcher.

I sat on top of the ghost, hoping it was truly dead, and watched the destruction unfold in front of me.