A few of them try to book it out of the room. BK and Dust wait outside, greeting them with claws and gnashing teeth.

At some point while I’m clearing out the training room, a shrieking alarm begins to go off. It echoes through the entire ship and is accompanied by a rhythmic flashing of the dull red lighting that runs across the walls and ceilings.

No more element of surprise. Now they know I’m coming.

When I start making my way towards the bridge, the passageway is conspicuously empty of enemies. Prowling a few steps behind me, both BK and Dust let out growls of warning. The Mogs have almost surely fallen back into a defensive position, a choke point, where they can throw all their firepower at me.

Well, let’s see what they’ve got.

Two high double doors stand in front of me. Beyond them is the bridge. The alarm continues to blare; the lights continue to flash.

When I get within twenty feet of them, the doors open with a hydraulic whoosh.

Through the doors is a wide staircase that leads up. Above the staircase, I can just barely glimpse the domed windows of the bridge’s navigation area, the blue sky of Canada visible. The ship is controlled from here. Surely, the trueborn commander is up there somewhere.

On the stairs, between me and my goal, are about two hundred Mogadorians. The first row on their stomachs, the next row on one knee, the next row standing, the row behind them on the first step, and on and on, filling the entire staircase. Each of them holds a blaster pointed in my direction.

Once upon a time, this would have terrified me.

“Come on!” I scream at them.

The hallway crackles with energy as hundreds of blasters are fired off at once.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“YOU THINK HE’S ALL RIGHT?” ADAM ASKS.

I take my eyes off the door leading out of the hangar for a moment to shoot Adam a look. He doesn’t notice on account of his face being buried in a tangle of wires and cords. He’s lying on his back beneath the ripped-open dashboard of a Skimmer. His hands work quickly to disconnect the cloaking device.

“John’s still alive, if that’s what you mean,” I reply. So far, a new scar hasn’t burned its way across my ankle.

Adam sits up. I stand nearby, hunkered low, the cockpit of this latest Skimmer popped open. I’m carrying a Mog blaster and have my aim leveled on the door, just in case any Mogs should manage to get by John and interrupt what we’re doing. So far, it’s been quiet.

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Adam replies.

“You mean psychologically,” I say.

“Yeah.”

We climb out of this Skimmer and move on to the next one. I place the detached cloaking device inside a toolbox that we emptied out, stacked next to the others that we’ve filled.

“I think he’s doing about as well as any of us,” I say. “I mean, what do you expect?”

“I don’t know,” Adam admits. “But he scares me a little bit.”

I don’t respond to that. I’d be lying if I said the changes that have been taking place in John lately weren’t a little frightening. He’s still the same guy I’ve known, relied on, loved—just, with an edge. With power. And a hunger for revenge.

Maybe that’s exactly what we need right now.

An alarm begins to whine, and the lights in the docking bay flash off and on. Adam snaps free another cloaking device before looking up at me with raised eyebrows.

“I take it that’s a bad sign,” I say.

Adam shrugs. “It’s the high alert. For intruders or attacks.”

“So they know we’re here.”

“They were always going to find out eventually, right? If John’s going at the same rate he did down here, that alarm’s about twenty minutes too late to do any good.”

We move on to the next Skimmer, my grip now a little tighter on the blaster handle. Before we climb aboard, something catches my attention. A buzzing from the docking bay’s communications array. I touch Adam on the shoulder.

“What is that?”

He cocks his head to listen but can’t hear over the alarm. We jog over to the control panel in time to hear a brusque voice barking in Mogadorian. Adam immediately looks towards the wide-open entrance of the docking bay, the one we came through, blue sky and crisp air out there.

“The Skimmers on patrol detected the alarm; they’re asking for confirmation.”

As Adam says this, a couple of the small scout ships come into view, gliding towards the landing zone.

“Great,” I say. “Get ready for a fight.”