This time, I’m not running away.

From my back pocket, I produce my satellite phone. I dial the number programmed in for Lawson. Two simple words.

“Open fire.”

I don’t listen for a response. I know what happens next. Soon, all around the world, counterattacks will begin.

I drop the phone. Let it smash down in the woods a few miles down. I won’t need it anymore. No more talking, no more politics.

I reach out to Six telepathically.

The Anubis is over the mountain. Get ready.

I glance back in the direction I came from. Our warship is too far off to see, but the storm clouds aren’t. Thick and dark, they blot out the stars, ruining what was a perfectly clear night sky. Lightning shivers through them, the wind picks up and I can hear hailstones falling in the distance. They roll towards me, towards the Anubis.

It’ll be a storm like the Mogadorians have never seen.

We’re coming.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“GAIN SOME ALTITUDE, REX,” ADAM SAYS. “I want to swoop down from above them. That good for you, Six?”

“Yeah,” I reply distractedly. “Got it covered.”

I stand right in front of the enormous windows on our warship’s bridge, my hands raised in the air, fingers twisting. I can see reflections of the others in the glass, but I’m more focused on what’s outside. I pull at the indelible threads of atmosphere that only I can sense and caress the wind into doing my bidding. If it wasn’t for the thick sheet of glass in front of me, I could reach out and touch the roiling clouds that I’ve created.

A storm. A bigger storm than I’ve ever managed. Over the years, I’ve mostly relied on lightning strikes, high winds, sudden surges of cloud cover—quick effects. Not much can stand against Mother Nature for long. I’ve never really needed to build and sustain a massive storm front before.

Well, Katarina used to say, discovery is born of desperation.

“Visibility is really bad,” Rex calls to Adam.

“It’s okay,” Adam replies. Ella stands next to him, her eyes rolled back in her head, seeing everything that John sees. “We know where we’re going, and our target’s hard to miss. Keep us climbing.”

I have surrounded our warship with storm clouds and fog. Lightning strikes sizzle right in front of us and sting my eyes with their brightness. Our ship is big, but my storm front is bigger. It stretches nearly a mile wide and up, up, like a tidal wave crawling through the sky. Adam has triggered a scrambling device for radar so, between that and the static from the lightning, we should be wreaking havoc on the Anubis’s sensors. They’ll definitely know that we’re coming, but they won’t know where exactly in the storm we’re hiding. Not until it’s too late.

Marina stands at my side. She’s ready to enhance my storm with chunks of ice when needed. For now, she wipes some sweat from my forehead.

“You’re doing great, Six,” she says.

It isn’t until I try to smile at her and hear my teeth chatter that I realize I’m shaking.

Press on. Grow the storm. Bigger and bigger.

The winds howl outside, audible even in here. Thunder rumbles.

“Imagine the looks on their faces,” Five comments from his spot at one of the weapons panels. “They’re probably shitting their pants.”

“Shut up,” Nine replies automatically.

The edge of my storm reaches the Anubis. At first, the clouds break across their force field, keeping the air within one hundred yards of their ship completely clear.

“Do we know if weather will breach their shields?” Sam asks.

“Let’s find out,” Adam says. “Pour it on, Six.”

In my mind, I take hold of a lightning bolt. Just a small one, a probe, and sling it against the Anubis’s force field. The streak of electricity bends, turned back by the Mogadorian technology.

“Doesn’t seem like it penetrated,” Rex reports, sounding anxious.

“No, it doesn’t matter,” I reply through gritted teeth. “We’re close enough now. I don’t need to break their force field. I can go around.”

I let the dark clouds and swells of fog coalesce around the Anubis, hiding us, blinding them beyond the range of their force field. Then, maintaining that, I start over. My left hand twirls above me, spinning the wind, building it up, creating pressure. This time, the storm gathers within their shields.

“The air . . . ,” I say. “The air belongs to me.”

The wind outside the Anubis screams, the pressure drops. The wind swirls into a vortex, its velocity as fast as I can make it, fast enough to uproot trees and tear off weapon arrays, so fast that I’m starting to get a little dizzy. The vortex splits, then splits again. Three small funnels on top of the dark metal hull of the warship, shearing away at its armor, knocking it out of its orderly hover. Three tornados to shove this bastard to the ground. I send in some rain as well, and, next to me, Marina presses her hands to the glass. She freezes the water as it lands on the Anubis, adding weight, hopefully jamming up important functions.