TAYLOR COOK
BAYAN-ÖLGII PROVINCE, MONGOLIA
NEVER IN TAYLOR’S GRIMMEST NIGHTMARES WOULD she have imagined a scenario where she’d be running towards a Mogadorian warship.
And yet, here she was.
Blaster fire burned the air around her. Taylor was pulled along with the pack of mercenaries towards the cover of the warship. She hated the Mogs more than anything in that moment. Hated them for making her fight alongside the Foundation.
A streak of energy took the legs out from beneath one of her escorts and he fell screaming in the snow. Taylor tried to go back for him, but the XO had a tight grip on her arm and shoved her ahead. Looking over her shoulder, she saw two Mogs descend on the soldier as he tried to find his feet. These ones didn’t have blasters—they had swords. Serrated, silver, nasty things—they plunged the weapons into the soldier and then started stripping him of his gear.
The XO hit Taylor in the chest with something. A pistol. His secondary weapon.
“You know how to use that?” he asked.
“I’ve seen movies,” she replied.
They took cover in what used to be the warship’s docking bay, hiding behind smashed Mogadorian Skimmers that had already been stripped for parts. The mercenaries were efficient, setting up a perimeter and providing cover fire for their comrades who were still exposed. Taylor joined in, squeezing off bullets into the darkness, not sure if she was hitting any Mogadorians. When her clip was empty, she used her telekinesis, twisting Mog weapons away and flinging them into the night.
A stray blast shaved a panel off the Skimmer Taylor was hiding behind. It came down right on her head. She was lucky—a glancing blow, but she was still cut. New warmth seeped into her hair, which was already frozen with sweat, blood trickling down into one of her eyes. She fell onto her butt, more stunned than anything.
The XO spotted her immediately. “Asset is hurt! Get her the hell inside!”
“Stop,” Taylor mumbled as another mercenary grabbed her under the arms and dragged her aboard the warship proper. “I’m fine. I’ll heal it.”
The soldier didn’t listen. He dumped her inside the warship, leaving her next to a pile of canisters and broken gears.
Taylor stumbled to her feet. She touched the cut on her head and let her Legacy do its work, cringing at the cold nugget of emptiness that formed within her whenever she used her healing on herself. A little woozy from the knock on the skull, she nonetheless started back towards the sounds of fighting.
A noise stopped her in her tracks. Was that a girl’s voice? It definitely was. Taylor couldn’t quite make out the words, but that was definitely someone calling out.
It was coming from deeper inside the warship.
Did the Foundation have a prisoner here?
With a glance back at the battle, Taylor followed the sound of the voice through the hulking ship’s skeletal remains. Her path was illuminated in patches by the glow of the floodlights shining through the cracks in the ship’s roof. She picked her way across debris—broken Mog blasters, torn radiation suits, empty packs of cigarettes.
As she got closer, Taylor realized the voice was speaking a language she didn’t understand. In fact, it wasn’t one she’d heard before—at least not until that night. The harsh and sharp syllables were Mogadorian.
Taylor got low, wary now that she’d stumbled into a trap.
She relaxed as she rounded a corner and entered a vast corridor. At the far end was a blinking communication array, somehow undamaged during the ship crash. The voice emanated from there. Whether it was a live broadcast or a recording, Taylor couldn’t tell.
As Taylor listened, the Mogadorian girl switched from her guttural language to fluid English.
“This is Vontezza Aoh-Atet, trueborn daughter of the dead General Aoh-Atet, and current commander of the Mogadorian warship Osiris.” The Mog did everything in her power to sound formal and lofty, but Taylor could tell that she was young despite her big titles. “We remain in our defensive position behind the Earth’s moon as we have for the last four hundred days. Our supplies begin to run low. If there is any section of the fleet still receiving, please respond to our transmission.”
Taylor raised an eyebrow. She’d heard about this. During the invasion, the Garde had briefly convinced the Mogadorian fleet that Setrákus Ra was dead. All hell had broken loose—some warships held strong while others fought against each other, their commanders vying for the role of Beloved Leader. One ship had even retreated into space. Apparently, that warship was still hanging around up there with this young-sounding Vontezza in control.
“If John Smith or any of the other Loric are listening,” Vontezza continued, “I wish to meet with you under the flag of peace. What is left of the Mogadorian people have no stomach for further war . . .”
Based on the Mogs attacking the mercenaries outside, Taylor didn’t think that was necessarily true.
Vontezza’s message began once again in Mogadorian. A recording, then. Taylor took a step towards the console and her foot squelched down into something warm and sticky.
At first glance, it looked like the floor of the room was covered in a massive oil slick. But the stuff worming around on Taylor’s foot wasn’t oil—it was thicker and gummier. She took a hurried step back, worried the ooze would eat through her footwear.
She noticed the vats, then. Huge tanks lined up against the walls, all of them broken open. The black gunk had flowed forth from them. Squinting, Taylor thought she could make out pale shapes floating in the dark bog. Were those half-formed Mogadorian bodies?
Taylor had no doubt this was what the Foundation was out here collecting. The stuff looked exactly like the sickness she’d seen under the soldiers’ skin.
Some toxic creation of the Mogadorians. What did the Foundation want with that?
“They’re falling back!” Taylor heard a soldier shout. The sound of gunfire was waning. The battle was won.
She didn’t have long to do what she needed to do.
Of the fifty men who left for the night shift, only thirty-one made it back to camp. It could have been less. Taylor, exhausted now, eyes sunken and heavy, still managed to heal a few dire cases on the way back.
The look on Jiao’s face when Taylor appeared in their tent, joining the soldiers as they came for healing was priceless. Taylor must’ve looked crazy—haggard, with dried blood smeared on one side of her face, her blond hair tinted crimson. She could tell that Jiao wanted to ask her questions but didn’t dare. The XO hovered nearby, not letting Taylor out of his sight.
Vincent didn’t say anything either. He didn’t meet Taylor’s gaze. He paid attention only to the wounded soldiers who stepped up in front of him.
Taylor took off her boots and made Jiao examine her feet. None of the black oil had crept in.
“She’s clean,” Jiao reported to the XO. She waved her hand at Taylor’s messed-up appearance and bone-weary posture. “Nothing I can do about the rest. She needs sleep.”
“Not yet,” the XO replied, gently taking Taylor by the arm.
The XO led her out. Some of the men gave her appreciative nods as she passed. Because she’d saved their lives? Or were they simply acknowledging that she’d fought alongside them?
Taylor ended up alone in the XO’s tent. He let her sit on his cot, propped up against some pillows. Her whole body ached. She struggled to keep her eyes open as the XO paced back and forth. He accessed a tablet and placed a video call.
Bea. Her hair was pinned up and she wore a drab nightgown. They’d woken her up.
“What is it?”
“We had an incident,” the XO reported.
He went through the details of the Mogadorian ambush, the number of casualties, and the damage to the site. He explained that Taylor had been out there with the men. Taylor kept her eyes on Bea, saw a hot glimmer of rage appear in the twist of her lips—she was mad at the XO. His negligence had endangered one of her most valuable assets.
When the XO finished his summary of events, Bea regarded Taylor. Her face was a mask now, calm and collected.
“Are you all right, darling?” she asked.
Taylor nodded.
“How did you end up out there?”
“One of the soldiers . . . MacLaughlan . . .” Taylor allowed her voice to be shaky. It would make the lies more convincing. “I hadn’t finished healing him before because he was out of line. The XO was there, he saw. He came to our tent . . . he took me. Made me heal him on the way to the warship site. Then . . . I don’t know. I don’t know what else he planned to do.”
She felt a little guilty besmirching MacLaughlan’s memory, but he was dead. He wouldn’t mind.
“This soldier? Where is he?” Bea asked the XO coldly.
“Dead in the ambush, ma’am.”
“Good.” Bea took a cleansing breath. “Can the excavation continue?”
“I’ll need some reinforcements, ma’am,” the XO responded. “Lost some men tonight. And I’m not sure how many more of those things are out there.”
“Hmm.” Bea pursed her lips. “The samples you’ve gathered so far already have a buyer and I can’t tolerate a delay. Select a few trusted men and bring what you’ve gathered to my location. The rest can stay until reinforcements are available.”
Taylor let loose a small moan and shuddered. It wasn’t entirely disingenuous. The thought of any more time in Mongolia seemed like a nightmare.
“And bring Ms. Cook along,” Bea added sympathetically. “I think she’s seen enough action for one tour.”
Before, back on the Mogadorian warship, Taylor took MacLaughlan’s satellite phone out of her coat. She breathed a sigh of relief that it hadn’t been damaged in all the fighting.
She punched in a number. A number that she’d memorized a couple of months ago, when this plan was first hatched. A number for a cell phone that Professor Nine promised would get answered at any time, day or night.
Ring. Ring.
“Where’s the asset?” someone shouted. “Where did you put her?”
They were looking for her. The battle had ended.
“Come on, come on,” Taylor murmured, edging back into the shadows.
Ring. Ring.
“Find her!” the XO yelled.
Ring. Ri—
“Hello?” a young man answered.
“It’s me,” Taylor said, tears springing into her eyes. “I don’t have long. Please, hurry.”
“Put the phone up to your arm.”
Taylor did as she was told, putting the phone against her forearm, right where there would’ve been a recent surgery scar. That is, if Taylor hadn’t healed the wound herself.
She could still hear the guy’s voice on the phone, though it took on a different quality now. Tinny and robotic.
“Activate!” he said.
That’s what it sounded like when Sam Goode used his Legacy to talk to machines.
“Did it work?” Taylor asked, putting the phone back to her ear.
“Yes!” Sam said. “We see you.”
The Foundation’s scans hadn’t discovered Taylor’s locator chip because it hadn’t been active yet.
Now it was.
A flashlight beam swept down Taylor’s corridor. She pitched the phone into the Mogadorian ooze without saying good-bye and stumbled in the direction of the searching soldiers.
“I’m here!” she called. “I’m here!”