I step back. It rolls a few inches. Everyone gasps, but the ball stops as soon as it reaches level ground.
Once I’m behind a tree, Colonel Martin takes his handgun out of its holster and points it at the ball. He pulls the trigger.
The glass ball blows apart like a punctured balloon, the energy inside it bursting forth in an explosion that momentarily blinds me. Blinking, I look at the damage.
A two-foot crater is all that remains.
Colonel Martin strides forward, scowling at the debris. He swears, long and loud.
“Right, men,” he commands. “Now you see what we’re up against. Keep looking, and be careful. ”
They disperse.
Colonel Martin moves over to me.
“That proves it,” I say. “This is the work of the aliens. ”
He doesn’t answer.
“Do we have any weapons that would match something like that?”
He turns to the remains of shuttle. “If we did, they’re gone now. ”
Frex. He’s right. The shuttle housed the armory. The only weapons we have left are the ones the men are carrying.
“Good thing this happened so early in the day,” Colonel Martin says. “There could have been massive casualties otherwise. ”
Amy. Amy had spent nearly every day in the gen lab, with her mother. I shut my eyes, and I see her in the explosion, just as I did the second the bombs went off—her caught in the middle of the ship as it’s torn apart, her burnt beyond recognition.
“We have to do something,” I say, emotion making my voice as ragged as the edges of the shuttle.
Colonel Martin looks me right in the eyes. “I know. ”
I used to think that Orion’s warning about us becoming slaves was the greater possibility, but I’m starting to believe Colonel Martin’s determined to turn us into soldiers instead.
47: AMY
I push through the crowd waiting on Dad and his men to return. But it’s not Dad who emerges from the smoking forest.
It’s Elder.
When my eyes meet his, we rush to each other. Elder crushes me in a hug so fierce that I’m left breathless.
“What happened?” I ask when he finally releases me.
“Your father wants me to bring everyone out. ”
“Out? Where?”
He looks grim. “The compound. ”
I nearly stop then, I’m so surprised. “But Dad—”
Elder shrugs. “He told me to get everyone there. ”
“Why?”
He shoots me an inscrutable look. “I don’t know. ”