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Chapter 80
THE SUN WAS GETTING LOW as I finally made it back out of the confusing maze of tu
A short time later, I stood on the roof, watching the sun set. The Alparian sun was almost twice as large as Earth’s. Or was Alpar Nok just closer to it? Anyway, it had a yellowish-green tinge that turned into a blue and gold as it sank. It was heart-stoppingly beautiful, as I was sure this city had once been. I imagined this same fate for New York and Paris and London back on Earth, and it chilled me to the bone.
Then I stared at Seth’s spaceship hovering ominously in the distance. And his sickening machines eating through this planet, like worms through a smashed apple.
I thought about all the dreams and beauty Seth had taken away. And lives-like Joe’s, Willy’s, Emma’s, Dana’s. My dear friends murdered long ago at their school, of all places.
How long would it be before this same kind of senseless destruction would be replayed on Earth?
I closed my eyes, concentrated fiercely, and brought my friends back. With my mind, of course.
“Whu-what?” Joe said, coming up beside me. “No! You gotta be messing with my head. I mean, the alien spaceship was a trip, but now we’re actually on another planet? A wrecked planet, I see, but still. Tell me they have light sabers, Daniel. I want my own light saber!”
“Don’t listen to him, Daniel,” Willy said, punching Joe in the arm. “He’s just taken one small step for idiots, one giant step for idiotkind.”
“I know things look bad now, Daniel,” Emma said, sca
I felt something hopeful in my chest. I’d almost forgotten how good it felt to be among my friends again. My murdered friends, I couldn’t help thinking.
I stepped over to where Dana stood, off by herself, looking very sad.
“What is it, Dana? Why won’t you talk? Did I do something wrong?”
Her eyes teared. Suddenly she hugged me hard.
“Okay, Daniel, I know what you have to do here. I’m just so afraid, afraid of losing you. And myself. But let’s get to work anyway. Let’s try to stop Seth if we possibly can.”
For the next several hours, we just sat there and thought about how to save our homeland. We turned over the options and possibilities, thousands of them, actually. Unfortunately, they all pretty much stank.
“What do we do now?” Dana finally asked. “We still don’t have a plan-and my brain is getting numb.”
“Sleep,” I said. “Dream about The Prayer, I suppose. But tomorrow we fight to live!”
Chapter 81
THE NEXT MORNING it took us hours of tricky and difficult hiking through the landfill of the destroyed city to get anywhere near Seth’s ship.
If the disaster area looked bad from far away, close up it was much worse. There were thousands of horse-heads everywhere I could see.
We staggered around shattered baby cribs, computer screens, old newspapers and books, broken appliances, skeletons, all of it covered thickly with ash and mud.
When we got closer to Seth’s gigantic spacecraft, I saw that another landing chute was down.
“I guess he’s not afraid of an attack,” I said.
“What are we going to do?” Willy said nervously. “I don’t like the look in your eyes.”
“Get it over with,” I said. “Tussle, rumble, duel to the death. Something awful, something final.”
I pulled a metal pole out from the rubble. Then I hurled it about the length of three football fields. About four seconds later, the pole clanged against the ship’s hull.
“What are you doing?!” said Emma as a deafening alarm sounded in the ship.
“Do you see a doorbell anywhere?” I said, and walked forward.
“Knock, knock!” I yelled up at the belly of the ship. “Come out, come out, wherever you are, Seth! It’s me. Daniel.”
Chapter 82
ABOUT TWENTY SECONDS LATER, there was a metallic groaning sound, and the door opened.
Seth came out in a bathrobe, holding a travel mug of coffee in one hand and a folded-over Wall Street Journal in the other. The dozen or so commando soldiers who filed out the doorway behind him swung their 24/24 Opus Magnums in my direction.
“Well, if it isn’t Daniel X himself,” Seth said with a yawn. “Become tired of living in this dump of a city already, eh? What can I do for you today? Death? Eternal enslavement? What’s it going to be?”
“I had something a little more sempiternal and epic in mind,” I said as I put my fingers to my mouth and whistled. “You saw Lord of the Rings I, II, and III, right?”
At first, nothing happened. Then, slowly, there was movement at the rim of the valley wall. Actually, it seemed as if the rim itself was moving, which couldn’t be.
Spikes of light glittered off thousands upon thousands of mirrored visors, and titanium battle helmets, and rifle barrels.
Around the edge of the valley walls stood a massive army of futuristic-looking starship troopers. Each soldier was sheathed head to toe in high-tech silver battle armor, and each one aimed a blocky, snub-nosed submachine gun down at Seth and his fellow aliens.
Suddenly their voices roared as one!
I smiled, trying to mask the fact that each and every cyborg space marine had been created by yours truly.
With my mind.
I turned back to Seth as his newspaper fluttered down from his claw. I thought his eyeballs were going to pop out of his butt-ugly face.
“You thought we were all gone, didn’t you?” I yelled theatrically. “Thought you had us beaten into submission? Think again. Prepare to feel the terrible wrath of Alpar Nok!”
Dana leaned in from behind me and whispered against my cheek.
“Daniel, will they actually be able to fight?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I said out the side of my mouth.
“Great,” she said. “One more question. Will it hurt when I die?”
Chapter 83
“PREPARE TO FIRE on my order!” Seth screamed to his soldiers. “And summon more backup. I want a full squadron of battle tanks and missile drones! Get me a million squadrons!”
“Anybody moves, they’re dead. Same goes for you, Seth,” I said.
Our eyes locked and held. This was the crucial part of my plan. The next ten seconds or so meant everything, the future of this planet, and probably of Earth. Hey, you can never be too dramatic when you’re psyching yourself up before a battle to the death.
“On Earth, this is what they call a Mexican standoff,” I said. “You move, you die. I move, I die. So how about instead we actually see who is more powerful: Alien? Or Alien Hunter?”
“What are you saying, Daniel?” Seth said.
“You and I fight man-to-man. Man to whatever you are. Wi
After all my thinking and searching through a
Seth suddenly laughed at me.
“Sounds exciting, except I really don’t care how many of my drones die. How about I just give the fire order and go back and watch the end of 24, the fifth season, on my DVD?”