United as One (Lorien Legacies #7)(32)

With Daniela and me leading the way, we edge our way down the ramp. I glance to the side quickly, sensing motion, but it’s just Sam picking up a jagged rock from the river with his telekinesis.

He shrugs at me. “In case I need to clobber someone,” he says quietly.

Daniela’s gaze darts about as we make our way around the front of our ship and approach the burned-up Skimmer. Bandit trundles alongside us as we move slowly north. The raccoon has gotten bigger since we landed, puffed up, his claws now a vicious length. He scratches at the dirt, ready to charge at the first sight of danger. His claws kick up a chalky gray substance that I immediately recognize.

Mogadorian ash. Pretty fresh, considering it hasn’t all blown away yet. And there, next to the ash, the left-behind weapons of some killed vatborn. There was definitely a fight here, and the Mogs took casualties.

“The newbies did some damage,” I say.

“No kidding,” Sam replies, eyeing the smoking Skimmer. On closer examination, it looks like a grenade went off right in the ship’s cockpit. Something exploded, that’s for sure. I’m just not sure what.

I glance behind us and see Ella drifting away from our tight little group. She’s headed towards the Loralite stone, which would put her right out in the open.

“Ella,” I hiss. “Stay close.”

She waves at me without looking away from the stone. “I’ll be fine, Six.”

Sam and I exchange a look.

“I guess you get pretty daring when you can see the future,” Sam says.

“Or when you’ve already died once,” I reply.

Trusting that Ella can take care of herself, I lead the others cautiously towards the woods. We pass by the Skimmer that landed safely, then edge closer to the river and the Skimmer that’s been flipped into the depths. Daniela puts a hand on my arm.

“You hear that?”

At first, I don’t hear anything except the water. But then I make out a droning buzz, high-pitched and incessant. I squint at the Skimmer in the river. It looks blurry, strange somehow. . . .

Bugs. Even half-submerged in water, the Mogadorian ship is covered by a swarm of bugs. There have to be thousands of them, bees and gnats and flies and who knows what else, darting in and out of the engine vents, crawling over the armored hull. They only break away when the river water laps at them.

“The beekeeper at work,” Sam says.

“Has to be,” I agree, then motion us forward. I’m feeling a lot more confident about this mission. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be a rescue at all.

From above, ringing out over the pounding waves and the buzzing bugs, comes a piercing shriek. A falcon’s cry. Regal sending up a warning.

“The hell is that?” Daniela yelps, pointing into the sky.

From the tree line, a glowing object was just lobbed directly towards us. It floats through the air on an impossible arc—there’s telekinesis guiding it, for sure. If I had to guess, I’d say someone just tossed a pinecone at us. Except I’ve never seen one pulsing red waves of crimson energy like this one.

A vision of the blown-up Skimmer we just walked by suddenly comes to mind.

“Shoot that,” I say to Daniela.

I didn’t have to bother; she’s already on it. A silver-tinged current of energy bursts forth from Daniela’s eyes—the force of it actually looks painful, and Daniela gasps when it happens. Her aim is true, though, and the glowing pinecone is soon just a hunk of stone flying through the sky.

Not wanting to take any chances, I swat the rock down with my telekinesis. It lands about twenty yards in front of us and immediately explodes, the red energy from the charged pinecone shredding Daniela’s stone carapace. We get hit with a few pebbles, but it’s otherwise harmless. I’m not sure what the blast would’ve been like if Daniela hadn’t muffled it.

“There!” Sam yells, pointing at the edge of the woods.

I see her too. The frail-looking Japanese girl from the video. She stands where the trees thin out, close to the river, shin-deep in water. She must’ve been hiding before and popped out of cover as we approached. There’s a cut above her eyebrow, and blood trickles down the side of her face. She’s scuffed up, and, on her arms, I can see the telltale burns from Mogadorian blasters. She stares at us, uncertain.

Then she quickly bends down and grabs a handful of rocks from the river. In her hands, these all start to glow.

“Don’t do that!” I shout as the girl jerks her arms back like she’s going to throw.

“Easy, Ran! Easy!” shouts a second voice. It’s the punk-looking British kid who filmed the video that brought us here. Nigel, I think his name was. He darts out of the trees, splashes through the shallow water, and grabs Ran around the waist.

Ran breaks from her attack trance when Nigel grabs her and lifts her up. The stones slip free from her hands and splash into the water. A few heartbeats later, a half dozen geysers of water explode upwards where the stones detonated.

“She makes grenades,” Sam says. “That should be useful.”

“That’s badass. Why couldn’t I get that one?” Daniela complains, rubbing her head.

Holding Ran with one arm now, Nigel waves at us. The other two—Bertrand and Fleur—cautiously emerge from the trees. They both hold Mogadorian blasters. I get a weird feeling of nostalgia looking at this ragtag group. Is this what we used to look like after surviving those early skirmishes?