The Battle for Earth (Teen Superheroes Book 3) (9 page)

I struggled to my feet. I could see two figures in the gloomy field beyond the tree line.

“American spies!” one of them called out. “You will surrender yourselves for interrogation.”

I didn’t like the sound of any of that. I never like it when the words spies, surrender and interrogation are used at the same time.

“We’re not spies!” Chad yelled. “We’re lost. And I’m not American.”

“I don’t think that will make any difference to them,” I said.

It was growing lighter by the minute. Now the two figures were clearer. They were men. One wore red. The other wore blue. Something jangled at the back of my mind. The Russian flag was three horizontal stripes. Red, blue and –

The world turned upside down.

One second I was turning around to look behind us. The next I found the world spinning sideways and I could not tell up from down. I felt like I was falling, yet my feet were still planted firmly on the ground.

What the hell was going on?

“Vertigo,” I heard Chad’s voice come from somewhere behind me – or was he in front of me? “This guy has the powers of disorientation.”

I understood. Through a gap in the trees I saw a man in a white uniform. His hand was outstretched. Obviously he had some sort of power that disrupted the inner ear. I raised my hand to throw a cannonball of air at him, but the world flipped over again.

Chad hurled a blast of fire and I heard a scream. Crashing face first into the ground, I felt a sharp pain in my nose. It might have been broken. At least now I knew up from down. As we climbed to our feet, we saw the man rolling about on the ground. He looked singed, but otherwise uninjured.

We turned. Red and Blue were charging toward us. Throwing out an arm, Blue hurled a bolt of electricity at us. I threw myself to one side, but heard a cry as Chad was hit. He fell to the ground.

“Chad!” I screamed.

He didn’t move as the three men closed in around me.

I would have to deal with them.

Alone.

Chapter Seventeen

“Faster!” the alien growled.

The alien hit Ferdy in the back of the head with the butt of his gun.

Ebony protested. “Hey! Leave him alone. He doesn’t understand.”

She took Ferdy’s hand and moved him away from the alien. Dan was behind them. Shepherded by the guards, they moved through the dimly lit corridors of the spaceship. Events had occurred rather rapidly since their Flex Fighter had been dragged into the alien ship’s landing bay. Dan had wanted to fight their way out of the vessel, but Ebony could immediately see a dozen holes in the plan.

Ferdy had super strength, but he was almost impossible to co-ordinate in a fight. She and Dan had powers, but they could not take on an alien ship with hundreds – or thousands – of soldiers on board. Besides, they were here to find Brodie. It seemed to make more sense to wait and see what would happen.

Unfortunately, not much had happened since then. They had been shoved into a cell before another alien had turned up to move them again. He had introduced himself as T’bar.

“I am second in command,” he said. “I know you have powers, but I would advise you to co-operate. It is impossible to escape this ship.”

“Where are we being taken?” Ebony asked.

“You are to fight,” T’bar said.

“Who are we fighting?”

“Our Tagaar warriors.”

Ebony didn’t like the sound of that. “What have you done with our friend?”

“The girl?” the alien said. “She has proven quite an adversary.”

Good
, Ebony thought.
So Brodie’s still alive.

“We’re an adversarial race,” she said.

“You will be overcome by the Tagaar,” T’bar said. “As are all races we encounter.”

Just what we needed
, Ebony thought.
Invaders from Mars!

They reached a closed door. The alien unlocked it and motioned them inside. Ebony was about to protest when she peered into the chamber.

“Brodie!” she screamed.

They rushed into the cell. Brodie threw her arms around them as the alien watched impassively from the doorway.

“I will return shortly,” T’bar said. “One of you will be chosen to fight.”

“Ferdy will fight you,” Ferdy said. “Ferdy is not afraid.”

T’bar levelled his gaze at him. “You will be, boy.”

“The first flight of the Wright Brothers was one hundred and twenty feet,” Ferdy told him.

“The fear has addled your mind,” the alien said and slammed the door shut.

“I’m so glad to see you guys,” Brodie said. “But how did you get here?”

They all spoke at once. Brodie held up her hands.

“One at a time,” she said. “Please.”

Ebony explained the rapid sequence of events that had led them to the alien craft. Brodie listened in silence until she finally nodded.

“That explains a few things,” she said. “Some sort of communications window opened up in here briefly. I could see and speak to Axel.”

“The Agency is treating him like a criminal,” Dan said.

“The Tagaar are blackmailing him,” Brodie said.

“Who are the Tagaar?”

Brodie explained what she knew of the alien race.

“What happened to your face?” Dan asked.

Brodie gingerly touched her bruised cheek. “The Tagaar love nothing more than to fight. I’ve fought three times so far.”

“And she has succeeded,” a voice came from the rear of the darkened cell. “She is more of a warrior than any of them.”

They turned to see two aliens step from the shadows.

“This is Zena and Bax,” Brodie introduced them. “They have been my companions here.”

“Your friend is strong,” Zena said. “You will need to be strong to defeat the Tagaar.”

They sat around in a circle in the middle of the cell as Zena related her tale of what had happened to her world. The more Ebony looked at Brodie, the more she realised how battered her friend looked. Finally she asked Brodie about the fights.

“The Tagaar are tough,” Brodie said. “And they know how to fight.”

“We’ll beat them,” Dan said.

“That is unlikely, friend Dan,” Ferdy said. “The Tagaar appear to have technology far more advanced than any developed on Earth.”

“We can’t give up, Ferdy,” Ebony said.

“We will not give up,” he said. “But the way ahead will be difficult and our goals will not be achieved without sacrifices.”

“You sound like you can see the future,” Dan said.

“Ferdy is very smart,” he said. “Ferdy can extrapolate many possible versions of the future. We must wait and see in what direction our path lies.”

“The first thing we need to do is get back to Earth,” Brodie said.

“There’s about a million Tagaar warriors between us and our ship,” Dan said.

“Plus they’ve got their tractor beam,” Ebony added.

Brodie turned to Ferdy. “Can you work out a way to deflect their tractor beam?”

“Ferdy has been thinking about this,” he replied. “Ferdy has also been thinking about the role of superstring theory when contemplating the –”

“Ferdy,” Ebony interrupted.

He nodded. “A modulating pulse can be transmitted through the hull that will deflect the Tagaar tractor beam. It has an eighty percent chance of success.”

“What about the other twenty percent?” Dan asked.

“There is a seventeen percent chance the pulse will fail and the ship will not escape,” Ferdy explained. “And a three percent chance the ship will explode, killing everyone on board.”

“Always with the good news…” Brodie murmured.

“I’ve got a plan,” Dan said.

“What is it?” Brodie asked.

“It always works in the movies,” Dan said excitedly. “We’ll pretend you’re sick and you need a doctor. When the guards come in we’ll overpower them and steal their guns.”

Ferdy crossed to the door. “Or we can just knock the door down.”

He hit the door and it exploded outward into the hall. The unfortunate guards who were standing on the other side of it were slammed to the ground and did not move. Everyone inside the cell peered into the hallway in amazement.

“Your friend is very strong,” Zena said.

“As well as intelligent,” Bax added.

“He doesn’t know his own talents,” Ebony explained. “Come on.”

As they all poured into the hallway, Brodie and Zena snatched up the weapons of the fallen warriors.

“Which way?” Ebony asked.

“The shuttle bay is in this direction.” Ferdy pointed.

They hurried down the corridor. Brodie wondered about their chances of escaping from the ship. Or even surviving this situation. So much had happened so quickly. Then there was the issue with Axel. If he had stolen a weapon from The Agency she doubted he would ever be welcomed back.

They turned a corner – and encountered a squad of Tagaar warriors heading in their direction.

“Damn,” Brodie said. “It’s showtime.”

Chapter Eighteen

Morgan Le Fay sat at the bow of the small cruiser as it bounced across the waves of the North Sea toward Cargall Island. Once or twice the two men in charge of the ship had left the safety of the wheel house to invite her back to the warm interior.

“Not right now.” She smiled. “I love the sea.”

They would then nod uncertainly and hurry back inside. Morgan could understand their confusion. It was freezing on the water and she was dressed in little more than a summer dress. Anyone else would have collapsed from frostbite.

Of course, she was not anyone else.

Morgan Le Fay let out a sigh. She was tired of her exile on this backwater planet. She needed to be free, and her alliance with the Tagaar would achieve that goal.

The Tagaar are stupid
, she thought.
But they are powerful.

If there was one thing Morgan had learnt over the centuries, it was that stupid people often gained power with surprising ease. She had met Oliver Cromwell once and he had said something that had stayed with her ever since.

“Power belongs to those who are prepared to take it,” he said.

The Tagaar were stupid, but they saw the Earth as an opportunity and they were prepared to take it. She needed them. So be it. She had known the Tagaar would come to Earth sooner or later. Now that time had arrived, and deep down inside she felt an emotion that was as foreign to her as the day of her birth.

Fear.

She knew when to abandon ship, and that time was now. The Earth was finished. Certainly she would still enjoy a few more years of murdering and torturing innocent people, but then the Tagaar would increase their stranglehold on the planet. Sooner or later the human race would be reduced to slaves, and for Morgan Le Fay, it was a fate to which she would not yield.

The south coast of Cargall Island was growing larger by the moment. They would reach it within the hour. She strode back along the deck to the wheelhouse where the two men were huddled inside. They looked at her in amazement as she stepped inside from the freezing cold.

“Are ye not frozen, madam?” the captain asked.

She gave both men a smile. What were their names again? She had gotten terribly forgetful of late. There had been so many people over the centuries; after a while they all blended together into one feast with so many different courses.

Ah yes.

Seamus the captain and his brother Donald.

AKA dinner and dessert!

“It is cold,” Morgan agreed. “Do you go to the island often?”

“Only to drop off supplies,” Donald said. He was slouched up against the opposite wall, his thumbs hitched into his faded blue jeans. His eyes were firmly fixed on Morgan’s body. He continued. “The scientists are always getting new pieces of equipment for their contraption out there.”

“The Solar Accelerator,” Morgan said. “A very interesting device.”

“If you say so,” Donald said.

Captain Seamus shot a warning look at his brother before focusing on Morgan. “And what takes you to Cargall Island?”

“I have an interest in particle physics,” Morgan said.

“Really?” The captain looked as if such a thing were ridiculous. “It’s hard to believe that a…well…a…”

“A beautiful woman would be interested in such things?” Morgan asked.

Seamus felt distinctly uncomfortable and kept his focus resolutely ahead. They were almost at the island now. Like his brother, he found the woman attractive. Unlike his brother, he also thought her dangerous. Who in their right mind would remain at the bow of the ship in sub-zero temperatures? It was insane. Yet the woman seemed perfectly contented with standing in their wheel room in a dripping wet dress. It was nothing short of…bizarre.

They finally reached the small jetty that jutted out into the cove on the east side of the island. Donald went up to the bow and tied the small boat to one of the mooring stumps. Morgan turned to the captain.

“Will you be so kind as to come up to the dock?” she asked.

The captain looked puzzled but nodded. They had not been paid yet. He followed her up onto the jetty. The weather had worsened and the rain was now falling harder than ever. Morgan seemed not to notice it at all. The men looked at her expectantly.

“There’s the matter of payment,” Seamus said.

“Of course,” Morgan replied. “At first I thought I would consume both of you, but I’ve since decided you are both too disgusting.”

Seamus stared at her dumbly. He had been right. The woman was mad. He opened his mouth to reply, but found he could not make a sound. Nor could he move a muscle. He looked across at Donald and realised his brother was in a similar predicament. A low cry of terror emanated from deep within his throat, but was quickly swept away by the wind.

“You men are very dirty,” Morgan said. “A dip will do you both the world of good.”

Both men walked stiff-legged to the edge of the jetty.

“Swim to the bottom,” Morgan told them. “And don’t come back.”

The men dove into the water. They disappeared from view within seconds, but Morgan remained on the edge of the jetty for several minutes, imagining the terror of the men as they clung to the rocky bottom of the cove until they drowned.

Only then did she start up the path leading to the town.