The Starborn Saga (Books 1, 2, & 3) (26 page)

“Mora!”

The sound of my name makes me grab for my knife and spin around quickly. I’m instantly relieved when I see Aaron standing in front of me, holding a shotgun, ready for battle. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks. 

“Same reason you are,” I say. “I heard gunfire. I nod to the front of the vehicle. “A guard is dead.”

Aaron’s eyes widen at this and he walks to the other side to confirm what I said. “What’s going on?”

I shake my head, not knowing what to say. “I’ve got theories, but nothing you haven’t already thought of yourself.”

“What are you about to do?”

I glance down at the headlight button and look back to him. “There are no other lights. I imagine there’s a few more dead bodies to be found.”

“You think that’s a good idea?”

I shrug. “We’re Starborns, right? Should be able to handle what some sniper might throw at us. There’s plenty of power in these vehicles for you to use isn’t there?”

He looks around the area. There are at least ten of them within forty feet of us. He nods. “Yeah.” 

I turn back to the button and push it. The light is blinding at first and our eyes have to adjust for a moment.

However, it doesn’t take long for us to notice the dead bodies on the ground, the open colony gates, and the flood of greyskins pouring through by the hundreds.

I do everything I can to stifle my gasp at the sight of the incoming herd suddenly attracted to our direction, but Aaron’s reaction is much louder than mine.

“Cut the lights!” he yells out. 

I do as he says and duck behind the open vehicle door, though I know it’s too late. 

“Where did they come from?” I say. 

Aaron shakes his head at me. “This is the Code Red. It has to be. Jeremiah’s gotten his men killed, and set the greyskins on us. He’s trying to draw us out.”

“But why would he kill his own guards?” I ask though I know I won’t get an answer.

Turning on the light did much to let me know what was ahead of us, but did little to maintain our hopes of staying alive. Now all of the greyskins that have made it through the front gate have trained their eyes on our position. 

“We’ve got to warn the colony,” I say. My mind goes to when Connor took me to the top of the crow’s nest to watch the Screven guards take on the greyskins outside of the colony a few days ago. I remember the sounding of alarms. “How do the guards set off the alarms?”

“I think there are several ways to set them off,” he says. “I remember seeing an alarm control in the Vault.” He points to my right and I shudder at the thought of going back in there. That’s where Bret was killed right in front of me.
Red, he’s dead.
 

Aaron jerks me from my daze when he grabs my arm. “Come on, we’ll go together.” 

He doesn’t have to tell me more than once. I follow him as we run toward the Vault. Several dead bodies lie on the ground along the way. Bullet holes have punctured them all in various places, ultimately resulting in their deaths. Why would Jeremiah turn on his own men? It doesn’t make any sense. 

The door to the vault is hanging wide open. I follow Aaron to the left as we enter and I recognize it as the same path I had to take for my examination. We pass the corridor where Bretdorhave tra was shot down right in front of me, then through the room where the Screven doctors had me strip down so they could examine me for bites or scratches. 

More bodies are strewn along the floors, blood smeared across the walls. The flickering lights reveal that the bodies are riddled with bullet holes. These people were killed by humans, not greyskins. To our left I can see the two doctors that examined me. The man has a hole in his head and the woman is lying on her stomach, unmoving. Their female assistant is sitting in the corner, and at first I think she’s dead like the others, but her head moves to look at the two of us. I look at Aaron and he nods at me, letting me know he’s going to find the alarm while I help her. 

Blood soaks the front of her shirt and her breath comes out in wheezes. One close look at her wounds and I know that she isn’t long for this world no matter what I do. She may not even be lucid enough to talk, but that doesn’t stop me from questioning her. 

“Who did this to you?”

She swallows slowly. She’s trying to speak, to say something to give me information about her attackers, but we got here too late. Her strength has failed her. Her lips move to speak, and she probably thinks that she is telling me something, but no words come out. With one last breath, she tilts her head downward and dies. 

My hands start to shake and I have this uncontrollable urge to vomit. Who could have done this? My first thought is Jeremiah, but that would make no sense. He has nothing to gain by killing his own people does he? Could Rob and Krindle be acting on their own? I saw them with guns, but were they just hiding from whoever has attacked the others? 

Could it be Heinrich? Could he be trying to take his colony back from the Screven guards? Has his revolution begun? But the greyskins are here. The greyskins Jeremiah created. 

The sirens cut through the silence like an explosion and I instantly have to cover my ears. Flashes of light burst through the room and corridors. All of Salem will be awake now, but they will only wake to find death at their doorsteps. 

Loud footsteps echo through the hallway as Aaron runs back toward me. He grabs me by the arms and tries to lift me up. 

“We’ve got to go!”

I hear him, but I don’t respond immediately. 

“Mora!”

I look him in the eyes.

“You’ve got a gift. I’ve got a gift. It’s time to use them like we were meant to. We’ve got to save the colony.”

He’s right. I’ve never seen Aaron speak with such passion. For the first time I see him in the way that I’ve always hoped him to be. Now I know he’s not just wearing a mask. He truly does believe that the power he has been given is a gift to be used for the greater good. For that reason, I’m willing to follow him back out into the herd of greyskins.

I close my eyes, searching for the others. Heather, Danny, Evelyn; all of them are near the fighting. Others are out, guns ready. Opening my eyes, I return Aaron’s gaze, reach up for his neck and pull his lips to mine. He kisses me back tightly, and when we let go, we both know that it’s time to leave. 

We bolt out of the room and through the corridor until we’re finally out of the Vault. Even though we’ve only been in there for a few minutes, the first rays of light have begun to cut through the night, ushering in a new day of chaos, but also revealing the overwhelming number of greyskins throughout the colony.

Aaron and I duck behind one of the vehicles to survey what exactly we’re up against. Hundreds of greyskins with rotting flesh and ripped clothes push their way thr th2emough the front gate with ravenous hunger. Their jaws snap open and closed, ready to sink their teeth into the next victim. The sound of groaning and hissing from their dry throats nearly drowns out the alarms set off by Aaron. Some of the greyskins are rotten to the point that they are missing limbs, jawbones, or in the rarest of cases, even much of their bodies. Others are more fresh, strong and agile. All of them are hungry. 

Gunfire sounds to our left, as colonists are now taking up the fight. I think that surely the herd is almost finished coming through the front gate. I’ve never really seen one this big before. I wish there was a way I could get to Connor’s crow’s nest, but when I look up at it, I realize that I do have the ability to see from here.

Connor points his rifle down into the charging herd, taking them out one at a time. I close my eyes and find my consciousness just over his shoulder. But I’m not looking at him, or his target. The first thing that catches my eye is what lies beyond the wall of the colony. 

The herd isn’t anywhere near finished coming through the gate. There aren’t hundreds still coming in, but thousands. They’re pushing each other to squeeze into the small opening of the gate.

I open my eyes and grab Aaron by the shoulder. 

“We’ve got a problem,” I say. 

“I know!”

“No, you don’t.”

“What do you mean then?”

“There’s a lot more than this,” I say. “Beyond the wall, there are thousands.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“Then we need you now more than ever, Mora!”

“What?”

“My abilities, the other Starborns’ abilities are not as powerful as yours. You can move them around, smash them. Do everything you can!”

The sight in front of me is sickening. Colonists charge out with any kind of weapon available to them, but it’s not enough for the overwhelming amount of greyskins. The creatures flail into their victims, biting, clawing, trying to eat their flesh. More colonists run out of their homes to protect their families. Those that hide away will be dead within minutes if we don’t do something. 

The sight alone is enough to make me step forward. Beside me, I can feel the heat of Aaron sucking the blue, electric energy from the vehicles in front of us into his body, preparing to fight off the greyskins with every bit of power he has. When the vehicles near us are completely drained, it’s my turn to use my abilities. 

I focus my attention on the tons of metal and they instantly shift. I stand to face the moving herd and send the vehicles sailing into the mass of them. They flatten to the ground, smash into walls, fly through the air. Scraps of metal scream into a whirlwind of disarray as they rip shreds into the greyskins, sending so many of them lifeless to the ground.

I don’t stop. I can’t stop. 

The morning sky bursts brighter than the noonday sun when Aaron chars the greyskins, setting many of them on fire and knocking their smoldering carcasses to the ground. The smell of burnt, rotten flesh fills the air. 

The colonists that had rushed to the fight are suddenly retreating to a safer spot, watching as the two of us lay waste to the deadly herd. But the greyskins keep coming in through the opening of the gate, and there are so many that it’s impossible to kill them all. Even with my immense power to move things with my mind, it’s not enough to take down what’s on the other side of that wall. And I know Aaron is limited to the amount of electricity within the colony itself. Unfortunately, the sky is clear and there are no storre e com clouds above us.

I send another vehicle toward a group of greyskins that narrow their hungered focus on me. Bones and decomposed skin flies through the air in a congealed, bloodied crash. 

“Mora!” Aaron yells to me.

I look over my shoulder, temporarily dropping everything in my mind’s grip. 

“Shut the gate! Plug it up!”

I turn back to see hundreds more piling through. The greyskins are swarming in the narrow opening of the gate like maggots, squeezing through until they are finally free to devour within the colony. 

Shots continue to ring out from behind us, but each one can only take down a single greyskin at a time, and that is only if the shot rang true. With every bit of mental strength that I can muster
, I grab all the greyskins that I can, along with every scrap of metal, vehicle or inanimate object near me, and send them flying toward the gate. The undead attempt to claw their way through the mound of junk I’m piling up. Even when all of the greyskins from within the colony are slammed against the gate, pinned by the unseen force radiating from me, I keep moving forward, pressing harder.

Like some kind of trash compactor, their bodies crumble under the invisible wall pressing against them. Heads and bodies squeeze like decaying fruit, metal crinkles and twists and the gate begins to dent outward until finally, the opening is plugged completely with unmoving greyskins and metal. 

When I release my hold on everything, I open my eyes and suddenly my legs give out from under me and I fall to the ground. I hear Aaron call out my name, but it’s like an echo from afar. I feel him grab my shoulders and scoop me up into his arms, but it feels like I’m floating through space. All goes dark. 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I don’t know how long I’m out, but when I come to there is a rather large group of people standing over me in wonder. Aaron is nearest. His lips are moving, but I don’t hear him. Then there is Evelyn, Heather, Danny, and even Heinrich along with other colonists. 

The sound comes rushing to my consciousness like a raging river and I bolt up immediately.

“Easy,” Aaron says. 

“Is it over?” I ask. “Are they all dead?”

“Just the ones that came into the colony,” Evelyn says. “You’ve given us some time.”

Her words are confirmed by the sound of hungry greyskins on the outside of the wall doing everything in their power to break back into the colony. They know there is food to be had within these walls. They won’t ever give up unless they are dead or their bodies have decomposed so much that they can’t move anymore. 

“How long was I out?” I ask. 

“Just a couple of minutes,” Aaron says. “I thought you were dead.”

“You exerted too much power,” Evelyn said. “You’ve found your breaking point.”

That’s not good to hear. I didn’t know that there was a breaking point. I guess looking at it now, it’s sort of silly to think that my abilities were unlimited. Now that I think about it, all of our gifts are probably limited. Aaron is limited by the amount of electricity around him. Heather can probably only move at extreme speeds for so long, and Danny probably can’t lift just anything with his enormous strength. Wdorharichy should I be without limits of the mind?

But what about Evelyn? What could her limit be?

“We’ve got to come up with a plan,” Heather says. 

“Can you stand?” Aaron asks me. 

I nod and take his hand as he helps me to my feet. I’m not sure what plan there is to make. The colonists fear the greyskins too much to fight, and we Starborns are too few for the sheer number of enemies there are. Then there is Krindle and Rob with their detonator. Were they planning to blow the wall in the event we were able to plug it? If that’s the case then we’re all dead. With the little power that I have left, I know what my next responsibility is. I’ve got a plan.