(3/289/-5/5) (3/290/-2/6) (3/289/-8/4) (3/290/-8/4) (3/290/-1/12)
GET OUT GET OUT NOW!
(3/291/-3/3) (1/187/15/6) (1/168/-9/11)
GRAB FIRE STONE
(3/47/-3/4) (3/47/-4/12) (3/45/-163) (3/47/-1/5)
AND MY BLACK BOOK
(3/305/-3/1) (3/304/-8/10)
AND RUN
(3/43/1/12) (3/30/-3/6)
NEW EMERGENCY
(3/15/7/4) (3/15/7/3)
VERY DANGEROUS
(3/63/-20/7) (3/65/5/1-2)
ENEMIES ARE COMING
(3/291/-14/2) (3/308/-8/11) (3/232/5/7) (3/290/-1/9)
WILL MEET YOU AT
(3/69/-13/5) (3/302/1/8)
GREAT TOWER
(3/55/-4/11-13) (3/55/-3/1)
THE WORST IS COMING
“Holy shit…” Jack breathed.
He snapped to look back out the kitchen window, saw Lily and Alby still playing out by the barn. Then he saw the hazy orange sky beyond them, glorious in the morning sun—
—as it began to fill with falling figures, dozens and dozens of them, figures that issued blooming parachutes above them, slowing their falls.
Paratroopers. Hundreds of paratroopers.
Coming for his farm.
THE ATTACK ON JACK’S FARM
WEST BURST OUT of the farmhouse, calling, “Kids! Get over here! Quickly!”
Lily turned, perplexed. Alby did too.
West motioned in sign language as he spoke: “Lily, pack a suitcase! Alby, get all your stuff! We’re leaving in two minutes!”
“Leaving? Why?” Alby said.
Lily, however, knew the look on West’s face.
“Because we have to,” she said/signed. “Come on.”
West rushed back into the farmhouse and pounded on the doors of the farm’s two guest rooms. “Zoe! Sky Monster! Wake up! We’re in trouble again!”
Out of guest room No.1 stepped Sky Monster, a hairy New Zealander who was West’s good friend and resident pilot.
With his great black beard, potbelly, and overgrown eyebrows, Sky Monster wasn’t exactly pretty first thing in the morning. He had a real name, but no one except his mother seemed to know it.
“Not so loud, Huntsman,” he growled. “What’s up?”
“We’re being invaded.” West pointed out the window.
Bleary-eyed, Sky Monster looked out through it and saw the swarm of falling parachutes filling the morning sky. His eyes sprang wide.“Australia is being invaded?”
“No, just us. Just this farm. Get dressed and then get down to The Halicarnassus. Prep her for immediate liftoff.”
“Gotcha.” Sky Monster hurried away, just as the door to guest room No.2 opened, revealing a far more pleasant sight.
Zoe Kissane emerged from her room, dressed in a spare pair of West’s pajamas. With sky-blue eyes, short blond hair, and a lightly freckled face, she was a true Irish beauty. She was also on leave from the Sciathan Fhianoglach an Airm, the famed crack commando unit of the Irish Army. A veteran of the Capstone adventure, she and West were close, and—some said—getting closer. The end tips of her blond hair were also electric pink, the remains of a hair session with Lily the previous day.
She opened her mouth to speak, but West just pointed out the window.
“Well, you don’t see that every day,” she said. “Where’s Lily?”
