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.
“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
“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
“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
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.
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
“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
After all my thinking and searching through annals of every strategy and warfare book ever written, I’d actually gotten the ploy from
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
“Oh, I get it now,” I said, shrugging. “Seth is afraid of a fifteen-year-old. I’m not surprised.”
“What did you just say?” Seth said, putting a claw to his ear.
“You heard me.
Seth, already halfway inside the door of the ship’s elevator, stopped suddenly. “
“Hold this,” he said, handing his coffee, paper, and robe to one of his hench-creeps.
“Bring down the Earth slaves!” Seth roared. “Watching the death of this fledgling
