Vardis took point as Boundless began to swoop around the moon. The sheer size of it was humbling, and Alex couldn’t help but stare at it in awe as they circled it.
As they went around the moon, Alex was relieved to see that “far side” was much more accurate than “dark side.” She and her father had gotten into multiple arguments about what existed there, unseen by humanity.
Her father, being into conspiracy theories, believed there were alien bases on the part of the moon that was cloaked in darkness. Alex had tried to explain multiple times that the far side of the moon wasn’t dark. It just couldn’t be seen.
They had agreed to disagree. Alex was glad to see they were both right. That side of the moon definitely wasn’t dark, and if there wasn’t an alien base, there was a weapon hidden by an interdimensional being. That was pretty close.
Vardis led the team as they started to descend to the moon surface. Alex felt a little bit of gravity kicking in. That meant movement would be even more different than when they were flying in the void or in Earth’s gravity. It was something she was going to have to take into account.
They landed, and Alex dismounted. Her suit compensated for the low gravity on the moon and weighed her down. She’d never seen videos of the moon landing, but her father had explained to her how ridiculous everyone had looked hopping around. Thank God that wasn’t something she needed to stress about.
Vardis pointed at a massive crater Alex had seen when they had neared the surface. “There,” he said. “That’s where we’ll find it.”
Alex followed him, Chine right behind her with the rest of the dragonriders. “Why didn’t we just land at the crater?”
“I wanted to give myself enough space to be able to deactivate the defense system. It can’t be done from the above, only on the surface. An extra precaution.”
They got closer to the crater, and finally, Vardis held up his hand and stopped. A datapad fizzled—that was the only word that worked—into existence in his hand. It was a different type of physical disruption than when Myrddin conjured something into existence. Whatever Vardis did looked like a small hole had been torn in his palm, and something had bubbled out like the fizz of opening a soda.
Vardis swiped through a couple of options and then looked at the crater. “That should have done it.”
Gill came up behind Alex. “Which means that we are safe now?” he asked pointedly.
Vardis didn’t seem to note or mind the tone of Gill’s voice because he answered cheerfully enough, “Yes, we should all be safe now.”
“What do you mean ‘we?’”
“The defense system is set to attack, regardless of who enters. I will be in just as much danger as you if the system isn’t deactivated.”
Gill exchanged glances with Alex. Maybe they’d been wrong about Vardis. Either way, Alex was getting sick of the back and forth. If she wanted to deal with a lack of trust, she would have been a spy or something like that. All she wanted to do was know who the bad guys were and take care of them. Keep things simple. “Well, what are we waiting for?” she said.
She climbed back on top of Chine and Vardis led them to the crater, which was much larger than it had looked from space. It was easily the size of a small city block, jagged chunks of rock jutting into the sky, with ditches and scars the length of a football field. Something had torn into the moon’s surface. Alex hoped she never found out what it was.
As Chine stepped into the crater, the air around them shimmered. Alex almost didn’t notice it, and she was certain that if she’d had regular eyes, she wouldn’t have seen it. “Did any of you guys pick up on that?” she asked through the comm, glad Vardis wasn’t on the channel.
Most of the riders said no, but Gill agreed that he had noticed something. It had been slight, and he’d thought his eyes were playing a trick on him, but if Alex thought she had seen something too, they had.
Vardis had stopped walking and was staring at the sky. “Oh no,” he whispered.
Alex followed Vardis’ gaze. The shimmer she’d seen when crossing into the crater was spreading throughout the sky in the shape of a dome, stretching to the other side. “That doesn’t sound like a good ‘Oh no,’” Alex shouted at him.
The alien slowly turned to face Alex, his jaw slack, his eyes wide with fear. “The security system,” Vardis gasped. “It’s been tampered with. It’s still functional.”
Before Alex could ask what that meant for them, the sky lit up as if someone had set off fireworks. She could see rocks streaking across the sky, and they were coming straight for them. “Scatter!” she shouted.
Boundless went in five directions, each of them moving slower than they would have if their dragons had control. But it was enough, and they separated in time to avoid the boulders as they collided with the surface of the moon, throwing up dust and debris everywhere so that there was a veil obstructing everything.
A deep hum was coming from where the rocks had landed. There was something in the blast zone. “What the hell kind of defenses do you have!” Jim shouted at Vardis.
The alien was backing away, his eyes wide with terror. “Something horrible.”
As the dust settled, Alex narrowed her eyes, focusing to cut through the dust. She could see the rocks. There were three of them, and they were glowing a dull green, their surfaces pulsating as if they were egg sacs.
Then one of the boulders cracked, and something dark and wet slithered onto the ground. It looked almost like a snake, except it had hands and its tail was a stinger.
