D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe if she has some shred of humanity buried somewhere, we can find it. Maybe you can find it.”

Elli looked horrified. “Are you suggesting I speak with her?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, maybe I am.”

“No,” she shot back. “I cannot.”

She went for the door, but I cut her off.

“Elli, I might be totally wrong, but maybe there’s a chance to appeal to Nevva. She’s your daughter. Your true daughter. You gave birth to her. That’s a bond none of the other Travelers have. You said you wanted to do something positive? This might be it. You told me you feel as if all you’ve done has been for nothing. No, worse. You think your actions have created problems. Well, this might be the single most important thing you can do. This might be your chance.”

Elli’s eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t cry. In that moment I felt the depth of her strength. Her love for Nevva. She always appeared to be a fragile woman. She wasn’t.

“To what end?” she said softly. “Even if you’re right, what do you expect me to say? What would you want Nevva to do?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But we’re running out of time. The last hope for Solara is those exiles, and we can’t find them. What if they’re all dead? That’s seeming more likely by the minute. What then? Do we just sit around and wait for Halla to crumble? We could stay here and help care for the Batu and wait for the end, but that’s all we’d be doing. Waiting for the end. I can’t do that, and I don’t believe you can either. We’ve come too far. If there’s any small hope to turn things around, I think we have to go for it. If that means talking to the enemy… talking to your daughter… how can we not? This may be the way it was meant to be, Elli. This may be your moment.”

Elli was trembling. Physically trembling. It was as if her body wanted to move-to run-but her willpower fought to keep her in place. Her eyes stayed locked on mine. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking. She blamed herself for the choices Nevva made. Now I was asking her to face the daughter she had abandoned. Face the enemy. For what? I didn’t know. Saint Dane was in total control. We had to do something to change that, no matter how desperate it might be.

The door opened, bumping into me from behind. Spader poked his head in. “How we doing?”

I looked to Elli. She stared back blankly.

“Come on in,” I said to Spader.

He stepped in, followed by Loor and Saangi. I didn’t want Elli to feel as if we were ganging up on her, so I stood next to her.

As always, Loor didn’t waste time. “What is our plan, Pendragon?” she asked. “There are no exiles on Zadaa.”

I looked to Elli. She dropped her gaze to the floor, avoiding mine. I deflated. She wasn’t as strong as I’d thought she was.

“We move on,” I said, disappointed. “We have to keep looking. I’m thinking that we should go back to Solara and regroup. Elli will stay here to care for the Batu. Saangi, maybe you can help her.”

“No,” Elli snapped.

We all looked at her.

“Where is she?” Elli asked, looking right at me. Her gaze was strong. Her tears were gone. “Who?” Spader asked.

“Third Earth,” I replied to Elli. “Are you sure?” “Like you said,” she answered, “this may be my moment.” “What are we talking about here?” Spader asked with confusion.

“Change of plans,” I announced. “Loor, Spader, I still think you should return to Solara and wait for word.” “And where will you go?” Loor asked. “Elli and I are going to Third Earth.”

Moving between territories is incredibly easy now. It’s like stepping through a sheer curtain and passing from one room to another. No more flumes. No more crawling through secret places to find hidden tunnels that carry us along on a carpet of light and music. Best of all, no more quigs. All we have to do is think about where we want to go, take a step and… hello. We’re there.

Still, it’s disorienting. It may be like stepping from one room to the next, but they are two very different rooms. And it’s not like I can think, “I want to go to Third Earth at two thirty on Thursday afternoon and land on the bench that’s behind the library.” We still have to rely on the forces of Solara to put us exactly where we need to be and when we need to be there. I’m not really sure how the spirits know, but they’ve done a pretty good job so far.

This time was no different, though what happened when Elli and I first set foot back on Third Earth made me long for the familiar old gates at the end of a flume trip.

We held hands and stepped into the same hazy swirl of dust that we’d found on our last visit. There wasn’t much else to see, but there was plenty to hear. A loud, angry grinding sound assaulted us. It was mechanical and it was getting louder. Elli and I froze. We didn’t know where we were. We didn’t know when we were. We didn’t know what the sound was, or if we should be worried about it. In other words, we didn’t know a thing.

“Look out!” came a desperate cry. Desperate cries were not good, especially if they came as a warning. “Heads up!”

We looked up quickly to see a shadow overhead that was coming our way. I didn’t have time to register or to react. Luckily, Mark Dimond did. Elli and I were half tackled, half shoved out of the way. Mark wasn’t being gentle, either. He manhandled us toward the wreck of a car and pretty much threw us behind it.

“What is it?” I gasped.

“Trouble.”

Oh. I figured that.

I barely had time to peek up from behind the barrier to see what he meant. The shadow was a helicopter. I expected it to start firing at us, but its path was too steep. It was flying straight for the ground. Actually, it wasn’t flying at all. It was falling.

Elli gasped. A second later the large black chopper smashed into the ground. The cabin crumbled and bucked forward. The rotor dug into the dirt. I was transfixed by the destructive violence. It was a good thing Mark was still thinking. He grabbed us both and pulled us down behind the car wreck. The next sound we heard was the squealing of tortured metal, followed by the sharp thumps of shrapnel that hit the far side of the wreck. The rotors had broken up on contact, spewing sharp pieces everywhere. The car windows exploded, raining glass down on us. Chunks of metal flew overhead and dug into the ground behind us. If we had been standing up, we would have been shredded. Elli clung to me in fear.

It was a rude welcome to Third Earth.

I looked to Mark. He was staring backward, his gaze fixed. This wasn’t the Mark I knew. Besides being older, he had an intensity that I’d rarely seen. In anyone.

The grinding sound of the crash continued for a few more seconds, then ended. No more falling parts. No more screaming engine. All we heard was the soft hiss and tick of hot metal.

“Are the Ravinians attacking?” I asked.

Mark’s answer was to jump up and sprint for the destroyed chopper.

“Wait here,” I said to Elli, and followed him.

Mark ran straight for the wreck. A few others came running from other directions. A quick look around told me that we were back in the empty lot in Manhattan where Mark and I had landed the chopper we hijacked from the Conclave of Ravinia. The garage that held the stolen helicopters was off to our right. It looked as if this doomed helicopter barely cleared the top of that garage before crashing. The downed helicopter no longer looked anything like a flying vehicle. The engine was winding down. The cabin had become a twisted ball of black metal. The rotor was gone, having been flung in pieces every which way. I still didn’t know who was inside. Was Mark running to make sure that a Ravinian dado wasn’t going to jump out and attack? I didn’t think so. It seemed like he was more worried about helping the guy who was inside.