Pittacus Lore - The Fall of Five

Suddenly, the bedroom door on my right swings open. I have a second to feel the rush of cool air from the broken window, and then there’s a Mogadorian on top of me. He drives his shoulder into my side, pinning me up against the wall. His forearm presses into my throat and he puts his pale face close to mine, his lifeless black eyes filling my vision.

“Human,” the Mog hisses. “Tell me where the girl is and I’ll kill you quick.”

Before I can ask which girl he’s talking about, Sarah cracks the Mogadorian over the head with an empty vase. The Mog shakes off the blow and spins on Sarah. An anger wells up in me—for all that time in captivity, for what they’ve done to John and Ella. I grab the handle of the Mog’s sword and rip it loose from his sheath. With a scream, I drive it through his chest, turning him to ash.

“Whoa!” Sarah cheers.

I can hear glass shattering from all around the penthouse. Doors to bedrooms all along the hallway are thrown open and Mogs come charging into sight, cutting me and Sarah off from my dad and Bernie Kosar. I remember thinking the empty penthouse was spooky before, but this is horrifying. I’ve lost sight of my dad at the other end of the hall. I can still hear his rifle working, the shots getting more and more frequent. I hear a loud crash, the sound of something tipping over in Ella’s room.

“You’re after the girl?” I yell, getting their attention, hopefully taking some of the pressure off my dad. “She’s this way!”

Sarah and I sprint into the workshop, ten or so Mogs charging down the hallway after us.

Together, we shove over a stack of old appliances and engine parts that are next to the doorway, Sandor’s accumulated clutter coming in handy. A Mog tries to force open the door, but it’s jammed up against all the crap on the floor.

“That’ll slow them down for a second,” I say.

“Do they think I’m this girl they’re after?” Sarah asks breathlessly. “Or do you think they’re here for Ella?”

A chunk of the workshop door explodes in a burst of blaster fire, hot splinters flecking across my cheek and almost into my eye. I guess our second is up. Sarah grabs me by the arm and we stagger through the workshop, the door behind us being pulverized by the invading Mogs.

A stray blast hits the floor between us, knocking us apart, and sending Sarah falling over a table. More blasts are getting through now. I duck low and grab Sarah’s hand, helping her stand up. “I’m okay!” she yells, and we run, hunched over, towards the Lecture Hall.

The workshop door is now just a smoking hole in the wall thanks to all the Mogadorian shooting. They’re shoving in, tripping over the junk we knocked over, but advancing all the same. Next to me, the monitor that’s displaying the location of the Garde explodes in a shower of sparks, a Mog blaster just narrowly missing me.

“How are we going to fight this many off?” Sarah yells as we burst into the Lecture Hall. “I’ve been practicing, but not against ten targets at once!”

“We’ve got the home field advantage.”

Inside the Lecture Hall proper, Sarah makes a break for the gun rack and I climb into the Lectern. The first Mogs burst into the room just as I fire up the Lecture Hall’s programming, keying up one of Sandor’s old training routines—the one with difficulty marked insanity. The Mogs aren’t even paying any attention to me just yet, seated behind the metallic console, tapping buttons. They’re more focused on Sarah. Even if they realize she’s not the girl they’re looking for, she’s still the most obvious threat, out in the open and pointing a pair of pistols at the Mogs. Obvious threat and also an easy target.

“Sarah! To your left!” I shout, raising a block of cover from the floor for her to hide behind. She dives to safety just as the Mogadorians open fire.

Smoke starts filling the room from the nozzles along the walls. Some of the Mogs look confused; most are only interested in blasting away at Sarah. A few shots begin ricocheting off the front of the Lectern and I hunker down in the seat, trying to make myself small. I hope this thing is strong enough to withstand some blaster fire. Above the shooting, I can hear the Lecture Hall whirring to life.

A half dozen panels along all four walls slide open, turrets loaded with ball bearings coming into view.

“Stay down!” I yell at Sarah. “It’s starting!”

A crossfire erupts through the Lecture Hall, the Mogs caught in the middle. This drill is meant to help the Garde practice their telekinesis, not maim them, so the marble-sized ammo being shot out of the walls doesn’t travel fast enough to kill the Mogs. Still, it has to sting like hell. Between that and the medicine balls suddenly swinging from the ceiling, I’d say they have their hands full.

I dive out of the Lectern. A ball bearing smacks me hard in the shoulder before I can make it to the ground. My arm is sore, but I manage to press myself flat, watching as the Mogs are bludgeoned from all angles. Seeing me, Sarah sends one of her guns sliding across the floor. I pick it up and crouch down behind the Lectern. Sarah and I have the only two pieces of cover in the room.

We open fire. It doesn’t matter that we don’t have the best aim. The Mogadorians are basically sitting ducks. With all the shooting coming from the walls, they’re starting to panic. Many of them are knocked down to their knees by the turrets or the medicine balls, at which point Sarah and I pick them off. Some make a break for the door. If they manage to stagger that far, all they get for their trouble is a bullet in the back.

Only a minute has passed in the Lecture Hall’s training routine before the room has completely cleared of Mogs. The Garde usually have to endure seven minutes before they get a break during the training portion. I guess they don’t have anyone shooting real bullets at them, though. I reach up and slap the controls on the Lectern until the system shuts down.

“That worked!” Sarah yells, sounding almost surprised. “We got them, Sam!”

As Sarah stands up, I notice a burn mark on the outside of her left leg. Her jeans are torn, the skin beneath them a burned pinkish where it isn’t bleeding. “You’ve been shot,” I exclaim.

Sarah looks down. “Crap. I didn’t even notice. Must have just grazed me.”

As the adrenaline dies down, Sarah limps over to me. I put my arm around her for support and we move as fast as we can out of the Lecture Hall. We grab more guns on our way out. I tuck a second pistol into the back of my jeans just in case I run out of ammo. Sarah drops her spent handgun and grabs some crazy-looking lightweight machine gun, the kind of thing I used to believe didn’t exist outside of action movies.

“You know how to use that thing?” I ask.

“They all work pretty much the same,” she replies. “You just point and click.”

I could almost laugh if I wasn’t so worried about my dad and the comatose John and Ella. We don’t hear any sounds of fighting as we pass through the wrecked workshop, picking our way carefully over the junk we knocked over. The penthouse is eerily quiet. I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.

I poke my head into the hallway. There’s no sign of anyone. The floor is covered with Mogadorian ash, but otherwise all is quiet. The loudest sound is the wind blowing through the building thanks to the Mogs having broken every single window on their way in.

“Do you think we got them all?” Sarah whispers.

In answer, we hear a shuffling noise from the roof that sounds like boots running across it. There must be more Mogadorians still up there and they’ll be massing for a second wave any second now, as soon as they figure out their first group has failed.