Shades of Earth (Across the Universe #3)

Shades of Earth (Across the Universe #3) Page 36

“Spread out. Look for casualties. Look for perpetrators. Look for evidence,” Colonel Martin orders.

The ground directly under the shuttle—the blackened, burnt sand that was turned into glass by the rockets of the shuttle landing—is cracked open and shattered, little beads of charred glass no longer with a trace of the suns’ light in them. I wonder if the explosion made the glass break or if the aliens used the glass already here to set off the explosion.

I avoid the empty shell of the shuttle. It is ragged metal edges and burning aftermath. The cryo chambers are all blown apart, the glass boxes shattered and strewn everywhere. The gen lab is split nearly evenly in half. The embryos of animals from Sol-Earth are gone. I can see the heavy cylinders cracked open, leaking yellow goop and little beans of fetuses on the burning ground. The incubators—the scientists had started making horses and dogs—are burnt to a crisp.

Most of our food supplies were there. Irreplaceable equipment. And—the realization hits me like a punch in the gut—Harley’s last painting, the one he made for Amy. Amy had brought it with her but kept it in the shuttle. For safety. Nothing but ash now.

I stumble and nearly fall over a heavy metal plaque. A double-winged eagle and the word Godspeed engraved on one side. The nameplate of the shuttle. Scorch marks along one side, making it illegible.

It wasn’t much, but the shuttle was my last tie to Godspeed. It was the last piece of the ship I had. The last remnant of the place I called home.

And now it’s gone.

I flip the nameplate over with my foot. Under it is a perfectly curved piece of glass.

I pick up the glass carefully. Once it’s out of the debris, I can see that it’s a globe. I don’t remember anything on the shuttle in this spherical shape.

The light catches it just right, and I see the swirling liquid gold inside. The solar energy.

Shite.

“Colonel Martin?” I call nervously.

One of the other military men looks up at me. When he sees what’s in my hand, he shouts for Colonel Martin and races to fetch him.

The ball of glass in my hand is about the same size as my head, but I can tell that it’s made of thinner glass than the cube Amy has. I have no doubt in my mind that it will break—it’s a miracle it hasn’t broken already.

“Son of a—” Colonel Martin curses when he sees me. “Why did you pick that up?”

“I didn’t know what it was . . . ” I say. My hands are slick with sweat, making the glass ball even harder to hold.

“Put it down . . . gently . . . gently . . . ” Colonel Martin says. “Back up, everyone.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see everyone else nervously moving back, looking for cover. I bend at my knees, bringing the glass ball down as carefully as possible. An inch above the ground, I hesitate. My face is less than a foot away from a glass bomb, the same kind that must have been used to blow up the entire shuttle.

“Careful,” Colonel Martin calls.

“I know,” I snap.

The glass ball makes a soft clink! when it touches the ground.

I step back. It rolls a few inches. Everyone gasps, but the ball stops as soon as it reaches level ground.

Once I’m behind a tree, Colonel Martin takes his handgun out of its holster and points it at the ball. He pulls the trigger.

The glass ball blows apart like a punctured balloon, the energy inside it bursting forth in an explosion that momentarily blinds me. Blinking, I look at the damage.

A two-foot crater is all that remains.

Colonel Martin strides forward, scowling at the debris. He swears, long and loud.

“Right, men,” he commands. “Now you see what we’re up against. Keep looking, and be careful.”

They disperse.

Colonel Martin moves over to me.

“That proves it,” I say. “This is the work of the aliens.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Do we have any weapons that would match something like that?”

He turns to the remains of shuttle. “If we did, they’re gone now.”

Frex. He’s right. The shuttle housed the armory. The only weapons we have left are the ones the men are carrying.

“Good thing this happened so early in the day,” Colonel Martin says. “There could have been massive casualties otherwise.”

Amy. Amy had spent nearly every day in the gen lab, with her mother. I shut my eyes, and I see her in the explosion, just as I did the second the bombs went off—her caught in the middle of the ship as it’s torn apart, her burnt beyond recognition.

“We have to do something,” I say, emotion making my voice as ragged as the edges of the shuttle.

Colonel Martin looks me right in the eyes. “I know.”

I used to think that Orion’s warning about us becoming slaves was the greater possibility, but I’m starting to believe Colonel Martin’s determined to turn us into soldiers instead.

47: AMY

I push through the crowd waiting on Dad and his men to return. But it’s not Dad who emerges from the smoking forest.

It’s Elder.

When my eyes meet his, we rush to each other. Elder crushes me in a hug so fierce that I’m left breathless.

“What happened?” I ask when he finally releases me.

“Your father wants me to bring everyone out.”

“Out? Where?”

He looks grim. “The compound.”

I nearly stop then, I’m so surprised. “But Dad—”

Elder shrugs. “He told me to get everyone there.”

“Why?”

He shoots me an inscrutable look. “I don’t know.”

Everyone grows more anxious as Elder gathers us all together and leads us away from the forest and past the lake. Once the compound is in sight, the nervous energy has made us all as combustible as the bombs that ripped apart the shuttle.

Chris stands outside the communication building. “What’s going on?” he asks Elder as we approach. He looks tired and dirty.

“I don’t know,” Elder says. “Didn’t Colonel Martin tell you?”

“He just said to meet you here.”

Dad strides out of the forest then, followed by the men he took with him to the explosion. He doesn’t speak until he reaches Elder, Mom, and me. He looks a bit surprised to see Chris, but he doesn’t comment on it as he presses his thumb over the biometric lock. When it flashes HUMAN, the door unlocks. He motions for Elder to join him, but I walk right in behind him, looking at Dad defiantly and daring him to exclude me. When I go through the door, Mom follows, then Chris. Dad opens his mouth—to kick us out, I think, but with a look of defeat, he just closes the door.

“What is this, Bob?” Mom demands the minute the door locks behind us. Through the big glass windows, I can see Dad’s military directing people to the far side of the compound, just off the asphalt.

“Maria—” Dad starts.

Mom looks as if she would very much like to hit Dad. “This is the compound you told me about? Why didn’t you tell me it was so—so advanced?!”

“I had orders.”

“Orders! Screw the orders! I’m your wife!”

Dad crosses the room and grabs hold of Mom’s hands. “Maria, let me explain.”

She rips her hands out of his grasp and throws them in the air. “Fine! Explain!”

Dad heaves a sigh. “This compound was built by the first colony from Earth.” Mom opens her mouth to shout something else, but Dad silences her with a look.

“The first colony encountered . . . problems. Aliens. Highly intelligent, aggressive aliens. They killed everyone in the original colony. And it’s clear that, since we’ve landed, they’re intent on doing the same to us.”

Mom opens her mouth again, but Dad raises his hand to silence her. “We had trouble establishing contact with Earth, but last night my tech crew figured out how to amplify the signal. We were able to send one message through, and we got one message back.”

“You did?” It’s Chris who’s spoken this time, his voice shocked. Dad smiles at him, and I can’t help but wonder if the two of them, both military, know something that they’re not telling us.

“We were able to tell Earth that we had landed and were being attacked by the native population. And Earth sent back an answer.”

Dad turns to the touch screen panel on the communication bay and swipes it to life. After scrolling through the menus, he brings a block of text up on the screen, then steps back. We all crowd around it to see.

Message received.

Aid deployed; estimated TOA five days.

Station contains life support for five hundred humans

and a weapon to eliminate threat.

We each notice a different thing. Chris asks Dad about the weapon that’s big enough to “eliminate threat.” Mom asks about the station. Elder asks about what kind of aid is being sent.

But me? I’m stuck on the first line. Message received. Dad spoke to Earth . . . and Earth responded. I breathe a sigh of relief I didn’t know I’d been holding.

“Here’s all I know,” Dad says, stepping away from Chris, Elder, and Mom as they barrage him with questions. “There’s an auto-shuttle under the compound, and it’s designed to ship cargo—and people—to and from the space station over the planet. It isn’t large enough to hold all of us, but we’ll send the most at-risk, the weakest members of the colony, the ones who can’t fight. And a few of the military, arms specialists who can inspect whatever weapon the FRX has made at our disposal.”

“What is this weapon?” Elder demands immediately. Chris watches us all silently, an unreadable look on his face.

“The message came with instructions on how to remotely detonate the weapon from the communication bay, but I don’t like how little information the FRX has given us. I’ll have my men tell us more after they inspect it.”

The others all have more questions, mostly about the weapon, but I have just one.

“When?”

The word slices through the chaos, and everyone stills to listen to Dad’s answer.

“Now.”

48: ELDER

Amy grips my hand so tight that I lose the feeling in my fingers as Colonel Martin uses the voice amplifier to explain the situation to the crowd outside—that we weren’t the first humans to land on Centauri-Earth, that the others were killed by aliens who want to kill us too.

The sky is a cloudless blue, the air mild and calm, the trees vibrant—but no one sees this. They still see the dark gray smoke, they still hear the explosion. I watch my people’s faces carefully as Colonel Martin tells them that they’ll be relocated to the station. I can tell immediately that some of them—many of them—are happy to hear this. They want safety, and to them, living in space is safe. They cannot wait to go to the station. It won’t be Godspeed, but it’ll be better than this planet. At least to them.

But more of them balk at the idea. And that gives me courage.

“Once aid from Earth arrives,” Colonel Martin calls over the loudspeaker, “we will have some options. Those in the station will be able to board the next interstellar ship immediately.”