They stood on the banks of a gushing river. It ran red with molten lava, bubbles of fire popping and fizzing against the shore. The ground was charred black, scored with cracks and fissures where the lava had bored through. Alongside each bank, the sheer wall of machinery rose up—and up and up and up until it disappeared into the thick red clouds. It felt like they were standing at the bottom of a narrow, impossibly steep canyon.
“So this is Meta Prime,” Gabriel said in a hushed voice. “Wow.” Aside from the rushing river, the planet was absolutely still. No signs of life except for the three of them. But for some reason, Gabriel still felt like he should whisper.
Like someone was listening.
“Yeah,” Dash said quietly. The stillness of this place, the emptiness, was a little creepy. Like one of those fairytale towns where everyone had fallen under a spell and slept for a century. He didn’t want to be the one to wake them. “Wow.”
“At least there are no Raptogons here,” Piper said. “Definitely my favorite planet so far.”
“Out of two,” Gabriel said drily.
She steered her air chair toward a cluster of small alien robots that were frozen in place on the riverbank. They were boxy little creatures, with bodies like trapezoids balanced on two stubby feet.
Piper gave one of the little robots a gentle tap.
“Piper!” Dash hissed. “What are you doing?”
“I just wanted to see if it would wake up,” she said.
“Why would we want it to wake up?” Dash asked in alarm. After their adventure on J-16, he’d been looking forward to a planet without any signs of life. No aliens meant nothing that could eat them.
“I think it’s dead,” Piper said a little sadly. “Or inert, or whatever you call it when it’s a machine. It can’t hurt us.” The little robots were everywhere, frozen dots on the dead landscape. “It’s like all the people just up and left,” she said in wonder. “But why would they leave these little guys behind?”
“Maybe they didn’t have a choice,” Dash said. He was starting to get a bad feeling about this place. The whole planet felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. “Maybe they left in a hurry.”
“There’s a lot of damage on these walls,” Gabriel said, pointing at the torn and twisted metal. “And those rusty things sticking out kind of look like cannons. Hey, you think there was some kind of battle here?”
“I’m afraid there’s about to be,” Piper said, only half joking, as the clouds split open and a blazing light streaked toward them.
“I really hope that’s not what I think it is,” Gabriel said. But it was: a shuttle, coming in for a landing on the patch of ground directly across the river from them.
Dash clapped his hands over his ears to block out the deafening roar of its engines. As the ship touched down, Gabriel spotted Anna at the controls. He thought the pointy shuttle looked like a praying mantis—or maybe a cockroach—but it still deserved a better pilot.
The engines shut down, and Anna, Siena, and Niko climbed out.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” Gabriel called out. “Or do you just get a kick out of following us around?”
“We’re doing the same thing you are,” Anna shouted back. “Just faster. And better. As usual.”
“You wish!”
Anna laughed. “You Alphas have no idea what’s going on down here, do you?” she shouted.
The two crews faced off at the narrowest point of the river, a few yards apart but just close enough to hear one another over the rushing lava. No one wanted to get too close to the bank and risk getting a gush of molten fire in the face.
“We know as much as you do,” Dash called back.
The Omega team laughed. “So Chris told you everything?” Anna asked. “Everything?”
“What’s she getting at?” Piper asked quietly. “And how does she know about Chris?”
Dash and Gabriel shrugged. You never knew what Anna was trying to do—except win.
“Of course he did!” Dash shouted, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
This wasn’t Base Ten; they weren’t fighting for a spot on the mission. That competition was over, and Dash had won. Anna may have forgotten that, but he hadn’t.
“So you know about the sloggers?” Niko asked. “And about the war?”
“Uh, war?” Gabriel murmured.
That did not sound good.
“What war?” Dash called.
As he spoke, an ear-shattering scream of metal on metal sliced through the air. The ground shook.
“Uh-oh,” Gabriel said.
“What’s going on?” Piper cried as, all around them, machinery groaned and creaked back to life.
“I’m gonna guess nothing good,” Gabriel said.
“Look,” Dash said, fear almost swallowing the word. “Look at the robots.”
The strange little machines along the riverbank were frozen no longer.
They marched in lockstep toward the river, scooping molten fire into their metal bellies, then clomping back toward the wall of machinery. A gray door slid open and, one by one, swallowed them into darkness. Up and down the walls, rusted cannons swiveled slowly toward the opposing bank.
“That war!” Anna shouted, fleeing for cover as one of the cannons on the Alphas’ side of the river shot a flaming ball of lava into the air.
Suddenly, the air was filled with fire.
“Run!” Dash cried.
Gabriel, Dash, and Piper fled down the riverbank as fast as they could, searching desperately for cover. Heat seared their skin. Fireballs whizzed overhead, exploding on impact. Twisted shards of metal rained from the sky.
“Over here!” Dash spotted a crevice in the wall. It was only about two feet deep, but it would give them a chance to figure out their next move.
“Chris didn’t mention he was dumping us in the middle of a war,” Gabriel complained, gasping for air.
“How was he supposed to know?” Dash said.
“Well, the Omegas sure knew,” Gabriel pointed out. “Who told them?”
“Guys, it doesn’t matter who knew what,” Piper said. “The question is what do we do now? How are we supposed to get to the element in the middle of that?”
Dash knew Piper was right. That was the important question.
He just didn’t have an answer.
“Chris? Carly?” he said into the Mobile Tech Band strapped around his wrist. It connected him to the ship’s massive database of knowledge—and, just as important, the rest of his crew. “You guys have any ideas from up there?”
He expected to see Carly’s face peering back at him from the small MTB screen, but there was nothing. Only static.
He tried again. “Hello? Cloud Leopard? Do you read me?”
“It must be the atmosphere,” Piper said. “Chris warned us about that.”
“Or electromagnetic interference,” Gabriel suggested. “If this whole planet just came back online, it must be putting out a truckload of EM waves.”
It didn’t matter why they’d lost the signal.
One way or another, it was gone. There was no way to contact the Cloud Leopard.
They were on their own.
—
“What do you mean we lost the signal?” Carly shouted. She whacked the monitor, as if she could jar it back to life. A flock of ZRKs squealed in alarm and flitted into the air, hovering around her like they were just waiting for her to break something.
And it didn’t even help: there was still nothing but static.
“This is not a broken vending machine,” Chris warned her. “Please be careful.”
“Be careful? I’m not the one on an alien planet without any backup! I’m not the one who has to worry about being careful!”
“Please stay calm,” Chris said.
“How am I supposed to stay calm? We have no idea what’s happening down there, no way of helping them or knowing what’s happening to them.” Carly slammed her hand against
the side of her flight seat in frustration.
That hurt.
She took a deep breath, then another. “Okay, I’m calm.” It wasn’t true, but maybe after a few more deep breaths it would be.
Carly was furious with the ship, with the atmospheric interference, with Chris for being so calm, and with the crew for being so far away, but mostly she was furious with herself. She’d been too big a wimp to go down to the planet, and now she was up here safe and sound while her friends could be facing anything. And she couldn’t even help them. She couldn’t even talk to them. She was supposed to know the ship well enough to handle any crisis that came up.
But she couldn’t even manage a stupid radio signal.
“We knew this might happen,” Chris reminded her. “The atmosphere is filled with electrical storms. Communication will be difficult.”
“There’s really nothing we can do?” Carly asked.
“Nothing but wait.”
She’d never been good at waiting. If Dash and the others were cut off, it seemed like she should be doing something about it.
“Why don’t you go down to the library,” Chris suggested, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “Maybe you can find something in the records about boosting our signal strength.”
“You don’t think I should stay here with you? In case the signal comes back?”
“I’ll keep monitoring the line,” Chris assured her. “I’ll let you know as soon as anything changes. If the storms clear, we should be able to get through.”
“And what about in the meantime?” Carly said. “What if something happens down there and they can’t reach us? What if they need our help?” She didn’t understand how Chris could be so calm about this.
“Everything is going to be fine,” Chris said. “I’m sure of it.”
Carly frowned. “That makes one of us.”
—
“Come in, Cloud Leopard.” Dash, Gabriel, and Piper had pressed themselves against the towering wall, beneath a shallow overhang that shielded them from the rain of fire. They were safe…for now. But they were also trapped. They couldn’t find any way inside the complex—there were no doors, just a towering wall that stretched infinitely long and high. If they couldn’t get inside, they couldn’t hunt for something strong enough to contain the Magnus 7.
Not to mention, they’d apparently landed in the middle of a war.
It was exactly the kind of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad situation they’d prepared an emergency backup plan for. Unfortunately, the plan required the Cloud Leopard.
And the Cloud Leopard wasn’t responding.
“Cloud Leopard, this is Dash.” Maybe even though he couldn’t hear them, they could hear him. “We’re pinned down on the surface of the planet by some kind of battle. Not sure how we’re going to secure the element, but…” Dash tried to sound sure of himself. Like a leader would. “We’ll find a way. So if you can hear us up there—”
“WHO IS THIS?”
The voice boomed in their earpieces.
It wasn’t Chris. It wasn’t Carly.
It was a deep, ancient-sounding voice, and it wasn’t happy.
“Who are you to trespass on my world?” the voice said.
Dash, Piper, and Gabriel exchanged a terrified glance. Dash cleared his throat. “Who are you?” he said.
There was a pause, as if the voice was considering how to repay his rudeness. And then: “I am Lord Garquin, and this is my world. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t wipe you off the face of it.”
“Well?” the voice boomed. “I’m waiting. Explain yourselves, or bear the consequences.”
Dash wondered if it was possible for his heart to thump itself right out of his chest.
“It’s an alien,” Piper whispered, her eyes wide with wonder.
“No kidding,” Gabriel said, trying to sound cool. He wasn’t doing a very good job.
They’d seen a lot of amazing things since joining the Alpha mission. Ships that could fly across the universe, robots that could speak (and quote bad movies), air chairs, and Mobile Tech Bands and air tubes and ZRKs. Not to mention the ten-times-more-terrifying-than-a-T.-rex Raptogon they’d faced down on J-16. They’d had their minds blown again and again. But none of it came close to this.
Alien intelligence.
A real live alien talking into their ears.
It didn’t make any sense. The scans had shown no signs of life—so who was this voice that sounded like a bad guy from a video game, talking to them on their private communication channel, talking in English, of all things?
“Do you think it could be a machine?” Dash asked. “A robot? Or a recording?”
The voice cleared its throat, a deep, terrifying rumble. “Am I to assume you choose bear the consequences?”
“Uh, I don’t think that’s a recording,” Gabriel said. “Maybe you should answer the guy.”
“Quickly,” Piper added. She could see that Dash was worried about saying the wrong thing. “It’s okay.”
He figured he had two options. He could make up an answer he thought this Lord Garquin would like and pray it didn’t get them blown off the face of the planet.
Or he could tell the truth.
Dash took a deep breath, hoping he was making the right choice. He brought his MTB closer to his mouth so the words would come through loud and clear. “We’re from Earth, which is about a billion and a half miles from here. We’re trying to save our planet. There’s an element on your planet, Magnus 7. We just need a little of it, and then we’ll take it back to our ship and you’ll never see us again.”
“You were planning to steal from me?” Lord Garquin shouted.
“Er…borrow?”
“You were going to give it back?” Lord Garquin said.
“Well…” Dash looked wildly at Gabriel and Piper, but they had no ideas either. “No. I guess we weren’t.”
“So you’re thieves. Here to steal from me and my world.”
There was a long, terrifying pause.
Then Lord Garquin chuckled. The sound was warm and reassuring in their ears. “I respect your honesty.”
Dash let out all his breath at once. Scary alien overlords didn’t usually chuckle before blowing you up. At least, he didn’t think they did.
He said, “So you don’t mind if we just grab a little bit of Magnus 7 and get out of here.”
“I didn’t say that!” Lord Garquin boomed.
Dash looked at the others. Worth a try, he mouthed.
“But…” Garquin’s voice trailed off.
They all perked up. But sounded promising.
“But what?” Piper asked. She was as nervous as the others about this mysterious voice in their ears—but she was also incredibly curious. Who was this guy? What did he want from them? How was he connected to the two walls of machines and the fireballs flying back and forth between them?
“But perhaps we can help each other,” Lord Garquin said. “I just might know how you can collect some of this Magnus 7 you speak of—and you can help me win my war.”
“I thought you said this was ‘your world,’ ” Gabriel said. “If the whole world belongs to you, then who are you at war with?”
“I may not have spoken with, er, absolute accuracy,” Lord Garquin admitted. “This is my world, yes. But it is also Lord Cain’s world. The two of us have divided it down the middle. On one side of the river lies my domain, a gleaming and beautiful kingdom of metallic wonders. On the other side of the river, my eternal opponent rules over his dark and decrepit land. He lurks behind his rusting and broken-down wall of cheap gadgetry, living only to torment me. You can, of course, tell from a glance which kingdom is which.”
“Uh…” To Dash, the two towering walls seemed identically gray and featureless. “Sure. Of course you can.”
Gabriel slapped a hand over his mouth, holding back a snicker.
Piper glared at both of them. “What happened between the two of you?” she asked Lord Garquin.
“Why are you at war?”
“Why? Because…well, because we are,” he said.
“I mean, what are you fighting for?” Piper clarified.
“We’re fighting to win,” said Lord Garquin. “What else is there?”
“Yeah, what else?” Gabriel agreed. Dash nodded.
Piper sighed and shook her head. Boys. Even the extraterrestrial ones were fixated on winning. On the other hand, if Carly were here, she probably would have been the first to agree. And Anna was the most uber-competitive person she’d ever met. Was Piper the only one who thought winning wasn’t enough? That fighting should be for something?
Apparently.
“Our war stretches back through the ages,” Lord Garquin continued. “But for many years now, we have lived in peace under a truce. Today, Lord Cain broke that truce. So as you can see, I am the injured party here.”
“Injured party? Did you get hurt in the fighting?” Dash asked.
“And are you having a party to make yourself feel better?” Gabriel added.
“Injured party means that I’m the one who did no wrong,” Lord Garquin said irritably. “Lord Cain attacked me with no warning, for no reason.”
“Wait a second,” Dash said, suddenly realizing what that meant. “The first shot came from our side of the river—do you mean we’re in Lord Cain’s territory?”
“Of course!” Lord Garquin said. “Can’t you tell by the foul decrepitude?”
“Oh, right,” Dash said quickly. He was getting nervous again. Whoever this Lord Cain was, surely he wouldn’t like a bunch of strangers plotting with Lord Garquin on his turf.
“Lucky for us,” Lord Garquin added, “there’s something we both need over in Lord Cain’s domain. So shall we help each other?”
“I don’t know about this,” Dash said. He was hesitant to get involved in some alien war. Especially when they didn’t even know what the war was about.
“What if I told you that you had no other choice?” Lord Garquin said.
Dash didn’t like the sound of that. It sounded a lot like blackmail. “How’s that?”