I don’t stop to wonder why I’m not locked down. Clutching the Mogadorian book, I step into a
hallway that’s just as cold and metallic as my room.
‘Ah,’ says a woman’s voice. ‘You’re awake.’
Rather than guards, a Mogadorian woman perches on a stool outside my room, obviously waiting
for me. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a female Mog before, and definitely not one like her. Middle-
aged, with wrinkles forming in the pale skin around her eyes, the Mog looks surprisingly
unthreatening in a high-necked, floor-length dress, like something one of the Sisters would wear back
at Santa Teresa. Her head is shaved except for two long, black braids at the back of her skull, the rest of her scalp covered by an elaborate tattoo. Instead of being nasty and vicious, like the Mogs I’ve
fought before, this one is almost elegant.
I stop short in front of her, not sure what to do.
The Mog glances at the book in my hands and smiles.
‘And ready to begin your studies, I see,’ she says, getting up. She’s tall, slender and vaguely
spiderlike. Standing before me, she dips into an elaborate bow. ‘Mistress Ella, I shall be your
instructor while –’
As soon as her head comes low enough, I smack her across the face with the book as hard as I can.
She doesn’t see it coming, which I guess is strange because all the Mogs I’ve encountered have
been ready to fight. This one lets out a short grunt and then hits the floor with a fluttering of fabric from her fancy dress.
I don’t stop to see if I’ve knocked her out or if she’s pulling a blaster from some hidden
compartment in that dress. I run, choosing a direction at random and hurtling down the hallway as fast as I can. The metal floor stings my bare feet and my muscles begin to ache, but I ignore all that. I have to get out of here.
Too bad these secret Mogadorian bases never have any exit signs.
I turn one corner and then another, sprinting through hallways that are pretty much identical. I keep
expecting sirens to start blaring now that I’ve escaped, but they never do. There aren’t any heavy
Mogadorian footfalls chasing after me either.
Just when I’m starting to get winded and thinking about slowing down, a doorway opens on my
right and two Mogadorians step forward. They’re more like the ones I’m used to – burly, dressed in
their black combat gear, beady eyes glaring at me. I dart around them, even though neither of them
makes any attempt to grab me. In fact, I think I hear one of them laughing.
What is going on here?
I can feel the two Mog soldiers watching me run, so I duck down the first hallway that I can. I’m
not sure if I’ve been going in circles or what. There isn’t any sunlight or outside noises at all, nothing to indicate that I might be getting closer to an exit. It doesn’t seem like the Mogs even care what I do, like they know I’ve got no chance to get out of here.
I slow down to catch my breath, cautiously inching down this latest sterile hallway. I’m still
clutching the book – my only weapon – and my hand is starting to cramp. I switch hands and press on.
Up ahead, a wide archway opens with a hydraulic hiss; it’s different from the other doors, wider,
and there are strangely blinking lights on the other side.
Not blinking lights. Stars.
As I walk under the archway, the metal-plated ceiling gives way to a glass bubble, the room wide-
open, almost like a planetarium. Except real. There are various consoles and computers protruding
from the floor – maybe this is some kind of control room – but I ignore them, drawn instead to the
dizzying view through the expansive window.
Darkness. Stars.
Earth.
Now I understand why the Mogadorians weren’t chasing me. They know there’s nowhere for me to
go.
I’m in space.
I get right up to the glass, pressing my hands against it. I can feel the emptiness outside, the endless, ice-cold, airless space between me and that floating blue orb in the distance.
‘Glorious, isn’t it?’
His booming voice is like a bucket of cold water dumped on me. I spin around and press my back
to the glass, feeling like the void behind me might be preferable to facing him.
Setrákus Ra stands behind one of the control panels, watching me, a hint of a smile on his face. The
first thing I notice is that he’s not nearly as huge as he was when we fought him at Dulce Base. Still, Setrákus Ra is tall and imposing, his broad physique clad in a stern black uniform, studded and
decorated with an assortment of jagged Mogadorian medals. Three Loric pendants, the ones he took
from the dead Garde, hang from around his neck, glowing a subdued cobalt.
‘I see you’ve already taken up my book,’ he says, gesturing to my dictionary-sized club. I didn’t
realize I was clutching it to my chest. ‘Although not necessarily in the way I’d hoped. Fortunately,
your Proctor wasn’t badly injured …’
Suddenly, in my hands, the book begins to glow red, just like the piece of debris I picked up back
at Dulce Base. I don’t know exactly how I’m doing it, or even what I’m doing.
‘Ah,’ Setrákus Ra says, watching with a raised eyebrow. ‘Very good.’
‘Go to hell!’ I scream, and fling the glowing book at him.
Before it’s even halfway to him, Setrákus Ra raises one huge hand and the book stops in midair. I
watch as the glow I’d infused it with slowly fades.
‘Now, now,’ he chides me. ‘Enough of that.’
‘What do you want from me?’ I shout, frustrated tears filling my eyes.
‘You already know that,’ he replies. ‘I showed you what’s to come. Just as I once showed Pittacus
Lore.’
Setrákus Ra hits a few buttons on the control panel in front of him and the ship begins to move.
Gradually, the Earth, seeming both impossibly far and also like it’s so close I could reach out and
grab it, drifts across my view. We aren’t moving towards it; we’re turning in place.
‘You are aboard the Anubis,’ Setrákus Ra intones, a note of pride in his gravelly voice. ‘The
flagship of the Mogadorian fleet.’
When the ship completes its turn, I gasp. I reach out and press my hand against the glass for
support, knees suddenly weak.
Outside, in orbit around the Earth, is the Mogadorian fleet. Hundreds of ships – most of them long
and silver, about the size of small airplanes, just like the ones the Garde have described fighting
before. But among them are at least twenty enormous warships that dwarf the rest – looming and
menacing, mounted cannons jutting off their angular frames, aimed right at the unsuspecting planet
below.
‘No,’ I whisper. ‘This can’t be happening.’
Setrákus Ra walks towards me, and I’m too shocked by the hopeless sight before me to even move.
Gently, he drapes his hand on my shoulder. I can feel the coldness of his pale fingers through my
gown.
‘The time has come,’ he says, gazing at the fleet with me. ‘The Great Expansion has come to Earth
at last. We will celebrate Mogadorian Progress together, granddaughter.’
2
From the cracked second-floor window of an abandoned textile factory, I watch an old man in a
ragged trench coat and filthy jeans crouch down in the doorway of the boarded-up building across the
street. Once he’s settled, the man pulls a brown-bagged bottle from his coat and starts drinking. It’s the middle of the afternoon – I’m on watch – and he’s the only living soul I’ve seen in this abandoned part of Baltimore since we got here yesterday. It’s a quiet, deserted place, and yet it’s still preferable to the version of Washington, D.C. I saw in Ella’s vision. For now at least, it doesn’t look like the