“They look at me like a hero,” I say, scoffing. “I walk around this camp and the soldiers, the survivors, everyone looks at me like I’m some kind of superman. They don’t know—”

“I guess my video really worked,” Sarah quips, trying to lighten the mood. “They look at you that way because you are a hero, John.”

I shake my head. “They don’t know that I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know how to fight a battle on this scale. Nine’s missing, Ella’s taken and basically getting tortured, I don’t know what’s taking Six and the others so long to get back from the Sanctuary, but when they do we might have to go back anyway because that’s right where Setrákus Ra is headed. Meanwhile, there are twenty-five warships over twenty-five different cities. I don’t know how to deal with this, Sarah.”

“Well,” Sarah replies, her voice calm and collected, like I haven’t just dropped an insurmountable pile of problems at her feet. “It’s a good thing you’ve got friends. Now let’s take this one thing at a time. Let me tell you about GUARD.”

Chapter TWELVE

SARAH TELLS ME EVERYTHING ABOUT HER TIME with Mark, and I really can’t believe what she says about GUARD. After all these years, it’s incredible. I try to keep my voice down, though, to hide this amazing news from Agent Walker and her friends in the government, at least for the time being. After Sarah’s filled me in, I tell her everything that’s happened to me, and everything that we’re still facing. She doesn’t falter. She tells me that we can do this. She tells me we can win.

She makes me believe.

When I finally come out of Walker’s tent, I’m not shaking anymore. Unburdening myself to Sarah, hearing her voice, remembering what I’m fighting for—all this is enough to get me on my feet, moving, ready to charge back into battle. I still don’t have all the answers, but I’m no longer afraid to confront the questions.

Outside the tent, Sam is still on the phone. He’s pacing back and forth, gesturing emphatically with his free hand.

“Six, that’s crazy,” he insists. Obviously, Six is alive and well. And of course Sam is already trying to talk her out of something. “You haven’t seen the size of this thing. It tore through whole city blocks like they were made out of paper.”

Sam spots me, then widens his eyes like Six is saying something crazy in response.

“Here’s John,” Sam says sharply into the phone. “Maybe he can talk some sense into you.”

Sam holds out the phone to me.

“They’re okay?” I ask Sam, accepting the phone.

“Yeah. They released the spirit of Lorien on Earth, which is probably why I have Legacies, but now they’re stranded in Mexico, and Six is talking about fighting the Anubis when it shows up at the Sanctuary,” Sam says breathlessly. I stare at him, trying to wrap my mind around all that as I lift the phone to my ear.

“John? Sam?” There’s Six’s familiar voice, sounding annoyed. “Someone talk to me.”

“Hey, Six,” I say. “Good to hear your voice.”

“You, too,” she replies, her smile audible. “Want me to catch you up on the details? Or should we get to the part where you try talking me out of fighting Setrákus Ra and his warship?”

I can’t help grinning at her bluster. Between talking to Sarah and now Six, things no longer feel so massively overwhelming. We’re definitely up against it, but at least I’m not up against it alone.

“I want you to catch me up,” I tell Six. “But first, I really need to talk to Adam.”

“Oh,” Six replies, sounding surprised. “Sure. Hang on a second.”

Sam fixes me with a look, like I should’ve immediately told Six and the others to flee the Sanctuary. I’m not sure that’s the right move yet. We know Setrákus Ra is heading there, but he doesn’t know that we know. That gives us a rare advantage. Ella showed me the Sanctuary in her vision. She told me to warn Six and the others. Maybe it’s there that the final battle against Setrákus Ra will be fought. If that’s the case, at least it’ll be fought in the middle of nowhere. Civilians won’t be in danger.

Adam gets on the phone, sounding weary. “How can I help?”

“Your warships—I mean, the Mog warships, they’re protected by force fields. Tell me how to bring them down.”

Adam snorts. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I need to give the government something,” I tell Adam. “Setrákus Ra has set a deadline for their surrender and if they don’t see a way to defeat his armada they aren’t going to help us.”

“John, those warships were designed before the invasion of Lorien,” Adam replies. “The shields are meant to sustain attacks from a planet full of Garde. There’s no weapon on Earth short of a nuclear bomb that could even potentially break through them and attempting such an attack over a major population center would be catastrophic.” Adam pauses, and I can hear dirt crunching. He’s moving towards something. “Although . . .”

“What? I’ll take anything you can give me, Adam.”

“Maybe brute force isn’t the answer. I’m staring at an airstrip of disabled Skimmers,” he says. “It occurs to me that there are a hundred or so assigned to each warship. They act as scouts and transport squads of ground troops. They come and go from the warships quite a bit, which makes lowering the warship’s force field each time impractical. So, the Skimmers are outfitted with an electromagnetic field generator that masks them from the warship’s shield, allowing them to pass through unharmed.”