Project X-Calibur (17 page)

37

000:00:00

WE SCRAMBLED
to get back to HQ in total chaos. The techs hurried to load X-Calibur into the cargo copter, even though Malcolm practically got down on his knees and pleaded to fly the ship straight from the stadium and into battle.

When we arrived, we hurried into a war room command center. The techs brought up images of six menacing alien ships, two or three times the size of our own, in the skies over a small English town about fifty miles from HQ. Was Dredmore inside one of them? The possibility made me shudder.

Pellinore was livid as he ordered the removal of our watches. I stuck my arm in the metal box and felt a flash of heat near my wrist, then the sound of metal being sheared in two. I eyed the severed watch's now-blank face, remembering all the “X”s that had been there. Had any of the other watches shown “X”s before changing to zeroes? Or just mine? I realized now that those flashing “X”s had been trying to communicate with me for some time now. Had X-Calibur been trying to
warn
me that the aliens were going to be here early?

“They've been using our tracking signal as a directional tool!” a tech shouted, waving a computer printout triumphantly. “It led them straight to us. They must have disrupted the signal to compromise the arrival estimates.” He exhaled heavily. “We never accounted for this, sir.”

Pellinore was speechless as techs began hijacking every form of communication in the town beneath the aliens: cell phone systems, land lines, television, radio, even emergency systems. We had to keep this battle, and the aliens, as secret as possible.

“Any damage so far?” Pellinore asked, but the techs shook their heads. The sky had grown increasingly gray and cloudy, helping to make the aliens less visible.

“Initiate fog cover!” Barrington growled.

Tiny missiles full of concentrated chemicals launched from the roof of HQ. When they detonated within the clouds, the town was shrouded in an even thicker layer of fog. Unless the aliens infiltrated to street level, it would be difficult for anyone on the ground to see what was about to go on above them.

“Benjamin, listen.” Beside me, Merlin leaned in close. “I'll never persuade Percival to let you pilot X-Calibur. But you
will
fly a prototype.”

What? I hadn't seen that coming. “The techs finished another ship?”

He hesitated, and I got a feeling I wasn't going to like his answer. “No. You're going to take Ivy's place. Percival's decision, not mine.”

“No way,” I said firmly. “I want to do my part, Merlin. Believe me, I do. But I'm not replacing Ivy. She deserves this chance.”

A hand suddenly rested on my shoulder, and I turned, startled to see Pellinore standing behind me. “He won't go up,” Merlin said.

Pellinore's face contorted as Ivy approached.

“What's going on?” she asked, standing next to her father with her arms crossed. Merlin and Pellinore froze.

“Your father was just telling me I'm not going to be able to fly,” I explained. I looked up at Pellinore, eyes narrowed. “Right, sir?”

Pellinore looked pained. “Yes. Congratulations, Ivy.” He gave her a hug like it might be the last time he'd ever see her. When he released her, Ivy quickly wiped a tear from her eye and gave me a smile.

“Are the ships ready?” Pellinore asked, composed again. “And the pilot uniforms?”

Right on cue, Arlo rolled in a rack holding six new pilot jumpsuits, each constructed of millions of thread-thin steel fibers laced together, like stretchable armor. Malcolm, Kwan, Tyler, Ivy, and Darla eagerly grabbed their new uniforms and shiny steel helmets, leaving mine hanging alone.

I rushed over to Darla before she could leave to change. “The helmet,” I whispered. “If you give me the old one, I'll take out the scenery rig and install it in this new one—”

She cut me off with a shake of her head. “Ben, I don't need it anymore. All those hours of prototype races yesterday? Halfway through, I took my helmet off, and guess what? I was fine! You helped me more than you could have even imagined.”

“I'm glad,” I said, and I meant it. She grabbed my hand. “Come downstairs and see us off!”

I grinned. “Wouldn't miss it for the world.”

X-Calibur was parked next to the four prototypes, ready for action. Merlin had come with us, but Pellinore had stayed upstairs in the war room. I think he couldn't deal with watching Ivy leave for battle. I couldn't blame him.

Malcolm, Kwan, Tyler, and Darla headed toward their ships, but Ivy paused beside me. I gave Merlin a sideways glare, and he sheepishly turned and walked a few feet away.

“You'll do amazing up there,” I told Ivy. “I've got a front row seat for watching you kick alien butt.”

She suddenly pulled me into a fierce hug. I noticed Merlin looking over his shoulder, watching us. He quickly looked away again.

“I know my father wasn't going to let me do this,” Ivy whispered in my ear. “Thank you for sticking up for me. You never stop . . . being you, do you?”

I shrugged. “I'm the only me I have.”

She ran off to her ship and gave a final wave. Merlin returned to my side and joined me in waving back. “Godspeed, knights!”

X-Calibur and the four prototypes fired up, and an entire wall of the hangar slid up to reveal an underground runway.

“They'll exit undetected on the city outskirts,” Merlin explained.

If all went according to plan, the rest of the world would have no knowledge of what was about to occur: the first battle between aliens and humans. As the ships soared into the tunnel and out of sight, I realized I cared about the knights as much as I'd ever cared about anyone. They had become my friends. My stomach was in knots. Would I ever see them again?

38

THE WAR ROOM
was crammed wall to wall with every single member of the RTR. Every set of eyes was glued to five large screens that showed our knights rocketing through the sky, ready to engage the enemy. Each knight had a personal screen with their name at the bottom, and their voices came over the war room's speaker system.

“Talk to me, knights,” Pellinore barked. He had rolled up his sleeves, raring to go. He'd been waiting hundreds of years for this.

“I got one in my sights!” Kwan's shaky voice exploded over the speakers. Before Pellinore could respond, we all watched as Kwan fired.

I looked to Malcolm's screen, wondering why he hadn't fired yet. It showed nothing but gray sky.

“Where's Malcolm?” I wondered. A split second later,
everyone
in the sky was firing, aliens and knights alike. The battle had begun. There was so much happening on the screens that it was difficult to keep up.

“I got one!” Ivy crowed. One of the screens zoomed in on an alien ship that had just been damaged, its front end smoking and charred. Everyone in the room cheered.

“Great work, Ivy. But be careful!” Pellinore growled. “And where
is
Malcolm?!”

“We've got him now!” a tech yelled, and we whipped our gazes to Malcolm's screen. For some reason the ship was flying straight up,
away
from the action.

“What's he doing?!” Pellinore roared.

Still no answer.

“I hit one!” Tyler suddenly shouted. There was the sound of an explosion, and both Darla and Ivy also shouted that they'd scored hits. Our screens showed damage on
four
of the six alien ships, and none of our knights had even been hit once. They really were kicking butt up there!

There were more cheers, but Pellinore, Merlin, and I were focused on X-Calibur as it continued to climb higher.

“Malcolm, do you have control of your ship?” Pellinore demanded. “If you can hear me, I expect an answer!”

“It's me,” Malcolm finally answered. “Trust me, sir. I have a plan.”

I exchanged a confused glance with Merlin as X-Calibur hung in midair for a moment, at least a mile above the others. The front end of the ship dipped down as if in slow motion and then took off, plunging into a nosedive. Malcolm let loose a barrage of weapon fire, and a storm of lasers rained down from X-Calibur's talon wings. Several of the shots connected with the four previously hit alien ships, and two of them, already paralyzed by their damage, exploded.

Our screens were clouded by views of smoke and alien debris. The only ship of ours that I could still make out up there was Tyler's. Another alien ship came into view, with pieces of its battered outer casing flapping in the wind. With the casing loose, we saw the meat of the ship: two separate modules, with a thinner point in the middle. Within the smoke and flames roaring out of that middle section were flashes of energy—the nucleus of the ship's power.

Barrington lit up and moved closer to the screen. “
Now
we're talking!” he growled.

Tyler fired at the ship's middle section, and it was obliterated into virtually nothing.

“YESSS!” Tyler shouted triumphantly, and Barrington pumped his fist so hard that he knocked over a hapless tech.

But the celebration was short-lived.

“I think I'm in trouble,” Malcolm muttered over the speakers. We all looked to X-Calibur's screen. He
was
in trouble: The two remaining alien ships were on his tail, bearing down on him. Malcolm kept trying to whip X-Calibur around to face them or find a way to rotate his weapons in their direction, but he couldn't pull it off. The aliens closed in like wolves.

We watched and waited. The second those aliens decided to fire, he would be toast,
unless
he found a way to make X-Calibur do something extraordinary. Malcolm Gunn was about to give up his life, and no history book would remember him.

I winced as a series of weapon blasts rocked the sky. I squeezed my eyes shut at the sound of the massive explosion that came next.

Suddenly, everyone in the war room cheered louder than ever. I opened my eyes. Ivy and Darla had come to Malcolm's rescue. The aliens, so focused on chasing X-Calibur, hadn't seen the two girls sneak up behind them. While Ivy and Darla unloaded all they had into the alien ships, Kwan and Tyler finished off the damaged ones. More explosions lit up the sky, and just like that, it was over. The Round Table Reboot had successfully protected Earth from alien invaders.

39

PELLINORE SPARED
no expense for the celebration in the atrium of HQ. I was wearing a suit that he had given me for the occasion, only the second time in my life that I'd worn one. Ivy was wearing a green dress that made her eyes even more radiant. She and the other knights beamed with a sense of fulfillment that I wished I could have shared. I felt like I was crashing somebody else's party.

Malcolm strolled around the room in his own new suit and tie. Techs congratulated him and shook his hand while Pellinore walked by his side. Tyler strolled over to me, chowing down on a massive plate of rice and grilled vegetables.

“You gotta try the brussels sprouts,” he said through a mouthful. “They rock.”

I wrinkled my nose. “No thanks. But hey—awesome job up there. I saw you using moves from Barrington's class. Genius!”

He grinned. “Thanks. Maybe I'm smart enough for college after all, huh?”

“Definitely,” I replied.

When Ivy saw Tyler and me talking, she came over and gave me a playful nudge. “Look at you. All
fancy.
”

I tried not to blush as Kwan and Darla joined us. We'd all developed a bond, especially now that the competition was over. Even Kwan and Darla seemed to be enjoying each other's company.

“How awesome are we?” Kwan crowed happily and offered us burgers from his plate. We each grabbed one and tapped them together with one of Tyler's brussels sprouts like glasses of champagne. Still, I couldn't help feeling like an outsider.
They
had been up in the sky fighting, not me.

“The aliens never even had a chance against us,” Tyler boasted, and it was true. The aliens had been way outmatched.

“Kinda sucks that the world doesn't know how lucky it is to have us, huh?” Tyler sighed.

“All I know is, there's no
way
I'm going to quit surfing now,” Kwan said.

“What about your parents?” I wondered.

“They'll just have to deal. I'll still do my best at school, but you know what? I'm an
action
guy. And the world already has plenty of doctors and lawyers.”

“I'll toast to that,” Darla said with a grin. She and Kwan bumped bacon cheeseburgers again. The rest of us laughed as Malcolm came over to join us.

“Hey. I just wanted to thank you, Ivy,” he said softly. “And you too, Darla. If you both hadn't helped me up there . . . I wouldn't be here right now. I wouldn't be
anywhere.
”

Ivy waved him off. “We're all on the same team here, remember?”

“I second that,” Darla added.

“Then I want to apologize,” he countered. “To all of you. I've been kind of an idiot. I got so caught up in trying to be who I'm supposed to be, and the truth is, I forgot we were a team. But from now, I'll remember. That's a promise.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his grandfather's war medal, eyeing it with a new sense of peace. “I'm going to give this back to my grandfather as soon as I get home. This was
his
life, not mine.” He looked at me after saying that, and I gave him a little nod.

“Can I have everyone's attention please?” Pellinore announced into a microphone. He was standing on a stage by the atrium's back wall. “Today is a day of celebration. A victory for each and every one of us.”

Everyone applauded.

“But that victory is especially sweet for our courageous knights.” The cheers grew as everyone turned to look our way. “Let's hear a speech from our heroes! Where's our esteemed X-Calibur pilot?” Pellinore boomed.

Malcolm was making his way to the stage when there was a sudden deep rumble. A moment later it came again, and this time the walls around us shook. My insides went numb with horror. Merlin and I exchanged a glance, and that's when I knew.

Dredmore.

There was a cracking sound above us as half the ceiling gave way under the force of some kind of blast. Chunks of concrete and metal suddenly rained down as we scattered like ants. The bulk of the destruction had occurred above the stage, and I got a fleeting glimpse of Malcolm and Pellinore getting hit and falling, unconscious. I grabbed Ivy as Kwan grabbed Darla and Tyler tried to grab
all
of us, doing his best to shield us as we scrambled aside.

The floor was already littered with people who had been hit. For the rest of us, it was chaos. When I dared to look up, I wished I hadn't. Through the massive hole in the ceiling I saw various ravaged levels of HQ, all the way up to a glimpse of the dusky sky high above. Through the smoke and dust, I could see alien ships up there.
Tons
of them.

It had all been a ruse. They'd lulled us into a false sense of security, letting us believe five
kids
had saved mankind. We were sitting ducks, and the planet was clueless to the threat because
we had kept everything a secret.

Someone grabbed me from behind. I whirled to see Merlin. He wobbled slightly as a trickle of blood ran down his forehead. I grabbed him, held him up. “This is it, Benjamin,” he whispered urgently.

“This is what?” I pleaded. Over his shoulder I saw frenzied techs dragging Malcolm and Pellinore, both out cold, to safety. Merlin seized my face and looked me square in the eye.

“Become your destiny.”