Ascent. Морган Райс

to glow at the front of the ship, a fiery orange that made it look as though someone had set light to a point on the vessel’s nose. She tried to decide if it might be a trick of the light, and then a far more horrible thought occurred to her.

      “Everybody scatter!” she yelled, pulling her bike to one side so fast that it took everything she had to keep it upright.

      The road ahead of their small convoy erupted in a blaze of energy that tore through the asphalt, sending dirt and stone flying in every direction. Luna saw one of the bikes skid and topple, the rider tumbling over the ground as the road disappeared from under them.

      Luna went off road, ignoring the jolts and the judders that came from the uneven ground as rocks and potholes threatened to unseat her. Around her, she could see the other bikes following, heading into the rougher terrain, staying away from the straight line of the road as the alien ship shrieked overhead. Another gout of dirt and rocks flew up as it fired again, and then it was past them, banking sharply as it started to turn back toward them.

      They were an easy target in the open. Luna could see the alien ship getting further away from them, lining up another run at them. If it fired at them from a distance, it would have plenty of time to aim and hit them all. They needed to find cover, and they needed to do it now.

      Luna looked around and then pointed toward some of the red rock valleys close to Sedona.

      “There!” she yelled. “It’s our only hope.”

      She pushed her engine, the bike speeding forward with the others following in her wake. Dirt exploded around them as the ship made another pass, and for a moment or two Luna couldn’t see anything ahead. When the cloud of dust cleared enough for her to see again, she had to veer left sharply to avoid the remains of a tree, torn apart by the latest blast. Luna just hoped that she was leading the others in the right direction.

      They headed into the valley, plunging past its mouth and speeding down it. Energy bolts slammed into the walls, sending dust up into the air and sending rocks tumbling so that Luna had to swerve and dodge to avoid them. They rumbled and bounced as they fell, one shooting past her head, close enough that she had to duck down to avoid it.

      “It’s coming in lower!” Cub called out from somewhere close to Luna. Luna knew that she ought to keep her eyes on the way ahead through the valley, but she couldn’t stop herself from risking a glance back.

      The alien ship was flying barely above ground level now, moving into the valley on their tail as it tried to line up its next shots.

      “Faster,” Luna called out.

      “We can’t lose it,” Cub called back.

      “We don’t need to lose it,” Luna shouted. “We just need to find out how fast it can turn.”

      She saw Cub grin as he understood, and their group of bikers hurried forward, pushing into the valley.

      “Hold on, Bobby,” Luna said.

      Luna clung to her bike, taking the twists and turns as fast as she dared, then faster still. The red rocks of the cliffs towered above her in misshapen stacks, the rocks that tumbled as energy blasts hit them a reminder of just how easily all of this could go wrong. One turn taken too fast, one twitch of the handlebars in the wrong direction, and she and Bobby would hammer into the walls of the valley, far too fast to survive.

      Luna gripped her handlebars tight, hunched down over them, and rode faster.

      She dared a glance back. The alien ship was still there, taking the twists and turns with them, firing at random when it couldn’t line up the perfect shot. It swung from one side to the other as it sped along the valley, and then, without warning, Luna saw one edge of it clip a wall.

      “Watch out!” she yelled, as it bounced from one wall to the next, struggling to correct its flight as it ricocheted like a pool ball, sparks flying as it hit one wall, then another, angling down toward the valley’s rocky floor.

      The noise as it struck the earth seemed to fill the world, dust flying up as it plowed in nose first until everything behind it was obscured. Luna and the others had to keep riding flat out just to stay ahead of it. They were running out of room, though, because the valley was coming to a halt, sealed in by a wall of rock that was punctured only by the opening of a storm drain. Luna rode toward that far end, hoping the ship would stop before it crushed them all against the wall. She pulled up next to the wall, wincing as the ship got closer.

      Gradually, though, it slowed, squealing and scraping its way along like a plate dropped from a table until finally, rattling, it ground to a halt.

      Luna pulled up in front of it, the others spreading out in a half circle around it, engines still running. She heard a hiss of escaping air as a hatch near the top opened, and she stood in shock as a figure staggered out.

      This wasn’t one of the controlled. There was nothing human about the spindly, insect-like figure who clambered down from the hatch, spiny plates looking like armor, but broken armor, with rents that leaked clear fluid onto the ground as it advanced.

      “Is that them?” she heard Ignatius wonder aloud. “Is that what the aliens look like?”

      “Does it matter what they look like when we know what they want?” Luna asked.

      “But we can study it,” Ignatius said. “We need to try to capture it.”

      It kept approaching, reaching for them as if even now it would find a way to kill them.

      “Get it!” Bear yelled, and the Dustsides bikers fell on it with fists and pipes and knives, striking again and again with anything they had. Luna heard the armored plates crack with a sickening sound that reminded Luna far too much of someone stepping on a beetle.

      “No,” Ignatius said, “there’s so much we can learn.”

      Right then, however, Luna felt as though they’d learned the most important lessons: they’d learned what one of their enemies looked like, and they’d learned that they could die.

      Then a light flickered on the front of the ship, twisting in the air, taking the shape of a tall, hairless figure that looked nothing like the creature they had just killed. It spoke, and some technology in the hologram translated the words, the same way it had with the boxes at the slave camp.

      “You have killed one of our servants,” the being said. “But it is not of the Purest. It does not matter. You do not matter. You are an obstruction to be removed, and you will be, unless you submit now.”

      “We know what that feels like,” Luna shouted back at it. “And we broke free. We’re going to break everyone free!”

      “You will not obstruct the Hive. You will die.”

      It flickered out of sight, and in the sky beyond where it had been, Luna thought she could see the specks of more of the ships closing in. It seemed that the aliens weren’t holding back when it came to killing them.

      “We need to get out of here,” Luna said.

      “There’s no easy way past the ship,” Cub said, “and if we ride out onto open ground, they’ll pick us off easily.”

      “Then we need to go into the storm drain,” Luna said.

      Bear looked over at it, then at her and Cub. “I don’t like leaving the bikes.”

      “I think it’s that or die, Dad,” Cub said.