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D. J. MacHale

The Soldiers of Halla

Chapter 1

The missile hit without warning.

We didn’t know we were under attack until, well, we were under attack. It was fast. It was violent. I had no idea what it was all about, other than the fact that I had only been on this strange territory for a few minutes, and I already wanted to leave.

Uncle Press was walking maybe forty yards ahead of the Travelers. The small missile screamed in and thumped down in the space between us. If it had landed twenty yards farther ahead, Uncle Press would have been liquefied. Twenty yards back and every last Traveler of Halla would have been obliterated. Our final stand against Saint Dane would have been over before it had the chance to get started. We were lucky.

Lucky? That’s a relative term. After the first boom, good luck seemed to be in short supply.

“Down!” Uncle Press screamed as he ran back through the burning debris that hung in the air.

Too late. I was already down. The force of the blast had knocked me off my feet. My eyes stung from the cloud of dirt that hit me. My ears rang. Since I had been leading the group, I hoped that I had taken the worst of it. I rubbed my eyes with the sleeve of my Second Earth sweater, desperate to clear my vision and get back some control before another missile arrived.

Again, too late. Two more explosions erupted, though not as close as the first. I was halfway to my feet and got knocked down again. I heard a scream of fear. Not of pain, of fear. That was good.

Fear was better than pain. It sounded to me like Elli. She was an older, frail woman. She hadn’t experienced anything like this before. If any of us needed help, it would be her.

“You okay?” Uncle Press yelled at me.

“Yeah, where’s Elli?”

“I got her,” he said, then screamed out to the others, “Scatter! Find cover in the ruins!”

Ruins? What ruins? All I had seen of this wasteland was a bunch of dust in the air. At one point I caught a glimpse of a tall, tilted building through the haze, but it was too far away to reach while trying to dodge a storm of incoming missiles. I wiped my tearing eyes to scan for something closer.

I heard a loud whoosh and sensed, more than felt, a dark shape swooping by overhead. Looking up, I caught the fleeting image of a low-flying aircraft. It could have been a small helicopter, but it seemed more squat than that. I didn’t hear the typical sound of a chopper engine, either. Whatever was powering this thing, it was pretty quiet. Was this the beastie shooting at us? It flew by at treetop level. That is, if there had been any trees in this barren place. As I watched in wonder, I was hit with the beam of a powerful light. Turning quickly I looked up to see two more of these flying craft headed toward us. Each had a single headlight that swept the ground. Searching.

“We must find shelter,” came a calm voice at my shoulder. It was Loor. She was still in one piece, I’m happy to say. Looking around I saw that none of the Travelers seemed hurt. Uncle Press had an arm around Elli’s shoulder and was hurrying her off to… somewhere. Everyone else was following Uncle Press’s instructions and moving in different directions to find shelter.