Counterattack Read Free Page A

had left me without the use of my legs. I hated the fact I couldn’t get to my feet and charge back to the prison cell. That I couldn’t help the father I used to dislike and had only recently come to understand. I couldn’t lose him now—especially when he’d also become my friend.
    But I was helpless. As the robot rolled forward I didn’t even bother pleading with Ashley anymore. A few feet later I heard Mom’s voice in my mind. “Tyce, we just have to trust God. Even when things look bad, he’s got everything under control.” She’d said it before, and she’d been right. But what about this time? Although I, too, had come to believe in and trust God, this situation looked impossible. How was God going to fix this?
    Now the doors to the outside loomed in front of me. Despite my anger and fear, I began to feel excitement. Like opening a present on Christmas, except a thousand times stronger.
    It had been night when Dad, Ashley, and I and the rest of the crew of the Moon Racer had been shuttled from orbit to Earth. We had landed at this military base, and the shuttle had coasted into a large warehouse. On the ground we’d been transferred through a chute from the shuttle into an electric vehicle that took us deeper into the base. Finally we’d reached the prison area after a brief time in quarantine. Not once during the process had I seen anything of the Earth’s surface. I had not even gulped one breath of outside air.
    And now?
    When the doors in front of me opened, I’d be somewhere I had dreamed about for years. Ever since understanding that I was the only person in the entire solar system to be born off the planet Earth.
    Yes, I’d be outside, without a space suit. On Earth. Breathing in open air, outside of buildings. For the first time in my life. As the main doors swung open to the outside, I sucked a big lungful of air and held my breath.
    The next instant I lost all that air. For what I saw took my breath away.
    Blue sky!
    Yellow sun!
    White clouds!
    On Mars, the landscape was a butterscotch-colored sky with a blue sun and orange clouds. I’d only ever read or seen on DVD-gigarom how things looked on Earth. This was far more beautiful than I’d ever imagined.
    In that moment, I forgot about my dad. I forgot about the six-day countdown. I forgot about the impossible mission of rescue that Ashley and I faced.
    Blue sky!
    Yellow sun!
    White clouds!
    And heat. Wonderful warmth on my skin. With air moving across me.
    I drew in another lungful of breath—just because it was so sweet to drink in this fresh air.
    The ground was black and smooth in front of me. This was the end of the runway that the shuttle had landed on when we’d been taken here. A few different airplanes—which I recognized from movies I had watched on Mars—were parked at the side of this runway. To my left and to my right were the buildings of the military base, including the large, tall bay that the shuttle had parked in. All of this looked like an island set in the middle of the swamps that surrounded it.
    As the robot rolled closer to the edge of the runway, I was overwhelmed by smells that came with the air I drank in so greedily. I was used to a landscape of frozen brown and red desert, long sucked dry of any hint of moisture. Here? Beyond the parking lot was a wall of green. Tall plants reaching for the sky. Small plants crowding the bases of the large plants. With colorful blossoms that gave incredible smells. Wow! Wow! Wow!
    And noises! The creaking and buzzing and twittering of living things that swarmed in the green plants at the edge of the parking lot.
    This was Earth! How incredible.
    â€œTyce? Tyce?” Ashley’s voice broke through.
    â€œI can hear you,” I finally answered.
    â€œIt’s okay,” she said. “Really, it’s okay.”
    I didn’t answer her. I was still trying to comprehend all of this. This is really