The Guard by Pittacus Lore Read Free Book Online

person, and this planet is so much bigger than Lorien. Still, I do my best. The users of “Aliens Anonymous” are sometimes helpful, my team of informants growing. They’ve pointed me to a few events or news pieces that look as though Mogs may be involved. It’s difficult to weed through them all, though. Many of the users who flock to the websiteare lunatics or trolls, a term I’ve learned and often witnessed in action since starting “Aliens Anonymous.”
    But there are some who are true believers, who give me useful information and follow my suggestions when I say that they should investigate their theories further and report back to me. I keep myself at a distance from them, putting their data to use but trying not to dwell on the particulars of their lives too much. They work with me, but I am alone. A few of them lose interest. One or two disappear completely. I tell myself that they too have just grown bored.
    I track my enemy’s movements as well, trying to think like a Mogadorian. I learn about the sighting of weird spacecrafts in West Virginia, the descriptions similar to some of the Mogadorian ships I’ve seen, and of tattooed gangs seen in various parts of the world. It has been more difficult to suss out information about their involvement with the US government than I had expected. The FBI and other agencies have firewalls unlike anything I’ve ever seen—much too advanced for this planet. It’s my assumption that, along with whatever promises the Mogs are making to the United States, they’re also offering them technology. It reminds me of the Grid on Lorien, but even more advanced. Impenetrable. I refrain from pushing too much for fear that this technology could track me in ways I never imagined. What I need is an in, like when the Grid failed onLorien and I was able to get my own hardware attached to the system.
    I don’t know how I’m going to get that, though, because the last thing I want to do is go storming some Mog base again.
    The ship is never far from my mind. I draw out blueprints and write down everything I can remember about the computer systems and construction of ships from my time at the LDA. I try to estimate what state it might be in after the long trek from Lorien to Earth. I doubt its power crystals could handle another intergalactic flight, and so I try to figure out how I might adapt the ship’s power core to run on the fuel systems available on this planet. My research delves further into engineering than my actual training ever took me at the LDA and is mostly hypothetical. Still, I start to build a few preliminary adapters and secondary power sources. I want to be prepared.
    I keep tabs on Dulce as much as I can. It seems like my fears have been realized. The sheriff and officers I left behind are found dead, and the blame gets put on drug cartels moving through the area. Soon after that the town slowly dissipates and dries up. A private investor buys most of the land. I track the funds back to a few dummy accounts. It’s obvious that the Mogs or the FBI are responsible. I manage to hack into a satellite feed that gives me a visual of the base duringthe day—after a decryption program is run over the images—but it’s neither detailed nor very helpful. Still, I keep the feed running on one of my many monitors at all times. If they move my ship, I want to know about it. I catch a few Mog transporters moving on video. I save these clips and add them to my growing info bomb: a digital packet of information I’ve gathered about the Mogs, about their history on Lorien and even my own writing about what happened to my home planet and my experience in Dulce. Earth is not ready for this information. The Garde are not ready for this to be revealed. But one day soon they will be.
    Time passes. I gather intel. I like to think I’m helping, but I’m not sure.
    Two years blink by and I decide to leave Yellowhammer Ranch. I get too comfortable in the wooden farmhouse, too