S T A R   W A R S

C H A P T E R   E L E V E N

( the battle of the eidolons )

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          "HOLY SHIT."

No one could disagree with Aurora's statement. Inside the room was enough cool stuff to keep a demigod child of Vulcan or Minerva entertained and busy for years.

The room was about the size of a forge, with bronze-topped worktables along the walls, and baskets full of ancient metalworking tools. Dozens of bronze and gold spheres like steampunk basketballs sat around in various stages of disassembly. Loose gears and wiring littered the floor. Thick metal cables ran from each table toward the back of the room, where there was an enclosed loft like a theater's sound booth. Stairs led up to the booth on either side. All the cables seemed to run into it. Next to the stairs on the left, a row of cubbyholes was filled with leather cylinders—probably ancient scroll cases.

Leo went to head toward the tables when he stopped and glanced to the left. He jumped and Aurora whipped her head around to see what he was seeing. Flanking the doorway were two armored manikins—like skeletal scarecrows made from bronze pipes, outfitted with full suits of Roman armor, shield and sword. 

"Dude." Leo walked up to one. "These would be awesome if they worked."

Frank edged away from the manikins. "Those things are going to come alive and attack us, aren't they?"

Leo laughed. "Not a chance. They aren't complete." He tapped the nearest manikin's neck, where loose copper wires sprouted from underneath its breastplate. "Look, the head's wiring had been disconnected. And here, at the elbow, the pulley system for this joint is out of alignment. My guess? The Romans were trying to duplicate a Greek design, but they didn't have the skill."

Hazel arched her eyebrows. "The Romans weren't good enough at being complicated, I suppose."

"Or delicate," Frank added. "Or sophisticated."

Aurora sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Guys, can we not argue about this? 

"Hey, I just call it like I see it." Leo jiggled the manikin's head, making it nod like it was agreeing with him. "Still . . . a pretty impressive try. I've heard legends that the Romans confiscated the writings of Archimedes, but—"

"Archimedes?" Hazel looked baffled. "Wasn't he an ancient mathematician or something?"

Leo laughed. "He was a lot more than that. He was only the most famous son of Hephaestus who ever lived."

Frank scratched his ear. "I've heard his name before, but how can you be sure this manikin is his design?"

"It has to be!" Leo said. "Look, I've read all about Archimedes. He's a hero to Cabin Nine. The dude was Greek, right? He lived in one of the Greek colonies in southern Italy, back before Rome got all huge and took over. Finally the Romans moved in and destroyed his city. The Roman general wanted to spare Archimedes, because he was so valuable—sort of like the Einstein of the ancient world—but some stupid Roman soldier killed him."

"There you go again," Hazel muttered. "Stupid and Roman don't always go together, Leo."

Frank grunted in agreement. "How do you know all this, anyway?" he demanded. "Is Aurora whispering it into your ear while we aren't paying attention or something?"

Aurora frowned. "Guys, come on! Can we stop fighting about this Greek and Roman shit for one second? Please?"

Hazel crossed her arms. "Why are you letting Leo slide? He's trashing the Romans! Your people!"

"Yeah, well maybe I don't want to be associated with people who are willing to kill innocent lives for honor and vengeance," Aurora spat, her eyes blazing like her hands. She took a deep breath and turned to a stunned Leo. "Anyway, how do you know all this stuff? It seems like a lot to remember."

"Says the girl who can pull random facts about Rome straight out of her mind," Leo said, grinning. Aurora rolled her eyes with a laugh. "Anyways, I know this because you can't be a demigod who's into building stuff without knowing about Archimedes. The guy was seriously elite. He calculated the value of pi. He did all this math stuff we still use for engineering. He invented a hydraulic screw that could move water through pipes."

Hazel scowled. "A hydraulic screw. Excuse me for not knowing about that awesome achievement."

"Hazel," Aurora sighed out.

"He also built a death ray made of mirrors that could burn enemy ships," Leo said. "Is that awesome enough for you?"

"I saw something about that on TV," Frank admitted. "They proved it didn't work."

"That's probably because modern mortals don't know how to use Celestial bronze," Aurora said, shrugging.

"That's the key!" Leo said excitedly. "Archimedes also invented a massive claw that could swing on a crane and pluck enemy ships out of the water."

"Okay, that's pretty cool," Frank admitted. "I love grabber-arm games."

"Well, there you go," Leo said. "Anyway, all his inventions weren't enough. The Romans destroyed his city. Archimedes was killed. According to legends, the Roman general was a big fan of his work, so he raided Archimedes's workshop and carted a bunch of souvenirs back to Rome. They disappeared from history, except . . ." Leo waved his hands at the stuff on the tables. "Here they are!"

"Metal basketballs?" Hazel asked.

Leo looked incredibly annoyed at their lack of appreciation and amazement. Aurora gave him a smile, honestly excited to learn more. Just because her father was Apollo didn't mean she didn't appreciate the work of a true master. "They're spheres, right?"

Leo nodded excitedly. "Yeah! Archimedes constructed spheres. The Romans couldn't figure them out. They thought they were just for telling time or following constellations, because they were covered with pictures of stars and planets. But that's like finding a rifle and thinking it's a walking stick."

"Leo, the Romans were top-notch engineers," Hazel reminded him. "They built aqueducts, roads—"

"Siege weapons," Frank added. "Public sanitation."

"Guys, even if the Romans were top-notch engineers, this Archimedes guy was in a class by himself. I'm sure not even the greatest Roman and Greek minds put together could figure out everything he could."

Leo snapped at her. "She's right! His spheres could do all sorts of things, only nobody is sure . . ."

Suddenly, Leo's nose burst into flames. Aurora's eyes widened and she laughed lightly as he patted the smoke and fire away as quickly as possible. He then ran to the row of cubbyholes and examined the markings on the scroll cases. "Oh, gods! This is it!"

He lifted one of the scrolls. Aurora tilted her head, trying to make out the Ancient Greek that was on it. But she failed, frowning. She was better at Latin.

"Guys, this is the lost book!" Leo's hands were shaking. "Archimedes wrote this, describing his construction methods, but all the copies were lost in ancient times. If I can translate this . . ."

"Leo, you've got a psycho happy look in your eyes," Aurora stated calmly.

"The secrets of Archimedes," he murmured. "Guys, this is bigger than Daedalus's laptop. If there's a Roman attack on Camp Half-Blood, these secrets could save the camp. They might even give us an edge over Gaea and the giants!"

Aurora hummed. She knew that the only person who would truly know that was Leo, since he studied Archimedes and was a builder himself. So trusting him to be right wasn't very hard. Hazel and Frank, however, were a bit more skeptical.

"Okay," Hazel said. "We didn't come here for a scroll, but I guess we can take it with us."

"Assuming," Frank added, "that you don't mind sharing its secrets with us stupid uncomplicated Romans."

"What?" Leo stared at him blankly. "No. Look, I didn't mean to insult— Ah, never mind. The point is this is good news!"

Naturally, that's when everything went wrong.

On the table next to Hazel and Frank, one of the orbs clicked and whirred. A row of spindly legs extended from its equator. The orb stood, and two bronze cables shot out of the top, hitting Hazel and Frank like Taser wires. The two crumpled to the floor.

Aurora quickly activated Solstice, the glowing blade slicing through a set of wires heading her way. She ducked under another set and sent a blast of heat toward the ball, deactivating it for the time being. 

The automaton on the left turned its crooked helmet, which was shaped like a wolf's head. Despite the fact that it had no face or mouth, a familiar hollow voice spoke from behind its visor.

"You cannot escape us, Leo Valdez," it said. "We do not like possessing machines, but they are better than tourists. You will not leave here alive."

"Oh, Hades no," Aurora mumbled, her grip on her sword tightening. "Leo? Plan?"

Hazel and Frank were too close for them to throw fire or anymore light. They didn't want to burn the two or light them on fire. Plus, they were knocked out cold by the tendrils of a possessed steampunk bowling ball. Two suits of armor with bad attitudes were about to kill them, and Aurora had no clue what to do. So she was trusting the hyperactive idiot beside her.

On Leo's right, the suit of armor with a lion's head helmet creaked its wiry neck and regarded Hazel and Frank, who were still lying motionless.

"A male and female demigod," said Lion Head. "These will do, if the others die." Its hollow face mask turned back to Leo and Aurora. "We do not need you, Leo Valdez."

Aurora rolled her eyes. "Um, yeah you do. You always need an annoying Leo Valdez."

Leo sent her a playful glare and she smiled cheekily back at him. He then forced a confident look and spread his hands, hoping to stump the eidolons possessing the armor.

The one with the wolf-headed helmet snarled, "I have been in your mind, Leo. I helped you start the war."

Leo's smile crumbled. He took a step back. "That was you?"

Aurora swallowed thickly and hoped that these things didn't try to break their promise and attach themselves to the two.

"You made me fire the ballista?" Leo demanded. "You call that helping?"

"I know how you think," said Wolf Head. "I know your limits. You are small and alone. You need friends to protect you. Without them, you are unable to withstand me. I vowed not to possess you again, but I can still kill you."

Aurora frowned deeper. Throughout this voyage, she'd learned a lot about the people she was sailing with. And when it came to Leo, Aurora never thought of him as small and weak and alone. She thought that he was one of the bravest. He built the ship they were on. He stayed up late to keep them on the right track. He had fire powers and could speak morse code. That made him pretty awesome to Aurora.

The armored dudes stepped forward. The points of their swords hovered a few inches from Leo's face.

Leo was looking around wildly for something to help them out. He glanced at the dormant spheres on the worktables. She saw the idea come to life in his mind. He leaned toward Aurora and lowered his voice, immediately explaining the plan to her. She smirked, twirling her blade as her eyes flickered gold.

"First: you don't know me," Leo told Wolf Head. "And second: Bye."

He lunged for the stairs and bounded to the top while Aurora got to work on distracting the automatons being possessed. They parried and striked, doing her best to damage the things as much as possible. The metal of her blade was piping hot, causing steam to billow up when it met the Celestial bronze of the armored robots. 

It worked for a while. She managed to cut the arm off of Lion Head's body and cut a few slashes into Wolf Head's body before she got distracted by something Leo was doing. Her momentary distraction allowed for Lion Head to shoot the same taser wires at Aurora as it had at Hazel and Frank.

She felt the jolt of electricity before anything else. Without warning, her body spazzed and she collapsed to the ground, her sword clattering away from her outstretched hand, her body twitched with electricity as she began to lose consciousness. The last thing she heard before she fell into the depths of her mind was, "Mother Gaea will be pleased by your sacrifice."

And then her mind slipped into nothingness.

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The first thing Aurora heard when she came back to her senses was something she couldn't explain for the life of her. 

"Yeah, who's possessing who now, Casper?" Leo's voice sounded multiplied and staticky, causing Aurora to groan as it pounded against her head. Slowly, her eyes flickered open, and she was met with an odd sight.

The machine men that she remembered tumbled down the stairs that Leo had gone up earlier. She watched as they began to do the jitterbug like 1920s flappers, her mind spinning. Their joints began smoking. Spheres around the room were popping. Too much energy was surging through the ancient system. Aurora felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise, and she immediately rolled for cover behind a table.

"Frank, Hazel, Rory!" Leo shouted. "Take cover!"

Hazel and Frank, dazed and confused and staring at Leo in amazement, quickly ducked behind another table, Frank shielding Hazel with his body.

Leo made a motion with his hands on one of the spheres. The armored warriors blew apart with a loud bang. Rods, pistons, and bronze shards flew everywhere. On all the tables, spheres popped like hot soda cans. The sphere Leo was holding froze. A random flying ruby dropped to the floor beside the scroll cases.

The room was suddenly quiet except for a few random sparks and sizzles. The air smelled like burning car engines. Leo raced down the stairs and found the three safe under their tables. Aurora quickly scrambled to her feet and plucked her sword off the ground, turning it back into her ring and slipping it onto her finger.

"You're alive!" Leo said happily.

Aurora nodded. "I'd hope so. Otherwise this is a sad excuse for the Underworld."

Hazel's left eye twitched, maybe from the Taser shock. Otherwise she looked okay. "Uh, what exactly happened?"

"Archimedes came through!" Leo said. "Just enough power left in those old machines for one final show. Once I had that access code, it was easy.

He patted the control sphere, which was steaming in a bad way. Aurora wondered if he could fix it or if it was broken for good.

"The eidolons," Frank said. "Are they gone?"

Leo grinned. "My last command overloaded their kill switches—basically locked down all their circuits and melted their cores."

"In English?" Frank asked.

"I trapped the eidolons inside the wiring," Leo said. "Then I melted them. They won't be bothering anyone again."

Aurora helped Hazel up while Leo helped Frank to his feet.

"You saved us," Frank said.

"Don't sound so surprised." Leo glanced around the destroyed workshop. "Too bad all this stuff got wrecked, but at least I salvaged the scrolls. If I can get them back to Camp Half-Blood, maybe I can learn how to recreate Archimedes's inventions."

Hazel rubbed the side of her head. "But I don't understand. Where is Nico? That tunnel was supposed to lead us to Nico."

Aurora had almost forgotten why they'd come down here in the first place. Nico obviously wasn't here. The place was a dead end. So why . . . ?

"Oh." Leo pulled a face. "Haze, how exactly were you tracking Nico? I mean, could you just sense him nearby because he was your brother?"

She frowned, still looking a bit wobbly from her electric shock treatment. "Not—not totally. Sometimes I can tell when he's close, but, like I said, Rome is so confusing, so much interference because of all the tunnels and caves—"

"You tracked him with your metal-finding senses," Leo guessed. "His sword?"

She blinked. "How did you know?"

"You'd better come here." He led the three of them up to the control room and pointed to a black sword that looked eerily familiar.

"Oh. Oh no." Hazel would've collapsed if Frank hadn't caught her. "But that's impossible! Nico's sword was with him in the bronze jar. Percy saw it in his dream!"

"Either the dream was wrong," Aurora said hesitantly, "or the giants moved the sword here as a decoy."

"So this was a trap," Frank said. "We were lured here."

"But why?" Hazel cried. "Where's my brother?"

A hissing sound filled the control booth. At first, Aurora thought the eidolons were back. Then she realized the bronze mirror on the table was steaming.

Ah, my poor demigods. The sleeping face of Gaea appeared in the mirror. As usual, she spoke without moving her mouth, which could only have been creepier if she'd had a ventriloquism puppet. Aurora hated puppets.

You had your choice," Gaea said. Her voice echoed through the room. It seemed to be coming not just from the mirror, but from the stone walls as well.

Aurora stiffened when she realized that Gaea was all around them. Of course. They were in the earth. They'd gone to all the trouble of building the Argo II so they could travel by sea and air, and they'd ended up in the earth anyway.

I offered salvation to all of you, Gaea said. You could have turned back. Now it is too late. You've come to the ancient lands where I am strongest—where I will wake.

Aurora's eyes glowed golden with power and anger. "No, Gaea. You're in my territory now. The ancient lands are my home, and like Hades I'm going to let you destroy them. No matter what power you think you have right now, it is a lie. I'm the one with the power, and you are on very thin ice."

Gaea hummed in amusement. Oh, my dear sweet Aurora. Back in the place where your sister died at your hands. Tell me, are you sure that you have the power here to control me?

Aurora stiffened at the mention of her sister. She could feel the three of her friends' eyes on her, but she hid her emotions well.

Leo sent her a curious look before turning back to the mirror. "In case you haven't noticed, Dirt Face, your little ambush failed. Your three eidolons got melted in bronze, and we're fine."

Gaea laughed softly. Oh, my sweet Leo. You four have been separated from your friends. That was the whole point.

The workshop door slammed.

You are trapped in my embrace, Gaea said. Meanwhile, Annabeth Chase faces her death alone, terrified and crippled, at the hands of her mother's greatest enemy.

The image in the mirror changed. Aurora saw Annabeth sprawled on the floor of a dark cavern, holding up her bronze knife as if warding off a monster. Her face was gaunt. Her leg was wrapped up in some sort of splint. Aurora couldn't see what she was looking at, but it was obviously something horrible. Aurora wanted to believe the image was a lie, but she had a bad feeling it was real, and it was happening right now.

The others, Gaea said, Jason Grace, Piper McLean, Sarah Chang, and my dear friend Percy Jackson—they will perish within minutes,

The scene changed again. Percy was holding Riptide, leading Jason, Piper, and Sarah down a spiral staircase into the darkness.

Their powers will betray them, Gaea said. They will die in their own elements. I almost hoped they would survive. They would have made a better sacrifice. But alas, Aurora and Frank, you will have to do. My minions will collect you shortly and bring you to the ancient place. Your blood will awaken me at last. Until then, I will allow you to watch your friends perish. Please . . . enjoy the last glimpse of your failed quest.

Aurora couldn't stand it. Her hand glowed brilliant gold and she pressed it against the mirror. Leo had the same idea, the two watching the mirror melt into a puddle of bronze goo.

The voice of Gaea went silent. Aurora could only hear the roar of blood in her ears. She took a shaky breath.

"Sorry," said said. "She was getting annoying."

Hazel looked at her nervously. "What did she mean? About your sister . . ."

Aurora sighed. "The reason I was taken to Camp Jupiter was because when I was younger, I accidentally shot my sister Belle with an arrow while testing out some of my stepdad's old weapons. Gaea offered to bring Belle back to life and let me live in Rome again with my family, but then I realized that they weren't family to me anymore. And Gaea is the real reason Belle is dead."

"How so?" Leo asked curiously.

"Gaea guided that arrow, not me," Aurora admitted. "I figured it out in a dream and my dad helped me. So I have yet another reason to hate the goddess."

Frank nodded slowly. "Okay, so what do we do about the other things. We have to get out and help the others."

Leo scanned the workshop carefully, which was now littered with smoking pieces of broken spheres. 

"I've got an idea," he said finally. "But it's going to take all four of us."

And with that, he started telling them the plan.

"We're all gonna die."

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A U T H O R S   N O T E

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This is a short chapter, I know, but I didn't want Aurora to steal Leo's glory moment. That, and I wanted to have Aurora explain to more people her situation and meet Gaea again. Also, I didn't want the last chapter to be fucking long, okay?

Up next will be another Percy chapter, so we'll see him without Aurora. I'm supper excited because this book is almost over. And you know what that means? HOUSE OF FUCKING HADES IS COMING SOON! DARK RORY AND DARK PERCY! THE POWER COUPLE WE ALL DIDN'T KNOW WE NEEDED! YEAH!

Please comment and vote!

Love you all!

~ a.h.