Apex by Adam Moon

and impossible.
    The doctor pursed his lips. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re just teleporting rapidly. Maybe you’re teleporting many times every second, so it just looks and feels like you’re flying.”
    Dan said in a flat tone, “Yeah, or maybe he’s just flying. We have abilities that aren’t normal. Why question flight but not question the ability to move things with your mind? It’s all equally amazing and unexplainable.”
    “I’ve been questioning all of this, sir.”
    Jack had an epiphany. Maybe when that soldier had attacked him back at quarantine, the blade had gone straight through him because he had phased in and out of existence with his teleportation ability? It was the only way he could explain it.
    Dan turned on Jack and said in mock anger, “Hey kid, thanks for leaving me and Molly behind to get crushed by the stump.”
    “I didn’t do it on purpose. I don’t even remember making the decision.”
    “I’m just messing with you, kid. It turned out to be the right decision anyway. Now I know I can’t be hurt, just like my wife can’t be hurt.”
    The doctor asked, “What do you mean by that?”
    “I got blasted with chunks of that stump, flying at me like bullets, and none of them injured me or even hurt when they hit me. ”
    “Huh. How about you guys?” the doctor asked Jack and his friends. “I know Jack’s skin can’t be punctured, but are you all indestructible too?”
    They all shrugged their shoulders and looked around at each other.
    Molly shook her head. “That sucks. I thought I had two unique powers but I guess being indestructible is a pedestrian ability around here.”
    “You’re still as strong as an ox.”
    She huffed and said humorously, “I guess my superhero name could be Ox-lady then.”
    Jack stifled a chuckle. It was funny that she felt left out be cause she wasn’t freakish enough; that she felt weird because she was too normal.
    But Molly’s mention of superheroes did beg the question: What were they supposed to do with their strange powers?

    At the edge of the Kuiper Belt
     
    Commander Davok yawned and stretched. “How many population centers does this planet have?”
    “Quite a few. I’ve already programmed enough Mowers. Once they’ve done their thing, the troops should make easy work of them.”
    “Just make sure you go overboard with the Mowers. I’d prefer to send my men in after the humans are mostly all dead.”
    Fillo nodded curtly. “The men will be itching for action the second they come out of stasis though, sir.”
    “I don’t care what the men want. They need to care about what I want. I’ve lost too many troops to put them in any more danger.”
    “This planet poses no threat, but I understand your reticence. This was supposed to be a simple, even boring mission. How could we know that each planet would fight back?” The second in command said it only to appease his commander. He firmly believed that they should let the troops have some fun or else they’d go nuts. The troops signed on to this mission for the chance to slaughter aliens, not to be held back while their gutless commander worried about politics.
    “Command has a lot to answer for.”
    Fillo nodded but he knew why the commander was so nervous about the outcome of the mission. This was grunt work and he’d been assigned to it specifically because command thought very little of him as a commander. When he reported the casualties sustained during the mission, he’d be reprimanded. And it was apparent that he was trying to build a case against command before they could build one against him. But that was a fool’s errand. You just don’t go up against high command. But it was one of the reasons he was regarded as inferior. He couldn’t take ownership of his own failures.
    The mission was a crop turning task to plow the apex indigenous species’ under so they could colonize new worlds across the galaxy. It had been done several times in the past by equally