The Last Star (novel)

The Last Star is a young adult science fiction novel written by American author Rick Yancey. It is the sequel to The Infinite Sea and the third and final book of the 5th Wave series. It was published on May 24, 2016.

The Last Star concludes the story of 16 year old Cassiopeia "Cassie" Sullivan battling against the aliens that have invaded Earth. It continues the story from where it was left off in its prequel, The Infinite Sea.

Summary

The story starts off with a flashback to when Cassie's dad was young, and he went on a school field trip to a planetarium. Amazed by a starry spectacle the administrators displayed, he decides then and there to name his future daughter Cassieopia.

The story then shifts to a priest hidden in a cavern near Urbana, waiting for winter's end with a band of survivors. The priest turns out to be a silencer, and he silences the human survivors one night. He then waits for the day the mothership will drop green bombs that will obliterate every city on earth, which will then trigger the release of the 5th wavers, completing the destruction of Earth.

A new and enhanced Ringer escapes Vosch's watchtower, but after spending 40 days in the wilderness, testing out the 12th system, she returns to Vosch because she knows they have a mutual goal that he will help her with: Kill Evan Walker.

Cassie Sullivan runs out to the porch of Grace's house soaking wet after attempting to give Sam a bath, after he told her that he hated her guts. There, she finds Evan Walker. Furious and frustrated, she screams at him about how cruel the Other's takeover has been while he remains calm and cool. She's hurt that Sam has forgotten his ABC's and their mother's face because of the war since they represent traits of humanity. Evan tells her that he has also forgotten what it means to be benevolent and compassionate, ending the discussion by commenting that he, too, has forgotten his ABC's

Cassie walks back into the house where he bumps into Zombie a.k.a. Ben Parish. He tells her that he's going to the caverns to find Ringer and Teacup, so he can warn them about doomsday and bring them back. Cassie says he's only doing so because he feels guilty about leaving his baby sister to die, and he gets mad. Cassie tells him to do what he wants. Zombie takes Dumbo with him, and they leave the house that night to complete his mission.

Sam has given Bear to Megan, and he feels betrayed that Zombie would not include him in his mission. In the night, he cuddles a gun that no one other than him knows that he has without saying his once daily prayer because he believes God is cruel and untrustworthy. Angry and confused, he silently cries to himself while wondering if everyone in the house is actually an alien lying to him, and that he is actually the last human being on Earth. He thinks to himself that he should just kill everyone in the house and then blow up the mothership himself, like Evan is planning to do.

Vosch has discreetly given a bomb contained in a pill to Ringer that will destroy everything in a 5-mile radius. She is given this so that she can kill herself instead of being killed by a 5th waver when the time comes. He then dispatches a silencer named Constance to help Ringer out with her mission, and they get off on the wrong foot. He then sends them off in a chopper where they will then drop towards the Urbana Caverns.

Zombie and Dumbo take a short lunch break in the woods where Dumbo reveals that he's from Pittsburgh, used to play in Little League baseball, and that he enjoys gaming. A shot is fired and Dumbo jumps in front of Zombie, taking the hit. Dumbo is shot in the back, and Zombie stuffs rags into the wound. He tells Dumbo he will come back for him. Later Zombie finds an old lady that reminds him of his grandmother. She has a lot of cats all around her. She plays innocent, but he soon finds out that she is a silencer. She attacks Zombie but in the struggle Zombie kills her.

During this time Ringer and Constance (who Ringer has much disdain for) land near the area where the Silencer Priest from the beginning of the book is. Constance disappears and Ringer battles the Priest. He is much faster and stronger than her and almost destroys her. Zombie begins heading towards the Urbana caves to find Ringer. As he approaches the caves he spots the priest and suspects trouble. He falls into a large pit full of dead bodies due to the dark conditions and starts to sink. Fearing he is going to suffocate as he sinks, a woman also hiding in the pit grabs his neck. She is Constance and tells Ben (by calling him by his name) to stay put. The Priest finds the two of them, but while distracted Ringer sneaks up behind him and kills the priest.

Zombie (Ben), Ringer and Constance then head towards Urbana to reunite with Dumbo. Zombie is suspicious of Constance but Ringer vouches for her, knowing that if she doesn't Constance will kill her friends. They return to the coffee shop only to find Dumbo missing. As they search for him, they find that he crawled several blocks in search of Zombie due to his unwavering loyalty. When Zombie finds him, Ringer tells him that he has lost too much blood and will die. Dumbo then passes away in Zombie's arms finding relief that he was able to reunite with Zombie, who is safe, before he died.

The three of them head back to the safe house where Evan, Cassie, Nugget (Cassie's younger brother Sam) and Megan (the young rescued child) are waiting. During this time, Nugget was directed by Dumbo to watch over Megan but not to hold a gun. Nugget disobeys him and sneaks a gun into his pants. When Zombie, Ringer and Constance arrive Constance grabs Sam/Nugget and puts a gun to his head. She demands to have Evan brought to her so she can bring him back to Vosch. In the moment, Sam grabs the gun he has hidden and shoots Constance. This disorients her long enough for Ringer to kill her. Ringer knows that Vosch will see that Constance's signal is lost and send in backup troops to capture Evan and kill everyone else. Ringer then points her gun at Evan and tries to kill him. Ben/Zombie steps in between them and Ringer shoots him in the leg so she can kill Evan. Ringer explains her real plan and Evan says he will voluntarily go back to Vosch in order to save everyone else.

As the chopper approaches, everyone hides in the basement of the safe house which is loaded with weapons. Hellfire missiles are launched at the house as Ringer and Evan try to attack the soldiers. The soldiers are actually Ringer's original squad in Camp before she was transferred to Squad 53. Evan is captured and taken away in the helicopter, but only after many soldiers are killed. Ringer devises a plan to hide out and wait until another group of soldiers come to bring back the first. During this planning and waiting Ringer tells Zombie that she is pregnant with Razor's baby - a soldier from the previous book who helped Ringer escape from Vosch. The group hides inside a gas station and puts on uniforms from the dead soldiers. They also take out all of their tracking beacons from their necks and place them in their mouths. They begin to prepare at the Urbana Caves by making homemade bombs. When the chopper arrives, Ringer attacks the soldiers. She and Cassie board the helicopter, but leave a wounded Zombie behind to watch over Nugget and Megan back in the caves. Ringer and Cassie capture the helicopter pilot - coincidentally the same pilot Ringer captured while fleeing the base in the previous book.

Ringer forces Major Bob, a pilot that helped her and Razor to escape Wright-Patterson, to follow her directions by poking out one of his eyes. The pilot is told to charge towards the group of helicopters trying to take them down to break up their formation. The pilot complies and all but one helicopter is destroyed. The un-destroyed one flies towards the Urbana caves to find Zombie, Nugget and Megan. Ringer and Cassie finally make it to the base.

During this time, Vosch talks with Evan and informs him of the truth of the 5th wave. He tells him that there are only 12 true Others on Earth like Vosch that know the entirety of their plans: the Others have gone to many planets and attacked dominant species in order to save the lives of all other species, but also prevent the dominant ones from destroying themselves. He says that the next day, the mothership will bomb every city on Earth to destroy all footprints of mankind. This will remove all traces of art, music, knowledge and civilization. As a result, the remainder of humanity will fight amongst themselves, without ever having access to their past knowledge. Humans will never be able to rise to civilization again and forever stay in the stone age, thus keeping the balance of life on earth. By succeeding, Vosch's reward will be a launch in an escape pod to the mothership to become an immortal consciousness. Vosche knows that his creation, Ringer, will come back to kill him, so he must have her killed. After placing Evan in wonderland, he discovers the programming glitch was love and that there is no simple fix. He has Evan placed in wonderland one more time to have all of his humanity erased from his mind, leaving him as an emotionless killing machine. He knows Ringer will come and plans to have Evan kill her.

Back in the Urbana Caves, the helicopter that broke off from Ringer and Cassie's air attack lands. Zombie, Nugget and Megan prepare for the battle. Tear gas is thrown into the caves, but Ringer had preemptively warned them how they would be attacked and everyone is wearing gas masks. Next, the soldiers cave-in the only two entrances to the cave. Zombie had expected this and plants a homemade bomb in the front cave-in to make an escape. Once Zombie and Nugget make it through (Megan is too scared and stays behind) a shot is fired at Zombie and just misses him thanks to Nuggets asking him why a red dot is on his face. The 2 of them crawl away and move towards the pit of dead bodies. Zombie tells Nugget to hide inside and starts to head back to save Megan. While crawling back he is shot at 2 more times. One shot lands in front and another brushes his bicep. Zombie believes that they are toying with him as they try to kill him. At that moment he remembers that he forgot to place the dead soldiers tracker in his mouth, upon doing so his signature disappears from the soldiers lenses. Zombie makes his way to the cave entrance and gets Megan out. The whole time praying that if he is killed, (which he is certain will happen in this battle) that at least Megan and Nugget survive. As he leaves the cave with Megan, he is shot in the back of the head and everything goes white...

Ringer and Cassie begin their infiltration of the base. Upon landing, the pilot runs away, telling Ringer that she is an idiot and they were instructed not to kill her because Vosch wanted her to return. He then screams to the soldiers that the helicopter has a bomb. Cassie (now dressed in a soldier uniform) runs one way as Ringer runs another. Ringer detonates the first bomb and in the confusion Cassie is able to hide among the troops. Cassie and Ringer plan to make it to the command center from opposite directions. As Cassie makes her way there, Ringer sets off additional bombs to continue causing chaos. During Cassie's travels she continuously hears an alarm warning that General Order 4 will commence in 5 minutes and all forces are to head to their designated safe areas. Not knowing what it means, she continues to fight more troops as she proceeds forward. Upon making it to the last door (where she is too wait for Ringer to reunite with her) General Order 4 activates. All the lights in the base go dark. Cassie, still not understanding, assumes the order was to blackout the base. While waiting for Ringer, the sprinkler system goes off. Cassie assumes the bombing must have set it off and thinks nothing of it, within a few minutes Cassie's skin begins to burn and boils appear. She realizes General Order 4 is a small version of the first three waves used as a defense mechanism for the base. Power goes out, water floods and disease as poison is spread. In burning pain, she runs towards a window and shoots it out. Now outside, she rolls around in the dirt to try and get the poison off her skin.

Back at the Urbana Caves, Zombie begins to see Dumbo in a white light give him an ice pack for the back of his head. He then sees a young black girl and is confused why heaven is like this. He then realizes he is not dead and begins to be asked questions from the female soldier. She shows him a picture of Ringer when Ringer was in the infirmary at the base receiving the 12th system. She asks him where she went and why. He plays dumb until she brings out Nugget and Megan and then places a gun to Nuggets head. He breaks and tells her that Ringer went to the base to kill Vosch. The black female Sergent doesn't believe only one person could do this and discusses with her troops what to do. The troops want to kill Nugget, Zombie and Megan however the Sergent says their orders where to capture and contain, not to kill. They then take the 3 of them in their helicopter and head back to the base.

Meanwhile, at the base Ringer spots Cassie jumping out of the window and rolling on the ground. Ringer jumps 40 feet across a roof and then jumps 3 stories down to help Cassie. Ringer removes all of Cassie's clothes and swaps outfits with her. Ringer knows that the clothes soaked in poison will not affect her due to the 12 system's protection. Cassie begins to recover and the 2 of them descend into the base in search of Evan and Vosch. While descending towards wonderland in the dark Cassie suggests that wonderland must have a backup energy supply. Doubtful Ringer finds a light switch and flips it. To Ringers embarrassment the lights turn on and Cassie informs her not to worry, that you'll get used to being wrong. The 2 of them try to figure out how to find Evan's data so they can find out where he is. Not knowing how to single out his data since all the people's memories are labeled by number, Cassie offers to download all 10,000 people's worth of memories into her mind. Reluctantly Ringer does and after 5 agonizing minutes Cassie survives the download. At that moment Ringer hears movement. Previously seeing the dead bodies in the dark she knew a silencer was somewhere and leaves Cassie strapped in the wonderland chair. She goes out into the hallway to deal with the silencer who she suspects might be Evan. Cassie in the meantime has now become the embodiment of humanity now knowing everything about Ringer, Evan, Zombie/Ben, Sam/Nugget, and everyone else ever downloaded into wonderland. As a result, she also knows all access codes and layout of the base.

Ringer and Evan begin to battle each other. Because Evan is now purely the 12th system with no humanity he is much faster and stronger then Ringer. She shoots him six times in his legs but it does nothing to slow him down. During the battle Ringer is critically injured and has her lower back broken which paralyzes her legs. Knowing the 12th system can repair it but not quickly she remembers that she left Cassie strapped in the wonderland chair. Ringer screams to Cassie to run and helplessly stays on the ground as Evan searches for Cassie. When Evan enters the wonderland room he sees that Cassie is no longer there. In the chair are bits of her hair and blood suggesting she tore herself out. As he uses his super hearing to find her he begins to chase after her. Cassie climbs up into a ceiling and drops a live electrical wire. The room she has lured Even into is filled with water from the sprinkler system. Evan does not jump out in time and is electrocuted.

Back with Ringer Vosch walks towards her. He explains to her what he told Evan about the Others plans and that he wanted Ringer to go with him to the mothership. Vosch feels as if he is her father since he has created her, that she is the only person he has ever met that reminds him of himself. She denies his request. During their conversation Cassie appears behind Vosch and shoots him in the head killing him. Cassie, with her downloaded knowledge, uses a keypad to open a secret door to Vosch's escape pod. She takes a knife and cuts off his thumb to access the biometrics to allow further access. As Cassie gets into the escape pod Ringer stays behind and prepares to take the explosive pill Vosch gave her. As she searches her pockets she can't find it and then remembers that she switched outfits with Cassie and now Cassie has it. Ringer then drags herself to Vosch's dead body and searches his pockets for the kill-switch that will kill all 5000 soldiers at the base who have tracker implants. As she finds it General Order 4 is turned off and all the soldiers begin to ascend towards her.

Zombie, Nugget and Megan are in the helicopter which has been circling the base for about an hour. By the time they make their 18th pass the soldiers stiffen up and die. Zombie/Ben realizes Ringer or Cassie must still be alive and activated the kill-switch. As the helicopter descends into a nearby river Zombie, Nugget and Megan brace themselves and jump out into the water. They make their way to the shore and see the base. As they view the base they see a green light launch and head towards the mothership in the sky. Assuming all the soldiers have been killed Zombie begins to make his way into the base.

Cassie, now being launched towards the mothership contemplates humanity and realizes she has no fear as she is no longer alone. Inside her mind is the memories and emotions of 10,000 people, mainly children. As she begins to recover from the intense g-force from the launch she searches her pockets and finds the explosive pill Ringer placed there. The escape pod begins to dock on the mothership. The mothership is described as being 25 miles long, roughly the size of Manhattan, emitting a green glow and featureless. As she steps out of the escape pod everything is black. She knows the pill is similar to the one they removed from Megan and that it is activated by exposure to carbon dioxide. She also realizes that the mothership is filled with high explosives that are to be dropped on Earth's cities. Cassie takes out the pill, bites down on it to remove the safeguard and breathes.

Back at the base Zombie/Ben witnesses a large explosion from the mothership and it then disappears. He realizes that Cassie has destroyed it and herself in the process. He finds Ringer and carries her away from the base.

Fast forward several months and Zombie and Nugget are in a toy store in Texas. Zombie is looking for an artificial X-Mas tree as he wants something that will not die. Nugget is looking at toys when they hear someone. It is a wounded soldier with one hand in his shirt holding a wound. A similar scenario that Cassie experienced in the first book when she had to decide if that soldier was a threat or not. Nugget wants to kill the soldier and Zombie tells him we don't do that anymore. Zombie tries to reason with the soldier. The soldier pulls a gun out from under his shirt and instead of shooting Zombie, shoots himself in the head. Zombie and Nugget return to a house where Ringer is nursing her new born baby girl she named Cassie. Outside Evan Walker is patrolling. After being placed back into wonderland he had his memories re-downloaded into his mind returning his humanity. Preparing to celebrate X-Mas together Evan plans to leave. He tells Zombie that he plans to go to as many bases as he can and destroy them. Calculating that for every life he takes 2 will be saved. As Evan packs his things and leaves Nugget reminisces his memories of Zombie telling him about a constellation in the sky. Pointing out that 3 of the stars are a throne Cassie sits on. Nugget replies that the throne is upside down, to which Zombie says that is so she can watch over the realm. Nugget asks what a realm is, to which Zombie places his hand over Nugget's heart and says "it's here".

References