I watched Sophie go, and saw the other humans that went with her desperately to try and save their spaceship. Humans called out in protest after her, and I noticed the sudden shift in the mood. The tension from before was back and the humans were hostile again, and I knew why. They thought it was us who had messed with the ship; they thought we'd tricked them again.
Humans drew back in anger and disgust from my people, the same people they'd previously been conversing freely with.
"What did you do?" screamed one furious human at me, and suddenly I was caught in the middle of yet another shouting match.
Humans even turned on humans as there were many who were still convinced we'd been telling the truth. I saw a woman pulling on her husband's arm, begging him to stop shouting. I saw another lady shielding her child's ears as she stared in fear at the still rocking spaceship.
"I knew you were lying!" shouted Brock, the human who'd been so adamantly angry before, as he gripped his gun fiercely, pointing the barrel straight at me. "Your people have crossed the line."
I raised my hands in a gesture of peace. "It wasn't me, and it wasn't my people, alright? Just trust me and-"
"Don't give me that bull crap!" he spat at me, cutting me off. The people around him were either supporting him with their fists pumping or trying to stop him with phrases like, 'She's just a kid!'
With my hands still up, I glanced towards the spaceship, which had stopped shaking but was now smoking instead, like it had the night it arrived. I knew what that meant, more of the mind-addling smoke that had caused enough trouble already. I wished for Sophie to hurry up, and do whatever it was she was planning.
"Oi!" my attention was torn back to Brock as he continued to train his gun on me furiously.
I scowled, tired of his stupid human pride.
"Alright, so shoot me then!" I shouted at him, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a flicker of alarm in the Paladanian leaders still standing in the crowd. "I'm sure that it will help you so much."
I threw my arms out. "Go on then, do it!"
He aimed the gun straight at my chest, and murmured, "Paladanian scum!"
Then he fired.
In the single fleeting moment of anticipation as the bolt of energy exited the powerful weapon, a couple of things happened. The communicator in my pocket vibrated, the spaceship stopped giving off smoke, and also about three people launched themselves in front of me, shields raised to deflect the bolt of energy that came zooming in my direction.
The shot ricocheted off of the shield of the person in front and changed direction, hitting a human beside Brock instead. The human, a middle-aged woman with fading red hair and a flashing neck device, fell to the floor writhing in pain, and two seconds later she was dead.
I heard a strangled cry from in front of me, and craned my neck to see Nella, a young Paladanian lady whose family ran the bakery in town, standing with a shield hung limply from her hand, smoking slightly from where it deflected the shot. Even from behind I could see how appalled she was at how her actions had led to death, but clearly Brock couldn't see it because he stared up at her coldly, accusingly, like it had been her that had fired the gun and not him. In that moment I understood how the humans had been so easily drawn in by Weraynian lies; they were led by people like Brock.
And as that realisation hit me, many humans, the ones seething with vengeance at their fellow's death, raised their guns and started firing.
Thus the battle begun.
The crowd was in utter chaos; there were the humans firing at my people, the humans trying to stop them, the humans trying frantically to escape, the Paladanians doing the same, the other Paladanians trying to deflect each shot upwards without hitting anyone, the rest of my people shouting calming words at the humans with no effect, and the Halapatovians trying to raise an energy shield to block the power from the guns.
The latter effort was a fairly good idea, except it didn't work. The moment the energy started to gather together, a human would shoot, either at the amalgam of energy or at one of the Halapatovians, and the concentration would be lost.
I ducked and weaved between people and gunfire, using my senses to avoid each shot that would then spin its way shimmering past me. As I went I encouraged people around me to move out of the battle area, since some were just standing lamely at this point. I pushed a couple to get them moving and got shoved, but at least they left, running for the open ground. All around me people were retreating, most prominently the families who didn't want to be a part of this in the first place. I tried to make a path for the people escaping, but that wasn't easy considering the amount of people who now wanted to murder me because of my infiltration of their spaceship. In those tense moments I thanked whatever genetic mishap had caused my enhanced powers to be granted to me, for without them I would have been long dead. If anybody other than an extremely sensitive Paladanian or any being with a sufficiently enhanced mind had been fired at as many times as I was that day, they would have had no chance of survival.
Suddenly my alert senses picked up a small cry from among the crowd, and I immediately pushed through, knowing it was a little girl who'd gotten separated from her family. Grabbing a shield off of the floor as I went, I sped towards her, dodging each shot that came my way. Eventually I reached her, a human girl no older than seven, dressed in Earth-style clothes and with tears streaming down her face. She was scared, and as I scooped her up in my arms she started to scream. I murmured shushing words at her and she started to sob.
Humans turned angrily my way again, and fired shots at me which I easily evaded, trying to keep the girl away from their fire.
"Put her down you swine!" came a yell from in front of me and I crashed into someone; a human blocking my path. I shoved them aside with the shield clutched under my arm, and continued running until I reached the outside of the crowd. A fair distance away, I placed the girl down and handed her the shield. She gripped it tightly in fear, and I tried to give her a reassuring smile.
"I was just trying to keep you safe." I informed her, crouching down to her eye level. "I might be Paladanian but I'm not as bad as you think I am. So just trust me; run that way as fast as you can and stay there until the fighting's over, okay?"
The girl nodded, shaking, and then she ran off towards the mountains, away from the spaceship and the battle, just like I'd told her to. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to the fight. A bolt of energy came my way which I dodged just in time.
Suddenly I remembered my communicator, and how it had buzzed before. I scrabbled around in my pocket for a moment before grabbing hold of it and hoisting the small device in front of my face. It had a tiny orange light globe on one side, and it was flashing like mad.
To work out what it meant, I placed my hand over the light, closed my eyes and concentrated.
The noise of the battle around me faded out as I focused all my power on understanding the device. I felt, with my mind, the cogs, wires, transistors, electronic chips, diodes, and other components of the communicator, all forged together to work its many different functions. The light was connected to a wire which led across to a whirring receiver, which was connected to a projector lens. I read the code which sorted all the electric signals out, and deciphered it to say that there was an incoming, live, one way, video call.
I opened my eyes. So that was what Sophie had planned. Oh well, I thought, it's worth a try.
Finding the way the lens was pointing (which was a tiny bit confusing because there was also a speaker, a microphone, a camera, a recorder, input and output plugs, and multiple buttons on the communicator) I held the device up as high as I could, sprinted into the crowd, dodged lasers, and pressed the button which accepted the call.
Immediately the communicator let off a high pitched sound, and heads turned as an image started to appear in the air above the crowd.
"Yes." I breathed, as everyone stopped dumbly and just stared at the live footage of Sophie desperately placing sparking wires together. She was in the circuit control room of the spaceship, clearly trying to fix the malfunctioning systems. Sophie had been very clever in that she'd attached her communicator to the wall with the camera part facing her. The only problem was she was all alone, and so this didn't prove anything to anyone.
At least the majority of the fighters had stopped for the moment, their eyes fixed expectantly on the projection. I felt a twinge of sadness as I realised how many dead bodies lay around us. While an all-out war was now unlikely, we still hadn't been able to stop all the humans from attacking us, and now people who I'd known all my life, along with many more that were anonymous, were sprawled out motionless on the field among us.
Focusing once more on the screen, I watched as Sophie sprang over to the wall and pressed a button underneath a communications panel, sending a message around the ship to the other humans working on repairs.
"I've patched up the main navigation system, but the primary engine and the solar stacks are still out of whack." She spoke into the microphone part above the button, eyes roving around the room, landing for a moment on the communicator and therefore we all saw straight into her terrified eyes. "And there's still no sign of our ship wrecker so everyone stay on guard okay?"
"Copy that." came an answering voice.
"Yeah, of course." As did another.
While watching this didn't really fix anything, it did help prove that Sophie wasn't the one who'd attacked the spaceship, and that meant the angry humans were starting to trust us again.
Then I saw a movement in the shadows behind Sophie, and I could sense that the other Paladanians had seen it too.
Terror ran through me as a fully grown Weraynian then emerged from the darkness in the doorway of the room. I gasped, and heard the same sound echo from all the people around me.
It was terrifying. He was short, muscly and pale, with jet black hair and eyes that screamed of evil. His skin was laced with sickly purple veins that bulged prominently from the stretched skin. His face was round, and his ears were large and stuck out, and he had a flattened nose. He was wearing the standard battle uniform of his people. In short, he was an embodiment of the stereotypical Weraynian. I'd only ever seen one in photos or drawings, and it was horrifying to know that this evil alien was so close to me where I stood in that field, and even worse that he was right behind Sophie.
In a swift movement he grabbed Sophie from behind, fingernails digging into her neck. She screamed, and then yelled and kicked as she struggled to break free of the Weraynian's grip.
He threw her onto the ground, believing her to be sufficiently injured, and ripped out a panel of the wall and the wiring behind it, causing the lights to flicker, the ship to shudder and the systems Sophie had repaired to now no longer work. He found Sophie's friction stabilizer resting on a jutting piece of metal and threw it to the side, where it clattered onto the floor.
As the Weraynian continued to mess with the controls, Sophie pulled herself up with a lot of effort. Her hands went to her belt, and she grabbed a mallet out of her tools and gizmos. Tightening her grip, she charged at the Weraynian, aiming for his head, but like lightning his hand shot out and grabbed the mallet head, cracking it in the process. His eyes burned with fury.
"You are something new." He spat, and thrust Sophie to the side again.
Groaning, Sophie held her side where she now had damaged bones.
"So you've been hiding out on the ship all this time?" she asked through gritted teeth.
The Weraynian looked at her with a cold smile. "Of course. We knew that you stupid humans could be easily swayed, so we asked them to send for help; the distress signal. And I'm here to make sure that everything runs smoothly, and there's no one to stop the ships from coming."
"And then while they're all distracted fighting a war, your people would slip out of your force field unhindered and start your conquest of the universe?" Sophie said dryly, her face contorted.
"Very perceptive you are." The Weraynian laughed without humour. "It's been interesting, watching you and your little mind-messer friend potter about in here, trying to stop the war that is inevitable. When you first turned up, I was even a little worried that you might have had a chance; you were an unexpected variable you see. But I think it all worked out for the best. Now I get to break you completely, and then you'll never find your daddy."
Sophie's eyes widened in absolute fear. There was almost no way that he could know that information unless he had hacked into Jon's room and heard our conversation yesterday. I suddenly realised just how much control the Weraynian really had.
The crowd was numb around me; everyone was waiting tensely for the outcome of this new development, which we all knew could not possibly be good. It was almost heartbreaking seeing Sophie lying there, trying in vain to keep herself together. The Weraynians were strong, and powerful. The blows she'd gotten could have shattered her bones.
"Well, it's nice that I know your whole plan now at least, even if there is some bad stuff to come." Somehow Sophie managed to maintain a carefree tone. "That was kind of stupid of you actually, admitting to everything you've done and are going to do."
"Really?" the Weraynian teased darkly. "Why's that? Because you're somehow going to 'beat' me? Or is it because of the fact that you're filming this entire conversation." He gestured in the direction of the communicator, the vantage point of which we were watching from.
I saw Sophie murmur; "Drat", but apart from that she hardly skipped a beat.
"You think that's some sort of camera?" she laughed quite convincingly, a hand tightly on her waist as she dragged herself once more to her feet. "Really? How thick are you?"
The Weraynian just smiled wider and colder as he reached a hand inside his war jacket and pulled out a black baton-like hand held device; a weapon.
"Then it will be fine for me to destroy it then."
He spun the weapon towards the camera, but stupidly took his eyes off Sophie. She launched herself towards him; hammer in hand again, as a bolt of electricity shot towards the camera, and then the footage dissolved in static.
I stood there for a moment, mildly traumatized because I'd just seen a real, live Weraynian, outside of the force field and all!
Then as it sunk in I pushed my way through the crowd, shoving the now-dead communicator into my pocket and sprinting towards the spaceship.
"Abigail, no!" I heard Ray call after me among the protests of many people who knew I was running towards almost certain doom, but I didn't stop; I couldn't. I had seen too much death and destruction already that day, and now Sophie was in danger and the one thing that I knew was that I had to stop the Weraynian, at any cost.
As I ran, I vaguely noted that the battle was completely over now; the mistrust and hatred the humans had felt for my people was totally lost, and the different races were mixing together again. The sound of Brock apologising guiltily was especially prominent among what I heard from behind me, and I managed a weak half smile at that, glad that he had repented. Maybe all the humans could learn a lesson from this encounter; don't believe everything you hear.
By the time I had crossed two thirds of the distance between the crowd and the spaceship, there were already humans and a few of my own people running after me. The leaders had clearly discussed what to do very quickly and then sent them. I hoped desperately that their judgement wasn't too impaired by the smoke the Weraynians had designed for them; otherwise they could be sending multiple innocent people to their graves.
I was much faster than the following adults and so very soon I reached the still open hatch to the human spacecraft, otherwise known as the Eridanus II. Staring up at the metallic grey structure that reached up so high into the sky, I traversed through its enormous entrance; like I had done the previous day with Sophie and Jon. There was a different atmosphere this time though; the entry hall had been filled with bustling humans and had a home-like if also tense feel to it before, but now it was empty and all I could feel was a sense of foreboding, as if the ship was plainly aware that it had a dangerous intruder and was trying to warn me about him. As I passed through my first hallway leading out I received a shock at the sight of the unmoving body of a female human sprawled on the floor. Kneeling down I felt her pulse and discovered to my own horror that she was dead. Sucking in a breath, I stepped over her shakily and continued along my way. I soundlessly crossed the scuffed floor, wary that the Weraynian could have been watching me. Using my intelligence though, I knew he wasn't. Logically he would be securing the ship's network and systems under his own control; that was how the Weraynians had always worked. Anyway, he wouldn't be worried by a Paladanian child like me. The average Weraynian could fight off at least two full grown Paladanians at once, others could battle even more.
Nonetheless I decided to tread cautiously, avoiding cameras and sensors as much as possible as I moved through the seemingly endless hallways, elevators and rooms of the ship. Examining my mental map of the spaceship from the day before, I knew that the circuit control room was on the fourth floor, in the centre control deck of the space craft. That was how it linked with everything around the ship. The technological advancement of the humans only distracted me a miniscule amount as I entered the places I hadn't explored before, each with their own wonderful mechanisms and internal design features. This, I thought, is how spaceships should be. Then I remembered that I was on a mission and refocused myself.
I found a sliding spiral staircase that led to the fourth floor and climbed it, and once I reached the top I put myself into silent mode; moving with as little friction as possible with the ground and suppressing my breathing rate. As my lungs began to slow I suddenly felt a flash of fatigue and swayed dangerously. I caught myself just before I came crashing to the floor and reprimanded myself silently. Exerting all my force into keeping myself moving and not tiring again, I continued; I had almost reached the central control rooms by this point and I could not afford to lose. I began to wonder where the people following me had got to, but dismissed the thought almost immediately because it really didn't matter. I had to focus on helping Sophie.
Finally, after a torturous time navigating the corridors, I found myself outside of the circuit control room where Sophie and the Weraynian were. Their voices were muffled as they carried through the thick walls to where I was. Fearing what I might see, I pressed my palm against the wall and closed my eyes.
I was greeted with the sight of the circuit control room from the opposite vantage point to before. On the opposite wall was Sophie's destroyed communicator, which I was sure would be mourned by her later on. Tweaking parts of a circuit panel on the leftmost wall was the Weraynian, and sitting watching him helplessly on the floor was Sophie, tragically sporting a broken arm. She winced in pain as she shifted ever so slightly, trying to sit further up but failing. She was left trying to mount herself up on one elbow, while holding her other arm close to her chest. Her hammer lay on the floor across the room, the handle completely splintered despite being made of iron. I shuddered as I realised how badly Sophie's attack on the Weraynian had been. I concentrated on her face, trying to understand what she was thinking, but strangely all I could read from her was curiosity.
She leaned in a bit to say something and I realised that she and the Weraynian had been conducting a conversation before I'd arrived. Interesting.
"I still don't understand; why don't you want to work peacefully with the rest of the Staarus System?" she asked with intrigue. "Your people are clearly hard workers, and I'm sure the other planets would recognise you for that, quite apart from all the technological achievements you've managed."
"We are superior and we will not be forced to submit to Paladanian rule or any other." The Weraynian answered coolly, though I sensed a tone of bitterness behind his words. "They put us inside that force field, so now they must pay the consequences."
"And so you used my people to get back at them?" Sophie questioned as her eyes flashed. "They're an innocent race; they don't have anything to do with your stupid war!"
The Weraynian turned to look at her, and I saw his eyes like deep pits. He had a mocking smile on his face.
"An innocent race?" he laughed evilly and I shivered involuntarily at the sound. "Oh, if only you knew. Your people are more corrupt than most, almost completely rotten to the core. Take for example how easily they believed our little deception. It wasn't just because my people are good; your other human fellows were desperate to wage war on some other pitiful race and we just gave them an incentive to do it."
Sophie scowled. "You can say that, but I don't see my people waging war on the rest of the universe just because it's different. And at least humans have some morals; Weraynians don't have any."
"You are correct." He answered, still smiling creepily. "We don't have the abstract concept that you call morals. Instead we have power and the means to use it. The world is structured wrong, can't you see it? It needs my people to put it right, by means of Weraynian rule. We are better, and we will stop all discord among people across the universe. You will all be the same, because you will have no need of culture, or independence, or individuality. Your purpose is to be under our power, and that is a purpose we intend to fulfill for you and all other beings."
"Wow." Sophie stared at him for a moment in contemplation. "You really have a dictatorship thing going on there don't you? Besides, you're missing the point; before your people started causing trouble, this planet, in fact this entire system, was at peace. People were happy, and safe, and free. You want to take that away from them, but first you took it away from yourself. The Weraynians could all be so beautiful, and yet you're set on destroying everything! If only you could see things the way we do, you could understand just how amazing the universe is already."
The Weraynian stopped for a moment, as if considering her words, and then he snorted in derision. He turned back to the control panels on the wall. "This prattle is meaningless. It doesn't change anything that is to happen and....."
His voice became muffled again as I moved my hand off of the wall, and stood still, staring at the wall. Sophie had tried to negotiate with the Weraynian; the Weraynian! If only she understood that it was in their very nature to be evil, then she would stop trying to change him and work towards trying to stop him again. I supposed it was up to me to save the day.
I turned ninety degrees and started walking off, planning to try and find any other survivors, captured or not on this ship. But at that very moment a door slid open behind me and I heard a voice that chilled me to the core.
"Hello Paladanian," greeted the Weraynian smugly.