"Abigail!" Mum called out, as Sophie and I approached the house. It was a relief to see her again. She ran forward as we got closer, and dad followed behind her. Even from that distance, I could tell how worried they both were. I wondered how long they'd been waiting for me.
I glanced at Sophie beside me, taking in the anxious look on her face. The walk home had been mostly done in silence, with both of us thinking about the night's events. I knew Sophie somehow felt responsible for this whole affair, with her people and their attempt at attacking us. I gave her hand a squeeze before turning to face my parents. A moment later I ran forward and wrapped my arms around mum. She sobbed into my shoulder with dad consoling her from behind. Mum pulled away and started shaking me wildly.
"What were you thinking?" she shrieked. "Running off in the dark like that, towards that ship!"
"It... it was a spaceship." Was the only thing I could think to say. "Mum, I'm sorry."
"Do you have any idea how worried your father and I were?" she asked. "You could've been captured, or worse, killed!"
"Oh come on, mum, I'm not that stupid am i?" I joked in a quiet voice.
Mum smiled through her tears, then blinked and noticed Sophie standing behind me. "Who's that?"
"I was about to ask the same thing." Dad said coldly, looking suspiciously at Sophie.
"Um, yes." I started. "This is my friend Sophie. I met her in the woods about forty minutes ago, she was following the ship that landed in the field, and she's a human, like the people who came on the ship. She came with me to the town square to tell the leaders what we'd discovered, and they asked if Sophie could stay with us tonight."
Mum looked between the two of us, Sophie and me, in bewilderment. Dad stared at Sophie with a hard expression for about a minute, trying to work out whether to trust her or not.
"Is that alright?" I asked eventually.
Mum shook her head to clear it, then put on a warm smile.
"Of course it is, Abigail." She said, and then turned to Sophie. "It's very nice to meet you, Sophie."
"Thank you." Sophie looked relieved. She shook dad's outstretched hand, grinning. "It's nice to meet you too."
After that we were ushered inside by mum, who fussed over us in the lounge room, as we explained exactly what had happened.
"So the humans came to attack our town?" dad asked after we'd finished.
"As far as we know." I replied. "They had guns and other weapons and were following a map."
"The force field will only last about a day, you said." Mum said quietly, clutching a cup of tea in her hands.
"That's what the leader told us." Sophie explained. "He said we should be fine just for tonight, but tomorrow anything could happen."
Mum nodded, looking pale. "It's quite late now." She glanced out the window. "We should all be getting to bed."
"Alright." I nodded, then turned to Sophie. "You'll be sleeping in my room, if that's alright."
"That's absolutely fine." She answered. "Thanks for letting me stay."
"You're very welcome." Mum said for me. "Now you two, off to bed."
I led Sophie through the hallway towards my bedroom. It was quite small, inside was just my bed, desk and clothes chest. There was enough space on my floor for a person to lie though, as Leila had come for a sleepover many times before she'd gone to Halapatov. I left Sophie in there to get ready for bed, and went back out into the hallway to our linen cupboard. Up the top of the cupboard was our makeshift, rollup mattress, which only Leila had ever used before. I grabbed it and took it back to my room, knocking on the door before entering. Sophie had taken off her boots and changed from trousers to shorts, but apart from that she was dressed the same. I rolled out the mattress and laid it on the floor, then turned around to face Sophie.
"Did you want me to get you a blanket or something?" I started to ask, but Sophie was already pulling a red blanket out of her bag.
"No thanks." She grinned at me, and I shook my head mockingly.
"Ready for anything aren't you?" I said, and she nodded.
"I kinda have to be." She replied, then looked a bit awkward. "Erm... I'll wait outside while you get changed." She walked out and closed the door.
I got changed quickly, and let Sophie back in.
"Ready for bed?" I asked her.
"As I'll ever be." She replied, for no apparent reason.
"Um, alright." I said, and switched my light off.
Sophie and I both lay down, me in my bed and Sophie on the mattress. We lay there in silence for a while, trying to sleep. After about half an hour I realised that just wasn't going to happen. I rolled onto my back, and sighed. I was much too worked up to sleep. So much had happened today, and I knew that the next few days would be just as exciting and terrifying. Glancing at Sophie's slumped silhouette in the darkness, I could tell she was still awake. Poor Sophie. First day on a new planet and she'd been plunged into trouble, just like the rest of us. I wondered if every day was like this for her. Well, maybe not exactly not like this; I'd be quite surprised if she followed a human ship to a planet and met a fourteen year old local every day. I chuckled quietly to myself at the thought, and sighed again. Sophie turned her head at the sound.
"Are you awake?" she whispered.
"Yes." I whispered back.
"Wow, okay." She said, still whispering. "Trying to work out what to do tomorrow?"
"Nope." I replied, whispering back again. "Just can't sleep."
"Can I ask something, Abigail?" Sophie inquired.
"Sure." I turned my head to see her eyes blinking at me through the darkness. "What is it?"
"How come everyone just seems to trust me automatically?" she asked. "Like the leaders asked me hardly any questions about what I was doing here and just seemed to trust everything I said. And the same with your parents, once you'd told them who I am they were suddenly fine with me."
"Remember what I said earlier about Paladanians understanding things?" I whispered.
"Yeah." Sophie whispered back.
"Well we can also tell whether someone's trustworthy or not." I told her. "Just by looking in their eyes."
"Oh." Sophie said.
After another bout of silence I turned to Sophie again.
"Sophie, what do you think's going to happen?" I asked her quietly. "I mean tomorrow, with the humans."
"I don't know." She replied just as quietly. "Something bad, I fear."
"You're going to try and fix it, aren't you?" I said.
"I have to." She stated simply. Then she cleared her throat. "Well there's still the night to get through, so we should both get some rest."
"Alright." I agreed, though I doubted I would be able to sleep. Then I rolled over and closed my eyes. I must have drifted off eventually because the next thing I knew it was morning, and Sophie was moving around in my room.
"Finally, you're awake." She said, as I sat up and stretched. She was fully dressed and sorting through her backpack, obviously preparing for the day.
I got up and quickly changed, then Sophie and I headed out into the kitchen.
"What did you want for breakfast?" I asked her.
"I dunno, just bread or something." She said, then stopped and looked at me curiously. "Do you have bread?"
"Of course we have bread." I told her with an amused laugh, opening the kitchen cupboard and pulling out our bread bag. I cut her a slice, and grabbed a fruit for myself, as she dug into the piece of bread.
"Man, this is delicious." Sophie commented. "I haven't had real bread in ages."
"Why not?" I asked, confused.
"Well there isn't much real food available on my planet now; we have more synthetic food and substitutes." Sophie explained. "I carry some of the synthetic around with me but nothing beats real food."
"Oh-kay." I wondered what it must be like to not eat real food every day. The humans were so different to us. Maybe that's why they had an advantage at the moment.
After breakfast Sophie and I popped out to the garden, where mum was sitting, reading to keep her mind off the current crisis.
"We're going up the hill mum." I said.
"Whatever for?" mum looked up worriedly from her book.
"Just to check out the situation." Sophie assured her. "See if we can see what they're doing, nothing more."
"And we might go to town after and talk to the Council leaders again, ok?" I told mum.
"Okay." Mum smiled weakly at us. "Just tell me before you do anything dangerous, you promise?"
"I promise." I kissed her on the cheek. "See you later."
"See you." She replied, and then went back to her book.
Sophie and I headed back through the house, then out the front door. Even from there a spiral of smoke could be seen from the valley where the ship was. Grimacing at the damage the humans had done already, I trudged up the hill with Sophie, and took in the view. The force field could be vaguely seen in the air far in front of us, electric blue and shimmering. Beyond it we could see the tree line, and the spaceship, looming huge and grey over the field.
I could just make out people guarding the ship, and other people just wandering around, doing whatever. Looking over to the border of town, we could see an encampment of more humans. They looked like they had technology with them, experimenting and attacking the force field with it. From that distance I couldn't see properly, but it seemed like they were doing a good job at trying to break through. After looking over all this, I turned to look at Sophie.
"What are we gonna do now?" I asked her.
She thought for a moment. "I guess we go to town and see what the leaders are doing." She said distantly, her eyes fixed on the spaceship. "Then we can work from there."
"Alright." I replied, grabbing Sophie's hand and leading her back down the hill. She had a lost look on her face, as if the sight of the spaceship had reminded her of some sad memory.
As we reached the road to town, she blinked rapidly and the look disappeared. For the duration of the trip Sophie and I talked plans to stop the humans. We didn't get very far, seeing as we didn't have very much information on them. We did decide that if we could just get through the force field without the humans getting through on the other side, maybe we could do something to get the humans on our side. But we still had no idea how to do this, and we weren't getting any closer to figuring it out.
Eventually we reached town, and rushed back to the town square, which was surprisingly empty, compared to how full it was last night. There were only a few odd people milling around, waiting for something. I assumed the leaders were having a meeting in the Council building. I glanced at Sophie as we walked up the stairs towards the entrance. The last time we'd been in this square she'd looked so nervous, now she was showing a steel resolve to stop her people from doing whatever they were doing. It was an interesting change. Walking through the main doors, we were stopped by two guards, who told us the leaders were in an important meeting and were not to be disturbed. We started arguing with them, until a leader came into the hallway to see what the fuss was about. He stopped short when he saw Sophie and me standing there.
"It's alright, we were expecting them." he told the guards, and quickly led us down the hall.
"You were?" Sophie asked the leader.
He gave her a tired look. "Yes, we were. I personally thought you would have tried to get through the force field first, but-"
"How do you know we didn't?" Sophie interjected, making the leader glare at her.
He didn't answer and strode forward in annoyance, pushing open a pair of doors at the end of the hallway and pointing us inside.
Walking through the doorway, I was met with the sight of the Council meeting room. It was a gigantic room, with a high arching ceiling and beautiful architecture. There was a long wooden table surrounded by chairs situated in the middle of the room, and around the edge of the walls were small podiums topped with obviously important artefacts. There were large rounded windows set in the walls, with deep red curtains across them to hide the outside world. The populace of the Council was seated at the table having muttered conversations, but looked up in surprise as Sophie and I entered, followed by the leader who'd brought us in.
Ray, the leader who'd spoken with us last night, was the first to regain composure, as usual.
"Abigail, Sophie!" he greeted us, striding towards us. "We were wondering if you two would turn up. Why exactly did you want?"
"To find out what you were doing about the human situation, naturally." Sophie replied calmly. "What are you doing?"
Ray looked uncomfortable. "We've been discussing what to do." He told us.
"Have you come up with anything yet?" I asked warily, glancing at Sophie, wanting to stop any snide comments from her.
"Not yet." Ray replied sadly.
The other leaders in the Council looked slightly insulted. One Paladanian leader with thick eyebrows and a pompous expression on his face spoke up;
"Ray, you should not speak for the Council so brashly." He barked, then turned to look at Sophie and me. "This so called human situation is a very delicate matter. The Council has been discussing ways to deter this attack by the humans, and trying to discover the motives they had to attack us in the first place."
"Well good luck discovering that by sitting in here." Apparently Sophie couldn't talk to anyone without mocking them.
There was an uncomfortable moment as practically everyone in the room just glared at Sophie, until she had the sense to say; "Sorry."
The leader from before still looked at her with narrowed eyes.
"Just because we don't go about things the way you would like us to, does not mean you have the means to insult us. Now what exactly did you want, before you go?"
"What are you doing about the human situation?" Sophie repeated to the leader exasperatedly.
"You have been told already." The leader said coldly.
"Yeah, but you haven't told us any of your plans." Sophie said quite rudely.
I watched the flustered faces of many of the leaders in the room as they reacted to this comment. Part of me was finding Sophie's banter quite amusing, and the other part was trying to work out how to stop her talking. It turned out that I didn't actually have to do anything.
"The exact nature of the Council's plans is none of your business." The leader practically roared at her. "Now would you please spare us your mindless prattle and leave us in peace!"
Sophie opened her mouth to reply, but I put my hand on her arm and tried to appeal to her.
"It's okay, Sophie, we don't need to know anything else. Come on let's go."
She looked conflicted just for a moment, but I knew she could see the sense of my words. Finally she nodded.
"Ok then." She said, and then turned back to the leaders. "Thanks for um, nothing." She gave them a parting wave and we left the room. I glanced sideways at Sophie as we retreated back down the hallway. I still couldn't believe how rude she had been to the leaders. She chuckled as she noticed the look I was giving her.
"What?" she asked. "Was I too blunt?"
I laughed too. "Oh, just a bit."
We laughed together as we walked out of the building, earning ourselves weird looks from all the people in the square.
We crossed the square and left, heading down the road towards my house on the edge of town. At one point Sophie stumbled and tripped on something, making us both crack up laughing again. I picked her up off the road and we kept going. Maybe it was a bit uncaring of us to be laughing with a possible invasion in the near future, but hey, it was just nice to have someone I could laugh with again.
"So what are we going to do now?" I asked once I'd managed to stop laughing.
"Well Abigail," Sophie began, suddenly serious again. "Here's the plan. First we find out why the humans are here."
"That sounds more like an objective than an actual plan." I commented, and Sophie stopped to stare incredulously at me.
I blushed. "Sorry, continue."
Sophie cleared her throat and obliged. "Once we've done that we try to change the humans' minds about fighting your people and then we can all celebrate."
I rolled my eyes for about the hundredth time in the past two days. "Nice plan."
Sophie looked slightly offended for a moment, but then she got that it was a joke and just looked at me seriously.
"Come on then, let's go." She said, and we set off down the road again.