The Soul of Ten

Chapter Nine

5 March 2011

"Have you had any more ideas on how to find the others?" Sarah asked. Connor looked up from the book he was reading so that he could see her. She'd just come in from the balcony and was leaning in the doorway smiling at him.

He put his book down on the coffee table by his knee and leaned backwards, threading his fingers together behind his head. Sarah was wearing a yellow sundress and had pulled her hair back into a ponytail.
"I might have had a couple." He frowned at his own words "Or one, actually. But it's a good one. I promise."
"Are you going to share or am I just going to have to take your word for it?" she asked playfully as she walked into the room properly and sat on his lap.
"I'm not sure. What do I get for sharing?" he smirked at her and she laughed a little. Rather than answer she adjusted herself on his lap a little and then started jabbing at his side with her fingers. Connor playfully pushed her away and, when she fell backwards, caught her with his telekinesis, holding her in the air.

"Hey!" she pouted "No fair."
"You started playing dirty first." He lowered her to the floor gently and then held out his hand to pull her to her feet. She took it but he pulled too hard, on purpose, and she fell onto him in the chair, both of them laughing together.

"So are you going to tell me how we're going to find the others or should I guess?" Sarah asked. She pushed herself away so that she was carrying her weight on her arms, which were pressed to the back of the chair on either side of his head.
"Where's Ella?" he asked, completely changing the topic.
"Practicing with one of the bows downstairs." Sarah replied "Are you sure we should let her do that unsupervised?"
"She's fine. She knows all of the safety stuff. She might be young but we can't afford to coddle her. We're at war. War isn't safe."
"Fine. But you still haven't answered my first question." She jabbed him in the side with one of her fingers again.

"Get Ella and meet me in the War Room. It's about time I showed you something." Sarah nodded and climbed off of his lap. She disappeared through one of the two doorways that led further into the house.

He waited for her to leave before he pushed himself out of his seat and made to follow her. He walked through the doorway and down the corridor, ignoring the doors on his right which opened into bedrooms.

He reached the spiral staircase at the bottom of the hall and started to climb up. Sarah would have gone down, to the ground floor where the kitchen and the training room were.

He walked down this corridor too, heading back the way that he'd came. He walked past an archway which was essentially just a corridor for access to the master bedroom, the one place in the house that he'd asked Sarah and Ella not to go in. Then he walked past the two bedrooms that belonged to Sarah and Ella and stepped through the door at the end.

The room he was standing in would have been a large sun room if it wasn't for the metal wall to his left. There were tables and chair scattered around so that someone could sit and enjoy the sun without ever having to go outside. It was useful considering the Louisiana weather.

He turned to the metal wall to his left and pressed his hand to the computer screen next to the door. The screen flashed green and there was a click as the door unlocked. He stepped through and pinned the door open with a chair that he moved without touching it.

This room was his pride and joy. There was an oval table in the middle of the room. There was currently ten chairs around it, although in one corner there was a stack of at least twenty. The centre of the table held a map of Earth and there were holographic projectors around it which, when switched on, could project a globe above the table. There was a computer screen built into the table in front of the ten seats and each of them had a keyboard built into the arm.

Three of the four walls had a door in them but the fourth was completely covered with computer screens. They were so close together that they looked like they were one, single screen and could be used like that if necessary. The computer processing power that ran through the room was incredible. Each computer in the table was an individual unit but it could be linked to the big screen to send information through. The big screen was always running, looking for any news of the Garde or the Mogadorians.

He sat in one of the chairs and tapped a few buttons in the arm of his chair. The globe appeared floating above the table. It was covered with symbols. There were two red triangles, both in America, one in West Virginia and the other in NOLA. There was also two red dots, one in NOLA and the second in Santa Teresa, Spain. There was a blue square, right on top of the triangle in West Virginia. Finally there was a small handful of yellow dots scattered across the globe.

"What's that?" Ella's voice startled him. He hadn't heard the girls arrive.
"Close the door behind you." He told them, not answering the question. Sarah did as he asked and he waited for the two girls to join him around the table "This is a representation of the most current information that I have on the Garde and Mogs. The red dots are us. Here and the last time we had contact with Marina and Six in Spain. The red triangles are Mogadorian strongholds. I know for a fact that they are both still there. The blue square is the only Loric chest that I know the whereabouts of."
"The Mogs have someone's chest?" Ella asked. Connor nodded.
"I think that means that they have one of us too but I don't know for sure."
"How did you find out about the chest?" Sarah asked.
"I asked nicely." Connor smiled sweetly and both girls knew not to ask any more. They probably wouldn't like the answer.
"What about the yellow dots?" Ella asked.
"Any information the computer finds that it identifies as possible Garde or Mog activity gets put on here as a yellow dot until I can investigate further."

The girls studied the globe for a couple of minutes and Connor let them.
"Is this what you wanted to show us?" Sarah asked eventually "I don't see how it helps."
"It isn't." he opened a draw in the table next to his computer screen and pulled out a little black box.

"This is what I brought you here to show you." He placed the box on the table.
"What is it?" Ella asked.
"It came from the ship which brought us here." He told them "I told you that I lived on the streets when we got to Earth." The two girls nodded "Before that I stayed with the pilot, a CĂȘpan called Janus. I wasn't with him for very long, we were spotted trying to hide the ship. Before the Mogs caught up to us Janus landed the ship and handed me this. He said that the Mogadorians couldn't get both it and the ship. If they got both he said it would be disastrous."

He pulled a wire from the draw and connected one end into the socket on the side of his chair arm and the other into the black box. A second later the screens around the table burst to life.
"At first I just thought it was because of all of this information." He watched as the two girls browsed through what was basically an encyclopaedia of everything Loric. Their eyes went wide in shock as they saw everything that was on the box "But I've been thinking about what Janus said to me. He said if he got both this and the ship. I think that when you plug this into the ship it'll show us the location of the other Garde."
"Why? Why do you think that's what he meant?"
"He said it would be disastrous. Specifically, it would be the death of you all." He looked at the two of them "He meant us. The Garde. If this device shows our location it would have been child's play to track us down and capture us all. Then, when we were all together and the charm was broken, they could kill us all with no casualties to themselves. A tracking device in the hands of the Mogadorians would have been a slaughter."

The two girls looked at him in confusion, as though they didn't know whether to believe him or not.
"Look, I know it's a bit of a stretch, and it doesn't get any better. But this is literally the only way I can think of to find the others."
"It doesn't get better?" Ella asked. She seemed unsure that she actually wanted to hear the answer.
"I don't know where the ship is. The Mogs took it and killed Janus. It's somewhere on Earth." He explained "But I know where I can get the information from. And you really aren't going to like it."
"This doesn't get any better." Sarah groaned.
"I need to visit this base." He pointed at the red triangle in New Orleans "And capture a Mogadorian officer."
"And I really don't want to know what you're going to do with him when you've got him do I?" Sarah raised an eyebrow.
"No. No you don't."

"You can find the ship?" Ella asked.
"Definitely. The issue is that the ship will, undoubtedly, be heavily guarded. I might not be able to get to it without the others. And I can't find the others without the ship."
"Everything you tell us makes this plan sound even crazier."
"If it sounds crazy and it works it ain't crazy." Connor replied easily.

"I'm going to go out tonight and catch an officer. With a little luck we'll have the information that we need by the morning and then we can hurry to find the others and win this war."
"We should come with you." Sarah told him "You'll have better chance with us than on your own."
"It's fine. I've done this hundreds of times. They won't know what hit them."

He stood from his chair and walked towards the door out of the room.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Sarah had followed him, leaving Ella staring at the globe floating over the table and the information on the screen.
"I'm not sure of anything anymore but it's the best idea that we've got." He replied easily. Sarah reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him around to face her.
"Just be careful." He nodded and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a hug.
"Look after Ella."