"This is so freaking crazy," Lexa muttered while sitting in the pilot's seat, fiddling with buttons and dials. I had no clue this ship was even capable of flying, suddenly I wished I had paid more attention on the school tours of this museum section, instead of making jokes about this junky box with Cimorene. Now our lives depend on this bucket of bolts remaining intact while we burst from our atmosphere. Bet you never thought I would actually be flying in this janky thing, did you Cim?
"We're ready," Zophie says as she buckles into the copilot's chair. Crayon drops into a seat beside me, shifting his swaddled backpack so the baby is in front of him. Makai and Thalia squirm impatiently in my lap as I struggle to fit the belt over us.
"Zophie should take one of them in her lap," Lexa suggests over her shoulder. "It will be safer for them if you only have one buckled with you." Zophie has already unbuckled and reached behind her chair for one of my Garde.
"You can take Thalia for now," I agree, leaning forward to hand the small girl over. We had left Thalia's chest in the cargo bay, her faithful chimaera guarding it while taking refuge with all the other creatures. When everyone is buckled in, Lexa hits one last button and the whole ship shakes as the engines rumble to life.
Makai whines as the loading doors behind us slam close, and the ship tilts upwards, pushing us back in our seats. From our view in the cockpit, we stare at the domed roof of the museum, barely a foot away from the nose of our ship.
"I'm guessing this thing isn't retractable." Lexa says quietly. Everyone aboard the ship is silent as we wait for her next move. Only one way to get into orbit, and that's through this glass ceiling. I hug Makai closer to my body, preparing to shield his head from the impact. From the corner of my eye I notice Crayton doing the same for the child he has. Zophie reaches across to Lexa and squeezes her upper arm encouragingly with her left hand, and hugs Thalia tight with the other.
"Well crew, we're about to see just how well of a job we did refurbishing this old thing." Lexa exhales deeply, her hand grasping the throttle.
"Let's do this." Zophie breathes, clenching Lexa's arm tighter.
"Earth or bust," I mutter under my breath just before Lexa flips the final switch and slams the lever forward. Death in a fiery explosion, or death by torture or enslavement of those Mogadorian bastards. Neither option seems very good, but better to die by our own choice then those beasts, like Cimorene.
It feels like Lexa has just lit a bomb. Fire fills the room below us, our craft is shaking so hard it feels like it could fall apart, ending our desperate escape before we have even begun.
Instead we punch straight through the ceiling. The thick glass shatters upon our impact, glittering as it catches the light from the flames around us. Once we're through, we have a sweeping view of the city. What's left of it that is.
My beloved city is a fiery wreck, the damage so widespread there was nothing else to see. From the air, many parts of it are unrecognisable, smouldering scars where vibrant neighbourhoods once stood. My home is gone. All of our homes. Just like that. The Spires of Elkin, which held at least a third of our city's people have been obliterated. It's hard to look at, but I can't take my gaze off the mass destruction.
"It's all gone," Zophie whispers. "Our planet. Our homes."
We move higher than the destruction, through the wall of smoke from our burning city. When we are past the haze, I let out a loud gasp. Only now can we see the enemy warships, jagged and gray. Countless in number, a merciless firing squad locked onto our planet. We can see smaller shuttles leaving the warships to attack the surface. In the middle is a pearly sphere, floating like a dim moon that all the other vehicles seem to orbit.
"How can this be happening?" Crayton asked in disbelief.
"We never even stood a chance," I shake my head sadly as we shoot past their fleet, by some miracle Lexa has our course going through a hole in their formation. Once we are past them, it seems like we are just shooting into vast, black emptiness. It takes a moment for our successful escape to sink in. We actually made it. Somehow we are still alive.
"By the Elders," Zophia whispers finally, breaking our silence. Crayton whispers soft reassurances to the baby in his arms, but tears soak his cheeks like the rest of us.
"We actually made it," I breathed out loud. Lexa unbuckles, and the rest of us follow suit. Zophia hands Thalia to me before turning back to Lexa.
"Where's the other ship? Can you find it?" She asks Lexa.
"I'm getting a Loric signature from a ship that has stopped some distance from the planet, but it's a weak signal. We're too far away from it already." Lexa shakes her head.
"We have to turn back," Zophie insists. "Head towards it, please Lexa. We'll all travel to Earth together." Lexa takes a moment to click through some screens on our console.
"I don't think we can," She mumbles as she sifts through the different screens. "From my calculations, that ship is too far away from us now, and we barely have enough fuel to get to Earth as it is. We're going to be relying on momentum for a good part of our journey."
"We were lucky to get away unharmed," Crayton adds, hugging the infant closer to himself.
"Unless you know about a fuelling station somewhere between here and Earth, turning back around to find the other ship would mean suicide." Lexa shakes her head. Zophie doesn't seem convinced.
"Then contact the other ship," Zophie insists, "They'll be operating on an emergency channel, or the Council channel. We could,"
"We can't." Lexa cuts her off.
"What are you talking about?" Zophia scoffs.
"Those alien ships might intercept the transmission," Crayton says slowly. "What if they use it to follow us?"
"Or to get the other ship?" I added. Rey and Nikio need to make it. We can't mess that up.
"We are in a giant white rocket that just shot through the sky," Zophia shouts in frustration. Makai and Thalia claw at my shirt uncomfortably. "We didn't exactly make a subtle exit, they have to already know we are here. The other ship too."
"We can't." Lexa repeats louder, more urgently. "We can't contact them because this ship was refurbished to be an exact replica of the older ones, meaning its communication systems were never upgraded. The other ship runs on a different com system."
Zophie is about to argue again, but lets out a whimper instead. The baby in Crayton arms has awoken and begins to cry very loudly.
"What does that mean?" Crayton asks, looking between the two girls. From the port window, we can see Lorien burning.
"It means that we are alone now," Lexa explains.
"We just left them," Crayton muttered. "We left everyone to die," He starts to spout out names and apologies as tears stream down his cheeks. Zophie is the only one not crying, she keeps scanning the area of space ahead of us, searching for something but finding only stars and planets.
"You've got to be kidding me," Lexa groans suddenly, snapping my attention back to the console screens.
"What is it?" I ask her nervously.
"We made a fast start out, but it cost us a lot of fuel. More than I thought it would." She runs a hand through her short dark hair. "Which means that we have a long flight ahead of us."
"How long?" Crayton asks.
"About one and a half years." She scoffs, slamming her hand down on the console. Nothing changes, our numbers stay the same. Over a year to get there.
"Sukan," Makai cries softly. "Nikio?" He asks.
"It's okay, little buddy," I hug him and Thalia closer to me. "Nikio is safe, and so are you. We are all safe now, we're gonna be okay,"
"Cimiree?" Thalia asks, her brown eyes watery from crying.
"No," I shook my head sadly. "She's not coming. I'm your cepan now, Thalia. I'm Sukan."
"Suke?" She repeats, looking from me to Makai. She yawns after a moment, and Makai follows suit.
"Poor bugs must be exhausted," Zophie mumbles. "They have had quite an eventful night. Maybe we should let them rest."
"Set them up in one of the rooms to sleep, Ella too." Lexa agrees. "We'll make it our nursery."
It doesn't take us long to set up beds for the kids. Crayton finds some pillows and puts Ella down inside a pulled-out drawer in the room closest to the cockpit. I set Makai and Thalia up with a bed of pillows of their own across from the desk. As soon as their heads hit the pillows, they curl up together and doze off.
When we are content with their sleeping arrangement, the adults crowd into the small common area beside the galley, sitting on the benches so we can go over the events of the last few hours. No matter how many times we go over it, it still doesn't seem real.
"All those ships," Crayton scoffs. "Those bastards."
"Who were they?" Lexa asks. "What were they? I saw some of them die on my way to the museum. When they were wounded, they just disintegrated."
"Mogadorians," I spat in disgust. "Loridas told me they were Mogadorians."
"There were always rumors around the museum about an old conflict between us and another planet, Mogadore. Tales archivists and historians told when too many ampules had been passed around at parties. There wasn't any hard evidence, but just subtle hints that they were true. Nothing but speculation."
"Raylan talked about them often." Crayton tells us. "He had all these stories about secret wars just like you described. He was sure that his father had been a key figure in the conflict, and the tenth Elder before it was reduced to nine." He shakes his head.
"I always thought Raylan was a bit crazy," Zophie says. "But this is crazy. I remember hearing rumors that Raylan's father had been a traitor to the loric, which of course there was no evidence of. I think it's one of the reasons that he was so keen on donating so much money to the museum and getting this ship rebuilt. He wanted to show that his family was doing something positive for the people of Lorien."
We talked for quite a while about the monsters who invaded our planet. Zophie tells us all everything she had ever heard about them around the museum. Then we each recount our terrifying experiences of the invasion on our way to the ship. Crayton had a hoard of chimaera protecting him, the supplies, and most importantly, Baby Ella. Many brave creatures lost their lives to get them there. Zophie and Lexa both witnessed the monsters murdering innocent civilians, even the Garde couldn't stop some of them.
When it's my turn, I'm not even very sure where to start. So I tell them about the identity bands, and the warning Rey had before the first explosion.
"I saw that alert go out," v Lexa tells us. "Just before the attack, I was hacking into the Grid. I thought I could find something to expose the Elders to the public. The alert was about Garde, Loridas and the airstrip, sent out to ten mentor cepan's."
"That's the one," I nodded. "Rey got them two days before the attack, my friend Cimorene too. We were in a club called The Chimaera, watching Devektra perform when Rey's band went off. We knew we had to get to Nikio, so we took off. I didn't even get a chance to warn anyone, although I'm not even sure they would have believed me."
"How did you end up with two Garde?" Lexa asks.
"My father took Nikio away, and their grandmother wanted to fight, so she left my Garde, Makai behind with me." I pause for a moment, taking a deep breath before I tell them about Cimorene. Zophie grasps my arm and squeezes sympathetically when I get to the part about the beast tearing her apart, and the promise that was made.
"That little girl is lucky you were around," Crayton tells me. "She wouldn't have made it this far without you."
"We almost didn't," I admit. After telling them about getting Thalia, and teleporting to the airstrip, Lexa seems particularly interested in the part about Loridas.
"What exactly did he say to you?" She narrows her eyes. "How did he know about this ship?"
"I have no clue," I shook my head. "He just said that it had been foreseen that a second ship would be leaving our planet. So he gave me this stone," I pulled the red stone from my pocket to show them all. "And told me to picture the museum, and this ship. That's how I ended up in front of you all."
"Did he say anything else about the other ship?" Zophia asks.
"I can't remember much," I shake my head. "I'm sorry, it was all so crazy. He mentioned that the Garde would be separating on Earth, and that there was some charm connecting them all." I put the red stone back into my pocket. "Thalia isn't connected to them like she was supposed to be." I mumble. I'm sorry, Cimorene.
"Janus will get them there safely," Zophia says confidently. The pilot of the other ship, Janus, was Zophie's brother, which is why she wanted to communicate with them so bad. "Don't worry, Sukan. We will see our family again," It was hard to believe her words, so I just nodded my head. Stay safe, Rey. May we meet again on Earth someday.