No Greater Love {Completed}

Page 10

"Pride comes before fall."
- Spanish Proverb

I had nothing to do for the next few days so I spent them with Aviana helping with the children and in the infirmary. It felt nice to be needed for once and for the first time in months I was genuinely happy.

She made me laugh and would tell me small things about how things worked on their old planet.

"We use to be a really kind and generous race, our planet was falling apart. Much like Earth's is, then... Our queen died and was replaced by Ariadene. That's when things changed and we unfortunately became more aggressive."

I nodded. "How did your queen die? I thought you all were immortal."

Aviana sighed deeply. "I'm not suppose to say. I've already said too much."

"Oh," was all I could think of.

"But I'll tell you if you swear to never tell anyone of what we talked about here."

I nodded. "Cross my heart."

She looked at me skeptically.

"It's an old human saying."

"Right, well. The only way we can have a new queen is if the current queen is... Challenged and killed, but she can't be challenged by just anyone. Often the queen has... Abilities, and those abilities are what separates her from the rest of our race. It's why everyone obeys her, no questions asked."

"So what's Ariadene's powers?"

Aviana didn't speak.

"I'm sorry if this is uncomfortable for you."

She shrugged and gave me a pleasant smile. Suddenly there was a banging on the infirmary door. "Come in."

The door was thrown open and two human servants were carrying my half conscious badly beaten brother.

"What happened?" Aviana and I both came rushing to his aid. I took one of is arms and threw it over my shoulder as I helped him into a bed.

"He got into a fight with another contender," one of the servants said breathlessly.

Aviana was already frantically working on him. "Jared I need your help!" I rushed over to her and her fear stricken eyes met mine. "I need you to hold him down! Don't let him move!"

I nodded and leaned over his upper body bracing him down. He moaned out in pain but didn't fight against me.

Aviana injected him with anesthetics and placed a scalpel to his abdominal.

"What are you doing!"

"There's internal bleeding and if I don't stop it he'll bleed out and die." I nodded and put my trust in her.

"I'm sorry, Shannon," she said before cutting open his flesh.

There was a terrible tearing sound mixed with Shannon's screams. He began to thrash violently.

"Hold him still, Jared!"

"I'm trying!" I put as much force as I could on him without hurting him anymore than he already was. Aviana pressed a button on what looked like some kind of remote control.

A robot like creature with glowing red eyes came to life from the corner of the room. It was unnerving. It seemed as if it were built for destruction. It moved and scanned Shannon over and started operating on him. It's hands nicked and sewed at his wound then began to clean up all the blood that had spilt into his body where it shouldn't be.

It looked at Aviana. "Do you need further assistance?" It asked Aviana with its head cocked to the side.

"Could you clean the blood please?" She said before stitching Shannon's cut.

The robot scanned the room and itself then got to work. It went to the sink and pored some kind of yellowish liquid in along with water and quickly bathed itself.

"What is that?" I asked curiously. It was extremely intelligent and precise for such a creation. I had never seen anyone else with something like it.

"Well I haven't exactly named it yet, but he's my assistant. I built himself."

"Wow I'm impressed." I watched as robot cleaned the floor.

"Would you like for me to quarantine you? My scanners indicated that you too are covered in blood." The robot spoke looking at its master.

"No thank you."

"As you wish, however I must warn you. The patient's blood is irregular and showing signs of a possible virus."

"What do you mean virus?" I looked at the machine, and it looked back at me and scanned me.

"I do not know this virus. It is not in my database. However, my scanners indicate that you too are infected." It turned to its master. "Shall I take samples for further analysis?"

"No, you can shut down," Aviana said with a trembling voice.

"As you wish." With that the robot went back into its corner and shut off.

"What the hell is it talking about?" I snapped.

"I don't know!"

"Am I getting sick? Do I have an STD?"

"I don't know! If you did it should have registered that, and it should have been recognizable. I don't understand. I put every virus, illness, and every possible condition both from the human world and my world. I don't understand why it would say that it's not in its database." She thought for a long time. "Maybe it needs calibrating, but just to be safe. Jared could I have a sample of your blood? And I will also need your brother's and another human for reference."

I nodded and rolled up my sleeve. Aviana took a needle and placed it into a vein withdrawing two large test tubes of my blood the. Proceeded to do the same to Shannon.

"I'll let you know once I find something, and I'd probably be best if Shannon stayed here over night. I'll keep an eye on him."

"Thank you," I said before leaving.