Beyond the Empyreal Stars

13.

13.

Duke felt like he didn't know anything anymore.

Just twelve minutes before, he'd been with the girl of his dreams, only he hadn't understood what she was talking about when she said the world was about to change.

He did when the giant spaceship appeared in the sky above the Ellipse...and when the Secret Service agents pulled him away from the window and to his family as they were quickly swept down the hallway...and when Odette disappeared through a door he knew led outside.

What he couldn't understand was why his mom and dad and Graham had insisted they go outside and see what was going on up close and personal. The Secret Service was fighting them on the matter on their way the secret staircase that led down to a bunker built to withstand a nuclear attack. Finally, his father told them he absolutely refused to be 'put in a tin can' while his country might be on the verge of war, whether it be with a country with advanced aircraft and weaponry or another species all together that wasn't from Earth.

The latter was turning Duke's stomach into nervous knots.

Without their consent, the president, along with his wife, children, and best friend Graham, made their way out of the White House. The Secretary of Defense, Ben Childs, tried his best get them back inside and to safety. And as they made their way out onto the South Lawn with a circle of ten military men surrounding them, and then across the President's Park to the Ellipse, he continued his quest to get him back in.

Duke had a hard time listening as they finally stepped foot onto the grass. It was then that shots were fired from the distance, only to be reflected off some kind of force field that surrounded the ship.

There was no way this ship was from Earth.

"Hold your fire!" one of the men called.

He was watching as the crowds of people parted at one spot behind a Humvee, staring in shock at the five people who walked forward.

The people he'd gotten to know over the past few months, all dressed like they were in the military themselves, though it wasn't any uniform he'd ever seen before. His eyes shifted to the girl in front, seeing the four silver pins on the lapels on her shoulders, the medals and stripes pinned to her chest. Obviously, she was a well decorated soldier wherever she came from...

And, when he looked at her face, it was Odette, flanked on either side by Nova, Bas, Padric, and the Warin guy he'd only met once. His stomach wasn't just in knots then, but he felt as if he'd been punched repeatedly in the stomach by a heavyweight boxing champion.

"Yes, please, if you would hold your fire," Odette called out, turning to look at the man who gave the orders.

But just as she did, Duke saw one of the younger Guardsmen shift, firing a single shot toward her. He wanted to scream, but she moved just as the bullet flew by, merely grazing the side of her neck. Where he should have saw the red of blood, though, he only saw silver.

Her blood.

"I said hold your fire!"

Odette had lifted her hand to the wound just as Nova pressed a cloth to her. And after she wiped away the rest of her silver blood, only the smooth skin of her neck was there. No bullet graze, nothing.

"They...they shot her and she..." Lizzie stuttered from beside him. She reached over and grabbed their mom's hand, who held her close to her side, murmuring that there was nothing to be afraid of.

When Odette and the others started forward again, the giant spaceship lowered to the ground, its engines powering down. His eyes weren't on the people – not people...aliens – who started down the ramp when the back opened up, but Odette, who was greeting them with a bow. The woman who stepped out first looked about his parents' age and must have been like a mother to Odette by the way she was speaking with her. They all had light blond hair and Duke knew they must have had the same blue eyes Odette and the others had.