Flauraan

Chapter Nine

Chapter nine

I burst into the Counsel meeting room, causing each of its occupants to stare at me as the doors swung shut in the back. I stood there panting as they took me in, having run the whole way from the forest in a frantic rush.

“Abigail?” one of the leaders, Sharna, asked hesitantly. I noticed that there were more leaders here than there were before; leaders from the Capitol, clearly here in an advisory capacity. “What are you doing here?”

“I went through the force field.” I answered and then watched as the leaders all sat up straighter, their eyes wide.

“How?” Lau, one of the other leaders, asked with his eyebrows drawn together accusingly.

“Sophie took me through, using her teleport watch.” I explained quickly. “We talked to some of the humans, and, um, we found out why they’re here… and why they want to attack us.”

Everyone seemed to be holding their breath in the moment before I spoke my next words.

“It’s the Weraynians!” I said all in a rush, causing gasps and cries of outrage throughout the room. “They set it all up, by sending out a phony distress signal that the humans picked up. Somehow they breached the shields around Werayne, and they got a ship through.”

The leaders stared at me in shock as I continued. “The Weraynians told these humans that us Paladanians had attacked and captured one of their fellow humans’ spacecraft, and so that’s why they’re so adamant to attack us now.”

There was a moment of silence, then; “No, that’s not possible!”

This was followed by a rough outbreak of yelling, as each leader had something to say about Werayne and how the humans couldn’t possibly have been there. I stood patiently in the centre of the chaos, strangely reminded of the earlier argument amongst the humans. Our two races were very similar in some ways, I thought.

“That’s not all though.” I added darkly, when a lull in the heated bickering showed up.

All eyes instantaneously were on me again.

“What else is there, then?” One of the leaders from the Capital asked in a solemn tone.

I turned my eyes on him. “Tomorrow morning, at dawn, the humans are going to set off an electromagnetic bomb at the force field, with as much power they can muster. If it takes out the force field, then most surely the town will be destroyed as well, or at least most of it.” I said. “And even that isn’t everything. The humans sent for reinforcements, lots of them. They plan on taking over the entire planet.”

“The things you are saying could not be easily done. The force field surrounding Werayne is impenetrable, and so should be the one surrounding the human vessel.” The same leader informed me. “How can you be so sure that these things you state are true?”

“Is Reeina here, the Paladanian leader?” I looked desperately around the room for the powerful leader from the night before. “She’ll be able to confirm the things I saw.”

“Yes, I’m here.” I heard a soft voice from the back of the room, and turned to see Reeina striding forward, hand outstretched. Once she reached me, she folded her fingers around my palm. “Show me.”

I closed my eyes and concentrated on the things I’d seen; the message coder in Jon’s room and the words it purveyed, the room full of weapons, the conversation with Jon about the Weraynians, the brawl in the dining hall. Reeina gave a slight gasp as I showed her, and I opened my eyes to see a tear tracking down her cheek.

“It’s true.” She whispered, and I nodded sadly. Then she turned to face the other leaders in the room. “Everything she said about the Weraynians and the humans is true, at least from her knowledge.”