Vai

"You can't kill him," I stepped into the room and put myself between her and the sleeping Starwatcher. Warpaint was quick to follow me and put himself between me and Esther. The Starwatcher had been placed on his back on the single bed in the room. Everything in the room was generic and boring. The only colors were white, gray and brown. The bedsheet the Starwatcher slept on was Gray with white trim.

"I need to kill you then," she said.

The red on Warpaint began to spread again.

"Wait, wait, wait." Owen came into the room and stood between Warpaint and Esther. He faced us as if he would protect Esther. The red on Warpaint retreated.

"Owen," I said, but he held out a hand to me as if that could stop all this madness.

Owen turned to the side so he wasn't facing anyone directly. "Why do you think you need to kill him?" he asked.

"You said you remembered me telling you about the dangerous aliens," she said.

"Starwatchers are not more dangerous than K'thaktra," I said.

"Not Starwatchers." She took a step to the side so she could look directly at Officer Hansi. She didn't take a step towards him or us. "The Corruption."

"The what?" Owen asked.

"He is a Starwatcher," I said. I looked at Owen. "I'm not sure she's all right, Owen. She might be dealing with some psychological trauma that is affecting her mind."

"I'm not," she said. "I know he's a Starwatcher. But the Corruption is inside him. They take over. They control you."

"Esther," Owen took a cautious step towards her, "we've never heard of the Corruption. There have been no reports of being taken over by an alien species."

Except...I tried to forget the drastic change that came over Thrissko, the pink fog of zek, the pain...so much pain it had caused me to scream for so long.

"Yes it has," Esther said. "Only it isn't known as the Corruption. It's known as zek."

"Esther," Owen said, "my friend, we've never heard of zek either."

But my blood went ice cold and tingled in my veins.

"Zek is a drug that was used by the K'thaktra during the war to build them up into a killing frenzy," Warpaint said. "It was all destroyed years ago."

"See, friend?" Owen said to Esther, but then he turned to me and said quieter, "You might be right, Vai, but that means she needs our help even more."

"No," I said. "I was wrong. She's not crazy."

Her face softened. For the first time since we meet her, her body seemed to ...well not exactly relax, but not be on such high alert.

"You know zek," she said.

"Zek was a real thing?"

"It was a real thing used in the war," I said. "I'm sure there must still be old videos of it. It was supposed to have been destroyed after the war."

"Your dad is very old. He was alive during the war. I'm sure he told you about it," Owen said.

I didn't say I was also alive during the war. I remembered vividly the videos of the K'thaktra surrounded by that pink sparkly fog as they tore humans, Bundu-jo and Starwatchers apart with their bare hands.

"Okay," Owen said when I didn't respond, "but it was a drug that was destroyed not some powerful aliens."

Esther looked at me. I looked at her.

"If it's not a drug," I said. I couldn't continue because if it wasn't a drug that meant that this powerful alien had been inside me. For whatever reason, coming on board the G.E.F. Shadow had cleansed me from it, but no one knew why except maybe my father. My father. He knew about zek. Did he know it wasn't a drug?

"You know more than you are saying," Esther said to me.

I turned to Owen. "I thought it was all destroyed, but that is what Thrissko was affected by on Mars. I tried to find other accounts of zek, but I couldn't find anything after the war. But if it's not a drug," I looked at Esther, "Thrissko put the pink fog inside my mouth."

Her body tightened and she took a step away from me.

"That's why I was screaming on the shuttle," I said to Owen. "I was in so much pain."

"But your eyeball was hanging out," Owen said, "you said Thrissko beat you up."

"He did, but there was also the zek. I stopped screaming once we got on the Shadow even though my eyeball was still hanging out and my bones were broken. I was screaming because of the zek."

"Then the Corruption didn't actually bond with you yet," Esther said.

"What?" Owen asked.

She took a step towards me, but Warpaint moved to put himself between us.

"I'm not going to hurt him," she said to the mechatronic. "I just want to look into his eyes."

I remembered the pink glint I had seen in Officer Hansi's eyes.

"But the zek isn't in me anymore," I said. "Like I said, it stopped when we got on the Shadow."

"Probably when you passed through the Aether Field," Esther said. "It kills them."

Owen stepped near the bed and Officer Hansi. "Then we don't need to kill him, we just need to take him through the Aether Field."

"It only worked with Vai because they hadn't bonded yet," Esther said. "Once, the bond is complete, it won't matter if you kill the Corruption inside him, he'll want more inside him and will do anything to make that happen. That's what the Corruption do. If you fight them, disobey them, they cause you unbearable pain, which is what Vai went through. It's what they all go through until they give in. You don't know what the pain is at first. You can't hear them in the beginning, but once you give in and do what they say, the pleasure is beyond belief. You will do anything for it and anything to avoid the pain. If the Corruption inside is killed, you will feel empty. You have already become addicted to the pleasure and will do anything to get it back."

"How did he get on board with it then, if it didn't work with me," I said.

"He probably didn't," Esther said. "I think someone managed to transport or teleport them on. I just haven't figured out how someone could transport them through the Aether Field."

"Oh no," Owen mumbled. He sat on the bed beside the sleeping Starwatcher. "No. That couldn't have been it."

"What?" Esther walked up to stand right in front of Owen. Warpaint side-stepped to let her pass him to be in front of Owen, but not in front of me.

My hand balled up into a fist to punch him for abandoning my friend, but I stopped myself. He was made of metal. It wouldn't do anything to him and it would hurt my hand. Besides, he was just doing what my father programmed him to do.

Owen sighed. "I was paid to bring on a small metal box. They said it would pass through the scans with anything inside undetected. I didn't think anything of it."

"How small?" Esther asked.

He measured it with his hands.

"Too small to fit enough of the Corruption," she said, "but maybe enough for a teleportation device. Then they could just teleport directly onboard without passing through the Aether Field."

"There hasn't been an actual successful teleportation device though," Owen said.

"Not in the Gathering," Esther said, "but the Corruption is much older than the Gathering races and much more advanced."

"Sir," Warpaint said, "I've tried to be patient, but there are so many crimes happening right now, I really think we should report Esther and Owen to the authorities."

"No," all three of us said at the same time.

"Warpaint," I said, "if there is a dangerous alien species running around out there unchecked and taking over the authorities, it would not be good for my health to report to these same authorities."

"We don't have evidence of aliens, sir," Warpaint said. "We only have the words of this girl who is much younger than you."

"I can show you evidence," Esther said. But she didn't move except to look at the ceiling. She bit her bottom lip.

"How do you know all this?" I asked. I believed her about the evidence, but it seemed for whatever reason it was difficult for her to show us. I remembered how she cried right after her fight with Warpaint. Something traumatic must have happened to her.

"I was on the Lion of Judah Research Station. Ever heard of it?"

Owen and I both shook our heads. Warpaint didn't offer if he had any information on it or not.

"Not many have," she said. "We didn't have much contact outside our station. It doesn't exist anymore anyway." Moisture formed in her eyes, but she blinked it away. "We found an alien that has never been mentioned in any Gathering records."

"The Corruption?" Owen asked.

"No," she said. "The Awakened One. It told us about the Corruption. When it learned about the K'thaktra war, it told us what the zek really was."

"Where is the Awakened One?" Owen asked. "How did you come here all alone?"

The tears were back, only this time she couldn't blink them away. Huge drops fell to her cheeks.

"The Corruption found us," she said. "I'll show you."

Her volo began to project what happened. There were people around her. Adults who pushed children back. Some people ran to the front as people came together and lines formed. They spoke in a language I didn't know. It wasn't Gatherish.

And then Esther was pulled away from the crowds, behind them. The volo didn't capture what pulled her, but it looked like two extremely large, hairy fingers on her arm. She didn't fight it. Her volo caught the sparkly pink fog, only this time it didn't surround any K'thaktra, it was by itself. It didn't touch the people at first. Not because it wasn't trying, it seemed like there was an invisible shield around the people. The people waved their arms through the fog and the fog would disperse briefly, but then...it was horrible.

Small holes formed on the people's flesh. Bumps formed within the skin as if something extremely tiny was moving around underneath. That was when their screams began, but it wasn't like my screams when the zek had been inside me. These were death screams and blood pooled out of them through their noses, through their mouths and eyes and through all the tiny little holes all over them.

A loud, low voice rumbled out from the projection. Esther responded to it. She was away from the people. Away from the pink fog. The low voice rumbled something else to her as she was pushed onto the shuttle. Tears streamed down her face as she started the shuttle and out to space. The projection cut off there.

Esther wasn't where she had been. She kneeled in a corner away from us with her back to us. Her body shuddered as she sobbed. Her volo moved to hover around her head once the projection ended. Owen got off the bed and went to hug her from behind. I walked over to her. I pushed Warpaint away when he tried to stand between me and Esther again. He let me put my hand on her shoulder, but he stayed very close.

We stayed that way until Esther's sobs stopped. "I don't usually cry this much," she said.

"It's okay," Owen said. "It must be difficult to relive it."

"What are they?" I asked. "The Corruption. It just looked like the pink fog of zek."

"That's what they look like congregated," she said. "Individually they are extremely small, pink and sparkly like the fog."

"If they can take over people, why didn't they do that on the Lion of Judah?" Owen asked. "Why did they kill them?"

She stood up, but didn't reply.

"If you're not ready to tell us," Owen said, "it's okay. You can tell us whenever you're ready."

"Thank you," she said to him. Her voice was soft.

"Did anyone else make it out?" I asked. "The Awakened One?"

She shook her head. "Only me." It was barely a whisper.

"Was the Awakened One the thing that led you to the shuttle?" I asked.

She nodded. "He stayed behind to hold them off while I got away."

"Then he is a hero," Owen said. "He saved you."

She scoffed. That was not the reaction I was expecting. Owen was surprised too.

"I didn't like him," she said when she saw our reactions. "He wasn't nice."

"But . . ." Owen started, but didn't finish.

"I'll tell you more when I'm ready. When I know I can really trust you," she said. "But for now, I'll say it wasn't for me, but for the knowledge he gave me. That was what he wanted to save."

She turned to the Starwatcher. "You've seen only a small portion of how dangerous the Corruption are. That is why we have to kill him."

"Oh no," Owen said.

"What?" Esther asked when he didn't continue.

"That metal box I told you about," Owen said. "I was told to put it in the museum. Vai, remember where we first met? Not the shuttle because you were too out of it."

"The museum." I said.

He nodded. "Remember who else was there?"

"The captain?" I asked.

"Yes. She was there the time and day I was specifically told to put the box there so unless you took the box . . ."

"The captain took it," I said.

"Then the captain is with the Corruption," Esther said. "We need to kill her too."