Vai

Everyone was screaming. Homes and roads across the city were destroyed. People were dead. But the worst was that they had been abandoned. They were alone inside their heads. There was no comforting presence to fill them with happiness and tell them they were doing the right thing. When it got difficult, the miasmids left them.

Waves and waves of pink clouds seeped down deep into the dirt, deeper and deeper into the world until the white destruction coming from the Gathering warships couldn't touch them.

The people sought shelter in their homes, in old bomb shelters, in underground tunnels that ran near the surface, but the white found and obliterated them everywhere they tried to hide.

The children had been in school with their teachers - away from their parents. Parents left their work or homes to find their children only to be killed by the white blasts. Teachers tried to comfort the children, but what comfort was there to be had when they had been so completely abandoned? The teachers couldn't keep track of all the children in the panic. Many children now ran in the streets, among the rubble that had been blasted from other areas of the city. They screamed and cried for their parents.

A little girl saw her mother running towards her across the street. She started forward only wanting to be in her mother's arms, but the white light came down and completely destroyed the entire street for as far as the little girl could see. Her mother was no longer there. The buildings were no longer there. A large crevice cut deep into the ground. The little girl almost tumbled in where she would have surely died, but an older boy grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. But that touch made the little girl realize she was in pain. Her bodied hurt, burned, scorched, was overheated and she cried. And the tears hurt as they touched her raw, burnt skin.

The miasmids could have taken her pain away if they had stayed inside her, but they had abandoned her long ago to hide deep within the planet - deep where the horrid weapons couldn't kill them. But she didn't hate them. She missed them. She craved them. She needed them.

I woke sitting straight up in my bed. My cheeks were cold. I reached up and gingerly touched my cheeks with my fingers. Wetness greeted my fingers. There were tears on my cheeks - in my heart. Then I realized my hands were shaking.

Please just let that have been a horrid nightmare.

"Son," my computer mom said.

I closed my eyes and let her familiar, welcome voice wash through me.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "Do you need a doctor?"

"No," I said. "I'm all right."

Had it just been a dream? Or had I touched the planet in my sleep? I knew I hadn't healed anyone. I felt more refreshed than earlier, not weaker. Had the Corruption truly abandoned the Brist? Did they hide away in the planet while the Brist died on the surface? Had my dream only been a dream - a manifestation of my worries - or had a little girl truly just watched her mother die?

I swallowed hard and pushed away the algae shake Warpaint forced in front of my face.

"You need to eat, sir," Warpaint said. "Your 2 hour break will be over soon and you'll have to go back out there to heal. You should drink this and get your nutrition." He shoved it back in front of my face. I took it from him, but didn't drink it immediately.

"Drink," my computer mom encouraged.

My bedroom door opened and my dad walked in. "Good, you're awake," he said.

"Drink your algae shake," he said too. "You need all the strength you can get. I heard you healed many of our people. I'm proud of you."

I nodded, but I couldn't shake my dream. "I couldn't heal everyone," I said. "Some of our people died from the Brist weapons instantly. I couldn't heal them."

"You are going to have a long life, son," my dad said.

I looked at him unsure. We were in the middle of a war after all.

"You won't be able to heal everyone," he went on. "And sometimes you shouldn't heal everyone. For example, the Brist are our enemy at the moment. When you are out there, you need to heal our people so that we can win. Once we win, then you can heal the Brist of the Corruption. When people die of natural causes, you should let them go. Don't try to extend someone's life just because you want to."

And I knew he was speaking of himself.

I brought the glass to my lips and drank the green sludge inside quickly. I handed the glass back to Warpaint when I was finished.

"I thought you would be on the bridge," I said to my dad.

"I was," he replied. "I wanted to see you before you went back out."

I nodded, but the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach wouldn't leave me. I couldn't shake my nightmare. It hadn't felt like a nightmare.

"I had a dream," I said, "that the Corruption had abandoned the Brist and were hiding deep in the planet where our weapons couldn't reach them. The Brist died on the surface while the Corruption remained hidden and safe. I'm not sure if it was just a dream. What if it is the reality?"

My dad didn't say anything as he contemplated. "If it is reality," he finally said, "what we are doing out there at the moment is only wasting resources."

"And killing innocent beings," I added.

My dad nodded.

"Do we have no way of monitoring the Corruption and where they are on the planet?" I asked.

"In the past," my dad said, "we knew where the miasmids were from people who were infected by zek frenzy. Or the pink haze. But the miasmids figured out we could follow them that way and grew more careful. Zek frenzy became more difficult to discern and we only knew when someone had the miasmids inside them when the pink would occasionally show in their eyes. If they are congregated as a pink mass we can visibly see them, but they don't show on our sensors."

"So you don't really have a way to discern if they've abandoned the Brist?"

My dad shook his head.

"But I can," I said. He reached out for me, but I ignored him and closed my eyes. I floated out of myself and used my light to blink down to the planet's surface. I hovered over a massive crevice. There was rubble all about me. But I didn't see any Brist or Corruption. I stretched out with my light. There were Brist still alive, but they were far away. There wasn't any Corruption inside them. Remembering my dream, I stretched my light down through the planet. Down and down and down. And there they were. The Corruption. All together deep enough that our weapons couldn't hurt them. I was tempted to use my light to destroy them, but there were too many. It would have been futile.

I blinked back into my body and opened my eyes. "It's true," I said. "The Corruption have abandoned the Brist. They hide deep within the planet out of harm's way while the Brist die on the surface."

"Come on," my dad tugged on my arm until I was on my feet. "We need to tell the captain," he said.

I stood beside him as he placed a call through his okulus. Captain Axa immediately answered. She stood on the bridge. The First Officer sat behind her in the captain's chair.

"I'm assuming this is something extremely important to interrupt me at a time like this, Lieutenant Commander," she said.

My dad placed a large hand on my back and pushed me a little forward.

"The Corruption have left the Brist," I said. "They are hiding deep underneath the surface where our weapons can't reach them. We are only killing Brist. And their planet. And their homes. And their children."

"All right," she interrupted me before I could go into panic mode. Or more into panic mode than I already was. "There is no way for us to confirm - "

"I just confirmed it," I interrupted her, "I sent my spirit self down to the surface and stretched out with my light. The Corruption have abandoned every Brist on that planet. I saw the Corruption hiding deep underground, safe, waiting it out."

The First Officer's voice came on as he made a ship wide announcement just as my okulus beeped indicating the 2 hour break was over and the new 2 hour shift would begin.

"I'll take care of it," Captain Axa said when the ship wide announcement was over. "Take your next shift, Vai and Lieutenant Commander, come back to the bridge."

"Yes, Captain," we both said right before the call ended.

"You might have just saved this war," my dad said. He pulled me in for a brief hug and then left.

I stood there a moment longer as I tried to shake off the remnants of my nightmare. My okulus beeped with an incoming call from Owen.

I immediately answered. He, Shel, Minmin and Esther stood in the shuttle bay. "Where are you?" Owen asked. "Everyone is already out there."

"I'm on my way," I said. I ran to the elevators and then again to the shuttle bay and my friends with Warpaint quick behind me.

"What took you so long?" Esther asked.

I told them quickly what I had discovered as we headed out into space.

"That doesn't change what we need to do in this moment," Shel said, "Destroy the Brist ships and all of the Corruption on those ships. At least we know those Corruption haven't hidden in the planet. We would have noticed a mass exodus from the ships."

I nodded. Warpaint and I found a spot a little ways from the fighting where I could concentrate on the healing. Since everyone was so fresh, there wasn't anyone to heal yet.

The giant warships all stopped firing on the planet. I held my breath and waited, but they didn't fire again. Captain Axa must have relayed my information. Now we needed to decide how we were going to get to the hidden Corruption.

Ships jumped in near the warships. It was the mix of ships the Corruption had formed as a fleet. I immediately noticed the Armstar. Shel and Minmin noticed it too. The new ships moved and began to fire on the warships completely ignoring the rest of us. The Brist fleet that had been protecting the planet also moved to engage the Warships directly. The rest of us were ignored.

That must have been the Corruption's plan - to get rid of those deadly warships first. If we didn't have those, the war could turn to our detriment.