| Chapter 21

Vera and I managed to stand straight.

"Brylon, what do you mean?" Vera shook her head, approaching her special guard. "You need to help my father. You need to tell our sister ships to stop this, to pull out and back into space. If they continue this descent, the humans will attack us all."

"We've already descended, Vera," Brylon said, wincing as he sighed. "Our descent began long ago, with no hopes of rising. I thought if I'd give into this one man, just once, I could preserve our fate." Brylon's looked behind us. "But your father preferred to befriend them. Stay and nurture them." He looked at the room. "And look at the damage done! We're sinking, Vera."

After taking in a deep breath, he smiled. "And I've moved everyone down to the lowest levels for safety."

Was that why there weren't any Pylons on the ship?

"So, no." Brylon moved past us, approaching Holmes with slow steps.

Holmes did not attack him. He smiled at the Pylon. "It's a shame our plan has to come to an end," Holmes said to him, giving him a small shrug. "I thought we could do this forever."

"Same." Brylon chuckled, but the sound was laced with pain. "But you've spent too long tarnishing our name. So, I, second in command on this ship, will accept my guilt and crumble before you. All the ether you've acquired is now yours, no strings attached. All I ask is that you let us go in peace."

"No, no." Aggressively, Holmes shook his head. "I want submission. I want pain." He shook his gun next. "This peaceful forfeit isn't what I want from you! I've seen enough of it!" Squeezing his eyes tight, he laughed. "My mother submitted to one, then submitted to my father, begging for forgiveness. And I, I was the one who paid—" He lifted his gun, eyes wide. "—but I will not pay for this! I will grow from this! This power is mine!"

"You have them." Brylon dropped to his knees and lifted his hands over his head. "You have the latest batch of ether in your tunnels. Distribute as you wish."

"I want the seeds!"

Amid all the yelling, the officers had lowered their weapons. The two with remorse, with guilt, dropped theirs. I couldn't help but follow the line of one of them as the weapon slid across the floor.

"You can't have them!" Brylon lowered his head as he shouted. "I've given you what I can, in exchange for our safety. Instead, I placed my trust in the wrong hands and I've failed my people."

"Brylon." Looking up, I could see the captain extend a hand towards his second in command. And Brylon did the same but couldn't reach him. The gap between them was too far.

"Ha, you've failed your people, you!" Holmes laughed and kicked at the Pylon man. I watched him fall, curling into a ball. And Holmes pointed his gun at him. "You single handedly destroyed your species. I couldn't do that."

"Oh yeah?" Courage found its way in me. It built up in my legs, coursing up them with a speed I'd never felt before.

In one move, I dive for the gun closest to me. My hand wrapped around the butt of it, finger landing on the trigger. And I fired it. "Tell that to the human race!"

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The bullet clipped Holmes' shoulder. He screamed, diving back into the computers behind him. Blood dripped down the front of his shirt.

With him wounded, Brylon moved forward to retrieve his captain. With the other Pylon man in his arms, he cradled him, dragging him away from Holmes' increasing yells. I heard him whisper, "I'm sorry, my brother. I am sorry. Please, please forgive me."

Pushing myself up to stand, I lifted the gun higher and fired. The bullet missed him, but the sound alone scared him enough that he dropped his own weapon.

Holmes was frightened. His gaze mixed with an even amount of anger and regret. "You don't understand what you're doing," he hissed as he looked at me. "What I'm doing is for the greater good!"

Vera moved away from me. She hurried over towards Brylon and her father first. With eager arms, she grabbed them, held them.

Brylon pushed her away. "Please," he said, "tell them not to attack. Humans know not what they do. Just as I knew not what I've done."

Vera had no choice but to nod and agree. She couldn't stay with her family. She needed to call off the others to protect them.

With my gun still pointed, I made sure Holmes wouldn't move from his spot. "Don't touch her," I said through gritted teeth. "Don't move towards her. Don't try and be whatever miserable hero you think you are."

There was blood on his lip when he laughed. "Oh, miserable, am I? Do you know what I started? How many people were able to receive Sapphire because I managed to get it in their hands?"

"All you've done is get blood on your hands. You killed as many people as you helped."

"Oh to sacrifice one to save a few. The ratio of life to death works in my favor, boy. Your father knew that." Holmes pushed off the computers and walked towards me. "Didn't he teach you that?"

My father couldn't teach me much because he had been taken too soon. By Holmes. But I knew my father would be proud of my next choice.

"My family started it, not you." I shook my head. "And you cut them out of their plan and took credit. I can't let you keep doing that. I can't let you think you've won."

"Oh? What are you going to do? Kill me?" Holmes shook his head.

The fact that his police guards did nothing to stop me proved they had the same mindset that I did. Maybe they were tired of doing his horrible bidding. Perhaps they'd given up. But I took the lack of movement as an invitation.

"No, I won't kill you," I said, shaking my head. "I'm not like you."

Holmes laughed, approaching still.

"But I think you should die with the mess you've made." Lowering the gun, I fired at his leg. Three times. Three bullets. And none missed. Holmes screamed as he fell to the floor.

I dropped the gun behind me, kicking it once to make sure it was out of range. "Go down with this ship," I said to him as I walked past him towards Vera. "Go down with it, just like the Pylons would've done."

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"I don't even know if they're going to listen to me," Vera hissed as I approached her side. "I'm not the captain. I'm just his daughter. I—"

Vera's hands were fumbling with buttons. She grabbed a mic, then dropped it. She pulled a lever, realized she shouldn't have done it. An alarm went off and she pushed it back.

Panic came off her in waves. They hit me, but I didn't let them push me back to shore. I rode them effortlessly, using the energy to guide my own.

Reaching over, I grabbed her hand gently, placing mine just over hers. She stopped moving. Breathing even. Slowly, her eyes slid over towards me and held my gaze.

"You can do this." Pressing my fingers between hers, I moved her hand back towards the buttons. Together, we hit them in an order that made sense.

First there was communications, then connection, line one to channel three. The only reason why I guessed the channel was because it flashed green, as though someone was trying to connect to her, here, now.

"Do it," I said to her, nodding towards the mic. "Tell them to stop, explain what is happening."

I could tell she struggled with what to do, what to say. Honestly, judging by the ships coming in through our cloudy skies, there wasn't much time to react and think about it. "Tell the truth. The sky isn't falling, but we are. Vera, we will stop this, okay?"

Her eyes widened as she looked at me. I couldn't help but laugh. Was my courage that obvious? "It's all right," I told her. And I shrugged. "Sometimes I amaze myself, too."

"No, no, no, don't!" Vera's hand shot out from under mine and for a moment, I was confused. She'd moved so fast, screamed so loud, I couldn't react fast enough.

Not even as I saw the flashing light from a shooting gun. Or the bang of a bullet being forced out from its barrel. My only reaction was to fall when pain burst through my side. It was hot, like fire. Burned just the same. The moment my knees met the floor and my chest slammed against the cool tile the feeling stopped.

"Gus!" Vera dropped to her knees and scooped me up in her arms. She cradled my head against her chest.

"Do you think I'd lose that easily?"

Holmes. How?

I managed to turn my head. Holmes had somehow crawled over towards the wall, retrieving the second gun. He'd pulled himself up to a stand and even though he continued to bleed, he didn't let that stop him.

He shot me.

"Do you think I'd give up! Huh!"

Brylon jumped up from the floor, having placed the captain comfortably down on his back. "No more violence!" Brylon yelled as he rushed towards Holmes. "No more!"

The two of them wrestled with the gun. It fired, more than once. Bullets ricocheted off the walls and floor. Each time one pinged, I couldn't help but flinch.

But Vera didn't. With tears in her eyes, she looked at her. She stroked my cheek. "Don't die."

I wanted to lift my hand and touch her face, too, but there was no feeling in my fingers. Blood slipped too far down my body, drenching my clothes. Trying to smile, I whispered, "Make the call."

The gun fired again before it was thrown out from Holmes' grasp. It slid near my legs, bumping against my knee. But I didn't look at him. I kept my eyes on Vera's light. "Do it," I said, looking up towards the computer screens. "Save everyone."

"I can't, I—"

"You can." I didn't have to touch her to get my point across. She looked at me, a single tear falling from her eye. It slid down my face as she stood and sucked in a shaking breath, one I heard over Brylon and Holmes' shouts.

As she turned, I repeated, "You can."

She tapped the buttons in the same order we'd done before. The intercom came to life. From the speakers in front of her, I heard a voice, one that didn't speak English. But when Vera grabbed the mic to respond, I understood her, perfectly.

"This is colony forty-two!" she shouted into the mic. "Vessel controlled by Captain Roderick, Pylon General."

The voices responded in English this time. "This is colony seven! We've received your S.O.S. Please advise!"

"Advise, advise." Tearful eyes looked at me as she tried to compose herself. But it took just one deep breath before she grabbed the mic again. "The humans will only attack because they're assuming you're hostile! Our S.O.S. signal was sent because we're going to crash! We're going to crash into them if we don't get them out of the way!"

There was movement on the other end of the mic. Outside the window, the lights from the ships faded as though they powered down. "Where is the distress on your ship?" the voice asked. "Colony fourteen is close to board. They can assist."

"Please," Vera said. The mic slid down to her chin as she continued, but not for them to hear, "I only wanted to see this city. Now, I just want to go home."

She turned her head to look at me. "I want to make sure we can all go home..."