SHADOW STAR
Page 8
Venessa, for no particular reason, was being held in a room closer to the control center. She was the only one not rescued. I was thrown into the same detention cell with her, stripped of my suit and weapons. I awoke with a terrible headache but opened my eyes to the most welcome smile I had ever seen. Venessa was smiling down at me. I said nothing. She knew as well as I did we did not need to be
rescued now. We could leave any time we wished, straight out the wall and any holes we needed to blast to get to space.
As this thought flashed through my head, a door slammed open.
“YOU!”, was screamed in my direction as I sat up.
I had no idea what the sudden outburst was caused by but this guy was older and very mad. Venessa’s expression told me everything I needed to know, this was Crass himself. He bolted into the room and grabbed me.
“Why did you come here?”, he demanded.
I simply looked at Venessa. She looked down at the floor and grabbed my left hand.
“You are Shadow Star. Why come here? I had lost your forces. No one knew I was here. I did not want you involved in this war.”
“You know the prophecy as well as we do. I am here because I was told to be here.” That was only slight misinformation. I was told to come on this mission after I had asked to go. “If my selection hinted at your downfall, why start this war?”
He took a deep breath. He was no doubt considering my words. Two Dark Warriors stood out in the hallway listening but content that they ‘knew’ we were defenseless. Venessa stood motionless, still holding my hand.
“Well, it does not matter now. You are here. They missed me. They missed their chance. Three Year War indeed; it may never end. I may never let it end.”
His words were all the motivation I needed. I split the two Dark Warriors behind Crass into pieces. The shock on Crass’s face was beyond measure. I did not give him a second chance to talk. With the high elder’s words in my head, ‘end this madness if you get the chance.’, I hit Crass with everything I had. Death Star would be proud, if he took pride in things which seemed to bother him such as the Dark Warrior he killed to save me. Crass was gone. With a look at Venessa I blasted the ceiling over where Crass had stood. We left in a flash.
The fleet was heading toward the border with the rescued prisoners as fast as those kind of ships could travel. Venessa and I, hand in hand caught up to them as they were crossing the border. I looked back once. Crass had had a large group of Dark Warriors for his personal body guard. Two of them were following us at full speed. Venessa saw them as I did. She wasted no time in eliminating the first one. I was taking aim at the other one when he hit me, in the head again.
Venessa was mad now. Still holding my hand as I fell backward, she vaporized the last threat to us and the fleet as we fled back home.
I was lucky I did not have to be awake for our little secret to work. She carried me back to her home on the green planet I had seen in my meditation. I had had too many shots to the head. I had a concussion. I was lucky for the second time I had not been killed. As I opened my eyes, I saw the face from my dream. He very calmly and with joy in his eyes said ‘Welcome, welcome home’.
Chapter 20
I smiled and closed my eyes again. Venessa introduced me to her father later. I was in his house. The house Venessa had grown up in. I had saved his daughter. He did not need to know anything more. His home was my home.
I took more time to recover this time. Venessa nursed me back to a point I where could do the meditation thing again. I was very happy she had taught me how to do a healing on myself. I was bruised up pretty well but I could fly again, if I held Venessa’s hand. Our suits were gone. I knew the high elder would want to hear everything as soon as we could get to his planet.
“Are you ready?”, Venessa asked as we stood in her father’s back yard.
“No time like the present.” We left holding hands. We smiled back at one another a few times while we made the short trip to the high elder’s office. We had lived. The war would be over soon enough. Crass was gone. The Dark Side would soon realize the futility of continuing the fight. Peace would again reign in the universe. Plans could be made to begin reunification of a people who had been splintered by one man and his ambitions.
As we walked down the hall (without my usual escort this time) to the high elder’s office, he came out to greet us in the hall. He was all smiles.
“Come in. Come in. You did it. Thank goodness you did it.”
He just sat down and waited for us to speak. I did not know what to say so I looked at Venessa.
She said, “Sir, don’t you think it is about time we introduced him to the rest of the Star People?”.
“You are right. I do want to thank you both personally. You have shortened the war and save countless lives doing so.”
“Sir you said to end it if I got the chance. I did what you requested. Now I have a question, you knew didn’t you?”
The old man smiled, stood up and walked around the desk. He took me by the hand and said, “Of course I knew, I knew what was possible but you had to choose, you alone could act and make the decision which must have been made at a critical moment. I am so glad you did but it was by your choice alone we have this moment together now.”
I was speechless. I had done what I had to do. At the time it seemed like the only choice to be made. It had never occurred to me to let Crass leave the room. I was only happy to be alive and Venessa was here, alive, also. Everything else was ‘cake’ as they say.
It felt good. The elders had given us both replacement suits. I did not ask if they had to do that before. The thought ‘I lost it’ made me laugh. The Star People had assembled. They all survived. Some would have long stories to tell but all seventy-seven of them were in one place for the first time.
I still had no idea how to feel about the scene which faced me. A host of people from the surrounding systems were here. I walked out on the stage to thunderous applause. The Star People were front and center. Venessa and a large man in his Star Person suit walked to center stage to meet me. He had only a simple star on his chest. He had no symbol to indicate his name.
“I am John.”, he said. He was also one of the first seven. Everyone was an equal but he acted as the spokesman. He turned and said, “I give you Shadow Star.” He then placed a medal around my neck. The room was so noisy at that announcement, I could hear nothing else.
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I had passed my greatest final exam. I was more tired than I had ever been. I asked to sleep in peace and was allowed to sleep as long as I wished (no knocks at the door this time). I did dream this time but it was a pleasant dream of a field of flowers and I sat there watching the butterflies or whatever they were called here….