Chapter 24

Me-la-ni

We landed in a place I never thought I would see again. Dark metal surrounded me, reminding me of the sci-fi stories that humans read. I stared at her.

“I apologise. The war has started. There was no time.”

“The war has started!?”

She nodded.

“How?”

“The forces were set in motion. It is outside of my control.”

I glanced around, almost expecting Si-ri to come out from behind the corner. Our old headquarters. I’d thought it was destroyed in the last war, but maybe the Seed had managed to reconstruct it again.

“I’ve asked Ka-ma-la and the other of your race to gather here.”

I glanced around. It was as I remembered it, the counters and the sitting areas left as if it had been yesterday. I turned to her.

“Will they hear you?”

“We hope”.

I was too restless to stand still, so I walked over to the old dashboard. I almost imagined it would light up, but if it was reconstructed, it seemed not everything had been restored.

“When will they come?”, I asked.

“I do not know.”

It wasn’t the answer I’d hoped for, and I wondered what had happened that would have initiated the war this early. I’d thought we still had months left. At that moment, the air in the middle of the room shimmered, and I rushed over to it.