Chapter Three: Peace & War

We arrive on Winquix and the ceremony hall is filled with Haven soldiers and civilians. Jennifer walks us into the back where I see a group of people that are all standing in a circle. I only recognize one of them, though.

“Mrs. Averin?” Anna turns around and gives a big belly laugh as she embraces me. The armor pokes me in the side a little, but I don’t think Anna cares about that.

“I knew you could do it!” She says as she releases me. “It looks wonderful on you.”

“Thank you.” I say. “Who are these guys?”

Anna’s guests look at me with contempt, and I already have a feeling they don’t like me. There’s a short, blonde man who looks as if he’s trying to hold back his smile to match with everyone else’s faces. There’s a tall, blonde woman who stands close to the blonde man. A dark-skinned woman with the meanest look on her face. A woman slightly taller than me. Then, there’s a brunette man who’s standing next to the tall woman.

“Ah! These are the best performing soldiers in training! There’s only a year left, you know.” She says with a smile on her face. “Come introduce yourselves to our Architect!”

“Your what?” I ask.

“Architect.” She says again. “You worked on the Arch weapon, and you fixed it. You’re the Architect, Ella. I’m proud to say that.”

She’s proud of me? The noble Averin is proud of me? I never expected that.

“Now, let me introduce you to your peers.”

“We can take it from here, Mrs. Averin.” Says the dark-skinned woman before extending her hand forward. “My name’s Kayda Hicks. I believe you are the woman who burned down my bunk.”

“Uhm…we both did that.” Henry says in a hushed voice. Kayda scoffs at his existence.

The blonde man steps forward with a hearty laugh and the blonde woman comes up on his heels. “Gabriel Bales, nice to meet you.” He says.

“Valerie.” Says the woman. The tall woman comes up next and I notice she towers over me.

“My name is Tanya Dubois.” She says. The brunette man comes up on her heels, and he clears his throat nervously.

“Marks. Gerald Marks, is the name.” He says. “If it’s not impolite, may I ask for your name? I’ve never seen you before.”

“Ela Williams sir.” Anna quickly cuts in to add my newly appointed title of Architect, and I 

roll my eyes.

“Williams? I’ve never heard that name before.” He says. “I guess I need to keep an eye out for you.”

“Speaking of which, I’ve never seen you around the camp.” I say. “When did you enlist?”

“Oh. I’m not a soldier.” He responds, waving the thought away as if it was ridiculous. “I’m simply holding the event for the peace signing.”

My ears pop at those words. “The what?”

“The peace signing. Didn’t you hear? The war’s over now. Today, all of the leaders of the planets of Sector-9 are going to sign a treaty making peace and renegotiating the land agreements between humans and Veltekkens.” He says with a smile on his face. I feel my heart beating fast, and my skin crawling with something that I can’t describe. My vision goes hazy as my fists clench.

“No. I was not told this.” I say. “In fact, I was kept in the dark about this!” I shout. Everyone’s looking at me as if I’m crazy, and I couldn’t care less. I’m about to be put into the same room as the monsters that murdered my mother!

As I’m about to scream more obscenities, a door opens to my right, and I see them standing there. Seven feet tall, reptilian-skinned, light blue, four-armed monsters. Towering over me with their flat nostrils. Their black and yellow slitted eyes remind me of a snake. A snake bit Ellie once, and ever since then I’ve hated them. These guys just make that hate stronger.

“Hello, humans.” One of the Veltekkens says. “My name is Jakar Ke’Le. I am here to make peace.”

“Hello, Ke’Le, my name is Anna Averin.” Anna takes one of his four arms and smiles. Traitor. “We are so glad to finally be meeting peacefully. Would you like to meet our special guest we promised you?”

“Indeed.” Before I even have time to dread who that could be, she looks over at me and I inhale sharply. His snake-like eye centers on me, and I freeze. I feel my veins boil as he makes his way over to me, and I run through the thousands of different ways I could kill him where he stands right now. I could use the suit and blast him to pieces, but I don’t want to. I want to rip him apart with my bare hands.

Before I could realize my fantasies, I felt someone grab my hand and clutch it tightly. Their warmth calms me down, and I think I know who it is.

“El-” No. It’s not Ellie. “Henry?”

“It’s okay, I get it.” He whispers, and I feel myself calm down as Ke’Le steps face to chest with me. I have to look up to see his face, and I force a smile. I can’t ruin this for everyone else. If it’s a peace signing that we’re here for, then we’ll get one. I haven’t killed one Veltekken in this war, and it’s about to end. I never got to avenge my mom, and I’m going to go home with a simple title I only did a fraction of the work to earn.

“Nice to meet you, Ke’Le.”

“Nice to meet you, Architect.” He says as he moves to the front of the building and gets ready for the public signing. I realize I’m still holding Henry’s hand, and quickly let go. He looks down at the ground and fiddles with the bag on his back.

“We need to go to the front to get ready for the signing.” Gerald says. We follow him to the front, and I see a crowd of people, soldiers, and reporters. I’m directed to the podium overlooking them all while everyone, including Henry, goes into the crowd. I see Ke’Le talking it up to some three-star general, and I grimace.

How could I do this? How could anyone look at someone with the same face as the person that killed their mother? It’s taking everything I have to not kill him where he stands, but I have to throw that thought away as he’s approaching me.

“Architect,” He says. “I see that you will be my protection on this stage.”

My fist tightens. “I’m happy to, sir.”

“I know you’re not.” He says. “Nobody here is, but I admire your bravery and tact to hide it. When Mrs. Averin told me of you, I did not believe it.”

“Mrs. Averin talks about me?” The very thought makes my head spin. Someone like her, talking about someone like me?

“Everyone talks about you. Not all of it kind.” Ke’Le says. “Something about you burning down their barracks.”

“A little mishap.” I say. Ke’Le chuckles a little before we both hear the mic make a loud squeaking sound. “That’s your cue.”

“Indeed. Well, I hope we get to talk again, Missus Williams.” Ke’Le says, but I take note of that “Missus”. 

“It’s Miss Williams, sir.” I corrected, and Ke’Le smiled. He walked away, one of his four arms patting me on the shoulder, and took his place on the podium in front of a mic.

He addressed the crowd with a Veltekken greeting. To me it sounded like: “Ut gar, meltin.” I never really knew what it meant. But, most of the other humans in the room didn’t seem offended just yet.

I stood on the podium next to him, a stern look on my face. My presence here was just to display this new tech. Even if it was just the appearance and not what it could actually do. Ke’Le stood up there and gave more words about peace and unity. I zoned out midway through his speech, not believing anything could go wrong. What could go wrong? This whole event is a beacon of hope to everyone. What would want to upend that?

That’s when I saw a blur of blue dance into my vision, over the crowd, and straight into Ke’Le’s head. To me, the room went still for just a moment, but that wasn’t the case. Everyone screamed and panicked.

Ke’Le’s body hit the ground and I ran over to him. Blue blood poured out of his head and I could do nothing but watch. I was frozen over his body. The alien body which I had come to hate, froze me in fear. Seeing those kind, full of life eyes fade away in front of me chilled me to my core, and I wonder why I thought of killing Veltekkens like Ke’Le in my dreams.

Suddenly, I feel an arm jolt me out of my daze, and see Henry standing above me. He was saying something, but my senses were dull, and all I could hear was ringing in my ears. He began to drag me away from Ke’Le’s body, but I struggled. I can’t just leave him. That’s a man who hasn’t done anything wrong to me on the floor for the panicking masses just a few feet in front of him to see. I need to bury him or hide him or-

“Ela! We need you!” Henry called out to me, only a few inches away from my face. That snaps me out of my stupor, and I look around.

“What’s going on?!” I exclaim. Another bright blue bullet answers my question as it comes straight for my head. My world slows down again, only for a moment, as I outstretch my hand and I try to push Henry out of the way. But, another blue light enters my vision. My hand glows and a bright, large plasma shield floats inches away from the two of us, and blocks the bullet. “Woah.”

“I built that in.” Henry says. I remind myself to thank him later for it, but another gunshot goes off and takes out three of the panicking people. “There’s a weird sniper somewhere!”

“How’d they even get a shot on us?! Safe Haven was supposed to-” I never finished as a gunshot, much closer to us, goes off and I see the figure responsible for it. A tall, lanky robot.

The machine had wires pouring out of its neck and strange peg-like legs. It had two much larger robots as its body guards.

“You would rather accept these freaks as your equals, than us?!” He screamed out into the now much quieter crowd. “Spectres have been a part of your society for hundreds of years, and we cannot even fathom doing what these freaks have done!” He glanced over at me. “I told the sniper to shoot you first. Guess we’ll have to finish the job.”

Henry stood defensively and I quickly stood with him. “Try and kill her, I dare you.” His defensiveness over me was surprising to say the least.

“Look at the meat bag, boys. His heart’s been taken by the Architect.” The robot said. “How about we rip it out– of her hands.” The threat to Henry’s life made me angry, for whatever reason, and I stepped towards the robot. He laughed. “Come on, girl. Show us what that new piece of tech can do!”

I take another step and he levels his gun. I outstretch my hand, and I keep moving forward. He fires his weapon, and the world moves slowly for me again. A blue shield appears in front of me and blocks the bullet. The robot looks at astonishedly, and points at me while nodding at his two large bodyguards.

The two of them sprinted towards me, and the world moved slowly once again. I pull my outstretched arm back and make a punching motion. The shield I made collapses into itself, making a thin glowing blue disk, and launches forward cutting through the two large robots with ease. I hear the crowd give exclamations of disbelief, but I don’t care as I move toward the main spectre.

He stands there, unmoving, as I hear another shot go off. Then, the world slows down again. I look to my left and see a bullet coming straight to my head. The sniper. I forgot about him. I outstretch my hand and summon a shield again. The bullet hit my shield and I kept moving. The sniper let out round after round, trying to hit me, but my shield stayed and followed me as I moved. The leader aimed his gun at me and I outstretched my arm, another shield formed in front of me. He emptied the rest of his magazine into my shield, hoping for what exactly? I don’t honestly know.

I close the distance between us. The sniper’s stopped shooting, must’ve ran out of bullets. I stare down at the leader as he desperately tries to reload his empty weapon. I grab the weapon and throw it across the room. I grab him by his neck, my fingers becoming entangled in wires.

“You chose to fight for freedom by killing a man of peace.” I say. “How hypocritical.” I thrust the robot back into the ground, head first. I feel the different nuts, bolts, and machinery inside of the robot fly out of his skull as I bash it into the hard ground. Over and over.

After I’ve done irreversible damage to him, I stop and stand from the ground. I look around and see everyone staring at me. My eyes take in all of their expressions. Fear, amazement, confusion, and, then, there’s Mrs. Averin’s face. Prideful, and she whispers the words.

“There’s our Architect.”