The Solar Flare (37 page)

     “I’m going to be right over there Ava, stay right here,” Melanie instructed, walking away.

     Ava stood very still watching her friends walk away from her. It was dark, but the moon was nearly full, shedding light on their situation. Suddenly she had an idea. I bet this is a training exercise of some sort, the thought. They are trying to scare me into some critical thinking survival skills or something she reasoned. She breathed a sigh of relief as she sensed James’ energy drawing near. She took a step backwards towards the table she had been sitting at earlier and bumped into something. The something startled her into dropping her wine glass and the sound resonated like a bomb going off.

     T
hings seemed to happen impossibly fast after that. Ava screamed as some very strong arms closed around her, struggling before she knew who was holding her, but she recognized the energy after a few seconds. It was James, but he felt different, the energy was slightly different. It had been so long since she had felt it, and it was building, gaining momentum for teleportation. It wasn’t James. Lucas and Melanie were there in an instant, tackling them and bringing them down, halting the process. The arms clasped around Ava protected her in the fall so that she was not injured. Once the fall broke, the arms released her and she rolled to her feet on guard just as how she had been taught, taking a ready stance with her fists up.

     Then it seemed like all H
ell broke loose as the lights miraculously came back on and Ava saw them. She brought her hands to her face and gasped as she looked upon Wesley, Naomi, and Andre, who looked relieved to see her, but ready for anything. It had been Andre who controlled the lights she realized. She dropped her fists and started to run to them when Melanie and Lucas grabbed her, pulling her back.

     “Let her go,” Wesley commanded authoritativel
y. “She’s mine!”

     “We’ll see about that,” James’
stern voice countered as he appeared in the garden, flanked by his family who seemed to be ready to fight if needed.

     The two halves of the whole locked eyes on each other. They did not speak, they did not need to. Being this close together
, Ava could sense the animosity between their collective essence. Their powerful energy saturated everything, stinging her. It was almost as if their mind had also merged and they were having a private heated argument between themselves as they walked towards each other in the center of the garden.

      Andre and Naomi backed up, James’ family doing the same, bringing Ava with them, giving the two of them space. It was app
arent that the two families no longer had an interest in fighting each other; this was clearly about Ava only. She wriggled free of the death grip her new family had on her and stood there watching the two people she loved most in this world size each other up. Andre and Naomi quickly moved around towards Ava.

    
Naomi raised her hands partly up. “I have no quarrel with you,” she said to Melanie as she approached Ava.

     “Nor I you,” Melanie responded, eyeing them cautiously as they came before Ava.

     Naomi enveloped Ava in a bear hug, followed by Andre. The two of them stood with James’ family, each keeping a hold on Ava while the oldest Asterions in existence prepared to face off. Wesley was angry, extremely angry, as far as Ava could tell. She had never seen him this way; he almost appeared as though he had a light shine to his body from the anger. He wasn’t dead after all and she felt elated. She wanted to run to him, to hold him, to kiss him. But she couldn’t, not when he was in such a defensive mode. Ava started to panic. What if James stopped Wesley’s heart? What if Wesley ripped James to shreds? She held her breath, waiting for one of them to use their abilities to hurt the other. But they didn’t. She could sense something between them. They couldn’t use their abilities on one another for some reason. All they had was their physical strength. It seemed Wesley finally had enough of his private conversation with James. He lunged at James, sending them both flying backwards onto the ground, they both grunted loudly. And then it began.

     The two of them launched into a full blown fist fight, while the others stood by calmly watching with, it seemed, no intention of intervening.
James rammed his fists into Wesley’s face and chest, sending him crashing into the table they had just eaten dinner on. The table collapsed, flinging wood pieces everywhere. The birthday cake slid down the table and almost landed on him but he moved quickly and was up in an instant. Ava watched in horror as Wesley punched James in the face, grabbed him, and threw him over the wall of the garden out towards the beach. He teleported out there to attack again but James was already on his feet, punching Wesley fiercely in the abdomen, knocking him down. Wesley rolled out of the way just in time for James to issue a punishing blow to the sand, which went flying everywhere.

     “Stop them!” Ava screamed to Andre and Lucas. Her face was already flushed with tears and heat from being so upset. The two men made no moves to break up the fight. The sound of fists pounding on flesh sickened Ava. She had never seen such a brutal fight before. The two of them wouldn’t
stop; they just kept pummeling each other. James was advancing on Wesley, trying to force him back towards the water. Wesley appeared to be aware of what was going in. If they couldn’t overpower one another, they could try to drown one another.

     “Do something! Please do something!” Ava begged the Asterions she was standing with on the beach. Naomi and Andre had released their hold on her after they followed the fight onto
the beach. They stood in a semicircle observing the vicious confrontation going on. It was clear they would not, or perhaps could not, interfere from whatever Asterion code of ethics they were following.  However, Ava was not going to stand by and watch these two great men kill each other over her. Her mind raced, she had to do something to get them to stop fighting. She looked around her for something, anything she could use to distract them. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a gun in Andre’s holster. Of course! It was the same one he had on E.S. Number One.

     In one swift movement Ava turned, reached under Andre’s jacket and wrenched the gun out of the holster. S
he slipped out of their grasp and she ran down the beach as fast as she could, aimed the gun, and fired two red blazing shots in the air. The two rivals still paid her no attention and kept fighting. Ava knew she probably had mere seconds before one of the family took the gun from her so she inhaled a deep breath and aimed. First at James, she fired a few shots.

     He looked up
, alarmed, and stopped fighting. He raised his hands and used his ability to deflect the shots while Ava then aimed the gun at Wesley and fired another two shots. He stopped his attack to summon the energy to quickly teleport away from the blasts. Ava advanced on them now that they were apart from one another. “This fight ends here . . . right now!” Ava shouted at them, her voice shaking slightly. She had tears welling up in her eyes as she spoke. The other Asterions had come up closer to behind her but no one tried to take the gun away from her.

 
   “You taught her how to shoot?” Wesley growled angrily at James, looking at Ava in astonishment.

     “Somebody had to
teach her how to defend herself,” he retorted with a smirk, beaming at Ava.

     “Ava, put the gun down please,” Wesley begged quickly, putting his hands up.
He was clearly worried that Ava had other ideas on what she could do with the gun, praying suicide wasn’t one of them. He wiped the blood away from his split lip on his sleeve. It was hard to see in the dark, but it was healing and the swelling was already going down.

     “Not until you listen . . . both of you!” She said sternl
y glancing cautiously at them.

      James picked up on Wesley’s concern
and stepped further away from him. “Okay, we’re listening to you Ava.” He produced a handkerchief out of one of his pockets and mopped up the blood that had run down his face from his broken nose that was in the process of healing.

     “Ava, James, Wesley,
. . . everybody just calm down,” Naomi said soothingly. Wesley continued to breathe heavily out of anger, staring at James. “Wesley, we found Ava. Look, you can see for yourself that she hasn’t been harmed. Why don’t we hear what she has to say?” Naomi reasoned coming closer.

      Ava lowered the gun but backed away from Naomi, unwilling to relinquish it just y
et. “There’s no reason to fight like this! This is my life . . . and I will decide what to do with it!” She raised her voice, and it came out sounding very stern. She turned to Wesley a little calmer, “We thought you were dead. I’m so relieved Wesley. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

     “Then tell me, please tell me,” he said soothingly, moving closer to her.

     “Stop right there Robinson!” James said sharply, moving in closer himself.

     “Enough!” She yelled. “N
o more fighting, I can’t . . . I just can’t. . .” She said softly, unable to finish her sentence, tossing the gun away from all of them in the sand behind her, where it was promptly reclaimed by its owner.

     “It’s going to be all right, look, I’m fine, come and see for yourself,” Wesley said
calmly to Ava. She glanced at James and then slowly walked towards Wesley, raising her hands to touch his face. He enveloped her in a passionate embrace, holding her tightly, feeling her energy. She wrapped her arms around him and started crying. It took every ounce of self control James had not to interfere and break it up.

     “I was so worried about you, I thought he’d hurt you. I’m so sorry Ava, you have no idea how sorry I am,” Wesley said softly to her.

     James snorted. “As if I would ever harm her. She’s infinitely safer here with me than she was with you.”

     “All right
, that’s it! Ava, say goodbye to your kidnappers, we are leaving,” Wesley said with finality, clutching her to him possessively.

     “Like h
ell you are! Don’t even try to disappear with her Robinson, or I’ll tear your ship apart!” James threatened.

     “No! Wesley, we aren’t leaving now,” Ava said suddenly, pulling away from him.

     “I don’t believe this Ava! You are not going to do this to me again!” Wesley bellowed at her. Ava surprised even herself by instinctively taking a few steps back.

     “Careful Robinson, you’re scaring her,” James scolded coming closer enough to Ava to take her hand. Wesley stared at the handholding as if he were in terrible pain.

     “No . . . this can’t possibly be happening. You can’t have feelings for him Ava . . . after all that he’s done to you . . . to us?” Wesley choked out. “He abducted you!”

     “It’s more complicated than that . . . James and his family saved my life on Kyanos.” Ava said plainly.

     “What are you talking about? We saw the cave they chased you into . . .”

     “That was my fault. I went exploring and accidently fell in. If James hadn’t come and pulled me out, then I would have died of dehydration.”

     Wesley stared at Ava in disbelief and thought for a moment. “It still doesn’t make what he did right!”

     “What is right
in your book Robinson? You left a defenseless human alone in a desert on a strange planet while you went off to war. What if you had been killed, she would have starved to death eventually.”

     “Ava can handle herself. And my people would have come for her.”

     “Not if they were dead. And what of your enemies? Have you defeated them? We saw what they did to the Andromeda. One of them told us they killed you,” James said matter-of-factly.

     “What? . . . When?” Andre interjected, unable to hide the shock in
the expression on his face at hearing this news.

     “A little more than a week after we left Kyanos. You see Wesley, James was going to bring me back to you. He was going to right his wrong. We thought you were in the Andromeda and that you were out looking for me. That’s when we located it on Earth. They took me down there
so that I could come back to you only to find the ship in ruins.” Ava choked up at the recollection of the emotional event.

     Wesley looked from
Ava to James. It was he who continued the story, out loud so Naomi and Andre could hear. “They had it in that old hangar in the southwest desert. It was in pieces and severely damaged. From what I could tell they were in the process of re-building it. When I realized you were nowhere to be found, two of your enemies stepped out and threatened to take Ava’s life. I dealt with the crazy lunatic that could hear our thoughts easily enough. The woman with the short dark hair tried to kill Ava after she told us you were dead. I didn’t let her live much longer after that.”

     “That would have been Draves and Cassidy,” Andre said looking from Wesley to Naomi. Wesley continued to stare at Ava with a sad look in his eyes.

     “It seemed that there were other Asterions nearby and I couldn’t risk Ava’s safety or put my own family and ship in further danger so we left. I brought Ava here so that she could live a normal life without being tangled up in your rather unfortunate war.”

     “I’m sorry Wesley, we all thought you
really were dead. I’m so sorry,” Ava said softly.