[x] Closed for now

Ekko sat in front of her fire that night, staring into the flickering flames and watching the yellow sparks dot the dark sky. The thoughts began to return. This frustrated her; after all she did to try to clear her mind from it, the images returned. She had thought of it so many times, too many times, and still it came back. The memories... From the horrible day...
When it used to be normal, her playing with her sister in the cottage...
Then the many times the Television flashed with frantic faces and horrible warnings...
When the bombs were close enough to see, to hear...
When one of them hit...
Evaccuating the place she had grown up in, running away from the fire, away from the screams...
And then her father, taken away to war...
Her father not coming home.
And before her eyes, when she saw it through the trees of the forest that day...
The entire city, the only home she ever knew...
Blown to smitherines in less than a second.

The ship flew as it always did, smoothly, slowly, quietly. Everything was fine, everyone was fine.

The IMS77, the famed "Shooting Star", was home to the greatest space captain in the galaxy! Kanter sat, as usual, in his control room. Flying the spaceship looking for people to save, civilizations to rescue, and every other kind of mayhem you could think of!

Of course, in his 8500 years, he had learned to be patient. So he drifted along with his passengers and shipments of spice, listening to his beloved crew chatter.

"Ha! Yes, of course I'm going to buy the new Holo-Charm!"

"Hey, do we have any cake?"

"NO! Get out of the food supplies Wanda!"

"SPC-176X98OP4 straight ahead sir."

"Right. Send out the warning." Kanter said casually.

"Warning, entering wormhole. Please hold on to all loose articles and remain stationary." He heard a cool female voice recite.

The thrusters turned on at maximum and they rushed towards the approaching blue red and purple mass that was a wormhole. Not just any wormhole, a wormhole that would take them to the new colony Bildafari . It was in an empty barely habitable part of the galaxy, and they would be there for three standardized weeks. A snore-fest, he and Wanda were calling it.
The rest of the crew were annoyed at their joking, but they didn't want to go either. He could see it in their faces. This had been an unusually quiet month. No problems to solve, no battles to fight, not even an interesting planet to explore. This was going to be awful.

So what happened next triggered quite a reaction.


*Boop Boop* an emergency transmission came in. The crew sat staring in stunned silence for a moment, then got up and scrambled for the controls, before it was too late. All it would take was going through that wormhole. In twenty seconds they would be a billion light years away and the transmission would automatically lock onto someone else's ship.

"Setting the ship to Automatic Pilot!" Shouted Silvia.

"Detaching main cockpit!" Wanda yelled excitedly and then she slammed her hand onto the button and laughed loudly.

"Manning weapons system" Golxor grunted.

"And we are outta here!" Yelled Kanter as he grabbed the controls and flew them up and around out of the way at the last second. The cockpit turned into it's own ship, for more dangerous missions that required a maneuverable ship. They spiraled down in a triumphant loop, and towards the source of the distress call, but they missed something important in their haste.

Another wormhole, a forbidden one, one that was unstable. Ships that went int were destroyed.


In they went. They knew where they were. They screamed as they were jostled and spun. They got faster, and faster. It was lasting longer then any wormhole should. They were rusing around sharp turns and down steep drops, or so the artificial gravity made it feel like. Suddenly they could see the end of the tunnel, and they rushed out of control towards it. Then they shot out into space, spinning so fast they were just a blur to anyone watching. They could make out a star, just barely. It was very big and very close, so they must have been in a solar system.

Then suddenly they could feel the growing heat that meant the were going through a planets atmosphere. It could have been anything, a gas giant, a lava world, an ocean planet... Kanter fought for controls. The ground got bigger... bigger...bigger.......

KRAKA-BOOM!!!

For miles around, the explosion could be seen and heard. Dirt, rocks and peices of metal were thrown high into the air, and then silence.

Ekko looked up as she heard the distant sound of an explosion. Sounds of destuction such as this were usually the signature of nearby Invaders. Even though an occasional explosion could be heard from day to day, and it wasn't very unusual, Ekko had learned to take precautions in order to survive. She quickly put out her fire with a small pot of water she kept outside. Pulling her coat tightly around her cold fur, she huddled into her cave and waited for any other signs of danger.

Kanter opened his eyes. He looked around at the shattered glass and bent metal that was once the cockpit of his ship. Kanter started to sit up, then groaned as a splitting pain in his rips forced him to stop. He'd had worse of course. Heck, he'd died numerous times!

"Captain..." He heard Wanda strain to say.

"Yes?"

"From now on, I'm just going to endure through snore-fests." She gave him a weak smile, and they both laughed. This was shortly followed by gasps and cries of "OW!"

The other members of the crew began to stir.

A few minutes passed and Ekko decided it was just the usual mine going off on some innocent animal or another. The Invaders had placed so many explosives under the ground, you could usually hear some going off each day. Ekko herself beleived that the Invaders still kept placing mines in the ground, to kill off any possible survivors. It had been years since the war, yet still the destuction continued. She was lucky to live so deep into the forest.
Wearily she went back outside to sit on her stump by the fire pit. She often did this to just sit, watch, think... And let the memories haunt her.

Jeclere was hiding in her log, crying, She had just found it, and was hiding from the Invaders. She was thinking about the last thing she had said to her mom. It had been one of those days when no one would pay attention to her, accept for getting her in trouble when she did try to get some attention. She had just gotten so angry at her mom and yelled, "Maybe if you would actually do something with me once in a while, I wouldn't be fighting for attention!" Her mom had looked sad, and was about to say something else when Jeclere had yelled, "Don't say a word! It's like you're just noticing now that I actually am not here only to get in trouble! I HATE YOU!!!!" Then they didn't speak for the rest of the day or the day after that.

Around lunch time, Jeclere left her room for the first time of the day, and ran outside. She saw a spaceship flying overhead. She looked at it, then ran after it. She ran out of her city and past the spice farms. She ran and ran and ran and ran. Then the spaceship entered a wormhole. "Darn!" she muttered. Then she walked back to her city, her pet poofaslug at her side. When she got back, a different spaceship was hovering over the city, dropping bombs. She screamed, then started crying and ran away, knowing that it was too late.

That was the part that hurt her most. On her way back, she had decided to forgive mom and talk to her again. She was going to tell her how she felt.

Back in the log, Jeclere had begun to cry. All this had happened when she was only 8. Jeclere cried harder. Then she stopped. "Tough up!" she told herself. "Remember, this will not go unavenged!"

Kanter stumbled painfully over to Sylvia. If one of her ribs had cracked she wouldn't be able to move, her snake-like form relying entirely upon them for movement. Miraculously, she was fine. She was the least hurt of any of them. Pan was the worst. He was laying on the ground, barely conscious, making small noises of pain when he was touched. Exoskeleton shattered. Golxor was alright, about as hurt as he and Wanda, which was only mild. a few fractures or broken bones. Sylvia had powered up the spaceship.

Wanda turned on the molecular reconstructer, which would be able to heal Pan easily.

"No stop!" Said Sylvia. "The ship is on emergency power. A reconstruction of that magnitude would render it useless on you three."

"Okay, let's let the chip work its magic." Said Wanda. The others gathered around and waited for Pan to die and his consciousness to be sent back home as had happened to them countless times.

Suddenly, something inside Ekko just said NO. She would not sit by and sulk. It was dark, but she could see easily with her keen amber eyes, so she decided to go visit Myaiai, her friend the Niychii. Although Myaiai couldn't talk, he always found a way to comfort Ekko. She hopped off her stump and, checking to make sure she had her dagger with her like she always did, set off onto the path to the pond, the path she had travelled so many times when her spirits fell.

An invader walked over to it's radar screen, and looked at the little dot on it. He had heard the explosion of course, everyone had. They would have to investigate this crash site, and see if there were any survivors. If that was the case, then they would eliminate them...

Jeclere looked at Vicha (Vee-shuh), her poofaslug, and hugged him. "I'm going to do something about this," she told him. "Now that I'm old enough, I'm going to find the other Syratopes that are still on this planet and build them into an army against the Invaders!" Vicha nodded vigorously. Jeclere crawled out of her log and started looking for kindling. Suddenly, there was a huge explosion, and a small shockwave traveled through the ground and knocked her off her feet, sending kindling everywhere.

"WHAT WAS THAT?!!" she exclaimed as dirt, fire, and pieces of scrap metal flew in every direction from just outside the forest. She jumped to her feet and grabbed Vicha. "Let's go see what that was!" she yelled as she ran rowards the explosion. Then she stopped, thinking better of it. If there was a mine field around her somewhere, that would explain the explosion! She walked carefully, picking her path very, well, carefully. Then she came to a crashed spaceship, and she screamed. "Hello?" she called out. "Hello?"

"Hewo?" Vicha repeated. Jeclere ran closer and checked around for survivors. There was smoke everywhere, and she began to hack. Then she heard a voice, a calming, soothing voice. She ran in that direction.

"W-w-wait..." Pan strained.

"There there." Purred Sylviana.

"Soon you'll be home, on your homeworld. You can get a chance to visit your family. You're the only one of us who still has a family." Everyone became quiet instantly. There was a long pause as everyone remembered their families and friends.


"HELLO?!! HELLO!!?"

"Hewo?"



"Is someone there? We're okay, we're fine!" Called Sylviana.

"We need power! Do you have a recharge pack?" Wanda screamed.

"It sounds like a child!" Kanter perked up at this. Children were the best kind of people. He loved swooping down, dazzling a few kids on a terrifying adventure and then rushing them into space for more. This was an opprotunity to do just that. Then he looked at the gory scene beside him. Wanda was bleeding, and Pan's guts were spilling out from his abdomen, everyone was hurt in some way.

"DON'T COME IN HERE!" He shouted, and got up painfully to stop her.

Myaiai floated in the water by Ekko's feet, gentling nuzzling her ankle. Having been Ekko's friend for four years, he was easily able to tell that she was sad again, yet all he could really do to help was gently show his support. Ekko looked down lovingly at the Niychii, and was about to tell him something when her excellent hearing picked up a small voice somewhere across the forest, calling out... Saying the word hello, almost asking it. Then she hard more voices... Ekko's amazing hearing, able to pick up significant sounds from miles away, never failed her. Something was going on.
Ekko sat up and looked around. The sounds were far away, no doubt, but she felt as if she should see something important. She gave Myaiai a look that told him she would be back. Taking a minute to pinpoint their general origin, she set off to the edge of the forest in pursuit of the voices.

The invader was already halfway to the crash site, his vehicle boucing along with the rest in his party. He could see smoke against the stars now, thick black smoke. Nothing like the faint reds and murky greens the factories produced. Maybe if he was lucky, a few stray Syratopes would be out there investigating and he could eliminate more of his enemy.

Jeclere heard someone shout, "We're okay, we're fine!" Then she heard, "Do you have a recharge pack?" She was about to ask what a recharge pack was, when she heard another voice, "DON'T COME IN HERE!" She took a step back. "Excuse me?" she asked. "Why not?"