We will not cure your friend.”
Mallobo looked over at the clicking and clacking marbles. “You disgust me.”
“And I don’t care. But the Cugan have hitchhiked into some of your fellow Deltorians, right now they’ve broken into your Hall of Records, they’re looking for a virus, the Qay-Et Virus.”
“There’s no such thing.” Mallobo scoffed.
“There is now, since I put it there. And once they get a hold of this virus they will use it on Deltor and turn the planet into a wasteland.”
Mallobo looked at Elva in confusion. “Did I forget to mention that Cugan’s are creatures that live off of the dead? Yes, they will kill everyone on Deltor if you do not stop them. Right now as we speak one of the hitchhiking beings is using these Teldas to break into the Hall of Records under the guise of Deltorian Freedom from the Planetary Alliance. Once this little guy makes his way back to home base, he’s going to unleash the rest of his family using the Qay-Et Virus and therefore panic and carnage on your planet.” Elva said with a smile.
Mallobo thought about fighting her and making her reverse what she’s done, but he thought about what he told her before. ‘She’s a messenger.’
“That is your mission Mallobo, but I just I’m in a giving mood, so I’m going to do you a solid.” Elva said standing up.
“A what?”
“It’s an Earth term; it means I’m going to do you a favor. You Spiral Galaxy people need to get out more. Something is going to happen to you, I will not tell you what, because I really want to see how this plays out, but what happens to you is very unpleasant, the only thing that will save you, is this meeting with me. You must keep it a secret. Tell no one that you’ve met me. And the information you’ve gathered from this meeting will be you’re saving grace. It’s up to you baby cakes.” In a low deep voice Elva said, “We’re done here.”
Mallobo gasped, he could feel the force of two sets of hands pushing down on his shoulders. He woke up and he was floating in space across from Deltor. To Mallobo’s surprise he could breathe, and he could hear the clicking and clacking of the marbles intensify grow louder and louder and faster and faster. He looked onto Deltor the planet that looked like a piece of candy and watched the life dry up and shrivel the life of the botany died up and turned to ash. The bright colored oceans did not dry up but they were turned into a ugly, foul smelling slush of garbage and ash. The louder and faster the marbles clinked and clacked the faster Mallobo’s heart pumped. He began to tear up and he screamed and shouted “No!” But no voice came from his mouth. Mallobo could see himself standing on the roof he had just finished talking to Lovo, he turned and he saw himself. Realizing the moment Mallobo knew he had to rush over to the Hall of Records so he teleported there. A distortion of crackling noises of static could be heard as he teleported. He opened his eyes to see two guards at the Hall of Records getting up and collecting themselves. He unsheathed his Nilo Blade and told the guards to call his people for back up. Mallobo ran up behind Trystan who was startled by his appearance.
“What are you doing?”
“Following Dajus.” Trystan said confused, he was sure he left Mallobo while he was searching the Cerliquan Hall. “She’s up to something.”
The scene played out as it did before between Dajus and Trystan, Mallobo felt a strange wave of déjà vu wash over him. He didn’t know why, but Elva had placed him with Trystan and Dajus while the search was going on. The three warriors found the Teldas breaking into the computer system and uploading documents. Dajus and Mallobo entered the room while Trystan entered into another to terminate their access to the files.
“Well, what do we have here?” Dajus shouted into the room.
Mallobo searched around the room for the hitchhiker. ‘Of course they’d all look the same.’
“Who’s first?” Dajus shouted as she began fighting the Teldas who charged her.
Even though the Teldas had the numbers, Mallobo and Dajus were highly trained warriors. Dajus took on three while Mallobo took on three. Dajus laughed a little putting away her blade and rolled up her sleeves. She punched one, knocking him out immediately and threw the second against the wall, while she kicked the other and grabbed his neck cutting off the supply of blood to his brain making him pass out as well.
While Dajus was fighting her three, Mallobo jumped and kicked the two who tried to attack him head on and then grabbed the last one, “One of you is not like the others, which one is it?” The man looked at Mallobo in confusion. “What?”
One of the men that Dajus beat up groaned on the floor, “It’s too late, we’ve already gotten what we came to get.”
“Shut up!” Dajus shouted ready to strike the man again.
“Dajus no!” Trystan shouted from the doorway. “He’s right, the information was transferred to someone else, somewhere else on Deltor.”
Lovo teleported to the room to catch up with the other warriors, she took a look around and sighed. “What happened to ‘I’m making my way back to you?’” Lovo said miffed with Mallobo who completely forgot he said that to her before he vanished to meet Elva.
“No, you’re here just in time, it looks like these guys were trying to break into the system they were gathering information on us, information on the rest of the galaxy, and on something called the Qay-Et Strain.” Trystan hesitated before reading the name of the virus, the name was unfamiliar to him, he asked everyone if any of them has heard of it and none of the warriors knew. They decided to take what they could with them back to the palace to their war room to analyze everything.
The warriors decided to bind and isolate each of the prisoners with an energy force field. If they tried to escape a jolt of energy would transfer throughout their bodies causing them to return to their jailer. But more importantly they were separated so that they wouldn’t have time to collaborate on their stories. Trystan looked through the files to see what was transferred and tried to find where the files were transferred to while Dajus, Lovo and Mallobo interrogated the six who were captured.
Mallobo took the man who he had spoken with in the computer room at the Hall of Records and brought him to another room in the palace. “You never answered my question.” Mallobo started the conversation.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The Deltorian was young and scared, he didn’t know what Mallobo was going to do.
“Listen, something serious is happening, you are not helping Deltor, you’re making it worse, you’re scaring people.” Mallobo started to explain.
“Good, they should be scared, the Planetary Alliance aren’t who they say they are.” The young man became a little bolder.
“You want to help Deltor that’s fine, I admire that, but you are doing this the wrong way, now the person you’ve been taking orders from does not have Deltor’s best interests in mind. Look, look at this.” Mallobo held up paperwork for the young man to see, “This is what you were stealing today, an undeveloped virus called Qay-Et do you know what that is?”
The young man shook his head.
“It’s a virus,” Mallobo looked at another paper on the file and read off the young man’s name, “Riv’Wo. Riv’Wo?”
Riv’Wo rolled his eyes, “It’s my father’s name. What do you mean virus?”
“As in make the whole world shrivel up and die is what I mean by virus. No Deltorian will be able to live here.” Mallobo was serious he didn’t have any other leads except for Riv’Wo.
“We never meant for the world to end. But if what you’re telling me is true then everything else I’ve heard is beginning to make sense. The people we take our orders from, the two founders they…they kept talking about the significance of a certain time, which is two days from now. I thought it meant the end of the Planetary Alliance treaty, but not this. Their names are Frok and Shi they run this whole thing. They’re the founders of the Teldas. But they’ve split up to two cities, one is in Vitca and the other is in Pla
ctu. I only know this because I was snooping.”
“Plactu? That’s halfway across the world from here.” Mallobo stated aloud.
“I know that’s how they operate, probably so that they can spread this virus epidemic faster.” Riv’Wo said with regret.
The warriors apprised the Queen of the situation; she gave them the word to continue with their search of the virus. While eating dinner Mallobo told the others only what he wanted them to hear; on the strength of his word the others followed him. Dajus knew differently, but she could not say anything because she didn’t want any of the others to know that she and the Skyro whom she had been sharing her body with had been conversing with one another. She knew that the others already knew this but she didn’t want to discuss it with them. At dinner Dajus was famished but she didn’t want to eat any of the food prepared for her.
“What is this?” she asked the others.
“It’s a Lazonian dish.” The chef said with pride in his voice.
“We’re about to go out on a mission and you feed us food with no substance.” Dajus started to chastise the chef.
The chef tried to apologize for his mistake, but Dajus did not want to hear his answer, she knew what she wanted. She got up and stormed out of the dinner. Everyone let her leave without chasing after her, but after dinner Trystan and Lovo went to find her.