The War Revealed - 3rd Novel in the Shadow Series

Chapter 30 .

Minmin

I stared at the Armstar and felt a strange mix of dread and hope. My mom was dead. She had died from the pain the Corruption gave her. All this time of pushing away the thought of her - of pushing away my grief - it came back now in a torrent that encased my heart. Burning tears sprang to my eyes. Though my shield regulated the area directly around me, tears in space probably were not a good idea so I blinked them away and chased away the grief for another day.

My eyes flitted to Shel. He also stared at the Armstar, but when he felt my gaze he turned to me. An understanding passed between us reminding me again that even though we weren't related - we weren't even the same species - he was my brother. In that moment, I pushed my grief away for something else. Hope. Hope that Shel and I - with a great deal of help from Vai - could save our fathers.

There was a great distance between us and the Armstar. There was a lot of black space and many ships between us. And Shel and I couldn't take on the entire Armstar by ourselves. Even if the Corruption on Brist were in hiding, the Corruption on the ships were still there and they could tear through us and our shields even if we managed to fight off everyone on board the Armstar.

Shel's deep blue eyes turned away as they searched over the battle for what I assumed was an effort to find his mother. I looked too, but I didn't see her. I wasn't even sure she was on this shift. Perhaps she was in the alternate shift.

I searched for Vai. He wasn't too far away. Warpaint stood by his side. Vai's dark brown eyes met mine. I was going to ask for his help, but in that moment I hesitated. It was selfish of me to ask him to hold off healing our people just so he could help me and Shel get our fathers back.

All of the enemy ships moved away from us and now concentrated their fire power on the warships. The fighting with those of us with the light outside the ships kind of stopped. There were a few that still attacked the Brist ships, but the rest of us waited. We couldn't compete with the warships' weapons - even with the lesser weapons that they now used to attack the Brist ships. They had stopped using their mass weapons to reserve those for the planet.

We couldn't destroy the entire Brist planet just to get at the Corruption that was hiding inside it. At least, I hoped the Gathering council wouldn't order the destruction of an entire planet. That was unfathomable.

I drew closer to Shel and Owen who had been beside me moved with me. I looked at Shel. He looked at me. Neither of us wanted to actually voice the possibility of going to save our fathers on the Armstar.

"Friends," Owen said to us after an unnaturally long pause. We both looked to him. "I know you want to return to your original home and take back your dads, but we can't take on the entire ship just by ourselves."

"I'm willing to try," Esther said as she came up beside us.

"I do not understand," Gray said.

"He's only going to be able to fit in the shuttle bay," Shel said. "Sorry, Gray, but you're really not going to be of help."

"You need to make your ships bigger," Gray muttered.

"I know what you are thinking," since when was Lieutenant Tanpo beside us, "but it's too dangerous to go into the Armstar by ourselves."

The Remembrance suddenly dropped below all the fighting before going still. It just sat there not making any sort of move.

"Is it just me, or is the Remembrance acting unusual," Owen said.