Chapter One

I lay on our Pasterian couch; something we had bought from Muse not that long ago. My brother Ada was probably off at the President's building, recording a speech about President Nathaniel's newest, ridiculous law. Some may wonder why I use the term "Recording". Well, that is because when the speeches are televised, they are holographic recordings. Ada is a senator, which basically means he goes out and make speeches to the galaxy about how they should support the new laws that are being made. I for one never really understood politics. They were too competitive, and also too bothersome. No, war was the thing for me. War was so much easier then politics. Plus, war relieves a lot of stress. Okay, so maybe war isn't all that great. But I would prefer war over politics with how corrupt our government is. I am a Nabinian Warrior, which means President Nathaniel gives me something to fight or protect, and I win. Ada and I are complete opposites, but I still love him. Unless he annoys me, because then I kick his ass. I went to grab another Hayjul Puff when my holographer beeped. I took the circular compact mirror off my belt, typed a password on the top and flipped it open. If nobody was calling me, it would look like a regular compact mirror. Circular mirrors on both sides to see yourself in. But when someone was Hologramming me, their Hologram would appear on top of the bottom mirror. I looked at the Hologram and saw President Nathaniel. 

"Lightning, how wonderful to see you!" I rolled my eyes. 

"As it is to see you sir." He laughed.

"You don't need to be so formal with me when I know you so well." I shivered.

"Please sir, due to our social standings I see it only appropriate to keep this strictly professional." He nodded and continued.

"Alright. Well, as you know, our trade system with Muse has been getting dangerously tracked by Seribra." I nodded and he continued. "We cannot afford a war with them right now, especially not when the new law has just been formed." I nodded.

"Yes, I am aware." He nodded.

"Good. Now, we don't want war, but our trading with Muse is necessary to continue so we can go on with building Galactic towers for the senate." I nodded and pondered. 

"What do you propose we do? We can't just issue an offensive attack on Seribra, that would endanger our people, and we would lose the support of Muse and Oceania!" President Nathaniel nodded. 

    "Yes, which is why I am suggesting that you and Ada travel to Muse and set something up with the Princess." I sighed.

    "Mr. President, that is not my job, its Ada's. My job is to protect and fight people, I won't do this for politics." President Nathaniel groaned and was silent for awhile. I suppose that politics has everything to do with people, and that their lives are at stake as well, but they have special training to defend themselves with, the innocent people of our galaxy don't. 

    "Alright Lightning, I will have Ada discuss that with the princess, but I do have a job for you." I smiled. 

    "What is it?" He smirked and continued.

    "There is a rumor that Seribra is going to issue an attack on Aura. Now, I am not taking these rumors seriously, seemings they are just whispers from one peasant to another. Plus, I have heard those whispers before." I interrupted. I hated that rude tone he had in his voice sometimes. Calling the people who support us 'peasants' seems hardly necessary.  

    "Well then sir, what am I needed for?" He rolled his eyes.

    "I was about to tell you. Your job is to travel to Seribra and find out if these whispers are true. If they are not, come back and report to me anything interesting you may have heard, but if they are, you will hologram me your mission report and then travel straight to Aura." I nod. 

    "I got it. But Sir, how will I get into Seribra without being detected? Their Plurite shields will kill anyone that doesn't have the Seribian DNA." President Nathaniel smiled deviously and I immediately got nervous. 

    "Well, that is why I need you to come to the Presidential building, so we can.... Disguise you for your mission. Until we meet again." And his Hologram disappeared. I sighed and looked up. 

    "Damn." I said, closing my Holographer. I put the device back on my belt and then I opened a pouch. I pulled a rectangular glass slide out of it and typed in my badge number. On the glass, aqua lettering spelled out a list of contacts. I scrolled down until I found the name and I clicked on it. Two bubbles showed up. In the Nabianian language, one read "Page" and the other read "Call". I clicked the call bubble. Aqua dots appeared in the air and spun in a circle. I heard a voice I was all too familiar with. 

    "Center 119, how may I help you?" I rolled my eyes. 

    "Selly, it's me, Lightning." He smiled.

    "Lightning! What do you need?" I spoke firmly. 

    "I need the fastest spaceship you have, and I need it teleported here as fast as you can." He spoke with an obedient tone. 

    "One spaceship coming up." I smiled.

    "Thanks Selly." Suddenly, the aqua dots disappeared and the device turned back into a slate of glass once again. I put the glass back into the pouch and walked over to the sliding gas doors. I opened and closed them, walking over to the transporter. Sure enough, there was a spaceship on it. I smiled. He had sent me Starcatcher. The fastest ship in the galaxy so far. I grinned.

    "He really understood the fast part." I opened the driver side door and sat in the pilot seat, closing the door behind me. I heard a female voice. 

"Welcome, Badge 119." I looked at the control panel and saw buttons I had never seen before, which is rare for me, since I have practically been on every spaceship and used to help Ada fix them up. This one must be a newer model. I look up at the speaker above the windshield and speak. 

"How come this has newer controls? I was just on a Starcatcher the other day and they didn't have these." The ship spoke. 

"This is a newer model, the one you were on before was my sister ship, and it was a very old model." I muttered. 

"That explains why it crashed in the middle of Seribra. I had to confront an assassin by the name of Alteria. I almost died." The ship remained monotone. 

"I don't care. Now, if you look at the series of buttons to your right, those are to control the speed. The numbers below the buttons are the amount of speed you want to go." I nodded and muttered 'what a rude ship' as the she continued. 

"On your left hand side is a series of gages. These are the control gages. Do you see the gage on  the right hand side? That one shows when you need more Letectious fuel. The gage next to it shows you how fast you are going. The gage below those two shows the gas pressure build up. If that gets below zero or above 100, you must stop somewhere and let the ship cool down." I nodded. 

"Where is the start button?" The ship laughed.

"Oh no, I start and stop this ship. I can switch to autopilot if I wish, even though this ship is basically already on autopilot. This isn't me making fun of you (but it kind of is), it is just a precaution due to the amount of drunkies that crashed their ships into planets last year." I nodded and rolled my eyes, remembering the monstrosities that were posted on the LynialNet. I felt the ship rumble to life and start to take off. I looked at the touchpad in front of me and typed in the coordinates for the Presidential building. I grabbed the glass slate, which most of us call Hyperphone. I typed in my badge number and scrolled through my contacts until I hit Ada's name. I hit call and the aqua dots appeared in the air. I heard his smooth voice. 

"What is it?" I spoke in my professional voice, a voice that sounded firm and serious. 

"I'm gonna be a little late getting home tonight, in fact, if this mission is what I think it is, I may not be home for a while." Ada paused. 

"How long is a while?" He asked as I shrugged, knowing he couldn't see me.

"Dunno." He said okay and I hung up as we reached the Presidential building. I eyed the spatch and worried. The spatch is what makes this ship fly places so quickly, and what makes the ship able to transport from one dock to another. If that gets blown up, I'm screwed at getting home.The ship landed in the landing dock and I walked through the doors of the entrance. 

When I walked through the entrance, there was a huge red carpeted space. There was political statues of influential people and pictures of the galactic presidents we have had over the years. Windows lined the back of the room and on the left and right sides of the room were two hallways. If you turned right, at the end of the hallway was the President's office. If you turned left, you would hit the bathrooms and the room where all the food was, and usually where I was. I turned right and walked into his office. Nathaniel's office had tan walls and red floors. He always said the red carpet was to hide red wine and red majik, which made me wonder what he does in this office. His desk was on the back wall in the center of the room. I walked over to him and he smiled. 

"Lightning! the sight of you is always a pleasure." I smiled sarcastically.

"I'm sure it is. Now what is this disguise thing you were talking about?" I wondered. He smirked and stared right into my eyes, which I found to be kind of intimidating. 

"Well, we have some technology here that can inject some Seribian DNA in you. Once we inject it in, your majik aura will be completely different." I violently shook my head. 

"NO! If I get that majik injected into my veins, I will become more violent than usual!" I shouted as he rested his hands below his chin. 

"Don't worry, it wares off in 2-3 hours." I bit my lip. 

"Are you sure I'll be able to get the information by then? Mistis isn't exactly one to say her plans outright.." He nodded. 

"Always one step ahead." He tapped his desk and raised his hand and a red holographic map appeared. "This is the layout of Seribra. Now from my calculations, Mistis and her warriors will gather right around here." He pointed to a very tall tower. "And talk about the advantages of each planet, and which one they should take over." I nodded. 

"Right, so how do I get in?" He shrugged. 

"We don't know. Which is why I'm sending you this map on your Holographer. You can enter your  badge number and then 2, and this map will appear."  nodded, but then spoke again. 

"Well, if I only have 2-3 hours, how will I exit the planet without dying from their shields, it takes at least an hour to get close to the shields." He smirked.

"How did you do it last time." Nathaniel pressed as I glared at him. 

"That was an accident. My ship was falling at an accelerated rate, causing it to break the shields. It took them a year to repair the shield. I can't just fall into the sky." He nodded. 

"Right, which is why you must leave within an hour, even if you don't have the information. You cannot go back there if you're dead." He scolded as I gave him a nod. 

"Right. Well, where do I go to get injected?" The president smiled and stood up.

"Follow me." I nodded and followed him out the door and into an elevator I didn't know they had. The elevator door was tan with silver trim. The walls around me were circular and made of glass, so you could see everyone that was actually working. If you turned around, behind you, you could see the personal ships and buildings of Nabine; and if you looked really close, you could see the forest area, also known as Quarantine. That is where the President, and usually me, go to drop off creatures to inject them with certain serums before we test them on warriors. The floor was carpeted and a grayish color. I felt the elevator jerk to a stop and the doors opened. Outside the door was a doctor that was smiling. The doctor was mildly attractive. He was wearing a dusty blue button up shirt with khakis and dress shoes. A white lab coat was slightly covering his outfit. His hair was a sandy blonde and his blue green eyes practically bored into your soul. His skin was tan and had no sign of acne or anything; puberty had clearly been good to him. His smile sort of set me off, along with him smelling like hospital. He held out his hand to me and I hesitantly took it. He led me into a typical operating room with a bed, monitor, desk with a laptop, and a huge light. It smelt like the doctor did: hospital. I sat on the bed and the doctor looked at me. 

"So, you're needing Seribian majik for a mission you're going on?" He asked as I shrug. 

"Apparently." He laughed and looked at me.

"You're not much of a social person are you?" I smile and shake my head. I knew that he found that fact unusual, since most Nabinian warriors are social people. 

"Not really." He leaned close to me and whispered. 

"I'm not either." He revealed as I nodded slowly and awkwardly as he proceeded to connect wires to a piece of a sticky pad and stuck it onto spots on my body. My chest tightened up as his fingers pressed the sticky pads onto my bare skin. My throat tightened up as a disgusting smile slinked across his face. Flashes appeared in my mind at the thought of what this doctor could do. I was completely at his mercy.

"Excuse me, why do I need these on my body?" I blurted as he looked at me. 

"These are to monitor your heart while you are being injected in case your heart goes to fast or too slow." My eyes widen. 

"That can happen?!" I pressed as he nodded. I take deep breaths. 

"I cannot believe this! I might die!" He smiled deviously. 

"At least you'll die a hero." I narrowed my eyes and prepared for what was to come. After his prep was done, he slowly inserted the needle into my arm. I saw my majik running into the tube and my eyes widened. I had seen majik  many times, in many different colors, but never my own. It was sickening. I felt my stomach twisting up as my head tilted into darkness.