Don was walking backwards slowly, trying to find anything he could use as a weapon. It can't be, why is this happening to him. The creature made a few steps forward, enough to get into the apartment and then it closed the door and spoke.
-"I can't trust any human except you, that's why you see me again"
-"You followed me home that night? Why, what do you want from me? Leave me alone. Leave this apartment, please. Now."
-"Not me, but yes, we followed you here because we knew there might be chances we will need you."
-"We? Need me? And sorry, why would you think you could trust me?"
-"Yes, there are six of us on the Earth now. If you wanted to anyhow endanger us you would do it already, you would let me die then, but you didn't. You are human healer right? One of us is injured and we need you to help him."
-"Six? Here? Are you hurting people? And yes, I am human healer as you said. Human. I don't know how our medicine will work on you and I don't want to find out. I could have big, big problems if anyone finds out."
-"I don't have time to explain everything now. Here, I think you humans value these for some reason."
He hands Don some little bag. Don took it and opened it. There were fucking diamonds in it, at least dozen little diamonds. That will for sure pay for his mother's therapies. At least for a while. Who knows for how long will she fight with cancer.
-"This is... Generous, but I must refuse."
Yes, he is doing a right thing. These won't make his mother live for sure and now he can help his parents with money, there is no need to take risks like this.
-"If you save him, I will give you ten more bags like this. Please. He will die without help."
Ten bags?? Oh my God. He could pay off his parents debts and help mother in her fight. But... He can't just enter any jewelry store and say "Hello, I am here to sell those diamonds. Yeah, I just found them in my backyard." What to do... He can't just leave that creature to die, there are already to many people on his soul.
-"Okay, I will help him, but you must tell me what happened to him so I can take proper medical supplies."
-"He was burned and injured by heat and radiation of the core of Pollus star."
-"Okay, what the hell is that?"
-"I don't have time as I said, he needs help soon or he will die, otherwise I wouldn't be here."
-"Sorry. Wait here, I think I might have most of the things I need here, for the rest I will have to improvise."
Don took everything he thought he will need and put it in his sport's bag he almost never uses.
-"Okay, I am ready, let's go. Lead the way."
-"Sure, make sure you keep it up with me."
-"Keep it up? How do you mean?"
As Don finished his question the creature turned around, put something on his face and in a second his look switched to that of a human. What the fuck? Then it started to run and damn it was fast. Don was trying his best but the creature seemed like it was refraining. It would be interesting to examine their abilities. After 10 minutes they arrived behind abandoned building. Of course, here is their lair or whatever. Don was catching his breath, two more minutes and he will just fall dead in the street. This is not for him definitely. The creature acted like it was fully rested and energized. How is that even possible? It crouched and made some simbol on the ground right next to the wall of building. The wall began to shake and the bricks beneath them literally rearranged opening a path downstairs. Wow. This is awesome even in sci fi movies. The creature led the way down. There were a lot of stairs until they came in front of a metal door. It knocked four times and said something in their language that Don couldn't even repeat. The door opened immediately. And look at that, behind the door was big high tech room. Totally unexpected. Don waited to wake up from this stupid dream. He didn't knew what any of those devices are for. In the left corner there were six capsules, all empty except one. In one that wasn't empty was laying a creature same as the one he already met. Then one by one other four aliens started to show up from the behind of one big devices. They didn't seem as friendly as the guy that bringed him here.
-"Uhm, hello? I am here to help one of you."
They were just standing there and watching him. One of them, the creature that was holding a glass full of something made a step forward and looked at Don closely.
-"Hello. So you are the human that saved Baxeus?"
-"If you mean him." Don pointed at the creature he saved. "They yes."
Other creature continued. -"Then you are my ally and me and my subordinates here owe you."
They all nodded and started to introduce themselves. They had of course strange names that Don forgot as soon as they told them, but he was happy to be considered as ally.
-"I am Don, glad to meet you all. Can you show me where your injured friend is?"
-"Come with me."
The one of four creatures whose name Don only remembered showed him way to the capsule. It was Queegen. Or he thought it should be pronounced like that. It or he, whatever, clicked something on the capsule's main board. For Don there were just a simbols that could be seen on kids first drawings. The capsule opened and showed another creature clearly. It had multiple wounds on its body, most of them looked like burns but some, it was open wounds that seemed like tears. What could done that damage? Oh yes, a core of a star.
-"I need one of you here that will answer on my question and I would ask others to leave so I can work in peace. It will take time to treat this."
They looked at each other but then left the room without word being said.
It took at least two hours to fix what could be fixed. The thing is, Don couldn't know if there was some internal wounds and whether the creature lost a lot of blood in which case Don also couldn't do anything because he obviously couldn't just take their blood samples and check if they have blood types and everything else. He couldn't be sure that blood of other one will have same effect as human's transfusion to other human. So, its better not to do anything that will make it even worse. They could only wait and hope for the best. After two more hours the others came back. Queegen is again the one who talks.
-"What are your predictions?"
-"Well, honestly? I don't know. I done everything I could. We can only hope for the best now."
-"I don't like the sound of that. What are his chances of surviving?"
-"If there are no internal injuries? Big, very big."
-"And if there are?"
-"Sorry, but probably none without proper medical care and it's not like we can just walk into the hospital. Even with that masks of yours. Your anatomy is different and.. Well you know.."
-"DAMN! What can we do? Can we bring something that will help?"
Their will to help the injured friend was so strong. There was a strong bond between all of them.
-"No, the machines and devices are too big and I am not surgeon. Even if you bring all he needs, I would still not be capable to save him."
-"So, if we bring someone that could that means that..."
-"No. You won't kidnap anyone. Do that and you will have to kill that person and me, because I will tell the world where you are. I doubt this facinating lab or home, call it whenever you want, was build in a day. Even with your technology. By the way, when we are talking about technology, can't any of these devices of yours help your friend?"
Queegen looked calm, even after Don literally yelled and threatened to him.
-"Okay, no kidnaping. We could heal him in a second if we are on our ship, but it is gone and all this devices here are for stabilizing the core of a star we have here. If they weren't here, the radiation from the core would kill more than half humanity, probably all."
-"What? Why are you keeping it here then? You put us all in danger!"
-"Because Earth is safest place to hide it. I am sorry."
-"Hide it? From who? From what?"
Queegen sat down on the chair. Other were already having fun with something in the other corner of the room. They wanted to stay by capsule but Baxeus told them to come with him, probably he was trying to make them forget about injured friend for a while. Queegen continued after taking a deep breath, like he will tell a long story or some bad news.
-"I will explain everything, from the beginning. You can ask me whatever you want later. So, there are 19 intelligent species in our galaxy. Everyone lives in peace with each other. It isn't really strong peace but I believe sustainable enough to last. Except humans of course. You humans are, hmm, I would say different. You are conquerors. It's in your blood. So the Great Council decided to avoid you for as long as it is possible."
-"Is everyone so technologically advanced?"
-"Oh no, you will be like most of them in like, hm, 30, maybe 40 years if you don't destroy yourselves till then. We are the most advanced species. Of course I am talking just about our galaxy, we don't leave it. Ever. That's one of the rules."
-"Nice, I will maybe live long enough to see that. Rules? What rules?"
-"Maybe you will see it sooner. On the other planets. Well, rules are passed by the Great Council."
-"Ha-ha, I really doubt that. What is the Great Council?"
-"It's a council that was made of five beings from every nation. There are 90 members in it and they decide about everything. Most important thing is that they decide who will have right to go collect the core of a star that died. It doesn't matter why the star died, except that it is strongly forbidden to intentionaly destroy it."
-"Okay, that seems fair. Why are those cores so important to you?"
-"Well, truth to be told, there were 20 nations once. But they were same like you humans. They were only nation that had wars on its planet, of course among themselves. When other nations revealed themselves to them it was fine for first couple of years. There was peace. In those first couple of years they were producing weapons and making plans how to conquer the rest of us. We lend them our technology and knowledge, only to be stabbed in the back. They used it against us all. They started to destroy stars in our galaxy and taking their cores. The cores have big radiation level and depending on a kind of a star it's radiation can change DNA of any creature. Of course, there is a probability of dying when exposing to it's radiation, but some, the strongest ones are being changed. In way you can't even imagine. Those who manage to get changed are called 'Star Knights'."
-"Is that... What you have done to that cops?"
-"Yes, and I am sorry about that but they endangered me and.."
-"Yes yes, I get it.. How?"
-"Well, I was exposed to radiation of a core that let me lower temperature on a specific spot."
-"You want to tell me that you caused heart attack to that officers by literally frozing their hearts?"
-"Yes."
-"And the others here have the same ability?"
-"Oh no.. The core can't last long, maybe for few years and then it dies too. In few years it is possible to make few soldiers only for a specific star. There needs to be hard training to get your body's characteristic to be compatible with core."
-"Or you die?"
-"Or you die."
Don didn't knew what to think, on all this that happened in past month he now finds out that there are super soldiers out there.
-"Hey Queegen, can I call you simply Gen?"
-"Yeah, of course."
-"Gen, what happened to 20th species, the one that betrayed you all?"
-"Oh yes, well... They are first to use the power of stars in a military way. Of course that made them the strongest nation of us all. They started to offer us to surrender or die. Most of nations have surrendered immediately, the rest tried to fight but.. You can't fight someone with abilities like that.. That was.. Terrible, bloodsheet on every planet that tried to resist. The rest of nations surrendered very quickly. The invadors, called Erogs, settled in entire galaxy. Except here. They were smart enough not to try make humans allies, becuse they knew you will betray them the same way they betrayed us and they were smart enough not to make you enemies."
-"Where are they now?"
-"That's the time Council was founded. In shadows of course. They created teams that will go gather cores that will let us fight back. We were occupied by Erogs for seven years. When Council decided there were enough Knights created to fight back we have done that. First the plan was to push them back on their planet and take their every possibility to get strong again. It didn't happened like that.. Hate, despair and need for a revenge were too strong in most of our Knights and they exterminated them. They even hunted their expeditions and destroyed every single alive Erog."
-"One whole species.."
-"Yes. But if you ask me, they deserved it."
-"I know but still.."
-"Yeah.. So, we decided to track you, to always keep an eye on humans. We will never let you grow strong enough to be dangerous for any of us. We created teams with a task to learn your main languages, learn your habits and flaws. We had a task to learn how to be a human."
-"You are one of members from that team?"
-"Yes. We all are. And we are Star Knights at the same time."
-"I get it..."
-"Do you have any other questions?"
-"You didn't really answer my first questions. Why are you hiding this core, why here and from who?"
-"Why here? Because here no one will be looking for it. Everyone hates Earth, or at least avoiding it. Why are we hiding this core? Because as I said, the Council decides who gets the core of a star when it dies. There is always some unsastified nation but now.. Everyone is. You see, this star.. It is special, we don't know why and how but it's the only core that no one knows what change it will make to it's host. Only one more star like this existed in the whole galaxy and it was used by Erogs and you know what happened. Everyone wants it. If we didn't steal it, it would have led to wars between nations. We are here hiding it until we find out how to destroy it in a safe way."
-"That's why you have already two injured friends?"
-"Yes, we are trying but.. It's like this core has it's own will, like it is fighting to stay alive."
-"How does it work?"
Gen seemed unpleasant not knowing the answer.
-"It somehow affects the host's main charateristic and amplifies them. On example, some Erogs could use energy like your fantasy mages, some were just so strong, some were fast and those were the weakest ones.. We really don't know how one core can cause different mutations."
-"Hm, I wish you luck with destroying that thing."
-"Thanks, we will need it. Until we succeed, will you be here if we need you again?"
-"Yes, you know where you can find me but only until you destroy that thing."
-"Of course, thank you."
The capsule started to beep. Gen jumped from his chair and ran towards capsule. He started to type fast on it's main board.
-"What's happening? Gen?"
-"He is dying."
-"Fuck, open the capsule, now!"