The Solar Flare Read Online Free Page B

It was easier than I thought. After a long while I met Andre. He told me how he had observed me after my transformation and tried if for himself, on a victim of an automobile accident.”
        “He is like you then?”
         “Yes, all of my crew are like me.”
          “What do you call yourselves?” Ava asked, unsure if she could swallow this story.
         “Naomi came up with the idea to call us ‘Asterions’ after the meaning ‘ruler of the stars’ since that’s apparently where we believe we came from.”
         “So you are all Asterions . . .  how many of you are there in existence?”
         “That I’m not sure of. As you could imagine we like to keep to ourselves and not attract a lot of attention. We can sense others of our kind around us. I’ve only run across maybe a dozen others besides my crew. I know that somehow Andre, Naomi, and I knew each other before we became human. Perhaps we are related. They feel like my family, so that’s how we treat each other. I believe that I am the oldest Asterion in existence and that I have been human longer than any other Asterion.”
         “Do humans know about you?”
         “No, not generally. It’s not something we like to announce, you know. After I met Andre, his match, Naomi, followed his steps to become human so that they could continue to be together. We all began our lives. We had many occupations from one time to another. Mostly we worked on the development of the space stations. We had knowledge of the galaxy that humans didn’t and some of us have certain abilities that regular humans don’t.”
         “What kind of abilities?”
         “When we become human we are weak, but over time our essence and energy settle into our bodies and the energy builds. I discovered that I had the ability to teleport myself from place to place.”
         “Teleport?” Ava asked, astonished.
         “Yes, but I don’t like to do it because it drains my energy. This is how I got you home the night you were drugged at the club. I can also do some telekinesis.”
         “You can use your mind to move objects?” Ava replied with disbelief. “Show me, I want to see this,” she said resolutely. His story was nothing if not incredible, but she wanted proof.
          He looked at her, sensing her need to believe and vanished in front of her. Ava’s jaw dropped and she leapt up off of the couch, looking around for him.
         “I’m here, ” Wesley said to her, having appeared in front of the door to the room, some fifteen feet away. Ava’s wide eyes trained on him as he vanished again, this time reappearing next to her. He watched as she backed away, bringing her hands to cover her mouth.
         “Oh my God, you . . . you aren’t lying are you?” She said with disbelief, breathing heavily.
         He held out his hand and the glass of water Ava had brought to the room with her lifted by itself off of the table it rested on and glided smoothly into his hand. He handed her the glass.
         “I’m not lying to you Ava ,” he said softly as she took the water from him. She breathed heavily as he put an arm around her shoulders and led her back to sit down on the couch.
          “I also have the ability to heal. When we were on E.S. Number one, we were attacked by marooned pirates while we were repairing our ship. You were safely out of range because you were off looking at antiques but they found you. Long story short, I was shot and had to take a few minutes to heal. You ran out of the hangar and fell through the floor before I could get to you. You could have died, and it would have been my fault. I’m just lucky that it was only your leg that got broken. I was able to heal your leg perfectly, but you have no idea how guilty I feel that you still have pain in it. I wish that I could take that away from you.”
         “Why do I have no memory of this?” Ava asked softly as