Chapter 70 20:
Nouwlan landed beside the circle in the blink of an eye. The sound of his arrival made several children look up in surprise, but none of them said anything. Some pointed toward the center, while others stepped aside to let him pass.
The instructor walked between them until he reached the center.
"of course it had to be you," thought nowl-an, as though he had sensed that only he could do something like this. "What is happening here?" he asked, and his voice, which normally was a roar of authority, sounded empty and without strength.
The children looked at one another, none daring to speak, until Vespera stepped forward.
Her green eyes were reddened, screaming through tears.
"Instructor," she said, her voice breaking apart. "the lithari attacked us, They came out of the ground and started shooting. We hid behind a slab, like Korr-add told us. And then he went to fight alooone."
Nouwlan stared at her.
"Korr-add protected you?" he asked, but he was not impressed by that. This nato had a strong weakness for the other natos, placing their safety above the others.
Vespera nodded.
"He killed many," she continued. " He flew really fast and threw rocks and the lithari exploded and there were lots of explosions and a-a-and then he got hurrrt. He got hurt reaaally bad. And he kept fighting and when the big lithari was going to kill him, Nul-lam..."
Vespera's voice broke, and she could not continue because her crying prevented her from speaking further.
Nowl-an directed his gaze toward Nul-lam.
The crying child, the one who always trembled with fear, looked up at Nouwl-an. His face was swollen, his eyes reddened, and tears continued falling down his cheeks like a river.
"Korr-add is deaaad," he sobbed, his voice broken by pain. "They kiiiilled him. They killed him for protecting us. It's my fault, I should have... I should have… I should have not said anythingggg, it's my faaaault, my faaaault."
The child could not finish the sentence. He covered his face with his hands, and his shoulders began to shake with uncontrollable sobs.
Nouwlan felt sadness. How was that possible?
He had strong aspirations for this nato, he had been the most interesting of his batch, the first in this job as instructor.
However, he did not stop for useless reflections for the moment and knelt beside Korr-add's body.
The nato was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his face pale. His uniform had almost completely disappeared, exposing a torso covered in burns and scorched bruises. His left leg had a hole the size of a fist, the edges of the wound carbonized, the flesh exposed.
His right hand was a mass of torn flesh, and from his mouth escaped a trickle of blood that had already dried on his chin.
Nouwlan extended his hand and touched the nato's neck, searching for a pulse, although he did not have much hope.
The children around him held their breath.
The instructor's fingers pressed against the burned skin, and without expecting any good news, he discovered something impressive. Beneath the scorched flesh and destroyed muscles, Nouwl-an felt something.
There was a heartbeat, weak, barely perceptible, but a heartbeat nonetheless.
Korr-add was alive.
"by argall," he said to himself, his eyes wide as saucers.
Nouwlan wasted no time, lifting the nato into his arms gently, supporting his head so it would not fall backward. The nato's blood stained his white uniform, but Nouwl-an paid it no attention.
"go with instructor Vexa-6," he said, his voice sharp, directed toward the natos, who paid attention.
"relay my order that you are to be evaluated, if any of you are injured, have them taken to the medical wing. You will remain under surveillance until I return."
Nouwlan did not wait to see whether they obeyed.
He propelled himself toward the sky, Korr-add's body pressed against his chest, and flew toward the medical wing of the Dorymathos as fast as his muscles allowed him.
The wind whistled around him, and the nato's blood continued staining his uniform, but Nouwl-an could not lower his speed.
On the other hand, a simple class 15 nato, with barely half an orbit of life, had killed thousands of lithari.
He had protected his companions, faced an army alone and lived to tell about it. Well, Nouwlan hoped he would live.
That night, while flying toward the medical wing with Korr-add's broken body in his arms, the instructor could not help thinking about the words from the diary.
"The current system, although stable in appearance, little by little seems to be presenting contradictions."
Korr-add was a contradiction, a viltrumite who felt emotions contrary to imperial doctrines, who had saved his companions from certain death.
The medical wing appeared before him, and Nouwl-an descended in a dive, his white boots striking the ground of the landing platform.
The viltrumite doctors, who were already on alert because of the attack, came out to meet him with a floating stretcher.
"Quickly," ordered Nouwl-an, placing Korr-add onto the sterile surface. "he appears to present plasma wounds, massive blood loss, with possible fractured ribs."
The doctors nodded and took the nato into the recovery chamber.
Nouwlan remained at the threshold, watching as the automatic doors closed behind them.
His uniform was stained with blood, and he was also filled with questions, but the Dorymathos was safe.
Nouwlan turned around and rose into the air, heading toward his superior.
He did not know how long it would take them to heal Korr-add. He did not know what would happen afterward, when the nato awakened, when his father found out what had happened, when the empire decided how to reward or punish a nato who had defied the internal rules of the imperial training enclosure.
But what he was certain of was that nothing would ever be the same again.