Nathan Hystad

THE SURVIVORS: BOOKS 1–3

THE EVENT

BY

NATHAN HYSTAD

Copyright

Copyright © 2018 Nathan Hystad

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover art: Tom Edwards Design

Edited by: Scarlett R Algee

Proofed by: BZ Hercules

ONE

The ships came at dawn. The radio announcer made it sound like War of the Worlds, and in my half-sleeping state, I dismissed it as a prank. When I flicked my television on to see what the news station was saying about it, my stomach dropped to my knees. This was no hoax.

The screen showed scenes from the world’s metropolises, and one thing remained constant: there were ships over each of them. Big Ben’s clock kept ticking while the people on the streets panicked. Lady Liberty pushed her torch into the dark sky, among the plethora of sleek gray vessels; above them were huge black boxes. They floated above the cities like massive monoliths. I tried to stay calm, but my hands had already begun to shake and my breathing sped up.

The sun was just beginning to peek through my living room window, and I turned my blinds wide open. Relief washed over me when I couldn’t see any ships in the sky above me. That feeling quickly subsided when I noticed a reflection off something to the north. One of the ships was nearby.

Not worried about walking outside in my boxers and t-shirt, I headed down my driveway. There were at least six of the vessels within sight of my house. I lived in a small community, a hundred miles northwest of New York City, and when I turned toward the big city, I could see the black cube even from here. I couldn’t even begin to calculate how large it must have been.

My neighbor Susan and her cocker spaniel trotted down their driveway and planted their feet, both looking up at the ships. It was surprising how some people could look so much like their dogs. Carey barked up to the heavens, and I wasn’t sure if he was saying hi to the intruders or warning them off.

“What do you think they are, Dean?” she asked, her eyes never leaving the dawn sky.

I had only the slightest inkling of what they were, but I couldn’t tell her without sounding like a raving lunatic, so I kept it simple. “I have no idea, Susan. The news is telling everyone to stay calm. Maybe we should just go back inside.”

By this time, the street was filling up with people, and I could almost taste the fear in the air. Carey saw a bird and chased after it; wings beat fast and the bird rose into the sky. My gaze lingered on it, and I saw the gray, shining ship in the distance, reminding me why we were all out here. The neighbors were all gathering around Jacob’s house down the street, hands waving frantically in the air, voices calling out over each other.

I left them to it, giving Carey a pet before heading back into the house. They had been in our atmosphere for under an hour, and I was very curious to see what the news had to say about the situation now. My initial panic had all but passed, and my stomach growled angrily as I crossed my kitchen to the living room. I turned the volume up and listened to the anchor say that there had been no movement by any of the invaders, anywhere.

Within moments, I went to my usual routine of making breakfast: burner on, frying pan heating up, and bread stuck into the toaster. I was a man of routine, and doing something normal at a time like this calmed me. My doctor had told me to cut back on fried eggs, but under the current circumstances, I figured that was the least of my concerns. Soon I had the comforting smell of coffee and eggs filling my kitchen, and the anchor said the president was about to address the nation. With plate in hand, I settled down on my couch and waited, seeing shot after shot from around the world of people’s reaction to the ships. Some were frantically trying to escape the large cities; some were bowing to the ground on their knees, praying to their gods, or maybe to the invaders. I had no idea.

By the time the president appeared on the television, I’d cleaned my plate off and filled my cup a second time. Through my window, I saw a few neighbors driving away, cars full of personal belongings. I didn’t know where someone would try to escape to, but I wished them the best. No one knew what was going to happen, and even though part of me had been waiting for this day, I really didn’t know what they were going to do.

Janine’s brown eyes knowingly watched me from the picture frame hanging on the wall. My heart ached as the president told the world they were trying to communicate with the ships. I couldn’t break my wife’s frozen gaze as the world was told to not panic, that this was our first contact with an obviously intelligent race. First contact.

My phone rang, and I picked it up to see my mother’s name flash on the screen. I felt ashamed that I hadn’t thought to call her. Surely she would be in a full-on panic attack by this point.

“Hello,” I said.

“Dean, are you up?” Her voice was frantic.

“Mom, calm down. Yes, I’m up. We don’t know why they’re here, but maybe it’s not bad.”

“Of course it’s bad! If they were here to make friends, don’t you think they would have used a little more tact than hovering thousands of ships over the Earth?”

My mother had always been a sharp woman, and her argument did make a lot of sense.

“We can’t presume to think we know what an alien race would know about tact. For all we know, this is a friendly gesture.” Even as I said the words, I knew they sounded wrong.

“What should I do?” she asked.

The truth was I had no idea, but she was all alone in her townhouse across the country from me. “Mom, just stay inside and don’t panic. Lock the doors too. You know how crazy people can get when something strange happens.”

She paused and I could hear her breathing ease up a bit. “Okay. You stay safe. I’m just going to see how Mabel’s doing next door, and then lock myself in. Stay in touch, though, honey.”

I said I would and hung up. The president’s speech was over, with no real substance behind it. The recap was scrolling across the screen on a black banner: Stay indoors. Don’t panic. My gaze wandered back to my wife’s picture just as the TV began showing people in the Middle East firing semi-automatics at the ships from the ground. Military forces in other countries were ramping up. Footage from Russia showed lines of tanks and fighter jets, ready to mobilize. This gave me a sinking feeling in my gut, and in a flash, my memory snapped into place and I felt like I’d been slapped.

I had to get the necklace.

__________

Seven Years Earlier

Janine was running late, so I had dinner covered and in the oven to keep it warm. It was her favorite: butter chicken and rice. The wedding plans were scattered across our kitchen table. In this pile of magazines, cake pictures, and honeymoon pamphlets sat our unfinished wedding invitations, and we were finalizing those tonight. I poured a glass of wine and sat down, grabbing her invite list. We each had a limit of thirty people, not including the mutual friends we’d already worked out.

Her list had all of the regulars I knew: her adopted parents, brother, sister, aunts, and family friends. There were four names I’d never heard before. It made me think of how much we still didn’t know about each other; mainly, how much I didn’t know about her still.

The door opened and she called at me while I guiltily dropped her list to the table.

“Hey, babe. I just poured a glass of wine. Care to join me?” I asked.

“Well, I smell butter chicken.” She smiled widely. “So that means I owe you big, and I may need a glass of wine to make your touch bearable,” she teased.

I loved her so much. Her brown hair cascaded down her back, her eyes danced with mine, reminding me why I’d fallen for her so hard and fast. I was smitten.

“Come to me – the monster you’ve agreed to marry.” I stepped toward her and she put a hand up, looking at the table.

“Dean, I see you found my list,” she said.

Her face had turned white, and I worried there was more to those names than I’d thought.

“Is one of those an ex of yours?” I asked.

She visibly relaxed. “No, nothing like that. You know I’m adopted… obviously. Those people are… some of my real family members.” She fidgeted with her necklace. I knew there was a pendant under her shirt. She said it was from her real parents, and she liked to keep it close to her heart. She never took the thing off – ever.

“I didn’t think you knew any of your family.” I was hurt that she hadn’t brought this up before. We preached honesty, but with Janine, I always felt a wall between us that I didn’t want to admit was there.

She could tell I was bothered, because she moved in front of me and cupped my face with her hands. “I’ve been looking for my parents, and I heard back from a cousin I tracked down. These two are related to me in some way, and I wanted to have them at our wedding. They live across the country, and it would be tough to see them otherwise.”

“Just trust me enough to share this stuff with me. I want to know everything, and I’m here to support you.”

“Of course, sweetie.” She fumbled with the necklace again. “I love you. Now, how about some of that great-smelling dinner?”

She seemed a little off, but it was natural to be stressed with her whole newfound family and all of the wedding preparations.

TWO

I had looked everywhere I could think of and resigned myself to the fact that the pendant wasn’t in my house. I sat with my back against the hallway wall and tried to think. I ran my shaking hands through my now damp hair, racking my brain, but I couldn’t remember where I’d put it. Then it came to me.

My clock read ten thirty-two when I checked it on my way into the kitchen. The television still showed ships by the thousands in the sky around the world, and there I was looking for a stupid piece of jewelry. I told myself it was a promise to my wife, and I knew there was no way I would break that. I fumbled around my junk drawer and found what I was looking for: an envelope with an address and a number on it. Inside, a key weighed the paper down. I put the key in my pocket and grabbed my wallet.

Passing by a mirror in the living room, I saw what a mess I looked like. Hair in a wild display of unintentional hipster; clothing wrinkled and in need of a wash. Who was going to care today? The sky was full of aliens and I just needed to get across town. I’d be back home before I knew it.

I clicked my television off and wondered how many people were still sleeping or hadn’t yet turned their TVs on or been outside today. They were going to be in for a surprise.

My neighborhood was quiet, even for this time of day. Most of the people that lived here were retired or in single-income households. That, combined with half the families letting their kids stay home until they were thirty or married, meant the street usually had more cars and people out. Something about being outside right then was truly unsettling. Static. The air had an energized feel to it, almost like licking a nine-volt battery when you were a kid to see if it still had a charge.

Susan was in her window staring up at the sky, and Carey gave me a bark as I got into my truck. I turned the radio on to the local news station to see what was happening. As far as I could tell, the gray ships hadn’t moved or done anything yet, and it had been over four hours since they’d shown up. The large black vessel hung in the horizon, a menace in my vision as I started to pull out of my driveway. I cracked my window to let in some fresh air. The September breeze had a hint of the autumn to come, but summer was still here in the state of New York.

The soothing voice of Rollie Armstrong assured the townspeople that panic wasn’t going to help anyone, and he was reiterating what the president had just spoken about at his press conference. I knew people were scared; hell, I was shaken up by the whole thing too. But since my wife’s death, I’d learned to not get upset by the things I couldn’t control. Alien invasion would fit into that category.

As I drove through the neighborhood, groups of people were just standing and watching, as if they could make the ships go away by sheer will. I passed the local Lutheran church, and the parking lot was fuller than on any given Sunday. Give the people a reason to pray and that’s when they begin to believe. One of my clients was walking to the church, and he lifted his arm in greeting. I’d known him for years, so I pulled over and rolled the window down.

“Hello, Steve.” What did someone say for small talk when the Earth was covered by a million spacecrafts? Nice weather? Did you see the Giants game? You’re still on for this Friday’s poker game, right? I waited for him to start it.

“Hey, Dean.” He nodded at the church. “I figured it was time I said hello to the big guy upstairs. Something like this makes you think. Debbie and the kids are inside; I was just parking the car. Where are you off to?” His voice wavered, and I could tell he was really worried.

“Just going to get some supplies. I figure the stores may shut down early today. That’s if any of them are open.” It was only a half lie.

“The Happy Hut is open on Sherwood Road. That old guy is open on Christmas. I guess he figures to make money while the rest of them are watching the news. Well, I’d better get in there. Debbie is a mess. Take care, Dean.”

“You too, Steve. With any hope, this will be all over soon, and I’ll call you next week about your paperwork,” I said. He nodded, his mind already on the sky. I wondered if I was the only accountant in the world who’d just brought up work today.

The side roads were nearly empty, but when I hit Sherwood, there were cars for miles. I don’t think I had ever seen this many cars in our little city before. I sat at the four-way stop, thinking of the best way to get across town without being bogged down by the traffic. I looked to the left and saw what looked to be a fresh accident. The drivers were getting out of their cars screaming at each other.

A flicker of recognition hit me when I noticed the back of James’ Jeep all smashed up, and the familiar gesture of him running of his hands through his hair when he was stressed. The driver who had rear-ended him was a large man, and was getting in his face. I threw my truck in park and jumped out. This wasn’t the first time James had needed me to come to his aid, but it was the first time in daylight.

I ran the hundred yards to the cars, the rest of traffic still gridlocked behind them. James didn’t see me as the other man was pushing and threatening him. I could hear James saying his assailant was the one who ran into his Jeep. The law didn’t seem to matter to this guy, who was built like a Mack truck. I heard him mutter something about insurance not mattering anymore, because they were all going to be dead within the day.

As the man cocked a fist to throw at James’ face, I ran behind him, kicked his left knee, and grabbed his arm. I was thankful for the memory of my high school karate lessons. We went down together towards the pavement and I whispered in his ear, “Let’s not let this get out of hand. We all have enough to think about today. I’m going to let you up, and we’re all going to just drive away. Okay?”

He stopped thrashing after a moment and he grunted in assent. James had backed away, smirking at me as I got off the man. I stepped back quickly, ready for retaliation, but the man just moved to a sitting position. He was crying.

“My wife left me this morning. She saw the ships; told me she’d been cheating on me with my best friend. They left together, heading to his lake lot. As if being on a seaweed-infested swamp is going to stop the aliens from ripping your head off.”

I offered him my hand and pulled him to his feet. He wiped his eyes dry with the back of his dirty arm before stumbling back to his big truck. It was big enough to do some serious damage to James’ Jeep. “Watch yourselves. These bastards are here for our blood. I know it.”

He left and James stood there looking at the back of his Jeep. Other vehicles were pulling to the side of the street, passing by the damaged vehicle. Some were honking and yelling from their windows. James flipped a few the bird.

“James, let’s get your Jeep moved to the curb and you can hop in with me. Where were you going, anyway?” I asked.

James climbed in the driver’s seat and drove off the road, onto the grass beside the curb. The back of the Jeep was crushed. “I was heading out of town. I didn’t know what to do. I guess I wanted to head into the city. I figured they would have a better defense in New York than our hick town.”

Most of the traffic I’d seen on the television was cars heading out of the metropolises, not into them. I wondered if James’ logic was sound or crazy. I wasn’t sure at this point.

“Well, I have a couple errands to run. Want to come with me? We may as well stick together.” I looked him in the eye. “We don’t have anyone else around to watch over us.”

James smirked again and hopped out of the Jeep. He sauntered over and put his arm around my shoulders. “You got it, bud. Where are we off to?”

“Word is Happy Hut is open, and I want to get some supplies before things head south and the looting begins.” He gave me a doubtful look. “Seriously. It happens every time in the movies, so I’m not taking any chances. Then I have one more place to hit.”

Soon we were on our way down the side streets, passing by sidewalks full of sky-gawkers. The ships appeared to not have moved at all, still six above our town and holding. The traffic was light heading towards downtown, and ten minutes later, we were pulling up to the Happy Hut. The parking lot was semi-full, but not as bad as I thought it would be. As I pulled into a spot, the radio announcer was talking about Russia firing missiles at the ships as the sun went down overseas; no reaction from the ships. No damage, no retaliation.

The line-up inside the small grocery store was about seven deep.

“You go grab some lighters, toilet paper, a couple newspapers, and a box cutter. I’m going for water, protein bars, and batteries,” I said, and we split up. People were milling around the aisles talking amongst themselves. Are they going to contact us soon? Did the government know they were coming? Should I have gone in to work today? I tried to ignore their conversations, but they were asking some good questions I doubted any of us could answer.

I turned the corner to see two women arguing over a jar of baby food. It appeared it was the last one. They both had their hands clamped tight around it, and soon they would be in an all-out brawl if this didn’t get resolved.

“Ladies, there’s enough going on. Let’s settle this like adults,” I offered.

“Go to hell!” the blonde spat.

“Yeah! Who do you think you are? I was here first!” the other called.

“No you weren’t!”

They pushed each other and the blonde fell to the ground, hitting her head on the floor. The other grabbed the food and left, without so much as a worried glance at her fallen adversary. I couldn’t believe how fast animal instinct took over when a person felt threatened. Any other day and this would never have happened. As the blonde lady came to, I spotted a case of baby food sitting on the shelf below. Classic. I helped her to her feet, and she groggily thanked me as I handed her the case of food.

I grabbed the things I needed, throwing them into a basket, and added some mini-propane tanks and the rest of the D batteries. It surprised me that any of this stuff was still here. My heart sped up when I felt the envelope in my pocket. James had distracted me from my original purpose for leaving my house, and I had to get moving before it was too late.

I found James in the snack aisle and pulled him to the checkout. There were eight people now, and the owner was moving like a snail. Sweat was running down my back as I thought back to my wife’s words, and I grabbed my wallet, estimating the value of my stuff. I figured it was about sixty bucks, so I pulled out eighty and dropped it on the checkout till.

I received a few curse words for my trouble as I headed out the front door but didn’t really care. I had somewhere to get to – and fast.

“What a jerk! At least you paid him for it. I’m sure there’ll be a few looters before this is over.” James waved his hand at the gray ship hovering over town.

“Let’s get out of here. One more stop, then off to home. You want to come stay with me until whatever this is, is over?” I knew James probably wasn’t looking forward to going back to his apartment alone right now, and I could use the company too.

“You got it, buddy. We forgot one thing, then.”

“What’s that?” I asked, seeing that typical mischievous look in his eyes.

“Beer and pizza.” He laughed, and I joined him.

“I’m sure we can scrounge some of that up from my fridge. I’m a single man, after all.” It was more likely I had veggies and fruit at home: one of the many promises I’d made to my wife as she lay on her deathbed.

THREE

The streets on this side of town were quiet, and it only took ten minutes to get to my destination. We pulled up and I stopped at the keypad, truck window open. I could hear sirens blasting across the town: a mixture of fire and ambulance, with a hint of police. I pulled the envelope out of my pocket and opened it. The key slid out, as did a small piece of paper. 3691 was written on it. I punched that sequence into the pad and the gate in front of the truck slid open.

“What could we possibly be doing at a storage facility? There are aliens above us and you’re here looking for what? A dining room chair?” James didn’t hide his annoyance.

“Something important. Something Janine told me was important.” My voice was quiet and James just shrugged.

I drove along the path, passing countless storage units, until I reached the one by the back fence with the light hanging over it. I hadn’t been here since just after she’d died. I felt myself about to lose it and took a deep breath as the memories flooded my mind. I exhaled and threw the truck in park. I could do this.

I twisted the key into the padlock and it turned smoothly, even after being untouched for over two years. James grabbed the handle and lifted the sliding door up; it squeaked from its non-lubricated wheels. Daylight peeked inside the mostly empty space. I’d always intended on getting rid of more of my furniture because it reminded me too much of my wife. After some time, that was the very same reason I couldn’t bear to part with it. A few things from my bachelor days were stacked in the corner on a dark brown couch. I wasn’t here to reminisce about my past. I was here for something else.

I almost felt it calling me from inside one of the large plastic storage containers. James leaned against the wall, watching me through squinted eyes as I walked over to it. I opened the lid and found all of Janine’s mementos from our lives together. There were little notes she’d left me on the fridge; drawings on napkins from Michaels, our favorite little Italian restaurant; and a small jewelry box. I slowly opened the felt-covered box and saw exactly what I’d expected to find. Her wedding ring, and the necklace she’d never taken off for a minute the whole time I’d known her.

__________

Three Years Earlier

I was in bed waiting for Janine to join me when I heard her coughing from the en-suite. It was a deep, phlegm-filled cough, and it almost shocked me to hear those noises coming out of my petite wife. I went to check on her, but she wouldn’t unlock the door. I panicked when the coughing fit wouldn’t stop, and just as I was about to get a pen to pop the bathroom lock open, she opened the door. Her hair was a mess, and blood dripped from her lips. Blood covered the sink too. My heart hammered in my chest as I asked her questions, but she wouldn’t reply – couldn’t reply. She turned white and passed out in my arms.

The doctors didn’t know what was wrong with her, but they figured it was some tuberculosis mutation they’d never seen before. She spent more time in hospitals than anyone should have to and took it all with grace only she could muster. It was the strangest thing. I could never get her to seem realistic about it. I cried when they told her she would probably die within six months, and she put her hands to my face, streaming with tears, and told me I would be okay. That this was just her path.

I should have known then that something was off.

__________

We headed back to my house, and after being bombarded by James’ questions, I did need a beer. The day had been tough for me, as I’m sure it had been for most of the world. I’d almost forgotten about the ships in the sky around the world, I was so lost in my past.

The street was empty of people, and I didn’t know if they had left town or if they were all hunkering down in their homes. We pulled up and grabbed our supplies from the back of the truck. Carey barked a friendly hello from Susan’s window as we walked up my driveway. I gave him a wave, and I saw him wag his tail in reply. I’d always wanted a dog, but Janine had been terrified of them. She said they’d hated her since she could remember, and even Carey, the world’s wiggliest dog, seemed to raise his hackles at her. In the past two years, I’d really thought about getting a pup to keep me company, but it seemed like I’d be dishonoring her in some way. I knew it was stupid, and Janine would have told me to get one if she could.

Inside the house, I turned the TV on after dropping the supplies in the kitchen. It was dark in Moscow, where they showed a riot in the streets. Looters ran rampant in London, and there were stories coming in about some groups of people found dead in Ohio; presumably a cult ritual. Still, none of the ships had moved an inch, as far as anyone could tell. They seemed to move along with the Earth’s rotation; some sort of geostationary orbit within our atmosphere.

It was almost three o’clock local time, and I was starting to feel worried. The news said that it had been almost nine hours since their arrival, and that they came near dawn on the east coast of the USA. No one knew what implication this had, or if it was relevant at all. I think the waiting and wondering was doing a number on everyone, as if them coming down and doing something – anything – would have been better.

High definition cameras showed the world the many details of the cubes, as they were calling them, and the metal-looking outsides were a stark contrast to the smooth, almost marble-like look of the smaller, sleeker ships. They weren’t sure on the exact size, but estimations put them at three miles per side. Massive. There were five over the United States. Sixteen over China. If I was a betting man, population was the motivation for the amount of these cubes over the world. One of them nestled in the sky, hovering there above New York, an ominous black alien vessel taunting the population.

“What the hell are these things? I mean, all those little ships and then the huge ones,” James asked. “Do you think they’re full of aliens? Are they going to land?”

“We’re going to just have to wait and see. I think there are a lot more qualified people out there than us to figure it out,” I said.

“This is just insane, isn’t it, Dean?” James had grabbed a couple beers, twisted the cap off one, and passed it over to me. “I mean, every one of us has wondered if there could be life from outer space, and here’s proof. And what do we do? Loot, kill, and panic.”

“That’s the way we’re built. Mob mentality and all of that other Psych 101 stuff I slept through in school,” I said, turning the volume up on the TV.

It was dark across the ocean, and some areas were using large searchlights to see the ships. A haunting image scrolled onto the screen from Hungary of the huge white moon with the black silhouette of one of the sleek ships in front of it. It sent shivers down my spine. James cleared his throat. “This isn’t going to end well.”

Moscow was in flames. Missiles had been fired for over an hour at the ships, both the huge cubes and the smaller, gray ships, and they hadn’t moved or shown any sign of damage. It was absurd! We sat there for a couple hours, drinking a few beers, and watching the news. The world was getting more volatile, more wound up every minute. World leaders were trying to keep everyone calm, people of every religion were speculating about end times. The United States’ most popular TV evangelist swore it was the Rapture. God’s wrath was now upon us for creating war and destruction, and through it all, people were frightened.

My stomach sank as I watched it all happening. My wife’s calm words on her deathbed rang over and over in my ears. I reached into my pocket and grabbed the box that held the necklace. I put the wedding ring back in the box and held the gold chain. The pendant was made out of some sort of crystal; a beautiful green hue glowed out of it. I’d thought it was fluorite, but Janine had said it was far rarer than that. She hadn’t elaborated, and I’d never pressed her on it. I just knew it was from her real parents, and that it was very important to her.

My stomach growled and I looked at the clock. It was almost six thirty, and I heard James snoring in my recliner. I decided to leave him peacefully sleeping while I made a sandwich. I heard Janine’s words race through my mind again and I decided to heed her wishes. I put the chain around my neck and tucked the pendant under my shirt.

__________

Three Years Ago

Janine was in bed sleeping soundly when I stepped into the room. The hot soup cup was burning my hands, and I just stood there with the pain. I felt like I needed the distraction, like the burning would make my other pain go away somehow. Even though we were in our own house, the smell of the hospital still stuck in my nostrils, and I wasn’t sure if the chemical scent would ever be gone.

It was time, and Janine demanded to come home for the end. How could I deny that beautiful woman’s wishes when she was so small and frail, her life slipping away in hours and minutes instead of decades and years like someone her age should have left?

I put the soup down, sat at the foot of the bed, and just watched her breathe. The sounds lulled me, and I felt my own eyes getting droopy. I lay down and curled up beside my wife like I always did when we went to bed. Even if it was too warm, I needed to feel her body next to mine to fall asleep. I’d become dependent on her in so many ways, and I had no idea what I was going to do when she was gone. As I closed my eyes, I thought about dying and wondered if we would be together in some sort of afterlife if I ended my own life when she was gone. My last thoughts were of a bottle of whiskey and a vial of pills before sleep took over my exhausted body.

I woke to her touch. A soft kiss on my lips; her hair cascading down on my face. I cried and felt shame in my pain. She was the one dying and I was the one crying about it like a baby constantly. The worst part was, it seemed like she was okay with having a husband who couldn’t stop blubbering.

“Janny, I love you so much. I’m so sorry this happened,” I blurted between sobs.

She looked me in the eyes, and for the first time in weeks, I saw her own eyes well up. A single tear fell slowly and splashed on my cheek. It mingled with my own, and somehow, I felt better for it.

“I have to tell you something.” She leaned back down on her pillow, and it was almost as if I noticed how sick she really was for the first time. Her eyes were sunken, skin tight against her hollow cheeks. She coughed lightly and I saw a speck of blood fly out onto the bedding.

“Just remember that I’m sorry.” I went to stop her and she waved me down. “Dean, don’t say anything…” another cough, “just listen. One day you’ll learn something about me. Just know that I’m sorry, and that I truly do love you with all of my heart. You mean everything to me, and I never expected to feel this way. My life has been worth it just to have met you, and don’t forget it. Don’t ever forget this moment.” Her hand wiped the tears from my face as her own streamed down her cheeks.

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew she was almost gone. Her voice had gotten so quiet, her breathing ragged. “They’ll come one day. Appear in the sky.” My heart hammered in my chest as she spoke, the words sounded so foreign to me. I glanced over to the night stand and saw the half empty bottle of pills, and assumed she was hallucinating. She tried to take off her necklace, which she had never done before, but I put my hand on hers and stopped her from over-exerting herself. Her eyes were closed and she whispered softly. I had to move in, our cheeks pressed together tightly. “Wear the necklace. When they come… wear the necklace.” She coughed hard, but I kept close. I could feel her breath on my face, hardly there at all. “Promise me, Dean. Promise me. When the ships come… wear the necklace…”

“I promise,” I said.

Her breathing stopped, and I held her close to me one last time.

FOUR

The pendant was cold on my skin, and I found the sensation comforting. I’d seen it on my wife so many times that it was strange to be wearing it. I kept an eye on the news as I made a sandwich and dumped my lukewarm beer down the sink. There was a near worldwide ban on airplanes, helicopters, air balloons; really, anything that could be seen as an act of hostility. The countries that had fired at the ships had given up, and now were mere observers of the phenomenon like the rest of the world.

England had shut down their nuclear plants and most countries had followed their lead. They figured anything generating power like that might be a quick target for the intruders, and the result if they were targeted would be catastrophic. This left many nations running on low power grids or backup power. As I heard this on TV, I saw the streetlights turn on from the photocells telling them the sun was going down; then, just as fast, they went dark. The power in the house followed suit, and I was left in darkness, slopping mayo on a piece of rye bread.

“What’s going on?” James asked from the dim living room.

I reached into my side drawer and pulled out an LED flashlight that doubled as a small lantern. Growing up in the country, I was used to storms blowing out the power, and my dad always had flashlights sitting around where they were easily accessible.

“Power’s out.” I passed him the lantern. He set it down on the coffee table and I grabbed a couple of candles and lit them, leaving them flickering on the kitchen island. “Still no change out there.”

James stretched and checked his watch. “Just before seven. Sun’s almost down, and these things still haven’t done anything! God, I just wish they would do something already.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted them to do anything but leave just like they came. Quickly and quietly.

“Do you want a sandwich?” I asked, and jumped back as the pendant on my chest seared my skin with heat. “What the hell was that?” James looked at me, alarmed, as I grabbed the chain and pulled the pendant out, leaving my shirt to protect my skin. It was glowing bright green.

James moved to help me, and in an instant, he was covered in a green light coming through my house from above.

“Dean! Help me!” he called as his feet left the ground. He was screaming, but my heart pounded in my ears so hard I could hardly hear his shriek. I was sure my ears must have been bleeding, and I covered them hard with the palms of my hands. James was being lifted up by an outside force, his feet above the back of the couch now. I ran to him and tried to put my arms around his legs. I was jolted back from the green field surrounding him, and I watched as he headed towards the ceiling. The pendant was still glowing hotly as he moved into the ceiling, passing through it like a ghost. He shot me a terrified look right before he crossed into my upstairs.

I shot up onto unstable legs, which were shaking like I’d just run a marathon. I half ran, half crawled up the stairs and made for the room James would be floating through. There he was! I hurled myself towards his screaming, green-light-covered body and tried to grab on to his legs. The light repelled me and sent me sprawling to the corner of my guest room, a floor lamp whacking me on the head.

“James!” I called to him, but he just kept screaming. In mere moments, he was gone.

I slowly got to my feet and looked out the window. Thousands of green lights were beaming down. Every person on my block was floating towards the darkening sky; the terror in the air was palpable. I felt the urge to vomit and choked back that first bite of my sandwich. The pendant still glowed hot green and kept glowing until every last soul was gone. The green lights blinked out, and the shadow of the ship I could still see vanished into the dark atmosphere.

The ships left at dusk.

__________

There are many feelings someone goes through when they experience something traumatic. I quickly went to denial. There was no way I’d actually witnessed my city being teleported off the planet by a huge alien cube ship. It was just so impossible that, clearly, I was having a dream; hallucinating from an illness or an accident, maybe. For all I knew, I was lying in a hospital bed, morphine flowing through my veins, and I was dreaming the whole thing up. Janine was probably by my side holding my hand, telling me it would all be all right. My clients’ get-well cards would surround the room, and those cheesy balloons would be floating beside my head, tied to the hospital bed. As I lay on the guest room floor with my eyes closed, that scenario seemed likely. I could almost hear the steady beeping of the hospital equipment, keeping an eye on my blood pressure and oxygen levels.

I must have stayed there, curled up in the fetal position, for half an hour before I braved opening my eyes. My heart had been pounding so hard I thought it would expel itself from the cage it was trapped in. It finally relaxed and soon I felt almost normal. The pendant hung cool around my neck, its color just the regular green I’d always seen on my wife.

The noises I’d heard in my daydream were multiple car alarms going off a few blocks away. Soon even they stopped, to leave me with an eerily quiet night. I heard a dog bark down the street. I was now in the grieving phase. James’ look of terror as I helplessly watched him ghost through my roof and into the night sky was ingrained in my memory. I realized I didn’t know if the ships had done this everywhere, or if I was just in an unlucky pocket. I tested my shaky legs and found them sturdy enough to carry me back downstairs.

I didn’t have a landline, so I reached for my cell phone and tried to call my mom first. A lovely robotic operator told me my call couldn’t be completed as dialed. I then started to go through my contacts one at a time and got the same message. I texted, tweeted, emailed…all with no reply from anyone out there.

It was after nine when I forced myself to eat something and slumped my head down on the kitchen island. Acceptance came next. I had a sneaking suspicion I was all alone. Then I heard a noise that had annoyed me on a daily occurrence: the sound of a howling cocker spaniel piercing through two sets of walls. Carey was a great dog, but he had what you might call a little separation anxiety, like so many others before him. Anytime Susan left him in the house alone, he would howl like there was no tomorrow. He would only do this for about five minutes; then I always pictured him sobbing into a pillow. More likely he just curled up on the back of the couch and slept.

His calls now were primal. He was howling to the aliens to return his mommy, and I’m sure the green light that had sucked her into the sky had left him a frightened mess. I left the comfort of my home and stepped onto the doorstep. The air had a chill to it, but other than that, there was no way to tell that I’d been left alone on Earth. The streetlights were still dark, but the now cloudless sky’s moon and stars shone down on me, lighting the way easily. I headed over to Susan’s house and as I passed by the window, Carey switched from a howl to a bark. He recognized me, and when I approached the front door, I could see his wiggling form twisting back and forth like only a spaniel could do.

Not sure if the door would be locked or not, I felt a little trepidation at the idea of breaking into my neighbor’s house. It seemed a little silly to me after what had just happened, but that sense of normalcy wasn’t something that just left on a dime. Lucky for me, she was as trusting as most people on our street, and the door was unlocked.

A blonde ball of fur jumped at me, licking my hands as he romped and hopped around. It was so refreshing to see such a normal, comforting act from a sweet animal after seeing James float out of my reach. He followed me as I went into the kitchen. I couldn’t leave him behind, since I didn’t know where I was going to be going or for how long. I thought about all the rest of the animals out there, scared and alone, but pushed them from my mind. I was only one man, and hopefully, this would all be over at any time. I didn’t know what the aliens could possibly want with the people of Earth. Maybe this was just a test. Maybe they would return all the people in a few minutes. I didn’t believe that, but it was a possibility.

I would be leaving in the morning and Carey would be coming along for the ride, so I needed to find all of his supplies. I grabbed his dog dish, which made him throw a low growl at me, before searching for his bag of food. I found it in the basement, along with some treats and cans of wet food. I took it all. Carey barked as I took the bag of treats and packed it. I tossed a salmon treat at him and he deftly caught it. He was really cute, looking up at me, turning his head side to side so his ears alternately flopped and hung there.

All loaded up, I found his leash, and he looked excited to be going for a walk.

“Carey, we’re just going to go over to my house. We don’t have time to go for a walk,” I said. Carey’s head turned sideways, and he gave me the saddest puppy-dog look I’d ever seen.

“Fine. But just a quick walk.” I was already under his command, it appeared.

Twenty minutes later and a deposit from Carey on the Jeffersons’ lawn, and we were back at my house. Carey hesitantly investigated my home, and I left him to sniff around like a pig looking for truffles. There was something I had to get from my office, and it wasn’t something I was looking forward to. Since I’d seen the ships arrive, I knew I would have to open the letter. I’d envisioned the moment I’d open it for the past three years, and I wasn’t sure if I truly was ready to see her handwriting, or to smell a waft of her perfume on the paper.

Janine hadn’t explained why the letter couldn’t be opened as soon as she was gone. We were in the hospital when she handed it to me, her hands shaking slightly as she passed it over. We’d argued for a few minutes about it, but after I knew she wouldn’t budge on the contents of the envelope, I ceased to protest and accepted what she asked of me. I wouldn’t open it until the right moment. She told me that I’d know when that was. Over the next three years, there were a few moments when I’d almost opened the thing, when I was so down in a well of depression that I thought the only thing that would save me would be seeing her words written down. Every time, I got through it on my own, and I knew for sure that now was indeed the right time to open it. It just felt right in every sense of the word, and not only that; it all fit together like some odd puzzle that I couldn’t see the full picture of yet.

Carey followed me upstairs and into the office, pushing his face into my leg as I stood there facing my closet. He rolled on the carpet as I opened the door and pulled a shoe box down from the top shelf. The letter was sealed shut and “Dean” was scrawled across the front in shaky handwriting. I sat down at my desk and set the lantern flashlight down so I could see it. It had been a tough day: not only the dredging up all of the memories from back then, but also the fact that I was sure I was the only man left on Earth. How did it come that I was here while they were all gone? I hoped for an answer as I slid my letter opener through the top, careful not to rip the paper inside.

My dearest Dean, I’m sorry you have to read this now. I know you have so many questions, but I can’t answer them all. I only know so much, and I’m unfortunately not around to tell you about it. I love you so much. I don’t know how long it’s been since I passed to when you are reading this, but I hope you’ve stayed strong through everything. Take heed that there is help, and you won’t be alone for long. I miss you as I write this and you just left the room a few minutes ago. Don’t forget that. Don’t ever forget that I loved you so much and always will. Go to New York, Toronto Dominion on Broadway and 50th. Safety deposit box 107. The key is in the back yard under the bird bath.

And Dean

She stopped there, and it felt like she had more to say but didn’t. Maybe she was too weak or tired. I would never know.

I wiped a single tear from my face and felt a sudden resolve, a sense of purpose. Janine was telling me it was up to me to save the human race, and I had a clue where to go to do this.

FIVE

I tried to sleep for a few hours, but I just ended up tossing and turning; the whole day was a nightmare replaying itself in my mind. Carey was curled up at the bottom of the bed, snoring lightly on his side. I was amazed at the adaptability of the animal and decided to take a page out of his book for myself. This was the world at the moment, and I was the only one here to do anything about it. My truck was packed with everything I thought I’d need for the trip, and I just had a quick stop in the morning to fill up and grab a bunch of gas cans to keep me going. I’d found a brand-new generator in Bob-next-door’s garage, and I didn’t think he’d mind me borrowing it under the circumstances. It was an eleven-hundred-watt beast with a ten-gallon tank. I figured it would be able to handle anything I would need it for on my journey.

After what felt like hours, I decided to just get the trip started. I thought I’d test the generator and make some coffee. It was the right call. I had a bag of clothes packed, with a few winter items and shorts. I had no idea what I was in for and wanted to be prepared. Coffee in hand, and Carey and I on empty bladders, we hopped into the truck just as the sun was peeking from beyond the horizon. For a second, I thought the ships might come back at dawn, but the sky held nothing but wispy clouds and some dim stars.

We made a few pit stops at the gas station and convenience store, and then we were off. I felt bad not paying for anything. I knew that there was no one to pay, but these things were ingrained in our brains from childhood; right and wrong are always right and wrong. I had a hundred-mile drive to go, and I figured under ideal conditions it would take me just over two hours. I was wrong. The streets were full of crashed cars near town, and it took some heavy maneuvering to get around some of them. Maneuvering meant pushing with my truck’s bumper on occasion. Carey stuck his head out the window, sitting in the front passenger seat with his tongue flapping in the cool fall morning air. I sipped my coffee as we slowly made it past the car piles and through to the outskirts of town. Once I made it to the highway, the roads were sparsely littered with vehicles, and I was able to go forty miles per hour.

“Carey,” I said, and his head turned as he looked at me, “how are you doing? I’m sorry you’re stuck with me like this. I know you must miss your mom a lot.” He turned his head the other way and looked at me with that sad spaniel face. “I want you to know that I’m actually very thankful to have you with me. You’d think I’d be used to being alone, but truthfully, I’ve never been good at it.” He slipped his butt to the back of the seat and plopped down, putting his head between his front paws, all the while never taking his gaze from me.

“I’ve always wanted a dog. We had one growing up on the acreage. I remember the day my dad brought home Johnny. What? Don’t look at me like that. Johnny is a perfectly respectable name for a dog. Plus, he told me I could name him, and I was obsessed with The Karate Kid that summer. Anyway, Johnny came tromping over to me in the yard, all ears and paws. I must have been around seven, and he seemed so huge to me even as a puppy. I still have no idea what breed he was, but he ended up weighing around sixty pounds. We were inseparable for his whole life.

Unfortunately, big dogs have short life spans, and he passed the summer before I went into high school. I was depressed for a year, I think, and when my parents suggested we get another dog, I slammed the door and said I hated them. We didn’t get a dog, and I’ve never had one since Johnny.” It felt strange but good to talk to Carey about this. He lay still, eyes slowly closing to the sound of my voice. “So, Carey, hey? I have a feeling Susan didn’t name you after Jim Carrey, although I can see the resemblance between you two. In a good way, of course.” His eyes closed and soon I heard some soft snores. I put my focus back on the road and noticed as we got nearer to New York City how many cars were jammed on the north bound highway. People were frightened by the sheer volume of ships that had been hovering over their city, no doubt, and thought they might find solace in the countryside. It appeared no one had been safe from the beams of the ships, at least not as far as I could tell.

I did keep an eye out for anything that might be a sign of another human being, but so far, nothing. I had the AM radio on low, so a quiet buzz constantly emanated from the truck’s speakers, but no signal came the whole trip. I honestly hadn’t expected to hear anything, but it was worth a shot. At that moment, I wondered if it had been short-sighted to not bring a CB radio. If someone was alive, they might try transmitting on one of the common channels. I decided to find one as soon as I got into the big city.

I slowed down as I neared an exit that would take me to Manhattan in about thirty miles. If I tried to take one of the city bridges in, or a tunnel, I knew they would be jam-packed with cars and there would be no way to get my truck and supplies through. I elected to head east and make for one of the entrances far north of Manhattan so I would have an easier time; then I could meander down through Yonkers and south from there. With any luck, I would be able to get through.

It almost seemed too good to be true as I approached the large bridge. It was fairly full, but mostly on the other side. I could tell that a bunch of people had tried to drive on the wrong side of the road at the end, but I could still squeeze through by keeping half my truck on the shoulder. I bumped the curb a couple times, but soon I was over the Hudson River and on my way into the city. I took as many side roads as I could to avoid cars. At this point, I wished the aliens had taken the cars with them too. It was extremely eerie to see thousands of vehicles strewn around the roadways, but no people.

As I thought about a city the size of New York being empty, the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. All of a sudden, I felt very vulnerable out here all by myself. As if on cue, I saw it lower through the clouds.

I quickly slowed the truck to a stop as the silver-gray ship dipped lower and lower. My heart slammed against my chest, and I started to gasp for air. I checked the necklace and it was just the regular color; no molten green at the moment. I sat as still as possible and Carey perched himself up against the window that I had closed. He watched the ship with me as it sped across the morning sky. It did a loop a couple of times, like it was looking for something, and then disappeared into the distance. One thing I knew for sure was that the ship was a duplicate of the ones that had arrived yesterday, but it was much smaller. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew I had to keep my eyes peeled for more of those things. Whatever I was destined to do, something was going to try to stop me.

SIX

By the time I got to the Bronx, there were so many cars on the roads that the only place the truck would fit was on the sidewalks. Maneuvering it through the light poles and building steps wasn’t as easy as I hoped. It was a very slow, rough drive, and by the time we got to Yankee Stadium, it was well after noon. My stomach was growling and Carey looked like he could use a bathroom break; so could I.

The stadium grew in my windshield until I was parked right outside its front doors. I used to love coming to the games, watching the Yankees on a sunny afternoon, “Sunday in New York” blasting through the stadium speakers. We hopped out of the truck and to the gate. Surprisingly, it was open, unlocked to the public. I was the only public left, I supposed, so we sauntered on in, making our way to the field. I’d never stood on the grass, and once down there, I found that given the world’s current situation, being on the diamond had lost its luster. Carey decided to relieve himself on the pitcher’s mound and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the sight. He wiggled and ran around the grass like he was a puppy. I ran with him for a few minutes, like a boy playing with his dog. After we were both worn out, I figured while we were here, we might as well get some baseball food. We went to the concourse and I hopped the concession stand, pilfering a few bags of peanuts and some beef jerky. Carey seemed to smell the meat before it was out of the bag; drool fell from his mouth as I tore the bag open.

“Someone’s hungry.” I gave him a piece of the jerky before eating a piece of the salty meat myself. Dark clouds were rolling in as we walked back towards the truck, and it looked like rain was due any minute. I looked to the sky and for a moment worried I would see that silver ship again, but there was nothing but dark clouds looming above us now.

“Come on, Carey. Let’s get moving.” He listened and ran ahead of me but never too far away. I found it hard to believe this was the same whining dog from back home, since he seemed so confident and self-assured out here in the wilds of New York City. We headed toward the front entrance and I grabbed a Yankees ball cap and umbrella to stave off the impending rain. As we left the front doors, I whistled “Sunday in New York,” for a second forgetting the fact that I was all alone in the world.

Once the truck door was open, Carey hopped in and soon we were heading deep into the city. I hoped we would be at the Toronto Dominion Bank in an hour or so, but I was wrong. Once we passed through the Bronx, I headed to Willis Avenue Bridge, the southernmost entrance into Harlem. I’d driven by the other bridges and they were all jammed with cars, so I had high hopes that I could cross this one. I was sadly disappointed when we arrived there to see it fully clogged with vehicles. The sidewalks were on the right side, and with the dividers, they weren’t wide enough to get a vehicle through. I slumped forward, letting my head rest on the steering wheel, as heavy rain pelted my windshield.

For a moment, I thought I would just sit there and wait out the rain, but if I was truly humanity’s last hope, I knew I’d better find a way to get across. I decided to walk and find another truck, then haul all of my supplies there. Once I was over, I wouldn’t have to worry about a bridge until after whatever I found in Manhattan. With the plan settled, Carey and I started making the trek across with my groceries and clothing. I hadn’t realized how long the bridge was until I had to walk to the end and back four times to get it all. The last trip, I borrowed an appliance dolly from a moving truck and moved the generator. I figured I had just walked almost five miles in total and it had taken me over two hours, making it close to four by the time I had my new truck loaded up. Carey was soaked and the front end of the GMC lost its new car smell as it was very quickly replaced with the classic, wet dog de toilette.

Before starting my journey again, I saw a semi-truck sitting there like a behemoth amongst cars, and I recalled the CB radio I wanted to get. I jumped into the cab of the Mack and tried to slide the CB off its mount. After a few minutes, a couple of swear words and a screwdriver, I was the proud owner of a radio. I moved it to scan, looking for any local frequency that might be transmitted, glad that truck driver had a quality unit. When it didn’t find anything, we started to move, slowly dodging cars and heading through the streets of Harlem.

__________

One of my favorite things about living in the state of New York was the sheer number of trees. They were everywhere. I remember the first time I’d flown in from Ohio and saw the green from above. Growing up in the country, we had our share of trees, but they usually lined a farmer’s crop. This was different to me. I’d always thought New York would just be a huge city with nothing but concrete and criminals. Instead, it was a lovely state, with flowers, trees, and parks everywhere, with the Mecca of everything you could want in the big city at your fingertips. It was the perfect balance for me. When I’d first moved here, I’d spent the first couple years in a Battery Park condo. It was the size of a shoebox, but it was close to the subway, which made commuting to work so easy. It was also a twenty-minute ride to Central Park.

I loved Central Park. It was the most magical place I’d ever seen; ever since the first time I walked onto the grass, it felt special. The paths, the trees, and the people – it was just amazing. As Carey and I neared the huge park in the middle of the high-rises, I fondly remembered the first time I’d seen my wife, nine years ago in this very park. I was meeting a client for my firm in the Boathouse, a wonderful dinner and drinks spot in the middle of Central Park. It’s an iconic place where many “meet cutes,” as they said in the movies, happened in classic films. It was fitting that this was where I would first lay eyes on Janine. My meeting was just finishing, and as I stood to leave, she walked in. There was something that just drew me in instantly; she smiled at the hostess and my heart melted. I saw a man rise from the bar, leaving his stool empty, and start walking towards her.

My shoulders slumped as she turned to him. It was like she moved in slow motion, and as her head turned, our eyes locked. Hers widened slightly, and my heart pounded in my chest. No woman had ever looked at me like that before, and I doubted any ever would again. I stepped forward, all rational thoughts pushed to the side for the moment. I forgot about the man coming to meet her and I reached her first. Her eyebrows rose as I took her hand and said hello.

“Hello,” she replied quietly, a slight blush in her smooth cheek.

“I don’t know who that guy is, but how about we have dinner?” I asked in a way so unlike myself.

The man had arrived by this point, and I suddenly felt inadequate. He was one of those classic manly guys with the square jaw, shirt tight against his chest. I also noticed a military tattoo where his dress shirt sleeve was rolled up.

“Janine, I presume?” he asked, trying to step in front of me.

She glanced at me. “Sorry, no. Must be mistaken,” she said, taking my hand in hers. We went to a table in the back corner of the lounge, leaving behind a bewildered military man. We talked for hours and had a great dinner. I remember her ordering a portabella mushroom panini, and we started with a glass of red wine, and by the end of the night, we were sipping scotch outside; white string lights hung above us by the pond while midnight lovers paddled by in rented canoes. It was the best night of my life.

When I asked about the guy, she said it was just a blind date, and I didn’t prod past that.

Carey looked out the window and gave a low growl. It knocked me out of my daydreaming, but I couldn’t see any reason for him to bark, except the usual dog things: fire hydrants, mailboxes, a garbage bag flying in the wind. We headed down Central Park West at Eighty-First Street, one of the most beautiful in the entire city. There were a lot of cars out, but it wasn’t in a jam: more like everyone had just made straight east or west from where they were and not north-south. It made sense. The best way out was to head west inland from here. I tried to imagine what the lines at the Lincoln Tunnel must look like right now and shuddered at the thought. I’d never been much for traffic, hence moving into a small community. I liked the slower pace much better, and so had Janine.

We weaved through the cars that were on the street and soon the buildings got larger and cleaner, and more expensive. I couldn’t fathom the sheer wealth that sat in the area, with each park view condo being well in excess of five million dollars for a two-bedroom. We came up to the Museum of Natural History, and I slowed to a stop. Here was where I’d proposed to Janine almost eight years ago. She was fascinated by the place, and instead of something outrageous, I asked her to marry me outside while we snacked on a bagel and coffee. I hit the gas and noticed something out the corner of my eye.

A large black man ran towards my truck at full speed, a sheer look of panic in his face. Carey barked incessantly through the window. I didn’t know what to do. I stepped out of the truck and slid a rifle out from behind the seat. I walked back a couple steps, Carey following and barking as the man approached, obviously out of breath.

We stood there for a few moments, neither of us knowing what to say. He broke the silence through ragged breaths. “Get in the truck. They’ll see us!” I looked up to the sky and saw a silver ship hovering nearby.

“Carey, in the truck!” He looked at me with a tilted head. The man had already jumped into the passenger seat. “Carey, get in, boy!” He growled at me. The silver ship was getting closer, and any moment, it would spot us standing there. I got in the truck and Carey finally got the point, jumping onto my lap. As I swung the door shut and turned the truck engine off, the ship slowly hovered over us and into the park space.

We sat in silence, barely breathing while we watched it hover over the green space; soon it was out of our sight.

“I saw a ship a few hours ago, up north. Do you think there are a bunch of them?” I asked the stranger.

“No idea. I got close to the city early this morning… left Pittsburgh as soon as everyone disappeared.” I noticed him fidgeting with something and saw a ring on his pinky finger with a large green stone.

I nodded towards it. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

“Not a lot. I hoped you did,” he replied.

I pulled my amulet from under my shirt and showed him. He grimaced and rubbed his hands over his face.

“She told me to wear this damn ring. I had no idea what she was talking about, or why. But when your girlfriend is sick and asks you to do something in her memory, you do it. Save the world, she said.” His breath was ragged, the words spilling out like he’d been waiting years to say them.

I’m sure my mouth hung wide open at his words. His story was so similar to mine that I knew this couldn’t be a coincidence, only my wife hadn’t mentioned the “saving humanity” bit. I had no idea what was happening, but I was glad to have someone to share the pressure with.

“I’m Dean. Dean Parker.” I reached out my hand, which he took in a firm handshake.

“Ray Jones. I tell you, I’m glad to meet someone else. How’d you not get taken?”

The word taken stuck in my brain, and I sat there remembering James getting lifted through my house. “My wife. Same story as you, Ray. She died and made me promise to wear this.” I lifted the chain and showed him the green pendant hanging from it. “Only I didn’t believe that my life was at stake, and I just got it from a storage locker yesterday after the ships came. I guess I’m glad I did now. Even after death, we should listen to our wives, hey?” The joke hung out there in the air, neither of us laughing at it.

“How the hell are we supposed to save the world? I mean, I’m just a guy from Pittsburgh, a computer science engineer, who works at a steel factory programming manufacturing machinery. I mean, God above us, all I want to do is watch the Steelers and drink a cold one after a long day.”

“I have no idea. I’m an accountant. Maybe if I audit them, I can find out where they brought everyone.” Another swing, another miss. My mom used to always chide me for making jokes at the wrong time, but I guess that’s how I dealt with things. “How did you get here? Why New York?” I thought about the vague letter with the safety deposit box information.

“I drove in. The highways had a lot of cars, but I made it through with a Jeep. I had to drive in the ditch for some sections, but I made it all right. When I got through to Jersey, the tunnels and bridges were all packed. I grabbed my bag and went to a dock on the Jersey coast where I commandeered a motor boat. Didn’t think the owner would mind. I landed at the boat basin by Seventy-Seventh Street and started to head east. Then I saw the ship and started to hide, when I saw you there. I was sure the ship would see you if you were moving. And here we are. The reason I came here. A letter telling me to, after my Kate passed away.”

I wasn’t normally a trusting man, and with all the things my wife apparently had kept from me, I had good reason, but there was something right about Ray. He just seemed so honest, and I instantly felt like I could trust the guy. “Let me guess…TD bank…box number, all of that business.”

He slowly nodded to me and put his bag in the cab of the truck. “You got it. Seems we’re more alike in this than I thought. So, both had significant others die and make us wear a freaky stone that heats up and keeps us here while the rest of the world gets dragged to space. Then we have the same message to go to New York to a bank box. What do you think we’re going to find when we get there?”

I had no idea. “Hopefully some answers. Let’s go find out.” I took one last look at the museum, started the truck, and headed toward downtown.

SEVEN

As we crossed into Times Square, the sun was being blocked to the west by all of the tall buildings surrounding us. We pulled up to the block the bank was on, but the roads were just too full of taxis, tour buses, and police cars.

“We’re going to have to walk there,” Ray said, getting out of the car. “Should we leash Carey up or leave him in the car?”

I thought about a ship coming and finding us because Carey might decide to stand and bark at it. “Let’s bring him but leash him up.” I eyed my rifle under the seat but doubted it would do me any good should one of the aliens, or whatever they were, come down and confront us. I just brought the paper with the information on it and checked my pocket to make sure the key was there. Once we had everything and Carey was leashed, we headed down the block. He didn’t seem to mind the leash, and I thought it was probably quite the picture.

In a minute or two, we were at the bank, and I couldn’t help but notice how eerily quiet it was there. I’d spent a lot of time in this city, and noise was something you just got used to. The dead silence of it now was more than unnerving to me. Even the country growing up wasn’t this quiet. No cars honking a language only the cabbies understood, no falafel vendors shouting to patrons, no noise of the city. Just silence.

As if reading my mind, Ray turned to me and said, “It’s too quiet. I don’t like it.”

We walked into the unlocked doors and passed our way to the far side of the building.

“Where do you think they keep these things?” I asked, hoping Ray might know.

“I think they’re going to be around the back here, out of sight, but still close to security.”

He was right, and we were soon at the doors. Only problem was, they were locked. It appeared there was a code to get in, but we didn’t have it. There was also a manual key hole, so we decided to search the place in hopes of finding a key ring left behind that would grant us access. With the power out, the code puncher was probably useless anyway.

I let Carey go and he wandered around, following fairly close to me as I checked all of what I assumed were the executives’ desks. I found many strange things, including booze, poker chips, and a spare set of underwear. Whoever worked here sure wanted to be ready for a good time. After ten minutes of looking around, I called out to Ray. “Any luck?”

He appeared with a big grin covering his face. “If one of these doesn’t open the door, I’ll eat your hat.”

“Ray, I’m not wearing a hat.”

“Yeah, I know. I only make bets I can win.”

We laughed, showing our raised spirits as we tried each key on the ring one by one. After about five keys, we found one that fit. With a final holding of breath, I turned the key and heard the latch click. Victorious, we hugged each other as if we had already saved humanity.

I moved to deposit box 107 and stared at it for a moment, wondering if Janine had been the one to put something in here. How could she have known about this moment? It just didn’t make sense at all. She was a clothing store manager, what did she know about all of this business? Ray stood directly beside me; he had box 108. Box 109 beside him hung open, like someone had already been here for it.

“Do you think…?” I asked, nodding to the open box door.

“I couldn’t even presume to know,” he answered, digging a key out of his pocket.

“On the count of three?” I asked with my own key in the lock. “One, two, three.” We both turned the keys and our doors swung open. I had no idea what to expect but wasn’t surprised to see an unmarked envelope inside. Ray held his identical envelope up to mine and we smiled at each other.

“Time to save the world.”

We moved out of the room and laid the contents onto a desk. They appeared to be identical in every way. Ray started to read the letter aloud.

“You have been carefully selected to save the world’s population. We can’t say who we are or explain much, but do believe me when I say we are on your side. For centuries, your planet has been the target of invasion. We tried to postpone it for as long as possible, but it was inevitable. To ensure survival, we created and left you a device. It is a counter to their tractor beams, which at this point have taken every human into space. They mean to have your planet for themselves, but it will take a generation or so for them to adapt the atmosphere to their own liking. You must go to this hidden device we planted three hundred years ago and disarm it. Doing so will bring your people back and notify us of your actions. At that point, we will come and escort the invaders from your solar system. We have a pact, but once they break the agreement, we will use force to remove them. A map of the device’s location is in this letter. You must hasten there and save your people. Be wary of the ships that are undoubtedly searching for you. You must avoid them at all costs.”

He stopped reading, and we stood there with our mouths wide open for a moment. I grabbed the letter and flipped to the next page. It was a map of Peru, and the next page was a zoomed-in map of Machu Picchu. It was incredible to think that we were left letters from a second alien race. Could any of this really be happening?

Ray broke the silence. “I’ve never been on a vacation with a man before. What do you say, Dean? Ever thought of traveling to Peru?”

“What choice do we have? But did that letter give you the sensation you were reading an email from a Nigerian prince, needing you to send them a thousand dollars so they can send you a million?” The better question was, how was I selected to save the world, and who had already been here to open box number 109?

__________

It was dusk outside when we hit the streets again, and we made our way back to the truck in silence. Dusk. One day since the ships took everybody into the sky with them. The pressure of the task at hand came tumbling down on me, and I almost stumbled off my feet. Just a few yards away from the truck, I sat down on the curb as the street spun in front of my unsteady eyes. Carey sat beside me and licked my face; he brought me back to reality.

“Dean, we can do this. All we need to do is get to Peru and turn this damn machine off. Voila.”

It sounded easy and impossible at the same time, somehow, and I couldn’t shake the question of how it all worked. How would turning a device off return them all? In the end, I supposed I wasn’t the resident expert on alien technology, so I shrugged off my doubts for the time being.

“Atta boy. We’re going to have to stop and hit an electronics store. I may need my computer, and I’m going to need backup laptop batteries – lots of them. And a phone charger. Good thing is about these phones – the GPS still works even with no active network running,” Ray said.

With a new resolve, I let Carey into the back cab and got into the truck. Ray smiled at me as we started down the street. I knew there would be less traffic density if I headed west a way, and then down towards the south side of Manhattan where I would hit an electronics store I knew of.

“Ray, it’s getting late and we’re going to have a long day tomorrow. Not only that, but we’re going to have to hike across to Jersey. I realize that I may have wasted all my time carrying all of this junk with me when I’ll just have to dump it now. We should hit the hay for the night. How does the penthouse at Trump Tower sound?” I laughed.

“Well, my dogs are barking. Pardon the pun, Carey. That sounds good to me.”

An hour later, it was fully dark, and I left my lights off in case a ship was looking for us as we pulled up to the hotel. We had picked everything up from the store that Ray was hoping to grab, so all we had to do was go in and find a bed to lie on. The hotel loomed over us in the dark, and I took Carey for a bathroom break before heading into the luxury building. I was pretty sure it was a few thousand a night for a penthouse, but unless the elevators were working, that was going to be an awfully long walk. We opted for the third-floor units, and to be respectful, we found a couple of suites that were empty. We went our separate ways, each with a flashlight to light our way. The hotel had a backup power source, and we used what looked to be universal keycards to get in. Ray said Kate had worked in the “biz” and they all had them.

I had a shower and was happy to know that the water heaters had enough warm water in them still to make it manageable. Then it was a king-sized bed to share with my new little friend. In moments, Carey was snoring at my feet. The crazy events since yesterday raced through my mind, and my thoughts kept roaming back to how my wife had fit into all of this. It just didn’t add up to me. I wondered if I would ever know the truth of it. It felt like hours passed as I tossed and turned before my cell phone alarm went off. I must have dozed off for some time because I actually felt well rested, but Carey groaned and rolled over as I got out of bed.

I found Ray dressed and ready to go when I knocked on his door, and we were off just before the clock struck six am.

“I was thinking of it, Dean. Let’s hit the pier and take a boat down and across. There’s no other way to get into Jersey, and I really don’t think we want to leave anything or walk,” Ray said as we hiked down the flashlight-lit stairwell.

I felt stupid for not having thought of that. We were surrounded by water; why not use a boat when there were so many just sitting around unused? I felt a little bad about once again using someone’s property but figured saving the world’s population was more important than a missing boat.

“Perfect. Glad to have you around.”

On the way down to the pier, Ray was messing around with the scanner on the CB radio, and as we neared the water, the constant hiss cleared for a second and we heard a distant woman’s voice coming through. “…Philadelp…leave…ington…” That was all we made out, and soon the hiss was back. Ray fumbled to keep it on that channel.

“Holy crap. If I was going to speculate what that message meant, someone is in Philly and is heading to Washington. Let’s get moving and see if we can catch up to…whoever that was.” My voice cracked in excitement to think there were more people out there to help us, as if the pressure on me wasn’t as immense with more people to share the burden with.

We got there and I hopped the fence while Ray stayed with Carey, who barked at me through the gate. I broke into the security cabin and found the keys, along with a few sets of boat keys. One of them would have to do. Soon we were loading our gear onto a twenty-foot motor boat, and in moments, we were heading south.

“I think we should head all the way down and around Jersey. If we hit the mainland down there, we can find a vehicle and be home free from any more bridges or tunnels,” Ray called out over the wind.

“Sounds good to me!” I yelled back. Carey stood on the back seat and watched cautiously as water splashed up and around us in the otherwise quiet area. We hadn’t seen any ships since yesterday afternoon and hoped they were searching far away, or better yet, just gone.

It took us a stressful hour or so to find land, me constantly worrying about the ships finding us, but we made it unscathed. We trolled along looking for a pier or somewhere to park this thing, and in another twenty minutes, we found a makeshift dock we could use. I roped it off after Ray parked it, and he went off in search of a truck as I started to haul stuff to the road. He pulled up in a smaller truck, but it still had enough room for Carey in the back seat.

“I figured a smaller truck would mean less stops for gas. This one is almost full and I know we’ve been hauling all those gas cans.” He tossed me the keys. “You don’t mind being the driver, do you?”

I’d always felt more comfortable driving than being a passenger, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be much help when it came to the computer device side of things.

“You got it, boss,” I said.

The roads were fairly clear as we moved west on a connector road that would lead us to the I-95. On to Philly from there. Day two of the adventure and I was still scared of what was to come. I glanced back at Carey and then over at Ray. At least I wasn’t alone anymore, and it felt good.

EIGHT

Things were going well for us, and we were making good time. We stopped for some food at a grocery store and found some of the refrigerators were still keeping the food slightly cool. I was sure in another day or two, we might be talking about another story. We got some ice bags from the bottom of the freezer and added them to a couple of coolers we found, and set ourselves up with some food for the trip. Ray convinced me we needed to spend the effort to make some coffee, so we started the generator and brewed a big pot of coffee while we filled up the truck.

From there we drove down the highway, two fast friends with thermoses of coffee and a goal in mind but no firm plan, short of trying to meet up with whomever we overheard on the radio.

“Why do you think it was us, Dean? Of all the people in the world…why were we left to do this job?” Ray asked quietly.

“I really don’t know. There are so many questions that I don’t have the answers to. I was married to a woman who gave me this necklace and knew what it meant! It just confounds me…and upsets me at the same time. Who the hell was she? Who was your girlfriend?”

“Kate was a wonderful woman, an assistant at the plant I worked at. We started dating a couple months after she started there. She was always really interested in the engineering side of things and loved to pick my brain. I think she wanted to be an engineer herself, but thought she was too old to start college. I tried telling her she should start at Penn U, that I’d support her through it.” He was quiet for a moment. “Then she got sick. Coughing up blood; had the doctors lost for words on what it was.”

A lot of things had been making me pause in the past two days, and this was just another to add to the list. “That’s the same thing that happened to Janine. She was gone in six months. We’d been married for four years,” I said, knowing this was no coincidence.

“This is just freaky, man. Sounds like our timelines match up pretty well. We never got married. I was for it, but Kate didn’t think we needed to label ourselves. No kids, either. She wasn’t ready. I loved her, man, I really did. But deep down, I guess I should have known something was totally bogus with us. Now, as I look at our life together through a rear-view mirror, I feel like an idiot for not wondering before. And then the ring. When she told me to wear this god-ugly ring, I almost laughed. Then I saw the deadly serious look she gave me and heard the pleading tone in her voice. I said I would, and I never took it off. Now I’m not sure if I wish I’d just been taken with the rest of them or not.”

I was sure that being here was better than wherever they were moved to. I just hoped they were being handled without aggression. I pictured my mother being cornered by a horrible alien in space…I tried to shake off the thoughts of torture or the destruction of the race.

“The message we were left said we can save them still, so let’s do it. No moping around, no worrying about what the hell our ladies had done. Maybe we were tricked and they used us for some crazy intergalactic strife…I don’t know, but I do know we’re going to kick some ass, save the world, and feel bad for ourselves after this is all done.” The words hit me hard as they left my mouth, but I knew what I said was true. I had to hold on to the fact that Janny had loved me, she had told me that no matter what happened, to remember that, so I would assume she’d done what she did because she had no other choice.

Ray stuck his fist out and I hit it with my own. “Deal, brother. You sure you’re an accountant? You’ve got a little Tony Robbins in you. When Earth is back to normal, I’m going to get you on TED Talks.”

I saw a sign saying we were closing in on Philly in a few miles. The best move was to head around the city and keep moving south towards Washington. If possible, we would be able to find the mysterious radio people and meet up with them there.

Ray and I agreed on the plan, and we spent the next few hours avoiding abandoned cars on the road, driving through various side roads and ditches until we were well clear of Philly altogether. The CB radio occasionally stopped its routine hissing and cracked for a bit instead, but we didn’t hear any voices. Once we were through that, we found a secondary highway that would lead us close to Washington, and it was near empty as evening neared, and Baltimore signs came more frequently.

We wouldn’t have much farther to go, but light was rapidly disappearing from the sky. The two hundred miles had taken us most of the day, dodging vehicles and watching for gray ships in the sky.

“Well, what do you think? Do we make a stop in Baltimore or keep going to Washington? I think we can make it there without lights. Once the sun is all the way down, we’ll be screwed – it’ll be tough to see cars at a complete stop on the road, though we may be able to do it at a really slow pace,” I said.

Ray was about to answer when the radio cleared and voices came across. He turned up the volume, and Carey barked once when the woman’s voice came over again.

“We are in Washington, D.C. If anyone is out there, we are at the intersection of I-95 and I-495 Springfield. There are two…Crackle…”

“Come in, Washington. We are on the way. Repeat. We are on the way. Be there in T-minus one hour. Over.” Ray’s hand shook as he held the radio button. There was no reply, and the hissing was back.

“Damn. At least we know where they are. I say we have to go for it now,” he said excitedly.

“Is there any chance we might be walking into a trap? Who knows what kind of crazy things these aliens are doing? Do we just trust anyone we meet?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear his answer.

“We trusted each other, didn’t we?” he asked as he petted Carey on the head.

“Yeah, we did, I guess. I just feel like such a fool for not knowing my wife that I’m second-guessing everything. You’re right. What choice do we have? We need help, and I’m not missing out on that opportunity. Let’s do this.”

I was excited to see someone, even though I’d been a semi-recluse for the past few years. Just spending some time with Carey and Ray made me remember how much I liked people. It had only been a couple days, but the idea that there were more of us out there had me so happy, I couldn’t wait to meet them and hear their stories.

The sun was going down behind the trees on the side of the road, but I figured we’d be cutting it close at this point. At least this way, we would be going around the main city and heading to the west side. It had been years since I’d visited Washington. The monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and Capitol Hill. All pivotal icons of American history and politics; history I liked, politics was something I’d never cared a whole lot for.

“Ray, I know we aren’t going to do this, but just for fun. We’re alone, or almost alone, in the world. Where do you go?” I figured we might as well waste some time.

“That’s a loaded question, isn’t it? There are lots of places in the world I want to see, but as for being alone and being able to go anywhere? Maybe the Oval Office.” He laughed. “I used to dream of being the first black president, then Obama came in and ruined that one. I’d sit at the president’s desk, lean back, put my feet up on the shiny wooden desktop and…have a nap. I always thought that would be my ideal napping spot. I’d also probably leave some notes on things I think need to be done to make this a better country. I’d use his letterhead and leave the notes with his name and dates on them, on the off chance that he might read them thinking they were his ideas, and implement them.”

Ray was staring out the window, but I could tell he was smiling from his posture. I hardly knew anything about the guy, but I felt like I really knew him at the same time. “How about you, Dean?” he asked.

“Not sure if I can top napping in the Oval Office, but I’ll try.” Where would I go, given the chance to be anywhere? “Well, seeing how Carey and I already walked the Yankee Stadium field yesterday, I think having free rein of Vatican City would be quite the experience. I’m by no stretch of the imagination a devout Catholic, but the history behind it amazes me. I’d also like to walk the halls of Buckingham Palace, to see where the Queen sleeps and eats. What does she read? The newspaper? The Ladies Detective Agency books? Does she poop in a golden toilet? I kind of want to know these things.” I felt foolish for a second about that last one, but Ray just laughed.

“Now that’s something I can get behind. Okay, now let’s get trashy, where we knew this conversation was going to go. I want to see Kerry Washington’s house. What music does she listen to? How can I trick her into a date?” Ray laughed and then got a little quiet; I assumed he thought of his late Kate.

“Okay, me sneaking around the Queen’s room is purely historical, you creeping in Kerry’s house, that’s just stalker material. But if I were going to become a stalker on an empty earth, I’d find this guy named Ray Jones’ house in Pittsburgh. I bet that guy has posters of Mario Lemieux on his wall, and Steelers figurines showcased beside the bar in the man cave.”

Ray laughed so hard tears trickled down his face. “You are just so funny. Who would have thought an accountant could have a sense of humor? I guess you have to, to keep yourself from jumping every time you balance a ledger. And for the record, I was never much of a hockey fan. The posters were always of Joe Montana. He never played there, but he was from Pittsburgh and my dad played a year with him back when they were kids, not football but basketball. He was quite the player, if you listen to my dad’s stories. I met him once at a Steelers game. My dad had taken me to a game when I was little, and somehow had connected with Joe. He tousled my hair and signed a 49ers football for me. I still have it…next to my Steelers figurines in the man cave.” This brought on a fresh round of laughing that had me leaking from the eyes. It felt so good to have a laugh in the midst of the insane position we found ourselves in.

It was almost fully dark, but we were nearing the intersection the woman on the CB had mentioned. We turned the radio up, but no signal was coming through. It was as if they had turned their end off. The truck lights were off and we struggled to see where we were going, while trying to avoid the sporadic cars, trucks, and semi-trailers sitting on the freeway.

“What do you think? We’re here. I would think they might be lodged up at a motel or something nearby. Can you check your phone GPS to see if anything pops up close?” I asked Ray.

“Sure,” he said, zooming in on his map, “looks like a Holiday Inn half a mile east of here. We better make this exit and take that overpass. That’s the only hotel nearby. Unless they kept moving or are camping out in a vehicle.”

I really wished I could have tossed my day lights on for a moment, to make the trip easier, but that dream disappeared as quickly as it came. A bright beam of green light shone down from the sky in a perfect cylinder shape. My necklace burned again, and I slammed on the brakes and turned the engine off. Carey whined in the back, and I reached back to pet the shaking dog. He could probably hear something we couldn’t emanating from the beam. Ray’s ring glowed bright, and he covered it with a jacket sitting on the console beside him. We didn’t speak; the only noise in the truck was our quick, panicked breaths and Carey’s near silent moan. The ship above moved the green beam like a searchlight over the area, and it felt like they were there for hours. As if the whole experience wasn’t already stressful enough, we now had to play dead with one of the ships scouring above us.

“Ray, do you think they know we’re here? Maybe the radio drew them in.” Before I finished asking, Ray’s hand darted out and turned the CB off. His eyes were wide, and I realized he hadn’t told me where he was when the people were taken off the Earth.

Carey was trying to hide his head under his paws in the back, making for one of the cutest scenes I’d ever seen in one of the most frightening moments of my life. The world was full of juxtapositions.

“I don’t know what those bastards can sense. We know nothing about them. They might even have heat sensors, or maybe they’re scanning for lifeforms like on Star Trek. Hell, maybe they’re trying to beam us up right now.”

He was right. We knew nothing about them. Just like I’d apparently known nothing about my wife.

The ship was still close by, but the beam was focusing further down the road. I felt my neck loosen up, as if the immediate danger was gone for a moment. I didn’t think the danger would ever be gone, though, not until we solved this and brought the world back.

“I think the ship is leaving,” Ray whispered, and we watched the light move down the road. Soon the pendant cooled, and eventually, the green light on it dimmed to nothing.

All was silent for a moment. Then something knocked on our window.

NINE

Six Years Earlier

There was a knock on the door, and I answered it in my bathrobe. Who could be coming over this early on a Sunday morning? And right after we got back from our honeymoon? I opened the door to a handsome man around the same age as me, and it took a moment to recognize who he was.

“Hello, Dean,” he said as he stepped inside. “How was Aruba?”

“Aruba was great. It rained the whole time, but that just meant we got to stay in…” I stopped when I realized I was oversharing with Janine’s – what – cousin?

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. Is Janine in?” He looked uncomfortable as he shifted from foot to foot lightly.

“Yeah, come on in, Bob. I have coffee in the kitchen – help yourself. Cream’s in the fridge. I’ll go tell Janny that you’re here.”

Bob seemed like a nice enough fellow, but I really hadn’t heard how they were actually related. None of it was clear, but Bob and his wife had come to the wedding a couple weeks ago, and Mary had seemed an absolute delight. If his wife was that cool, then there must be something about Bob that was endearing too. She was a member of the US Air Force, and to me, that was one of the coolest things you could be. That and maybe an astronaut, which Mary could very well end up doing. Apparently, she was an astrophysicist too. I had five bucks on it that she’d grown up with high-pressure parenting.

I walked upstairs to find Janine brushing her hair in the en-suite. “Who’s at the door, sweetie?” she asked with a voice like honey. The pressure of our wedding, and a week in seclusion from the rest of the world, had just brought us closer than I could have imagined.

“It’s your cousin Bob. He seems a little off. Not that I know what’s on for the guy.”

She fidgeted with her necklace a moment and told me she’d be right down. I went and shared a cup of coffee with him and when Janine came, I excused myself to let them have a moment. The room had felt tense as I left it, and I made my way to my office; I had some work to do anyway. Without trying to hear what they were saying, I thought I caught him mention I was the wrong man for her, or something along those lines. Then I heard Mary’s name from my wife’s mouth. I never knew exactly what their exchange was that day, but I never saw Bob again.

__________

Carey rushed to the window and barked incessantly at the dark shape outside the truck. My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to see who was knocking on the truck window. With the ship just having left, Ray and I were already at wits’ end. I turned the key and pressed the window button, lowering it slightly.

“Who are you?” I tensely asked.

A woman replied, “We’re here to help. The ship is gone for now.”

Ray and I got out of the car and let Carey out to investigate the new person. He hesitantly sniffed her hand as she crouched down to greet him.

“I love dogs. What’s your name?” she asked.

“His name is Carey. He’s my neighbor’s dog, but he’s been a great companion on our trip so far. I’m Dean, and this is Ray.”

She shook our hands and I caught sight of her face. I knew her. “I’m Mary. Mary Lafontaine. Vanessa is back at the hotel. We were thinking you might make for a hotel near here, but decided one of us should come find you if you didn’t. Then the ship came and I had to hide.”

Mary. It was Bob’s wife Mary. We’d only met on my wedding weekend, which was six years ago now. I had no idea if she would recognize me or not. Things were starting to become a little clearer, but they were still so convoluted and fuzzy. Janine’s cousin Bob was the husband of the woman in front of me. This was no coincidence.

“Hotel, you say. Let’s get going, and get out of the open,” Ray said.

“Yes, my Jeep is just up a little way. I’ll leave my lights off, so just drive up a hundred meters and you’ll see me. We’ll be at the hotel in five minutes.” Mary smiled and took off into the night. She spoke into a walkie-talkie. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t even thought of getting those to communicate if we got split up.

“Dean, you okay?” Ray asked.

Carey finished his business and came and sat down at my feet, his body resting against my shin.

“Ray, I know her. Her husband claimed to be my wife’s cousin. She was at my wedding.”

“That’s some seriously heavy stuff. Let’s get going. Maybe we’ll figure this all out when we get to the hotel and talk to them. She seemed sure of herself, out here all alone.”

“She was US Air Force. I think she can handle herself.”

We got in the truck and followed behind Mary in the darkness. The night sky was clear, and the moonlight and stars lit our way as best they could. In a few minutes, we were pulling up to the Holiday Inn.

“Welcome to our private hotel, gentlemen. Here are a couple keys to rooms beside ours.” She passed us keys. “Luckily, they still have regular keys. I’m not sure we could get into the rooms with those key cards.” She led us down a hallway and we toted our backpacks down the flashlight-lit corridor.

“We’re just down the hall in 105 and 106. We’ll be in Vanessa’s room, 106.” She squinted at me slightly before turning around and walking away.

“Come on, Dean. Let’s freshen up and find out what’s going on here,” Ray said.

In a few minutes, we were standing at the entrance to the room, a little fresher now that the day’s trip was washed off, me with a newly applied layer of deodorant. The door was propped open by the bolt, but Ray still knocked before entering. A voice called for us to come inside.

Mary sat at a desk in the far corner of the room, going over some maps. Her dark hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. They had a generator whirring quietly in the closet, it seemed, with the door closed to muffle the sound. It was funny that just a couple of days with no simple things like lights, and it seemed like magic when you did see it.

The other woman, whom I assumed to be Vanessa, smiled at us as we walked in. She was older than us, maybe pushing fifty, and she wore it well. “So, you’re the other two,” she said, looking us up and down.

“Other two what?” I asked.

“There are four of us, Dean. Four people left behind to save the world. My husband passed this locket on to me before he died, and I wore it, watching my children float away. Do you have any idea what that feels like? To know you’re staying and that you could save one of them, but not?” She was on the verge of crying, and Ray stepped over and put his arm around her shoulders.

“No, I don’t, but I watched my whole workplace get taken. We were working late trying to get a new product’s software done so the manufacturing would be on schedule for a big government contract. I saw twenty of my co-workers get sucked out of the building, and they all looked at me like I was the monster because I wasn’t leaving with them. I’ll never forget Tina’s face as she disappeared through the ceiling; face contorted in agony, looking at me like I was the devil,” Ray said, his hands visibly shaking.

I hadn’t heard Ray’s story yet, and listening to these tales made everything seem so much more real.

Mary came and sat at the end of the bed. “I was in a hangar bay in DC here. We were waiting to be called out in case we needed to try to immobilize the ships. The reports from around the world were saying that all weapons were non-effective against the ships, but we still had to sit there waiting. Like our missiles would have any more power than the Russians’, or the Middle East’s. It was terrifying seeing the news feeds of the missiles and bullets having zero effect on the bastards. They didn’t even have to swat us away like flies; they just hovered there like we were nothing more than a minor nuisance, if they even saw what the humans were doing at all. Those massive black behemoths fell from the sky and I just got a sinking feeling in my stomach, like the end was near. And I suppose it was.” She paused, and we were hanging on her every word. “The sun started to go down, and then things were almost a blur. Everyone started to shout and I didn’t know why, then I saw them floating, all surrounded by green light. This started to burn up” – she showed a large men’s ring on a chain hanging around her neck – “and I finally understood what Bob had been telling me back then. Bob was my husband. He died two years ago.”

The room went silent, and then all eyes fell on me. My story was so boring compared to theirs, but I had to tell it anyway. “I spent the day getting across town to grab my amulet from a storage unit. My wife had made me promise to wear it, but stupid me couldn’t stand the sight of her stuff. It was all a painful reminder of how much I missed her. Janine died three years ago. Just like Ray’s girlfriend died and your husband Bob died, Mary.” I watched Mary, and I saw the light click on in her mind. She knew me, and now she recalled where she knew me from. I nodded to her to let her know I knew and would get to it. She cracked a small smile, and I realized how attractive she really was. It had been a long time since I’d thought like that; the thought of dating after my wife passed had left me with a sick feeling of guilt. Why did I choose this moment to feel a spark? All the memories from the past couple days rushed into my mind, but I almost felt better for it, like my heartache was being cleansed.

“I had run into my buddy James, and we were just hanging out at my house, trying to see what was going to happen. Janine had told me to wear this necklace when the ships came, and I put it on just soon enough to see James get sucked out of my house and into the sky with the rest of my city. I’ve never felt so alone as that night, and I’d been alone there for the past three years.”

Mary walked over to me, reached out, and grabbed my hands. “I can’t believe it’s you, Dean. What odd set of circumstances could have made it so we were both left after the ships? How is this possible?”

I looked over at Vanessa, who was sitting there looking surprised. “Ray, did Kate go by Katherine sometimes?” I had a hunch and was ninety-nine percent sure it was right.

“Yeah, to most people. I hated calling her that, and Kate stuck. Why do you ask?” Ray asked.

“Because she was at my wedding too. It was the strangest thing; Janine sprang a couple guests on me for the wedding. She always said she was adopted and then she met some of her real cousins online and invited them. Kate came, as did Bob and Mary.”

“So you’re saying that Kate was at your wedding and so was Mary here? Whoa, fella…” He paused as if he’d just remembered something. “You know what? She did try getting me to go to a wedding when we first started dating years ago. I hated weddings, and we were so new that I thought it might give off the wrong impression, so I lied and said I couldn’t because I had to work. I’ll be damned. This just keeps getting stranger and stranger.”

Now how did Vanessa play into all of this? “Vanessa, you say your husband died? Was he sick?” I asked, knowing this wasn’t going to be a pleasant conversation.

“Pretty much the same thing as your wife, Dean. He was my second husband. The kids weren’t his, but they loved him as if he were their father. Now they’re all gone.” She wiped away tears, and we all softened at the words.

“Every one of us was given our green alien rock thing by our significant loved one who’s now dead. Kate and my wife seem to have died the very same way, and I can only assume Mary’s husband shared a similar fate? I’m sorry to bring it up, but this feels really central to everything going on,” I said.

Mary took a deep breath. “I loved my husband a lot. He was a kind man, with a heart of gold, but he felt distant for the last couple years of his life. He got sick; some sort of lung infection where he would cough up blood, and within a few months, he had wasted away to nothing, and he died with me by his side. Being in the Air Force, I spent a lot of time away from home over the years and often wondered if he strayed from our marriage, or if he even loved me. As he lay in his hospital bed, he told me a crazy tale of people from another world, where a civil war ravaged part of their planet. Two sides came to peace eventually, but there was always a small amount of resentment still felt between them. They needed a new home, as theirs wasn’t going to last, and Earth was found to be suitable.

“One side claimed to have found a home for them that wouldn’t involve the genocide of a race, but the decision was already made. So a safety net was put into place: a device that could be used to bring the humans back once taken. It was said that the device has been here on Earth for hundreds of years, and that the rebels used a highly dangerous wormhole to make it here way ahead of the fleet we saw grace our atmosphere. Then we were selected to carry out the plan to save the world. It’s all been set up by the opposing faction from this planet. Though Bob didn’t say so outright, I now believe him to have been a member of that race. At the time, I thought he was delusional and insane. Now I know better.”

My stomach sank at the implications of her story. If Bob had been one of them, then surely Janine had too. But she was very human. I knew this for a fact. How could she have been anything but? The room swayed, and I reached my arms out to keep myself from falling down. I felt the soft cushion of the mattress and Ray’s hand lowering me down. “I know. If what Mary says is true, then we’re all in the same boat. Feeling deceived and hurt, but maybe it was the only way to save the people. We have to push past this and do what we need to do for the sake of the world. I just don’t quite understand how this is all going to work. We bring them back, then what? Get blasted to smithereens by them? Do we not expect some serious retaliation?”

“Is there anything to drink in this place? Mini-bar?” I asked.

Ray popped open a cupboard that unveiled a mini-fridge with single-serve alcohol bottles in it. “No ice here. What do you say to a glass of wine or a whiskey?”

Soon we had moved to the small table by the window and I was feeling slightly better about things, but that could have just been the effects of the cheap whiskey I’d downed. I was swirling a second one in a plastic glass and noticed Mary watching her red wine more than drinking it.

“It just doesn’t add up. Did any of you have kids? Bob and I tried for a couple years, but it never took. How about you guys?” Mary asked.

Ray shook his head, as did I.

“We can sit here all night and speculate, or we can figure it out moving forward. Now let’s stop worrying about the past and try to figure out the fastest way to get everyone back.” Her voice had progressively risen in pitch, and she emphasized the speech by taking my whiskey and shooting it back.

We settled in and started to form a plan for getting to Peru. We were four strangers and a dog sitting in a hotel room.

TEN

Carey and I walked away from the hotel, into a small field behind it. The morning sun was just about to rise, and the fall air felt cooler than it had in previous days. I was glad we were heading south; it would be warmer. I really was enjoying having a dog around. He reminded me of a regular life and was helping me stay grounded through all of this. He’d already had breakfast and now he was chasing a bird that had landed too close.

We headed back to the building, and Mary was leaning against the front lobby doorway, foot pressed against the brick wall. My heart skipped a beat seeing her there.

“Dean. How messed up is all of this? Can you imagine that we met six years ago and now here we are?” She let the comment stop, like she had more to say but didn’t want to say it.

I couldn’t help but look at her in a different light all of a sudden. I was no psychology major, but it was almost as if my last three years alone were bubbling up, and the sight of someone I’d met before, combined with the fact that we shared the same spousal story, was making me see her for all the woman she was.

I cleared my throat and hoped I wasn’t blushing too hard. I was in my thirties; did we still blush at that age? Feeling the flush in them, I guess I’d answered my own question. Thank goodness Carey interrupted my moment of shame, as he sauntered over to her, doing the patented cocker spaniel full-body tail wag. She crouched down and rubbed his ears while he kept wiggling.

“Bob wasn’t a dog person. Actually, I can’t even recall him ever interacting with one,” she said.

“Come to think of it, neither did Janine. I know she felt bad because I wanted one, but she said she was allergic. I looked into hypoallergenic ones, but she refused even then.”

Ray came and knocked on the door, waving us inside.

“Vanessa and Ray were making breakfast. Once we eat and get everything loaded, we’ll be on our way,” Mary said as I held the door open for her. She paused as we walked inside, her hand sitting lightly on my forearm. “Dean, do you think we can do this?”

“I honestly don’t know, but at least we have a plan for now. Too bad you didn’t have a jet to take us there with.” I laughed.

“I thought of that. Just heading down there myself and doing it. Vanessa was for it. But then we saw the ships, and I was too worried they would just shoot me down, and the whole mission would be screwed. Or at least my involvement in it. Plus, I would be dead,” Mary said solemnly. “I had no idea there was definitely anyone else coming. I just figured if Vanessa and I had been chosen that there must be more.”

“Were you in New York then? Was it your safety deposit box we found open?”

She fidgeted with the ring on her necklace. “That was me. I was close in Washington and took a boat there. Lots of those available where I was. It was only a matter of hours and I was there. I knew I would have to go there and had gone to that bank a couple times in the past two years. Bob gave me the letter to not open until the day they came. Of course I was angry at him for dying, and for telling me that insane story about aliens. I didn’t know what to think when I read it, telling me about a security box. Why wouldn’t I go and look at it? I stood there two years ago in that very bank and stared at that box for an hour. But for some reason, I didn’t open it.”

“How about Vanessa?” I asked.

“I guess she never got one there. Hers was in a local bank. Interesting how her story is always different than ours.” She looked at me, and I guessed she was trying to gauge my reaction.

I really had no idea if that made a lick of difference to our situation, but I was going to watch Vanessa a little more closely than the other two.

“Let’s go get some food and get out of here. We have a long trip ahead of us.” My stomach growled when I smelled the bacon and eggs wafting from down the hall. Carey had already forgotten about me as he ran out of sight.

Soon we were packed up and full from the wonderful meal. It felt great to have something like breakfast to share with other people; another seemingly small event that gave me motivation to keep going. Vanessa and Mary were in a four-door Jeep, and Ray and I kept our truck. The drive to Florida was over a thousand miles, so we had some ground to make up, especially since light was at a premium. We had no idea if the ships would find us at night, but we turned the CB off and they gave us a walkie-talkie so we could communicate with them as we drove.

“We’ll take the lead for the start. If you see anything, let us know and we’ll stop and pretend to be just another abandoned vehicle,” Mary said as she bent over to pet Carey. “See you in a bit, pup.”

Mary was used to taking charge, it appeared. I always figured a soldier was better at taking directions, but she seemed to be good at it. I knew I was in no position to take charge here. Her training was ideal for what we had to do.

“Sounds good. We’ll be in touch.” I smiled at them as Ray said the words.

In minutes, we were heading down the road, Washington just a blip in the rear-view mirror.

__________

We started the drive around seven thirty that morning, and after stopping for a bathroom break at around nine thirty, we had made some decent distance. A thousand miles on roads with non-moving traffic could take a long time. We decided to just try side roads for most of the trip, and so far, it was working really well. We cruised along some paved and some gravel roads on the way towards Richmond, Virginia. We stopped for a quick break as we neared the city, and by noon, we were fifty miles south of it, heading towards North Carolina.

Everything seemed to be going well, but we were really far from our goal; Peru seemed like an impossible distance. Ray was quiet this morning, and I drove while he manned the walkie-talkie.

“You okay, Ray?” I asked, worried about him.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just letting it all sink in. Trying to wrap my head around what it all means.”

I felt like he was going to ask the question I was scared to know the answer to.

“If any of this is true, were Kate and Janine some sort of…” He paused and looked at me. “Aliens? I know it sounds crazy, but maybe it’s true.”

After everything I’d gone through with my wife – the secrets, and Janine’s cousin Bob being Mary’s dead husband too, Kate being at my wedding…it was all too much to not be something strangely unbelievable.

“I don’t know. I really don’t. How could they be aliens? How would aliens look like us? Is that why they died? Maybe they couldn’t survive here. There are so many questions I’m not sure we’ll get answers to. Will it change how I feel about my wife, or you about Kate? I think it will, but I honestly do feel like what I had was real in every way. It had to be.” Just remember that I’m sorry. Never forget this moment. Words from three years ago that I’d blocked out flowed into my head that moment, and tears formed in my eyes as I recalled the desperate look she’d given me. “She knew I was going to find out about her, and she apologized on her deathbed. I forgot the words until now.” Warm tears now flowed down my face, but I didn’t sob about it. I let them fall, and from here I would harden myself. She had to do what she did, for some reason, but I knew without a doubt that she had loved me.

“I think you’re right. But how messed up is it that we had alien women? Not even Kirk married one of them,” Ray joked.

I stayed silent for a moment, then burst out laughing. “We’re going to be friends for a long time. I love making jokes at the wrong time! That’s straight out of my playbook.”

The talkie cracked. “Hey, boys. There’s a gas station just ahead. Let’s take a breather. Over.”

“Roger that. We’re right behind you,” Ray replied.

We followed them down the gravel road and turned left toward the highway. The Jeep slammed on its brakes and pulled up beside a car sitting there. We did the same and cut the engine when they did.

“There’s a bogey in the sky coming this way from the west.”

The ship was coming in fast. Just when I thought it might pass over us, I saw the beam coming from it. The beam was red, not green, this time. My heart was racing as it came closer; its red light was cutting the ground up in chunks. Huge pieces of earth flew in its wake, cars exploded, and when it passed over the gas station, I had to cover my ears when the tanks blew. A mushroom cloud shot into the sky; the gray ship kept moving, red beam shredding the ground as it moved. Carey was barking as Ray and I sat watching the devastation with our mouths open.

“How are we ever going to stop them?” Ray whispered.

“I have no idea.” My heart was hammering in my chest, and I could feel the drip of sweat run down my back as I stared into the sky. As if to accent the danger we just missed out on, a large piece of metal fell right beside the truck, sticking into the road, fire burning around it.

“We better wait a moment longer in case there’s any more airborne flaming death waiting to fall on us,” I said. In a few moments, we got out of the truck, and Carey ran over to the Jeep and barked at Vanessa in the driver’s seat. I was sure he just wanted to see if they were okay, but she seemed hesitant to get out of the vehicle. He moved over and forgot what he was doing when Mary walked over to us, because she was obviously more interesting than the car door. We watched the line of fire spreading across the horizon for miles.

“Do you think they know we’re here? Why else would they have done this?” Ray asked.

“It could be they were demonstrating their power in case we saw what they’d done. They probably think we’re somewhere around this distance. Maybe they’re cutting a line down this side of the country to stop us from passing?” Mary answered. “I heard the generals arguing about whether these ships had weapons or not. They thought that they didn’t, that the reason they didn’t retaliate against Russia when they threw missiles at them was because they couldn’t. Boy, were they wrong. They just cut open the ground like a can opener, with a beam of frickin’ red light.”

“I say we head up there, check how big this gash is, and see whether we can get through it or not,” I said, everyone nodding in agreement. We moved back to the cars, but Mary reached out and grabbed my arm while Ray and Vanessa headed back to their respective vehicles.

“Something feels off here to me, Dean. Why bother with this tactic? With this power, couldn’t they just fly down there and blow the device up?” Her military mind was probably whirling at their strategy.

“Maybe they don’t know what it is. Maybe they don’t know where it is. I just know that I can’t see how they’ve transported all of Earth’s population and are carrying them safely in space right now. Why would they just not destroy humanity? Maybe we’re already too late.” I said the words and felt horrible, thinking of my mother, and my sister in California, whom I rarely saw.

“You could be right, but we still have to try. That’s all we have left. Let’s head over there and see what we’re up against. One thing at a time, I suppose.” She smiled and walked back to the Jeep, where Vanessa was sitting and watching our exchange.

“What was that all about?” Ray asked as I got into the truck.

“Nothing. She just has some concerns about the aliens’ motivation on Earth. Things we have no answers for.”

I drove down the street and up a quarter mile to the remains of an exploded gas station. Sections of the building were scattered so far I would have thought it impossible for them to fly that distance. A sign sat on the ground, half on fire. It read “Eat Here, Get Gas,” which under normal circumstances would have made me laugh. With my breath gone, I had a hard time. The earth split open in front of us for what looked like a hundred yards or so. Just split down for another fifty yards. Whatever that laser thing was, it was built for destruction.

The four of us got out and surveyed the damage, all of us too afraid to talk. I looked east and west, and it went as far as the eye could see.

“What if they’ve done this every few miles down? We’ll never be able to get there.” Vanessa broke the silence as she stood there, shoulders visibly slumped forward.

“What about heading around it? We may eventually be able to get past the starting point. Or we head for the coast now and get a boat there,” Ray suggested.

“I have a feeling it’ll be a long way to the end, and for all we know, they blew up the coastline’s boats. I don’t know what the answer is.” Mary crouched and rested her arms on her knees. “Dean, what do you think?”

I wasn’t sure what to think, but if they wanted my opinion… “I say we have four options. One, we go west and see if the ship maybe started close by so we can get around. Option two, we head east and try to get a boat now. It’ll add a lot of time, especially since we were looking to get a sailboat; because as Mary pointed out, there will be a lot of sailboats between Miami and Cuba, so we won’t look out of place. Option three, we cross this chasm, come up the other side, and get into a new vehicle and keep driving south, sticking to the original plan.”

Ray was nodding along and he asked, “What’s option four, then?”

I licked my lips, unsure if I wanted to say it aloud. “Option four, we turn around and give up.”

ELEVEN

I waited for someone to speak, not sure if I wanted to hear what they thought of that option. I wanted to keep on, to keep going and try to turn the damned device off. I just hoped they did too.

Mary was the one to say something. “I say we cross over here. There are plenty of cars on the street just over there. It’s the most known route, and I think that gives us our best odds under the circumstances. Are you with me?”

We all chorused our agreement and grabbed things we’d need. “Only things we need from here on out. If we need something else, we can pick it up on the way. Food, water, flashlights, radios, maps,” Mary called out in her take-charge way.

We set to it, and soon we had stripped the cars of anything we would need for the next leg of the journey. It was about one thirty as we started our descent into the pit. The first few feet were concrete, but it turned to dirt very quickly. Lucky for us, the beam seemed to have wreaked havoc on the ground and it was an uneven cut, especially by the gas station, where the tanks added to the destruction. It gave us some steps on the way down.

Carey was able to make the run down easily, and he sniffed around the rift’s floor. Vanessa had the hardest time, claiming chronic lung problems, and by the time we were near the bottom, she was coughing hard. I was sweating in the cool air, more of a result of hauling three full bags with me than anything else. My rifle hung across my shoulders and I figured we would have made quite the sight. If me from four days ago had seen me now, I probably would hardly have recognized myself. A more-than-five o’clock shadow, dirt on my face, and a gun strapped to my body. Desperate times and all that other stuff, I guessed.

I looked down the hole in the ground, and it was an odd feeling to be so deep into the Earth. I quickly got a sense of claustrophobia and felt like the walls were coming closer, even though they were a hundred paces or so apart.

“I hope we find another generator. I miss coffee,” Ray said, patting my back as he headed toward the other side.

“I hear you. I honestly don’t know how we’re functioning right now. I mean, no caffeine for at least five hours! That’s unheard of,” Mary said with only a hint of sarcasm. Vanessa appeared to be recovering, and Carey ran up to me and jumped his front paws onto my thighs. I scratched him on the head and picked up the two packs I’d let down. We moved through the terrain to the looming far side, where we found out the surface was much less carved out for us to walk up.

“What do you think? Should we head down a bit to see if there’s a better spot for footholds?” I asked.

“We can make it halfway up this way, and then there’s a steep section where I think I can climb. Then I can tie a rope to a car’s axle up there and toss it down,” Vanessa said.

“Uhm, are you sure you can do that?” We all looked at her a little incredulously. It wasn’t that she was old at fifty, and she looked like she was in decent shape, but that cough-fest was enough to make me doubt her climbing skills at that moment.

“I was a rock climber for a few years, recreationally anyway. Nothing big, but definitely stuff harder than this. I can still do it. You have your skills, I have mine.” And that was that. She headed up by herself, the flat spot almost halfway up the fifty-yard wall, and from there, she startled us all by reaching up and grabbing a small rock. Slowly, she ascended the fairly flat surface. In ten anxious minutes, she was up top and we could hear her coughing when she was done.

“You’re amazing, ‘Nessa! Are you okay?” Mary called up to her.

“I’m okay. Give me a moment and I’ll get the rope down to you guys,” she called back.

Five minutes later, we were at the halfway mark and grabbing hold of the rope.

“Can we all make this?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe ten years ago,” Ray said, and ran his hand over his slightly overweight stomach.

“How about I head up first, then Mary, and we can pull you up if you need the help?” I offered.

“At this point, I have no shame in help from a friend. Sounds like a plan. How about Carey?” Ray asked.

The dog looked up at us as if we were crazy, and he was on the strangest walk of his life.

“I can use my jacket like a sling and he can come with me,” Mary said. I knew she was tough, but this was going to be quite the sight.

I slung the lightest pack over my shoulders and took the rope. It had been a long time since I’d had to climb a rope, the last time probably being in a bad white t-shirt and school shorts in the gymnasium, while Mr. Pat yelled at us and called us girls. As I started up the wall, I could almost hear him insulting my manhood. I weighed a little more now than my tenth-grade self and felt the burn as I climbed with a combination of my arms and pushing up with my legs. A couple of painful minutes later, I was on the top being helped forward by Vanessa. I’d feel the soreness later.

I passed the rope back down and then watched as Mary climbed up quickly with a shaking cocker wrapped up in a jacket like a baby swaddled to her belly. It was quite the sight. She hardly looked to be breaking a sweat as she climbed up, much faster than I had. Once Mary was up, Carey squeezed out of the cloth trap and rolled around on the ground, as if he could wipe the fear off his hair by covering it in dirt. The only thing left to do was get the rest of the supplies up, and then Ray. We tossed the rope back to him and he started to tie the bags to it.

“You guys sure you can lift me up there?” he called from below.

“Sure, how heavy can you be, Ray? Two-thirty?” Mary called back.

“Yeah, pretty damn close. Okay, the bags should be good to go.”

We all grabbed the rope and moved hand over hand, pulling the gear up slowly but firmly. It would have been much easier if we’d had some sort of a pulley, but the rope looked like it was holding up nicely. Leave it to Mary to have brought a rope. It was sure nice to have her along. I watched her arms tense as she stood in front of me, pulling with fluid motions and ease, like she did this type of thing on a daily basis. Vanessa brought up the rear and she smiled slightly when I gazed back at her. Her coughing fit seemed to be a thing of the distant past, and soon the gear was over the edge and accounted for.

“Okay, Ray. We’re going to toss the rope back down. I’ve tied it in a loop at the bottom. Jump into it like it’s a hula hoop and sit your butt on the bottom of the circle. We’ll pull you up, no problem.” Mary sounded so sure of herself, I didn’t think we would have a problem.

“Good to go,” he called.

We started to lift, and it wasn’t much worse than all the gear we had moved. We only had to lift him around thirty yards, so I figured a couple minutes. The pulls were getting a little heavier, and I heard Mary mutter something under her breath. Carey barked a few times and wagged his tail. Then I saw what had Mary reacting like that. The rope was coming to our hands frayed.

“Mary, are we good still?” I asked.

“Should be. I grabbed this rope from a hardware store, because I forgot the good stuff at the base. Damn it. I should have known it would be cheap. Probably made for tying up a gate or something, not pulling a grown man up a cliff front,” she said through her teeth.

It was becoming more frayed with each pull, and I was getting worried. Ray hadn’t seemed to have noticed yet, and we kept pulling, trusting it would hold.

We stopped when Mary did. The rope snapped slightly, and we were forced forward by the pressure change.

“What the hell was that?” Ray yelled up, alarm in his voice.

“Don’t panic. The rope is starting to give. We almost have you,” Mary told him.

“How far down is he?” Vanessa whispered over my shoulder.

“Only about ten feet, but this thing is almost ready to snap. We have to pull smoothly and quickly. Once he’s close, I’m going to grab his arm,” Mary said.

We hefted him, and soon Mary was letting go and diving to grab him, just as the tension on the rope eased as it snapped. Vanessa and I fell back in a heap and I quickly scrambled back to my feet and toward the ledge, where Ray was almost howling. Carey was running back and forth as I made my way over. Mary had him hanging there by his left hand.

“Ray, toss your right hand up and I’ll help,” I yelled. Mary’s grip was lessening as the large man’s weight was taking its toll on her small frame. She was strong, but there were limitations to everyone.

“I can’t! I’m going to slip!”

“Mary, we have one chance at this. Try to swing him over. Ray, reach out to me with your right hand!”

Mary swung him, and I could see his hand slipping away. Everything seemed to slow down, and I could see the sweat beading off Ray’s head. Carey’s barking was slow and low, a background noise I almost didn’t recognize. He came back toward me, his right hand rising up to me. I clasped his hand and arm with mine, and together Mary and I pulled him up and over the ledge. We lay there in a pile of stress and relief.

Then came the laughter and the tears.

“I’m alive! Holy mother of God, I’m alive! Thank you, guys.” Ray’s eyes were wet.

I was still on my back staring up at the clear sky, breathing hard. “Well, we may still need you and I’m not great with computers, so that’s your thing.”

Vanessa was passing around a water bottle, and for a minute, it just felt good to be alive, and for us all to still be together. Then reality set in and we started to look for a suitable car for the next part of the trip.

“What do you think about that big SUV? Maybe we should just pile into one vehicle from now on,” I suggested as I walked toward one that looked like it would do the job.

“Perfect. I used to have one of these bad boys,” Ray said, his voice still shaking a little bit. I didn’t blame him. “Not the best mileage, but it’ll get us where we’re going in comfort and still with plenty of room in the back for our gear.”

“Then it’s settled,” Vanessa declared, and we put our things inside. I turned the ignition to make sure the thing started fine and was happy to see a three-quarter full tank. Soon we were cruising down the highway on the way south. We could only hope there weren’t going to be any more road-blocks along the way.

The I-95S ate up the rest of our light and by the time we were three hundred miles down the road, the sun was creeping down below the horizon, making us decide where to camp for the night.

“You know, at some point, we’ll need camping gear. Once we land in South America, there aren’t going to be hotels on every corner any longer,” Ray said.

“Do you think anyone ever camps in Miami? Could you imagine waking up down there in a canvas tent? It would be pure torture, sweat pouring out of every orifice. I just can’t picture it,” I said, laughing at the image of us all camping on the beach.

“Don’t laugh. I’m sure you’ll have your share of sauna moments coming up. I know it’s getting cool here, but down there, it’ll still be in the high eighties. And that’s if we’re lucky. Until we get to the mountains at least,” Vanessa quipped.

We decided to keep going, sans headlights, in an effort to gain some miles. It was still early after all and we needed to get as far as we could. We couldn’t risk the ships seeing us, so we traveled by the moonlight, which, lucky for us, was out in full force that night. We passed a few clusters of cars, but for the most part, we managed quite well at a smooth fifty-five miles an hour pace.

It was almost midnight when Ray pulled over at a roadside motel. Vanessa was sleeping away in shotgun; Mary and I were in the back seat with Carey snoring between us. He was leaving small drool spots on my leg.

“Let’s stop here and get some shut-eye. We can pound back a granola bar in the morning and get moving. I think we can get to Miami by tomorrow if we leave by six.” Mary was already leaving the vehicle, her knapsack slung over her shoulder. We were standing outside when she came back and tossed us some room keys. “Enjoy,” she said, and headed into the closest room, just beside the SUV.

“Well, I’m tired. You guys all sleep well. I’ll take Carey out and then it’s off to bed.”

Dog and man, we walked behind the hotel, and under any other circumstance, I would have been worried for my life in the middle of nowhere, in the dark night of Georgia, but here it was peaceful and actually relaxing. No crazed serial killer was going to jump out and swing a chainsaw at me, but I supposed an alien might try to beam me up or dissolve me to nothing using a large red beam of death. I wasn’t sure which way I’d prefer to go. Carey walked forward, his head low to the ground in smelling mode.

I heard the crunch of a twig behind me, and I spun to see a shadow coming close to me.

“It’s just me,” Mary said quietly. “I just wanted to talk to you in private about something.”

“Sure. What about?” I asked.

“You did a great job today. You were quick to act with Ray, and you have great ideas. I may be trained by the US Air Force, but I think an outside mind may be just what we need. I don’t know how to say this without it sounding strange, as if all of this isn’t strange enough.” Her voice was firm, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear what she was going to say.

“Go on,” I prompted, our bodies only a foot apart now.

“You weren’t the one. Whoever chose us didn’t choose you. Janine did, in her own way. I overheard Bob talking about it on the phone back then, just after the wedding. He was so upset about it. I think each of them had to find a pre-selected mate to do this task once it happened. You weren’t the guy. I think he was supposed to be military.”

My heart sank for some reason. Of course they hadn’t wanted me. I was an accountant. They’d wanted a military guy. In order to increase their odds of success, they would have wanted competent, trained people to do this job. That night at the Boathouse in Central Park flashed into my mind, and there I was, walking in front of Janine as she was about to go on a blind date with the muscles covered in military tattoos.

That was him. “I don’t know if I can really feel bad. I guess I made more of an impression that night than I’d thought. I’ve always been proud that I took the chance on her. I remember that night quite well.”

Mary took my hands; hers were slightly chilled in mine. “From that moment, I had an idea about all of this, and ever since, I questioned Bob’s actual love for me. He could be so cold at times, but so warm at others. I don’t know what to believe, but I think they were sent here to choose us for this, and that’s it. From what I gather, your wife chose love over what they were told.”

“I don’t know if I should be happy or not at this point, but I’m here,” I said, meaning the words.

“I just wanted you to know.” Her hands lingered a second, then she let go and went back to the motel, leaving me and a sniffing dog alone in the night.

TWELVE

We left as the sun came up and were determined to make it all the way down the five hundred or so miles by nightfall. I took the driver’s seat, with Vanessa up front with me. She was coughing sporadically, claiming Carey must be affecting her lung condition, which was sounding a little worse this morning.

I was still a little flummoxed by my late-night conversation with Mary; the look in her eyes, the touch of her hand. It all made me feel even worse to find out that Janine chose me, and more than likely did truly love me through whatever she was or had to do.

The roads in Georgia were fairly clear, and I decided to stick to the highway here rather than the side roads, at least for the time being. I kept expecting to find the road torn up like yesterday, but nothing showed up on the first part of the journey. By the time we entered Florida, it was getting warm, and the sun was high in the sky. We stopped to fuel up and freshen up, and then we were back on the road. I’d been worried because we had no generator to attempt to power the tanks, but we still did have our siphoning gear. Turned out this part of the US had backup power on all their gas stations because of the hurricane threats. They still wanted to be able to function with power outages, for emergency vehicles and transport. I would classify this as an emergency, so we were happy to have the power in the tanks. It made the arduous task of filling up a lot faster. We filled multiple jerry cans from inside the station and we were set.

The day was quiet for all of us; the enormity of the task at hand was sitting heavy on our shoulders and minds. The conversation was light, and we all spoke about our childhoods a bit, mainly where we grew up, number of siblings. I was glad we hadn’t got into religion or politics, because in all honesty, with aliens looming over our planet and everyone but us gone, I wasn’t comfortable having a talk about God.

Ray volunteered to drive the last couple hundred miles, and I took him up on the offer. The afternoon wore on uneventfully as we weaved through piles of cars leading up to Orlando.

“Why don’t we just go to Tampa? We could probably be on a boat and cruising tonight,” Ray asked from the driver’s seat.

Vanessa replied first. “I know the path from Miami to Cuba has a lane, and I just wanted us to go unnoticed by the ships. If you think it’s worth the risk, we can do it. I’m sure we can find a sloop with a large enough berth that we can weather a storm if it hits. My family was well off, and we all learned how to sail from a young age. I haven’t sailed myself for a few years, but we should be good.”

“Okay, I think we should be safe heading from Tampa. Let’s do it and cut a couple hours off our trip. I’m sure congestion by Miami will be bad, and at Tampa we can cut around the city and head for a marina. We figured about fifteen hundred miles from Miami to Colombia, so we’ll be a bit further, but we won’t have to cut around Cuba like we’d been planning. How fast do those things go, Vanessa?” Mary asked.

“Depends on a few things, like wind, of course. We should be able to average around thirty miles an hour if I can find a racing sailboat. There really isn’t any reason we can’t keep up that pace for most of the trip, putting us at what timeline?” Vanessa paused, thinking.

“Fifty hours, or thereabouts,” Ray said. “If everything goes perfect, we can be there by Thursday.”

It all sounded so perfect to us at that moment. We had a plan, did the math, and all we needed was time and luck to get there.

Ray veered on an exit, sending us westward on the way to Tampa. We moved slower as we neared the city, and a map directed us to circle south and around the main part of the rural area.

“The main Tampa harbor is pretty deep into town along the coast. Odds are we can head south along the coast and find a mansion with a beautiful sailboat for us to borrow,” Vanessa suggested.

An hour later and we hit the coastline; the water was a beautiful sight down here. I hadn’t been to the area before and appreciated the sights right away. Vanessa was one hundred percent accurate. There were a bunch of huge homes on the waterfront here, and it didn’t take us long to spot one with a boat she knew how to handle. It was moored out a way from the shore.

“This is a single-masted sloop. I’ve seen these on the racing circuit. It’ll go like the wind, but the underdeck will be tight. We’ll have to take turns sleeping anyway, so it’ll work.” Vanessa sounded so confident in her lingo that it made me feel at ease about the four of us heading into open waters.

We pulled down the driveway and over their grass toward the dock. I saw their infinity pool and huge house and wondered what the owners were doing now. Even though they had all of this on Earth, it wasn’t going to help them wherever they were right now.

“From here it looks like a beaut. It’ll do just fine. If you guys want, I’ll go to that Walmart we passed a mile back to get supplies. Maybe two of you can load our stuff onto the boat? That little boat there is the tender. We have to use that to get out to the sailboat. Often these shores don’t go down deep enough to dock a sailboat this close, so they have a dinghy-type small engine boat to transport. If we’re lucky, the keys will just be under the seat or something,” Vanessa said.

“I’ll go with you, ‘Nessa,” Ray said. The two helped us load the bags out and onto the ground. We had a list of things we needed. A gas pump kit was high on the list, because we were sure that once we were in South America, we’d be siphoning on occasion. A new, better rope was needed, as well as socks and other essentials. Food was going to be key, and we planned on the easiest, most nourishing stuff we could get.

“Ray, would you mind grabbing a couple bottles of wine, and some beer? I think we might need an evening to take our minds off things. Oh, and maybe a nice fat cigar. I want to feel like the Cubans as we pass by them,” I added with a wink.

“Maybe see if they have a good portable GPS too. It’ll be more accurate than the cell phone’s mapping. See you guys in a bit.” Vanessa got into the SUV, leaving the two of us behind with an exploring Carey. I had no idea how he was going to take being on the water for two days; hell, I didn’t know how I was going to react. I hadn’t spent much time on the water either, short of the odd fishing trip to a lake. The ocean was a whole different can of worms, so to speak.

“Well, this is all happening, isn’t it? We should be well through Colombia in two days. I’ve heard it’s just beautiful down there. You know, if you don’t mind fighting drug dealers.” I was glad to see her smile at my joke.

“Machu Picchu is on my bucket list. Oddly enough, so is saving the world, so you know, two birds, one stone,” she quipped back. Mary seemed like a hardened soldier at times, then funny and sweet at others.

“It does look really nice there. I wonder what made them put the device there? I guess a few hundred years ago, there really weren’t tourists around, so they probably thought it wouldn’t be uncovered by man. As good a spot as any. With the exception of us having to take days to get down there,” I said.

We talked as we moved our few bags and foodstuffs we had left. Turned out the key to the little dinghy was in the ignition. I guessed they didn’t have much in the way of trespassers way out here. “I hope they get back soon. We only have about an hour until the sun’s down, even though Vanessa isn’t worried about night sailing. She sure is quite the character. Rock climber and sailor? Very nice, though,” Mary said.

“Yeah, she’s quite the woman. Who knows what other hidden skills we’ll get from her? Maybe she’s also a world-renowned juggler, or a master chef,” I said as I loaded the last bag onto the boat.

Carey was walking around the yard, and he started barking. I thought our other two must have been coming back. “That was quick,” Mary said, both of us turning to the driveway. A man was walking down toward us.

My heart pounded when I saw the stranger. It seemed so odd to see someone I didn’t know.

“Mary, where’s your handgun?” I asked quietly.

“On the dinghy,” she replied.

“Go get it. I’ll see who this guy is.”

She ran down the dock and onto the boat. Carey was backing up in my direction, and the man was crouching down, trying to get Carey to come smell his hand.

“Hello there!” he called. He was tall, brown-haired, and broad-shouldered.

“Hello.” I didn’t know what else to say.

Carey was still growling, but came and almost sat on my foot, putting himself between me and the new man. The first thing I looked for was a green pendant, ring, or anything else that would match up with our stories. I couldn’t see any.

“I know what’s going on, Dean. It is Dean, right?” His voice was sure of itself, and an accent I couldn’t place. Canadian, maybe?

How the hell did he know my name? It clicked. He was one of them.

“Stay back!” I called to him, and I could hear Mary’s footsteps approach from behind. “Who are you and what do you want?” I asked, voice raised.

He lifted his hand in the air and spoke softly. “I’m here to tell you something. I’m on your side, I promise you this. You’ve been lied to. You don’t want to turn off that device. Think about it, why would…” A gunshot rang out, and it hardly registered as I saw blood spray into the air. The man crumpled to the ground. I stood in shock and Mary rushed forward. We scanned the area and saw the SUV with the passenger door open and Vanessa perched on it with a rifle and scope. It had all happened so fast. I’d just been there talking to him and then he was dead. Mary crouched down and turned his body on its back. Half his face was missing. I turned and threw up, bile burning the back of my throat. The SUV pulled out and I could hear Mary yelling at Vanessa, but the words were lost in the ringing in my ears.

In a few moments, my head cleared, but I kept my eyes averted from the body.

“We need to get out of here. Now!” Vanessa called. “Where there’s one, there are probably more.”

“Why did you shoot him?” Mary pleaded.

“He had to be one of them,” she replied.

“Why? What if he was one of us, or trying to help?” she asked.

I stepped forward. “He wasn’t one of us. He was trying to convince me not to shut the machine down.” It burned to talk.

“Let’s get this stuff loaded and get moving. Vanessa is right; we better clear out of here.”

It took less than five minutes to get the boat loaded and untied. Vanessa pulled the body by the legs and dropped him into the water by the dock. She reached down and grabbed his shirt collar and tugged him under the dock, to be hidden from anyone that might come looking. She coughed, a violent hack, when she was done. I noticed Mary didn’t take her eyes off Vanessa.

__________

Once we’d settled onto the sailboat, we lifted anchor and ran the onboard engine to bring us out into the water a way. Vanessa had directed us on the sails, and just as the sun was setting in the western horizon, we were heading southwest.

We hadn’t talked about it, and near midnight, once we were sure we were heading in the right direction and everything was set, Ray, Mary, and I were in the underdeck, sitting around the small table. I’d never been below on a sailboat before, and it was quite cozy. It reminded me a lot of my parents’ tent trailer from when I was a kid. It had that same slightly musty, canvas smell to it. Everything was compact and folded up like the trailer too. The table had a ledge on it to prevent dishes and cups from sliding off in uneven water. Being down here was even stranger-feeling than being on deck, and my stomach was swaying in opposition to the waves. Part of that was the uneasiness I still felt from the murder of that man, or alien, or whatever he was. He’d breathed and spoken, and now he was nothing but a body under water.

“What the hell was that?” Ray asked through his teeth.

“I don’t know, but I don’t have a good feeling about it. Even if he was a bad alien trying to convince us to not kill the device, was it wise to shoot him?” I asked.

Mary leaned forward and kept her voice low. Vanessa was manning the ship’s wheel, so we thought we could talk openly, but you could never be too safe. “What’s with her? On top of all those other skills, she’s a frickin’ sharpshooter? That was some of the most messed-up shit I’ve ever seen, and I’m in the Air Force. Dean, what do you think about that guy? Why wouldn’t they have just killed us? It doesn’t make sense.”

“I agree. He really wanted to tell me something about the device but didn’t have a chance, obviously. Did you see how cold and callous she was about it? And the way she dragged the body by herself? I don’t trust her,” I said.

Ray got up and pulled a beer out of a cooler. He opened and passed one to Mary and then to me. “She was so pleasant and nice on our trip for supplies. Telling me about her little Dennis. He sounds like a great kid. Her husband collected African masks, and they’d been there over a dozen times. Normal rich white lady stuff, if you ask me. But that was seriously deranged. She told me to slam on the brakes, and she had that gun from under the seat in seconds. Before I knew what was happening, I heard the shot and saw that guy drop.” He took a long pull from his beer.

“What do we do?” I asked, looking between the two of them. Thoughts of dumping Vanessa over the side of the boat entered my mind, and I shook the image out of my head. Where did that come from? Suddenly, my stomach felt even queasier.

“For now, nothing. Let’s pretend we’re all good, but honestly, we can’t trust her. One of us should go up there and talk to her. I don’t think I can right now, though. I’m still so upset and fuming,” Mary said, taking a drink from her bottle.

I knew where this was going. I was going to have to be the middleman, the buffer between everyone. It wouldn’t be the first time in my life I’d played the role. “I’ll go see how she is.” I grabbed a beer for her, in the off chance she was up for one.

“Thanks, buddy. We owe you one,” Ray said, eyeballing the small bed in the corner.

“Why don’t you two get some rest, and I’ll hit the hay in a few hours. We can just take shifts for alien watch, Vanessa watch, and sleep.” They nodded and I climbed the few rungs to the deck. Carey sat there and happily greeted me. He hadn’t wanted to come down the ladder. When I tried to pick him and carry him down, he just whined and shook ferociously. I’d settled on leaving him here.

The night air had a chill to it, even though we were quite far south at this point. The smell of ocean, salt, and night mixed together and gave a somewhat calming scent. I headed to the back of the boat, or aft, or was it starboard? I really knew nothing about ships. Vanessa was at the wheel, one hand on it as she stared into the starry sky. It was beautiful out here.

I settled in on a bench to the side of her and offered her the semi-chilled beer. She took it with a smile, took a sip, and kept staring into the sky.

“Dean, I’m sorry if I scared you before. I know you guys must think I’m nuts. My instincts took over and I felt like I did what I had to do. I saw a threat and eliminated it.” She was speaking softly and I could see that she was upset.

I stood up and put my arm around her shoulders. It was hard to imagine she was capable of killing anything, being a small-framed fifty-something. Her face pressed into my chest and she started to sob. Just when I’d passed her off as a threat, she softened my views of her, but I knew people were all capable of being manipulative. I thought I was a pretty good judge of it, and honestly felt like she was being real and in the moment. I held her and told her it would be okay, and in a few minutes, she was backing away, wiping away tears and apologizing to me for being silly.

“There’s nothing silly about it, Vanessa. Think of what we’ve been through in the span of a couple days. It’s been crazy! Not only did everyone we know and love leave us, ripped from our planet, but it’s just us left to fix it. If that isn’t pressure, then I don’t know what is. I used to think tax time was as bad as it got.”

She laughed and we stayed there small-talking: talking about Peru and drinking our beers. Carey sat by my feet, surprising me by how well he was doing on a boat. The waters were quite calm and I could see other sailboats and ships in the water as we sailed on by in the moonlight. It was so quiet and serene out here that for a moment I forgot where I was and closed my eyes, feeling the sway of the boat and the lapping of the water as the wood cut through the slight waves.

A couple hours passed and Ray emerged from below. He stretched and Vanessa showed him how to hold the wheel and explained about the tiller. It all seemed easy, but I knew there was more to it than “take it and hold ‘er steady.” There were only a few boats in the distance, and when I asked how far she thought we’d traveled, she said about one hundred and fifty miles.

“If you see a ship coming in too hard, steer clear if you can. If you’re worried, then come and get me,” Vanessa said.

“Aye aye, Captain,” Ray said.

Mary climbed up top and asked what time it was.

“About three AM. A few hours until sunrise,” I answered. “I think we’d better go get a little shut-eye. Keep an eye on Carey for me, would you?”

I was below deck in moments, sharing the small bed with Vanessa: a woman who, hours before, had shot a man right in front of me. Even with my mind racing, I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

THIRTEEN

When I came to, I was alone in the bed. I was groggy, but when I stood to the lightly rocking motion of the boat, I knew I was finally rested. The sun blinded me as I climbed out, and I was greeted sloppily by a cocker spaniel’s wet tongue. I gave him a kiss on the top of his head and added a multitude of pets to tell him I missed him. He was such a good animal. Everyone was still there and smiling as they sat on the bench, eating bagels and drinking what looked like orange juice.

“Well, aren’t we all just out of a Hampton’s Elitist Magazine.” We laughed at the idea of the grimy group of us being on the cover.

“I might need a little makeup first,” Mary said.

“Me too,” Ray said with a chuckle.

“Why didn’t anyone wake me? It’s after nine!” I felt bad for hogging the bed so long.

“You needed it, and besides, look how nice it is out here,” Vanessa said.

I scanned the horizon and was amazed by the wonder of it. The ocean stretched for far beyond my eyesight in every direction. I couldn’t see any other ships bobbing in the water now. We were getting much further south, and already my shirt was clinging to my back from the heat and humidity.

“We passed Cuba about three hours ago and are well on our way to Panama. I think we should head there first, since it’s closer by a hundred or so miles, and traveling by boat is much slower than an automobile,” Vanessa said. We brought out a map of the area and agreed that the northern tip of Panama was probably our best bet. It looked to be around seven hundred miles, and we were currently averaging twenty-five miles an hour. We’d hopefully land by noon the next day.

I noticed Carey looking sheepish in the corner, and I found he’d made use of the bath towel I’d laid out. I’d hoped he would think of it like a patch of grass and was happy it worked. I took the towel by both ends and carried it to the back of the boat, holding it away from my nose. I shook it off into the trailing winds and figured I’d better put it back so he knew it was okay to keep using it. Ray gave me a grossed-out face when I finished flinging it off. The things a dog owner had to do. I tried to imagine what this trip would have been like with a child and was glad I didn’t have to deal with the stress. Janine and I hadn’t been able to have kids, but they were something I still saw in my future. Not going on a date in years wasn’t helping my cause, though. My gaze lingered on Mary, who was taking lessons on the ship from Vanessa. Her ice from the night before seemed to have melted off in the heat, and the two of them appeared to be fast friends once again.

The rest of the day went by quickly, as if we were sailing through time, and before we knew it, late afternoon was upon us. Dark clouds threatened to cause rain in the distance, the direction we were heading into.

“What do you think of those?” I asked Vanessa, who was staring at the looming clouds miles away.

“I think we may have reason for concern. The weather down here can be very touch and go, and that storm may pass, or we may pass through it with no problem.” She paused. “But we don’t have a choice at this point. We have to keep going.”

“Why don’t I head down to the kitchen and make us something to eat? Who’s up for some world-famous grilled cheese?” I asked, hoping to take their minds off the potential storm.

“I’ll help you,” Mary said, and we headed down the steps into the ship’s small underbelly.

“I hope we don’t have to deal with anything too harsh. I don’t relish the idea of being tossed about the sea in this thing. We’ll get ripped to shreds.” I was surprised by her honesty. Again, I felt like I was getting to see the real Mary, the one behind the mask of the Air Force and tough attitude. The more time I spent with her, the more I enjoyed being with her. My cheeks burned, and I turned to the stove.

“Yeah, I agree. My stomach doesn’t want to deal with that. It’s uneasy enough as it is. How about we make some food and hope everything works out?” I kept my back turned to her.

“Is everything okay, Dean?” she asked, hand coming to rest on my back. I spun around slowly and felt self-conscious with how close she was standing to me. All of a sudden, I wondered if I smelled fresh, or if hours of hot Caribbean air had washed away my deodorant.

“Sure, everything’s fine,” I whispered as she took my left hand with her right. It was slightly cool, and soft in my grip. If ever there was a moment to make a move, this was it, at least under normal human circumstances. Still, I knew I couldn’t let this piece of time fly by without seizing it. “Carpe diem,” I said under my breath as I raised my other hand to her cheek. I closed my eyes and leaned in to her perfect face; our lips met for an instant, and it was like nothing I’d ever felt.

“You guys better get up here! Looks like we’re in for some weather!” Ray called down.

My hand lingered on her face, and she looked down to the ground. “We’d better get up there and see what we can help with,” Mary said, heading up the steps. I watched her go and remembered to turn off the gas burner before following after her. If only I could have turned off my own burner.

The wind was blowing hard as I got above deck. The clouds were black and angrily spitting rain on us. “What do we do?” I called out.

“We have to reef the sails. Ray, I’m going to turn into the wind. It’ll ease tension on the sail. Grab the reefing control line and untie it, letting it loosen. The sail will shrink and the wind will cut around it rather than catch us like a parachute. Mary, you grab the rope and help him tie it off when I tell you. Dean, come and help me manage the wheel. It gets tough in the wind and waves.” We were finding out Vanessa was good under pressure.

Lightning flashed around us and the waves grew larger. Facing the wind, we fought the waves head-on, and the boat rose and crashed over and over. Thunder boomed as Mary and Ray finished their task; the sail contained, Vanessa called for them to tie it off. She told me to take the wheel and hold it tight. Pressure from both directions made it tough to control and keep even. Every time I felt it slacked in one direction, the wheel would try to spin the other.

“See that clear patch over there? I’m going to use the engine to drive us over past the storm.” Vanessa turned and lowered the engine down into the water. She threw on a life jacket and we all followed suit, me wondering why I hadn’t done that the moment the clouds looked imposing.

With the engine on, she took over the steering again and turned us to ride along with the waves, slowly easing us away from the lightning. The wind was so loud ripping through the mast, and the crashing of the waves against the wood was adding to the deafening experience. My heart pounded almost as loud as the thunder in my ears, and I told myself that my trembling was mostly due to the incessant rain and splashing of sea water onto the deck. I knew I was kidding myself.

“Take Carey and go below, while I get us out of here!” Vanessa called.

Mary picked up the panicked dog, and she and Ray climbed below.

“I’ll stay with you!” I called over the noise.

We were moving quite fast, and the rain was pouring down hard now. Vanessa smiled as she kept her hands on the large wheel, arm tendons and muscles bunched tight against the angry sea. A huge lightning flash shot out into the sky, and I thought I saw the shadow of a ship. Not a boat in the water, but one of the gray alien ships, which we hadn’t seen since the one that tore up the ground on the interstate. My heart hammered when I saw it again on the next flash. We kept moving along, and even though it felt like hours, in a few minutes, we were on the outside of the storm, the wind blowing it northwest of us.

I scanned the sky for signs of the ship but couldn’t see one. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I didn’t think so.

“Did you see that, Vanessa?” I asked, my voice wavering.

“See what? One hell of a scary storm? I think I saw my life flash in front of my eyes…but that could have just been the lightning. Dear God, that felt close. Too close.”

Mary climbed up top, Ray close behind her.

“Mary, can you check the GPS and see how far we are away from our landing spot?” Vanessa asked.

“Sure, are you guys okay?” Mary asked back.

I wasn’t sure if I was. I’d just had the fright of a lifetime and to top it off, I was quite sure I’d seen a ship. Did they know we were here? What were they waiting for? Us to kill ourselves? I found Carey curled up and drenched. When I held him, I could feel his little heart pounding away.

“Yeah, we’re good. Vanessa really came through and saved our asses. We owe her big time,” I said. I decided not to bother telling them about the ship. Maybe it had just been my imagination.

“GPS says we’re still four hundred miles away. Not too far off what we’d thought,” Mary told us.

Vanessa headed over to the sail and untied a rope. Ray went over and helped her get the sail back to its regular position. Soon we were sailing full speed ahead, with the sun setting to our right. The crew looked tired, soaked, and hungry.

“How about those grilled cheese now?” I asked, laughing a little bit.

“Sure, but first I think we’d better give this boat a name. We fought the sea and won, and it deserves a better name than the letters on it,” Vanessa suggested.

I leaned over the side and read the lettering. Princess. I said it aloud and we all laughed.

“I don’t know, maybe we should just stick with Princess. They always get their way, after all.” This from Ray.

“Princess she is,” Vanessa said, smiling with wet hair plastered to her forehead.

FOURTEEN

We took turns sleeping on the bunk, and Mary and I didn’t talk about the moment we’d shared earlier. Ray and I demanded that Mary and Vanessa take the first sleeping shift, and around three am, we woke them up and hit the hay. My mind was reeling from the past few days, and I couldn’t believe the crazy adventures we’d been through already. I could only hope that once we landed in South America, things would run smoothly. As I lay my head down on the pillow, I doubted it would be quite as simple as I was dreaming it might be, but we’d already shown what a resilient group we’d become.

I woke some hours later and left Ray in the bed snoring lightly. Carey was sleeping by my feet when I woke up, and I was happy to see him finding himself a little more at home here. The sun was just coming up as I carried a sleepy dog up the ladder. Vanessa and Mary greeted me and offered me a cup of tea. The ship had a propane stove that was giving us just enough to make this almost seem like a normal trip across the Caribbean Sea: four friends heading to Panama for an excursion.

“Good morning, Dean. Ray still down for the count?” Mary asked, her gaze lingering on my eyes for a moment before she looked down to her cup.

“Yep, I left him snoozing like a baby. Are we still on track?” I asked, enjoying the lemon tea with a dash of honey. My mom always used honey in her tea. The worry for her and everyone I cared about was like a constant buzzing in the back of my mind, but I had to push it to the back of my thoughts to be able to keep functioning. It was easy to forget that everyone was somewhere out there, and that was the whole point of us heading down to Peru. Most of the time, it just felt like we had one small task at a time. Get to New York, get to Washington, get to Florida, get on a boat, and get to South America. It was a series of small tasks that would eventually make up one huge, immense task.

“Yes. We’re about six hours from land – one hundred and twenty miles. We made okay progress through the night. We got lucky last night,” Mary said matter-of-factly.

“Don’t we know it. I’m pretty sure I had a nightmare that we capsized, and the last thing I saw as I was being pulled under the current was Carey swimming towards me, wearing a life vest.” I patted the loyal guy’s head as he sat beside me, tongue already hanging out the side of his mouth in the warm morning heat.

“One bad wave or one more minute with full sails and that might have been the case,” Vanessa said.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell them, but I decided I should. “In the midst of the lightning and the storm, ship swaying in all directions, I thought I saw a ship,” I hesitantly said.

“Sure, there were probably a couple ships out there getting tossed about along with us. It could have been much worse; we could have hit one of them. Then we would have been going for a swim.” Vanessa had missed my point.

“Not that kind of ship. One of the big silver ones. I swear I saw one looming there, watching us. I saw it for two lightning strikes, and then it was gone. It could have been my imagination, but given all that’s happened, I think it was real.” There; I told them.

“I believe you,” Mary said. “They may not have known there was anyone on the boat, though. It could have just been one of their patrols, or whatever those ships are. Patrols, scouts…either way, they’re probably looking for us, but it doesn’t mean they found us. Otherwise, I have a feeling they would have red-beamed us, and we’d be searching for Spanish gold on the bottom of the ocean.”

I heard Ray banging around in the galley below, and soon we were smelling bacon and eggs: a real heart-healthy breakfast. The old me would have wished for something a little lighter, but today I was drooling almost as much as Carey when I went down to help Ray bring the food up.

We ate, finished our tea and started to pack up our stuff as sea ate up the hours. Before we knew it, land was in sight, and Ray and I brought all the bags up to the front of the deck.

“I’m not looking forward to the trip back,” Ray said.

“God help us if we’re sailboating back. Let’s bank on us flying back with big fat medals around our necks,” I said with a laugh.

Vanessa directed us to reel the sails and we slowed the ship, then used the motor to bring us closer to shore. Panama’s landscape looked beautiful and lush.

“We’re coming up to the Gulf of San Blas. There should be a few mooring points, and I bet there are a few resorts down here. How could there not be? Look how amazing this water is,” Mary said, waving her hand over the water like she was Vanna White on a game show.

“Tell them what they’ve won, Pat,” Ray said, mirroring my thoughts. We all had a good laugh, and soon we were coming up to a sailboat dock a couple hundred yards from the shore-line.

There was a four-seater tender there, waiting to take us to land. We took a couple of trips on the tiny boat, hauling our supplies along with us. The thing’s motor sounded like it needed tuning up, and the noise echoed down the bay. We were happy to finally be off the boat and on shore, though my legs told me otherwise. The world felt like it was moving, and I was standing still as I tried to get my bearings on the sandy beach. I could see the others also trying to adjust to being on land again. Carey gave up and settled for lying down and rolling in the sand.

“It’ll take a while, but before you know it, you’ll all be back to normal,” Vanessa assured us. She broke into a violent coughing fit and turned from us for privacy. I tried not to watch, but I had my suspicions about her, and I’d heard that same coughing from Janine. I swore there was blood on the sand before she kicked at it with her foot. If Vanessa was one of them, what did it mean? My wife, Bob, and Kate all seemed to be on the right side of whatever internal alien conflict was going on, so all I could do is hope Vanessa was too. But the way she’d casually killed that man back in Tampa weighed heavily on my mind. She’d helped to get us this far, so for the time being, I told myself that I’d have to trust her. Trust her but keep an eye on her.

I could see Ray watching her too, out of the corner of his eye.

“Are you okay, ‘Nessa?” Mary asked, concern thick in her voice.

“Yes, I’ll be fine. I’ve just been over-exerting myself. Let’s get moving.” Vanessa grabbed a bag, slung it over her shoulder, and started to walk toward the road.

“Let’s do this,” Ray said, following suit.

We got to the narrow road and could see signs for resorts down the street. There were a few vehicles a couple hundred yards down, so we made for them, hoping there was something we could all fit into. We found a van from a local tourist company. The back was full of snorkel gear, which we proceeded to toss out onto the ground.

“Maybe we better keep a set,” Mary said. “You never know what we’re going to be up against out here.”

I didn’t see a case where we would need goggles, but she was right. We really didn’t know what we were in for. Once we were loaded up, we all filed into the white van. I took the driver’s seat, adjusted it, and off we went.

“Where are we going, other than east? Do we need to make any stops?” I asked.

Mary was sitting beside me, Ray and Carey in the middle row, and Vanessa was all alone in the back, lying down. Mary brought up the GPS. “Let’s hang a right in a couple minutes. About five miles down, we’ll turn left, and we’ll eventually hit the main highway. Hopefully, there won’t be a lot of cars blocking our way. It’s not like we’re in the best off-roading vehicle.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “I wish we could just stop at one of these resorts first, play a round of golf, have a couple Mai Tais.”

“I can float in a pool for hours. We don’t have a lot of nice outdoor pools in the ‘burg. I used to go down to the Y twice a week and do laps. That was in my twenties, and before Kate passed away. I don’t think I’ve been to the gym since. We used to go together all the time. She brought out the best in me, always pushing me to run with her. Hell, I even did yoga. Take a guess how many black guys in Pittsburgh there were at the yoga studio. None. Just me. I miss it all, though. Maybe I just miss her, I guess,” Ray said.

It was touching, hearing Ray talk about it. I think we all felt a little bit of what he was saying. I’m sure we all missed our spouses. Even Mary did, I was sure, though she wouldn’t admit it. Vanessa had been married, and I could picture her and the hubby sitting on a Sunday morning, sipping teas and doing a crossword together, the kids in the other room watching some educational program or another.

“Janine used to convince me to watch her horrible television shows with her. When I was a bachelor, I watched a lot of hockey – always the Rangers. That and outdoor shows. You’d think I would be better at roughing it, but maybe I just liked watching other people do it. Before I knew it, I was watching singing shows and chefs yelling at line cooks. I didn’t mind it. We accommodated each other. That’s what couples do,” I said.

Mary had been quiet up to this point, but she now chimed in quietly. “Bob used to come to kickboxing with me. Ever since I was a little girl, I wasn’t like everyone else. I liked playing with GI Joes and footballs. I used to get teased about being a tomboy, but I never cared. I didn’t want to play with dolls or braid my hair. The Air Force was awesome for me. I met so many like-minded people, and more importantly, women who respected me and treated me like one of them. Bob seemed to pick up on this, and he tried to do things with me that friends outside of the Force wouldn’t, typically. He hated kick boxing.” She laughed. “But he did it for almost a year before he admitted it wasn’t for him. Maybe I should have taken it a little easier on him. Or maybe a small part of me knew he wasn’t who he said he was, so each landed hit was a little pre-emptive revenge.”

“I wish I could just go swimming with Kate again. Maybe one day I’ll be able to swim in the eternal waters of heaven with her. What do you guys think?” Ray asked.

“I think anything’s possible. I mean, Earth’s entire population was just threatened by aliens from another world. A week ago, anyone would have laughed at you and called the asylum just for suggesting such a thing was going to happen. Now I’m driving around Panama with three complete strangers in a snorkel van.” I made it sound like a joke, but it was one hundred percent true.

“I’m quite happy to see so few vehicles on the roads out here. I know this part of the country must be sparsely populated, but I wasn’t expecting this clear a path,” Mary said from the seat beside me. I glanced over at her, her brown hair in a ponytail. She had light bags under her eyes, and they did nothing to lessen her piercing eyes’ effect on me. I wondered if she’d relived that small kiss over and over in her head like I had. Since she hadn’t mentioned it, I doubted the impact on her. Still, she had initiated every touch of the hand, every tension-filled eye contact moment. So far apart from what I was used to. I remembered the moment when I’d met Janine and how I’d taken charge and a chance.

I reached across the console separating the two of us and took her hand in mine, giving it a light squeeze. She smiled at me with her eyes, and as I started to pull my hand away, she held it tight. My heart rate sped up and I could feel a bead of sweat drip down my back, and not just from the Caribbean heat.

“Hey, guys, we’re coming up to the Colombian border. That was faster than I expected,” Ray said from behind us. Mary opened her hand and I pulled mine loose. I smiled at her while keeping my eyes on the road.

“GPS is saying that we’re about an hour from the mountain range that we have to go around. I doubt the roads will be very accommodating. I think we’ll have to change out this thing, as much as I love the leg room, in favor of an all-terrain vehicle,” Mary said.

Colombia was going to be a bit of a challenge to navigate through. With mountains cutting through most of the country’s length, running north-south, we’d have to hit them from the top and follow the valley road on the east side of them. There weren’t going to be more than a few little villages along the way, but we knew things should be fairly quiet here. It felt more humid as we approached the border, and I was surprised by the amount of security here. There were gates at each section where the guards would presumably ask for documentation – or bribes, for all I knew. I didn’t know a lot about Colombia short of what the movies told me, and that amounted to some terrorized villages, cocaine factories, and bad guys with moustaches smoking huge cigars.

All of the gates were shut, and for a minute, I thought about pretending I was Arnold in one of those movies, crashing the gates down with the van while machine gun fire sprayed around me, narrowly missing me as the windshield caved in. Instead, I pulled up and we hopped out to check if it would slide open without a key.

“Ray, can you check on Vanessa? She hasn’t made a sound in quite a while,” I said while testing the first gate. It was locked.

“Guys! Something’s wrong here.” Ray was crouched over Vanessa in the back of the van. We hurried over and saw blood on the seat beside Vanessa’s head.

“‘Nessa, are you okay?” Mary asked, fingers on Vanessa’s wrist, checking for a pulse. She nodded and Ray hit the lever and leaned his seat forward, and we lifted Vanessa out, onto the ground outside, on the grass. Her chest was rising up and down.

“Get the water!” I called, and her eyes shot open, blood dripping from her mouth when she violently coughed. She coughed non-stop and rolled to her side. I knew this cough. I’d seen it too many times over that six-month period. I could tell from the looks on the others’ faces that they did too. Whatever Vanessa was, it was the same thing our significant others had been. From my estimation, that made her, at the very least, some sort of alien hybrid. Now that I was sure, I really hoped she was going to pull through so we could get her to tell us the truth.

We tried to get her sat up and against a tree when she seemed like she was going to stop the hacking. She hesitantly took the water bottle and sat catching her breath for a minute before taking a drink. She coughed halfway through her first guzzle and spit water on herself. Three minutes later, she had finished coughing and she leaned back, eyes closed, chest heaving slightly.

“Vanessa, we need to know the truth,” Mary said, crouching low to the ground. I had no idea how this was going to go down, and I felt thankful her gun was under the seat in the van; images of that man falling to the ground dead in front of me flashed in my mind.

FIFTEEN

Vanessa nodded slowly and started to talk. The sun was still high in the sky, beating down on us. I could smell the tropical plants mixed with seawater around me. Her words were so quiet at first, I had to lean closer to make them out.

“My husband died five months ago. Heart attack. He was only fifty but had some sort of hereditary condition that wasn’t picked up until it was too late. He was truly an amazing man. Olympic triathlete, long distance runner, and swimmer. He could swim any length in ice-cold water or run a marathon in the snow; I thought he was invincible, and when I was directed to meet him and make a relationship, it didn’t take much for my mission to become sloppy.” She took a pause and asked for more water. I got the bottle, noticing my hands were shaking from her story. I eagerly anticipated hearing the next part of the tale.

She took another drink and continued. “I think I fell for the guy. We were together for seven years, and they were good years. I knew there was an end date to it all, but I never thought it would end like it did.” Tears fell down her face. “We were born to come to Earth and recruit people to our cause. We knew they were coming to take over the planet, and we’d seen it done to others before you. It was up to us to stop them, without them even knowing it. We brought a fail-safe device a long time ago, and eventually, they would make it here to take your planet from you. The bastards had no care about another race. We started off as a conquered race, when they came. It took many years for them to almost see us as equals. Thousands of years. Eventually, we were trusted enough to have ships of our own, and one of the first things we did was head to livable planets to help them. Instead of just telling our spouses the true story and risking blowing the cover, we figured the best way was to find partners we could trust and leave them the information they needed to save your world.”

“Why didn’t you guys just find people in Peru or close by to make it faster and easier?” Ray asked, eyes wide.

“This world is poison to us. The closer to the equator we get, the worse we get. We basically have an expiration date, and the ring around the center of the world advances the decline of our limited lives. We really aren’t sure why, but it has something to do with the air and the planet’s energy. You all saw it with your other halves. They couldn’t survive, but we had hoped this event would happen while they were still around. We guessed wrong by about three years.”

“This is a lot to take in. Would you be okay if you headed back north?” I asked her.

“It’s too late. I’m in this and committed to see it through. I want to see every last human back on the planet, and my race will have helped one world.”

“So what’s next? What…are you?” Mary asked.

“We’re close to humanoid by your definition. This body is a mix of both DNA’s. By all physical observations, we appear fully human, but on a molecular level, we’re something else. We also have much different cognitive functions. We don’t taste well, and our eyesight is highly elevated over humans’. I was raised in a lab light years away and brought here with the others ten years ago.”

This was crazy. I had to know something else. “How many of you were brought here ten years ago?”

“Almost a hundred around the world. Most didn’t survive long. Some of us were more immune to the planet than others. I have every reason to believe I’m the last remaining alive.”

“So how does this device actually work?” I asked, trying to not sound accusing.

“I have no idea. Our jobs were to reel the assets in to our cause; have them fall in love and be willing to do anything in our name, once we were gone and the invasion began. All I know is it will bring them back, whether it’s through some sort of teleportation, or whether they’ll be lowered slowly via green beams from the massive ships they’re currently occupying. From what I understand, the invaders beam them up and there they sit in containment cells, presumably in a coma-like state until later.”

I didn’t want to ask, but Mary beat me to the question anyway. “What’s later?”

“In our planet’s case, they waited about a week, and did tests on our race while everyone was under. They kept five percent alive. The others they destroyed,” Vanessa said, before breaking into another coughing frenzy.

My breath caught in my throat and I thought I might be sick. A ship full of humans up in space, and only five percent were going to make it. I found myself praying to a God I wasn’t sure existed, for the sake of humanity.

“We’re nearing a week. We have to get to this damned device now.” Mary got up and helped Vanessa to her feet. Ray stood looking bewildered. We got Vanessa back to her seat and gave her another bottle of water, where she pulled a couple pills from her breast pocket and downed them.

“Helps the pain,” she said.

I saw something glimmer behind some bushes, and when I pulled a branch back, I spotted the main door into the guard station. I tried it and found it unlocked. From there, I searched for a way to release the gates. I didn’t find one, so I hopped into one of the camo Jeeps sitting idly by and ran through one a way down from the van. It did the intended job, and we now had a way to get through.

From the window, I tossed Ray the van keys. “You guys follow behind me. I’ll take this bad boy in case we hit some rough terrain. Then we can all hop in here. I’m pretty sure this thing will climb a mountain if I ask it to.” I really just wanted some alone time after being jammed in with someone every step of the way. Carey ran over and barked at the door. I opened it and he hopped in, giving me a sloppy kiss on his way to the passenger seat.

Mary looked my way as she got into the van and gave me a light smile and a nod. What we’d just heard was heavy stuff, and we were on a deadline now. I wished Vanessa had just told us the truth from the get-go, but I could understand her reluctance.

The Jeep had the T-top off, and warm air rushed through my hair as I drove down the main road, which was mostly paved, but free of lines and shoulders like the ones we were used to back at home. There were a few cars lined up to get into Panama at the time of the taking, but we were able to maneuver around them with ease. I checked my watch and it was three PM, so we really only had a good three or so hours before the sun went down; less if we were in a mountain range by then.

Two hours passed by with nothing but the sound of Carey panting and the hum of the Jeep’s large tires on the road. “Dean, come in,” the radio crackled.

I grabbed it with my right hand, pressed the button, and brought it to my face. “Roger. I’m here. Over.”

“I think we better stop soon. I don’t think Vanessa is going to make it.” Mary sounded worried.

We were coming up to the entrance to the mountain range, and sunlight was limited. “Mary, can we see if we can just make a few more miles to get into the valley before dark? We need to get as far as we can. Over,” I said into the radio.

“Okay. She says to keep going too. See you in a little bit…Over.” The pause made me feel she had more to say, but maybe couldn’t under prying ears.

As I approached the foothills, I saw that there were no lanes cutting through the two peaks ahead. Instead, the road just started to elevate. “Mary, any chance that GPS shows a better road into the valley? I have a bad feeling this one just goes up and around the nearest mountain. Over.” I waited a moment, slowing down in case we had to make a turn soon – or turn around.

“Negative. This is the way. There’ll be a lot of switchbacks coming up. Just take your time. I think we’ll be through it with enough light, and then maybe we can stop for the night. Everything goes well tomorrow, and we get an early start, I think we’ll reach our destination tomorrow. Over.”

Tomorrow. I was so excited and nervous at the same time about getting to the device and deactivating it. What would happen? Would everyone go back to the place they were beamed up from? Would they all go to the center of Russia? I blinked and had a vision of half the population being transported back, but into the ocean by random draw.

“Okay. Follow me at a safe distance and let me know if the van is too tough to drive on these narrow roads. Over.”

Carey watched me as he lay down with his face between his paws on the front seat. I wondered if he thought of Susan, his mom, on this trip. Did he go to sleep picturing her rubbing his belly or feeding him a treat? I reached over and scratched his ear, and was rewarded with a soft groan.

I was really going to miss him when this was all over. Maybe I was being a little presumptuous about the end of whatever this invasion was being near, but I felt in my gut that we were almost done with it.

Turning my attention back to the road, I could feel the humidity rising as we rose in elevation; large green-leaved trees surrounded the narrow road. After ten minutes of driving at a high grade upwards, and two ear pops, I plateaued and came over a wooden bridge. Then it all opened up in front of me. I could see the winding road down the hill and into the valley. It looked like a hundred-mile asphalt snake, winding its way southwards, pointing me to my destination. It was beautiful.

The sun was behind the mountain range to the west and we would be out of light before we knew it. I kept driving, the van following behind, until I wound halfway down the mountain side road. There were no guard rails anywhere, and a few times I caught myself peeking down the ridge into oblivion as we went into the valley.

“We’d better stop. Light’s almost gone and not only do we not want headlights bringing attention to us, Ray doesn’t want to be driving this thing over the side. Over.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll pull over ahead.” I noticed they had already pulled to the side. I was watching the rear-view mirror and when I looked forward, there it was. A ship hovered there, a horrifying game of chicken in play. It was smaller than the ships we’d seen in New York and cutting up the world on the trip south, but mostly the same shape. I twitched and panicked. What to do? I saw the look on Mary’s face in the van. They hadn’t been moving, so more than likely, the ship had only seen me. Conflicting debate ran through my head faster than I’d have thought possible. I went with my gut. Seconds after I spotted the ship, I hit the gas, racing down the hill. It followed me.

SIXTEEN

Gravel spun under my tires and flung behind me as I tore down the mountain. Carey was sitting up, scared by the movement and noises. The ship, silent as ever, followed me effortlessly. I knew I either had to hide somehow, or just keep driving until this thing blew me up. Either way, I hoped I’d been able to give my friends time to get away and keep themselves safe so they could complete the mission. Vanessa would probably be dead soon, so that left Mary and Ray to do the task. I had faith they could do it.

I must have driven two miles, my knuckles bright white as I clenched the steering wheel, racing in and out of corners, trying to keep on the road. The ship was there still, staying just behind and above me, always visible in my mirrors. No green lights shone out of it, and thankfully no red ones either.

The sun was going down, and I knew my chance was going to be in a few minutes. I saw a waterfall ahead to the southeast and made my stupid plan. If anything, I was sure I could at least distract them from the others for a while. I heard my radio crackle, but no voices came through. The radios were only good for a couple miles, and out here, surrounded by mountains, it was probably less than that.

We whirred around another bend and the Jeep drifted on the gravel, so close to the edge I almost crapped myself. With a pounding heart, I saved it and kept going down the road, end in sight. As the last rays of light crossed over the mountains, I killed the lights and threw the e-brake on, turning to the waterfall. Before the car stopped, I opened the door and ran for the water. I could hear Carey growling and following me. He soon passed me and we both jumped the ten-foot ridge into the cool water. With a glance back, I saw the ship stop and turn. There was no time to watch them. We swam, me quietly urging Carey forward. We only had thirty yards to cross before we hit the falls, and there I felt some rocks under my feet and planted them, picking up Carey and sliding us beside, then behind the falls.

Just as I hoped, there was a cavern behind them. I had visions of huge snakes twisting towards us in the water, ready to asphyxiate us before swallowing us whole. How much worse could that be than alien death? Lucky for us, no snakes came out to greet us. The cavern was damp and muddy, but we clambered up and into it, Carey shaking off wildly and no doubt wondering what the hell I was doing to him.

My breathing was heavy and my heart banged in my ears, a real life tell-tale heart that I was sure the aliens could hear. Carey whimpered as we walked slowly into the dark space, where God knew what was hiding to devour us. I heard a voice calling out.

“Dean, don’t be afraid. We need to talk,” it said.

I crouched and moved toward the entrance, telling Carey to stay back. He seemed happy to listen. From here, I would have sworn that was the exact same man Vanessa had killed already. Did they all look the same? Maybe their human forms did. And why did they even look human? What did they really look like?

“You can’t turn the device off. It means the end of everything if you do. Come out and I’ll explain it to you,” he called. Damn right he’d explain it to me. With a laser to the head.

I sneaked back to where Carey was waiting, sure the alien hadn’t seen me, and walked deeper into the cavern. The man kept calling to me as I found a narrow passageway in the dark dirt-covered wall near the back of the cave. There was just enough room for me to squeeze through. There was light a little way away and where there was light, there was freedom. With a little coercion I wasn’t proud of, I tricked Carey into following me with the promise of a bone that I didn’t have.

The voice was getting harder and harder to hear as we neared the opening back to outside. We would be on the other side of this small rock outcropping. I picked Carey up, pushed him out the hole, then jumped up, grabbed the edges of the opening, and hauled myself through. Carey rolled around, trying to get the mud off his body. We were both soaked, stinky, and covered in grime, but we had evaded him for the time being. I headed east by foot, and hopefully away from capture; the canopy of trees would cover us from above. I only hoped that my crazy stunt had allowed the others to go unnoticed by the ships, especially if there were more than one around.

I kept looking back and to the sky for signs of pursuit but relaxed a little bit when I didn’t see any. I really wished that I’d had the common sense to bring my knapsack into the Jeep with me. I had nothing with me. For a time, I wondered if I should head back to the Jeep and see if I could find the group again, but for all I knew, the aliens were waiting for me to come back. So instead, I kept walking in the humid night, my shirt not getting any drier as we went. It felt like rain wasn’t far off, so I looked for some sort of shelter to stay under for a few hours.

I wandered for a while, and as the rain began to fall, I found a thick copse of trees with a large canopy of leaves above it. With no choice but to hope no wild animals had us on the menu, we hunkered down by a large tree trunk, only a small amount of rain creeping through to splash us. Carey snuggled in close, and I could feel his stress. I’m sure he was picking up on mine; it was probably radiating from me in waves. At some point, I dozed off, and when I came to, Carey was almost on top of me snoring away, and the first bits of light were showing to the east. It was time to keep going, and hopefully, meet up with Mary, Ray, and Vanessa along the way.

We stretched and got to our feet, both taking the time to relieve ourselves by a tree. Two wild animals in the jungle. Carey looked up at me, no doubt wondering why I wasn’t feeding him. My stomach growled at the thought of food, and we set off looking for the road and some fruit if we were lucky. I used the rising sun to direct me south. I was never the best outdoorsman, but I could build a decent fire and find basic directions. We walked through the morning mist for a mile or so before we meandered to the road.

Just as I’d given up on finding any sort of food source nearby, there stood a huge mango tree, heavy with fruit. I laughed out loud and ran over to the great tree, squeezed one of the mangoes and plucked a ripe one. I used my teeth to peel the first bit, then went into it with my somewhat clean hands. Carey sat by me, instantly knowing it was food in my possession. He took the first piece hesitantly and dropped it a couple times before deciding it was palatable enough. I almost forgot what I was even doing here, but with some food in my belly, it became clear again. I snagged as many mangoes as I could hold and we headed down the road at a brisk pace. I was sure we would come across a car soon. This area seemed to be sparsely populated, but there would be a village somewhere nearby. And where there was a village, there would be cars.

The sun was over the mountain peaks when we came upon a beat-up truck. The black paint was rusted through around the wheel wells and the windshield looked like it was held together by luck alone. I got into the truck and fired it up; the engine came to life and sounded better than I thought it would. Carey sniffed around the seats like a hound on a mission. I understood. The cab smelled quite bad, like rotten onions, but when I couldn’t quickly find the source, I rolled the windows down and took off. My first mission was to go back and see if there was any chance the group was still at the top of the valley. I kept a close eye on the sky for ships as I made my way back. Time was pressing and I hated having to backtrack. I really dreaded the idea that I might have to finish this task all alone. I was more than a little worried about Mary and Ray, and wondered if Vanessa was still with us.

When I got to the top, the tour van was still there, but devoid of my friends. I grabbed the few supplies they’d left behind: a knife in the glove box, a bottle of water under the driver’s seat, Carey’s food. After giving the dog some food and water, I took a swig myself and decided to keep going with the truck. It had far more fuel and I had no siphoning gear with me. What had happened to them?

Did they stay hidden, then walk to get another car? Or did the ship come back and find them? With a heavy heart, I headed back down the road I had raced down last night, racing from the ship following. I passed the waterfall spot and saw the Jeep off to the side. I kept driving. It was just before nine as I moved down the mountain road, now leveled off and smooth going. I knew there had to be some ships looking for me, but I had no choice but to keep moving. Colombia was a large country, and I was still close to four hundred miles from the Peru border. At that moment, it felt really far, and going to it alone was devastating. I tried to see if I could spot any dust on the road ahead but couldn’t see any sign of another vehicle from here.

The roads were empty, and I pushed the hunk of junk truck to its limits. I had it up to fifty-five miles an hour as Carey and I cruised down the road. We kept that pace for an hour or so before we came up to a roadside village. I slowed as we approached a little one-pump gas station. The pump was an ancient-looking guy, and when I tested it, gas flowed out. Some of these towns were off the grid, so they would have things to accommodate that. I filled the truck, and after pilfering something to eat and some water from the tiny shop, we were back heading south. I didn’t have a map with me, but I knew the general direction and was confident I wasn’t going to get lost.

The next two hours were much of the same thing. Beautiful countryside, tropical plants everywhere. The humid heat kept my shirt plastered to my skin and Carey panting almost non-stop. I made sure to keep us hydrated. We shared a mango; this time, I had a knife to cut it as I drove. Carey now had a taste for the smooth juicy fruit, and he eyed me as I handed him a piece of it. When I checked the time, it was two in the afternoon and I figured I was still a hundred or so miles from the border.

The mountains were more like foothills now, and it had been a while since those dramatic elevation changes that caused my ears to pop. Carey and I were making good time, but I had to wonder if I would catch up to Mary soon. Unless they were cruising down at seventy, I should have found a sign of them by now. Then it dawned on me that they might have backtracked and taken a less direct way in order to avoid the ships detecting them. That’s if they weren’t caught when I raced down the hillside road like a lunatic. Maybe if I’d just stayed with them…no, I knew that would have just gotten us all caught or killed.

Machu Picchu was seven hundred miles or so away, with some potentially rough terrain ahead. Peru was another tropical and bumpy sort of country. Not only that, I didn’t have the GPS with me and was going from memory for the most part. I would stop at a gas station somewhere and hope they had a map of the country or something to help me along if I needed it. I tried to do the math and figure it out. Seven hundred miles, at an average of fifty miles an hour, would put me at fourteen more hours. I had about five hours of driving light left today, so if I started out at five in the morning, I could be there tomorrow at two in the afternoon. That said, I knew I would have to take surprises into account. Any number of things could happen to me between now and then: tire blowout, road block, ships attacking me.

Since I was just driving and getting a little unsettled, I needed something to occupy my racing brain. I knocked off the average speed to thirty miles an hour and calculated the time to Machu then. Twenty-three odd hours, with five today and a five AM start tomorrow, put me arriving there in the dark. Not only that, but Machu was a way up from the town. There was going to be some all-terraining combined with some serious hiking to get there. Best case, I was walking up the hill there tomorrow night. More likely, I was still a day and a half from reaching the device to turn it off. My palm itched at the thought, but I didn’t scratch it. There was nothing I wanted more than ending this crap, but the closer I got, the farther away it felt.

Carey stuck his head to the window crack I’d left open and his drool strung out behind us. I laughed and he seemed to think it was funny too, judging by the dog smile he showed me. It was hot; had to be over ninety degrees as the sun beat down on the roof of the rust-bucket I was driving. Gas was getting low as we cruised to the Peru border. As soon as I saw a “Twenty Miles from Peru” border sign, the engine made an awful noise, one of those sounds you know there’s no coming back from. Black smoke rose as the engine sputtered to non-functioning. By instinct, I pulled to the side of the road, even though I wasn’t going to impede anyone’s driving.

“Well, there’s another setback, Carey.” He looked at me sideways. “First we lose our friends, sleep under a tree, and then I blow up a truck. I bet this thing hasn’t hit fifty-five in a long time, and I ran it pretty hard today. Probably hasn’t had an oil change since the eighties.” I didn’t even bother opening the hood. Not only did I hardly know my way around under there, I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it going again. I did dump one of my water bottles on the engine to cool it, but quickly stopped as I realized it was making more smoke and wasting my hydration.

I grabbed our supplies, throwing a portion of Carey’s food into my sack, and we left the truck on the road, smoldering in the heat.

SEVENTEEN

The heat was getting to be too much for both of us, and after walking for fifteen minutes in the middle of the road, I moved us to the side of the road where the large-leafed trees shaded us. We had to find a vehicle soon. This road wasn’t a super-used one, obviously, but someone had to be out here.

I wondered about how the ships dealt with isolated places like this. I bet there were people in the world who had no idea the ships were even here until they were being whisked away, green light summoning them into the sky. It would have been so frightening, almost worse than knowing. I also was sure that more than a handful of people had died of heart attacks when they were taken. What a horrible way to go. And what about the people in hospitals, or the ones whose lives depended on medical equipment or pills?

James’ face flashed into my memory and I missed him dearly. My closest friend, the one guy who truly seemed to understand how much Janine had meant to me. I could still hear him calling to me as he floated out of my house.

I would bring him back if it was the last thing I did. That was a promise to him. I couldn’t save him then, but I could bring my buddy back, along with my mother and everyone else.

Pwwwwing! A tree shot bark out behind me, as I heard the echo of a gun down the small valley we were in. Carey perked up and growled, his hackles raised like a cat on the prowl. I looked for the source of the shot but couldn’t see anything. I wasn’t sure what to do. Run? Drop to the ground? Head into the trees?

Pwwwing. Another tree, this time closer. I figured the aliens weren’t using rifles to shoot at me, so I took a gamble. I raised my hands in the air, and walked to the middle of the road, out in the open.

“I’m not armed! Why don’t you come out and we can talk this over?” I called out, hoping that whoever was firing at me could hear me, and wanted to talk.

My heart raced in my chest and sweat ran down my face as I anxiously waited to hear a reply or get shot for my trouble. Wouldn’t that be the way to go? Travel halfway around the world to get shot in the middle of the road, miles from the Peruvian border. I moved to wipe the sweat from my face.

“Stay right there! Don’t move!” a rough, slightly accented voice exclaimed.

I tensed and raised my arms straight in the air. Carey was barking loudly and pacing back and forth between me and the voice. He was trying to protect me. If I didn’t fear for my life, I would have petted him and thanked him for caring so much.

“My arms are up,” I said as two bodies came from the trees on the other side of the road. The man was huge, sleeveless vest revealing tree-trunk-sized arms. The woman was petite but dangerous-looking. Her steps were measured and sleek, like an animal’s.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“I’m Dean. Dean Parker from upstate New York.” My arms were still high in the air, a gun still pointed at me. The woman was carrying a handgun. These folks looked like the real deal, like who the rebel faction really wanted to have turn the device off. Compared to them, Carey, Vanessa, Ray, and I looked like the peewee team. Mary could have stood with them, though. I hoped I wasn’t going to get shot before I could tell Mary how I felt. The memory of her lips touching mine, albeit for a brief second, was enough to keep me going.

“Dean, hey? Are you alone?” he asked.

“Just me and the dog, Carey.” Carey had stopped barking, but he stood angrily at my feet, and I doubted he would take his eyes off the targets for a minute.

They walked up to me, and the woman came close and patted me down. She nodded at him and he lowered the gun from my face finally. I dropped my arms and felt the urgent tension leave my body for a moment. The heat and fear took over and I stumbled, almost passing out. Black spots danced over my eyesight, and the man stuck his hand out and steadied me. Great, I made myself look even more like a wiener next to this monster of a man. I guessed seeming even less harmful was a way to be nonthreatening. I tried to tell myself that lie, but even my dizzy conscience wasn’t buying it.

“I’m Magnus. This is Natalia. I didn’t think I would ever see another person again. I definitely wasn’t expecting to see one walking alone with a dog, like he was on a stroll. What’s your story, fella?”

He had a slight accent and I was putting him as a Scandinavian. His light skin had a tinge of red from the sun out here. Natalia was clearly Russian, or at least Eastern European. I saw the ring on Magnus’ pinky finger, green stone tiny against his meaty hand. Natalia noticed me looking and she pointed to her ears; both had green stone earrings in them.

I pulled out my chain and showed them the pendant. They both smiled and Magnus came in and hugged me, like I was his long-lost brother.

“It is good to meet you, Dean. It’s been a long few days, and it’s really nice to see another who is joining us on our struggle. Come. We have a Jeep just a little way down. We’ll share what we have and tell our stories to each other,” he said, already moving and waving for me to follow.

I had no idea what to think about the pair, but I was on their team now.

I grabbed my knapsack and offered them a mango. Natalia accepted with a graceful nod of her head, and she was peeling the skin off with a knife that hadn’t been in her hand only a moment before. I hoped I was on the same side as these two.

Their Jeep was indeed close by and soon we were heading down the road, Carey hesitantly sitting in the back with Natalia, quickly warming to the woman who was scratching him behind the ears.

Magnus had insisted I sit up front with him to share stories. I asked for theirs first, just to make sure it all added up. Vanessa had turned out to be something we hadn’t expected, and these two almost-too-perfect people could have been on the wrong side for all I knew.

“I’m from Sweden. Used to be a bodybuilder. Won some serious awards at it too. Before that I was a soldier. When I decided to get out of the show business, I realized I missed soldiering. There were a lot of causes out there that I felt were unjust, and I found a mercenary group who shared my ideals. Rolled with those guys for almost a decade. We didn’t fight too often, but mediated a lot of crap in Northern Africa and in the Middle East.” He turned his head to the left as he drove. “Killed when we had to kill. Anyway. One of our missions, we found a bunch of people in a container in Egypt. Half of them were dead, the other half scared out of their wits and starved. Natalia was one of them. I carried her out of that container; she weighed almost nothing. She hasn’t left my side since. Has never said a word, either. Isn’t that right?” He looked in the rear-view mirror and smiled at her. I saw her smile back, and for a minute, she let her hard exterior soften.

“How did you get the anti-alien beam gear?” I asked, truly curious. Their story was quite a lot different than any of ours over in the States. Of course, there would be others on the same mission from around the world. Maybe we would even get close only to have someone beat us to the punch. I realized I would be okay with that. I sure wasn’t doing this for the glory.

He smiled. “A few years ago, we had two people contact us to join the group. They came with glowing recommendations from the British army. A man and woman, both strong as oxen. We let them in and they proved to be invaluable. They got us out of some tight situations and were quite often great at negotiating out of other situations that should have gotten sticky. We grew very close, like a big family. Natalia here trained so hard with us, and soon she was one of our own. More deadly than most…a hunger to prevent the darkness of her life from becoming anyone else’s path.” He paused and took a drink of water; beads of sweat dripped down from his close-cropped hair. “Our new friends each got sick. Really sick. The woman was dead a few months later; the man not far behind. He asked for Natalia and me to come to the hospital to see him, just the two of us. He told us a tale of such imagination, either he was an author, or it was true. I’d felt betrayed, but days later, I felt I understood his reluctance to tell us from the start. They were recruiting people around the world. He said some were doing like them, getting into groups like ours, or the military. Others were recruiting by marrying prospective targets. I imagined any betrayal I’d felt would be so far amplified for those who had married someone to find out they were being used.” He paused and looked at me, unsure which side of the fence I was sitting on.

“Go on,” I urged instead of answering his questioning eyes.

“Sure. So he told us about the device that they’d planted all those years ago, and how it was the only chance humans had of survival. That if we brought them back, the race would leave us, looking for easier plunder.” Another drink of water. “I don’t feel like we’re getting the full story here. Either these guys recruiting us were just naïve, or what? Say this device does bring back our people. What then? The invaders just leave us be? Maybe they don’t have any weapons.”

“Oh, they have weapons. One of the ships ripped a massive trench across the landscape for miles to slow us down. A red beam, the same size as their green abduction ones, shot out and destroyed the ground on touch,” I said.

His eyes went wide. “You’ve seen ships since that first day?” He sounded like it was impossible.

“Yeah, a few times. It was like they were hunting us from the start. I saw them in New York, then the lasers outside of Washington. I swear I saw them when we got hit by a storm in the sailboat.”

“Sailboat? I can’t wait to hear your story. We didn’t know they were here still. Honestly, we’ve been moving as fast as we could. We had to come from Russia, and have been on a full tilt, twenty-four-hour schedule to get here. Took a damn boat across the ocean non-stop to Colombia. Just landed last night and here we are,” Magnus said.

Without the worry about being spotted by the ships, they made it all the way from Russia in four days’ time. I was impressed by their ingenuity. They were obviously good choices for recruitment.

“You may have been lucky, then. I was with my group until yesterday. I was in front of them with Carey in my own Jeep, and a ship hovered directly before me. I didn’t think it spotted them, since they were just another stopped van on the road. I bolted and drew its attention away for a while. I went back the next day and the van was still there, but they weren’t. I’m hoping they kept going and was thinking I might be able to catch up to them,” I said, the words sounding desperate as they left my mouth.

We arrived at the Peru border, and it was larger than the Panama one. Cars were parked everywhere, and the pass was open. There was a small town on the other side. Magnus elected to just push the cars out of the way where needed. The Jeep had a large grill bumper and I was surprised to see how easily we made it through. Where I would have tried to get around, a big man like him just pushed his way through.

“Tell us your story, my friend,” Magnus prompted.

I started from the beginning. About the day the ships arrived, my adventures to get the pendant; about James and being left alone. I told them how I went and got Carey from Susan’s house, and I noticed Carey look at me when I said his name in the story. I added the parts about Janine, her getting sick, and the deathbed promise I made. I kept some of it private; moments between me and my wife. I went on to my challenges of getting into New York, Yankee Stadium, then finding Ray near Central Park. Magnus seemed surprised by the bank’s safety deposit box. He said he knew the details of the location already, trusted to them by their friend before he died.

This irked me a little, that Janine didn’t feel she could tell me everything, but maybe I would have forgotten the details, or just not followed through. I told them about hearing someone on the CB radio and eventually meeting up with them. I retold the rope story, trying to pull Ray up, and Natalia’s eyes were wide as I shared the story about Vanessa sniping that man down at the pier. Then I talked about the boat, the storm, and landing in Panama. From there we caught up to the ship finding us on the road, and my racing down the mountain with a ship in tow.

“And then I found you,” I finished.

“That’s quite the story, my friend. You’ve been through a lot. What of Vanessa? You’re saying she is one of them? An alien?” he asked.

“From what I understand, she’s a hybrid born in a lab. They all were, even my wife, I suppose. They were bred to be able to live on Earth for a time period and recruit people to help. Vanessa told us that something about the equator was poison to them. Their job was to get people invested enough to save. She said there were around a hundred of them brought here almost a decade ago.” The thought that my wife had been one of these hybrids really hadn’t sunk in until I said it aloud.

I think Magnus could see the pain, and he patted me on the arm with his right hand. “It’s okay, Dean. It’s all about the greater good here now. You were chosen to help save the planet.”

Should I tell him? I wasn’t sure. I did anyway. “I wasn’t the one,” I said quietly. “He was a military guy. She was meeting him on a blind date that night at the Boathouse when I met her. She chose me, I suppose, but they didn’t.”

He smiled to this as we drove through the small town. “That’s even better. She did love you and gave her life to save our planet. Will you do the same if you have to?” he asked as he stopped the Jeep.

Would I? My thoughts went back to my instincts to save the others when the ship surprised us, and I realized that I was ready to give everything up to help them and to save the world.

“Yes, I will.” The words came out louder than I’d intended.

“Good. Let’s get some supplies and gas while we’re here. I have a siphon pump kit in the back. Do you mind? Natalia and I will grab some food. Anything in particular you want?”

I got out of the Jeep and Carey hopped over the console and onto the seat I had been occupying. “Anything but mangoes,” I answered with a laugh.

They headed to a small market and I ran the siphon line from a car beside our Jeep. In a couple minutes, fuel was transferring through the tube, and I hit the valve as soon as some gas dripped back and down the side of the Jeep. Carey was nowhere to be seen.

“Carey!” I called out. He didn’t come running to me; no bark to tell me where he was. I packed up the hose in its bag, sealed it, and put it back into the Jeep.

“Carey, where are you?” Still nothing. I glanced back to the market, and Magnus and Natalia wandered around filling up paper bags. The street was dusty, vendors’ carts lining the side of the street. They would be used to tourists coming from Colombia coming into Peru, and here they sold maps, magnets, authentic Peruvian food, and anything else you could think of to make money. Peru’s flag waved all over the place too, two solid vertical red stripes separated by a white stripe in the center.

I crossed the street, wondering if Carey had found some sort of food source, but he wasn’t behind any of the food carts either. I heard a distant bark down the road, and that turned into a cacophony of barks from all around the small town. No doubt there were countless outdoor dogs around here. I only hoped we could get their owners back soon, and that they all had a water source. But that first bark had sounded distinctly like my little friend.

The side street was littered with overflowing garbage bins, and a grease bin from the restaurant out front. I heard his bark again and called out to him, jogging down the cramped alleyway. My shirt was already unbuttoned, and still it was stuck to me everywhere. The heat was getting to me and I wished that the dog could have just stayed put.

I heard something behind me. Footsteps. I turned and heard more steps come from where I’d just been. I was surrounded. They looked just like the man who’d been shot at the pier by Vanessa: identical twins. The man at the waterfall, who’d called to me after chasing me down in his smaller ship, looked just like them too. Maybe one of these was that man. They were tall and thin, with matching brown hair that looked like wigs. It was a seriously peculiar sight.

Carey growled as he ran to my feet and lifted his paws up onto my thighs. I scratched his head and looked up at the men. They hadn’t said anything yet, but they both raised their hands in an attempt to show a calming demeanor. Whether they were trying to tame me or Carey was unclear.

“Mr. Parker, we aren’t here to hurt you. Quite the opposite,” the first one said.

“My friends are going to come find me, and they have big guns.” The threat sounded weak as I said it.

“You can’t turn that device off. It will doom your planet. We want to help you,” the second one said, in the same voice as the first.

“How will it doom us?” My voice felt shaky as I asked. Both other cases of seeing these guys, they had started to say much the same. It was time to hear them out.

The first one paused as if to weigh his words and choose them carefully. “Janine was one of us, Dean. She stood against them. That device was indeed planted here centuries ago, by us. That much is true. But it is not a device to bring your people back. It is there to stop the Kraski from setting foot on your planet.”

“What the hell is a Kraski?” I asked, pulse racing.

“Kraski are a species from far away. They take over planets, expanding their reign of the universe. The half-breeds probably told you a story about the planet being poison to them. That’s only true because of the device being on. Janine and the others were created with human DNA and bred to fulfill the Kraskis’ motives. They’re a patient race. The plan has been in the works for a long time.”

My mind was reeling from this information. Were they telling me the truth? They seemed to know who I was, and who my wife was. But Vanessa’s story was so compelling. Was she using us to meet the Kraskis’ needs?

“So, what…the Kraski convince loved and loyal ones to turn this device off for them after they beam the people off the planet?” What this meant for Earth just crossed my mind. “This means there’s no way to bring everyone back, is there?” I could tell from the looks on their faces I’d hit the nail on the head.

“Not the way they told you, Dean. But there is a way. Don’t tell anyone about us yet. Get to the device first. You can’t let the others turn it off. All hope is lost if this happens. And keep an eye out for infiltrators. You never know who has been turned, and who you can trust.” They turned and started down the alley, running away from us. The first one turned and called to me. “Don’t tell anyone about this. We’ll be there when you need us.” And with that, they were gone down another alley.

Minutes passed and I just stood there sweating, my head aching from the heat and the news I just heard. Voices started calling for me, and Carey ran down the road, back toward the Jeep.

“Come on,” Magnus called. “Quit messing around; we have time to make up.”

I followed him back to the vehicle and got in, keeping my silence. The whole time I was wondering if I should tell the big man about the twins I just spoke with. Don’t tell anyone about us yet. I didn’t know why, but for some reason, I heeded their advice.

EIGHTEEN

“What would you like? We have dried meats; a jerky of some kind. Maybe alpaca?” Magnus shrugged. “It’s Peru. Variety of fruit, but you’ve had some of that today.”

I spotted some bread, butter, and cheese. It looked so good at that moment, but my stomach was feeling extra heavy after the conversation I’d just had. Hunger for some good food won the quick battle. I grabbed my pocket knife and went to town on a sandwich, whipping one up for the others too. There I ate what I claimed to be the best post-invasion sandwich the world had ever seen.

The terrain was beautiful here and we moved down what must have been a secondary road, with few cars sitting on it. We kicked up dust as we made for the southern part of Peru. Grass greener than any I’d seen before scoured the landscape for miles, and we laughed when we saw the alpaca roaming on the hills beside us.

“You were right, Magnus. Unless those are llama. Then you’re so far off it’s not even funny.” I even said it with a straight face. I glanced back to Natalia and got a scowl for my trouble. Not only did she not talk, apparently her funny bone was malfunctioning too. I instantly let it slide, knowing what horrors she must have been through. I gave her a soft smile and started to turn back. Carey was staring at his new friend in the back seat, and I saw her give him a piece of meat and a pet. She did have the ability to melt the ice on occasion. I wondered if she and Magnus were more than friends, and felt a moment of jealousy that they got to go through this quest with someone they knew before it all happened.

“You okay there?” Magnus asked, and I realized I was sitting staring out the window with a half-eaten sandwich in my hand.

“I’m good. Just a lot to think about,” I replied, wishing I could share the burden I just heard back in town.

“Why Machu Picchu? Kind of a messed-up place to put some crazy alien device, don’t you think?” he asked.

“It actually makes a lot of sense, if you think about it. It’s one of those bizarre phenomena. They think the Inca built it for some emperor or something. Maybe he was really one of those hybrid guys and his magic, or technology, made them think he was a god. Also makes sense to put it somewhere it’ll be protected. Do you think any group of fanatics could go up there unnoticed? Probably not. Not a busy tourist destination that you can’t desecrate. Although they claim to have put it there hundreds of years ago. If by ‘hundreds,’ they meant the fourteen hundreds, then that would put it spot on with the building of the mountaintop city,” I guessed.

“How do you know so much about it? All I knew was the picture I once saw on a calendar.”

“Bit of a History Channel buff.” He looked at me sideways. “I know. I haven’t got out much the past couple years.”

Natalia tapped Magnus on the shoulder and passed him the GPS unit she had in the back with her. She pointed to the map and he veered off after a few minutes.

“That should take us around the next valley and save us some time. Thanks, Nat.” He winked through the rear-view mirror at her.

“What do you figure, Magnus? We have about two hours of light left now. I know you guys have been going through the nights, but do you think it’s more dangerous now?” I asked, trying to see where his gut was at. I wanted to get there tonight to see if we had any sign of Mary, Ray, or Vanessa.

“I have yet to see a ship, and we’re making good time. Have about what, three-fifty to go here?” Natalia must have given him the nod from the back seat. “Thanks. Let’s do it. Should get there by nine. With any luck, your buddies will be there and we can do this thing. How do we get up to the top?”

“It’s so remote out there. Tourists usually take a train to this little town, Aguas Calientes; from there it’s up the mountain via switchbacks. We researched this… or Vanessa had researched this. If it’s raining there, they say the roads can be treacherous. Hence the trains are the most used way to get there.” I was surprised they didn’t have any of this information. “Didn’t you guys know where this thing was? I thought your buddies told you all of this.”

He looked a little ashamed. “They told Natalia and asked her not to tell me until it happened. Really doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I guess they didn’t want anyone to go early, tamper with it, and maybe break something?”

A lot of things weren’t making sense to me. On one hand, Vanessa told us that they were brought here to save the world. That the bad aliens, who remained nameless, were going to whisk us all away, kill the majority, keeping a handful as slaves. Like her people. But if they trusted her people so much, how had they planted this device and then come here to warn us?

Then I had the lookalike aliens, who claimed the Kraskis couldn’t survive because of the device they’d planted here in Machu Picchu, of all places, known for its speculation of being tied to aliens. They also told me Janine was in on it. Was that why she chose me instead? She picked a battle side and thought maybe that I would figure it all out? Did she have that much faith in me? Why hadn’t she just outright told me all about it?

I had far too many questions and none of the answers. The way Vanessa so coldly shot the first one, and the fact they did nothing to harm me each time I saw them. I just needed us to get there before the others, if there were others still, so I could try to make the right decision. All of the military, mercenary, air force, and engineers, and the accountant was the one who had the fate of the world on his shoulders. My head hurt. It felt like tax season.

“They told Natalia, assuming she wouldn’t tell anyone, hey?” I felt suspicious of everyone at the moment. Maybe I was the only one who was really human. Mary felt human, but so had Janine. “We’re woven deep into this web of mystery. Natalia, I’ll take another chunk of emu jerky, please.”

Magnus and I laughed as we cruised down the road in the Jeep, the sun sinking on our right as we went.

__________

For the first hour after the sun went down, Magnus accepted my suggestion of keeping the lights off, but as we got close to our destination, the terrain was terrifying at moments. The narrow roads often flirted with the edges of hills that turned into small mountains. It had recently rained, and everything was covered in a thick, gooey layer of mud. A few times, I had to ask that he slow down. “We need to make it there alive to do this,” I’d said.

At seven thirty, he put the lights on, and I was sure that it saved us a dozen times on the last stretch there. Natalia got him to change course a few times, and everything looked great. Then the storm hit. Flash floods hit fast down there, and in mere minutes, not only could we hardly see out the Jeep’s windows, but the roads were washed out completely. We fought it for a while and tried to find routes to get us to the little town at the base of Machu, but it was hopeless.

Magnus pulled over and rested his head on the steering wheel. Carey whimpered in the back seat as lightning flashed, followed by the booming thunder, telling us we were close to the source.

“You said there were trains, right?” Magnus asked, looking excited.

“Yeah, right to town,” I said, picking up on what he was suggesting. “Natalia, can I see the GPS, please?” I asked, moving to the east to look for the tracks. There they were, heading from the northeast. “Looks like there’s a side road over there, back a couple minutes. It’s going to be a crapshoot heading down there in this storm, but it looks like we’ll intersect the train tracks in a couple miles.”

Magnus lifted his head from the steering wheel and slowly looked at me, his blue eyes intense even in the darkness. The Jeep was lit up by the glowing orange lights coming off the dashboard, and I felt the desire to scan the sky for a ship. Did they not know we were here? It seemed to me there were two sides, and they both knew exactly where the thing was. If that was the case, why wouldn’t they just blow the damn thing to smithereens?

“Let’s do it! Train tracks it is!” he shouted, throwing the Jeep into reverse. We splashed and slid down the muddy road, making a sharp turn at the road that would lead us to the tracks. Lightning flashed a few times, and I saw how deep the water on the road really was. I said a little prayer that the lightning wasn’t going to hit the water and shock us. I couldn’t remember if that was an old wives’ tale or not, but I made sure I wasn’t touching any metal.

“I can’t slow down! I won’t be able to get started again in this mess!” Magnus yelled over the storm.

We raced down the road mostly blind, water beginning to seep in the bottom of the doors.

“We better get there soon, or we’re going to be stuck,” I shouted.

The tracks elevated slightly from the ground beside them, and the Jeep climbed the incline eventually after sliding down the slick, muddy hillside. Once on top, we stopped to regroup. The storm was still raging; raindrops the size of quarters were falling hard on the windshield.

“Here we are, Dean. On the tracks to our second-to-last stop before the big moment. There’s no turning back now,” Magnus said as he put it into drive. The ride was an extremely bumpy one, even with the twenty-two-sized tires and suspension on this beast. We bobbled up and down like marionettes, and it wasn’t the first time I’d felt like the aliens’ puppets today. I checked to see if Carey was okay, and he was firmly sitting in Natalia’s lap. It was quite the sight.

“What happens if there’s a train ahead?” I asked.

“We try to go around it. Should be simple. Let’s just hope there’s not, and if there is, that it’s firmly parked outside town so it won’t matter,” Magnus said.

Our headlights shone up and down and all over the place as we jostled about on the wet tracks. The clouds made it pitch black out at this point, but there was no sense in worrying about the aliens seeing us. We were all in. Committed to the job. Just what that was, was beyond me.

I could tell we were climbing some elevation, as my ears popped. Lightning flashed and I looked out the window, to see nothing but a cliff beside us to the right.

“Whatever you do, don’t veer to the right. Straight down to Deathsville that way,” I said, trying to sound like I was calm, completely betraying the hysteria I was fighting inside.

The miles piled on, and my back was already sore from bouncing up and down. We had mainly been riding alongside the mountain for the past hour, and Magnus had slowed down a bit. The rain still fell, but not as ferociously as before; the thunder and lightning duo only came to visit every few minutes now. We slowed down, and my stomach sank. There was a train on the tracks, a few hundred yards in front of us.

“Is there anywhere to pass on the left?” I asked, hopeful.

“I think there might be, but it’s pretty steep over there too.” Magnus clenched his jaw.

“Options?”

“Not many. Go around, or we climb over it and start to hike. Not an idea I want to explore much further. If we were only ten miles, I might say it’s a good idea. I figure we have another fifty or so.”

We didn’t have the luxury of time. I needed to beat the others there. “We go around with the Jeep,” I said firmly. He nodded at me and pulled off the tracks. We instantly tilted to the left twenty or so degrees. We followed the train for a hundred yards, and then we saw something that was going to ruin our whole plan. The mountain jutted up, and the train was in a tunnel. There was absolutely no way around the thing now.

“Damn it!” he yelled.

I racked my brain for ideas, but nothing was coming to me. If we walked, we were committed to the tracks. If we went to find a road, they could all be washed out, and even if we found a car out in the middle of nowhere, we might not be able to get through.

Natalia drummed her fingers on the console between the front seats. We both turned to her, and she rolled her brown eyes at us, like we were so obviously missing something simple. I’d seen that eye roll before. It was saying, “Men!”

“What? Do you have some brilliant plan, lady?” Magnus asked her softly, like he knew a secret about her and didn’t want to share.

She just pointed at the train and got out of the Jeep.

“You heard the woman. To the train.” Magnus got out of the Jeep and started to take his gear out of the back. “You coming, or you just going to sit there and have a nap?”

Carey had already jumped out and was running around, getting soaked again. I guess he was in on the joke too. We were going to take the train there? It sounded kind of crazy, but maybe it wasn’t. I guessed that by not talking, Natalia had a lot of good thoughts going on in that head of hers.

I got out and helped grab the rest of the gear. Natalia was way ahead of us, walking in the dark with a flashlight lighting her path. When we had everything we needed to bring, we followed her. Carey walked over to me and jumped on my leg with his wet paws. He looked happy, like he was on the biggest, most fun adventure of his life. I supposed we all were. I bet Carey couldn’t wait to get home and tell his mommy Susan all about it, if we could get her back along with everyone else.

“You ever driven a train before?” I asked the big Swede.

He shook his head. “Nope. I’ve driven a lot of things, but not a train. How hard can it be? You don’t even have to steer,” he said with a laugh.

“You have me there. If anything, we’ll show up in style.”

We approached the front cab of the train, and saw that Natalia was inside it.

“She doesn’t waste any time,” I said.

“Never has,” he replied and climbed up the steps to the doorway. The train was bright blue. I hadn’t been able to tell until we were right up close and I saw it in the flashlight beam.

“Nice looking train too. Looks brand new. Check out the cow catcher on this thing,” I said, nodding my approval.

“You’re some sort of train expert too, I take it?” Magnus asked.

“No. Grew up in farm country, and we had a lot of trains passing through when I grew up. My dad loved train sets and took me to a couple museums about them when I was little. I always laughed at that name. Cow catcher. I was sure they didn’t catch cows as much as kill them and toss them to the side. Probably more wild animals than cows too. I knew two people that were killed walking the tracks. Murray Lindberg died when I was in high school. He’d been listening to Guns N’ Roses on his Walkman at the time. My parents didn’t let me listen to Axl in the house after that, because the town called it devil worship. Sorry, I’m rambling.” I had no idea what drove me to go on like that, but maybe it was just the pent-up nervous energy I was harnessing.

We were in the cab now, and I was surprised by the amount of room in it. Natalia was looking around, and in a moment, she hit something, waited for the light to come on, and started the engine.

“Diesel, I guess,” Magnus commented.

“Think so. These days most are a hybrid of diesel and electric, and this thing looks new.”

When the train came to life, so did some small lights in the cab, and we could see around. Carey barked outside and I went back out into the rain, and we entered together on the car behind. The door pried open easily, and we got in to see leather seats. There were even a few bottles of champagne sitting warm at a serving area. First class train ride in Peru. Things could have been worse, like me flying around the passenger seat of a Jeep in a storm.

The cars connected, and I knocked on the window when I found it locked. Magnus hit some lever and it opened. Carey ran right to Natalia and licked her hand.

“Nice arrangement back there,” I told them. “Nat, you think you can drive this thing?”

She looked back at me and smiled. Soon we were starting to move along, lights showing our path on the tracks.

“I guess that answers that,” I muttered, and Magnus slapped me on the back.

“You should see her fly a helicopter!” he barked, and had a good laugh at his own joke.

I was sure that Mary would have a fast friend in this Natalia if they got the chance to meet. I really hoped they would, and soon. Time was running out on us, if what Vanessa said was true. A week before they were to dispose of most humans, the rest to be slaves for eternity.

NINETEEN

We were cruising down the line on our way to Aguas Calientes. Lightning still flashed occasionally and I kept a watchful eye out the window, trying to see if I could spot a ship among the dark clouds. The train was moving at a good pace, and I was thankful we were almost at our destination. I walked toward the engineer’s room exit, the door sliding open as I moved in front of it. Carey trotted along beside me and we moved down the hall to a washroom. The lights came on automatically as I entered the single restroom. Carey stayed outside the door like a little police guard dog. I appreciated the love.

I looked in the mirror and saw myself more disheveled than I’d been in a long time. It brought back flashes of myself a week after Janny had died: me not showering, not shaving, and hardly eating. The similarities were there, but now I felt more alive than I’d ever felt before. I’d survived the loss of my wife, the loss of the whole world basically, and now I had a mission.

After scrubbing my face in the sink, I lathered up and did the best job I could to bathe in the sink. It wasn’t pretty, but in a couple minutes, I was smelling a lot better, and felt ready to make the trek. The deep bags under my eyes were still there, but I saw a little extra sparkle in them that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

“Come on, Carey. Let’s find some food.” His ears perked up at this, and he had a little more jump in his tired step. We made our way down a couple cars, and there was a lounge. Behind the bar, I found some trays of food in the cooler. The temperature was still fairly cool in there. This state-of-the-art train had some good backup power. I found a still slightly chilled cheese and cracker tray, and grabbed a couple of apples. I filled my bag with some more miscellaneous foodstuffs: granola bars, potato chips, and the ever popular peanuts and pretzel mix. I tore a bag open and gave Carey’s drooling mouth a few pretzels before finding a bowl and filling it with “mountain fresh” water. He slurped it up, and I loaded a few of those bottles into my now heavy pack.

“Come on, buddy. Let’s go share with the others,” I said.

As the door opened, I heard Magnus talking to Natalia. “Uhm, Nat, do you know how to stop this thing?” Magnus asked her.

I looked out the windshield and was shocked to see us already approaching the station ahead.

She just shrugged and pulled the throttle back in an attempt to begin slowing down. It wasn’t slowing us down fast enough. We were still cruising at twenty with the station coming up fast.

“Dean, any clue?”

I scanned for the brakes and didn’t see the lever I’d seen in trains when I was a kid. The old trains all had them, but I’d never been on one this new. For all I knew, there was an app that controlled the damn thing. The distance was closing quickly and I jammed at a button on the dash in a wild last-minute effort. A loud train-whistle sound bolted out of a horn, blasting our arrival to anyone within twenty miles. Cursing, I hit the button next to it, and we jolted forward as the emergency brake took hold. The brake grabbed the metal rails and slammed us forward, hard.

The car slid and scraped, and I picked myself up off the ground, rubbing my head where it hit the dash. We were going to hit! We all braced for the impact, and time paused as we were about to make impact. I looked at Natalia, who was now bleeding lightly from her forehead. Magnus’ face was scrunched up in an animalistic snarl. Then time started again and we smashed into the car on the tracks. The lights flicked off as we went tumbling. Thank God we found the e-brake, because we couldn’t have been going more than ten miles an hour when we hit.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead and leaned back against the wall. “Just like I planned it.”

“Yeah, Nat, next time we do take the copter. You know how to land one of those.” He placed his huge hand on her back and rubbed it lightly. He moved in close and whispered something in her ear. It was a tender, touching moment in this time of stress and pressure, and it reminded me of my wife, but this time a comforting reminder, not a desperate feeling of loss. Maybe all of this was making me grow as a person.

“Let’s get moving. Still a ways to go to get up to the top. And in the dark, no less,” I said, walking back to the second car and out the side entrance. My bag of food was heavy on my shoulder, but I was happy to have some rations again. There was a small fire at the front of the trains, and I thought about putting it out in case someone would see it from the sky. Then the urgency took over and I just wanted to get to the top to do what we had to do, if only I could determine exactly what that would be.

Carey and I looked for a vehicle to bring us to the top. I checked my watch; it was ten thirty. There weren’t many cars out here, but there were a few of the tourist vans and buses. I really didn’t think us driving a bus up the switchbacks was a great idea in the dark, especially when none of us had ever been here before. This wasn’t the way I’d wanted to come to this iconic place. Did aliens really build it? I doubted it, but now I did believe they might have had a part in its creation. I imagined an alien coming down, looking human in the fourteen hundreds. The people here were so isolated from the rest of the world at that time, he would have seemed like a god if he had shown them any sort of technology. They would have been astounded. That being said, they did seem to have advanced building techniques for the time. It also made me wonder about the rumors of aliens in Egypt, and what about Roswell? I had some serious questions for those twin guys…if I ever saw them again, and if I found out they were being truthful.

I turned on my flashlight and checked the first van. No keys. Checked the second. No keys, and it smelled like fish in there. I needed the third one to have some, or it was off to search the buildings for spare sets. I was in a hurry and didn’t think crawling around in the dark for keys was a good use of my time. Third van. No keys in the ignition, but when I was about to slam the door in frustration, I spotted something shiny in the cup holder. Bingo. I shooed Carey into the door and I got in and fired up the engine. It made some interesting noises, but I just needed the thing to get me to the top. I backed up and pulled over to the train, where the other two were waiting for us.

“Not the prettiest ride, but it should do the job,” I said as I got out and helped throw the few bags in the back seat. I took a handgun, made sure the safety was on, and tucked it in my pants.

“What are you expecting up there?” Magnus asked.

“Hopefully, nothing. But I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.” I had so many questions, and I still had no answers. Was I going to turn the damn thing off? We had to find it first too. Did Mary, Ray, or Vanessa even make it there? Maybe they were behind us, trying to make it here themselves.

“If you’re bringing that, I’m bringing this.” He hefted out a semi-automatic with the firepower to take down more than an alien or two, if that was who we were going to be fighting.

Natalia grabbed one too, smiling at us. “She’s the happiest with a weapon in her hands. You have no idea how many times I’ve told her I’m thankful she’s on my side. Whatever we find up there, be glad you have us with you.” Magnus grinned back at her.

I wasn’t so sure. What if I told them we couldn’t turn this thing off? Would they just do it? Would they blink an eye at disposing of me to fulfill their dead buddy’s wishes? I had just me then. The gun sitting in my belt suddenly felt much heavier.

“I’m driving,” I said, and took the driver’s seat, Carey in the passenger seat beside me. The other two climbed into the back and rolled the windows down. The air was cooler in this part of Peru, especially with this high elevation. It was going to get much cooler as we climbed the switchbacks. The first few miles were fairly straight as we made our way in the dark down the road. I was extremely nervous, sweat dripping down my back despite the cool air blowing in through the windows.

“Looks like the climb starts just ahead. We’re so close I can smell it,” Magnus said, and I could almost hear his smile.

“How do you speak English so well? You are Swedish, right?” I asked, wondering why it took me this long to find it strange.

“I get that a lot. Actually, I speak five languages well, and a couple more are passable. I’m what you would call an army brat; dad ranked high, and we moved all around the world when I was young. I spent three years in Anaheim when I was eleven. I remember going with my dad to the beach, and there were those guys who always worked out at those outdoor muscle beaches. Something drew me to it, and that’s where I first got the idea to become a builder.”

As he spoke, I drove up the small sections of roads. They reminded me of seeing those horse trails on the sides of hills: grass worn out in paths carving up the hillside. It took me back to a trip to Montana when I was a kid, riding a horse for the first time. Now I was climbing a much larger, steeper hill in a van, carrying a gun, with a huge dilemma at the end of the road. As if to reiterate my fears, flashes of light crossed the sky, presumably from Machu Picchu.

“What was that?” Magnus asked from behind me.

“No idea. Maybe lightning again? No rain, though.” It caught me off guard, and I’m sure my voice cracked a bit. I didn’t think it was lightning. I thought it was coming from one of their ships. “I think we only have about five more miles to go,” I said, and kept driving in the dark, the dim headlights the only light on the narrow pathways. The van was groaning constantly now, its life probably hanging in the balance. I just wanted it to get us up top; we hadn’t seen any other vehicles on the way up so far, and I doubted we would.

“Is this bucket of bolts going to get us there?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but I hope so.”

We made it another mile before it crapped out, black smoke rising from under the hood. It gave a final gasp and lurched to a halt just as I turned up a sharp bend. This time it was me who rested his head against the steering wheel.

Light still shone from above, sometimes flickering. I knew we didn’t have much time to do whatever I was going to have to do. We needed to get up there quickly. I left my bag and just started trekking up the road like a man on a mission. I could hear Magnus calling to me but didn’t have time to wait. I had no light to guide me, but the clouds had cleared up here, or we were now above them. I wasn’t sure. The beam from a ship shone down, giving me enough light to see the road, and I ran. I heard Carey catch up to me, and when he did, I got a little yip from him. I think he thought we were playing, and he raced past me, determined to win the race. My feet pounded the ground and I kept running.

I thought I heard a gunshot, but it could have been my imagination. I was picturing so many crazy things that might be happening up there that I didn’t know if it had really happened. I must have run a mile when I started to breathe a little more heavily, my legs tight from sitting in cars so much for the past few days. Carey kept pace with me now, still happy to run alongside me up a steep mountain pass. His tongue hung out the side of his mouth by mile two, and I didn’t blame him. I think mine hung out for a while too.

I assumed the other two would catch up to me soon, but I must have been running like I’d never run before, because there was still no sign of them back there. I thought I heard my name being called but couldn’t be sure. I was in the zone, and just focused on getting to the top. If I still had the option, would I deactivate the device? Images of Janine flashed on the back of my eyelids every time I blinked. The first day we met at the Boathouse, the way she looked sitting there drinking a scotch, the archway behind her covered in twinkle lights. I thought she might have been an angel, and I guess I’d been right that she wasn’t from this world. I saw her when I proposed to her, eating a bagel outside on the bench. It was our bench from then on. Our wedding day, standing in front of all our loved ones. She couldn’t have looked more beautiful than in that moment. There were so many days after that where I treasured her. That face was so ingrained in my mind. Our trip to Hawaii, skiing in Aspen, all memories, but gone for good. I remembered her face as I looked into her coffin. It wasn’t the same face I’d known all of those years, yet at the same time, it was. The little laugh lines by her mouth, the tiny birthmark above her lip…all telling me it was her. All of these hit me as I ran with all my heart to the top of the road. Tears streamed down my face, and I knew it wasn’t from the pain of the non-stop sprint I was on.

This was all about to end one way or another. Either I was going to save the world or end it, and I had just enough guts to give it a try. I was slowing down as I rounded the final bend, and was on the last section of road leading up to the ruins of the Inca city. There was a car parked at the end of the lot, and a path leading up even higher. Carey stopped and fell to the ground, rolling on his side. He lapped at some water in a small pool on the road, and this time, I didn’t stop him. I had half a mind to join him, and instantly regretted not bringing my own water. I searched the car and found a half-empty water bottle in the cup holder. I drank it without hesitation; not something I would normally do, but my lungs were burning and my legs aching from the few miles’ uphill run. My treadmill at home didn’t have incline quite this intense. I tossed the bottle to the car floor and started the trek to the city. I still couldn’t see much and crossed through a stone archway that led to a steadily inclining pathway. There was still an intense light ahead, but it was pointed away from me, so I stumbled a few times on rocks or steps that I couldn’t quite see.

Carey followed along again, stopping every now and then to drink from a puddle. He didn’t seem to mind the muddy water too much. “Almost there, little guy,” I said. His tail wagged at my voice.

I heard my name and saw Magnus and Natalia a few hundred yards behind. I kept going. I didn’t want them there to decide for me. I picked up the pace and started to move at a jog. My thighs fought me every inch of the way, but a few hundred yards of paths and stairs later, I entered the Incan city of Machu. Even in the darkness, it was beautiful. I finally had a vantage of what was going on. One of the ships was hovering near the ground at the far side; Wayna Picchu loomed behind everything like a gravestone in the dark. It was an eerie sight, making the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.

Which aliens were here, the good ones or the bad ones? Not that I knew which side was which.

I walked toward it all and tripped on something. I fell and landed on my right elbow, pain exploding up my arm. I rolled to my side, and I was staring straight at a body.

It was Vanessa.

I rolled her to her back and checked for a pulse. Nothing. She’d been with us on this huge journey, and it was terrible to see her lying there. She was so small. If she was here, that meant… “Mary!” I called out. “Don’t do it!”

I reeled and ran to the ship. If the cheap tourist maps were accurate, they were over in the Sacred Plaza, an area that looked like a large room with parts of the wall missing and no roof. No doubt it had been a town square of some sort in the Incan times. I tried to take in everything I was seeing as I ran to them. The ship was there, with the two twins’ backs to me. I knew it was them just from the way they were standing. As I got closer, I saw Mary with a rifle aimed at them. Ray was nowhere in sight.

“Mary! Don’t do it! Not yet!” I yelled. She glanced at me and almost smiled through the terrified, angry look she was giving the aliens.

I passed by them, holding my gun in my hand. My elbow was aching, but at this point, so was the rest of me. I stepped between them and Mary. “Mary, hold on.” I tried to catch my breath. She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “I think Heckle and Jeckle may be telling us the truth.” Images flashed in my mind. Janine and one of the alien twins, sitting at a table.

“It’s too late, Dean,” she said, lowering her gun. A bright orange light shone from behind the plaza’s largest wall. There was a crack in the foundation large enough for a man to fit through, and that was where the light emanated from. A whirring noise sped up and then slowed down, the light dimming with it. “Ray turned it off.”

The twins fell to their knees and yelled in anguish. Another ship came quickly from the sky, and now I could see the differences in them. These were slightly larger and had more of a curve, whereas the others were smaller and more linear. A red beam shot out of it and destroyed the ground around the twins. They disappeared down the crevice.

“We have to turn that thing back on! Now!”

TWENTY

Five Years Earlier

My head felt so strange, and I wondered what she’d put in my coffee. This man had shown up at our house and Janine had instantly become nervous. I had never seen her like this before, and I didn’t like it one bit. She asked if we could talk in the kitchen and went to get us all some coffee. The man never said his name and our small talk went nowhere. I asked him where he was from. He said “quite some ways away” in a voice that literally had no accent, if that was possible. Everything about him was monochrome. Even his hair looked like it was a doll’s hair. None of this bothered me much once I drank that first sip of coffee; after that, I just sat there like an open-mouthed fool. I thought about trying to interject, but my brain didn’t want to participate. Instead, the fool thing made me drink more of the obviously drugged beverage.

Janine and the man argued about a few things, and they pointed at me a few times. She was telling him that she was already in their bad books. That they were still upset about me not being the chosen target, but that she was more than likely under severe scrutiny. I heard her mention Bob, her cousin from our wedding that we hadn’t seen since that day he’d come here.

After a few minutes of this back and forth my brain didn’t let me comprehend, he came over to me and put his hands to my temples. He repeated some words I didn’t understand and then Janine’s face came in front of mine, inches away. I could smell the spinach omelet she’d eaten for breakfast, and the coffee she just had been drinking. Out of all of that, it felt like a very intimate moment for some reason.

She held my hands and spoke softly. “If the day comes where you end up at Machu Picchu, don’t turn the device off. Wait there for this man, or a man that looks like him. Turn off that device and they’ll swarm the planet. Most likely, they’ll send a scout to confirm it’s off. They’re patient. Once confirmed, they’ll destroy it, and Earth will be theirs. No humans, no device to kill them. Do you understand?”

It took me a moment to realize that she had been speaking to me, even though her nose was touching mine. Tears fell down her face; I wanted to wipe them away, but my hands didn’t listen to me.

“Dean, do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said, not sure what I was agreeing to.

“Trust no one but a man who looks like this.” She stepped back and his face hovered before mine.

“Okay,” I said.

She then repeated a numerical code over and over, until I was repeating it back to her.

After, they talked for a while longer, and by the time he left, I was falling asleep on the couch, with no memory of anyone ever being there.

__________

I pushed my way to the crack in the wall, Mary trying to grab me on the way over. “What the hell are you doing, Dean?” she yelled, grabbing my arm. “You don’t actually believe those guys, do you?”

It had all come back to me. That strange visit from years ago. Janine’s tears at the prediction I would be here at this moment. I’d failed her. I’d failed everyone.

“They were right! Vanessa is one of the bad ones! This device is here to keep the aliens away. Those guys were trying to help us keep our damn planet,” I said, fighting to make her let go of me. “Trust me, Mary. It’s true. Do you see our people beaming back down?”

The new ship hovered a hundred yards away, and something was beaming down from the green light. Magnus and Natalia were right behind the ship, and I could see them moving out of the way, trying to get between us and the new arrivals.

“Dean, what gives?” he asked.

“Just keep whatever comes out of there from coming over here!” I yelled. Mary let me go and I clambered through the crack in the wall. There was a tunnel back there leading to some dusty stairs.

“Ray! Turn it on!” I yelled while running down. There was no reply.

A small amount of light lit the way from down a tight passageway, and it led me to a small room. Ray was sitting on the ground with his back to an advanced-looking machine; soft orange light glowed off its controls.

“Ray,” I said, stepping lightly into the space, “turn it on now.” Tears were falling down his face, and it twisted into something I’d never seen on the usually affable man.

“Can’t do that, Dean,” he said raising a gun to me. “They said my family would be spared, and I could live alongside them as an ambassador. All I had to do was make sure to shut it off.”

My heart was racing, but I tried to keep the worry from my voice. “You don’t really believe that, do you? You would sacrifice all of those lives just for yours and your family’s? That’s not the Ray I know. Put down the gun. There’s another way. I know how to save them and get rid of these bastards. Trust me.” It was a bit of a lie, but I was grasping at straws.

His hand shook; his finger was on the trigger. “It’s not possible. They’re too powerful. They won’t stop until they have this planet.”

Gunshots rang from above, and Ray’s eyes left me for a moment to look upwards at the noise. I kicked out, knocking the gun from his hands. I pulled my own gun from my pants just too late. Ray’s large frame was on me quickly, tackling me to the ground. My gun went off as his full weight pressed on top of me. I panicked, trying to feel if I had been shot. My stomach felt wet, but there was no pain.

“I’m sorry, Dean. Remember that. You’re a good man… you were a good friend,” Ray said, coughing blood out beside me. “Take care of them if you can. Don’t tell them about…” I rolled him off me, sure he wasn’t going to be breathing for long. I ran to the machine and looked for the on button. Instead, I found a lit key pad with numbers on it. With bloody fingers, I pressed a sequence I knew – though I wasn’t sure why – and it came to life. Light enveloped the room and I had to close my eyes tight, covering them with my arm to keep it from blinding me. Soon the light dissipated, leaving me standing there in a dim room, machine whirring away, and Ray’s body in the doorway. The gunfire had ceased.

I stopped to see if Ray was alive, but he just lay there, unmoving, eyes still open. I shut them with my hand and a tear rolled down my dirty face. I really couldn’t trust anyone. If they had gotten to Ray before all of this, how could I trust any of the others? Maybe Mary was in on it. Maybe Natalia would shoot me on the spot and come back to turn this thing off. I grabbed Ray’s gun and put it in my pants, leaving me holding the gun Ray was killed with. I choked back a gag as I thought about the fact that I’d just murdered a man. A man I’d known. A man I had really liked. This was war, I told myself, and if I hadn’t done it, we had no hope of survival.

It didn’t help. I vomited in the doorway, staggering out of the small room and down the tight hall. I raised my gun and crept out of the crack leading to the ancient plaza.

Mary was over by the ship talking with Magnus and Natalia. Were they conspiring against me? I put my gun up and called out to them. “Put your weapons down!” I walked forward, doing my best SWAT team impression from the movies I’d seen. I was sure I looked a fool, but they all turned wide-eyed and slowly lowered their weapons.

“Dean, what are you doing? What’s happening? This ship came down, and three of them beamed down, shooting at us. Magnus here shot one of them as we ducked behind that crumbled wall,” Mary said, voice shaky.

I could see all of the damage. Holes were missing all around us, and the ground was cut open where the ship had ripped the land open like a can opener over the twins. I moved to under the ship and there lay three large creatures. They were almost humanoid, with small black eyes, no hair to be seen, and pale white skin, like a worm whose whole life had been spent under a rock. Green ooze pooled from their mouths. Janine had been mixed up with these things? It was hard to imagine.

“Vanessa lied to us, Mary. They all lied to us. Bob, Kate…Janine. They were working for these bastards. The device was planted here by those guys.” I nodded to the twins’ smaller ship, still hovering there. “They were the race taken over. Most of them are dead, but they kept a few enslaved to use as diplomats. Or maybe just fodder for war. I’m not sure. Some of them broke free and came here centuries ago. This whole place was built to hide this thing. Those pale aliens can’t be near it. They wanted Earth but couldn’t come while this was turned on. So they sent expendables to convince us this was the right move. What more dramatic event than all of humanity being whisked away could make a bunch of skilled humans come to their race’s aid? We had to believe it was true.”

They just stood there listening to my story. I wasn’t actually sure if I was being a hundred percent accurate, but I knew I was damn close. “Did Vanessa die when she came close to here?” I asked, sure of the answer.

“Yeah, she wanted to come up, but she was so weak. She collapsed and vomited some green liquid, and was gone. I see those things did the same.” Mary pointed at the dead aliens.

“I think these guys have zero tolerance of the device. The hybrids could live for years if they were far away from it, but the closer Vanessa got, the worse off she was,” I said.

“Dean, where’s Ray?” Mary asked quietly.

The pressure build-up in me came to a boil and I crouched down, worried I might vomit again. “He was with them. They told him his family would be safe. He just had to make sure it was shut down. He was with them the whole time.”

Mary crouched down beside me and put her hand on mine. “I’m sorry, Dean. But I’m glad you’re here. How did you know? How did you know all of this?”

“I didn’t. After I ran from the ship on the hill in Colombia, I saw a guy that looked just like the one Vanessa had shot when he was trying to warn me in Florida. Then I saw them again when we entered Peru.”

Magnus cut me short. “Why the hell didn’t you tell us? We could have helped!”

“I didn’t know what to believe or who to trust. I’m sorry, guys. It was just too much. Janine was their mole. She chose me instead of the guy they intended for her, and I just had a memory of her meeting with one of the twin guys in our house. They gave me the code to turn the device back on, should it fail. I had no recollection until I came here.” It all sounded so crazy.

“What do we do now? They’re going to retaliate.” Magnus ran his hands over his close-cropped hair. Natalia was almost pacing around us. I handed her the gun by my feet. She took it and smiled at me.

“We give ‘em what they deserve,” I said with a smile.

We heard some noise from the hole in the ground by the twins’ ship. A hand grabbed the rock and we ran over to it. One of them had survived, though he looked worse for wear. His hairpiece had fallen off, and he was bleeding all over. Magnus grabbed his arm and hauled him up.

The alien’s back against the dirt, his eyes closed, he spoke in his monotone way. “We hit them up there, and end this today.”

TWENTY-ONE

“The man was communicating with them somehow. Find it,” he gasped.

The computer! When I’d met him, he kept going on about his computer and how he needed batteries and other things from the electronics store in New York. That had to be it. He’d sold out humanity for his life and his family’s, and I almost couldn’t blame him for it. I wondered if I would have done the same for Janine’s life, under different circumstances. It was easy to judge someone else, but harder to look in the mirror.

“Where’s the computer?” I asked Mary.

“I think it’s in the car still,” she quickly answered.

“Nat, can you run back and get it?” Magnus asked, but she was already making her way back down the ancient city of ruins.

“What’s your name?” Mary asked the alien.

“Teelon. We’re called the Deltra. We won’t have a lot of time. They’ll be wondering why they haven’t heard back from their ship or the human soon. They’ll want news of the device,” he said.

“Can you get up?”

“Yes. I think so.” Magnus helped him to a sitting position.

“What’s the plan, Teelon?” I asked, wondering if he was thinking what I was. I glanced at Mary, and hoped she was as good a pilot as I thought she was.

“First things first. We need to get that device out of its hiding place.”

“I’m on it. Dean, you with me?” Magnus grabbed my shoulder. I dreaded going back down that tunnel to see Ray’s dead body.

“Yes. It’s going to be a tight fit down there; I hope we can get it out.” My stomach was already queasy.

“I have a plan for that.” He walked over to the dead aliens and grabbed one of their blasters. He tested it, firing a red beam into a wall. It tore a hole the size of a basketball in the rock. “I think this will do the excavating trick.” He slung it over his shoulder. Natalia was running back with a computer in her hands.

Teelon was already working at it as we headed to the crack in the plaza wall. We were soon back down the stairs and hall. Magnus went first and slid Ray’s body to the edge of the space.

“I didn’t know him, but I’m sorry it came to this, Dean,” Magnus said calmly. I could tell he meant the words. For a big guy, he wore his heart on his sleeve. I patted him on the arm and thanked him. The device appeared to be built into the stone, almost like a screen on a wall.

“I don’t know how big it is, or how deep it goes. Whatever you do, don’t turn the thing off,” I said as he grabbed an edge and slowly tried to pry it free. It moved, and dust sifted to the ground as the large Swede rocked it back and forth, eventually loosening it. It was only two feet from side to side, about one and a half feet tall, and when he got it out, we saw that it was about three feet deep. He grunted, sweat pouring down his face, and soon he had it resting on the ground beside Ray.

We each took an end and carried it up and out to the crack in the wall. Carey barked as we struggled to fit it through.

“Stand back,” Magnus said, unslinging the laser from his shoulder. I ducked back and crouched over the device to keep it safe. He fired two rounds at the entrance, and rock crumbled around us. He groaned as he lifted the huge stone blocks out of the way, and then we were back to carrying it through and into the night air. It was still whirring away, a constant alien repellent.

Teelon’s eyes went wide at the sight of it, and he muttered something that sounded like a mantra over and over. This was from his ancestors, and I was sure he’d been waiting for this moment a long time. He was helping save a race, and at the same time, hopefully helping his own.

“I used Ray’s computer to tell them there’s been a setback. We have to get into their ship and reiterate the message,” the alien said as he struggled to get to his feet.

“Just how do we do that?” Mary asked.

“Easy, follow me.” We went with him to where the ship was hovering above us. It was about fifty feet in the air, and had to be two hundred feet long, another fifty wide. Twice the size, at least, of Teelon’s ship. He muttered as he grabbed something from each of the three aliens’ collars.

“The three of you will go in this one. One can come with me in my ship.” Carey barked at this.

“Don’t worry, boy. I wouldn’t go anywhere without you.” I petted him for a moment.

“Teelon, can you show Mary how to fly this thing?” I asked. Mary’s eyes went wide at first, and then a smile slowly spread on her beautiful face. At that moment, I wanted to go over to her and kiss her.

“I think so,” he said. “Come.” He pinned one of the things from their collars on Mary’s shirt, then one on Natalia’s and his own. “We’ll be right back. Please bring the Kalentrek over here. We will come back for it.”

“Kalen…what? Is that what you call it?” I asked.

“Yes. Roughly translated to shield in your language.” He tapped each of their collars and a green light shone down, starting to lift them up to the ship. My pendant began to burn hot, and I could see everyone else’s light up too. They still lifted, and Mary even gave a whoop as she entered the ship like a ghost. They were gone, leaving Magnus, Carey, and me alone on Machu Picchu in the dark.

__________

We sat on the ground as light from the sun peeked over the distant horizon. It was amazing up here, and I felt like I was on the top of the world. It had been hours since the ship had left with our friends in it. We had nothing to do but wait. We’d gone back to Ray and Mary’s car and found some food for us and Carey to share, along with some water. Magnus puffed on a cigar he found in Ray’s bag –the ones I’d asked him to get in Florida before Vanessa had shot one of our allies.

Had Ray and Vanessa known about each other? Had they been working together from the start? I thought about the ships knowing where we were, seeing them while in the boat during a storm. They hadn’t meant to stop us, just to drive us here to disarm the device that meant their death. The shield, as Teelon had called it. As fitting a name as any, I supposed.

“I do hope they come back. This isn’t over yet. Do you think we can really do this?” I asked him, accepting a cigar when he offered one. I puffed it while he held the lighter to the end, and I coughed when I inhaled the first blast of smoke. It had been a while since I’d had one of these, but soon I was puffing at it like an old pro.

“They’ll be back. Those ladies will know how to fly that thing in no time. Natalia can fly just about anything,” he said.

My gut told me to trust Teelon, but what if he’d just taken them to separate us. I stubbed out the cigar, my gut feeling all of a sudden queasy. I changed the subject.

“So are you two…you know…” I left it unsaid.

“I love her, yes. She’s a tough nut to crack. I think she loves me too, though she would never say it.” He laughed as if he’d made the biggest joke of his life. “Not that she says much.”

“Have you ever heard her talk?”

“Never. I think before everything, she did, but something snapped in her when she was taken. I don’t know what those guys did to her, but I have an idea.” He looked down at his hands as if to see if they still had blood on them. I was pretty sure I knew what had happened to those men after Magnus had found those girls being transported.

“You’re a good man, Magnus.” I clapped him on the back and we sat there as the sun rose over the hills in the distance. For the first time, I got a good look at Machu, and it was breathtaking. I could see why so many people were drawn here. I wondered what they would think if we got everyone back to Earth and told them humanity’s savior had been hiding here all along. As long as we could make this work.

My heart jumped as I saw a ship coming in at full speed towards us. I desperately hoped it was our friends and not the aliens coming to pulverize us. It slowed abruptly and came to a stop, hovering above us. Green lights lowered and Mary, Natalia, and our new friend Teelon sank to the ground. Mary rushed over to me and kissed me firmly on the mouth.

“Someone was smoking,” she said, grabbing my unlit cigar and putting it between her teeth. “That was the most awesome thing of my life. A girl could get used to a ride like that.”

She was talking excitedly and even Natalia was grinning ear to ear.

“Let’s do this! Time to kick some alien ass!” Mary yelled, the word ass echoing down the mountain valley.

It was exciting to see her all ramped up like this, and I could still feel her lips against mine. I hoped no one noticed my red cheeks. This was no time for my emotions to get all stirred up. We had the human race to save.

“Natalia will come with me in my ship. You two go with Mary.” He clipped two small metal broaches on our collars. It was only then that I realized I hadn’t had a real shower in a few days, and my shirt, along with the rest of me, was utterly dirty.

“Nat, are you okay with that? I can go with him if you like.” Magnus walked over to her and took her hand in his. She looked tiny next to him.

She nodded and kissed him softly. I glanced over at Mary, and this time, I swear she blushed a bit.

Teelon moved to his ship. “She may have to do the flying. My time might expire before this day is through. I think I have internal bleeding, and I fear the worst. She seemed to have great understanding of flying, and I know she’ll be capable. I also showed her the weapons system, should the need arise. We’ll be able to communicate between ships; I’ve programmed that one to my frequency, which is hidden from the Kraski. You know the plan. Now let’s see this through.”

Mary explained how Teelon had implanted knowledge of the ship into their brains with a small cable. There was a small dab of blood on the side of her forehead. I couldn’t believe they could just download data into a human like that, but Teelon assured us the process had been tested, since the hybrids had need of the technology as well. Apparently, the data transfer wasn’t perfected, because Mary said there was a lot of it she didn’t quite understand, like the translation was cut short. Natalia nodded as she explained it.

“But you’re confident enough to fly it, right?” I asked, hoping we didn’t need to rely on the dying alien beside us. I wished there was something one of us could do, but we weren’t doctors, and internal bleeding wasn’t something we could help with.

“Yeah, I can do this for sure,” she said confidently.

“You got it, Teelon,” I said. “We’re ready.”

We lifted the heavy Shield to underneath the ship, and on Teelon’s word, we pressed the little metal buttons pinned to our shirts. The green light shone down again, and I was glad I had moved the pendant from under my shirt. It was glowing red hot. I could see Mary’s ring around her neck, plunging down her dirty tank top. It burned a hot green too. We floated upwards and it was the strangest feeling.

So this was what everyone had felt when they were taken less than a week ago, only for them, it was massively terrifying. For me, it was only mildly terrifying. I’d never been a huge fan of heights, but I could deal with them. I didn’t mind being on the Empire State Building or at the top of a ski hill, but the feeling of floating up, with no control and nothing under my feet, was a whole new level of odd.

Magnus seemed to be doing okay, and he was carrying the Shield device by himself, his huge arms bulging at the weight. I felt embarrassed to just be carrying the pack with water and food, and Carey nestled into my neck. He panted scared breaths on me as we rose. Mary was smiling wide, like it was the best ride ever. The view from here was undeniably gorgeous, but it was hard to focus on it at the time. Moments passed, the ground got farther away, and then we approached the ship. My instincts were to stretch my hands out over my head to keep from hitting myself on the ship’s underside. Instead, my hands just went through the wall, and soon my head did too.

TWENTY-TWO

It was the strangest feeling to move through matter like that. It was a technology Earth had never seen before, and I wondered when this was all over if we would have a new ally with Teelon’s people, the Deltra. There was so much we could learn from them.

My body emerged into the ship, and before that moment, I hadn’t really thought what the inside of one of them would look like. It was dimly lit, and the only detectable scent was the musk of us humans. The room we came into was quite spacious and had storage compartments lining the metal walls. The floor was also metal, polished smooth and shiny.

“Teelon adjusted the air levels to be breathable to us. They and the Kraski have similar breathing element percentages as we do, which biologically is extremely interesting. My father would love to learn more about that.” Mary paused at that, as if she just remembered her father was somewhere up in space at that moment. “I hope he’s okay. This way, guys.”

“Dean, wanna give me a hand with this thing?” Magnus asked.

I grabbed an end and we lowered it to the ground, away from the tractor beam, or whatever it was called. Anywhere on this ship would be safe. All we had to do was make sure it stayed turned on, as long as we got it onto their mother ship.

We followed Mary down a hall. The whole place had an ominous, sterile feeling to me, and I had a flashback to Janine’s time in the hospital. I shook it off as we approached what could only be described as the cockpit. There were two seats facing a large dashboard of glowing controls. Otherwise, there was room to stand, and not a lot else.

“How do we see out?” I asked, and Mary hit a button, causing the wall in front of us to go transparent. The viewing port was at least ten feet across and four feet high. We could see for miles down the mountain, and the Peru day was shaping up to be a beautiful one with clear skies, but we wouldn’t be here to enjoy it.

“Wow. Are you sure you can fly this thing?” Magnus asked.

“I’m Air Force. Of course I can,” she said with a smirk. She was sexy when she went all cocky like that. She tapped a button and told us it was for communication. Magnus settled into the seat and held it down.

“Nat, Teelon, we’re ready to fly the coop. Are you guys good? Over.”

There was no crackle, just a clear, crisp voice. “We’re good. Follow us up. We’ll lead the way.”

The smaller ship hovered above us and soon we were jutting after it. The ride was a little bumpy.

“Well, I said I can fly it. Just takes a while to get used to the thrusters. They’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before. No visible exhaust points…it’s almost like there are little thrusters all around the ship, so you can hover and move any direction, with more accuracy than a helicopter. It’s amazing,” Mary said, excited.

We rose up and the land below us got smaller and smaller.

“I always wanted to become an astronaut someday. I know it sounds silly, but a lot of them come from an Air Force background. I didn’t have the required degree to make the switch, but it had always been an idea I’d had. That maybe one day I would go back to school. The government would pay for it. Then I’d apply with NASA.”

“Well, now you get to do something even better. Fly in space and save the world. That’s all in a day’s work for Mary Lafontaine.” I could tell she smiled when I said this just by the movement of the back of her head.

We rose higher and higher, picking up speed as we went.

“Why are they going to just let us board again?” Magnus asked.

“Teelon used their communicators from the ship and told them there was an issue with the device being shut down. That the three Kraski were coming back because they were exposed to it and needed medical attention. He’s sure they’ll send another ship or two down to investigate things, but by that time, we’ll have dealt with them.”

“They must really think Teelon’s people are docile if they let them roam around in their own ships,” I suggested.

“From the sounds of it, they’ve been playing at being weak for centuries, waiting for the right moment to strike. You show your belly to a predator for enough years, they forget that you also have teeth. I’m just glad they decided to show them when humanity needed it,” Mary said.

“I wonder how many of his people are aboard that ship. And will they all help when the Kraski are down?” Magnus asked no one in particular.

“Let’s just hope they do. First things first, we have to stop them, then save our people. Then we can worry about what happens after that.” I believed the words as I said them. It was all too overwhelming if we thought too far into the future. We’d been led to believe all we had to do was shut this thing off and we would be done. After the journey halfway across the world, we had done what we’d thought was necessary. It wasn’t done. I thought about Ray, and how it was done for him. I would find his family and tell them he was a good man. That he had cared for them very deeply. I couldn’t blame him for trying what he did.

We raced through the atmosphere, and the ship jostled around a little bit. Mary kept focus, and she let out a whoop as we broke out and into the blackness of space. My jaw fell open as I saw Earth from above for the first time. It was a moment I knew I’d never forget, but I’d been having a lot of those lately. Magnus looked back at me and smiled. “Now that’s something you don’t see every day!”

We followed the smaller ship away from Earth. I had no idea what direction we were heading because to me, that all went out the window in three-dimensional mapping. They sat, and I stood in silence as Mary navigated us a safe distance behind them. I didn’t know how far out the so-called “mother ship” would be, but for some reason, I had expected it to be closer than the moon. I also had no idea how fast we were going. There was nothing for me to gauge this against, and it wasn’t like I could read the speedometer.

I took the time to look around the ship a bit as we rode through space. Carey followed behind, nose sniffing rapidly at everything. They must have had something to create artificial gravity, because I stepped along the floor with my feet firmly planted on it. It felt a little lighter than Earth, and I tested it with a small hop. I was sure I had a little longer hang time than I would on the surface at home. The ship was plain, with metal walls and floors. Nothing decorated it; everything appeared to be about function, not fashion. To the left of the cockpit there was a small room with two bunks in it. They had shiny silver bedding. I felt it between my hands and the material was softer than anything I’d touched before. They were so similar to us, yet so different.

I pictured one of the pale humanoid aliens sleeping here only a day before, and it struck me that we were about to kill a lot of them. I knew we were just defending ourselves, but the idea of genocide of that level…of any level… was going to be tough to do lightly. They were Janine’s people. Well, partly her people. She was a hybrid, after all. It was hard to feel for them, since they’d taken our entire population and we still didn’t know where they were.

Next to that room was another identical one, then what must have been a washroom, though I hadn’t the vaguest idea how anything inside it would work. Maybe it was engineering, not a bathroom.

I made my way to the front of the ship as the moon sailed by us through the viewscreen.

“That was amazing,” Mary said quietly, hands still firmly on the controls.

“How much further do you think we have to go?” I asked, hoping she had an idea.

“Let me ask,” Magnus said. “Teelon, do you know what our estimated time of arrival is? Over.”

“We should be able to view the mother ship soon. Don’t be alarmed when you see it. We mustn’t seem out of place. When they try to communicate, signal me and I’ll reply through our connected systems. Over.”

It was only a few minutes before it came into our sight. It was tiny at first, but I had no idea how far away it was. The closer we got, the larger it started to get. Soon we spotted two ships coming toward us. My heart hammered as they approached. Mary said they couldn’t see through our viewscreen, and I hoped she was right. Wouldn’t that be a sight to see? Three humans coming at them, jaws hanging to the ground.

The communicator buzzed, and we heard a strange language come through the smooth speakers. Magnus buzzed Teelon, who proceeded to reply in their language. He must have been disguising his voice as one of the sick Kraskis, because it didn’t sound much like his usual monotone self. They spun around us and flanked us on either side.

“I guess we get an escort in,” Mary said.

“Teelon was hoping most of the fleet was in the hangars on their main ship. Less to deal with afterwards,” I said, scanning the space for signs of more ships.

The massive Kraski ship grew immensely as we closed in, though I still had no idea how big it must have been. I tried to do the math, thinking about the thousands of ships that had hovered over Earth, then the huge black cubes that had lowered, taking all the humans with them. That was a lot of ships and a lot of space to hold all of those people. Where were the cubes now? A ship to house the Kraski along with their fleet would be astronomical in size. I figured we would be making it to a docking station in a few minutes, but it turned out to be closer to forty minutes. Forty minutes of us nervously talking as the unbelievably huge ship took over our viewscreen.

“We’ll be arriving shortly. I told them we came along as an escort for the Kraski on board your ship. The device’s potency almost killed you all. I think they bought it, but they’ll be arriving on Earth soon with their backup ships. It’s only a matter of minutes before they find out the truth. If the ships beside you do anything odd, you have to make for the blinking green lights at two o’clock from here. Mary, do you understand?”

She pressed the comm-button and said she did. I really hoped it didn’t come to that. The last couple minutes went by as we sat there sweating bullets.

“Are we sure we thought this through? I mean…what if it doesn’t work?” I asked.

Magnus looked back at me, his eyes hard as steel. “It has to, my friend. It’s the only shot we have.”

Word must not have gotten back to them from back on Earth, because everything was still smooth sailing. The Kraski home ship was smooth on the outside and shaped much like a rounded rectangle. A panel slid open into a hangar; it wouldn’t even have been noticeable from a few miles away, the ship was so large compared to us. As we neared the slit to enter, the ships beside us turned and tried to get in between Teelon’s ship and the hangar. Before we knew what was going on, Teelon veered left and up, red beams firing from his ship at the guides. The first shot glanced off some sort of force field on the ship, and so did the second, but the third in quick succession made it through and the enemy exploded into a million pieces in front of us. The second ship chased after Teelon, its own red beams firing quickly.

Magnus tensed, but spoke calmly to Mary. “Honey, get inside this ship and beam me down. As fast as you can!”

The ship jerked around as she tried to slow it down and avoid any debris still floating nearby from the explosion. Red lights flashed all around us now, and a blaring alarm rang as we came up to the hangar. The door that had opened to let us in as friends only a few minutes before was now trying to close on us, to keep us out. Mary clipped the bottom of the ship on it, but we made it through, crashing into at least five of the hovering ships inside.

“Teelon said we need to get this thing out of the ship! Something about the ships having a little immunity to pulse or some crap. Inside here there’s no protection from it. These purebred will wither away! Mary, stay here and wait for us. I have a feeling we’re going to need a quick exit!” Magnus was yelling as he ran down the hall to the transport room.

I followed him, and when we had the device in our arms, we hit the buttons on our collars. The green light surrounded us and we lowered through the ship and down toward the smooth floor of the hangar. The Shield we held hummed as we neared the ground, and we set it down, standing behind it. A door hissed open across the room from us and someone tumbled down the stairs. It was a Kraski; green vomit came from its mouth and it stopped moving. More poured into the room, all reacting the same way.

“Do we just stay here? This ship is huge. Didn’t Teelon say something about a hall?” I asked, knowing Magnus wouldn’t have the answer.

“Let’s stay put for now,” he said, pulling his gun out. We moved behind some crates, and found a wall lined with armor and weapons. “Can’t hurt,” he said, and threw a vest over his chest. He also grabbed one of the guns he’d tested on Earth, slung it over his shoulder, and passed me one.

Another door opened and more Kraski came in. They all died in seconds. Word would get out what was here, and they’d retaliate. We had to think of something.

“We need to get out of here before they open that door, and remove the barrier field to space. For all we know, we go flying along with that shield into oblivion.” His logic was sound. I threw one of the vests on, and a helmet for good measure. It almost fit. It was creepy how similar our two races were.

It was hard to see in the room, with the red lights flashing and the alarms blaring in our ears. I let Magnus take the lead, and he crossed from storage unit to storage unit so smoothly that it would have been hard to spot him if you were watching from either of the entrances. I tried to do my best impression of him and almost tripped a couple times.

“We need to get to the center of this ship. Teelon said there would be levels within levels on here, like ventilation ducting, only larger. I guess every few floors has space for Teelon’s people to get around, out of sight of the Kraski,” Magnus said, back pressed against the far metal wall. I had to ram my ear right up to his mouth to even hear him over the noise.

“We just have to find one of them!” I called back as a few more pale aliens entered the room and fell to their deaths, spewing the green mucus as their bodies gave out. I felt the urge to spew myself, but fought it and spotted something twenty feet across, on the opposite wall. We would have to pass by the doorway, but from the looks of things, the Kraski weren’t going to have much time to fire on us before they would expire in proximity to this thing. Even now, the furthest of them on the ship would be weakening. Janine had lasted years on Earth, but she was mostly human, and thousands of miles from the thing. Up here, they had no chance. But the longer we waited, the bigger the chance of something messing up.

“Over here! The rest of the wall is smooth, but that part isn’t. Looks like a vent…and large enough to get through,” I yelled to his ear. Magnus nodded, took a moment to think, and ran out, firing the gun he’d pilfered. The red beam blew a hole in the wall three feet across and we could see a dimly-lit passageway beyond.

“Let’s grab the Shield and head down the tube,” he said. “And hope it leads us near the center somewhere.”

We rushed back near the ship, grunted as we lifted the heavy device, and made for the hall as fast as we could. One of the Kraski fired at us from the entrance, creating a crater in the floor in front of us. He died right after, and we narrowly missed hitting the hole. Once back on balance, we entered the opening Magnus had blasted and kept moving.

“Maybe such an obvious escape wasn’t necessary,” he said.

“I think we’re committed now. They know we’re here. I just hope if this all goes well, that we can find our way back to Mary. You don’t have any bread crumbs, do you?” I asked.

Magnus slowed and shifted the Shield so he was only holding on with his right hand. With his left, he drew his knife. “No, I don’t have any bread, but I do have pants.” He lifted his leg and cut his right pant leg below the knee. I took the full weight of the device for a minute and was amazed that Magnus was able to walk with it alone. My knees almost buckled at the weight of the thing. He hurried, and soon he was dropping a small piece of cloth in the hall. “Just like Hansel and Gretel, hey, Dean? Let’s just hope there’s no witch at the end of this tunnel.” I almost laughed but couldn’t. Not yet.

We kept moving, and since we hadn’t shifted direction, we knew we must still be heading toward the interior. “How big do you think this ship is?”

Magnus’ face scrunched up. “I was never the mathematical type. We had that guy in the crew, though. His name was Otter. He could look at anything from any distance and know the size of it. To be honest, I think he may have had magical powers.”

“Why did you call him Otter?”

“He swam really well. What do you think?”

I didn’t reply and couldn’t tell if Magnus was just having fun with me or not. I couldn’t believe how calm he was, but then again, he had probably been through countless terrible situations in his line of work. What was the big deal? Just invading an alien mother ship with a device that would kill them all.

“I think I heard Teelon say there were about thirty hangars along the sidewall. The ships hover in them, and I would say that room was about eighty feet high. At minimum, this ship is twenty-four hundred feet. I would say closer to three thousand, accounting for the floors between each hangar, and the space above and below the top and bottom hangars. We’re looking at a mile tall. It looked at least twice as long as it was high, so a couple miles wide. As for depth, I would just throw a guess at close to a mile as well. We only have to take this thing half a mile.” I had no idea as to the accuracy of my guess, but I knew we were close to that target.

The hall was about eight feet across. Unlike the floor on the ships and the hangar, it was a metal grate-like composition. There were dim white lights illuminating as we moved on, then turning off as we passed by. It reminded me of those fancy grocery stores we’d gotten last year with the occupancy-sensor freezer section. A routine task like grocery shopping seemed a lifetime ago at that moment, and I wondered if there was ever any going back to that life after all of this.

My back was killing me as we trudged this thing down the hall. Soon we stopped and set it down. We stood back to back with it between our legs, and we held our newfound guns up in front of us. Alarms still blared from all directions, but the floor and walls muted the noise down here.

“What happens now? This ship is big, but there’s no way everyone from Earth is on here. Where are those massive vessels? Teelon didn’t seem to share much about what we do after this,” I said, nervously waiting for something bad to come down the hall.

“I’m not sure. Didn’t you mention Vanessa told you a story about the Kraski and her people? What did she say happened to them?”

“I couldn’t trust her; she was saying she was from the race abducted thousands of years ago. They kept five percent and killed the rest. How they achieved that, I don’t know. I have a feeling she was just retelling Teelon’s people’s story for sympathy.”

“If they were beamed out, for all we know, they took our people away, or to another planet,” he said.

He was right, but I didn’t think it was going to be that complicated. I just hoped we weren’t too late.

We stood like that until my arms got tired and my leg started to cramp up. I thought about Mary in the ship in the hangar and Carey sitting there with her, both of them probably sick with worry. I assumed the worst for Teelon and Natalia, out there alone. Teelon had said he would have allies here among his people, and this would double as their race’s first strike of liberation against their oppressors. Just how many were back at the Kraskis’ home world was anyone’s guess.

The machine’s constant hum slowed, and I panicked, turning to look at it. The lights on it were dimming, the noise getting softer and softer. We stared at it blankly, horrified it might be turning off and leaving us for dead in the middle of the enemy’s territory. It whirred on for a moment and then, like a flashlight running out of battery power, it stopped completely. The alarms ran on, and we could hear footsteps coming from down the hall.

TWENTY-THREE

Magnus got to his knee and held his gun up, ready to blast anyone coming at us. I moved back a ways and aimed from my feet, hoping to catch another angle. My hands shook at the anticipation of having to shoot someone else, and visions of Ray’s dying body crept into my mind. You’re a good man. You were a good friend. I could still hear him gasping his final words. I blinked quickly to clear them and felt sweat drip down my forehead. When did it get so hot?

The occupancy lights were coming on now to match the footsteps coming closer. The louder the steps, the closer the lights were getting to us. My finger shook beside the trigger, ready to pull if I had to, but scared to do it.

“Dean, Magnus!” a monotone voice called down the hall. “Teelon sent us to help you.”

We lowered our guns and Magnus fell back, resting his back on the wall. Sweat was dripping off him too, and suddenly, I didn’t feel so foolish. We were in this together.

“Did we win? Are we good?” I said as they approached. They looked like the twins, no visible hair, and plain jump suits on.

A small, almost invisible smile crossed the alien’s face. “They are all gone. We are finally liberated!” Dozens of them came down the hall and soon they were all cheering loudly. We even threw a couple whoops in with them until I remembered why we were really there.

“Where are our people?” I asked.

The cheering stopped quickly as the man speaking to us raised an arm. “Come with us. We will bring you to them. I am called Drendon, leader of the Deltra.”

We followed them back towards the hangar a way, but made a turn at some point before making it all the way back. He wouldn’t respond to any of my further prodding, only saying all would be clear soon. He praised our skills and tenacity at accomplishing something so miraculous. I was beaming as I thought about all I’d been through in the last week. I couldn’t wait to be reunited with everyone I loved. My mother was probably scared to death. I couldn’t wait to find James and see the look on his face when he found out I’d helped save them all. He would owe me beer and wings for life after all of this.

Drendon led us to a metal staircase and we followed behind, coming out in a large room. It was large and open, bright with soft white light, and computer consoles were everywhere. The bridge of this ship maybe, though I couldn’t see any viewscreen or windows. I was sure all of that was available through some sort of camera or sensor system.

“Where are they?” I asked, looking around. It would be hard to hide seven billion people.

Drendon went to a computer screen on the wall and swiped his hands across in a few quick movements. The wall moved and a massive screen appeared. On it were dozens of cubes, maybe as many as a hundred.

“That’s them? How do we get them back?” I asked, suddenly feeling queasy.

The camera zoomed out, and the ships shrank to a tenth their size. In the near distance, the sun roared hot. “You don’t, human.”

“You son of a bitch! What have you done?” Magnus grabbed my shirt, pulling me back, and raised his gun. I looked around and saw dozens of their weapons pointing at us. We were helpless but continued to stand resolute in the large silent room.

“In a few hours, your world’s population will be disintegrated, and we will be the sole heirs to Earth. Redemption for the centuries of oppression under the Kraski. They were so arrogant. I can’t believe it was this easy. All we had to do was convince them to come here, so many years after we planted the Kalentrek. We had been building it to protect ourselves from their imminent invasion but hadn’t finished in time.” Drendon’s thin lips curled up in a hideous smile.

“Why tell us this?” I asked, hoping to keep him talking.

“Because it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s done. We orchestrated the emancipation of our race and gained a planet in doing so. Hidden away, our savior finished the Kalentrek, with every intention of freeing us from them, only he couldn’t find us. He came upon this world, planted it, and sent us a message. Centuries later, we’re finally here. We played the long game but won in the end.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this. We can coexist. Just help me get our people back and let’s go back down together. We have so much we can learn from one another.” I pleaded my case.

He looked at me, head slightly turned to the side. “There is nothing you can teach us. Your race is deplorable, human.” He turned to an armed guard beside him. “Kill them.”

I tensed, knowing this was it for me. We had come so close, but not close enough. It was all an intricate game, and we had been played by both sides. As I closed my eyes, I heard someone drop beside me. Turning to the sound, I saw the guards dropping one by one. Magnus started to fire and we ran to the back of the room, ducking fire every step of the way.

“Over here!” someone yelled at us. It was Mary! She was firing volley after volley of red beams into their group, dropping them like flies. We rushed to her and Magnus turned, joining the firing frenzy. I climbed behind them and ran down the stairs and into the passageway that would lead us back to the dock.

“Let’s go!” I yelled, and soon Mary was running down the cramped cavity, I was in the middle and Magnus was bringing up the rear. We almost passed the Shield we’d left sitting in the hall and decided we might still need it. Adrenaline was the only reason Magnus and I could find the energy to haul the thing all the way back.

We made it unimpeded for a few minutes but could hear fire behind us. As we approached the bay we had landed in, one of them stepped into the entranceway and fired a shot at us. It grazed Mary’s leg, and she stumbled before firing a kill shot, dropping the alien in the doorway. We hopped over his body and ran at the ship. Pressing the buttons on our shirts, we lifted up in the green light and toward the ship’s belly, red beams shot around us, and I could swear one went right through me. Soon we were back into the sterile ship, and Carey was jumping on me, trying to lick my hands. I gave him a quick pet as we rushed to the cockpit, where Mary fired up the ship.

“There are no bays open,” I said, turning my head to the sound of laser fire pulsing against the shields.

“Hang on to your socks, boys. We’re going out with a bang.”

The ship lifted in the bay, red alarm lights flashing in our view port. She paused over some controls, and with a confident keystroke, a massive pulse shot out of the front of the ship. We hovered there as the wall to the stations crumbled and space’s vacuum sucked everything around us out. Teelon’s people floated past us, dead.

“Let’s get the hell out of here. We have no idea how many of them are around,” Mary said.

Our sensors showed green dots emerging from the massive cube behind us.

“Shit! I see at least four. I have a feeling there weren’t a lot of the Deltras on that thing. I really wish I knew if Natalia was okay. We could use her help right about now, if Teelon didn’t harm her.” I stood behind the pilot’s seat trying to hide my adrenaline-riddled shaking hands.

“We do what we have to do, gents,” Mary said as our ship lurched to the side. She let out a yell and started firing at the Deltras. Their shields held for the first few blasts, but with her unpredictable pattern of shots, three of them exploded and burned out in quick order. Mary raced past a cluster of four ships, firing in all directions as she did. One of the ships just went dark and floated there, while the others chased after her, firing shots at us. We took a few, but she also evaded many, red pulses continuing on past our front view port.

“Bogey coming up quickly from our left!” Magnus called, sitting down beside Mary. He took over the weapons as she spun through space, like a bat out of hell. Meat Loaf’s song raced through my mind as another ship was destroyed. I felt like I was holding my breath, and gasped when I saw a couple more green lights appear on our screen.

“There’s more of them.” I knew Mary was good but didn’t see how we could possibly get out of this.

“We don’t have much of a choice. Their ships are the same, and I’ve no idea if this Kraski one is any faster than their smaller ships. There’s no running.” She gave a quick glance back at me. “We stand here, for all of humanity.”

I almost laughed at the cheesy line, but she was right. The Deltras that we had been fighting had eased off and limped back behind the fresh ships coming in. There were five in total, and I hoped that was it for their fleet. We were only one.

Mary eased the ship forward as they began approaching, red beams firing at us. The strangest thing happened. One of the ships in their cluster exploded and took two others down with it.

“What was that?” Magnus asked.

Mary had taken the controls back, saying she’d be more in sync with where she was going and would be more accurate. She ignored him and fired away, cutting down another.

We took another shot and red lights flared up inside our cockpit. That was a severe shot…our shields weren’t going to last. This was it for us.

Then we saw one of their own ships in the back firing away at them, two more exploding before they turned and fired back. With their rears open, Mary fired a volley of shots at them, flying over top. Between us and the ship that was helping us, we finished them off once and for all.

We cheered and I threw a fist pump into the air.

“Mary, you’re amazing!” I yelled to her through the cacophony of screeching sirens and celebration.

We looked at the ship still left floating out there, and I felt my pulse race with uncertainty. Magnus hit the comm-speaker and we went quiet. He found the alarm silencer, and the room was eerily still for a moment. “Nat? Nat, tell me that’s you, babe,” he said into the speaker.

For the first time, she spoke, accent thick. “It’s me, Magnus. It’s me.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Tears flowed down the big man’s face openly, and he laughed as he sobbed. Mary put her arm around his shoulder and he leaned in.

“How…what happened?” I asked through the comm.

There was a pause, and her voice poured through at us, crisp Russian accent marking her long-hidden words. “Teelon has died. He’s succumbed to his wound from Earth. He didn’t betray his people, but I felt something was off. He staggered away when we arrived, lay on a bed, and avoided me. I had to speak to ask him questions. He seemed quite surprised by my voice. He was in pain, and I saw a small mask in his hand. He took a last look at me, said ‘I’m sorry,’ and took a deep breath in the mask – his last breath.”

I stood there in silence, still trying to wrap my head around Natalia speaking. Magnus just nodded slowly.

“They turned on us, Nat. The bastards all used us. The Kraski thought some alien race built the Shield to stop them from coming, but it was the Deltra the whole time. They both just wanted to kill us all. Are you okay?” Worry crept out of his voice in thick droves.

“Da, I’m okay, Magnus,” she said softly. “It was time anyway.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but Magnus just nodded again. I checked the scanner, and there were no green blips anywhere. I hoped they didn’t have another force out there waiting to trap and destroy us. “I think we should get out of here.”

Mary turned back to me and smiled. “Not until we do something to the bastards that did all of this.” She flew toward the huge Kraski vessel and fired at it without mercy. Natalia duplicated her pattern a few hundred yards beside us. They did a full loop and repeated it on the other sides of the vessel. Fire erupted all over the place, and by the time we sped off toward the sun, I knew their huge vessel wasn’t going to be in one piece for too long. So much for the invasion. I wondered if there were some Kraski ships still flying around on Earth, but knew I had to focus on the task at hand first.

“What are our options?” I asked.

“We sit here and do nothing. We go home, and the four of us restart the world’s population,” Mary paused and gave me a sly look, “or we fly to the sun and try to save our people.”

“I vote sun,” Magnus said quickly.

“Sun.”

Carey jumped up on my legs and let out a bark.

“Then it’s settled, gang.” Mary had the frequency open to the smaller ship, where Natalia was alone with a dead alien. “Let’s go get them back!”

We began flying toward the sun in the distance.

“Do you think these things have a warp drive or something?” I asked.

“I have no idea how fast this thing can actually go. Teelon did say there was a hyperdrive built in, but the details from the data transfer were unclear on this part.”

Natalia’s voice poured through the comm. “I think the control to the left of the throttle, for lack of a better word, might be it. I pressed it when I circled back to catch up to the ships and to sneak around them. Stars blurred for a brief second and I was a thousand yards closer.”

“I’m worried that we press it and end up hitting an asteroid, or an old satellite. Maybe I can’t come out in time and we run into the sun. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this. This must be part of the download that didn’t transfer,” Mary said.

I remembered the image of the huge containers full of humans, approaching the burning heat of the sun, and knew we didn’t have time to fly there. It took us long enough to get to the Kraski ship from Earth, and this was much farther.

“I think we have to try. Mary, what if we frog-hop?” I said, thinking of the frogs from the swamp near our farm growing up.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“What if we press and release, doing small jumps like Natalia did, as we’re flying at full speed? We could avoid any debris that shows up on the sensors. We can probably make much better time.” I was an accountant, not a physicist, but the logic made sense to me.

“Da. I think it will work,” Natalia said from the other ship.

“Let’s give it a test and see what we’re working with. Nat, stay a few hundred yards beside and a way back, so we don’t cross each other’s paths out here.” Our ship accelerated as Mary urged it to full speed. “I’m going to press and release and see what happens.”

The ship lurched forward, but by the miracle of the Kraski technology, my feet stayed planted and I didn’t even move back from inertia. It was astounding. For a moment, the view port was lined with stars, and I wanted to say a cheesy line from my favorite childhood sci-fi TV show.

Just as fast as it happened, we slowed and were running at regular speed. From the sensor map, we could tell that Natalia was a few miles behind us. She jumped and her icon flickered, reappearing much closer to us.

“I’d say it works,” Natalia said.

Magnus stood and stretched. “Let’s hightail it and get there before it’s too late.”

I put my hands on Mary’s shoulders and gave them a light squeeze. “I’m going to go get my pack and see if there’s anything in the way of food.” Carey’s ears perked up at this. “I’ll also see if there’s anything else we might be able to use. We have no idea what we’ll be up against when we arrive.”

Mary reached up and squeezed my left hand. “Sounds good. I’ll keep frog-hopping along. Nat, let’s do this.” The stars lurched again, this time for a slightly longer period. I turned and headed out of the room, into the small bunk room. I searched the compartments on the wall and found some Kraski clothing. It was much too large for me to wear and had a strange odor to it, unlike anything I could really describe. I pictured the Kraski we’d seen for brief moments as they died. Pale, bald, beady black eyes; a genocidal species. They’d killed the Deltra without guilt, it appeared, and if I was to believe anything Teelon had said, then they had killed many other races out there too. Earth was just another on their list of conquests.

I almost didn’t blame the Deltra for what they’d attempted. It was a smart plan, after all. Convincing the Kraski to come to Earth, knowing that the device that would save them was hidden away. I wondered how many of them had perished trying to find Earth and escape the clutches of the Kraski before giving up and lying docile for centuries, waiting for the perfect moment. I also thought of Janine’s big heart. She was probably convinced to help the Deltra. I knew she wouldn’t be able to ignore an injustice to a race like that. I also doubted they’d told her the whole plan about killing off the human race.

I found nothing I could realistically use in there, so I continued down the hall. I approached one of the doors and the components hissed as the door slid to the side, opening quickly. The lights came on softly as I stepped into the room. I smiled as I saw the suits hanging in what could only be called a locker room. There was unintelligible script above each of the three suits; their names, I figured. I checked the cubbies and found what appeared to be a winch-style rope, made of a linked metal. The links were tiny and heavily interwoven together. I tugged at it and wondered how much weight it could handle. There were also hand-held thrusters, and ones you strapped to yourself. Most likely this was all for space walks, for repairs, or for getting to other vessels.

I moved on to the main cargo room we’d entered in. Carey followed beside me and barked when he saw my pack sitting there. I rummaged through it and found some food tucked away, apples and granola bars. My stomach almost ached as much from worry and stress as from hunger at this point. Ripping open a bar wrapper, I told Carey to sit and gave him a piece off it, checking first that there was no chocolate in the ingredients. I thought about his owner, Susan, and wondered what she’d think of her little buddy trekking around trying to save the Earth. I took a bite and gave him another piece.

A couple of water bottles sat there, and I opened one. With nothing else to pour it in, I took a deep drink and let him drink from the bottle top. Dog germs were the least of my concern. We sat there, my back against the shiny metal wall, him right beside me. I gave him some much needed attention and just talked to him for a bit. I knew if this ever ended and we succeeded, that it was going to be hard for me to give Carey back to Susan. But I would. At least I could see him all the time; I did live next door to them.

Would I really stay there, though? After all of this – the house I lived in with Janine? I doubted it. A fresh start would do me good. And then there was Mary. Maybe there was a future there.

Thinking of her, I realized they must be starving too.

“Come on, buddy,” I said as I got to my feet, “let’s go share our plunder.” He followed me, happily wagging his tail.

“I found some Kraski space suits down there. There are a few weapons, and some lanyards and rope for safety. Never go on a space walk without one. How’s progress?” I asked.

Magnus was walking around the room and accepted a granola bar that I handed to him.

“We’re going along quite fast. I’m using the hyperdrive, or whatever you want to call it, for periods of thirty seconds now. Our scanners seem to be aware of any space debris at a range of twenty thousand miles, so as long as I have my hands on the controls, I have enough time to react. So far, I’ve only had to stop and move around some floating rock twice. At thirty seconds, with full speed, we’re travelling fifty thousand miles.” Mary took the water bottle I handed out and took a deep drink.

I did the math in my head. “From what I know from school, we’re almost one hundred million miles from the sun. At that speed, we should be there in seventeen hours.”

Magnus piped up. “If the sensors are telling us of danger ahead, can’t we just stop skipping and keep going at full hyperdrive?”

Mary took a moment with this. “Nat, what do you think?”

A voice spoke back from the ship following behind us. “Da, that should be safe. I think we’ll actually go faster that way too. The ship appears to hit maximum performance at around twenty seconds, and we’re only doing top speed for ten each hop.”

I thought about this and the math gave me hope we might reach them in time. “If that’s true, we’ll most likely be there two-thirds faster! We might be able to save them!”

“Let’s give it a try. I’m not sure if I have seven hours left in me with no sleep. I honestly don’t know the last time I closed my eyes for more than a second,” Mary said.

We were all feeling the events of the past week on us, and the severe lack of sleep wasn’t helping the pressure we were under. Magnus sat down beside Mary and watched what she was doing closely.

“I can fly this thing, I think. Just tell me everything. I’ve pretty much driven any kind of vehicle out there. Nat did all the flying when we needed it, though. Isn’t that right, my little Russian princess?”

Laughter came through the speakers. “There was that one time you took over the helicopter, remember? I’d been shot through the glass and was bleeding all over the seats. You told me to be careful because it was a rental.”

I didn’t know what had changed in Natalia to make her talk, but I was glad for it. Her past had obviously caused her a lot of trauma and pain, but I was glad she was with us, even if it was in another ship. I could also tell Magnus thought of her as more than his little sister, judging by the way his eyes lit up every time she spoke. He was laughing now at their little shared memory, and I thought I saw a tear roll down his cheek before he wiped it away.

“Okay, Mary. Teach me everything I need to know so you two can go get some rest before whatever it is we’re heading into.”

TWENTY-FIVE

The bunks were long and narrow, to accommodate the Kraskis’ bodies. What I really needed was some sleep, but lying in the small room with Mary on the bed a few feet away made me realize I probably needed a shower just as badly.

Carey was on the floor beside me on his side, snoring away lightly. Mary’s eyes were closed, but I didn’t think she was out yet. “Do you think they knew about the Kraskis’ plan to kill everyone?” she asked, eyes still closed.

“Janine and Bob were born out of test tubes and brainwashed by the Kraski to do their bidding. I think all they knew was there was a device on Earth that would stop their parents, or whatever they thought of them as, from coming and finding a safe home to live. Even if they knew that humans were going to be destroyed, could you really blame them anyway?”

She opened her eyes and looked across the small room at me. “I don’t think so, but it’s just hard to think of Bob without being angry, and a little sad for him at the same time.”

“I know what you mean. Janine had evidently changed sides and worked with the Deltra. I like to think she had a soft spot and that they swayed her with stories of Kraski killing whole species and invading other worlds. It also makes me wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t turned, if she hadn’t met me, if she’d gone on that first date all those years ago in the Boathouse with that Army guy. Would the Kraski be on Earth right now? Would the Deltra? It almost gives me hope that we’ve twisted destiny and that everything will somehow all work out because of it.”

“It’s impossible to know. For all we know, her choosing you has set us on a path to the destruction of the human race. Maybe the other man would have foiled the whole plan and stopped them from coming in the first place.” She said this with a straight face, and for a moment, I didn’t know if she was playing or being serious, until she gave me an ear-to-ear grin. “You know there’s no way some guy could have stopped them from beaming everyone up, right?”

“Yes, I know. I just think I’m glad that I’m out here and not in a massive storage container heading to the sun. Then again, we have no idea if we’ll get there in time, or how to stop them from burning up if we do.” Carey was snoring heavily now, and his breaths were lulling my eyes closed. I don’t know if Mary was falling asleep, because in moments, I had drifted off.

I woke some time later with Carey up on the bed beside me, snuggled up close to my chest. Feeling much more rested, I swung my legs off the bed and noticed Magnus had replaced Mary on the other bunk. I quietly walked out and left Carey snoozing away with the big Swede. The door hissed lightly as it slid back closed. The hall lights flicked on when they sensed movement, and soon I was at the bridge.

“Mary, I hope you got enough sleep. How are we doing?” I asked her as she looked intently at the monitors.

“It’s been about six hours. I woke after four and tagged Magnus out. I’m glad you got to sleep for a while. It was needed and well deserved, Dean,” she said.

“How do you feel?”

“Not great, but alert enough. We’ve only had a couple times we needed to stop. I can’t believe this technology exists. This can change everything. We could get across the solar system in days. I mean, humans could travel to other systems! And we know that we aren’t alone out there now.”

“For a CPA from upstate New York, I can’t imagine being out here in the great expanse. That said, I always believed we weren’t alone. All the movies were right, though; the aliens wanted to destroy us. Is Natalia still live with us?” I could see her smaller ship as a green blip behind us.

“Da, hello, Dean,” Natalia said through the speaker.

“I’m sorry you’re all alone over there. You must be exhausted,” I said, knowing she was tough, but we all had our limits.

“I’m running on low, but I’ll be okay. I actually prefer to be alone most of the time.” Her voice was more than tired-sounding.

The sun was growing in size in the viewscreen, and I could tell the heat was drastically increasing, but the ships seemed to have automatic temperature control. Cool air emanated from multiple sources on the ship.

Stars streamed quickly by on the screen, but the massive glowing orange ball of gases stayed steady, slowly getting larger as we moved toward it. I assumed that at any point we would come across our people. With any luck, they were still here, and still alive.

“From what I understand, there’s an awful lot of radiation as we near the sun. Does this thing have any gauges on the danger?” I asked, worried we would get close and die of poisoning.

Mary touched her head where the implant had been. “Yes, according to the information we were fed on the ships, all of the ships are built to withstand almost any amount of radiation. The suits in the cargo bay as well. Seems they had some serious problems in other systems and found ways of protecting themselves.”

“Thank God. One less thing to worry about… as if we don’t have enough,” I replied, actually happy to hear I wasn’t going to die a horrible death by an invisible ray.

The ship’s sensors beeped, and Mary hopped out of hyperdrive instantly. Natalia appeared behind us on the screen. Something red came into view on the screen and we stayed back, trying to figure out what it was.

“Go get Magnus, Dean,” Mary said. I quickly ran back and woke the large, slumbering man.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Not sure. Something’s registering on the sensors. We’re only about ten million miles from the sun now. It could be them,” I said as we rushed back to the cockpit.

“What are we looking at, Mary?” Magnus asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Take a look for yourself,” Mary said quietly. I looked up and squinted at it. The view screen had an auto-tint to protect us from the sun’s burning glow. Sitting in the middle of our view was a large rectangular box, like the ones that had lowered into Earth’s atmosphere. It looked much like the Kraskis’ mother ship, but less square and much smaller, though still quite large if my depth perception was making any sense out here.

“Is there just one? The image the Deltra showed us had at least a hundred of them out there.” My voice came out gravelly, and I took a mostly dry swallow.

“That’s all the sensors show. Nat, what do you think? Any chance this is a trap?” Magnus asked.

“I don’t think so. Want me to go in for a closer look?” she replied, full of confidence.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, but what choice do we have?” Mary said. “Let’s move in. I wish we knew if there was a way to scan for life signs, but there’s no instruction manual. And let’s face it, if there was, we wouldn’t be able to read it.”

My heart raced as I thought of the people that might be in that container. Would they have oxygen? Could we save them somehow and still make it to the others and stop them too? People could survive up to a week without water, Mary had told me. We were there now. Most would perish well before that.

“How the hell are we even going to find out if they’re in there?” Magnus asked.

“I have an idea. We’re going to have to get close. Really close.” I had no clue if my idea would work, but I didn’t really see any other options. I ran to the locker room and picked the smallest suit. I truly hoped the air levels would be suitable for humans, or else this would be a short trip. I started to pull it on, and Magnus walked in.

“Not the worst idea I’ve ever heard… and I once walked through a minefield wearing nothing but my boots,” he said with a smile.

“I’m going to coax that story out of you over a beer, but for now, suit up.”

“This thing is loose even on me. And you look like a little kid putting on daddy’s pants. Imagine the looks we’ll get if this plan works. We look ridiculous. Come to think of it, I’d better use the bathroom, or whatever that strange room is over there.”

“I’ve used it. No way to flush,” I said.

I scooped up the metallic rope rolls and attached one side of the first roll to my suit’s belt. The suit was surprisingly light, nothing at all like the space suits from our Apollo missions on the moon, from what I remembered from the old documentaries about them. Magnus came back in and I hooked his rope to the suit and passed him the helmet.

“I’ll try it first.” I put the dome over my head and it clicked in, mechanical clasps auto-connecting it to the suit. The helmet was dark, but a clear square appeared in front of my face, giving me crystal-clear vision out of it. It had a small grid layout in light green lines. I looked at Magnus, laughing at the sight. Here was the massive man in a silver alien space suit, sleeves bunched up so his hands would fit into the gloves of the long arms. As I put my own hands into the gloves, I realized there was only room for four digits in there. Luckily, their hands were larger, and my two middle fingers easily fit into one space.

“Nothing more of a reminder that we’re in an alien’s suit than a four-digit glove, hey?” I said, my voice cutting out in the small helmet.

“You got it. I can hear you in the helmet, so I guess we’ll be able to communicate, at least. Good thing these guys weren’t telekinetic or something, I only know a bit of sign language.” From the smirk he gave me, I had the feeling he just knew the dirty words. “Do you really think this can work?” he asked.

I didn’t know, but we had to try, and it was the only thing I could think of that gave us a shot at saving everyone. I decided to be the positive one and told him I did think it would work. He clapped me on the shoulder, and we grabbed the handheld thrusters and strapped them to our wrists. Soon we walked to the cargo bay we’d first entered the ship in.

Mary stood there watching us. Her face had never looked more serious.

“I see the air is breathable?” she asked and I nodded. “Good. I’m twenty feet over the container. I’m going to move in closer to land on it. You know what to do then. I’ll yell at you when you’re good to go.”

Magnus grabbed his metal-linked rope and clasped the other end to a firm-looking anchor point in the bay. There were three, side by side, and they had to be made for this purpose… I hoped. I clasped in beside him and pulled on it a few times to make sure it was secure.

I knew Mary was worried and had every right to be. I was petrified, but at the same time, relieved to finally be nearing the end, one way or another. Taking her hands in my alien space suit gloves, I looked her in the eye. “We’ll be back shortly. Hopefully, we’ll have good news.” I found the helmet’s release, and it hissed open. Cradling it under my arm, I leaned in and kissed her deeply. My inevitable bad breath, and any other thoughts, pushed down below and I opened myself up to just being with her for a moment. She kissed me back, not with a fervent passion, but with a soft, caring effort that left my knees weak and my heart pounding. I almost didn’t hear Magnus clear his throat, and I’m sure I turned a little red as Mary leaned back and smiled at me. “Just come back to me,” she said, and turned to walk to the cockpit.

“Well, well, well. Looks like we have ourselves an old-fashioned love connection.” Magnus grinned ear to ear in his helmet. I donned mine once again and walked to the center of the room. We’d moved our pinned buttons to the outside of the suits, mounting them on a loose pocket on the breast. For good measure, we also each strapped one of the Kraskis’ powerful guns to our backs. We didn’t know what would be waiting for us out there.

My heart pounded and a bead of sweat ran down my back as I waited for the word from Mary. I was about to willingly alter my matter to get to the container. The idea that I might materialize half in the container, or that the rope wouldn’t come with me and I would float out there forever, crossed my mind as she called to us, telling us it was time.

Magnus, looking as calm as ever, pushed his button and was enveloped in a green light. Following suit, we both glowed as we used a rail above us to push down gently. I didn’t feel my legs moving through the ship wall, but soon I was neck deep in ship and after a quick eye closing and opening, I was out in space. Then, just as quickly, I was entering the huge black container, rope still firmly in place. We entered into a small room with dim lights on each wall. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust – then I saw the bodies.

The room was about thirty feet square, and maybe a hundred people lay on the floor, unmoving. I knelt down to the nearest person, and saw her chest rising and falling slowly. She was alive!

“Magnus, she’s alive! Check the others! Are any of you awake? It’s okay, we’re here to help you,” I called out. A few people moved around along the wall, and one of them hesitantly stood up.

“It can’t be,” the skinny man said. “We’re dead, don’t you see?” He stumbled forward, stepping on some unmoving bodies to get to us.

“No, you’re not. We’re human like you. Here to save you.” I gripped him as he stood in front of me. His face was gaunt, and dozens of others were slowly getting to their feet. Some stayed unmoving, and I feared the worst for them.

There was a door at the far end of the space; Magnus was already moving for it. It hissed open, sliding to the left, and he motioned with his hands for me to follow.

“We’ll be back. Does anyone know if there’s a control room or something with computers in this thing?” No one answered. I breathed deeply and felt the cool, fresh air hit my lungs. Guilt hit me right in the gut seeing these struggling people, dead or near death, and here I was with full oxygen. I needed to have it so I could help them, though.

Magnus waved me forward from the next room. Dim lights flickered softly as I stepped over and around countless people. I wanted to stop and check on them, but I knew that we needed to keep moving.

“Everything seems to happen at the center of the Kraskis’ cubes, so let’s make a line for the middle of this thing. And do it fast. There might be some air control – maybe thrusters or something,” Magnus said.

We moved past countless thousands of humans, all piled on the floors in the dozens of rooms we went through. There were hallways every few rooms deep, like they made these containers just for storage and only needed limited access to them.

“Should we hit the middle of this cube, like on the mother ship?” I asked.

“I think you have the right idea. Let’s hit these stairwells and climb our way up.” Magnus walked up to the door, and it slid open for him. We could now tell the stairwell markers on the doors, because they had a small image of a ladder on them. Pretty universal. We climbed for what we assumed was halfway, and after a few minutes, we took one of the hallways and followed it a while before it intersected with another hall going perpendicular to it.

“If I remember anything from old shoot-em-up games, you see a path like this, you follow it to the big bad guys,” I said, remembering my days playing Doom in my parents’ basement.

I tried to forget about the other containers just like this one, filled with people and heading for the power of the sun as we were walking around this one. It felt so hopeless, but we had to try our best. I wished we had a radio right now so we could check in with Natalia and Mary and let them know we were okay. I heard something coming from down the hall and turned, straining to hear it through my suit.

“Wait!” a pleading voice called. A thin woman struggled toward us, her clothing smudged and stained. Magnus stood firm, holding his gun, and watched the other end of the hall.

“They’re in there… well, one level up, actually. We tried to fight them off at the start, but they shot and killed a whole room. A thousand of us dead in an instant. We’ve kept our heads down ever since.” She could barely stand.

“How many of them are there?” I asked.

“I don’t know. There were at least ten that I saw. But this place is huge and we think all halls lead to the central control room. Three days in, a group tried to take over and break down the doors, but there was no way in. Most of the rooms filled with a gas early on. Some sort of sedative. It just knocked them out. They eventually just went back to wait for their deaths with the rest of us.” Her shoulders slumped forward, hair spilling over her pale face.

“I think we have a way in. What did they look like?” I asked on a hunch.

“Like you and me. Human.”

“How did you know we weren’t with them, then?” Magnus asked tensely.

“Because they all look like the same woman.”

“Hybrid clones, maybe? Makes sense. Why ship your purebreds off to die when you have already proven dispensable hybrids? The bastards.” At that moment, the guilt I had for destroying the last of the Kraski from the universe drifted away into the cosmos. “Stay back. We’re going to go in and take control of this place. Magnus, let’s double back to that stairwell and get moving. Remember how we got on the ship? I think that the technology allows us to pull through solids toward the power module of each ship. In this case, that should be through the doors upstairs.”

“I hear you loud and clear, Dean. Let’s move. Lady, you might want to find a room down the way. Can you try to gather everyone who’s well enough to fight and bring them up a flight in ten minutes? We may need the backup.” Magnus swung his gun into ready position.

The woman nodded lightly and took off down the hall. We turned to the stairwell and worked our way up a flight. Were they watching us with cameras? Did they know we were on our way to them? Maybe they were too smug and cocky to even be worried.

We exited through the sliding door out of the dimly lit stairwell, and into a hallway with softly flashing lights. It occurred to me that maybe something behind the doors at the end of the hall was pulling energy from the breaker or whatever they used on these things.

Magnus took the lead, and soon we were at the door, each standing at either side of the metal slab, guns raised. I took a moment to calm my breathing, which was getting labored as adrenaline surged through my body. I looked up to Magnus and gave him a smile that more likely looked like a grimace. The pin on my suit felt heavy this time as I readied to push it. Magnus raised three fingers and slowly lowered them one by one. At zero, we both pressed our buttons and were pulled by a soft green glow. Magnus was heading upwards, so I pushed him forward through the door; he grabbed me and dragged me through with him.

TWENTY-SIX

We let go and rolled to the ground. Well, Magnus rolled and I kind of flopped, but I quickly recovered to my feet. They hadn’t been expecting us, so our fire took a few of them down in a hurry. We didn’t have time to think or to feel bad about killing them anymore. We had to save everyone before they ran out of air or burned up in the sun. It was them or us. We kept firing in the open room, and soon there were at least a dozen of them on the ground. Magnus moved left and I went right, each of us attempting to clear a side of the engineering room. It was a large space with glowing pillars and metal everywhere. The floors were a metallic grate much like the rest of the container, and the pillars gave a lot of places for someone to hide.

Something moved ahead, and I paused, motioning to Magnus to stop too. He covered me, pointing his gun in the direction of the noise. I stepped lightly over to the pulsing power source and raised my gun. “Step out!” I yelled.

Before I could act, I heard a foot plant down on the metal flooring behind me. I cursed as I spun to see my wife pointing a gun at me. “It’s too late,” she said, her voice unmistakably Janine’s. “We have won, and your planet is ours. Why bother fighting us?”

We stood in a stalemate, pointing guns at each other. I’m sure my jaw was hanging open as my brain tried to understand what it was seeing. “Janine?” I asked quietly, knowing it wasn’t really her. I scanned the bodies on the floor, holes torn through them from our blasters. They were all her. Janine’s dead face looked at me from a few yards away.

“Thing is, we didn’t lose. The Kraski are dead. All of them.” I gauged her reaction and saw her eyes go wide.

“That’s impossible. They couldn’t have been defeated. That would mean…” Realization crossed over her face. “You brought it up to them? Then we were betra–” A beam cut her down before she could finish her thought, but from behind me, not from Magnus.

“I’m going to come out and lower my weapon. Don’t fire. I’m here to help you,” said another voice, identical to Janine’s.

“Be sure that you do.” Magnus appeared at my side, gun still raised.

She stepped out and, as promised, she lowered the large weapon to the floor, a heavy clink as the gun tapped the metal floor. She was wearing a black jumpsuit like all the others: a dozen Janines floating in space with me. Of all the crazy things I’d been through in the past week, this was quickly reaching the top of the list.

“You said you can help us? How?” I asked.

She smiled at me, tears forming at her eyes. It reminded me so much of my long-dead wife that I almost broke down right there. I stuffed the emotion down, thinking about the people we still had to save.

“Enough smiling! My people are going to die if you don’t hurry the hell up!” I yelled, heart racing.

Magnus set his hand on my shoulder.

“I’ve been waiting for a moment I could help but couldn’t find it. I’m the one who cut the engines in the first place so the hauler wouldn’t make it to the sun. I knew your wife, Dean. I’ve seen pictures of you. Tell me what happened, and then we can help your friends out here.” She looked straight into my eyes as she spoke. There was no looking down to the left, or nervous twitching. I wasn’t a cop, but I felt like I could trust what she was saying.

“Your creators, the Kraski, sent hybrids like yourself down to Earth a decade ago to infiltrate us, and convince us to turn that damned Shield off. Turns out their little slave race, the Deltra, were the ones who planted the thing there centuries ago, right when their planet was taken over,” I said, gauging her reaction. She twitched at the Deltra part, just enough for me to notice. “They spent the next few centuries trying to find a way to get the Kraski to come, so they could execute their plan. They became trusted enough, but somehow convinced the Kraski that they would also die by the Shield. No one could get close to it without rotting away, or at least that’s what the Kraski thought. I use the term thought because from what I understand, they’d packed up and abandoned wherever the hell they were from to take over our world and leave us for dead.”

She kept still and didn’t say anything, so I continued, my blood still pounding in my ears from all the built-up frustration of the whole scenario. “Thing is, the Deltra had plans of their own, and they stopped me on Earth to tell me they could help, and that the Kraski were bad news. We took the Shield up to the mother ship, landed, and turned the thing on, melting them all from the inside out.”

Janine’s double gasped at this, trembling slightly at first; then she crouched down, looking like she was going to be sick. “It’s true, then. They’re all gone?”

“Yeah, we killed them and flew here in Deltra and Kraski ships. Two more humans are outside now waiting on us. So what can you do to help us?” Magnus asked.

She rocked back and forth in her crouched position, but slowly stood up after a few moments. A wide smile crossed over her face and she waved us to follow her.

“Those arrogant bastards created life where it wasn’t meant to be created. Human-Kraski hybrids like me just weren’t meant to exist in the universe. Then they get us to risk our lives and die for their cause, telling us that they would live in harmony with the other half of our genetic makeup, the humans. Close to a hundred died while on Earth, some within minutes of setting foot on the planet. Each of us had a different tolerance for the Shield, and those that lasted the longest were cloned even more. Janine was one of the first to have the gene of survival, even though she died after a few years. Hence why you see so many of us fitting her description.” She was typing away at a central computer, sliding digital scales up until they turned from red to green.

I suddenly felt bad for killing them all when we entered this room. As if she read my mind, she said, “Not all of us had empathy for humans. Every one of these on the floor here were Kraski to the bone. They obeyed like the animals they were. I tried to reason with them, to tell them that what we were doing was wrong, but they wouldn’t listen. I was lucky they didn’t kill me.”

“What are you doing now?” Magnus asked.

“Turning the air back on, on all floors. We also have water and food stores. Not enough to keep everyone fed, but enough to distribute to those still alive out there. This was a one-way mission, so they didn’t give us a lot. But the Kraski had been planning on bringing their own people in these units…only that wasn’t to be.” I was still hesitant, but she wasn’t giving us a lot of reasons to not trust her at this point. And she was hinting at an even deeper conspiracy that I wasn’t ready for.

There was a pounding at the door, and I remembered asking that lady to bring people for backup. I ran over to the door and tried to open it. Nothing. “Is there a trick to this?” I yelled.

“Sorry, fingerprint recognition only.” She hurried over, and before she opened it, she extended her hand to me. It shook lightly as I clasped it. “I’m Mae. They gave us all human names.”

We shook, and I had to remind myself this wasn’t Janine, but a very convincing replica. “Dean, but I guess you knew that.”

The door slid open, and she ducked behind me as dozens of people flowed into the room, looking weak and hungry, but angry too.

I stood before them and noted that they saw the bodies on the far side of the room. “Mae here is going to help us. No one lays a hand on her.” I motioned for the woman we’d seen one floor down. “Miss. What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Alley,” she said, her gaze like steel. She would be able to help lead the survivors; I could see it in her eyes.

“Well, Alley, there’s a bit of food here, and water. Mae here will show you the storage facility. I want you to distribute it through each floor. Send some of these people to go room to room looking for doctors, nurses – hell, veterinarians… anyone who can help the sick or dying. Get a triage set up near here.” My gut sank as I thought about the lifeless bodies I’d seen in just a few rooms. “You’ll also need to set up a room for the dead. Start to separate them from the rest. Can you do that? Water first, then the rest. We’re going for everyone else. We’ll be back. Do you hear me? We will be back for you.”

She looked up at me, her brown eyes glistening. She took a gulp and nodded.

“Mae, I take it you guys had some medical supplies too?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’ll show Alley the way.” Mae motioned for the other woman to follow her, and two men followed along, ready to help.

I smiled to see people still alive and ready to help each other. Magnus walked over and leaned in to my ear. “You know what people will do when they hear there’s food? I’m worried there’ll be a riot.”

He was probably right, but I had to have faith in them. I motioned for a couple of big men looming by the door. They looked like bouncers at a nightclub scanning for trouble. Perfect. I crossed the room to them. “Gentlemen. Alley will be getting some leaders together to hand out food and water and to set up a functional hospital. I need you two to get a few more men you trust, take weapons from the fallen over there” – I nodded at the bodies on the ground – “and just make sure no one does anything out of hand. People are desperate, and they’ll do anything when they’re desperate. You get what I’m saying?”

“You got it, boss,” one of them said. The other gave me a salute and it made me smile. An accountant being saluted in a metal cube in space was quite the sight. “What about that one? Isn’t she with them? Should we… dispose of her?” He said it with a twitch of his eye, like he was trying to act the role but was terrified if I’d say yes.

“She’s with us. Caught on the wrong side of the battle.” They visibly relaxed and moved on.

Alley addressed the people and was giving directions. They all eagerly listened, ready to help, with hope on their side now. People could do miraculous things with just a little hope. Mae came over carrying some food and water and tossed them in a bag, slinging it over her shoulder. She also had an EVA suit over her other shoulder; her gun still hung there too. “I’m coming with you. I’ve changed the thrusters on this thing to slow it and to make a wide turn, sending it back toward Earth. We’ll have plenty of time to get to the sun, do the same for the others, and get back to this one, at the slow speed it’s heading.”

I smiled at Alley and the group of survivors. That’s what they were now, survivors. We had no time, and I knew Mary and Natalia would be worried about us.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said. We ran through the halls, making our way back to the floor we’d arrived on. People milled around the halls now, word of help passing through the container. We urged them to help where they could and that directions were coming. Soon we were in the room we’d started in. Half the people were gone from it now, the other half dead or too weak to move. I had a new resolve to help the rest of the containers. The image we’d seen on the Kraski mother ship looked like there were about thirty of these containers out there.

We zipped our suits up, put on the masks, and clipped ourselves back on to the tethers. Hopefully, Mary was still there.

“Mae, we’re heading to a Kraski ship here. Do you have a pin?”

She looked confused until she appeared to realize I meant the button on our suits. She nodded, and we all pressed them. Glowing green, we pulled ourselves up and briefly into space as we passed through the walls and into the ship where Mary was waiting.

She was in the cargo bay waiting for us. Relief crossed her face when I looked up at her, but it quickly turned to aggression when she saw Mae with us.

“It’s okay, Mary. She’s with us now,” I said.

She came to me as I took off my helmet. Unexpectedly, she grabbed my head in her hands and leaned her forehead against mine. While our few kisses had been wonderful, this was more intimate and special. I could feel my face reddening as we shared this moment with two others standing a couple feet away from us. She pulled back and I stood there breathless for a moment.

She gave me a light kiss before letting go and blushed a little when she looked over at Magnus and Mae. “I was so worried about you. What happened down there?”

We moved to the front of the ship so Natalia could hear it too. We told them our story, and about Mae being a Kraski-human hybrid. Mary had met Janine, so I knew she was aware this woman was a spitting image of my wife, but she didn’t say a word about it. We ate a little dehydrated something from Mae’s bag and drank water. Our aching bellies needed the sustenance, and I knew it would give us enough energy to get the job done.

“I think we should get going, da?” Natalia asked from the smaller ship, through the speaker.

Magnus shifted from side to side and shrugged at me as if he’d decided something. “Nat. Bring your ship over here. I’ll do the same tether business and make my way into your ship. I think you could use the company, and if I’m being honest, I miss you. I’ll bring some food and water for you.”

She agreed, and I helped Magnus get hooked up in the cargo room. In a matter of minutes, Magnus was across and with Nat on the other ship. I was on the bridge with Mary and a clone of my dead wife, and we were accelerating for the sun. We devised a plan on the way. I sure hoped it would work.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The sun was blazing at us from the viewscreen from quite some distance. We were moving at full speed; stars in the distance didn’t quite streak as move slowly along our view. We were close to where the ships would be, according to Mae’s last intel. The last leg of the trip was upon us, and all I could do was hope that we weren’t too late. Would our plan work? It seemed the only logical move, and we’d find out very soon.

“Are you sure this ship is linked in to their communication systems?” Mary asked Mae, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at the other woman.

“Yes, the Kraski ships are all linked to the transport vessels. We’ll be upon them in moments.” Mae stepped toward the screen and pointed when multiple lights blinked up onto it.

The stars slowed in the viewscreen and I was once again amazed that we could go from super-fast to a stop and not feel the inertia at all inside. These guys had some serious engineering capabilities. All the science fiction I’d read or seen on TV had engines that required massive power sources and crash couches for the bone-breaking sudden lurches of space travel. This was nothing like that, and I was glad for it.

“Mae, we’re trusting you here,” I said as I put a tentative hand on her shoulder. My voice wavered slightly when I spoke, and I felt bad for not trusting her all the way. I wasn’t sure I would ever trust anyone fully after Janine.

“I know what you’re thinking, but you don’t have to worry about me. I want to save your people and live among them, free, instead of a slave to the Kraski.” She sat down and keyed in something to the control panel.

I tried to count the containers I saw out there and figured there were around ninety. To think there were more than seventy million people on each of those cubes was mindboggling. We figured the huge cubes were about seventy rooms wide and tall. I wondered how many of the people were still living on these things. Even if this worked, I knew the Earth would never be the same; its population would be sorely depleted.

Natalia and Magnus pulled up beside us, their smaller ship a blue blip on our screen.

“Attention, all loyal to the Kraski. The war is over and we have been ordered to return the humans to their planet. An agreement has been made for their lives. I say this with the orders from the Supreme Legislation’s full authority. Feed the oxygen back through the rooms, turn the thrusters on, and work your ways back to Earth. K53251 over.”

We waited for someone to reply, and I had to tell my brain to keep me breathing. My heart was pounding in my chest.

“Roger that, K53251. We are turning around now. N32154 over,” a voice called over the speaker.

“Roger that, K53251. We are also turning.”

Mae turned it to mute, and we all cheered loudly. Magnus was cheering and I could hear Natalia laughing. We watched as dozens of the cubes started heading toward us slowly.

“This might actually work!” Mary said excitedly.

About ten minutes later, most of the containers had changed direction, and we were ready to get help to our people. I noticed there were a few units hanging back, and at this point, they were extremely close to the sun.

“What do you think they’re waiting for?” As soon as I asked, one of them sped up and headed directly to the sun. It happened so fast that we didn’t have time to react. Just like that, a whole cube of our people snuffed up in a flare of hot orange light, hardly visible since we were so close.

A new voice cut over the comm-system. “Do not listen to these traitors. There is no way the Kraski would renege on this. This is what they lived for; Earth was their last hope. We were created to serve them, and this is our ultimate sacrifice. Let us do what we were made for, and end this!” The voice was full of venom, and Mae visibly paled.

“I know that one. He was always a bully but was more than happy to lead this endeavor.”

“What do we do now? Do they have any weapons?” Mary asked.

As if her words were a curse, a green blip appeared on our screen and headed quickly toward us.

“Yes, he had a Kraski ship, like this one. For emergencies. I think this constitutes an emergency to him,” Mae said.

Thoughts raced through my head, and I tried to make some sense out of what we were seeing here. A couple of the containers had turned around, presumably persuaded by the newcomer’s words.

“I have an idea. Natalia, you know where the guns are on that thing, right?” I asked.

“Da. Teelon showed me. I think in case the Kraski figured it out and we needed to shoot our way out of there.”

“Good. Can you lead this guy away, keep him on his toes? We need a few minutes.”

Without saying anything, Natalia’s ship raced in front of us, firing at the incoming ship. She veered off and he followed, firing on her. I silently hoped she could evade him long enough for us to succeed.

Two other containers started their thrusters to full speed and were crashing into the sun’s deadly heat. They too faded in massive flares as we sped toward the rest of them. Millions of lives snuffed out like nothing. I had to push the pain down for the time being. I would have time for mourning them later, after we saved the rest of them.

“Mary, you get in close. Mae, where are all the thrusters?” She hesitated, unsure of what I was asking. Another cube was starting to head into the sun. The ships were insulated, but beads of sweat fell down my face as we were so close to the massive burning ball of gas. Any closer, and its gravitational pull was going to drag us down. “Dammit, Mae! Where are the thrusters?”

We gained on the cube closest to us, and she directed Mary to each of the glowing thrusters. Mae took it upon herself to fire away at them, blowing them up with precision. We followed suit on the rest of the cubes nearby.

While she was firing, she called out on the open line to all of her hybrid people. “The Kraski are all dead. We are now free to do as we will. I’ve met some humans and they are more than willing to let us live side-by-side among them. Stop what you’re doing, and we can have lives for ourselves!” she called, her passion obvious to anyone listening.

The last few containers still nearing the sun stopped and turned around. I wiped my forehead and kissed the top of Mary’s head.

Our ship shook, and Carey began barking loudly as we were tossed around. Apparently, we could still get shaken up in this thing. The other Kraski ship flew by us, lasers blasting, Natalia close behind him. There wasn’t much more frightening than a gun-wielding man with nothing to lose. This was one of those things that was. Sensing his new focus, I realized what he was going to do. The beams cut into one of the nearby containers and ripped the sides to shreds. We were close enough to see people floating away by the hundreds.

Mary was already heading after him, Mae firing their weapons, hitting his shields a few times before he veered off. But his work was done, and we saw small explosions starting throughout his target.

“Mary, get the hell away from that thing!” I yelled, and as we flew down and away from it, the whole thing exploded violently. The concussion shook our ship, but we were otherwise okay. Another chunk of human lives gone. The weight of all the lives lost was pushing me down, and I felt like gravity had doubled. I thought about Ray, and Janine… the Kraski we’d destroyed – a whole race of beings. I thought about the hundreds of dead people Magnus and I had walked over to get to the center of the container we found Mae in, before we proceeded to kill her companions. So much death. I slid to the ground and looked at my hands. The hands of an accountant. A man who liked to have a cold one with his buddies, and watch the Yankees play for the pennant. I almost expected them to be covered in blood as I peered at them, my vision narrowing as my pulse raced. I could hear voices, but I didn’t know what they were saying. I looked up to see Janine staring at me. I’d missed her so much, but that felt like a dream; a time so long ago, so full of lies, that it was never truly my life. Then I thought of Mary, so strong-willed and real.

Something wet licked my face. Carey, the ever-loyal dog I’d hardly known until a week ago, was stepping on my lap and licking me. I snapped out of it. I realized that it wasn’t Janine with me there, it was Mae.

“Nat, I’m going to cut under him and pop up hard in front. You cut down and we’ll have him between us. We both fire, neither of us can miss. Got it?” Mary’s voice called out.

I was still on the floor and stayed there, trying not to pass out. The panic attack had subsided, but I was still lightheaded. Not quite the hero of the books I’d read, either.

“Now!” Mary called, and Mae let out a whoop. I pulled myself up to catch the tail end of their battle, the Kraski ship exploding into a million pieces.

Everything went quiet for a moment. I looked to the computer and saw the cube dots all moving away from the sun. The ones we’d fired on, taking out the thrusters, were still sitting back, slowly and surely heading into their imminent demise.

“We have to do something about those guys,” I said quietly, suddenly ashamed of my fall from grace a few minutes ago. They didn’t seem to notice or care a whole lot, not that I blamed them, since they’d had their hands quite full at the time.

I pulled my suit on and locked in my helmet again. “Mae, you’re with me. I have an idea.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

The tethers we wore were made of some linked material that seemed to be indestructible. I knew there were more of them in the cargo bay, and I took all of them that I could find. We clamped the longest ones we could find on our suits, and I took a deep breath as I thought about what we were about to do: float into the great abyss that was space, a couple miles from the sun. Mae assured me that these suits could handle the temperature and heavy radiation, but only for a few minutes. We had to do this fast.

The container farthest away was still moving; its two thrusters were on the same side, so it was slowly trying to spin around. Mae had called over to the ship and learned that three of her people were tied up and gagged. The rest were happy to cooperate and make it out of there alive. They rotated the thrusters and had placed themselves away from the sun, with the other two cubes between them and the sun.

It was show time.

“Mary, are we close enough?” I called to the front of the ship. She didn’t answer, but in moments, she was running into the room.

“Just be safe. I want you to come back to me in one piece.” She stared into my eyes. “Mae, take care of him out there, would you? He’s somewhat important to me.”

“Somewhat?” I asked with a nervous laugh. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.” I petted Carey on the head; the dog was looking at me like I was a stranger in a space suit. I was looking forward to getting him home safely.

I squeezed Mary’s hands and let go, pressing the pin on my suit. I glowed bright green and pushed myself through the bottom of the ship, and into the great, blazing hot expanse.

We emerged outside of the ship, the red-hot sun threatening to devour me the instant I was out. It was massive this close, and even though the suit was designed for massive heat blasts, I was instantly sweating. We didn’t have much time.

My helmet screen had darkened, the lens polarizing from the light. I still had to squint as I looked at Mae, who was calling to me from the comm-link we shared in the suits.

“Dean, follow my lead. Squeeze your fingers together on your left hand like I showed you.” She started flying away toward the big, black cube, her tether waving behind her.

Pinching my forefinger to my thumb, I felt the suit’s mini-thruster activate, and I jetted off after her. It took a bit of moving my hand up and down to level off, but once I got the hang of it, it was almost fun. If only I wasn’t burning up in an alien space suit, trying to stop millions of people from dying in a fiery crash, if they weren’t already melted from the heat.

We neared the cube, and I was amazed at the sheer size of the thing. I had no object I could really compare it to, but it looked like a city on its side. The metal walls were black and matte-finished. Mini-cubes covered the whole thing. From afar it looked smooth, but up close it was extremely textured. They weren’t aerodynamic, but I guess that didn’t matter for what they were built for. I had to figure they were really transport vessels for people and perhaps livestock, almost as if the Kraski had planned to relocate their entire population here but something had happened.

I shook the thought from my head as Mae waved me over. We were near the center of the cube, and I unraveled two tethers from around my arm and latched them to a metal eye hook that presented itself by a thruster opening. We mounted four of them in total and quickly made our way over to the next cube in line, securing the four tethers to it. There was a little bit of give, and we could only hope that they would hold up to the immense weight. I had no real idea of the physics of it, but we didn’t have much time to figure out other options.

We raced around the massive middle container and repeated the process, adding the full weight of a third cube. When we were done, I could hardly see, and I felt like I was melting. I looked to my suit and was sure it was melting.

Mary had been following along, making sure our tethers had enough slack, and we now reeled ourselves in fast.

We approached the ship, and I was about to green myself through the cargo door when Mae stopped. She unhooked her tether and smiled at me.

“Dean, I have to go activate one of the thrusters on the left side of that first cube. There’s no other way. The damage looked minimal, just some debris blocking it, I think.”

I didn’t know what to say. Janine’s duplicate watched me with wide eyes, and I reached up to her face. My glove sat on her face-mask for a moment. “Godspeed,” I said, and she floated out after the first cube. My suit was about to expire, and I pushed my pin. Green light enveloped me and I pulled my rope, emerging into the cargo bay.

Carey barked as my head came through, and when I solidified lying down and took my helmet off, he licked me fervently.

“Okay, boy, I’m glad to see you too.” I worried about Mae and ran to the front of the ship as I peeled off the suit.

“Did you know she was going to do that?” I asked Mary.

“Someone had to go in there and run the show.” Her voice was quiet. We zoomed in the screen on Mae and saw her struggling with the debris. She pulled free a hunk of it and the inertia pushed her away from the wall. I knew her suit would be breaking down, and I looked down to my own. It was almost melted and blackened all over. Peeling it off, I kicked it to the side, and didn’t feel much better in my sweat-soaked clothes. They were dirty enough at this point, and the smell just kept getting worse.

“Mae, come in. Get inside!” Mary yelled into the comm. There was no reply, and I figured the suit’s comm-system had worn down from the heat. I held my breath as we watched her, a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

Mae’s small form floated away from the cube, and for a moment, I thought it was over. She was dead. Then she started to glow green and thrust at the wall. She passed through it.

“Everything good?” Magnus’ voice came through the speaker.

“We think so. We’ll have to see if Mae got to that thruster. If so, we might have a convoy,” Mary replied. “How are things with the rest of the containers?”

“They seem to be receptive to keeping our people alive. There are a couple of the Kraski hybrids that seem to know what they’re doing – doing the air, food, water, and triage business like we set up with the first one we crossed. I think this might have worked.” Magnus paused, and I was sure he was thinking about how many people would be dead in these things, and how many we’d seen die in their crashes with the sun.

“It’s okay, Magnus. We did everything we could. Now we just have to make sure we get them home.” Then I thought of something that apparently had slipped our minds up to that point. “We have, in these things, the whole world’s population. Scientists, engineers, astrophysicists…all of NASA. I mean, we can get some help now. It isn’t all on our shoulders any longer.” As I said the words, I felt some of the pressure lessen, and I also felt every minute of the past week hit me. I needed sleep. We all did.

“Come in, Mary,” a familiar voice came through the speaker, though there were many of the clones that sounded the same. I could only hope she had made it.

“Mae?” Mary asked tentatively.

“Yes, it’s me. You guys better get over here. Bring weapons!” The transmission cut off.

TWENTY-NINE

“Carey, stay here. We’ll be right back,” I said, knowing he would be safer on board than whatever we were heading into. He looked at me, probably doubting my words, but slumped down to the ground, head between his outstretched paws.

Mary and I both had suits on as a precaution, and we exited the ship into a massive cargo bay. Mae had told us where the dock would be, but she wasn’t sure if the wall was breached or if it would be safe to breathe there or not. The room was empty and just a couple of lights were on, giving the room a quiet, eerie feel to it. It was much the same as the Kraski mother ship, which really didn’t surprise me.

We made our way to the far wall, where I guessed there would be a hall leading to the middle of the container. My guess paid off, and I was glad they’d kept some of the same plans as their own large vessel.

“We should be able to get to the heart of the ship from here. Magnus and I didn’t even think of this when we visited the first one we found stranded a way back. Now we know better. It sounded like Mae needs our help, and quickly.” I led the way, gun unslung from my shoulder and firmly in my grip. Mary followed suit, looking much more at home with a gun in her hands than I did.

“I’m guessing the hybrids weren’t too happy about us blowing out their thrusters. They were ready to run into the sun – the ultimate sacrifice to a race that never really cared about them. Mae might be in over her head. She didn’t even have a gun,” Mary said, hurrying down the hall. The floors were the same metal grating from the Kraski ship; our runners made almost no noise on it.

We kept moving until I saw a symbol I recognized from when Drendon had brought us to that central bridge room.

“This way,” I called, and we exited to a set of stairs. Doors slid aside for us and I almost retched at what we found. Bodies were piled high in the large room. There must have been thousands of dead just in this room alone.

“Over here!” we heard someone call. “It’s me, Mae.”

Mary’s jaw was set firmly, obviously affected by all the death surrounding us. We walked over, guns raised at the hybrid. She looked worse for wear, hair partly singed and skin a shade of black.

“Mae, what’s going on here?” I asked, voice thick.

“Since we stopped the crew from running into the sun, they’re moving room to room, killing everyone still alive. I’ve been hiding but made it to a comm-station so I could reach you,” she explained.

Hitting some triggers on my suit, I moved my suit’s comm to Natalia’s ship.

I explained the situation to her and Magnus, and when Magnus said he was coming to back us up, I had to calm him down. “Listen, buddy, you’re the only two out there who know what the hell happened and how to get us back now. We’ll try to contain things down here, and we’ll see you soon. I’ll keep you posted. Get every one of those damned containers some sense of stability. When we’re done here, we’ll want to start moving everyone away from the sun, before it does long-term damage to these hulls.”

“Never thought I’d be taking orders from some bean counter, but here we are. You better keep me posted. See you on the other side. Over,” Magnus replied.

Mae was unarmed, and we kept her behind us.

“How many are there? Same as the other ship?” I asked, sure there were about a dozen. I could see their lifeless bodies when I closed my eyes for a deep breath. We were about to do it again, but this time, their threat was more than imminent.

Mae urged us forward, pointing down the hall. The hallway had no air flowing down it, and it smelled stale, and I could have sworn there was blood in the air. In a few minutes, we could hear screaming. Mary dashed ahead of us, gun raised. She looked like a superhero from the comics I’d read as a kid as she ran for the doorway and opened fire. I caught up and saw that she’d caught the hybrids unaware and from behind. Shooting someone in the back wasn’t the most glorious way to do it, but every second saved a few more of our people. They were huddled in the back of the dim room; the dead were spread across the floor. I wondered how many rooms were full of bodies thanks to these monsters. Then I fired.

I shot at them as they turned to see what was happening. Five were down before they could get a shot off, but red beams blazed at us moments later. The doorway crumbled from the impact, and Mae and Mary ducked back the way we’d come. I dove and hit the ground on the other side of the entrance. Beams bore down on the hallway walls as the last couple still standing tried to clear the way.

We held our fire for a brief time, waiting to see what was coming. Our positioning was poor, as we would be in each other’s crossfire. Not sure what the best move was, I decided to slink down to the ground some way, and fire to the right side should they come out. My mask was still on, and my heavy breathing was beginning to fog it up. I wanted to take the damn thing off, but every moment was precious here.

I could hear groans from the room, but they had ceased firing, at least. Mary looked at me, worry etched in her eyes. Her mask was off, and her gaze at me was only for a few seconds. It hit my gut like a ton of bricks. She started to walk into the doorway, gun aimed forward. She paused, jaw hanging down. “Bob?” I heard her whisper.

There was no way I was going to lose her. I ran for her as the first red beam flew from her gun. A volley of shots came from inside the room as I tackled her down, sending my gun flying down the hall. We hit the ground hard, and something didn’t feel quite right on my back. I could hear footsteps clanking down towards us.

“Not going to happen today!” I heard someone yell, then more fire sprouted around us. Mary was beside me, shooting at them. I felt her get up to her feet, but I was still face down on the ground. I couldn’t seem to move for some reason. Mary was screaming now, a primal shout I hadn’t known was possible from her.

After what felt like long minutes, the firing stopped. All I could hear was heavy breathing and the clatter of something falling to the ground. I struggled to turn my neck, but a searing pain shot through my body.

“Mary, it’s over. That should be all of them. It’s okay,” I heard Mae tell her.

A hand pressed on my shoulder, and Mary rolled me over carefully. She looked at me with her big brown eyes and tears were falling down on me. “Dean, are you okay?”

“I think so,” I lied. Truth was, I could hardly move, and something was definitely wrong.

“You fool. I was going to be the one to save the day, sacrifice myself for you guys and all the people here. Then you had to go ruin it and keep me alive. I can’t believe you did that running tackle.” Her voice was soft as she spoke.

“Some of them are alive!” Mae rushed down to the next room, where a head poked out of. The face was dirty and gaunt. I remembered that much. “We’re here to help you. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay. We’re going to bring you home.”

Hesitantly at first, groups of people began to emerge from the container’s storage rooms. Soon the halls were filled with people, and Mae was barking orders. Mary was still holding my hand and before my vision went black, I saw her beautiful face smiling at me. “We did it, Dean. We did it.”

THIRTY

I awoke in a dark room. My back spasmed, and I realized I must have slept on it wrong. What was I supposed to be doing today? I tried to recall and couldn’t. I had a tax file for the O’Sullivans to do, and was I meeting James later for beers and the Yankees game on his new sixty-incher?

I heard a dog bark in the distance and wished that Susan wouldn’t let Carey do that so early in the morning. It had to be dark out still; otherwise, light would be seeping through my never-quite-closed curtains. I reached out for my alarm clock and my arm kept moving through the air. Where the hell was my nightstand?

When I tried to turn, my back screamed at me and failed to comply. I started to panic. My eyes were adjusting, and now I could make out the outlines of the room, and this wasn’t my bed. My mind felt groggy, muddy with images. Ships coming out of the sky, big black cubes lowering in the dawn skyline, and green light, grasping at my friend as he was pulled through the ceiling.

“Hello! Is anyone there?” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I tried to move again, and this time pushed with my left hand. I propelled myself to my side, my back in agony the whole time. I fell forward and was too late catching myself. Before I knew it, I hit the ground, my hand coming up just in time to protect my face. I didn’t know what was wrong with my motor skills. I heard a hiss and what sounded like a sliding door. Light poured in and the clink of metal headed toward me.

I tried to look up and got a face full of dog tongue as a reward. “Carey?” He yelped a bit and licked me some more.

“Dean, what happened?” a voice asked. Hands grasped me under the arms and helped me back onto the bed.

“Janine?” I asked, looking at my wife. My memory flickered and I saw the hospital, and that final moment in our bed, then the coffin at the service.

“No, Dean. It’s Mae.”

“What happened to me?” I asked, still unsure where exactly I was.

Her face was grave. “You were hit. In the spine.”

“Dean?” a new voice asked from the doorway.

Seeing her standing there, with light pouring in behind her, I felt my heart flutter.

“Mary,” I said, remembering all of a sudden. I recalled seeing her ready to sacrifice herself to save us and the people in that room, and then she’d seen a hybrid who’d looked like her husband Bob. That pause was enough to almost get her killed, and apparently almost enough to get me killed too.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Well, I’m confused and my back hurts like hell, but I’m alive. What’s happened?”

“We killed them all and brought you into the bridge. You were out, and it wasn’t good. It seems you took a shot right in the spine. We got you onto a cot and scoured for a doctor. This ship picked up its load from Egypt, so we had a hell of a time finding someone who understood us. Once we had a translator, we found a doctor.” She paused and held my hand. “He said if you didn’t die, you would be paralyzed.”

I wiggled my toes and fingers just to be sure, and they all moved. “But I’m not,” I said, maybe a little too defiantly.

“No, you’re not. We did the only thing we thought might help.” Her eyes told me she was scared to tell me something.

“What is it?”

“We injected you with hybrid blood. Mae had heard of some of the hybrids on Earth healing their partners of illness or ailments without them knowing, using their own blood. We didn’t know if it would actually work…but it seems to have.”

Hybrid blood. I really didn’t know what to say. How could having an alien transfusion be any worse than being paralyzed? It seemed a fair trade-off to me.

I looked at Mae. “Was it yours?” I asked quietly.

She nodded. “It was mine.” I could see she looked drained, even a little pale in the dark room.

“Thank you. How long have I been out?”

“Four days,” Mary said.

“Four days! What’s going on? Are we on the way home?” I couldn’t believe I’d slept through so much.

“Calm down, Dean. We have the world’s best and brightest at our disposal. We’ve appointed leaders to each container, and the dead have been isolated to a few floors on each ship. Mini-hospitals have been made, and we’ve distributed the small rations we found. More are going to die on the way home. We simply don’t have enough food and water, and we’ve had more than a few incidents. Bad people are still bad people even in crisis, it appears.” I left it at that, because I understood what she was implying.

“How many? How many are dead?” I needed to know.

“Dean, don’t worry about that now. You just worry about resting and getting better. In a couple hours, you can come and see our progress. We’re only a couple days away from home,” Mary said.

Her avoidance of the question was enough to know that we’d lost a lot of them. Earth would never be the same.

She kissed me on the lips, and I was self-conscious of how dry mine were. And how my breath must smell like a rotten tomato, but she lingered on them for a moment and smiled at me after, a cool hand on my face.

“I’ll come back in a bit with some food. Have a rest. Carey will stay with you.” She walked away, and Mae followed her.

Carey jumped up onto the small cot with me and curled up between my legs. I lay there in the dark, my mind reeling at everything that had happened. Closing my eyes, I could swear I could feel the other blood coursing through my veins. But even now, my back felt better than it had when I woke up. Slowly, I drifted into sleep.

__________

Four Years Ago

I was on the couch watching the Pirates destroy the Yankees on a cool fall Sunday afternoon. “Sunday in New York” was blasting from the Yankee stadium speakers and the announcers were talking over the song, complaining about the weak bullpen this year. I agreed with them, but I always laughed at the overweight, middle-aged guys telling the world how a team should play better.

The doorbell rang, and Janine hurried from the kitchen to answer it. I took a sip from my now warm Brooklyn Lager, and the room started to spin. I glanced to the door and saw Bob step in, looking frantic. Bob, the name almost came out of my throat, but it refused to emerge. Was there something in my beer? Maybe food poisoning?

They spoke in hushed voices, and I didn’t put much thought into it as my eyes closed and the hum of the commentators shrank in my eardrums.

“Don’t worry about him, Bob. I put something in his beer. You know I hate doing this to him. Can’t we just talk when he’s at work?” Janine’s voice carried over to me.

“It couldn’t wait.”

“Well, what is it?”

There was a pause. “Plans are changing. I think we need to move to plan B. Teelon’s plan.”

Silence. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. The Kraski are desperate, and they won’t stop until they find a new home for themselves. I know some of us feel like we owe them, like they’re our parents, but the truth is, they’ve done nothing but grow us in a lab and send us out to do their dirty work. The Deltra want to help the humans. We have no choice but to trust them.” Bob’s voice was a hurried whisper. The kind that wasn’t really a whisper at all, but I could hardly process what they were saying. The room was still spinning.

“So it’s true? The Kraski homeworld is gone?” Janine sounded like she was on the verge of spilling tears.

“Yes. It’s true. Billions of them were killed before they could board the transport vessels. Word is the Valiant got away, and they took the vessels with them.”

“Why take the transport vessels if they don’t have the population to move any longer?” Janine asked, voice strained.

“Take a guess. Humans. They’re going to take everyone off the planet, turn off the Shield, and voila. They have a new world. Sounds simple enough, right?”

“So we play along, but in the end, switch sides and do what Teelon says. Get our people… our spouses,” she paused, “to get to the Shield, bring it to the Valiant, and kill the Kraski. Then the Deltra will bring the humans back, and everyone lives in peace and harmony. Sounds like a long stretch, but I do trust Teelon. He hasn’t given us a reason to not believe him.”

I heard their words, but they seemed to flow in one ear and out the other.

“Will Earth be safe from the Kraskis’ enemies?” Janine asked. “They’ve destroyed billions of lives, countless planets.”

“The Kraski think they have technology to prevent leaving traces to follow, but they’re worried about being crossed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Deltra, the Kraski, or even one of us has been turned. If that’s true, then there’s no hope. Earth’s destruction will be inevitable.”

I tried to cling to their words, but I was falling deeper into sleep. Soon I drifted off fully, and when I woke, I shook my head clear, and saw the game was well over.

“Was someone over, honey?” A vague recollection that was probably nothing more than a dream stuck in my brain like cobwebs.

Janine walked in smiling and set a cup of coffee down in front of me. “No. You just dozed off watching the game.”

__________

My eyes sprang open, remembering that fall day like it was yesterday. I struggled to get up and managed to get on my feet, looking like nothing more than a surfboard, I was sure. I tried to walk but ended up moving my feet like I was “walking” an appliance. Slowly, I made it to the door, which slid open for me. Carey followed closely as I made my way down the hall.

“Mary!” I called, until someone came to me.

“Who are you looking for?” a young boy asked me with a thick accent. His clothes were dirty, but I couldn’t help feeling relieved to see another human standing and healthy.

“Mary? Do you know her?”

“Of course, we all know her. She saved our lives. Does that mean you’re Dean?” he asked, smile growing wide.

“That does. Do you know where she is?” I asked, feeling my back twinge. It was much looser than it had been, and moving seemed to help.

“This way.”

I followed slowly, and soon we were in a room where Mary was sorting through supplies.

“Mary,” I said, and she turned to me. “Son, can we have a moment?”

The boy blushed and ran down the hall.

“Dean, what are you doing up?” she asked.

“I don’t think it’s over. There’s another threat.”

THIRTY-ONE

The Jeep stopped in front of my house. There was so much to do, but I had no doubt we couldn’t pull it together as a whole. From rotten food in everyone’s fridges, to worrying about pets, things would get back to normal for many of us. The past couple days had been hard but wonderful at the same time. Over half of the world’s population was dead, either by running into the sun or from illness on the vessels, like dehydration and lack of sustenance. It was horrific. Stories were coming out about everyone’s time on the vessels, and references to great wars, and hiding on boats to come to America were compared. But there was no real comparison. Earth would never be the same again.

Carey trotted along with me, and I felt tears welling in my eyes as I remembered looking over the lists. Susan, my neighbor, was among those lost in the Event. That was what they were calling it now. The Event. As if there was any name that could justify the real truth of it all. Most people still didn’t know what had happened, they were just glad to be alive and back home. Some ships fought to land elsewhere, not willing to go back to their countries if given a choice. With so much open space now, it was agreed that Canada, the US, and some European countries would take in refugees at this point. I wasn’t sure that the whole world wasn’t in refugee status now.

Carey started to go to his old house, and I knew I would let him in soon enough, but for now, I urged him to my house, and he happily obliged. I grabbed a few things, clothes mainly, and locked back up. This wasn’t my home any longer, and I doubted I’d ever live here again. I had a new life lined up. I went back to the Jeep, where armed guards were waiting. It was a couple hours’ drive to New York, even though they’d already begun the highway clear-up. The vehicles had been left with keys in them, most running out of gas, so they’d had to bring tankers, fill them up and drive them away to large fields. I would let the bureaucrats worry about the logistics of getting people their cars back.

A few hours later, I walked into the UN building in New York for the first time. Magnus, Natalia, and Mary were waiting in the lobby and I ran to them, enveloping my partners in crime in a massive group hug.

“Am I ever glad to see you guys,” I declared.

Everyone looked well-rested and clean. Magnus almost looked a different man, clean-shaven and with a tie on. I supposed I probably did too. I looked down and saw Nat and Magnus’ hands intertwined, and I gave them a grin.

“Are you guys ready for this? We tell our story, then the world tries to start over,” Mary said.

“I’ll just be glad when it’s all over. I want nothing more than to disappear and let the government worry about everything now. Don’t we deserve that?” Natalia asked, and I was still surprised to hear her voice.

I had a feeling that it wasn’t quite over for us but kept it to myself. We headed into the UN General Assembly Hall, where massive screens were set up, playing live feeds of the largest mass funeral in the world’s history. From around the world, we were sending the dead back into space on the vessels. I had been amazed at the support for the idea, with so many conflicting religious beliefs out there, but everyone seemed to be okay with it. Cleanse the planet instead of burying three or so billion people.

We watched as the containers, as we had called them, lifted into the sky and were remotely sent out of the atmosphere and into space. This took over an hour, and many were openly weeping. I thought of my mother, who hadn’t made it, and countless others who were huge parts of my previous life, now floating in space. I was glad to know that my best friend James was among the survivors, and I was looking forward to seeing him again.

In the room filled with the world’s top surviving leaders and ambassadors, we spoke our side of the Event. Everyone listened with wide eyes, and many times, there was clapping, as if we needed the praise. We didn’t. When it was all done, they spoke of forming a world government. It was the only way to have a unified presence in a universe much vaster than we ever knew. NASA spoke of duplicating the technology we had now, and then hours after we started, I was finally asked the question I’d been waiting for.

“Dean, can you please describe this threat you mentioned?”

I swallowed and spoke what I knew about the Kraskis’ enemy. In this case, I didn’t think the enemy of our enemy would be our friend. My pulse raced as I talked, my new hybrid blood coursing through my body. I knew it wasn’t over for me. I reached over and squeezed Mary’s hand.

The End of The Event

The Survivors Book One

NEW THREAT

BY

NATHAN HYSTAD

Copyright

Copyright © 2018 Nathan Hystad

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover art: Tom Edwards Design

Edited by: Scarlett R Algee

Proofed by: BZ Hercules

ONE

I could hear him coming from the main level, his nails click-clacking on the hardwood floors. It was his morning routine: step on my chest, lick my face, sniff Mary, and then hop down off the bed. I think he checked the back door, then the front, then a quick peek through the window. He was checking if his previous owner, Susan, was there. She wasn’t.

I felt his pain. It was the same pain most of the world was feeling, after half of us hadn’t survived the Event. We all opened doors expecting to see someone we knew, only to see their bedroom empty. I had to stop myself at least twice a week from dialing my mom’s phone number, and that wasn’t an easy revelation to live with. The pain of loss was widespread, but the whole thing had left humanity stronger than they’d been in a long time; maybe ever.

Mary rolled over and rested her head on my chest. “You know we don’t have to go today,” she said, nuzzling in closer.

“I think we should. Plus, it’ll be good to see Magnus and Natalia again.” I stopped, and Mary turned and looked me in the eyes.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I actually think it’s time to move on. I can’t live here anymore. Not after all that’s happened, and I know it must be a little weird for you to be here too.” Even though I’d changed the furniture when Janine had died, I knew deep down the whole scenario wasn’t ideal for either of us.

“Dean, it’s okay. It’s not like we’ve lived permanently in any of these places over the last year. At least the house has more room than my condo in Washington, and Carey seems to be happier here. But I think he’d be happy wherever we take him,” she said with a smile. On cue, the spaniel hopped on the stool at the end of the bed and catapulted onto my stomach.

“Okay, Carey, what do you say? Want to come to New York with us today?” I asked the now-rolling-around dog.

“I think that means yes,” she answered for him.

Less than two hours later, we were loading the truck with our bags, for the second time in a month. It would be nice to settle in somewhere, but we had to figure out just what we wanted to do. The economy still didn’t know what it was doing, and the world powers were contemplating a global currency. There were so many empty properties now, and some estates had nowhere to go, whole families gone at the same time.

Looking around the living room, I slowly closed the door, breathing out, somehow feeling like this was the last time I’d see my house. If I’d learned anything over the past twelve months, it was to trust my gut. I locked up and glanced toward the truck. Mary was in the passenger seat with Carey sitting beside her. They were both looking at me, and Mary gave me a soft smile. Her smile managed to make me feel like a teenager again. There was a warmness I’d never known from a woman before, and I couldn’t help but feel like we were meant to meet and stop the invasion. It made us strong. It connected us forever.

Soon we were heading down the road, passing the church down the street, driving down the road I’d seen James getting almost beat up on, the day they arrived. It felt like yesterday at times, and like a decade ago at other times.

Stories had come out of the horrors from the cube ships. At the time, we hadn’t given it a lot of thought, but it made sense later. Once everyone realised they were on ships going God knew where, the trouble began. There were stories of fights, murder, riots, and rape. No one was safe from the events, and it made humanity take a good look in the mirror. There were countless survivors with stories to tell, and thousands of people were arrested afterwards. It was another gray area with no proof and no trials. There were a lot of lawyers and people smelling profit, but the government didn’t allow this.

Their process seemed to have worked, and the arrested were left on an island, fenced off from the world. It was either that or shoot them back into space, all in a transport vessel like they’d done their atrocities on. Everyone knew there must be some innocents among them, and guilty among us, but it was the best they could do at the time.

Safety was imperative after the hell everyone had been through.

My hometown was almost a ghost town. Most people had left for the big city, and over half of the town had died up there. Being a bedroom community, we had a lot of elderly; they were the first people to go, with no water, and as the illnesses spread like wildfire, only twenty percent of people over seventy survived the journey. Things had changed on Earth.

We cruised down the highway, and for a moment, it felt like a weekend drive to the city. But it seemed, nowadays, it was never just a drive to somewhere. There was always an underlying tension to life. While I was thankful to be alive and have people around me again, we all knew there was life out there, and they weren’t our friends. It was like a constant buzz in your ear… knowing. We knew a lot more about them, thanks to Mae. Half human, half Kraski. We just called them hybrids, which Mae claimed to not find offensive.

“Honey, what do you think they want to see us for?” I asked for at least the third time since they’d called Mary.

“Still not sure. But I’m hoping it’s to give us a mansion on an island to retire to,” she quipped.

“Well, if we’re going there with Magnus and Nat, I hope we don’t have to share a house with them too.”

We neared the city, and I saw the large area of fields filled with cars. All around the world, there were similar areas. Once everything had settled, the cleanup began. One of the most trying things had been clearing the empty cars off the roadways. If they weren’t claimed, they were towed into fields, where mobile crushers would eventually come and recycle the materials. The world was in a state of flux, and it was doubtful everything would be straightened out for years to come.

“It’ll be good to see Mae too. I hear they’re doing some amazing things, tech-wise. I guess there have been some dramatic medical advances just from the computers on the ships.” I could see Mary look at me from my peripheral vision. I still had this nagging suspicion she was a little jealous of the fact that Mae was the spitting image of my dead wife, but she had never acted strange about it, and she and Mae had become fast friends.

“I heard, and I doubt they’re even leaking half of what’s really going on. Top secret. But I have a feeling your charm can get us the inside scoop when we get to D.C.,” I said with a wink.

“We’ll see. If I can be honest, I want to see what kind of reverse engineering they’ve done with the Kraski ships we have. I mean, this could really shrink our universe,” Mary said, a twinkle in her eye.

“I’m happy with a small universe… a tiny one, in fact. One that just involves the east coast: you, me, and this pup here.”

In a quick thirty minutes, we arrived in the Upper West Side. As we passed the museum, I thought back to the moment I saw the ship above the truck, and Ray running at me. I’d forgiven him a long time ago for what he did. Vanessa had convinced him to turn the Shield off, and he thought he could save his family for it. We were no worse for wear, but Ray was dead, and his family would never see him again. We never told anyone what happened that day. It was thought he was killed by the Kraski, and I intended it to stay that way.

Even though it was New York on a weekend, I still found a parking spot on West Central Park. It would have blown my mind a year ago. Now the vacant streets just made me remember all we’d been through. We got out of the truck and soon we were taking a nice walk through the park, and it felt great. Carey pulled at his leash, sniffing everything he could along the way.

“What if we just got a place here? A condo on the park?” I gazed back at the beautiful buildings to the west of us, peeking at us from above the trees. “We can walk Carey, go for runs in the park… see a show every now and then.” I tried hard to sell it.

I wasn’t sure what Mary would say, but she just smiled at me and held my hand. “I think that’s the perfect idea.”

“So do I,” I said, and we walked the rest of the way in near silence, just enjoying ourselves.

The Boathouse was coming up quickly, and I could spot Magnus’ red hair from a way away. He came trotting toward us, and Carey growled a bit as he saw a shape rushing at us. When he saw who it was, he turned into a wiggling mess.

“Dean! Mary!” He grabbed Mary and squeezed her, spinning around. “How have you two been?”

“Buddy. We talk every couple days,” I said, laughing at his excitement.

“I know, but we haven’t seen you guys in weeks,” he said, motioning to Natalia coming down the sidewalk toward us.

Mary waved to her, and I saw Nat’s eyes light up just a little bit. She was a closed-off person, and even though she had started to talk again during the events of last year, she still said few words, at least in public.

“Hi, Nat,” I said, and gave her a light hug. She smiled and hugged Mary. Before we knew it, we were sitting on the patio by the little lake by the Boathouse, watching a few couples idly paddle by in rented canoes.

Mae walked in as we were finishing our meals. I had a flashback to the night I’d seen Janine here for the first time, eight years earlier. My throat closed up a bit, and I pushed aside the feelings and memory. So much had changed since then.

“Sorry I’m late. We had something come up last night,” she said, sitting down at the table. We cleared a spot for her, and after waving the waiter over, she ordered a latte. “I can’t get over the luxuries of Earth. We were used to protein slop up there.” She pointed to the sky and my stomach tightened.

“What happened?” Mary asked.

“You know how our group is still under surveillance, right? Well, a couple of the ones I had marked as potential dissidents have been meeting secretly. Of course, they have no idea the government is watching them. They’re tired of being confined out on Long Island, but most of us understand the concern. We were piloting your people to their deaths.”

“Most of us know you guys were doing what you thought was best. And almost all of you have been more than amiable since arriving on Earth. Sharing knowledge and being productive members of New Earth.” Magnus said this, and the name some people had been giving our planet sent shivers down my spine. If anything, this was still old Earth. Perhaps half-Earth. That might have been more fitting. The planet was still the same; it was the people that had changed.

“Well, we’ve been keeping an eye on them, and last night the mics picked up a name. Not one anyone on this planet wants to hear about. The Bhlat.” She said the last in a hushed tone, and we were all leaning in around the table. Damn. We’d learned a lot about the race from Mae and the other hybrids, but it still seemed like only a little.

“The Bhlat? Why would they be sneaking around discussing that?” I blurted, and the answer came to me before the words were out of my mouth.

“It seems to be the game these days. The Deltra infiltrated the Kraski, and the Kraski hybrids like us. It seems only fitting that somehow the Bhlat had gotten to someone on the Kraski before they evacuated their planet.” Mae stopped and looked at each of us before continuing. “If you thought the Kraski were bad news, you were wrong. They were just low-level compared to these guys. Sure, they took the Deltra and treated them like slaves, but they kept most of them alive. The Kraski only decided to kill all of humanity near the end. Those transport vessels were supposed to bring their people with them. That was, until the Bhlat came and destroyed them.”

We knew this story, but it still drew us in: a huge intergalactic war we were now a part of.

“If these guys find out where Earth is, it’s only a matter of time,” Mae said.

“Do you think there’s any way to prevent it?” Magnus asked, chest puffing out a bit.

“I hope so. I’m starting to like this world.”

TWO

The trip to Washington went by fast. Mae rode with us, and Carey sat in the back with her. She had started off cautious of the animal, but had quickly warmed to him, and now they were old friends. Carey rested his head on her lap as we raced down the interstate to the capital city.

I drove to the Capitol building. The sun shone bright in the sky, and for a moment, I thought I saw something. Was it a ship? Then my panic subsided as I recognized the shape. It was an airplane. Flights had begun six months after the Event, and though most of them were still commissioned flights by world powers, they were becoming more and more common to see.

As we approached the Capitol, I was in awe of the beauty of it. There was something about classic architecture that appealed to me. Domes and pillars. They were a sign of strength.

We stopped at a security booth and we all showed our passes to the guard at the gate. He frowned the whole time and gave me a double look before heading into his little booth. He made us wait good five or so minutes, before grunting that we could go on through.

“Nice guy,” I said sarcastically.

“We’ve all been through a lot. Try to not judge anyone too harshly,” Mary said, setting her hand on top of my right thigh. For a tough Air Force vet, she had a heart of gold and an awareness of other people that continued to inspire me to be better.

“Sorry, honey. You’re right.”

Standing by the front doors, we waited for Magnus and Natalia, who appeared to be having an argument with the same security guard in the parking lot.

When they got to the entrance, Magnus was still red, and Natalia was laughing at him.

“Don’t ask,” he muttered, and we entered. I’d been there many times, but the sight of the work put into it blew me away each time. A quiet, spectacled man greeted us and led us through the rotunda, and instead of making our way to one of the massive halls, we headed back into the library. The smell of old books, leather, and wood wafted to me and I wanted to stop and sit on one of the chairs, to relax with one of the ancient bound history volumes.

Instead, we were guided to a back door; the man guiding us unlocked it. Armed guards were at either side of the room, and they watched us with either interest or duty. Through it we went down a spiral staircase that was dimly lit by some ancient-looking wall sconces. I had a feeling we were heading somewhere few were allowed to see. Mary was behind me and she put a hand on my shoulder, giving me what felt like a reassuring squeeze. I turned back to her and lifted my eyebrow: a “what is going on here?” look.

“Dean, maybe we finally got invited to the Senate’s cigar club.” Magnus gave me a nudge with his elbow as we reached the basement level.

“This way,” the guide said, leading us down a long hall lit by the same sconces. It gave the hallway an ominous feel, and I felt like this was going to be more than a casual “thanks again for saving the world” meeting.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Natalia said quietly.

“Yeah, me too,” Mary replied, holding Carey’s leash as he looked around, sniffing everything he could get his nose on.

We were led through a mahogany double door and entered a room with a few people milling around a large table. I spotted the interim president, Patrice Dalhousie. Since the previous one hadn’t made it, nor had the vice president, someone had to fill the spot. There was talk of another election, but the polls showed everyone was happy with the way she was running things. A proper balance of philanthropy and economic stimulus, at least in my eyes.

The president noticed us and waved us over to the large table. She was a striking woman of middle years, jet-black hair in a conservative ponytail for the meeting.

“Welcome.” She smiled widely, and if I didn’t know better, she was genuinely happy to see us. She gestured to the empty chairs. “Please, have a seat.”

The other people around the room stopped their conversations and came, taking seats on the far side of the table.

“Would anyone care for refreshments? Coffee, tea?” she asked. I found myself taking an early liking to her. Where someone else might expect someone to do their simple tasks for them, she started pouring us coffees and passed the cream and sugar over to Magnus.

I sat down, sandwiched between Mary and Natalia. Magnus and Mae finished the group off to our right. I held my cup of coffee in my hand, waiting to see why we were here. I glanced at the rest of the group and thought some of them might be familiar, but I wasn’t sure. There was a man in uniform; a lot of medals hung from his breast. Before I could guess who they all were, Dalhousie stood up. The room was silent as she took in a breath.

“We have to talk about the threat at hand. We asked you five to come for your insight. You are the saviors of our race. We owe you so much. Everything. It’s because of your efforts that we’re here today. First off, we want to make sure you have everything you need. If there is something you’re lacking, let me know and I’ll personally take care of it if I have to.”

“One of the others left behind might have saved you,” I said, unsure why I felt the urge to say anything.

She shook her head, and a few others did as well. “I don’t think so. We were hours at most from driving into the sun. It was all on you.”

Over the course of the year, we’d found out there were eleven others left on Earth. Their stories were close to the same as ours, and they were from all over the world. Clusters from Africa, Australia, and even two from Canada. The closer the hybrid to the Shield, the more effect it would have on their health. The ones who tried to land in the southern US, or South America, died in weeks, sometimes. Turned out the ones from Canada were only a day and a half behind us. They arrived to find the Shield gone, and a few alien corpses. I tried to imagine how crazy that must have felt, and how gut-wrenching. They wouldn’t have known what happened or if anyone had succeeded. They found out a week later as the massive black vessels broke atmosphere and lowered to the Earth once again.

“Thank you for your generosity, Madame President,” Mary said.

“Please, call me Patty,” she replied. “Allow me to introduce everyone. On my left is General Joshua Heart. Beside him we have Jeff Dinkle, our head of White House Communications.” The man nodded at us, and I realized where I knew him. He had a talk show on one of the major news networks, where it wasn’t unheard of for him to discuss extra-terrestrials, or outer space in general. Not the farmers’ fields and drunken farmer interviews, but more of an intellectual, theoretical discussion-type show. There were a few sleepless nights a few years ago where I could recall being bleary-eyed and watching his show, thinking it unlikely we weren’t alone. Boy, was I wrong.

“Across from you is Allana Lockley, and her partner in crime, Harry Middleton. I’ll spare you the old-world titles they would have had within the government. They are our resident physics wizards, and finally, we have Clare LeBlanc and Trent Breton, engineers like none other,” Patty said, smiling wide.

It was an odd mix of people for us to be meeting with.

“You’re probably wishing I’d just get on with it.” She waited, and when no one replied, she continued. “We’re creating something of an Earth Defense Unit. We have delegates from around the world coming this week to convene and figure out a plan. The world will soon have a unified government. The one thing this Event has done is take down borders. Crime is down, we have space for everyone, war is almost non-existent, and we’re going to work as one to build a stronger world. One we’re going to protect with our lives.”

Magnus and Natalia were nodding, being sucked in by her words. I was getting a small knot in my stomach as she spoke, and Mary squeezed my hand.

“What does this have to do with us?” Mary asked.

“We need your help.” There it was, the favor, as if we hadn’t done enough for them yet.

“What exactly do you need from us?” I asked.

“We just want you to be on the team. The defense team. You four did something so amazing, and it showed strength, resolve, tenacity, and intelligence. Mae, you helped convince the others to save us, and continue to lead your kind. Perhaps sooner rather than later, we can have them intermingling with the rest of the world, rather than caged like they are. We’re sorry for the way it has to be now.” Patty looked sympathetic as she spoke.

Mae’s eyes glistened a little as she took it all in and responded. “We actually understand, and if I can be honest, appreciate the treatment. Most of us were ready to die and kill your kind just because we were trained to do it. We may not have thought it was right, but most of them are good people, and do want to be members of society. I can’t say that all of them are cooperating, but we’re keeping tabs on them.”

I drained the rest of my now-cooling coffee and set the cup down, the noise a little jarring in the pin-drop quiet room.

The man who’d guided us down here walked over from his spot by the door, and slid a panel on the wall, revealing a large flat screen. He touched it on the lower left side and a video loaded.

“What you’re about to see is what we’ve been working on for the last year. If we’re going to have a shot at defending ourselves, we have to be prepared,” Patty said, voice climbing as she spoke.

The video started playing and the camera showed a shot from the ground, probably filmed with a military vehicle driving. It was of a massive desert landscape, possibly in Arizona or New Mexico, or maybe even somewhere else in the world. As they moved along, we got sight of a huge building. It was hard to tell the actual size of it from this perspective, but I was guessing at least five hundred thousand square feet. Beside it was one of the gargantuan transport vessels. It sat on the ground, juxtaposition to the light sand, a black monolith looking out of place on our world. I thought back to the first time we’d encountered one of them in space, some way away from the sun. That’s where we met Mae… after killing all her counterparts. I had a lot of blood on my hands and wondered if there was any way I could decline whatever position they were going to ask me to fill. I knew I could never go back to being an accountant after all of this, but… I could be something else. I’d had enough of killing, that much I knew.

They got closer, and as they stopped, a vehicle akin to a large golf cart came to greet them. The camera showed the president and General Heart getting off the Humvee, with Harry and Clare in the cart. They loaded up into the unit and large bay doors slid open. Inside the building hovered one of the gray ships we’d flown in. The Kraski ships were there. Beside them were some black ships, similar in design.

“It turns out there were a dozen of these vessels in all the transport units,” she said, the camera showing them all lined up inside the huge open room.

“What are those?” Magnus asked, pointing at the black ships on the right side of the screen.

Patty smiled. “Those are prototypes. You see, the team here has reverse engineered some of the technology we found. It was quite amazing. I’ll let Clare describe it a little better.”

Clare stood up, her face turning a light shade of red before she started speaking. I wasn’t sure if she was nervous or just excited. “The things we found were quite remarkable. First off, you flew these ships.” She nodded to Mary and Natalia. “You know how amazing it was to fly something that doesn’t lurch or toss you around as it speeds up or slows down. These inertial dampeners, as we call them for a lack of a better term, are quite impressive. We learned how to simulate it and have tested it in our own units. After a few faulty runs, and a couple banged-up test pilots, we have it down to a tee.

“We’ve added tracking into each new ship, and” – the screen shot switched to a man putting on a suit, much like the ones I’d worn into space, only it appeared these fit humans — “the suits have been perfected. They have built-in communicators, and with the data from the ships’ computers we found, built-in translators too. We’ve tested them with the Kraski records, and the Deltra we had, and they work like a charm.” Clare smiled widely, proud of everything they’d accomplished.

“That’s pretty cool,” I said quietly. I, along with a couple others at that table, had experience with those Kraski suits, and imagined they would be much better-fitted to our bodies. I still didn’t want to be one of the people testing an air-tight suit in space for the first time. It was scary enough using one of them when I’d had no choice at all.

“To what end?” Mary asked. “Why are we doing all of this?”

The president turned to her. “They’ll be coming for us. We know that. We have to be ready for it. We’ll need ships, suits, communication…” She paused. “We’ll need weapons.”

My skin crawled and, for a moment, I thought I could feel the hybrid blood pulse through my veins, the transfusion they gave me to save my life still reminding me it happened. My back tensed then too; I tried to calm down and loosen my tight spine. Ever since that day, getting shot up by a hybrid that looked just like Mary’s dead husband, I got daily reminders of that moment. I always seemed to notice my back was just a little off when I thought about the Event; otherwise, I usually felt normal. Unfortunately for me, I thought about it a lot.

The video switched scenes, and it cut to large metallic gun-shaped devices in the field near the base. Large targets were on display in the distance. Had to be a few hundred feet away. The sound was silent; then we could hear a light whine. Before we knew it, the noise was constant and a red light widened like a sphere around the weapon shaft. One instant, it was there humming; the next, the shaft was gray again and a target far in the distance exploded.

“So, we have some badass guns. Good.” This from Magnus, my large red-haired friend. A smile crossed his face, and I couldn’t help but smile back at him being excited by this. The ex-mercenary was always hoping to blow stuff up.

“We have other things in the works too. Things the Bhlat can’t know about. My apologies about not showing them to you now.” She looked around the room, catching everyone in the eyes. “We have to be one hundred percent sure word won’t reach them. Sure, we’re in a safe room, but we can’t show all our cards quite yet.”

Mae’s upper lip twitched a tiny bit, probably undiscernibly to anyone else. I knew she wouldn’t hold it against the president, but she was still probably assuming the mole threat was her, since she was the only off-Earther there.

“Mae,” the president said, turning her attention to her, “we need you out in Long Island. We think there are some bad apples out there, and we can’t have that. The Bhlat name has been uttered on our surveillance a few times, and we need to know who’s saying that name, and who they’re saying it to. We also sensed a couple odd transmissions leave the area, and we have no idea where they came from or what kind of message was sent. I know most of them trust you. It might be tough to track down, but can you do this as your first task as a member of the Earth Defense?” She said it in an odd mixture of authority and hopefulness. I knew what Mae would say.

“Of course,” she said.

“We can go with you, Mae,” Mary said, reaching over and squeezing my hand.

THREE

The bar was my favorite kind. Lots of wood everywhere, and cold micro-brewed beer on tap. Carey joined us and the bartender almost told us “no pets,” until he recognized who we were. He didn’t say anything about it, just brought over a bowl with fresh water in it, and a piece of sausage. He quickly became Carey’s best friend. I looked around and thought about how much Ray would have probably loved it here too. My heart twinged at the memory of him.

“Earth Defense Unit. Who comes up with these names?” Magnus took a pull from his beer, spilling a little bit as he set the pint glass down with a fling of his arm. “It just sounds so ridiculous.”

Mary nodded but didn’t say anything, and I could tell she was deep in thought about the whole thing. She was probably leaning toward telling them no to the position, and I was leaning so far over, I almost figuratively tipped on my face.

“I don’t know, I think it’s fitting.” This from Mae.

“That’s because you aren’t from around these parts, m’lady. On Earth, it sounds like something out of a bad video game,” Magnus quipped.

“It doesn’t really matter what they call it. It’s probably necessary to have. But if they really want to honor us for saving the world, they might want to do it another way than shoving ships and guns in our hands,” I said, hoping I was on the same page as the rest of them.

Everyone was quiet for a moment, until Magnus barked out a laugh. “Dean, you’re something else. I’m with you one hundred percent. But what if? ‘What if’ has been playing an earworm in my head for weeks now. What if they’re right? What if these alien bastards are making their way here? The Kraski did it. Hell, the Deltra led them here in a centuries-long game. That means for hundreds of years, they’ve known about our world. That doesn’t bode well for us, my compadre.”

“So what would you have us do, Mag?” Mary asked, speaking for the first time since we’d left the Capitol building.

“I say we suit up, join this EDU, stop Earth from being invaded, and then kick back and retire on a beach with a stockpile of cigars and Canadian whisky.” He smiled widely, and I couldn’t help but get swept up in his enthusiasm.

“I’m in.” This from Natalia. Her eyes shone bright and she smiled at Magnus.

“I have nowhere else to go. We have a job to do,” Mae said. I knew she was probably hesitant to become a spy on her own for the humans, but she did seem to want to be helpful, and not only that, we all liked her a lot.

That was three in. I looked to Mary, who grabbed her beer, held it high and said, “Why the hell not? I’m in if you are, Dean.”

How could I say no, then? It was determined for me right at that moment. I was going to stay in the fight, be a part of the Earth Defense.

“I’m a little young for retirement. I’m in.” We all clinked glasses and drank deeply.

We had more than a few beers, followed by some food and a few more, knowing that the next day reality would sink in once again. We let loose, hit a dingy karaoke bar, and sang bad songs until way too early in the morning.

My head swam from the alcohol as we lay on the hotel bed, the three of us exhausted from a long day and an even longer night. I couldn’t help but feel like we were making the wrong choice.

__________

“Dean, we’d better get up. We have to catch the train to New York in a few hours.” I heard Mary talking, but my head pounded and I couldn’t see her, considering my eyes were closed and I had half the bed’s blankets over my face. I pulled them down, squinting against the sunlight creeping through the blinds. The clock at the nightstand read nine AM.

Carey stretched at the foot of the bed, making a grumpy noise. He would be tired after all the beer-spilled floors he’d had to trudge through. I suddenly felt like a horrible pet owner. I’d make it up to him with a nice walk before the train ride.

“Long Island by this evening, then we go out to this secret area where the ships are being held,” I said, and Mary nodded. She looked no worse for the wear, and though she must have felt as bad as I did, she didn’t show it. I could tell she’d already showered and was surprised that I hadn’t even noticed her getting out of bed.

“I wonder how they keep that place a secret. I mean, did you see the size of that building, and the black transport vessels? They must have a no-fly zone or something over it.” Mary was packing her things up, and I knew it was time for me to get my slow-moving body out of bed.

I thought of the black cubes that had come down that ominous day. An omen of a new era for Earth. Then I could see them in space, some turning around, some burning up in the sun’s intense heat. Millions of lives snuffed out in an instant. Just like the Kraskis’ lives. They had come to our planet to rid themselves of us first, but it was a weight Magnus, Mary, and I would have to live with forever. The genocide of a race. I could feel my pulse racing and my head spinning. Over the past year, I’d thought about it many times, but never let myself dwell on it. There was too much going on, and I knew nothing could change what we’d done. I also knew that none of us would change bringing that Shield onto their ship. We’d done what we had to do.

Part of me still wondered if diplomacy could have worked. Was there any way we could have had a parlay with their leaders and made some sort of arrangement? Could we have all lived in peace: the Kraski, Deltra, and humans? Judging by the fact that they were all so eager to destroy each other, I doubted it. Still… the chance that it might have worked still lingered in the back of my mind, and it might always linger there.

I looked over at Mary after a too-long moment of silence and could tell she’d been thinking about the cubes as well. About the Kraski and the Deltra.

“We still have the hybrids. We can still try to stop these Bhlat from destroying us.” The idea of us having to help save the world again seemed ridiculous to me. Weren’t there more qualified people out there than a widow, widower, bodybuilder turned mercenary, and a former kidnapped mute woman?

She just smiled at me, a smile that crinkled her eyes just the right amount to feel the love emanating from her face. My heart melted, and the hangover suddenly felt less oppressive.

“Dean, meet Carey and me at the café down the street in twenty,” she said, reaching for his leash. Carey hopped off the bed and rolled around on the carpet.

A half-hour later, I rolled my luggage into the elevator and held the door as I heard someone call out. A prim middle-aged woman entered, bringing a waft of expensive perfume with her. She passed me without a glance.

“Lobby?” I asked, and she turned to me. A moment later, her jaw fell, and she blinked a couple times.

“Dean Parker?” she asked, her voice a squeak. I didn’t have any idea who she was.

“That’s me. I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Of course we haven’t, but I know you. Everyone does. I was on thirteen.” She meant the number that later had been assigned to every transport vessel. There were books being written about each of the vessels, and what they’d endured. I wasn’t sure I could ever read them, knowing every delay I’d had on my journey had amounted to more deaths out there in space.

Something clicked in my head as I looked at her. “Wait. You’re Katherine Adams. I’ve heard the stories.”

She had the decency to blush, and that was something I didn’t expect from this woman.

“Yes. I’m tickled pink that you of all people would have an inkling of who I am. I just want to thank you for everything you did.”

“The way I hear it, you deserve a lot of accolades. You saved lives up there. You created a medical center and a police force, and helped so many people.” I wasn’t exaggerating. She was the real deal. Thirteen was a real inspiration, and once all the vessels had turned around and headed back for Earth, a lot of her ideas were implemented on the other ships. She was a hero.

The elevator chimed and the doors opened to the lobby. I once again stuck my arm out to hold the door as she went by, purse slung over her shoulder. She looked just like a woman on the way to a club in the Hamptons, and I couldn’t help but feel inferior for a moment.

“None of it would have meant anything if you and your friends hadn’t saved us all. We are forever in your debt.” She stepped in and gave me a hug. Not one I would have expected, rather a close, firm hug that you’d save for a loved one you hadn’t seen in a long time. I returned it with the same vigor, and I realized we had all been through so much. We each had a story now, one that we all shared, and this made us all closer.

We stood there in lobby, embracing like old friends for what probably was too long, and when we separated, she wiped a tear away with her hand. My heavy heart lifted at that moment. I knew we could rise above everything that had happened, and anything that would come against us.

She moved back as if noticing she might have overstepped some social boundary, but I put her at ease with a gentle smile that meant it was as much my hug as hers. “I’m really glad we got to meet,” I said, reaching for my luggage.

“Dean, if you’re ever in the area or just want to talk about anything, get in touch.” She pulled a business card out of her purse, and I flipped it in my fingers, rotating it to read the text. Survivor Support Family, it said in blue lettering across the white backdrop. Her name, email, and cell phone number were on there. It said “Founder” under her name. As if this woman hadn’t done enough, she was behind an international support group for anyone who needed it after all that had happened. I wanted to hug her again. At the same time, I felt shame for my own lack of effort over the past year. Just because I’d helped then didn’t mean I shouldn’t help what we’d salvaged.

“I will. I just know Mary would love to talk to you,” I said, meaning it, and she lit up. We parted ways, and I couldn’t help but feel an extra motivation for the next few days.

The walk was brief; only a few people walked around the streets that would once have been as busy as any in North America. Now it was almost empty, a shell of what it used to be. Things like corporations looking to appease shareholders almost ceased to exist, as did the stock exchange, but I knew it was only a matter of time before corporate greed and selfishness once again took hold, choking out the needy and separating the classes as always. If I was going to protect this world, I wanted to make sure the president was going to keep the world on track. I had never considered myself anything but a capitalist, but things had changed, and we needed to adapt.

I heard a bark, and right away knew it was my little buddy Carey. I used my free hand to wave to Mary, and she gave me the sweetest smile in return. I really loved that woman. Going through what we had together not only made us stronger as people, but we were so tightly bonded I worried what would happen to either of us if…something happened to the other.

I couldn’t go through it again.

“Hey, bud.” I heard Magnus’ voice boom at me from across the street, and Natalia waved over at us. They looked around and started to cross the street toward me when a police cruiser raced down the street, sirens blaring and cherries flashing. He pulled Natalia back just in time, as another car sped down the otherwise quiet road. Her luggage wasn’t as lucky. It lay flattened as another half dozen police cars passed over it, soon followed by a couple of ambulances.

When the commotion was over, I turned to see Carey and Mary beside me.

“What’s their rush?” she asked.

Magnus was now in the middle of the street yelling at the convoy of emergency vehicles, and Nat was dragging her bag to us on the sidewalk.

“Good thing I didn’t pack my favorite pants,” she joked, eyes conveying her humor. It was so nice to see her making wisecracks, considering the first few days I’d known her, she was hard and mute.

“The sirens are still loud, so they can’t be far from here. Let’s check it out, it might be coming from the White House,” I said, looking down the way and almost seeing the White House grounds. I’d almost forgotten we were only a half-mile from there.

We made our way down the road, the street getting busier with people as we approached the gated greenspace. There was a large group at the front gates, a man talking passionately into a bullhorn. Carey sidled up to my feet as we stopped, not liking the noise or the crowds. I knelt and petted him, scratching him on the ear, and assured him everything was okay.

“What do you think this is all about?” Mary asked our group.

Magnus shrugged. “Since the beginning of time, people have been gathering in town squares to complain about things. Why should that change now?”

We moved a little closer and could see the gates were closed. I tried to guess at the ever-growing crowd, and put it at around a thousand, but more were streaming in all the time. Someone had let the people of the city know there was something of interest going on, and I didn’t like the feeling the crowd was giving me. Finally, I saw some signs being thrust into the sky with angry vigor. Don’t forget the Event! Down with Dalhousie! Genocide is never okay! That last one stung me, and my breathing picked up. It was public knowledge that the Kraski had been destroyed, though the details of exactly how remained blurry. My name had been tossed around, of course, and I’d been asked for months by reporters and people on the street about my take on it. I refused to comment. Not because I felt regret for doing it, but because they would never understand that I had to do it. I didn’t have a choice. It was humans or Kraski. I chose my people, and it was something I would have to live with for the rest of my life. I was at peace with it.

Mary must have seen it too, because she reached over and touched my arm. I smiled at her briefly and tossed a look at Magnus. He was there with me. We turned the Shield on together, killing the last of a race. A bond from something so big, we would always be connected by it. He looked back, his lips pressed tightly together. He gave me a quick wink, like it was no big deal, and I really liked that about him.

“Hey, guys, check out that one,” Magnus said, pointing at a large green sign. Uranus or bust. At least some people still had a sense of humor.

As we moved through the people, I finally saw the man speaking into the horn. He was on a homemade wooden pedestal so everyone could see him. He wore his hair in a man-bun, and I could see the passion for what he was saying burn out through his eyes. He was an intense man.

“…Dalhousie is just like the rest of them, and maybe even worse. She brings with her the open air of concern and caring, but then gives preferential treatment to the elite, and if you break down her platform, she’s bringing the USA into a communist state!” he yelled into the speaker, and was cheered on by most of those around him.

I nudged up to Magnus and spoke just loud enough for him to hear through the crowd noise. “I don’t like the feel of this. Keep an eye out for a weapon. Our people are on edge these days, and this is just the kind of scene where someone will be pushed to do something they normally wouldn’t. And if they have the crowd behind them, it could get ugly.”

“I hear you, brother.” He gestured to his ankle, and I saw his pant leg was just a little more pushed out on that side. He was carrying. Probably not technically legal in the new D.C., but he was, after all, appointed to the Earth Defense Unit by the president herself. It made me wish I was carrying something too, all of a sudden. If he was, that guaranteed Natalia was too.

Mary pointed past the people. An entourage was coming from the White House. Soon I made out the dark hair of the president as she was flanked by numerous Secret Service agents. We were about thirty feet from her, but I could see her unease at having to deal with this. If I had to guess, she was advised to let them be and ignore the protesters. From my short interactions with her, I could tell she was passionate and thought her cause was just. She would do anything to have buy-in from the masses, and probably thought talking to them here would help do that. Looking around at the angry people, I wasn’t so sure.

She stopped and a podium was dropped off by a van, with a built-in microphone and speaker. Her voice came through crisp and clear in opposition to the guy’s cheap hand-held horn.

“Good morning, everyone. Times are changed now, and I’m not one of your old leaders. I want this to be a time of peace among all of us. We have to work together to accomplish this. The reality is, we have more to worry about than squabbles amongst ourselves. We must look to the skies and defend our home. To do this, we need to be a solid, cohesive planet,” she said, pausing as everyone had turned their attention to her.

“Then why is my brother locked up? He didn’t do anything up there. I know it.” The man turned to her as he spoke. Now his anger was coming a little clearer.

“We have dealt with the crimes during the days of the Event the best we could. Many people were hurt, raped, killed… I don’t know what you brother did, but we’re confident in our system. While it wasn’t one hundred percent effective, we had no choice but to punish those who harmed others during that strenuous time. What happened to us all gave no one the right to hurt another person. If anything, it gave the world an opportunity to help those in need, and many people did rise to the occasion.” Dalhousie was nailing it.

The man fidgeted from side to side, and he got closer to the gate, moving off his box. “You’re wrong. You’re wrong about everything.” He was only about fifteen feet from her now, and I could see the Secret Service guys tensing. Magnus had moved around and reached for his ankle. With no one else noticing, he’d slid his gun from his ankle to his belt on his back. Nat moved the other way, and they were on opposite sides of the guy. A shot fired, only it came from behind us, not from the bullhorn guy. Dalhousie was being brought down by her guards, and Magnus tackled the man at the gate. Another shot rang out, and Mary took off, leaving me with Carey. The crowd was on the ground very quickly, Mae and I among them. Twenty yards away, on top of a black van, was the shooter. I saw a pylon go flying toward him, and then Mary was climbing the hood of the van, rushing at him like a bull at a red cape.

Finally, I shook off the shock and passed Carey’s leash to Mae, running to the back of the van. He landed hard on the ground, and his rifle went flying. The van started to move, the driver evidently not wanting to get caught alongside the shooter. I was on the gun in a heartbeat, and Mary was jumping off the speeding van, rolling as she hit the ground. Holding the rifle at the man’s chest, I walked backward to make sure Mary was okay.

She was on her feet in moments, rubbing dust off her pants. “Thanks for the backup, Dean.” She smiled hard at me. By then, the Secret Service were all around us, one holding a gun at the two of us. I turned the rifle around and held it out butt first.

“I’ll be your backup anytime, if you want to take the climbing and jumping role,” I said, suddenly wishing we’d never made the trip to D.C.

FOUR

Dalhousie looked frazzled. The crowd had dispersed, rather than cause any problems. They had all been through a lot, and maybe the gunshots had been a reminder of their mortality. They’d all seen enough death. We stood in a quiet part of the White House not ever open to the public.

The bullhorn guy had been shot. The van had gotten away, but the surveillance cameras should have picked up some details. The shooter was in the next room, and so far, hadn’t said anything to the Secret Service agents.

“So why the hell did they shoot him? Were they just that bad at aiming?” the president asked.

I’d thought about it, and since we didn’t know anything about the shooter, or really the victim, we could only speculate.

“It could be they were trying to pin it on you guys. Someone spoke out, and the government swept in and shot them. Could be just enough of a spark to create a fire in the world today. I have to think there are groups out there who want trouble, so they can profit from chaos,” I said, probably on the right path with my thought pattern.

Magnus puffed up, looking angry. “I saw the same kind of thing a lot in eastern Europe. A lot of times, a group would try to get the people riled up about another group, typically government, and then while all the shit was going down, they’d fly under the radar. Weapons trading, financial scams, drugs… whatever makes money.”

Dalhousie nodded. “Magnus. Can you go in there and interrogate that bastard? I wouldn’t hold it against you if you let the perp think he killed that kid out there. I know he only grazed his arm, but let’s make him think there’s something terrible waiting for him after he’s out of here, unless he cooperates.”

“You got it, ma’am. Though I’ve only been on the receiving end of those things,” he said, watching me raise an eyebrow to his statement. “Nothing like that. It was just a misunderstanding,” he assured me. I couldn’t help but snicker and held it back after Mary frowned at me.

“Don’t we need a good cop for the game?” I asked.

“Are you volunteering, Dean?” the president asked.

I wasn’t but didn’t know if I could get out of it. I had no idea what to say or do in this situation.

“I’m not sure I’m the man for the job.” I could already feel the sweat dripping down my back.

“Sure you are, buddy.” Magnus clapped me on the back. “Nothing to it. Follow my lead.”

And just like that, I was heading for my first interrogation as an Earth Defense officer. I still hadn’t had my coffee yet. As if someone read my mind, a page brought in a carafe and a pile of paper cups. Just in time.

With a fresh cup of steaming Joe, I followed Magnus into the small office off the board room. The shooter was sitting on a chair, hands cuffed behind his back, his jaw resting on his chest. His head lay still, and I worried he might not be breathing, but when Magnus cleared his throat, the man’s mouth twitched.

“What’s your name?” Magnus asked gruffly. The man lifted his head but kept his mouth shut, glaring back at the unlikely pair before him.

“I said, what’s your name, soldier?” Magnus asked again.

The shooter’s eye spasmed at the word soldier, and I knew Magnus had struck a nerve.

Waiting a few moments for a reply that wasn’t coming, Magnus continued. “Army?”

Still no reply, but I could tell Magnus was on the right track. The man’s posture went from deflated to rigid and proud in less than a minute.

“Listen, the guy you shot is going to be okay. The president also doesn’t think you’re the brains of this operation, so just play along, and you might just get a slap on the wrist.” Magnus leaned over the small table, half covering it with his wide girth.

I doubted this guy was getting just a slap on anything, and we actually hadn’t heard back on the health of the gunshot victim, but since it was just a flesh wound, the odds were he was going home tonight.

Magnus was getting annoyed, and I could see a little vein start to pulse in his forehead. “Who. Sent. You?” he asked through his teeth.

The man averted his eyes again, and I knew it was time to change gears. I sat down on the plastic flip chair in front of him and quietly spoke. “What number were you on?”

Everyone left on Earth had been on a transport vessel just a year ago. The horrors they went through, and the pain of the losses, were still fresh in our minds. It was a simple question, seemingly harmless, but it would invoke a lot of memories, undoubtedly bad ones.

“Twenty-three. I was on twenty-three.” He made eye contact with me for the first time.

I scanned my memory of the records. I didn’t know all of them, but the American ones had more exposure here, so I’d heard tales.

“I’m sorry,” I said, putting my coffee down on the table. “You want a coffee?”

He looked up at Magnus and then back to me. His eyes then lowered to his hands, which were cuffed behind him, and he shrugged.

“Just give me a second,” I said, and left the room. I returned in a moment with the keys and a black coffee. They had given me a little grief about the tactics but were happy to see he was finally responding to something. They didn’t want to slow down any momentum I’d gained. Magnus just hung back as I undid the cuffs, happy to let me take the lead for now, but I knew he was ready for action should he be needed.

The man rubbed his wrists, just like they always did in every cop show I’d ever seen. For a second, I felt like I was behind the camera of one of those nineties shows where a bald cop with a moustache always caught the bad guys, and then slept with a woman way out of his league.

“Twenty-three was a tough run. Only something like thirty percent made it, I think?” I asked softly.

A shaky hand reached for the steaming black coffee and he took a tentative sip. “Thirty-four,” he corrected. “The third worst out of all of them.”

“Want to tell us about it?”

He looked like he was about to shut me down, but then something changed. His eyes softened, and I saw his shoulders slump ever so slightly. I knew we were all carrying around so much weight from the Event, and not everyone had an avenue to release the pain. Sometimes all someone needed to do was talk about it, and they could move on with their lives. Suddenly, I felt bad for the guy.

“I got back from the Middle East six months before…well…before they came. Wasn’t doing so hot. I tried to get a job, and all I could get was pushing a broom on a crappy strip mall construction gig. My wife was riding me to do better, like her being a hairdresser was this glorious crown-worthy enterprise.” He stopped, and I could see his eyes were getting wet. I assumed his wife wasn’t one of the lucky ones returning to Earth. “Anyway, things weren’t good between us, and when those ships came, I almost wished they would just end it. Blow us up. Make my memories mean nothing.” He took another sip of coffee.

Magnus was leaning in, listening intently to the truth we were witnessing.

“When they didn’t, we ended up being brought to twenty-three. Only then, we didn’t know where the hell we were, or what we were doing. I was in one of those rooms, and some people were in like some kind of coma or something. Stasis, I heard them call it after. Most of us weren’t. In there, we were piled up like livestock, people of every color, religion, and sex. The sick lay among the healthy. Someone gave birth the first day. I heard the baby girl is still alive and healthy. The small miracles.” He looked at me, seemingly embarrassed at showing vulnerability.

“Anyway. Sick people died, we had no food or water, and once we realized there were floor after floor of these cages, some of us explored and tried to find where we were. It was like a sick game. Metal grate floors, sliding hydraulic doors, and no aliens. No threats we could see. Just time. People were fighting, some loved ones found each other, and we tried to have a system where we separated people. The sick ended up on one floor, and as others weakened, they were moved there. Doctors and others tried to help, but there wasn’t much they could do with no supplies. It was terrible.” He took another pause, and I leaned back, taking a sip of my now tepid coffee.

His posture changed. “Then I saw them. The hybrids, as we call them now. A bunch of men and women who looked alike. They had weapons. A lot of us died trying to attack them. I didn’t bother. I knew they would mow us down like ducks at the firing range, so I hung back. Later, I followed them a ways and learned what floor they were on. The next day, I headed there, and one of them approached me from behind. I almost crapped myself.”

The stories of the vessels were hard to hear, especially since the few of us who didn’t get taken never had to witness it. We’d just seen the aftermath, and that was hard enough. I thought back to the first vessel we’d come upon on our way to the sun. The one where we’d found Mae… and killed the rest of the hybrids. Guilt rose from my gut and threatened to make me gag, and I pushed it back down. I had to do it. There was no choice.

The guy must have noticed me pale, and he raised an eyebrow to me. “Then what?” I asked, hoping to just move on.

“They brought me to a room, an off-limits area only they could get into. I thought for sure they were going to kill me. I mean, why wouldn’t they? I was spying on them. Instead, he offered me a seat and gave me a glass of water. I mean, at first, I expected it to be poisoned or something, but figured it would have just been easier to shoot me, so I drank it. Next, he plopped a bar of food in front of me. He didn’t talk, just set it down.” He looked at me guiltily. “I ate it. As soon as I took that bite and felt my stomach churn from finally having something inside it, I knew I was theirs. I felt guilty but didn’t care. The way I figured it, we were all dead anyway.”

I wondered what endgame the hybrids on that ship had. If they knew they were just crashing into the fiery depths of the sun in a few days, what use did they have for someone on the inside?

Before I could ask, he continued. “At first, they just asked me to keep an ear out for anything out of place. Revolts, that kind of thing. I did. A couple times, I overheard plans from the captives to attempt a coup d’état, and before they could, the alien hybrids always found out. No one had any inkling it was me.”

I noted how he called the people captives and didn’t seem to include himself among their ranks during this conversation. Magnus probably noticed too, judging by the frown he was wearing.

“More people died, and by the time I realized I should have been using my time thinking of ways to get one of their weapons to turn the tables, it was too late. The heroes of Earth showed up and stopped them from destroying us all. I lie awake at night telling myself that had they not come to save us, I would have found a way to at least stop our vessel. I know that I’m kidding myself, but it’s all I can do to sleep some nights.” He took another sip of his coffee and set the cup down with a shaky hand.

Heroes of Earth. The name had a silly ring to it, but it was one of the many things we were hailed as after the return. We were all quiet a moment, and the guy squinted as he looked from Magnus back to me. Recognition sank in, and he paled even more.

“It’s you.” His hands went to his face, covering it as he blew a deep breath out. “All this time, I’m spilling my guts about working for the enemy, and who am I telling it to? Two of the damn people who actually stopped them from killing us all. Listen, I know you’re going to judge me, but if I’d been on the outside, maybe I would have done like you too.”

“I believe you would have. What choice did you have?” I asked him, and I told myself I would never have done what he’d done if I were in his shoes. It was hard to convince my brain one hundred percent. I was worried he might clam up now, so I had to stay on his side. “We need to know about today. Why did you shoot that man?”

I was jumping ahead, but if I was going to lose him, I needed to hit the gas quickly.

“I’m sorry. They had me. In those few days, they made me one of theirs. I felt more at home with them, sneaking around infiltrating my own people, than I did pushing sawdust around for a living. I get it. Transference, or whatever the hell you want to call it. I was converted to some sort of new ideas, and at this moment, I finally see it for what it was. I’m ashamed,” he said quietly.

“So you were theirs, but after we got home, what happened? I’m missing something.” Magnus stood up, and I wished he would shrink back down to be less intimidating.

“Once you showed up, a couple of them were convinced of your story. They fought about it, I was told, but they all ended up going along with it. I think the hard-core Kraski fanatics had a hard time agreeing, but they saw an opportunity for something. They were the ones who kept me on their side. They played nice with everyone, and we’ve all heard the remorse from the interviews, and the hybrids over the last year, but if you think they all rolled over and forgot their roots, you’re kidding yourselves,” Clayton said.

Dalhousie had been right to keep them all isolated in their POW camp out on Long Island. The Russians had wanted them, but the world had voted on the US. Likely they would all have wound up dead by some accidental explosion, but if what I was hearing went where I feared, maybe that would have been the best alternative.

“I doubt anyone thinks they’re toothless,” Magnus said. “Can we get back to the shooting today?”

“Before we landed back on Earth, two of them told me they would be in touch. They gave me some sort of tracking device or something.” He pointed to the back of his neck. “Injected it in me. Didn’t hurt.”

Magnus stood tall again. “Is it still in there?” he barked.

The guy nodded. “Yeah, they contacted me a couple times, but not directly. Through a human, I think.”

That had to mean they had a whole damned network here. Dalhousie and the rest had every reason to be cautious around the hybrids. Mae was on our side, though, this I was sure of. Well, mostly sure of. But then again, I’d been sure Ray was with me too, until he’d tried to stop me at Machu Picchu.

“You’ve never met them or spoken directly with them since you’ve been back?” Magnus asked.

He shook his head slowly. “They’re all contained, as far as I know, so they can’t leave. All I know is I was told to meet another guy. He had a van and some guns. We were given a place and date and instructions. That was today. I was told to shoot the guy with the megaphone, then leave. Of course, you know how that went.”

“Ready to give us your name yet?” I asked.

“Clayton. Clayton Belding,” he said.

“I’m not sure what’ll happen to you, Clayton, but we do appreciate you being forthright with us. One last thing before we leave the room. What are the names of your hybrid contacts? The ones who kept at you after we arrived to bring you all home?” I reminded him about the saving part again.

He looked like he was scared or worried to tell me, but he gave in. I think he was just happy to be done being a traitor to his country, to his planet. “Terrance was the guy, and Leslie was the woman. I still don’t understand why they have our names, but I guess if you’re putting on someone’s mask, you may as well take their name too.”

Our trip to Long Island had just gotten more pressing.

FIVE

“We’ve alerted the guards at the Long Island facility, and they’re going to try to identify those two particular hybrids.” The president looked tired; black bags sat under her usually youthful eyes.

Mae sat at the table, looking worried. Everyone had been watching the video as we spoke with Clayton, and the only consensus was we needed to follow and learn about the network being run by Leslie and Terrance.

“We can only expect there are many more moving pieces, and way more involved in this than just those two.” Mary looked at Mae while she spoke, an apologetic air floating with her voice.

“I’ve got a chopper waiting for you guys. This isn’t a time for you all to be taking leisurely trains around the coast. Magnus and Natalia, I’m hoping you’ll come to the base, and the others can meet up with you there in a couple days if all goes well.” Dalhousie was asking as a courtesy, I was sure.

Magnus and Nat looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders at the same time.

We spent the next hour or so discussing how we could get more information about the hybrid network, and by the time we were about to go our own ways, my head was pounding and it was dark outside.

“Do you guys mind taking Carey with you?” I asked, knowing he would be much happier going with them than on a stressful trip in a helicopter to a POW camp. Carey barked when I said his name and sat beside my feet. Kneeling down, I petted him softly, telling him we’d see him soon.

“Of course not,” Natalia said, calling him over. He did so hesitantly, and Mary crossed the room, grabbing the dog’s leash and other essentials from her luggage. I wasn’t looking forward to being separated from the guy, and I doubted he was either. At least he’d be going with people he loved being around: pseudo-uncle and aunt.

Carey accepted our goodbye without too much preamble, and soon we were being whisked away to Long Island.

__________

The military-grade helicopter lowered Mae, Mary, and me down to the school’s football field. The camp, or residence as we were told to call it, was located at the local university grounds. With the turmoil of the world, most post-secondary schools had been on hiatus, with some trade schools and other specialized ones still running to make sure the world could still spin every day and night. This particular university was one that got swiped off the list of funding, and they were going to merge with a few other New York schools in the next year.

It worked out well because it had everything the hybrids could need while they were under our protection… or watchful eyes. They housed in the on-campus residence, and they had classrooms for learning about Earth and our customs and traditions, even though most had a basic understanding already since they’d been trained for coming here, as Janine and Bob had been. Mae told me that while they’d been taught a lot about humans, there were many missing things, like our sense of humor and obsession with sports. I’d laughed but was still scared at the implications that the Kraski had possibly known as much about us as they did. What did that tell us? That someone was feeding them information. Mae was under the theory it was from all the crap Earth was shooting around the universe in the form of radio waves, and other things I didn’t quite understand. Maybe they learned what they did from watching the Cooking Channel.

Either way, the hybrids were here. We had them tucked away into a comfortable area, with food and activities… and a big fence around the perimeter. It was fully dark by the time we landed in the field, right smack dab on the fifty-yard line. The fence was lit up every fifty yards or so, and there were a few towers with spotlights roaming the grounds. There was a curfew, and armed guards in the towers. So far there hadn’t been any incidents of trouble, at least none that the public had been made aware of. I realized that meant nothing, so I’d ask Mae to check into it later.

“Looks like we get an escort,” Mary said, nodding toward the armed guards coming our way.

“They check everyone’s blood. They want to know if any hybrids come or go.” Mae had a distant look on her face.

“You okay?” Mary asked her.

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. I know this is better than most of us deserve, but it’s still a life behind bars. Considering the alternative, I’d say I’m great, though.” She turned her somber face into a forced smile and grabbed her bags.

The copter was loud, and Mary’s hair blew in my face as we set foot on the grass.

“Mr. Parker, Ms. Lafontaine, and Mae, right this way, please,” a fresh-faced guard said, waving his hand. He sounded friendly, but he still held a gun in the crook of his arm.

They followed us to a building near the field, which turned out to be the old locker room. Weight sets still lined the wall, and near the door stood a device that looked much like a free-standing doorway. It reminded me of a high-tech airport metal scanner, only this one whirred as we approached, and was lit with soft blue LEDs.

“Please walk through, Ms. Lafontaine,” Junior said.

“Call me Mary,” she replied, walking through. The blue lights turned yellow for a moment.

Mae went next and the lights turned green, which I guess was to be expected. I walked through last, and expected to be yellow, so we could just go drop our bags off and get some food and shut-eye. It had been an extremely long day, and a bite followed by a pillow was just what I needed. The light turned green.

The guards raised their guns at me. “Why are you undocumented? You don’t look like the rest of them.”

Baffled, I shrugged. “Look, I think your machine is broken.” Then it dawned on me, being shot by a hybrid that looked just like Mary’s dead husband on that vessel, then the transfusion from Mae that would help me heal. I had hybrid blood coursing through my body still.

Mae seemed to know this was a possibility but must have forgotten, because I was sure she would have warned me of it.

“You guys know who I am? Dean Parker. The man who was shot trying to stop the entire population from becoming charcoal on the surface of the sun.” I was tired, and wanted to contain my annoyance, but was having a hard time of it. I nodded toward Mae. “She was nice enough to help me out with some super-healing blood, and voila, a year later, I set off your little sensor. Can we just go on through and get some sleep before all hell breaks loose here tomorrow?” I was hoping there would be no breaking loose of hell the next day, but I pushed the theatrics a little far.

They conferred for a moment, but the gun that had been pointing at me a minute ago was down on the guard’s side. That was a good sign.

“Roberts here will lead you to your bunks. No offense was meant, Mr. Parker. We thank you for what you’ve done. All of you.” The fresh-faced guard tried to give us a weak smile, but it came out a pained look.

“Thank you. Have a good night,” Mary said, grabbing her luggage handle.

We made our way through the locker room building and out into the fresh night air once again. It was quiet there, with no sign of anyone other than guards walking in pairs down the dimly lit sidewalks. Large black lantern posts stood every twenty yards or so, casting ominous shadows among the well-manicured lawns and hedges. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as we made our way through the university grounds. We had the hybrids in prison but tried to make sure it looked like they were living in a wonderful place. I could smell flowers as we neared a garden to the side of us and wondered if we had human staff tending to these things or if the hybrids took care of the chores themselves.

Mary must have been feeling something was off too, because as we walked, she put a hand on Mae’s shoulder for a shared moment that neither of them needed to speak for. As we walked by the next lamppost, I saw Mae’s eyes were wet. We were ushered into a beautiful brick building, archways over us as we walked into the large wooden doorway.

“We have you two in these rooms,” the guard said, pointing at two doors in the residence, across the hall from one another.

I almost laughed at them giving us separate rooms, but they wouldn’t know we were together. Neither of us said anything, but Mary did throw me a quick wink.

“Is anyone else on this wing?” I asked.

“Nope. Just you two. Mae, come with us, please.” The guard waved her forward.

“Wait,” Mary said. “Where are you taking her?”

The guard looked impatient, tapping his foot while keeping his face impassive. “She’ll stay with the other hybrids, like she always does when she’s here.”

“No, she can have this room. I want her to stay near us.” Mary stepped closer to Mae.

“Really, it’s okay, Mary.” Mae looked happy to see her friend stand up to the guards, but I wondered if it wouldn’t be better for her to be near her people for information. Seeing the determined look in Mary’s eyes, I didn’t dare suggest this at that moment.

“No, it’s not. You’ve proven yourself to us all. Stay near us. We still have to discuss a plan for tomorrow,” Mary said.

The guard deflated a bit and nodded. “Fine, you stay here tonight. The dean expects to see you for breakfast at eight in the morning. We’ll send someone for you.”

“Can you just tell us where to find him? I’d prefer not to feel like a prisoner here too,” I said. He opened my room door and pointed to a campus map on a small desk near the window.

“Right there,” he said, pointing to a building near the middle of the campus.

“Got it. Thanks, Roberts.” I smiled at him. He quickly turned without looking back, leaving all three of us in the small dorm room.

“That went well, I think,” Mary said, laugh lines crinkling around her eyes. I had the urge to boot Mae out and take Mary into my arms.

“It’s late. How about we sleep, then regroup early in the morning?” This from Mae. Maybe she saw the look in my eyes. “And thanks for treating me like one of you. I’ll never forget it.” The words were touching, but ominous at the same time. I could feel goosebumps rise on my arms, and I wasn’t sure why.

“Goodnight, Mae,” I said, and closed the door behind her. “Good thing the room is all the way across the hall,” I said, smirking at the woman I loved.

She sniffed the air and took her shirt off. “I agree. How about a shower first?”

Looking around, I realized dorm rooms didn’t have their own bathrooms. They had shared toilets and showers on each wing. At least that was how my old school was.

“I know, I saw the sign down the hall.” She opened the door, and I chased after her down the corridor. The hall was dim, and we soon found ourselves interlocked under a weak showerhead. We had plenty of time for saving the world later. That night we took for ourselves.

__________

There was a tentative knock on the door, followed by a harder one seconds later. I rolled over and checked the time. Seven on the nose.

“I think it’s for you,” Mary said weakly.

“You always say that. Oddly, it never is.” I rolled out of the small twin bed, realizing I was naked.

“Good morning, sleepyheads,” Mae said from the hall.

After sliding into some pants, I opened the door. She held a tray with three coffees in it, each marked with our names. Here we were sleeping, and Mae was thinking of us. She truly was a great friend.

Smiling and saying thank you, I ushered her into the small room. Mary had pulled some clothes from the chair beside the bed, and magically got dressed in moments under the blanket.

“How about we take these to go? I have some news. Take a few to get ready. Leave through the entrance, and head left. About a hundred yards down is a park. I’ll be at a bench.” She looked at me and laughed, then took her coffee and left.

“What’s so funny?” I asked Mary.

She looked down, and I followed her gaze. My pants were on inside out. I burst out laughing, almost spilling my hot coffee.

A few minutes later, after we’d bird-bathed in the bathroom sink, we made our way over to Mae. The morning was beautiful, a single wispy white cloud slowly trailing through the otherwise clear blue sky. It was going to be a hot day.

Mae was sitting on the bench, legs extended and feet crossed. She held her coffee in her hand on her lap, and I was shocked to see how much she looked like Janine right then. That was exactly how she sat when she was in a contemplative mood. My heart suddenly ached, and surprisingly, I didn’t push it away, I embraced it. I felt the love I’d had for Janine fill me. The tender moments, the tough ones, the end of her life, the betrayal I’d felt at learning the truth; they all filled me, and for the first time in years, I felt true. True to myself, and true to Janine.

“Are you okay, Dean?” Mary asked.

“I am,” I answered, and I was. I felt her fingers slide through mine and squeeze my hand slightly.

“What did you find out, Mae?” Mary asked, letting go of my hand and sitting down on the bench beside her friend. We knew Mae would have gotten up early to poke around the other hybrids and hear the latest gossip and news.

“They were a little tight-lipped around me, at least the few I spoke with. Remember, to some of them, I’m the turncoat. Even to the ones that are happy to be here rather than dead, I still did something I wasn’t supposed to. But a lot of them are happy. It just goes against their indoctrination, which is weakening all the time. I do think there’s a larger group of dissidents than we originally guessed. I don’t have anything to back this up, but the averted eyes and nervous toe-tapping I got this morning told me enough.” Mae took a sip from her coffee and kept staring forward at the dew-covered grass in the park.

“Did you ask about Leslie and Terrance, the two names Clayton the shooter had for us?” I asked.

“I mentioned Leslie in passing to someone I didn’t know well. Asking after her like we were old friends or something. Jarvis paled and told me he hadn’t seen her in some time. That she must be busy with a project for the humans or something. A bunch of BS, if you ask me.”

It didn’t seem like we were going to be able to get far on Mae’s previous relationships. We were going to have to rely on the intel of the guards, and the so-called “dean.” What a presumptuous name to give the head of the camp. It was softer than calling him what he really was: a warden.

“I’m sorry, guys. I wish I could have done more,” Mae said.

“I have an idea.” Mary smiled widely and took a drink of her coffee.

SIX

The dean’s office was my kind of place. Mahogany wood desk, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, not just filled with pretentious unread textbooks and encyclopedias. I saw some King and Child in there too, along with a few of my favorite sci-fi authors. I wouldn’t mind getting locked in there for a few weeks. He even had a connected washroom and a small wet bar, with what appeared to be Scotch in a decanter and one of those fancy digital single-serve coffee makers.

We sat crunched together in front of his large desk, our chairs nowhere near as comfortable and leather-clad as his. When we’d arrived, we were ushered in; I vaguely remembered the guard last night mentioning breakfast with the dean, and my stomach growled at the notion. Maybe he was too busy to eat with the likes of us.

After ten minutes of sitting there, I got up and started flipping through an old Clarke paperback, admiring the classic cover. I’d been lucky enough over the last year to have more free time than I’d had in years, since I hadn’t gone back to working as an accountant. One thing I had missed was reading. Somehow reading about alien civilizations, when I knew it was real, took some of the fun out of it.

The door opened, and a tall man stepped through. I’m not ashamed to say he was very handsome, his light hair neatly combed in a look I didn’t understand how to accomplish. I felt inadequate, with my sink-rinsed hair and wrinkled plaid shirt.

“Good morning,” he said. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Skip Anderson, otherwise known as the dean.” He spoke with a prim accent. Not one I could place within a region, but more one acquired through an upbringing in private schools and Harvard education.

I was still holding the book, and when I saw his eyes scan to it, I set it down. “You a fan of Clarke?” he asked.

“Sure. Who isn’t? He revolutionized science fiction. But I’m not sure I have a stomach for any of it anymore,” I answered.

“I always liked Asimov better. Robots always interested me as a teenager. Back to business. You really believe this guy from D.C.? There’s no way our hybrids could have contacted him,” Skip said smugly.

Mary rolled her eyes. “I highly doubt that. We learned that there’s an intricate hybrid network of terrorists, recruited even in space. They had a long game, that’s for sure.”

Skip leaned forward, frowning. “That’s impossible,” he said, voice raised. “They have no way to communicate, and no way out. We have things under control here.”

“We were told your surveillance heard some keywords. What can you tell us about that?” I asked, wondering if he would lay his cards out on the table or hold them close to his chest.

“Yes, we have, but those people are under our care now.” Skip spat the word “people,” and Mae tensed as he spoke.

“Which people?” I asked.

“The ones causing the stir at the Oval Office, and evidently around the world. They sent another group of guards when they heard the word Bhlat come through the speakers. As if one of them saying the name of a race will actually make them appear and destroy us.” Skip looked like he was about to stand up, and the handsome man took on a dark, unpleasant face.

“You do remember what happened under a year ago, right? Where were you that day?” Mary asked, probably thinking it would diffuse his undeserved anger.

Skip slid back in his chair; her question seemed to have the desired effect. He looked much younger than his forty-something years as he began to quietly speak. “I hate those bastards.” He looked at Mae for a brief second and averted his eyes back to his desk. “I lived in D.C., well, Arlington. The ships came and I still went to work at the senator’s office. I remember being so mad that no one else showed up. Can you imagine me at work, trying to email files and work on a presentation while we had these gray ships over us, and a bunch of those behemoth vessels looming over the world? What an idiot I was.” He stopped, getting up to cross over to his wet bar. His hand moved to the Scotch, lingering for a few quiet moments before continuing to the single-serve coffee maker. “Coffee, anyone?” he asked, trying to put on an affable voice.

We all shook our heads silently, me wanting him to continue his tale.

“Very well.” He made a cup of coffee, and took it black back to his desk, sitting up a little straighter. “Sorry about that. It’s hard going back to that day, I’m sure for all of us. There I was like a crazy man, working as we were invaded, and my wife was trying to get me to come to her. Well, my ex-wife. She called me first thing and I told her I couldn’t see her. I was still angry with her for leaving me. She’d left a few months earlier, telling me all I cared about was work, and never had time for her.

“She wanted a family. Kids, white picket fence… I thought I did too, when we first met. Only the older I got, the less I wanted that, and the more I wanted a career in politics. We were drifting, but… I didn’t want to admit it.” He was taking us on an extended journey through his time of the Event, but I assumed this path was relevant to the big picture. “She decided to head out of town, I guess. She made a break for it, but no one escaped, as we all know. Well, except you two and your friends.” He said the words with a drip of envy. “I was just leaving the office when the sun had set. I still can’t believe I stayed there all day. No wonder she left me.” He took a drink of his coffee and stared blankly past us toward the door.

“Hey, life is full of growth moments. None of us were or are perfect. It’s what we do with our teachable moments that define us and change us,” Mary said, again impressing me with her ability to spout out positive messages.

He looked at her and smiled lightly. “I’m still trying to be at peace with that idea. I was brought to vessel twelve, along with countless others. I spent the first day just trying to figure out what was going on. There were fights breaking out everywhere, and I witnessed two murders in the first two days alone. I never even tried to stop the young man from killing the other guy. I don’t think anyone was expecting it. He just clocked the older guy and went straight for his throat with his hands. The kid wasn’t big, but he had a sinewy strength to him. Before we knew it, the older man was on the ground, unconscious. The kid took something from his pocket and ran out of the room. Pills.

“The room was full of people, and no one stopped him. We all just stood there with our jaws open, like we didn’t understand what had happened. Finally, a burly man ran after him, but I guess the kid was long gone down the corridors. I decided, then and there, I wasn’t going to be a passive prisoner.

“After exploring the vessel and talking to a lot of people, I knew our prison was huge. Gargantuan, with hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions. We didn’t know the scope, but we were trying to figure it out. So that meant the area they beamed us up from must have been a large one. That meant my wife might have been there with me.” Skip stopped, and I almost said something comforting but decided to hold off. “My ex-wife, I meant. So that was my new goal. Find her among the throngs of matching rooms full of people. Some of the rooms seemed to have expelled a gas into the rooms, because people were down all over the place, seemingly at random.”

We knew now that the Kraski were planning on moving their whole species away from their home, and they were going to put everyone in some sort of stasis using this gas. It basically slowed down the metabolic functions and allowed them to keep humans alive without food and water for prolonged periods of time. Quite a cool concept, if it didn’t mean the death of so many people. It turned out a percentage of people were deathly allergic to the alien toxin, and about five percent of Earth was lost just from that alone, among the already sick who just couldn’t survive, the vessels we’d lost to the sun, and the mass firings the hybrids had rained down on some vessels.

“Quite the needle in a haystack,” I said, getting up to make myself a coffee. I asked if anyone else wanted anything, and after a pause, the dean asked for a splash of Scotch. I wasn’t going to judge the guy for taking a pinch at eight thirty in the morning as he told us a story; I expected it wasn’t going to end well for anyone involved.

He continued as the single-serve machine whirred and poured. I passed him the Scotch, and he swirled the brown liquid on the bottom of his tumbler and watched it as he spoke. “I tried to find the upper corner – the top floor and far left room. It took me hours to get there, and when I did, I searched that first room. People were milling about: some in the halls, some fearful of leaving the room for fear of retribution from an alien host we hadn’t seen yet.

“Some people thought it was a crazy government experiment, and others thought they were just dreaming. I called for Marcie. When I entered a room of the unconscious people, I searched through the piles of them, hoping to see her lovely face. I never did find her. She didn’t make it. They killed her.” His eyes moved once again to Mae’s face, hard lines etched on his forehead. “I found her name on my vessel list after it was over. If only I could have made it to her, I could have protected her.”

“Or died yourself,” Mary said softly – perhaps to make him feel better, but it didn’t work.

“I would have rather died trying to save her than lived and not been there,” he replied.

I wondered how this traumatized man had ended up running the camp there, but in the end, everyone was traumatized by the same event. Almost every single person in the world had been through similar situations and had lost someone close to them. My mother, cousins, old co-workers, friends, and countless others. We were all bonded in our loss.

“I’m really sorry, Skip,” Mary said. “Losing a spouse is one of the hardest things anyone will ever endure. Dean and I have been through it too.”

He frowned. “Weren’t you guys married to some of them?” He nodded his chin at Mae. “I’m not sure it counts.”

“Now wait a damn minute,” Mary started. I set my hand on her shoulder and could feel how tense she was.

“Skip, I think we can agree to disagree, but this isn’t conducive to what we’re doing here. Now can we see the video surveillance, and then talk to those two that seem to be causing all the stir from inside your gates?” I added emphasis to the word “your,” so he knew I tossed a little blame at him. He might have been through a hard time, but he was still being a jerk, and had likely been one long before the Kraski had lowered to our world.

With a swift motion, he slid the Scotch down his throat, quietly setting the glass on a wooden coaster on the desk. “Of course. President Dalhousie says you’re members of our new Earth Defense, and she evidently trusts you, so why don’t you follow me?”

We left the office and were soon walking through a long hall with a freshly polished floor. I noticed someone who looked just like Vanessa sweeping the corners of a room as we passed. We continued on, and there were plenty more hybrids with familiar faces doing different tasks; some were unfamiliar outside of the news feeds. There were six different “models” of them. Janine had been one of them, Bob another. Then, of course, our friendly neighborhood saboteur, Vanessa. Ray’s girlfriend Kate was the other model, and I had met her once at my wedding so many years ago. After that, we had an Asian man and an Indian woman, whom Magnus had described as matching the two he and Natalia had known overseas.

Mae smiled at some of them, and a few waved to her like they were old acquaintances. I was sure most wondered what one of their own was doing with the visiting strangers, but many recognized her as their savior. A lot of them knew it was with her help that they were alive. Others blamed her for their imprisonment and wished they had burned in the sun like planned. Those were the ones we were after.

“Mae,” someone called as we passed a gymnasium. There was a group inside playing a strange-looking game, with four small nets and a silver disk. It looked fun, and maybe a little dangerous. The man was sweating profusely but had a wide smile across his face. “Hey, Mae. I’m not sure if you remember me, but my name’s Richard. We met…well, right after we arrived. I was from vessel seven. Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you again. And to you guys too.”

He extended his hand, and I shook it despite the sweat dripping from him.

“Of course I remember you, Richard. How are things going here?” Mae asked.

The game had paused, but when they saw Richard was tied up, someone sitting on the sidelines jumped in and the game started up again. I looked at Skip, and he clearly wasn’t enjoying the delay. Mary, noticing this, smiled at me and took the dean aside, speaking softly to him and taking him away from us. Richard guided Mae and me into the gym, and we sat down on one of those wooden benches I hadn’t sat on since my days of riding the pine on my varsity basketball team.

“This is a nice place to live. We work a bit each day, but I mean, it’s no slave labor.” He paused, looking embarrassed at his choice of words. “I just want you to know that most of us are so grateful for your part here. We were real slaves before this. Genetically created to invade a planet and act like humans. The Kraski never cared about us. There are a few who drank the Kool-Aid, if you will, but they’re few and far between. They also seem to know to keep it to themselves, because I guarantee you, if I heard someone plotting against Earth, I’d string them up and call the dean over there to send his guards. This is our home now.”

It was nice to hear this from one of them, but it didn’t mean he was being one hundred percent honest with us. Even if he was, it didn’t mean there weren’t more of them against us than he knew about.

“Do you know Leslie and Terrance?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, I know of them, but not close to them or anything. I think I saw Terrance walking around last night. He looks like me, but I’m sure it was him. We all have our own way of things, slight differences in hair, clothing, walk. Why, do you want to talk to them about something?”

Mae looked ready to say something, but I tapped her with my hand, without Richard being able to see. “Nothing important. We’ll find them later. Thanks for stopping and chatting, Richard.” I held out my hand to shake it again. The goodbye shake.

He smiled widely, and said he looked forward to talking again sometime. Mae gave him a quick hug. It held for just longer than seemed normal, and I turned away, trying not to watch. Mary was in the hall, still with the dean, who was waving his arms around and smiling.

“…and my tennis game sure has improved. There you guys are. Care to come and do what you’re here for?” His good mood dissipated as Mae and I approached them. Mary gave me a cute look and crossed her eyes when Skip was turned around.

We followed him outside and into the fresh air once again. The sun was now over the buildings, casting its warm glow on our faces as we walked down the cobblestone pathway to a small brick building with a plaque saying Alumni on it. Two guards stood on either side of the door, beads of sweat dripping down their faces in the morning heat. I wouldn’t have wanted the afternoon shift if it was that warm already. I gave them a quick nod as we passed by them and through the thick dark wooden doors. There was something I just loved about the turn-of-the-century architecture in this part of the country. It was also nice to be back in the state of New York, even though I’d just left upstate a couple of days ago. It felt like home.

“We have our guard station here, and our camera surveillance. The actual security office was across campus and consisted of a fourteen-inch television and a grilled cheese maker.” Skip led the way through a foyer with a twenty-foot ceiling, and into a room on the left side. Another guard was stationed there.

“Where’s Clendening?” Skip asked the woman.

She shrugged. “Didn’t show up, so they called me in. Rayez thought he might have come down with something. I guess he was talking about feeling a bug coming on at the end of his shift.”

The room beyond was dimly lit and had about a dozen flat screens mounted on the far wall. Inside were a few desks; computer fans whirred in the otherwise silent space. Three white-shirted people sat at desks, each with large headphones on. One of them turned to us, and he had a shocked look when his eyes stopped on Mae. It probably felt like he was showing the hybrids behind the Wizard of Oz’s curtain.

The dean tossed him a thumbs-up, letting him know it was okay. I’d judged the man a little harshly, and maybe he wasn’t quite as bad as he’d initially let on. He did have a big responsibility here.

“Good morning,” he called to them, just loud enough for the other two to hear him, and they also turned around. “Louise, can you bring up the Level Seven file for our guests, please?”

She gave him a look, as if to make sure he wasn’t asking her to show the strangers in the room a classified piece of information. I noticed Skip nod lightly to her, and she brought it up, taking her headphones off. Three of the screens flashed to different scenes. The top left was playing, and we could hear some grainy sound. It was taken with night vision, and there were two people in the shot. One looked like Janine and Mae; the other looked like Richard, the Asian man we’d talked to in the gym. Leslie and Terrance, no doubt.

“Is it going to work?” a female voice asked.

“It has to. Everything is a go. We don’t have much time. He’s going to tell our contacts the details tomorrow.” Terrance rested his hands on her shoulders in an intimate gesture.

“Did you…” She paused, looking down at the ground. “Get the outpost location?”

In the green light of the night vision, I could see his posture straighten, and I swore he was smiling. “No, but I know where to get it now. The plan stays the same, just a small detour. This is an all or nothing play.”

“I’m for the cause the whole way,” Leslie said with conviction. “The Bhlat…” The rest was indiscernible.

They spoke for a few more minutes in hushed tones so we couldn’t make out what they said, and then quickly went their separate ways.

The video feed went dead.

“And you didn’t think to instantly contain them?” Mae yelled at the dean, who shrank back at the sudden outburst.

“That’s enough, hybrid! You don’t think I’d thought of that? We have more at stake here than the dreams of two aliens. They are stuck here! Do you understand that? They have no way to communicate with the outside world. We’ve been tracking them and keeping an eye on anyone they talk with.” He was inches away from Mae’s face, and I jumped between them, setting my hands on Skip’s chest.

“You’re done, Skip,” I said, holding him back as he pushed at me. “Listen, where are they now? People are dying out there, and we have every reason to believe those two, maybe more, are behind it. There must be a reason for it. It’s almost as if…” I stopped, my mind reeling for a second. “I think they’re trying to distract us from something.”

“Distract us from what? They’re stuck here behind gates and guards,” Skip said, stepping back away from me and Mae.

“Louise, can you show us where they are now?” Mary asked, in a calmer voice than the rest of us had been speaking in.

“Sure thing,” she said, moving her mouse around and clicking some keys. The top left screen showed us a video of the two of them working in a garden. “See, they’re right where they’re supposed to be, on garden duty. Did you see the size of those tomatoes they have out there? Best I’ve ever tasted.”

Skip rushed over and tapped the screen. “Garden duty doesn’t start for another hour. Zoom out!”

She hit a bunch of keys, but nothing happened.

“Goddamn it.” Skip ran his hands through his hair. “Switch to the next camera. We have one from the other end of the garden, don’t we?”

She did so and turned the camera to the end where we’d just seen the two hybrids working. There was no one there.

“Switch back,” he said.

The camera showed the two of them watering the plants.

“They’ve hacked in. We need to find them now.” This from Mary.

The second screen had started playing that same video from before, with the night vision. I looked at it and saw something move I hadn’t seen the first time. There was a third person there with them.

“Louise, can you zoom in on that second screen?” I asked.

Skip looked at me with annoyance. “Look here, Dean. We have more important things to do…”

“Just zoom in,” I cut him off. “There’s someone there with them.”

The screen zoomed. The picture, while in high definition, was in night vision, and they were some distance away. By the time she zoomed in enough to see them up close, the image was slightly pixelated. The third person was in the dark between and beyond them, but just as they went their own ways, the body turned. “Pause it!” I called. There was writing on the jacket.

“Security,” Skip muttered under his breath. “One of ours is in on it.”

Louise went forward frame by frame and stopped on one where we could see him closer.

“Boss, I know who that is,” she said. “It’s Clendening.”

That was the name of the guard the woman out front had said hadn’t shown up this morning.

“That bastard. Any sign of either Leslie or Terrance yet? You two get on the cameras and find me Clendening too!” he called to the other surveillance officers.

“Nothing on any of them, sir. It’s like they vanished,” Louise said.

Skip grabbed a landline from Louise’s desk. After a moment of rushed conversation, he had jotted down some notes on a pad of paper. “Send guards to Clendening’s room in the barracks. If he’s there, hold him until I get there.”

“Can we get this show on the road?” Mary asked, obviously anxious to track down the hybrids we were there to get before they could do any more harm.

It appeared they were getting messages out by the guard we’d just spotted meeting with them in the middle of the night. A couple of them with a network out there and a guard on their side, and they could make things happen, even from behind a fence with no phones or web access.

“Are any of you armed?” Skip asked matter-of-factly.

I shook my head. “Nope, we haven’t been given any firearms yet. I’m guessing the president thought you would be generous enough to set us up if we needed them, at least until we get to the base after this trip.”

He waved us forward. Soon we were through the foyer and into an adjacent room, which Skip had to use two keys to open. It was lined with locked gun racks. In moments, all of us were armed, Mary and I with Glocks, and Mae with a Beretta.

“I’d been holding on the hope they were just all talk, and thought if they were trying something, we could maybe identify any other hybrids in on it. With Clendening in on it, we have no choice. We’re going to take them down. If they had anything to do with those shootings out in the real world, they’ll quickly learn to regret their decision to act as hostile terrorists on our world.” The dean was working himself up, and I just hoped he would keep a level head once we found where they were hiding.

We left the building, and a group of four armed guards crossed the university grounds with us as we headed to the residence where the hybrids slept.

SEVEN

Dozens of the hybrids watched us as we made our way through the halls.

Skip told a couple of the guards to go to room thirty-seven and sent Mae alongside them to Leslie’s listed residence. We continued to Terrance’s room. When we arrived, a hybrid that looked just like Ray’s girlfriend Kate walked up to us, arms held up, letting us know she came in peace.

“There’s no one in there. He didn’t come back last night.” She kept her hands up as she spoke.

Skip turned the handle, finding it locked. He stepped back, and in a moment, he had kicked the area just under the handle, sending shards of wooden frame away as the latch broke and slid through the thin recessed hole. That suit had some fire in his veins.

A guard entered with her gun pointed forward, and we followed into the cramped space when she said it was clear. I’d somehow expected the random mess of a madman, but what we found was an extremely clean, organized space. Their rooms were small, much like the one Mary and I had slept in the night before, and inside the bed was made as if by a hotel chambermaid. Some papers were set in straight lines on the small desk to the left of the door. Inside the closet everything hung nicely, but I noticed half of the clothes hangers on the bar hung empty. The drawers had few items in them, telling me this guy had packed what few belongings he could possibly have, and was gone.

Skip’s radio chimed, and we were told they’d found much the same at Leslie’s room.

Grabbing the papers from the desk, Mary made a move for the door. “Let’s go see what the guard’s room looked like.” She was off, Skip trailing her determined strides, even though he knew where the guard barracks were, not her. I could see her frustration. We were sent to do what initially seemed like a simple task but were being handed something much bigger. It was going to be a lot harder to track these two down out there than inside a fenced-off university campus.

The guard barracks were across the grounds, and we took four-seater golf-style carts to cross the area quickly. There were already guards stationed at Clendening’s door, and when we approached it, the room was open. A large man stood in the opening, and when he turned to face us, he was white as a ghost.

“Sorry, boss. He’s dead.” The man stepped out of the way, and Skip rushed past him in the small dorm-style room. The man we’d seen in the surveillance video was slumped on the single bed, throat slit. Blood covered everything and had dripped down into a sticky puddle on the ground beside him. It was a callous, brutal murder, and I knew in my gut it was Leslie and Terrance who had done it. I pictured them smooth-talking the man, getting his help to spread their words across the fence; then, when they got his keys to leave, they’d killed him. In my head, I saw Terrance holding him down, a look of terror on the man’s previously trusting face. Leslie showing a hint of remorse as she slid her knife across his throat, ending the one man who’d been willing to help their cause. It was sick, and I fought back the bile that was threatening to push out of my mouth.

I left the room and walked down the hall, my ears ringing. The hallway was spinning ever so slowly, and I pushed past the dozen or so guards and made my way to the doors that led outside. I thought I could hear Mary calling my name, but I kept going. The image of the guard was stuck in my mind, and the horrible way the hybrids used and discarded him made me despise their cause all the more. We had to stop them.

__________

It was a couple of hours later that we were in the surveillance room, combing through anything with Leslie, Terrance, or Clendening from the past week. The AC was cranked as the hot sun blasted the brick building, creating an oven simulation, and we sat in the cool room hoping to find a sign of where they might have gone. But nothing they’d done was out of place, other than that one thing we’d already seen. Clendening’s room had brought up nothing of use, either.

Dalhousie had called Mary, and we filled her in. She asked them to have Skip and his team continue to look for leads while they left, and met up at the secret facility. I wasn’t sure how they expected it to actually be secret with a massive transport vessel sitting in the desert, but it wasn’t any of my business.

“Stop that one again, the screen second from the bottom,” Mary said to Louise, who promptly zoomed in and paused the other screens.

“It’s on a loop! Where is that?” Mary asked.

“That’s the loading dock. Where we get food and supplies delivered,” she responded. “I think you’re right about the loop. They did a good job, because the clock on the feed is still going, but there’s a clock on the wall.” She zoomed more, and we could see the second hand smoothly ticking by. After thirty seconds, it was back on the twelve and heading for the one.

“Get guards to the loading dock! We don’t know what time they actually left. That loop could be from any feed they hacked into. Maybe they couldn’t get out.” Skip rushed out of the room, and we followed him. I was eager to find them and get back to Magnus and Nat, and I missed Carey at that moment.

Once again, we were heading across the grounds, and there were no hybrids in sight. Skip had ordered them all to their rooms for the time being. If Leslie and Terrance were still there, they could be pretending to be someone else, and it wouldn’t be too hard, since they looked like a hundred other people.

The sun beat down on us from its high perch in the middle of the sky, and I could feel the sweat already soaking through the lower back of my shirt. The fact that I was nervous and excited that we might find the two outlaws didn’t help the perspiration.

The warehouse on the edge of the grounds wasn’t huge but was large enough to accept multiple pallets a day and store anything that came in for a while. I imagined trucks backing up before the semester started, unloading skids of textbooks newly revised for that year, and the smell of paper and forklift exhaust sailing through the air.

We entered the main doors, using keys from Skip’s belt. The other guards were standing there waiting for his word. As soon as the doors pushed open, they quietly ran in along the large room’s walls, guns raised, looking for the threats. Mary raised hers and started in, and I set my arm on hers, shaking my head. Instead, I waved her to follow me, and we hugged the wall of the building toward the fence. I wanted to see what was on the other side there.

The fence was chain-link there, about twelve feet tall, topped with that dangerous-looking wire you always see around prisons. No one was getting in or out with that stuff on the top of the fence. I looked to the left. There were multiple unlabeled white trucks, two backed up to loading docks, and one dock was open, with no truck in front of it.

We went back to the entrance. Skip was standing at the open loading dock, his hands sitting on top of his head in an exasperated gesture. “How the hell did we let this happen? Clendening didn’t have the keys to get in here.” He stared out the door, and we walked up to the tense man.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, Skip, but I think someone else here must have been in on it. Unless your dead guard stole the keys, or Terrance and Leslie did,” I said.

“Clendening never seemed smart enough to arrange something like this, but obviously I’ve been wrong before. Like when I thought no human would betray us all by catering to these damned hybrids.” He walked to the office area, and we followed him, Mae staying back after his last comment was dipped in venom.

Gun raised, Mary stepped in front of us and tested the handle. It was unlocked. Wait, no, it was broken. She didn’t even have to turn it. She pushed it instead, and it stopped short of opening. I saw her give it a heave; something pushed back, and the door closed again.

“What the hell is that? Get the lights,” Skip said.

He reached his arm into the dark room and turned them on. The door had a small glass window and he peered through it, turned to us, and vomited right at our feet, Mary and I both jumping back to avoid getting splashed. When he ducked, I could see what he’d seen: the bloated face of a hanged woman, swinging softly in the doorway.

The guards pushed past us, and soon she was cut down. It was evident she’d been hanged alive, as we saw the claw marks and boot scuffs on the inside of the door. The sadistic duo had really done a number here.

“Why put on all of this show for us? To make us mad? To throw us off?” Mary asked, her voice quiet.

Mae stepped toward us and said through pale lips, “To make you hate the hybrids. They hate us for giving in and not following through with killing everyone. They want to turn you against all of us and won’t stop until whatever they want is done.”

I hesitated, not sure I wanted to hear the answer to my question. “And what is it they want done?”

“What we were brainwashed to do: end humans,” she said. For a moment, I forgot she was our friend, the words came out so coldly.

My phone rang, and it was General Heart. I filled him in on what had transpired, and he said a helicopter was coming to bring us to the secret base. Skip sent out an APB on the missing truck, and said they had a GPS unit in it, but it appeared the password for the tracking app had been changed. They were bringing in an IT guru, former CIA, who said it wouldn’t be a problem to hack into.

The guards continued to search the whole campus for any signs of them, or more bodies, but came up empty. Leslie and Terrance were gone, and as the copter came down in the field, the sun was going down in the distance. I couldn’t help but feel we were leaving the camp in far worse shape than we had arrived in.

Skip approached us, bags heavy under his bloodshot eyes. “Catch those bastards. Catch them and make them pay,” was all he said before turning and walking away.

I’d be telling Dalhousie she might want to replace Skip as the man in charge of the camp. I imagined life for the hybrids would get worse before it got better, especially with Skip in charge.

Mae followed us in. For the first time, I noticed she had an extra bag with her. I made a mental note to ask her about that later, when things were less tense.

We left at dusk, with more questions than we’d had when we arrived.

EIGHT

“Dean, wake up,” Mary said through the headset, lightly nudging me with her hand.

If I couldn’t hear the whirring of the helicopter, I might have forgotten where I was. My head throbbed as I looked around the dim back seat; the soft lights of the pilot’s dash were the only source of ambiance, and I wanted to close my eyes and go back to my dreamless slumber.

“Dean, we’re landing for a refuel. Let’s get something to eat. The pilot said he would be a while, and that the food was good at the station. If my memory serves me right, I’ve been to this army base before. It’s in southwest Kentucky,” Mary said. “It was top secret, but I’m guessing that doesn’t matter anymore.”

At the thought of food, my stomach growled and wouldn’t stop.

It was close to one AM when we landed and were ushered to the base’s kitchen. It was quiet there, few people were out, probably all sleeping for an early rise, but I was surprised to see the lights to the kitchen still on.

Mae hadn’t spoken since we’d left Long Island, and I was worried about her for more than one reason. I knew it was hard on her to think about what she was, feeling out of place among the humans when the rest of her kind were caged up like animals, set to menial tasks to keep their bodies occupied. Then the fact that two of them had escaped now, setting up assassinations and terrorist threats out in the real world. It was enough to drive me mad, so it could only be eating her up.

“Mae,” I said, holding back as Mary followed a private, sent to get us fed, through the kitchen doors. “I want you to know we’re here for you, and together we’ll find these two. Then we can rebuild the foundation of a long-term partnership between all of you and us.” I meant it, but she almost rolled her eyes as I said the words.

“Dean, do you really think it’s going to be that easy? Even if we do find them, which I doubt we will, the stigma was already against us. We were never going to be left to roam free amongst you. They only let me walk around because they can trust you two, and Dalhousie knows I’m important to you and Mary. Otherwise, I’d be in that fenced POW camp just like the rest of them. I’m here to keep you on their side, nothing more.”

Her words stung, and hard. I stood there outside, with nothing but a small lantern fixture on the wall by the door giving Mae a stern, shadow-covered face. Moths flitted around the light, casting even stranger shapes over her.

“I hope you’re wrong about that, but if you aren’t, we’re still here for you no matter what. You have my word.” It was all I could say, and she walked past me, eyes downcast, and entered the building. She would get better; it was just too soon.

The smells of camp rushed back to me, and that was all I could equate it to, since I’d never been in the military. The mixed scents of many different foods floated along the air, throughout the mess hall, and from the cook’s kitchen in the back. We walked down the center of the large room, tables and chairs lining the hall, all ready for the morning breakfasts.

The kitchen was immaculate, and Mary was chatting with the private. An alert cook smiled at us as we entered, whisking away in a stainless-steel bowl.

“Omelettes? I make them better than anyone here, and since I’m prepping for the morning, it’s what’s on the menu,” he said with a slight southern drawl.

“Sounds perfect to me,” I said, sitting down at the stools lined up before a metal table, which was covered in flour and bowls.

The smell of fresh brewing coffee wafted over and made me all the hungrier. I knew Mae had a newfound love of the roasted beans, so I got up and gathered a bunch of cups, asking the cook if I could help myself. He showed me where everything was, and soon we all sat with steaming cups of the good stuff in front of us.

Soon we were eating what might have been one of the best omelettes of my life. Mae was almost smiling at the private’s stories about growing up as a military brat, and Mary was on her third cup of java. For a moment, it felt like life was real and normal, and then my phone rang.

A New York number came up, and I slid the bar, answering it.

“Dean, we have some news.” Skip’s voice called through the phone’s speaker.

I muted it. “Guys, Skip’s on the phone. I’m going to speaker him.”

“The IT guy from the CIA has hacked in, and we now have a GPS reading on the hybrids. We have them halfway between Lexington and Nashville right now.” His voice carried through the kitchen, and I turned the volume down, not wanting the whole base to hear.

“That’s only an hour or so south of us. Maybe we can catch up to them,” Mary said, pushing herself off the stool. She looked so beautiful, hair tight in a ponytail, eyes alert. “Private Sama, can you point us to our transportation?”

__________

The clock on the dash read four AM as we raced down the 9002 toward I-65 south, which would lead us directly to Music City USA. I drove as Mary kept track on her borrowed tablet of Leslie and Terrance in their stolen delivery truck. Skip told us their models had a built-in governor, which wouldn’t allow the vehicles to go over sixty-five miles an hour. It was a safety feature they’d needed for insurance before the Event, apparently, and it was one we were thankful for. With those limitations, we could catch them shortly after they hit the city.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t alert the local authorities?” I asked, not sure we were equipped to take these dangerous hybrids down even if we did catch up to them.

“Dalhousie wants this under the radar. We can’t afford to have the link to the hybrids revealed, or else it will be pandemonium… and unfair to the rest of them.” Mary looked back at Mae, who was sitting in the back seat, eyes closed.

“Just where do you think they’re going? What’s in Nashville?” I asked.

Mary shrugged. “Maybe nothing, maybe everything. Maybe it’s just a city on their path to somewhere else.”

I thought about this, and then wondered at the convenience of them being on the same path as we were flying in the helicopter. Did they know where we were going? Were they trying to be obvious? Maybe they weren’t even in the truck but had swapped it out with a waiting vehicle.

“Where do you think that secret base is? It looked like desert, so if it’s in the States, I have to guess New Mexico or Arizona, which would put us on a straight line from New York to here, then to one of those states,” I said. “I wish they would just tell us, but I suppose that’s a risk if someone captures us.” I pictured the two dead bodies we’d just crossed paths with the day before and didn’t want to be on the receiving end of the two we were chasing.

“That’s the deal. Too many loose threads. I tried to text Nat but got nothing back. I’m guessing they have a block on the whole area, which I don’t blame them for,” Mae offered, finally talking. It was good to hear her voice without sadness laced through it. I smiled at her from the rear-view mirror, not sure if she could see it or not from where she was sitting.

“How much farther? I could use a coffee and a pit stop,” I said.

“We’re an hour out of Nashville but closing in on them. I’d say we catch them twenty miles before city limits, but we have time to stop really quickly, because I imagine we aren’t going to ram them off the road if we do find them.” Mary fidgeted with the tablet, zooming in on their location.

“They have to sleep just like us, so they might be taking turns, but if they’re heading to a big city like Nashville, I’d say they’re meeting someone,” Mae said from the backseat.

The dash lights dimly glowed against my face, and I remembered driving a Jeep on our journey a year ago. It had been a lot different, but somehow the tension and the adrenaline were now familiar to me; my days of counting beans for people’s small businesses in upstate New York felt like a lifetime ago.

We pulled over at a truck stop outside of a small town named Portland. It always struck me as amusing how we loved to recycle our town and city names, but then again, how many people in the world were named Dean? Or Mary? I shrugged it off and noticed the gas station lights weren’t on. We had enough fuel to get us to Nashville, but since we’d stopped, I wanted to take advantage of the lost time.

“Dean, I think the pumps are still on,” Mary called.

Turned out they hadn’t been turned off, and we could use our credit cards to pay for the gas. It was more than I expected from an old truck stop, but we were close to Nashville, and I imagined a lot of trucks came that way, judging by the volume of them sitting in the lot across the street. Most of them probably had sleeping truck drivers in them at that moment, and my eyes felt weary as I thought about it.

The lights came on in the attached diner, and the ladies went inside to use the restrooms and beg for some coffee to go. At that moment, I could hardly think of anything other than coffee.

My cell phone vibrated in my left front pocket and I pulled it out, wondering if Magnus had broken free and found service. The number said UNKNOWN, but there was a text message. Don’t trust her, was all it said. Don’t trust who? And who the hell was sending me a text an hour before the sun came up?

Care to elaborate? I sent back. By the time the ladies came back with cups of coffee, there still hadn’t been a reply. Mary was almost running to me, passing me a cup after nearly spilling it.

“I’ll never understand why some places don’t have those little cardboard slips to put around their cups. Seems like almost everyone buying one of these would prefer to not be burned.” She frowned at me, softening when she must have seen my off expression. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I lied and hated myself for it. I just needed to consider the obscure message before I said anything aloud about it. “Bathrooms out back?”

“Just inside to the left. The nice lady said we could use them even though they aren’t open for another thirty minutes,” Mary said, still giving me a sideways glace.

As I walked, the phone vibrated again, and I was anxious to see what the mysterious “helpful” stranger who was sending me cryptic five AM messages had to say. Once inside the doors, I reached for the phone, but stopped short as I saw the middle-aged woman waving at me. The restaurant had that classic Middle America feel to it, and I loved the way the booths lined the walls, and the four-seaters were huddled around the middle of it all. I longed to go sit at the barstools like my father and I used to do when we’d head into town to get something for the farm.

It started off as a benefit to helping my dad do errands and fix something, or do yard work after, but as I got older, we just started to make it our tradition. My mother would often be invited, but she would just shoo us away, knowing it was a special bond between father and son. That, to her, was priceless.

The smell of oil on the grill in the back, right then, reminded me of the last time I’d had breakfast with my old man. I’d headed back to the country the year after Janine and I were married. He was sick but wouldn’t let it stop him from going out for a big breakfast at the diner, just like always. When I tried to tell him we could just stay in, have some oatmeal or something, my mother just shook her head at me, and I knew what it meant. He wasn’t going to live for long. It was prostate cancer, and it hit fast; faster than we could have imagined. I knew he wasn’t well, but my mother, most likely trying to protect me, had kept the severity of it from me for too long.

My little sister had called me, frantic, but she had always been an overreactor. Thinking of her then, I decided to text her as soon as I’d used the washroom. I had a longing for the one family member I had left, even though she resented me for not following her and Mom to California after my dad died. It’d been hard to explain to a heartbroken fifteen-year-old that I couldn’t uproot my life.

When we stepped into their house, the sights and smells of being a happy kid filled all my senses, and then I saw my father. He was sitting in his plaid chair, looking like a skeleton with skin. His sunken eyes creased as he smiled at us, and it had taken all my strength to not fall to my knees in tears.

Janine had held my hand firmly, and I knew she was feeling a portion of what I was. It was so strange, because as soon as I saw him, I felt an overwhelming layer of sadness, mixed with a heavy sense of missing him, even though he was right in front of me. I really just missed the fact that things were never going to be the same, and I could see in his eyes he felt that way too.

“Can I help you with anything?” the lady asked, as I stood there staring at the empty room like a crazy man.

“Sorry, just tired is all. Thanks for the coffee. I needed it.” I smiled and went to the bathrooms, checking the message once I was inside the small room. Think about it and all will be clear. Not wanting to get into a message war with someone I didn’t know, I put the phone away. A minute later, I was heading out the front doors, and back to the Jeep.

The message could mean anyone: Dalhousie, Leslie, Mae… though I didn’t want to go there, it could even mean Mary. There was no sense in speculating. We had to get back on the road.

“You good to keep driving, or do you want to switch off?” Mary asked as I was about to get into the driver’s side door.

“I’m as good as I’ll ever be,” I said, giving her a smile. I popped the top of the coffee, took a sip, and off we went, heading for Nashville.

__________

The sun was rising as we approached the city limits, farmland and small town being replaced with suburbs and chain stores. I’d never been there before and was glad I had someone navigating my way.

“They came this way and seem to veer off toward this industrial area. Looks like nothing but warehouses for a few miles,” Mary said, pointing to the exit east.

Morning light blasted me, and I flipped the visor as we made our way down the secondary freeway. We were catching up and still didn’t know what we were going to do if we caught the killers.

“They’re stopping!” she called with a little more excitement than I was used to from her normally calm voice.

I slowed and exited off the freeway, now driving the large Jeep wheels over potholed, worn asphalt. It was Sunday, so traffic was light so early in the morning, and there wasn’t a car in sight in the many parking lots we were passing by. Soon we were nearing an old building, an auto repair shop by the look of it.

Mary gestured to our left, and my heart raced when we spotted the bare white truck: the missing one from the camp in Long Island. Pulling behind a large cube van, I kept my distance and turned the engine off. There was no one in the truck, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have eyes on the street. For all we knew, they saw us driving up.

The sun was still low on the horizon, and here it was blocked by large buildings between us and the rays. I hoped being in the shadows would help us.

“We don’t know what we’re up against here. They could just be hiding out, or they could be meeting more of their brainwashed humans. We have to be careful.” Mary looked at me and held my gaze for a moment longer than she normally would, emphasizing the word careful.

“I’ll go,” Mae said. “Recon, right? And if I get caught, I’ll claim I broke out too, and tracked them. I know for a fact that the one right across the hall looks just like us, and my hair is pretty much the same length.” She pulled her hair into a ponytail, and she was taking off her shirt. I averted my eyes, noticing how much she looked like my wife. I’d spent so much time with Mae that I rarely thought of her and Janine on the same wavelength any longer, but seeing her pulling her shirt over her head reminded me so much of Janny. “I borrowed some items from Donna that Leslie would recognize. I also have some of Leslie’s stuff. You know, just in case.”

I almost laughed at the ingenious planning. Don’t trust her. The words echoed in my mind and I shook them out, knowing it couldn’t be either of these women. They were as trustworthy to me as Magnus and Nat.

“Great thinking, Mae,” Mary said, smiling through an otherwise worried face.

“Just be careful, okay? Take a quick look around and come back. Take the walkie and let us know if you need us. Just hit the talk button twice, and don’t say anything if you aren’t able to speak,” I told her. Just like that, she was out the door, quietly stalking across the road, out of view of the warehouse’s windows or the truck. She hugged the neighboring building’s wall, and before we knew it, she was out of our sight.

“Mary, I got a text a couple hours ago. It just said to not trust her.”

“Trust who?” she asked.

“I don’t know. The number was blocked, and they weren’t very open about it.” I handed the cell over for her to look for herself.

“You don’t think they mean…” She left Mae’s name unsaid.

“I’m not sure. I imagine that’s who they mean, whoever they are. I don’t believe it for a second, though. It could just as easily mean Dalhousie.” I held the radio in my hand, anxious to hear from Mae. I hoped she was just going to find them sleeping in the empty warehouse, and we could go in together silently, taking them quietly and safely.

The walkie-talkie alert sounded, then another one in quick succession. Mae needed help.

We were out the door, running with our guns in hand, and I was thankful for the daily runs Mary had forced me to do over the last year. It helped me breathe and focused my nervous energy out of my body.

We’d seen Mae go to the left side of the warehouse, and scanned for her, seeing nothing but some stacked pipes and an old forklift.

“Open window over there,” Mary whispered.

Backs to the wall, we listened and could hear voices. They were getting closer, and I could make out the words after a few seconds.

“They followed you?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Yeah, I think they were right behind. I don’t know how they knew where I was going.” It was Mae’s voice, and I cringed that she had to attempt this ruse.

“And just how did you find us?” a male voice asked with an edge to it: Terrance.

“Like I said, I stole a truck right after you guys. I knew what you guys were up to, so I was watching you. I thought I could catch up, but the damned truck wouldn’t go over sixty-five,” Mae said as Donna.

“We had a guy kill the GPS,” Leslie said.

“Must be a separate circuit within the trucks to each other. I wondered how they didn’t find us. I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting sirens.” Mae was pulling off the role well.

“I’m going to check this out. Where’s the truck?” Terrance asked.

“Just out the main doors, across the street.”

“Why didn’t you just pull up beside us?” he asked.

“Because it’s Sunday, and I didn’t want to draw any attention to a closed warehouse,” Mae said with ease. I was very impressed with her quick repartee, and her ability to slide into someone else’s skin. Her cadence was even different.

“Fine. But if there’s anything at all fishy about it, it’s over,” Terrance said, and we could hear his heavy boot steps crossing the hard concrete floor of the warehouse. He was heading for the door near us. Inside, Mae spoke to Leslie in hushed tones, and I could tell she was leading her further into the warehouse. I looked at Mary, and she nodded, holding her gun firmly against her chest, ready to piston her legs up at the sight of Terrance. I mimicked her, and when the door flung open, she went high and right, and I stayed low and left.

He didn’t have time to draw his own gun, as Mary pointed hers at him and smiled. She motioned for him to set it on the ground and kick it over, which he did. His face didn’t betray his emotions for a second, and I knew I didn’t want to play poker against the guy.

In a matter of seconds, Mae was leading out a pissed-off version of herself.

“You have no idea what you’re doing, Donna. You’re really helping these humans, the same two that stopped us from doing what we were born to do? You’re as bad as her.” Leslie didn’t have to say Mae for us to all know who she meant. The look on Mae’s face must have given something away. “Wait a minute. You’re not Donna, are you? You’re that traitor!” Leslie lunged at Mae, almost connecting a shove, when Mary shot the ground behind Leslie’s feet.

“Get back!” Mary yelled. “And never call her that again. You don’t have any power anymore.”

Leslie’s resolve slipped and her shoulders slumped. Terrance’s firmly gripped fists loosened, and I hoped we were done with any altercations. Grabbing the zip ties from Mary’s pack, I went behind Terrance first and tied his hands behind his back, followed by Leslie’s. Guns were aimed at them the whole time.

“Let’s get them in the back of the truck and get on the road. We’ll call in and let them know we’ve acquired the targets,” Mae said without emotion. I figured she felt like a part of her was betraying her kind again, but I also knew she wholeheartedly disagreed with what they were doing.

“I’ll take the Jeep, if you guys don’t mind,” Mae said as we slid the back shut on the truck and padlocked it. There had been nothing back there, and we checked thoroughly for any hidden compartments where a weapon might have been stashed.

“Everything okay?” I asked her softly.

She just nodded glumly and touched my hand for a second, before heading across the street with the Jeep keys jingling along the way.

Soon we were heading back to the main highway, en route to New Mexico where, we’d been told, a location would be sent when we were within a hundred miles of the secret base. It was all a little too covert for me, but alien security was probably a good idea given the Event, and the stuff the hybrids just tried to pull off. We didn’t really know exactly what it was they were going to pull off, but we had to hope it could be stopped if the wheels were already in motion. I was happy to bring them to Dalhousie and General Heart, and let them deal with that part. I just wanted some sleep.

“Dean, let me know if you need to rest for a bit. I don’t mind driving,” Mary said from the passenger seat. It was stuffy in there, and I rolled the window down, letting in the warm morning air.

“Sounds good. Maybe in an hour or so. I’m too wound up to rest anyway.” It was the truth.

“I love you,” she said as she closed her eyes and turned from me.

“I love you too,” I replied. The words from the text message hung in the front of my mind.

NINE

It was a long drive to the border of New Mexico, and we had to fill up a few times. The truck’s mileage was terrible, and each time we stopped at a near-empty, out-of-the-way gas station in hopes that no one would hear the two prisoners in the back if they decided to shout or cause a scene. Lucky for us, they didn’t make a peep, and when we opened the door on the side of the road halfway through our journey, they were both cross-legged, leaning against the far corners, staring at us. They seemed surprised that we would offer them water and a bathroom break, but they took both with caution. I figured maybe compassion would soften them up, even though I knew they didn’t deserve anything but the worst treatment for what they’d done. My mother’s words rang in my mind as I tipped the water bottle slowly: “You catch more flies with honey.” I’d never understood that as a kid but did now.

Mae seemed more like her old self; the time alone must have helped. We passed the border into New Mexico well past sunset, and because of the stops and the governor on the truck, it was around eight at night when the text came in from General Heart’s people. Mary had a location sent to her tablet, and before we knew it, we were heading off the main highway, and onto a back road in the rocky, hilly landscape.

The dusk sky turned to darkness, and with no lights on the roadsides, I struggled to make sure we stayed on the road.

“How far now?” I asked for the fifth time in the last half-hour.

“Looks like we should be up on it soon. I have no idea how they’ve kept a whole facility hidden out here. There aren’t a lot of homes or anything, but those vessels aren’t small. Testing the ships must get seen by the people in the area,” Mary said.

“Yeah, we saw a town, what, ten miles back?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

The road we were on ended, with a large cement barricade preceded by some reflective construction signs saying “Road Ends.”

“What do we do now?” Mary asked, zooming in on her tablet.

“Pass that over, please,” I said, reaching for it. “Looks like there’s a dirt track here, and if we follow that, we should be there in a couple of minutes. I know it’s dark, but I don’t see a damn thing out there.” It was pitch black out here by then, but the sky was full of stars out in the middle of nowhere, and the moon hung low in the sky, half-moon but full of reflective light.

“Just be careful,” Mary said, reaching for the radio. “Mae, we have to go left here onto the dirt road, and I use the term ‘road’ loosely. Do you mind going ahead of us in the Jeep so we don’t go bouncing into a big rock and end up stranded with Bonnie and Clyde in the back?”

“You got it. Just let me sneak around you. Where do you think it is? Shouldn’t we see it by now? Guards? Lights? A fence?” Mae asked over the walkie.

“That’s what we thought, but the map says we’re almost there. All I see are rocks, dirt, and stars.” Mary set the walkie down, and Mae pulled ahead of us, driving slowly over the bumpy terrain.

We bounced along behind her, the truck’s old suspension not made for this kind of travel. Five minutes of that, and we were coming to another barricade. Mae slowed before us. It was the strangest thing. Our lights blasted the back of Mae’s Jeep, and I turned them down. For a moment, I thought Mae had turned her lights off, but then saw they hit the construction signs but didn’t travel beyond them, like some sick science experiment my brain couldn’t comprehend.

“What is this?” I asked, getting out of the truck, almost stumbling as I looked forward. Mary was right behind me, and we walked over to Mae, who was also looking ahead, jaw dropped down in wonder.

Twenty feet in front of us, the air shimmered, and the light from the Jeep dissipated into nothing, like it was sucked into a black hole. I could see rocks and dirt beyond it, but it didn’t look right, like we were being tricked with an optical illusion. Looking up, we could see the stars in the distance.

“Look,” Mary said, pointing upward. I didn’t know what she meant, but then I saw it. A blurry line straight across the sky, like something bent at that point.

Before we could try to figure out what it was we were seeing, a noise like a garage door squeaking open hit us, and forty yards to the right, a door was opening; a door out of thin air. Three people came out of the doorway, which was large enough for vehicles to pass through. I saw Mae bring her hand to her gun, which was tucked into the back of her pants. I wondered if I should do the same but recognized the man at the forefront of the three. The other two were holding assault rifles, and stood half a foot taller than Trent Breton, one of the engineers from our meeting with the president in Washington.

“Glad you could make it,” Trent said, smiling wide. “Do you have the package?”

Mary nodded and pointed to the truck.

“Slate, do you mind pulling the truck to the compound? Henrik, take the Jeep, please.” Trent was still smiling as he motioned for us to follow him. “Don’t worry, your belongings will be brought to your rooms in a few minutes. Patrice asked me to meet you out here and show you the wall.” He led us to the slightly shimmering façade and ran his hand along it, where I noticed a small, almost indiscernible ripple, like a crease in a bedsheet. “Pretty cool, wouldn’t you say? We found some truly remarkable technology lodged in the ships’ computers. Things we could never have imagined working so easily. Being an engineer, I always dreamed of inventing or working on something like this, a cloaking device of sorts.”

I was finally picking up what he was saying. “Are you telling us there’s a whole facility hidden behind this wall that looks just like the distant desert?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. I won’t bore you with all the details, but it involves refraction, thousands of reflective cameras imaging other points, and a net of sorts. We actually have a solid wall with the device draped over it.”

Mary lifted an eyebrow. “How do you keep people from seeing inside from above? Planes? Drones?”

“It covers the base in a dome. Think of a football stadium with a retractable ceiling,” Trent said, seemingly very pleased with himself. I didn’t blame him, because I was thoroughly impressed with it.

“And just how big is this dome of yours?” Mary asked.

He paused, as if thinking, and continued walking until they neared the open bay door. The truck passed through, and we waited to the side as the Jeep followed it. Once they had safely passed us, he stepped forward and smiled widely once again. We followed, and I was amazed at what I saw.

From the outside, we just saw a representation of the night, complete with hills, rocks, landscape, and stars; but when we looked inside, there was a huge structure, lights high in the roof, which had to be three hundred feet in the air. It went on for as far as I could see in all directions, and off what must have been a few miles was one of the transport vessels. Though I’d seen them countless times over the past year, my pulse still quickened at the sight of the gargantuan ship.

“It’s about twenty square miles. We had to make it big enough to house the vessel for testing, and everything else we’re doing here, including weapons testing. We couldn’t have anyone seeing what we’re doing. And for all we know, we’re always being watched, maybe from space right now. Even by the Bhlat. We don’t know enough, so we erred on the side of caution,” Trent said. He wasn’t kidding.

“How was it possible to cover that much space with this net?” I asked.

“Once we had it figured out, it came down to 3D printers… a lot of them. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with some of the world’s foremost engineers and a lot of resources. We had printers sent from all around the globe, and it only took two months to make it. After multiple glitches and setbacks, we were up and running six months ago,” he said, walking into the base. We followed behind. The doors slid shut as we cleared the opening, clinking shut with finality, and we were closed in.

“What about people in the area? How could you keep this secret?” Mae asked. We were all full of questions.

“We picked an isolated spot, but one that was quickly accessible from most of the United States. It had a low ratio of people per square mile because of the hard ground and lack of farmable land, so Dalhousie took a tenth of the state and relocated everyone within a hundred-mile radius, or wherever they wanted to go. With half the houses vacant in the States, it wasn’t that hard. Now, if you’ll come with me, I’ll show you to your rooms to freshen up. I heard you had a long day.” Trent didn’t pry any further on our adventures, and I was thankful for it as we made our way through the rocky terrain, on foot at first, until one of the carts we’d seen on the video in Washington swung by and picked us up. It sat the four of us with no problem, and we were whisked away to a group of shipping containers a mile or so away.

We’d headed in the direction of the vessel, and now I could see the large building beside it: the warehouse we’d seen the ships in on the video. I got a tingle thinking of those gray ships, red lasers blasting out of them, cutting the ground in front of us on our way south to get to Florida.

There weren’t many people lingering around, and those that I saw were uniformed like the guards had been. Not quite military, and not quite police, but something in the middle. The accountant in me wanted to see the books for this place, if they even bothered keeping track of it anymore.

The shipping containers were stacked on top of each other, so they were around ten high, and twenty left to right. There was an intricate step and balcony system, making them all accessible from the ground, and each had its own door. I remembered seeing an article on the web a couple years before about people using containers like this for homes, and I could now see they’d done the same thing. If I wasn’t in a dome hiding alien spaceships, I would have been more impressed.

“This is an interesting setup. Who stays here?” Mary asked Trent from the backseat.

The cart stopped, letting us out. I said thank you to the driver before he took off, leaving us standing at the base of the Lego-like structure.

“We have a more permanent structure for the staff, guards, engineers, and physicists. Dalhousie and the General have another complex where they stay if they’re around these parts for a visit. You guys are the first to stay here, with the exception of your friends.” As if on cue, a dog barked, and in the artificial daylight, I saw Carey bounding toward me, tongue flopping out the side of his mouth, his ears flapping up and down with each hop.

“Carey!” I called to him and lowered to my knees, enveloping him in a hug as he jumped on me, getting a wet face for my efforts. “Who’s a good boy? I missed you, bud.” He seemed to like that as he wiggled around me, rolling on the ground before saying hi to Mary, with a hesitant greeting for Mae.

Magnus and Natalia walked toward us, coming from behind the container complex, holding cups of coffee. Magnus had a tennis ball in his hand, and I assumed he’d been playing fetch with Carey in the grassed area behind the buildings.

I had a vision of a bad sitcom taking place here, about the crazy characters living in a complex of shipping containers in an alien ship research facility. I’d call it the Earth Defense Farce.

Nat picked up her pace when she got closer, and Magnus raised an eyebrow at seeing her obvious concern. Her having friends had thrown him for a bit of a loop, seeing a new woman blossom in her. She gave us each big hugs, and Magnus came in and did the same.

“You guys do know we only parted ways two days ago, right?” Mary asked, and it surprised me it had only been that long. It felt like at least a week.

“But you got to do all the exciting stuff, while we were cramped up in…” Magnus waved his arm in the air. “Whatever this is. Everything go okay?”

Trent stepped forward, and it seemed like we’d forgotten the engineer was present. “I’m going to bed now, but I’m sure I’ll see you in the morning. Choose whatever rooms you like. They’re unlocked, and the keys are inside the desk drawers.”

We said goodnight, and before we knew it, the gang was back together.

“Welcome to the Earth Defense Unit,” Trent said before walking away.

The words were meant to be friendly, but they carried a weight with them: a sense of finality.

“Well?” Magnus prompted.

“Yes. It went well. Almost too well,” Mae said. “Do you think we could freshen up and get something to eat? Maybe we can tell you our tale with Dalhousie there to save the redundancy.”

Magnus looked a little taken aback, but he let it slide. “Sure thing. You guys have had a stressful couple of days. Take a unit. Nat has eleven, and I took twelve.” He smiled at me. “What? We like to be close. It’s safer that way.”

Mae was already walking to the complex, and soon she was inside the bottom left unit, Number One.

“Is she okay?” Nat asked Mary in hushed tones.

“I think so. The hybrids are in a tough spot, and those two crazy bastards aren’t helping things. I’m just glad we caught them before they could do any more damage.” Mary walked on, taking Unit Five. “Dean, you coming?” she asked, and for some reason, I wasn’t sure if she was going to take her own room or not. I guess that answered that.

“We’ll just be a few minutes. Then you guys can call us a cab, and we’ll go for dinner and drinks, maybe some dancing,” I joked, and Magnus guffawed for my benefit.

“Sounds like a plan, I’ll bring the Hummer around,” Magnus said, and Nat gave us a small wave. Carey looked confused for a second, but soon he plopped along, following us inside the room. I shrugged at Magnus and shut the door.

The room was bigger inside than I would have guessed. To the right was a living room, with a door at the end of it, leading to a bedroom. The kitchen was on the left, and a bathroom straight ahead. Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with the effective setup.

We found food on the kitchen shelves, mostly stuff with long shelf life, and the bathroom was stocked with toiletries. It was like our own little hotel in a dome in the desert.

Ten minutes and a hot shower later, I was snacking on some crackers, while Mary was drying her hair. A knock clanged on the door, and Carey ran to it, giving it a bark for good order. Mae was there, in a uniform like the ones the guards were wearing.

“Did they not bring your luggage to your room?” I asked, since ours had made it there five minutes ago.

“They did. I just wanted to be in the part. If I’m Earth Defense, then I’m Earth Defense.” Her back straightened as she said it, and I thought there was a sense of pride emanating from her.

“It looks damn nice on you,” Mary said as she stepped into the room. “Mae, are you okay?”

Mae stepped in, grabbing a couple of crackers and leaning down to pass one to the begging cocker spaniel. He graciously accepted. “I will be. I feel responsible for what Leslie and Terrance have done, killing those people, working with humans to attack. We have to find out how deep the web goes.”

“Maybe it was just the one in Washington. It seemed like they just wanted to distract the country with some random shooting. Or give people the impression they had more power than they actually do,” Mary said.

“I hope you’re right. Either way, I do feel better now that we’re here, and they’re locked up.” She smiled and set her hand on my arm. “And thanks for saying it looks good on me.” She spun around, and we laughed.

A horn honked once, and I looked at my watch, worried it was a little late to be honking a horn.

“Don’t worry, Dean. There’s no one sleeping nearby right now. It’s only ten thirty. Let’s get some food and see what Dalhousie has for us,” Mary said, and with that, we left our newly-discovered temporary home.

TEN

The lights were dim in the sterile room, and crumbs were all that was left of my late-night sandwich. I sipped the bottom part of my coffee as Dalhousie and General Heart listened to us tell our tale from the start of the mission to getting to their base. She wrote some notes as we spoke, and I could see her write with fervor as we told her about the erratic behavior Skip had displayed.

“Good thing you had that CIA IT guy,” Mary said. “We would have been searching for a needle in a haystack otherwise.”

The president nodded slowly, a frown crossing her forehead. “It was just too easy. Don’t you think murderers would have gone with a fight? Especially since it was you three who went to get them.”

“Did you want them to fight? Dispose of us?” Mae asked, taking the comments a different way than I had.

Dalhousie shook her head. “Mae! I’m just saying it seemed a little too simple. Did they say anything at all about other contacts outside? Any big threats they’re planning to set off with some human help?”

“We didn’t really have time for a big conversation out there. We just wanted to get them into custody and brought to you. Where are they now?” I asked.

Tapping her finger on the desk, the president looked deep in thought, as if calculating something important. “Sorry? Oh, they’re in some makeshift brig. We’ve added some to the ships and vessels. If we ever make contact out there, we want to be able to lock an enemy up if needed. On the ships, we’ve made prison sections. For the same reason, or for our own people if needed.”

This reminded me of all the atrocities humans had done against themselves while in space the first time.

“Why would we need the vessel ships any longer?” Magnus asked quietly.

“Because if the Bhlat do find us, we don’t have enough protection. We’re sending a colony ship out to Proxima b,” Dalhousie said with finality.

All my life, I’d thought about exploring the stars, since I was a kid wishing I was on the bridge of the Enterprise, and we were going to do it. My eyes shifted to Mary, and she was looking back at me, as if we had some unspoken agreement.

“Who’s going on this trip?” Mary asked for us.

Dalhousie paused, looking over at General Heart. With a gesture meaning go ahead, Heart took over. “Proxima Centauri b is liveable.”

“How do we know that?” Magnus asked gruffly.

“Because I’ve been there.” Heart sat up straight, looking us in the eyes one by one, as if to gauge a reaction. “I went with Slate and Jeff Dinkle, along with Allana and Clare.” He referred to the burly guard we’d met on our approach, and the TV host obsessed with aliens. The other two had been at our meeting in Washington: physics and engineering.

We all sat on the edge of our seats, blown away that there was a whole planet that we could access at our fingertips.

“Well?” Mary blurted, and cut the tension in the room.

“It was everything we hoped for. Lush green land, water, and breathable air.” Heart, normally a stoic man, smiled widely.

“Were there… other life-forms there?” I asked, curiosity burning my veins.

“Yes. No intelligent life, and by that, I mean we saw no signs of humanoid or bipedal life. They do have a wide assortment of insects and wildlife, like any planet with a healthy ecosystem would,” Heart explained. It was a lot to take in.

“I’m not sure why everyone is so surprised. We were invaded, had half our world killed by an alien race who in turn had hybrid human-aliens, and they were being chased out by an even bigger, badder race. God knows how many worlds are out there, but one thing we do know is we have faster than light travel now, and this opens the universe to us. To all its wonders and dangers.” Dalhousie looked like she was going to start standing in her speech but stayed sitting at the last line.

“So those ships had FTL?” Mary asked. I knew what FTL stood for from the mass of science fiction I’d devoured as a young single man. Accountants have all read the classics, no matter what they tell you.

“Yes, it turns out the input Teelon supplied you and Natalia didn’t explain everything about the ships. Whether this was a glitch, an issue of compatibility with the human brain, or a conscious decision by the creature hell-bent on killing two races, remains to be seen. But we know we can travel around four light years in a month of our time.” The president looked for a reaction, and she got it. We couldn’t hold back our surprise.

“You’re telling me we can get to this planet and back in just over two months?” Magnus asked.

“Not in the vessel ships. Their tech is a little more dated, but they can do it in twice that. I don’t understand it all, but the team tells me it harnesses singularity: the power of a black hole. If they had this technology, and were afraid of someone, we should be afraid too. I take that back… we have to be cautious,” Dalhousie said.

“Damn right we have to be afraid. Let’s not beat around the bush here, Madame President, some bad mamas are out there, and they want to kill us and take our world. Probably for resources, or maybe they want us as slaves, like the Kraski did for the Deltras. Either way, we’re hooped unless we figure it out before they end up on our doorstep.” Magnus reached for his cup, finding it empty.

“You didn’t answer my question. Who’s going to Proxima?” Mary asked for the second time.

Heart looked at the president and pulled at his collar in a nervous gesture. “Magnus and Natalia will be going with Dinkle,” he said, and I leaned forward as he continued, “as well as other key parties who will specialize in setting up Earth’s first-ever colony. Mae will also be going with them.” He said the last part as if it was of second importance. I thought he was trying to just slip it in there at the end.

“What about us?” I finally found my voice.

“We need you and Mary here. You’re the face of the resistance against anything alien to our people. We’re putting you two in charge of the Earth Defense Unit, and you’ll work side by side with General Heart here. What you don’t know about training pilots and intelligence officers, he and his team will help you with.” Dalhousie took all the wind out of my sails as she spoke. I’d been relegated to becoming a pencil pusher even after saving the world. That was a full three-sixty.

Carey was at my feet, and his chin moved and set down on my shoe. I’d missed him too. Finding a small piece of leftovers on the table, I brought it to him, and he happily took it without complaint. At least I could stay with him through this training.

“We’re also working on expanding the fleet. So far, we’ve been able to duplicate the ships with success and are designing them with humans in mind. I think you’ll enjoy the tour in the morning.” Dalhousie was ending the meeting with her comments, and though I wanted nothing more than to see what was inside that massive warehouse, I also wanted to close my eyes and sleep like a baby for twelve hours.

We headed back to the sleeping complex in carts and were quiet the whole time. There was a lot to take in, and the idea of staying behind while our friends left for a new world was something that would take getting used to.

After saying good night, and a quick pre-sleep routine, Mary and I were in bed, two single beds pushed together with a queen-sized sheet overtop. Her hand rested on my face, and we looked at each other as Carey snored at our feet. “If I have to train an Earth Defense unit with anyone, I’m glad it’s you,” she said.

I didn’t reply, just kissed her softly and closed my eyes. I saw ships in the skies, strange planets, and the burning sun as I dozed off to slumber.

__________

The morning air was dense and warm, instantly making my new uniform cling to my skin as we made our way toward the ship hangar. Beside it sat the transport vessel, just like the one I’d floated in space to affix the tether to, saving a large chunk of lives. It seemed such an insanely immense task now, but then it had just been the end goal of a long journey. The outside of the vessel was the same matte black I remembered, and I was curious to see the adjustments they’d made to the interior. They had been functional before, but they would need better plumbing and other systems to make them work for a large group going for an extended trip. We learned that the Kraski had been planning on moving their whole population in them, but where I thought of interstellar travel using cryogenics to put the travelers out, they were going to just gas their people with a drug that would keep them in a sort of stasis that wouldn’t need food or water for extended periods of time. They’d tried to use them on the humans so they wouldn’t know what hit them as they ran into the sun, but almost all of them had failed.

I supposed the Kraski would have been upset if they got their people on board, only to find out many would die before arriving because of a lack of supplies. Turned out they didn’t need them, because the mystery race called the Bhlat ended the need when they invaded and killed the whole planet’s worth of Kraski. They’d already left in anticipation, since the vessels were being stored deep in their system.

Could I blame them for being an ornery bunch, wanting a new world? No. But I also wouldn’t let myself feel bad for killing the ones that had come to Earth. Karma and all that. I just hoped it didn’t come back to bite me, but if it did, that was the universe.

“I can’t believe you guys are going to another planet,” I said to Magnus and Natalia as we approached General Heart and Clare, the other main engineer alongside Trent. She smiled widely at us, and it was nice to have a friendly face around. Heart seemed to have a perpetual scowl that wouldn’t lift.

“Yes, my friend. I wish you three were coming with us. Maybe we can talk them into it. Won’t be the same without you all there.” Magnus smiled as he spoke.

Heart looked extra perturbed and he motioned me aside.

“Why don’t you all go ahead? I just have to speak with Mr. Parker for a moment,” Heart said, taking my arm in a light grip and walking me twenty feet past the door. When he spoke again, it was in hushed tones. “Dean, something is off about our guests you brought in. They claim they did have a part in the shooting, but it was intentionally not deadly. They wanted to escape and create chaos among us while doing so, but they also said they really just want to get their people, the hybrids, off-planet. There’s somewhere else they know out there that will take them in, and they don’t want to be a burden to us any longer. They feel like sitting in a prisoner of war camp, though we aren’t calling it that, but let’s call a spade a spade here, is a horrible fate. They understand now that they were brainwashed their whole lives, and they’re acting remorseful.”

I held up my hand. “Wait now. General, if you saw the bloody corpses they left in their wake back in Long Island, you wouldn’t believe a damned word those psychos said.”

“That’s the other thing. They say they had nothing to do with those deaths. When we brought them up, they genuinely looked shocked and upset at Clendening being dead. Leslie cried, saying they’d been lovers. I don’t trust them, but something doesn’t add up here.” Heart wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.

The images of the dead guard on his bed and the other hanging in the loading dock office hit me, and I felt sick to my stomach. If they hadn’t done it, then who had? Could Skip have been off his rocker enough to do it, so he could blame the hybrids he hated so much?

“We’ll keep it up, but I wanted to let you know. They asked me to tell you specifically that they’re innocent and just want to leave Earth. According to them, most of the hybrids from Long Island would leave willingly. They also don’t trust Mae.”

I thought about this and didn’t blame them. She was the first one to help us, and without her, they would have succeeded in killing off the human race.

“They just see her as one of us now,” I said, and Heart and I made our way to the hangar doors.

“Maybe you can talk to them later? They asked for you,” he said, looking desperate for answers. I got the feeling that Heart was happy to have someone else there to divert the hybrid or alien business to. While I was sure he made a hell of a general pre-invasion, he looked older now than even the few days earlier when I’d met him, and much older than the interviews I’d seen with him on television months after we were returned.

“I’m not sure what I can do, but I’m here to help,” was all I could think of to say.

He looked relieved and together we walked into the building. Its ceilings must have been one hundred and fifty feet high, and inside were half a dozen of the Kraski ships. There was a charge of energy inside the room, causing the hairs on my arms to lift a little bit.

Heart passed me a green pin, and I placed it on my uniform lapel. I was looking forward to someone explaining the technology behind these devices that allowed us to pass through a solid wall.

The ship closest to us was black, not the silver-gray of the other Kraski ships.

“What’s this?” Mary asked, running her hand over the smooth surface of the ship. Where the original Kraski ships were about eighty yards long, this one was almost twice that.

Heart smiled wide but waved his hand over to Clare to take over the answering period. “This is our newest design. We took everything you know and love about the original Kraski ships, and we’ve integrated some great features for humans: toilets, Bluetooth speakers for music, and just the right amount of mix in the air.”

“Why does the outside look different?” I asked, seeing not only a color difference, but a texture variance.

“You know the technology we use to stay hidden out here in the dome? This ship has the same thing. It isn’t as effective in a closed building, but out in the sky or space, you have to literally run into the thing to know it’s there. We also found a way to block it from the Kraski and Deltra radars, and we’re hoping that means it will stay hidden from other potential threats out there.” Heart didn’t have to say that he meant the Bhlat, because it was obvious.

Carey pulled against his leash and barked at a Kraski ship near us. It looked a lot less ominous on the concrete floor of a hangar than searching for us on our journey, ready to blast us into oblivion… if that had even been their plan. In the end, they were only trying to herd us to Machu Picchu to turn off the Shield. I wondered where the Shield was, guessing it was probably safely tucked away somewhere nearby.

Magnus and Natalia stood to the side, and she slipped her arm around the large man’s waist and pulled him close. He leaned down to kiss the top of her head, and I couldn’t help but feel happy for the two of them. They would be among the first people to go to a new world, and I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather have relish an experience like that than them. The fact that I’d miss them went without saying. The urge to call my old best friend James overtook me, and I shoved it down, deciding I’d ask for a way to reach outside the dome later. While I was at it, I’d call my sister, whom I also needed to talk to all of a sudden.

“We won’t need the pins for this, but they might come in handy, like in your adventures.” Heart clicked a button on a keychain, and the ship raised up off the ground quietly, followed by a ramp dropping to the ground under the new ship. This way, you could bring goods on and off the ship with a dolly, and not need to float through like an alien wizard. The technology the Kraski had was cool, but not always practical.

Carey hesitated on the grated ramp, but when he found his feet wouldn’t fall through, he ran up in excitement. Though Magnus and Nat were leaving us behind, I was grateful that Carey could stay with us, and we could stay an odd little family. Mary was ahead of me, her uniform hugging her curves, making the whole picture look far more flattering than my uniform on me. She’d told me it was hot, and passed me her aviators back at the room, slapping me in the butt and calling me Maverick. We’d laughed, and I couldn’t help but think of how lucky I was.

I was the last up the ramp to the ship, and as I’d expected, we were in a small bay used for storage and supplies. The lighting was soft and less sterile than the Kraski ship had been. Essentially, we were in the middle of the ship; behind us were the crew quarters, which consisted of four rooms with bunks. Two rooms had four beds, and the other two had two each, making room for twelve to sleep at the same time, but with most crews, I imagined there would be shifts. The space was twice the size of the other ships, but the idea of sharing the space with twenty people over an extended period of time was enough to make me feel claustrophobic.

Mary held up, and after a nod from Heart, she let Carey off his leash to explore. He barked in excitement and took off. “Quite the different experience, huh? I honestly hardly remember what the Kraski ship we flew in looked like, I was so invested in flying it and trying to stop what was happening. Basically a trip fueled by adrenaline, stress, and fear. I remember lying in those beds and talking to you. I think I started to fall for you that moment.” She said this, and I remembered it all vividly. The ship, the sterile smell, sharing that moment with Mary was when I’d really started falling for her too. I also remembered tethering myself up along with Magnus to find a vessel half-filled with dead people.

“I fell for you too,” was all I could bring myself to say.

Before we got back to the loading area, Heart showed us the small room that housed a dozen or so suits, designed specifically to fit human males and females, with built-in body fluid recyclers and radiation protection like the Kraski suits. They also had the thrusters attached to the hand controls, which would come in handy if you were floating uselessly in space. I hoped to never be in that position again.

“These kick ass!” Magnus said, sifting through them, probably seeing if they had one large enough to fit his big frame.

I noticed a cabinet, but when I tried to open it, I couldn’t pull it open.

Heart put his thumb to it. It beeped, then unlatched. “We’ll get you guys set up on the system when we’re done here. You’ll have full access.” I caught an underlying sense of unease in the general at giving a civilian access to all of this, but Dalhousie had him sold on us working on the Earth Defense Unit. In time, I was sure he would grow to trust, and hopefully even like us.

Inside what looked like a large custom wardrobe from a high-end house sat a line of weapons, each larger than its predecessor. Magnus nudged me and whistled as he saw the arsenal.

“Not planning on meeting any friendlies out there, are we?” he asked as a joke, but it sat at the pit of my stomach. He was right.

We continued the tour, crossing up to the front half of the ship, where we passed by an engineering room. Clare glowed as she explained the propulsion system. It was all over my head, but Mary looked enthralled; I’d ask her to spell it out in layman’s terms later. What I did understand was that each of the ships had FTL capability. When activated, the propulsion boosters opened from behind the ship, and it took hours to charge the drives, depending on how long your trip was. Otherwise, they could travel any direction with all the mini-thrusters we’d been using, and they were quite fast, from my experience.

The bridge came next, and it was gorgeous. Instead of the small space we’d been in, with two seats and a computer screen, it was like something out of all the science fiction movies I’d seen. Large viewport front and center, with five seats, each with their own workstation. Fashion added to function, since it was the first model Earth had built themselves. Brown leather trimmed the swiveling chairs, reminding me a bit of my office chair at my old company.

Heart and Clare showed us around, and I was only half-listening as they clicked controls and showed viewscreen options. I didn’t expect to be flying one of these ships myself, so I’d leave it to the professionals. As it went on, the walls felt like they were closing in on me, and before they were done, I slipped out, with the excuse I was going to find Carey. As I neared the ramp out, Carey found me, nuzzling into my leg. Together we walked down and outside – if I could call it outside, since there was a ceiling over our heads high above. They’d done a great job of having soft light, imitating the sun, and then I realized it was sunlight we were seeing. The canopy reflected and emulated the other side of the net they’d installed. I could even make out clouds. It was amazing.

“Dean, they want to show us the newly renovated colony ship.” It was Mae. She’d approached so quietly while I was looking to the sky. When I turned to her, I could have sworn I was looking at Janine, but I pushed the memories away.

“Sounds good.” It came out choked.

She rubbed Carey’s head, which caused him to follow after her as we made our way to the modified transport vessel.

I’d originally underestimated the size of the things when they’d first lowered to Earth, and though the news had given a solid estimate, they could realistically hold about a million people in comfort. The sheer volume cramped on them a year ago had been deadly in many ways.

“How many people are you bringing on this first venture to Proxima?” I asked Clare, who in return beamed at me, running her fingers through her short bob-cut brown hair.

“The plan called for around one hundred, but as we got deeper into it, with maintenance, construction, botanists, air and water purification, and all the other boxes, we needed about one thousand to check them all off. I wish you were coming with us. I mean, the hero of mankind and all. Would be nice to have you alongside us as we find a new home.” Clare turned a bit red, and I wasn’t sure if it was from her gushing to me, or because she might have let some secret information slip.

Mary was behind me, rolling her eyes as soon as I looked back. She didn’t seem the jealous type, and why should she be? She was a strong, beautiful woman, whom I didn’t even deserve.

“Wow, one thousand? Do all the people who are going know it yet?” I wondered how they would all take the news.

“Most of them. Some of the roles, we asked for volunteers. Doctors, veterinarians, teachers…” She looked me in the eyes. “We need certain people to come, and most wouldn’t come unless their families were able to join. We want this to be a wonderful experience for everyone, and the future is there, so having families and schools will give us a foundation to build our new home on.” I could hear Dalhousie’s passion through this young woman.

“It all sounds great. I can’t wait to visit,” I said. I had an idea. “My sister, Isabelle Parker, is a veterinarian in California. I think this is the type of thing she’d love to do. Can we pose it to her?” The last time we’d talked, she seemed so down, and she had always been more of a space nut than me.

“Of course.” Clare beamed at me. “Anything for your family, Dean. Send me her number and we can contact her. Unless you want to make the invite?”

“Sure, how about I call her and ask? I’ve been meaning to talk to her.”

Clare smiled and walked ahead, talking to Natalia now, and I slowed, letting Mary catch up. “Oh, Dean, I wish you were coming with us,” Mary said in a light pouty voice, pushing her chest against my arms and giggling.

“That’s enough. I’m sure it has less to do with her wanting to sleep with me, than it does that I’m some sort of idol. God knows I deserve their attention less than any of you guys do, but if all the women in the world now want a piece of me, then I suppose I’ll just have to make myself be permanently unavailable.” I blurted the words without thinking what they meant, and when it clicked, I surprised myself by not regretting what I said. After Janine had passed three or so years ago, if you’d have asked me, I would never even have looked at another woman. Mary had changed all of that in the most unbelievable of scenarios.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Her joking tone was gone. “Or should I say, are you asking what I think you’re asking?”

We were twenty feet back from the rest of the group by then, and I stopped her, holding her hands in mine.

“Mary Lafontaine, would you do me the honor of being my wife?” I whispered beside her ear, my lips lightly touching it.

She nuzzled in, and now her lips were on my ear. “Yes. Yes, I will do you the honor,” she whispered back before biting my lobe.

“General Heart, you guys go ahead. We’ll be right there. We just… forgot something back at the room,” I called before we turned back, almost running to the hangar where a cart was waiting for us to borrow.

As the rest of the group went for a tour of the colony ship, all I could think about was how much I wanted to see my new fiancée’s pants on the floor of our little room.

ELEVEN

The next few days were spent with me going over training plans, Mary getting lessons on the new ships as well as the old, and Magnus and Natalia helping organize the colony supplies’ loading. It was a busy time for all of us.

It wasn’t until day five there that Heart came knocking on my door early in the morning. Mary was already out, and Carey sat at my feet as I ate a light breakfast, hoping I would give in and share with him.

Heart looked tired as I opened the door, seeing him outside his uniform. He shrugged when he saw me appraising him. “I’m supposed to be leaving today to see my family for the weekend. Before I go, I wanted to ask if you would visit the prisoners. They’ve asked after you, and frankly, we’re of two minds on them. If they are telling the truth, we’ll be doing something horrible. We don’t have a judiciary system set up for something like this. If they did kill those people, then we have to decide what to do.” He said the last sentence gravely.

Against my wishes, I said, “Sure. I’ll stop by this morning.”

Just like that, I found myself standing in the prisoner area an hour later, waiting to be let through a secured door. It was more than secure, it was like Fort Knox; steel doors two feet thick were the only way in, with thumb and retinal scans, as well as a passcode. They weren’t messing around. We had been given clearance for most things around the base, but not for this area.

As I waited, I pondered my engagement to Mary, knowing it was what my once-broken heart wanted, but wondering if that was the most opportune time for such an announcement. We’d decided to keep it secret for the time being, and it wasn’t easy since we were surrounded by our closest friends.

The door buzzed, and the guard on duty led me through. I saw myself on screens along the wall, being filmed as I walked.

“You guys take this seriously,” I said to the guard, who just grunted his assent. In a moment, we were at the end of the hall, past six or so empty cells.

“He’s all yours. Just holler if you need anything.” With that the guard was gone, back down the hall. Terrance and I were a few feet apart, separated by nothing but what appeared to be a thin wall of plastic. I knew better than that.

A folding chair was propped against the wall, on which I flipped down and set before the cell.

“Where is she?” Terrance asked. He looked sickly: pale and slick with a light sheen of sweat.

“Who?” I asked, before noticing Leslie wasn’t in any cell down the hall. “Leslie?”

He nodded. Sitting on the edge of his small cot in the tiny room, he looked half the size he had when we found them in Nashville.

They hadn’t filled me in on any of this. I imagined the two prisoners would have been kept apart so they could interrogate each alone.

“She’s fine.” I didn’t like making it up, but these people killed in cold blood, and I didn’t think a white lie was tipping the karmic scale in their case.

His head hung down below his shoulders. “Dean, we just want to leave Earth.”

“And where do you want to go?” I asked.

“There’s a place. Just get them to let us go, and there will be no further trouble.” It sounded like a veiled threat.

“What makes you think they’ll listen to me? I’m just an accountant.”

He made a noise like a snicker. “If you ask, they’ll consider it.”

These guys really gave me more pull than I had. I felt like an outsider at the base, but also knew that might change the longer I was there. Not that that was comforting.

“Why should I? We talked to Clayton in D.C. and he blamed you guys,” I said, voice rising slightly.

He looked up from his stoop, making eye contact with me. “The shooting in D.C. was our doing. We knew it would get your attention. There was no other way we could get you in front of us to talk.”

There had been a couple other shootings around the country in the past week, and Heart thought they might be connected to them. “Do you have anything to do with the other recent shootings?”

He shook his head. “No, we don’t. You know how people are. Once a rumor starts, it spreads like wildfire. You don’t think there are hundreds of people in the US that wouldn’t conspire to frame the hybrids for something like this? They hate us. They blame us for all their loved ones being dead, for them being ripped from their homes into the sky, and the torture they endured as they starved in space. Can you imagine their hatred? It’s venomous, and we just want to leave.”

He made a good point, but something was missing. “If you wanted to get our attention, why did you run when we showed up? Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”

He shrank back. “We had our reasons, and they’ll be clear to you soon.”

I hated all the vague talk, and told him so, to which he just shrugged.

“If you want me to believe you, you better damned well give me something more than your word and a shrug,” I barked, standing up quickly. The chair flew back, clanging against the metal floor.

Terrance stood too, face right against the plastic wall between us. “Dean, they’re probably coming, and I don’t want to be here when they get here. Is that what you want to hear?” He was yelling, spittle hitting the barrier.

My pulse raced at his words. He was right. I could almost feel it in my hybrid blood. With each heartbeat, the Bhlat were closer to Earth, or closer to finding our location.

“They told me you claim you didn’t kill those guards in Long Island. Tell me.” Our faces were inches apart.

“We would never have hurt them. They were our friends. Where all the rest of them looked at us with contempt, they were always nice to us. They understood our plight more than anyone. Someone set us up, and I bet it was that piece of crap, Skip.” His anger faded, and he was moving back to the cot’s edge. If I was ever going to read someone’s truth, at that moment, I would have said he wasn’t lying. But how did the guards end up dead just as the two of them were leaving? Skip was an odd man, but was he capable of a setup like that… and murder?

“Tell me everything you know about the Bhlat,” I said, grabbing a notepad from my back pocket.

__________

Dust flew in the air behind our truck tires as Magnus drove down the side road away from the base. In the daylight, the dome just looked like more rocky terrain, and I was once again amazed at the technology.

“We’re leaving in a couple days, Dean.” Magnus tried to sip from his coffee travel mug, and almost splashed on himself as we hit a bump.

“How much more do you need?” I asked. They’d had an endless train of materials coming to the base over the last month. All of the product was being sent to a warehouse in Santa Fe. From there, Heart’s crew picked it up.

“There were a few items they couldn’t procure, or wouldn’t, so here we are,” he said, grinning widely.

I knew this to mean cigars, Scotch, and a less than palatable Scandinavian beer.

“I wish you were coming with us, bud,” Magnus said. “I can’t believe they’re breaking up the Beatles. You know, we thought about turning them down.” This was the first time he’d told me that.

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, and they need you two out there. If anyone can kick some ass if needed, it’s you two.”

“Well, I hope there are no asses there that need kicking. I kind of just want to play colonist farmer. Build a cottage on the beach. Maybe start a family.” He looked at me in his periphery.

A family. I knew they were a couple, but the idea of Magnus and Nat sitting on their porch drinking sweet tea while the kids ran around the yard was a strange image, though also one I truly wished for them.

“You’ll be a great dad. That much I know,” was all I could say.

“How about you two lovebirds?” He was fishing for information, and I wondered if it was coming from his own curiosity, or if Nat had given him a mission. They had their suspicions about our new engagement but had been nice enough to only ask indirectly. I wished he would just ask the question straight out.

“Magnus, you’re my best friend, so I’m going to cut to the chase. I asked her to marry me…” I was cut off by him almost driving into the ditch. He’d been staring at me, not the road.

“Really? Who did you ask?” he asked sarcastically. As we swung back to the packed-down dirt road, he looked at me apologetically, but his grin was as wide as I’d ever seen it. “I knew it! Nat owes me ten bucks!”

We laughed and chatted about the future over the next hour on the way to Santa Fe. It was so nice to put all the other stuff aside, and just be friends on a road trip.

We entered the city, and Magnus had me check the nav system for something I hadn’t even thought about, mainly because Mary said it wasn’t necessary: a jewelry store.

We passed by a school just on the border of the city, probably catering to all the deep-dwelling super-suburban families, as well as the rural ones. Some children romped in the playground, but the few that were there seemed subdued, swinging in silence. Teachers had always been an important commodity, but now their task of helping educate these traumatized youths was a huge task. Magnus had brought up children, and I wasn’t sure I could ever go down that alley. With Janine unable to have kids, I’d thought that ship had sailed. Of course, now I knew why. Because she wasn’t human. I thought the world’s birth rate would either take a drastic nose dive over the next year, or people would be happy to be alive, and take pleasure in the fact.

Magnus must have looked at a map before we left, because he seemed to know exactly where he was going without checking the GPS. Soon we arrived at a strip mall on the outskirts of Santa Fe, lined with generic franchises, some of which weren’t open, the windows boarded up.

Other stores were doing business as usual. After the Event, so many business owners were no longer with us that their companies were sometimes handed to family members, who often didn’t want the burden of running a post-Event-world store, which I didn’t blame them for. I could hardly go back to bean-counting after everything we’d been through, so I understood completely. But life did need to go on, normalcy and routine were necessary to rebuild our world, and many businesses did end up running after it was all said and done.

The first stop was a liquor store. The building looked new, but it’d seen better days, like the whole area. A couple down-on-their-luck guys hung out on the sidewalk in front of it. With all the housing and new jobs becoming available, it made me sad to still see what looked like poverty, though I could probably attribute it more to addiction.

“Good thing they gave me a company card. This could get ugly.” Magnus smiled widely as he flung the door open. “Come on,” he called as he walked past the two sitting men.

The liquor store was half empty, but considering logistics were just starting to get back in order, that wasn’t a surprise. A lot of these places were looted in the weeks people arrived back on Earth. Newfound life, and all some of the population could do was steal from each other. I thought about the colony ship leaving and felt a stab of guilt as I wished I could leave Earth behind and just start fresh somewhere else.

“Hello, good sir.” Magnus walked up to the cashier, who looked almost as large as his new customer.

The man grunted. “What can I do for you fine gentlemen?” he asked, eyeballing us suspiciously. I was grateful we’d decided on not wearing our uniforms. Something told me we might be dealing with some more hostility if we had.

“Scotch. I want it all.” Magnus raised his eyebrows as he spoke.

“Sure thing. We got some good stuff left over here.” The man started to walk to the next aisle.

“No. I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I want it all. The stuff out back.” I had no idea what the hell Magnus was talking about, but he seemed to.

“Who are you?” the burly proprietor asked.

“Let’s just say, the president would be very thankful if you could supply me with what I need,” Magnus said, and the man took a step back.

“Look, I ain’t doing nothing the other stores ain’t,” he said, hands raised in the air as if to feign no responsibility for something.

“Relax. I just heard through the grapevine you had the best selection of 20-year-old Scotch in the area, and a lot of it, I might add. I’m paying, and I don’t even need a great deal on it,” Magnus said, and the man’s tense posture did relax.

“Why didn’t you say so? Drive around back. I’ll get you set up.” The man was now smiling like he’d won the lottery. “Name’s Gus.”

I followed Gus, our new friend, through the staff-only doors, and into the small warehouse space. He slid open a door, revealing a semi-truck trailer full of liquor. Magnus popped through the steel door beside it and whistled when he saw the stacks of hazel liquid he was after.

Twenty minutes later, we were leaving, our truck canopy three-quarters full of various booze bottles. I’d even grabbed a few bottles of some nice Bordeaux for Mary and myself. A few was actually a case. We had no idea how long we would be cooped up in that dome, so I couldn’t be too careful.

“Next stop coming up,” my big friend said, once again grinning like a school kid who’d just pulled a prank.

We drove through what was once an affluent neighborhood, only half the yards were untrimmed, and nature was on the warpath after being left for a year. The houses were large, with great yards and long driveways. After a few lefts and rights, Magnus pulled over as we approached a dark Spanish-style house.

“We’re here,” he exclaimed, as if I’d know where here was.

He took a case of Scotch out of the truck and nodded me to follow him up the driveway. A dog barked from inside the house, and it warmed my heart a bit. So many animals hadn’t made it after being without food or water for so long.

Magnus trudged up the steps, setting the case of Scotch down, and knocked on the wooden door. Moments later, it opened, and a German Shepherd growled cautiously from behind a screen door. I eyed him warily.

“How can I help you?” an old man asked, and I noticed him for the first time. Through the screen, he wasn’t much more than a dark top and a wisp of white hair.

“I’m Magnus. My friend Slate told me you could be of service.” He lightly kicked the box of liquor at his feet.

The man’s face came closer and he unlocked the door, pushing it open slowly. We ceased to exist as he licked his lips and looked down at the step.

“Yes, yes, come on in. Jasper, be good to these fine folks.” With that, we entered the old man’s large home. It was tidy, but I got the sense it hadn’t been cleaned in a while. An odor wafted to me, reminding me of my history professor at university: seeds and shuffleboard dust.

“Don’t mind the mess, I don’t get much company any longer,” he said, and led us past the large two-story foyer and into an office on the right. It was full of built-in cherry red bookcases and a large desk. The kind that didn’t hold a computer, just papers and a phone.

He gestured to us to sit in the matching leather chairs on the opposite side of the desk, and we obliged him, Magnus leaving the Scotch on the floor near the door.

“What’s this all about?” I asked Magnus, who still had that big goofy grin covering the lower half of his face.

“You’ll see,” he replied.

“I’m assuming you heard of me through some reliable source or another, which hopefully means you’re trustworthy. My name’s Herman, and that furry fiend is Jasper,” the older man said. I scanned the walls and saw pictures of what I could only assume was family. The big house seemed empty now except for Herman and his dog.

He seemed to notice me looking and cleared his throat. “My daughter is still with us. Moved to Africa to help with those remaining there. Water wells are their priority, but most of the population has now moved to plumbed-in areas. She says that in a few years, they should be able to cut back deaths related to bacteria in water by ninety percent over there.” He paused, and his eyes were misty with emotion. “My wife passed before everything… five years ago. Anyway, down to business. You need a couple of rings?”

Rings? What did he mean?

“Yep. Two of your finest engagement rings. Then some matching bands. For me and my partner in crime over here.” Magnus winked at me.

The man leaned back in his chair. “Oh. I see. Well, congrats on finding each other in this tumultuous time.”

Finding each other? “I think you may have the wrong idea. I’m recently engaged, so I get that, but Magnus…” I stopped and his smile grew even larger.

“Going to ask the question right before we go. Figured we could have a big party,” he said.

“I’ll be damned. Nat’s going to make an honest man out of you after all!” I was on my feet and so was my big friend. We were hugging, and I saw Herman looking at us like he knew a secret we didn’t. That look was enough to get me to stop our man hug.

Herman used a key, turning it to reveal a sliding drawer. From it, he pulled a briefcase, which was also locked with one of those old spinning combination locks. He spun the individual rows until he had the right passcode and clicked the case open with his back to us.

“Here we go,” he said, spinning around and setting the display case down on the desk. My breath caught as I saw a wide assortment of ridiculously large stones in various cuts, in numerous settings. But those weren’t what I saw first. A ring with a large green stone sat among the plethora of pink and white diamonds.

“Where did you get that?” I asked, heart stuck in my throat.

He looked at me for a moment and didn’t say anything. I could feel the pendant against my chest and had forgotten I’d even been wearing it. It was as if it knew another like it was around, causing it to make tiny vibrations. Probably just my imagination.

“I’ve procured some interesting items over the last year. You see, I was a jewelry and stone trader before.” He didn’t have to say before what. “I heard about these magnificent stones and had to have one for my collection. I haven’t shown another soul, until I saw the Hero of Earth show up at my door. Thought you might appreciate it, Dean.” His voice was calm, a contradiction to what I was feeling.

“Wait, I thought the government got all the stones back. Unless someone chosen didn’t tell them about it, and kept it,” I said, seeing the picture of his grown daughter on the wall. She looked athletic, strong, and just the type of person the Kraski would have selected for the mission. And she was now conveniently in Africa, away from prying ears and eyes. “Are you willing to part with it?”

His eyes misted over lightly, just for a moment. “That depends on the bargain.”

I hardly heard them negotiating, but in a few minutes, Magnus had the green-stoned ring in a bag, and we were looking at the other rings. Mary had told me she’d never cared about huge diamond rings. It was something she’d told Bob, but he hadn’t listened, and she’d spent the next few years walking around with a carat and a half on her hand. When I picked out a small pink diamond set on a thin band, they gave me inquisitive looks.

“Oh, very elegant,” Herman said.

Magnus had a huge princess cut for Natalia, and when we had matching wedding bands to go with the engagement rings, we were back at the door, the Scotch still in Herman’s office. Jasper got a last scratch behind the ear, and we were off.

“What else did you give him in exchange?” I asked as the door shut on us.

“I told him the Earth Defense wouldn’t come turn his house upside down looking for more alien jewelry. He was all smiles after that,” Magnus said, hefting the bag of rings in his left hand.

“You knew the whole time?”

“They were talking about a ring seller under suspicion of having one. Not sure how they knew. Maybe they found a way to track it, or they heard rumors of his daughter being one of those left behind. Either way, we have it, and I figured while we were at it, we can get our beautiful ladies some bling.” The word sounded quite funny coming from my large friend. I couldn’t fault his motivation.

Herman’s daughter had been left behind like us. I wondered about her story and wished I could talk to her. Working on wells in Africa was something worthy of the title Hero of Earth, and I hoped she found what she was looking for. Most nights as I went to sleep, I dwelled on what it would have been like if someone else had gone to space and I’d been left back on Earth.

We made a couple more stops, nothing too important, and in an hour, we were heading back to the base for the second-to-last night before the colony ship left for Proxima b.

TWELVE

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Mary said between big fake smiles.

“Don’t blame me. Blame Magnus. It’s their last night, and he wanted a send-off. Our engagement was the perfect ruse for it,” I said, instantly regretting that phrase.

Instead, she just visibly calmed and slid her hand into mine. That meant all was right in the world. We walked into the hangar, where a couple of the ships had been moved out. It was lightly decorated, and half a dozen folding tables had been placed inside, covered by some obviously borrowed tablecloths from what looked like an Italian restaurant from the seventies. LED lanterns were draped across the room, giving it a cozy backyard patio feel. It was perfect.

Mary was wearing her ring, and the other Earth Defense members flocked around her, asking for a look, and I realized something like this was a great distraction for the whole base. It was an event that could make them forget for a night that Earth had been invaded, and that we were now fighting for our lives.

Even President Patrice Dalhousie was there, with General Heart at her side. Slate, the oversized ED sergeant, loomed beside them. They waved at us, Heart sipping what looked like a Scotch while he stared at us over the edge of the glass.

Natalia walked in wearing a sleek black dress, the skirt slit to the thigh. I let out a low whistle, getting an elbow for my efforts. Nat was smiling widely at the beautiful setting, pointing at the lights and decorations. Magnus stood tall and wide beside her, filling out what could only be a custom tuxedo. I laughed, knowing how much the man hated confining clothing on his large frame.

“Congrats, you two lovebirds,” he said giving us a wink. “Dean, let’s go get a drink.”

“Nat, you look beautiful,” I said, before being pulled away by Magnus. Mary and Nat were hugging and chatting. I hadn’t told Mary about the surprise engagement.

“Change in plans, buddy.” Magnus shifted side to side, either nervous or excited about the proposal.

I didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean? Don’t tell me you’re not going through with it. She loves you. You guys are perfect for each other.” I looked back, getting a wave from Mary, who was beaming at all the attention.

“I really hate to do this at your engagement party, but just remember it was all my idea,” he said.

The bartender walked up to us, and I ordered a beer, getting Magnus a double Scotch, and wine for the ladies.

“Spit it out,” I said, tired of the drama.

“I’m not just asking her to marry me.” He paused, a big grin cast over his face. It was infectious, and I was smiling now too. “I’m asking her to marry me tonight.”

“Yeah, that was the plan.”

“No. I’m asking her to marry me, then getting married tonight.” He was almost jumping up and down in joy, and I put my hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down. Only then I noticed the white-collared young man leaning against the far wall, chatting with Clare.

“Congrats to you, then. Don’t mind us. We’re the last people worried about wanting to be in the limelight. Take the spotlight. Take all of it!” I yelled the last bit, the room looking my way like I was crazy.

Lowering my voice, I told him he had my blessing. This got him laughing, and we hugged, quickly brushing it off as the room’s many eyes once again looked to us.

“You will be my best man, right?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, as if he had to ask.

“Only if she says yes,” I replied, and got a light shot in the arm.

Mary and Nat crossed the room to join us, and I passed them each their wine glasses. I raised my beer glass, the other three following suit. “To us. May we find new happiness in our new worlds.” We all clinked glasses and took a drink.

“Where’s Mae?” Magnus asked, and I felt a fool for not having noticed she wasn’t there.

“I haven’t seen her. I think she’s getting her stuff together for the trip. I have seen her canoodling with a guard, so maybe she’s having her own little love connection,” Mary said, trying to divert how upset she really was by Mae not being there.

The night was getting on, Dalhousie gave us a nice speech about love and hope, and we drank to it, me starting to get a little lightheaded with all the liquor and ambiance.

Music played through some speakers, the hangar becoming a dance hall, and couples and friends alike paired up, slow-dancing to some nice music. This was when Magnus did his business.

In the middle of a song, everyone walked away, circling the couple. Nat didn’t seem to notice, her eyes closed, her head nestled on his big chest.

He stopped moving, got to his knee and held her hand.

A tear slipped down her cheek, and the room was silent for a moment.

“Nat, baby. I’ve loved you for years. The second I saw you…” He stopped, probably not wanting to ruin it by reminding her of her capture at the hands of Russian mobsters all those years ago. “My heart loved you even then. A scared young woman, who took that negative part of her life and turned it from a scar to a badge. You are the single strongest person I’ve ever known, and the most beautiful soul I can imagine. I know I’m just a big oaf who sometimes speaks before thinking, and shoots before negotiating, but I’ll be there by your side for the rest of your life. You may think that I rescued you all those years ago, but the truth is, you rescued me. I’m forever in your debt. Will you make me the happiest man on Earth, New Earth, and Proxima b, and marry me?”

Natalia was openly crying by then, but so was the whole room. I unashamedly wiped a few tears from my face alongside everyone else, knowing how much the two of them had been through. Mary squeezed my hand tight.

“Of course I will,” Nat said, letting him slip the ring on her hand. He got to his feet, picked her up, and spun her around in a hug.

“One more thing, baby,” he said. “How about tonight?”

Music started up again, and the partygoers rushed to line up their chairs on the empty dance floor. The priest stood at the front of the rows, smiling widely.

Natalia blushed but shrugged. “Let’s do it!”

Soon Magnus and I were at the front of the group, Mary opposite us as the maid of honor, and when the here-comes-the-bride music kicked on, Natalia was there looking resplendent on the arm of General Heart, who was walking her down the aisle.

The setting was beautiful, and I took it all in, knowing everything was about to change with them leaving us here and going on a crazy adventure to another world. It didn’t seem real.

They went through the process, quick but classic nuptials. Mary was dabbing her eyes as they kissed, and the whole room stood up and cheered them on.

It was official. Natalia and Magnus were married.

Before the noise died down, Mae came into the room, bleeding from the face and limping. Her clothing was torn, and when she was close enough, I saw her eye was swollen.

I ran to her, the crowd spreading apart. “What happened?”

Mae pointed toward the sky. “They got away. Terrance and Leslie escaped.”

__________

We sat in Dalhousie’s office, discussing what to do. Leslie and Terrance had somehow gotten free from their cells, stolen a ship we’d moved from the hangar, and gotten out the ceiling.

“How did this happen?” The president sat with her hands on her face. I’d never seen her so flustered. “They just happened to get out when we had the ships outside, and conveniently escaped as the hatch up top was opened for a nighttime test flight.”

Heart assured her the pilot was one of his best and wasn’t involved. They must have had secret information, and someone on the inside. That didn’t bode well for the base’s security.

“We need to go after them,” Mae said, repeating the same thing for the tenth time. No one seemed to be listening. She was right.

“If they left, as you say, and aren’t hanging out at Earth, hell-bent on blowing shit up, then we need to go after them before they get word to the Bhlat, or anyone else for that matter.” I would be the voice of reason and back Mae up on this. She looked at me, her eye covered with ice, and her smile quickly turned to a grimace as the pain of moving her mouth registered.

“You’re right.” Dalhousie looked over to me and Mary, and I got that almost-regular sinking feeling in my gut. “The colony ship must go now as planned. It’s even more imperative. As for the hybrids, we need to tail them, stop them at any cost. They’re in the original, unaltered model of ship. Ours will be able to track it anywhere, and they won’t even know you’re coming.”

“Wait. You’re coming? Who do you mean when you say ‘you’re’?” Mary asked.

“I need the best on this. We can’t take any chances. Mary, you’ve flown the ships before, and have experience in fighting on Earth in jets and out there in space. Plus, you’ve been practicing these last few weeks. You know that ship. And Dean has the kind of mind that will keep you guys on top of them, one step ahead.” Dalhousie sounded much more confident about our chances than I did.

“Don’t you guys have people for this kind of thing?” This from Magnus, who didn’t look very happy to have his wedding night interrupted.

Heart spoke up finally. “We do. That’s why Slate’s going with you, and Clare. Slate is as big as an ox and will be your feet on the street, should it come to that. Clare will be your engineer wizard, able to fix things, and adapt the ship’s needs to yours. The longer we talk about this, the farther they get from Earth. You’re Earth Defense now, so do your job. Defend Earth!” He was red-faced by the end of it, and so was Magnus. He looked like he wanted to punch the older man. Hell, so did I.

“Look, no one is questioning your integrity. We need you guys again. Earth needs you.” Patrice Dalhousie stood up now, looking Mary right in the eyes, then me.

“We better get going, then. Dean, you can stay back if you like,” Mary said, breaking my heart a bit.

“You don’t want me to go with you?” I asked.

“Of course I do! I just don’t want anything to happen to you,” she said, grabbing my hand.

“Nothing’s going to happen to either of us. We can go stop them and be back sooner than you thought possible.” I said the words but didn’t believe them even as they left my mouth.

“Then it’s settled. You guys leave now,” Dalhousie said, a tired look in her eyes.

It was midnight by the time we packed up our few belongings, and the crews at the base loaded the ship with enough supplies to last a long time. Heart never did tell us how much food they loaded on, but the storage area had a lot of crates in it. He told us Slate knew what it all was, and since we didn’t have time to go over the itinerary, we trusted they were prepared for this.

“I can’t believe you guys are leaving. And before us!” Magnus said, walking with us to the ship. He was still in his tuxedo, the tie conspicuously missing.

Carey followed alongside us, wagging his tail. I couldn’t believe that after all we’d been through, I had to leave him. I couldn’t bring him on the ship with us. It was a dangerous trip, not one for my new best friend to tag along on.

I had an idea. “Magnus, would you take Carey with you?” I hated to ask, but I had to.

He looked at me, his features softening. “Dean, are you sure? He could stay here. I’m sure you’ll be back in no time.”

“But what if we’re not? What if something happens to us out there?”

“It won’t. I know you guys.”

“But what if? We could be following them a long way. To God knows where. Just take him, please.” My heart was freezing up at having to pawn off the little guy. He meant so much to me.

“Of course I will, buddy. We love the little rascal too. When it’s all over, come to Proxima, and he’s all yours again.” Magnus clapped me on the shoulder. His words rang a finality over my mind, and I worried I’d never see Carey again. That I’d never see any of them again.

I took a knee and Carey rubbed his face into my stomach. He loved it when I got down to his level. He licked my face, and I laughed, giving him one last big hug before I left. At that moment, I told myself I would get back, stop the Bhlat threat, and make it to Proxima to see my friends again and get Carey.

Mary walked up, pack slung over her shoulder. She seemed to get the sense of what transpired, and she gave Carey a big hug, letting his sloppy tongue give her a lick before leaving.

“Nat, I also need you to watch over my sister. She was supposed to get here today for the party, but they were delayed. I still can’t believe my little sister is going with you guys. Take care of her. Please,” I said, wishing I could see her just one last time before leaving.

“Of course. If she’s anything like you, we’ll have a lot to pick on her about.” This from Magnus. “Dean, take these.” He passed me a small cloth bag covertly. I snuck a peek and saw some of the green gem jewelry used to counter the Kraski beams. “You never know when you’re going to need them.” I spotted my pendant in there and wondered how he’d managed to pilfer them.

“Goodbye, guys,” Mary said, and everyone got in for a last hug.

Mae approached, and I went in to give her a hug.

“What are you doing?” she asked. I shrugged, taken aback. “I’m going with you.”

“Did Dalhousie approve this?” Mary asked.

“I don’t give a damn. I’m coming with you. They’re hybrids, and that makes them my responsibility. I know them, can understand their motives. So I’m going.”

It made sense, and to be honest, I was happy to have her along. Mae had proven herself invaluable many times over.

Clare was on board and called to us from the top of the ramp. It was time to go.

Dalhousie was nowhere in sight, and when I spotted Heart arriving on his cart, I pushed Mae forward onto the angled ramp. “Get on the ship,” I said through clenched teeth.

She didn’t argue or say anything, just ran up the length into the ship, limping on her left leg ever so slightly. I guessed it hurt more than she was letting on.

Magnus stood at the base of the ship, arms crossed, looking like a guard.

Heart’s cart stopped, the soldier staying in the driver’s seat.

“You have a monumental task ahead of you. Take heed in knowing we’ll do what we can to protect Earth, should anything go wrong on your mission. The colony vessel will be leaving tomorrow, and that brings new hope into our situation. Sorry for the speech.” He rubbed his temple with his hand. “This is all just so important. I couldn’t ask for better people to call on. And I mean that.”

His words touched me, but at the same time, I wished he were speaking to someone else.

“We’ll do what needs to be done, General,” Mary said.

“Joshua. Call me Josh,” he said before turning around and heading back to the cart. “Slate, take care of them for me. For all of us.” The big man emerged from the ship a few steps and saluted his general before heading back inside.

Dust was kicked up and the general was off, leaving a few people milling about, loading the last of the supplies.

“I guess this is goodbye. See you on the other side.” I scratched Carey behind the ear one last time, and when he started to follow me up the ramp, Natalia grabbed his collar, pulling him back and crouching down with him. His head turned sideways, wondering what was going on.

Mary was in front of me, and she patted me on the arm. We turned around, waving at our friends while the ramp lifted. Before it shut completely, I heard one last bark from Carey, and I wanted nothing more than to get back out and tell them to hunt the hybrids down themselves.

“We’ll be back soon,” Mary said, the ever-caring fiancée. If she was okay with it all, what use was there in me moping about?

“You’re right.” And just like that, we were loaded and in one of the new ships, heading back out to space on another impossible quest.

THIRTEEN

We were gathered on the bridge for pre-flight: Mary, me, Mae, Clare, and Slate, as well as Doctor Nick Ellis, whom none of us had met before, though I had seen him around the facility over the past month. We were sure to have enough space on board, especially since the ship slept a dozen.

Slate stood tall, intimidating as he silently seemed to assess each of us, his military-trained mind looking for value or weakness. He wore a black vest, holding what I could only assume were multiple dangerous and deadly devices on it, overtop of his Earth Defense uniform. We were all wearing the body suits, and it actually felt like we were a trained team about to head into space rather than a rag-tag group of survivors who’d just met, looking to stop escaped hybrids from camp.

I wondered who was in charge of the mission. After a few moments of dead air, all eyes ended up on me. They were looking to me to lead the charge? How was that even possible?

I cleared my throat, hoping someone else would speak, but when no one did, I began. “I don’t have any idea how I ended up here, on the bridge of a human altered Kraski ship, about to go back to space, the one place I truly have no desire to ever see again. But here we all are. Leslie and Terrance have left us no choice but to stop them. We can’t have the Bhlat know where we are. This is imperative at all costs.” I stopped, coming to accept the facts I was saying. “We’ll sacrifice ourselves, if necessary.”

The doctor fidgeted with his sleeve and kept his eyes to the floor as I spoke.

“Everyone good with that?” I asked.

One by one, everyone agreed. The last was Nick, who finally met my eyes, and I was happy to see resolve in them. He nodded once, firmly.

“Good. Mary, let them know we’re ready to go. Mae, on screen, please,” I said, sitting down in a chair. Not the one in the center, which I could only assume, from years of Star Trek watching, was meant to be the captain’s chair. I hadn’t earned that spot yet.

The curved viewscreen showed us the inside of the hangar.

“All clear. You’re ready for takeoff,” came through the speakers on Mary’s console, and she tapped the green glowing console tablet. The ship came to life, lights firing up around the bridge, giving us a green and blue glowing aura. It was spectacular.

Everything hummed lightly as we began to move, and moments later, we were in the field, directly under the open base ceiling. The viewscreen showed a line of base workers, all watching us depart. I picked Nat and Magnus out of the crowd, Carey at their feet. Godspeed, my friends.

Our black ship hovered and raised upward to the opening.

“Return to us, Heroes of Earth,” Dalhousie’s voice cut through the speaker.

“We will, ma’am,” Mary returned, and lifted us out of the secret base and into the night sky above New Mexico.

The stars were white and bright against the deep black backdrop. Here we went again. I remembered back to a year ago, when Mary had flown the smaller ship from Machu Picchu with Magnus and the Shield, a crazy elaborate and desperate plan to save the world. It had half-worked too. Better than the alternative.

A blip flashed on the 3D map on the bottom right side of the viewscreen: the same map that showed on my chair’s sidearm console tablet.

“That’s them. Setting course for intercept. They haven’t hit the high-velocity drive yet,” Mary said. They were more than a few thousand kilometers away, with a two-hour head start on their side.

“I’ve started to charge the drive. Should be operational for in-system FTL in two hours.” Clare stood at a console to the port side of the bridge, stood straight-backed, wearing her uniform with pride. She knew that ship inside and out, and I was sure she was going to be a great asset to the team. Not only that, but she was always a positive presence in the room, no matter where she was. It was hard to be in a bad mood with her energy lifting up the people around her.

We lifted through the atmosphere and shot into the massive expanse of space. I stood, seeing the moon ahead. It was such a different experience this time. This time, we knew what we had to do. Mary shifted the trajectory, pointing us away from the sun. The map showed the current position of the solar system’s planets, each on their own pattern of rotations around the system’s star, our sun. The blip of our target Kraski ship was on a line toward Mars.

“Slate, can you give me a tour of the supply room?” I asked the beast of a man. He’d just been standing, there watching space through still eyes.

“Sure thing, boss,” he said, and I thought it might be the first time I’d heard the guy speak. His voice was higher-pitched than I’d expected.

“I’ll be in the storeroom,” I said to Mary, who just nodded, focusing on her task at hand.

Slate led the way out of the bridge, down the hall, past the engineering room, and into the center of the ship. Crates were strapped to the walls. Upon closer inspection, I saw they were labeled. Food products on the left, from floor to ceiling.

“Boss, here are the clothing crates. We have medical supplies here,” he waved to the stack of crates on the right side of the room. “Toiletries here. And you saw the food supplies.”

“How about those?” I asked, nodding toward some large steel boxes in the middle of the floor.

He shook his head. “You don’t want to get into those yet. Armaments. Lots of them. Grenades, more pulse rifles than the few of us could ever use. Always better to be overprepared than underprepared. A few secrets, I’ll show you later.” Slate had a twinkle in his eyes, and I saw what turned this man’s crank.

Nick Ellis, the doctor, sauntered in, whistling when he saw the crates piled up.

“How about we get some of this sorted and organized?” I asked them. “There’s a small medic room near engineering. How about you start there, Doc? Slate, let’s get this kitchen set up, and the beds while we’re at it.”

Nothing was ready in the ship. The president hadn’t expected a long-range venture with a crew, so nothing was set up for us. I didn’t mind, because it allowed us to bond by setting it up. Some sweat equity at the start of the journey.

“Sounds like a plan,” Nick said, grabbing a crate down with Slate’s help.

Soon we were organizing what we needed, Nick setting up the medical station, then adding linens and pillows to the bunks. Slate and I filled the shelves of the kitchen and I found a coffee maker, brewing some fresh-ground beans to keep everyone going. All in all, it took us just over two hours, and I brought coffee up to the bridge for the ladies on duty.

“Dean, I’ve been thinking,” Mary said, smiling at me as she took the coffee cup. “If we can’t catch them here, maybe we should follow them secretly. We might want to see where they go. It could teach us a lot. Maybe we can find where the Bhlat are and take the offense to them.”

I hated the idea but didn’t want to dismiss her right off the bat. Maybe she was right.

“Let’s see how this goes. Maybe we catch up today and stop them, even if it means I’ll never get to eat the dehydrated food I just lined the shelves with. Patrice and Heart wanted us to stop them right away. I’m not sure I’m up for breaking those orders. Especially with the huge guy in the store-room on their side,” I said.

“Just think about it,” Mary said quietly.

“Clare, how are we doing on the FTL drive?” I asked.

She smiled. “Under an hour left before we can fire it up. What’s the plan?”

“Mary, what do you say when it’s ready, we jump closer to them? I have to think they know how to use their drive too. Maybe they just haven’t yet because they don’t know we’re coming after them. Appear right up their ass and blow them away.” I knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as capturing them. I wasn’t going to even try to kid myself.

“That’s exactly what we should do. I just assume they’ll …” The blip on the screen flashed. “Shit. They activated it.”

The blip was accelerating faster. We traversed through space toward their trajectory, and all we could do was watch as their ship kept getting farther and farther away.

“That’s what we have tracking for,” Clare said as we watched the blip get smaller as the map expanded. My gut was telling me we were in for quite the chase.

“We wait until the drive’s charged, then follow them just like the plan accounted for. Is there something to eat in the kitchen?” Mary asked, stomach growling at the mention of food. As if on cue, mine followed suit.

“I’ll go whip up some omelettes. Nothing like pre-beaten eggs from a cardboard container. Everyone good with that?” I asked.

Clare said she was, and I walked over to Mae, who was still nursing a swollen eye. “Mae, why don’t you let the doctor assess you finally? Maybe take something and rest for a bit.”

She looked at me, her one open eye intense. “I just want to catch them, Dean. I want to go home. I… I let them get away.”

We hadn’t heard the whole story from her yet. She got up and followed me into the kitchen, where coffee still sat in the maker. I offered her another cup and she nodded to me. I wanted to give her a big hug and tell her everything would be okay, but I could tell it would only upset her more.

“What happened?” I asked, grabbing a frying pan.

“I know you had your big event, but I felt like it might be just the time someone would make a move. With the whole base distracted, it only made sense.” Mae sipped her coffee.

“If you thought that, why didn’t you tell anyone? It does make sense, but sometimes the most obvious things are the ones we miss first.”

“Everyone was just happy, and I didn’t think there was a way they could escape, so I hung out by the prison, just laying low. At the ten PM guard switch, it went south. I snuck in behind him and saw him let Terrance out first. I tried to intervene but got a beating for my troubles. Soon Leslie was there, kicking me too. That’s who we’re dealing with here. They’ll do anything for their cause.”

I cringed, thinking of my friend getting pummelled by two people. No wonder she had become so closed off-lately. She’d been through so much.

I walked over to her where she sat and pulled her toward me, being careful her bruised face didn’t get hurt. I held her head to my stomach and leaned down, kissing the top of her head.

“I’m sorry, Mae. I’m sorry we weren’t there for you. Never again,” I said, and she cried into my shirt.

Doctor Nick started into the room, saw our intimate moment, and slowly backed away. I hoped he saw it for what it was, not something else. That was all we needed with a crew of six people.

“I love you, Dean,” she said, her hand holding mine. I knew what she meant. We weren’t in love, but she was like a sister to me, and I a brother to her. It was a bond we would never shake.

“I love you too,” I said.

Mae got up, and we made breakfast for the crew in silence, working in the small space like we’d been doing it our whole lives. By the time we brought the food to the bridge, Clare had a look of pure joy on her face. It was a little unsettling, considering the circumstances.

“It’s ready. Let’s blast across this galaxy,” Clare said.

Mary shrugged her shoulders and pressed the glowing green tablet button. Stars stretched out around us on the viewscreen.

“Anyone for eggs while we make history?” I asked.

FOURTEEN

“Don’t look so worried. Mae has it under control,” I said. We were lying on the bed in our own bunk room, face to face, heads on pillows. We had been soaring through space for hours now, not catching up to our target but keeping on their tail as best we could.

“I know. It just seems like so much. I still can’t believe we’re here, racing past Mars, only half a day after we watched our friends getting married. Do you wish we had gotten married?” Mary asked.

I hadn’t given that a lot of thought. “I’m happy just being with you. A label at this time is really just that, a label. It doesn’t change anything.”

She closed her eyes. “You’re right, honey. I’m going to sleep for a while, okay? Try to get some sleep yourself.”

I closed my eyes too, noticing the missing dog at our feet. Even through all the unknowns, the body knows when it needs to recharge, and in moments, my mind stopped racing, drifting off into a well-needed slumber.

A few hours later, I was awoken to the sound of Mae’s voice over the comm-system. “All crew to the bridge.”

Mary was already up, putting her jumpsuit back on, and I fell right in behind her. I felt rested, but wished I had time to brush my teeth or freshen up. I made a quick pit stop in the washroom and did just that after relieving myself. I wasn’t going to be of any use wetting myself on the bridge.

When I crossed to the bridge, Nick was behind me, and he called up. “Any idea what’s going on?”

I looked back. He was in a bathrobe, toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. His eyes were sporting some serious red veins, and I expected his first attempt at sleep on a spaceship was a failure.

Slate was standing tall behind Mae’s console, with Mary and Clare flanking her. They were all looking at the viewscreen.

“The icon blinked out here,” she said, highlighting the spot on the map, “but the tracking still seems to be working, unless there’s a major glitch in it.” She looked over her shoulder to Clare.

Clare stood there, perplexed look across her face. After a moment, a light bulb went off, and I could see recognition wash over her. “Holy shit. The reason the map went all funky and tiny like that is because it was zooming out. Somehow they travelled from here” – she pointed to a spot on the tablet screen – “to here.” Another spot way to the right.

“Just how did they do that? We’re operating the same drive as them,” Mary said.

“I have no idea. To travel that far would take something entirely different. Something we don’t have. Maybe…” She stopped, tapping her finger on the back of Mae’s chair.

“What is it? What could do that?” I asked, losing my patience. If we lost them now, on day one, we were hooped.

“The only thing I can think of is a wormhole of some sort. We didn’t find the technology on their ships, though,” Clare said. “That’s the only reasonable explanation I have.”

A wormhole. This just kept getting more convoluted.

“So what do we do? Wait until we catch up to the spot they disappeared at and see if we can duplicate it?” Mary asked.

“What’s our ETA to that spot?” I asked, a nervous energy coursing through my veins.

“Just under two hours,” Mae confirmed after tapping a few glowing buttons.

Two hours to travel FTL toward a spot where our target ship blipped out and moved thousands of light years away. If we didn’t get the same hop, we would never be able to catch them. The whole escape would be successful, and we would be heading back to Earth with our tail between our legs, preparing for an all-out war.

“Then that’s what we do. Pray for the same wormhole to be there,” I said, and we all kept staring at the map, a light blip across the stretched-out expanse, glowing, letting us know our target was still out there.

__________

“I hate waiting around,” Mary said as we sat in the eat-in kitchen.

The table was bolted to the ground and would sit all of us if we crammed in there. We sipped tepid coffee and batted ideas back and forth. Really it was all speculation, because we couldn’t know what we were going to arrive to.

“What are the options if the wormhole, or whatever the hell it is, isn’t there any longer?” I asked, sure I could guess what they were. I just wanted Mary to reconfirm to me what I already knew.

“I’d say the first option at that point is to turn around, hightail it back to Earth, tell the powers that be what we found out, and hunker down, preparing for a war that may or may not ever come to us. I hate the idea of living in constant fear of invasion. The world can’t deal with that after all we’ve been through.” She took a drink from the cup and set it down, wrapping her slender fingers around it.

“Option two?” I asked.

“Option two: we keep going, take months to get where they are, thousands of light years away, and hope this ship is really built for it. We may be too late then, but at least we’ll know one way or the other.”

“Option three?”

“We say screw it, head to Proxima b, where we meet up with our friends in a few months, and start over on a new world.” She smiled at this one, and I knew that option probably suited her as much as it did me, but we couldn’t do that. We had too many people back home relying on us.

“So now what? We play the wait and see game?” I knew it was only a matter of minutes before Mae called us to the bridge and we saw firsthand what was left of the “leap” spot, as we started calling it.

Slate came in the room, and I noticed he had to turn sideways to get through the doorway. His short blond hair was a little messy. Probably coming from a quick power nap. I used to tease Magnus about being too big, but this guy was next level.

“Slate, what’s your story? And where’d you get that name?” I asked, truly intrigued by the man.

He shrugged, grabbing a cup of coffee, and sat down at the end of the table so we could both turn and face him.

“Name’s really Zeke Campbell,” he said nonchalantly.

“You don’t look like a Zeke,” I said, trying to hold back a laugh.

“No kidding. My old sarge started calling me that when I was just a private. He found out I painted, and said I was like a rock but had many layers. Ergo, I was Slate from then on.”

I did laugh then, and soon Mary was laughing beside me, and even the ever-serious Slate was grinning.

“Where are you from?” Mary asked. He was Army and she was Air Force, so they had more camaraderie between them than with an accountant from upstate New York.

“Grew up in L.A. near the water. Loved to surf,” he said, staring into his cup. “My older brother shipped off to the Gulf War when I was just a kid and died two months later. It broke my mom. Anyway, at that moment, I started to plan my revenge. I was just eight years old, but in my heart, I told myself I was going to find who killed him and make them pay. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was too much for a little kid. I started to work out as soon as my mom would let me, and against every wish of hers, I joined the Army when I was eighteen. I saw a lot of tours in the Middle East, and killed a lot of men, but none of it ever brought me the redemption I dreamt of as that little boy. It just… I’m sorry. I don’t talk about it much, so when I get started on it, I guess I can’t stop.”

I thought about running through the massive Kraski vessel with the Shield, killing what was left of an entire race. “We do what we have to do, Slate, and we have to live with it after. I’m glad we have you along. I look forward to getting to know you better,” I said, and meant it.

“Same here.” He smiled again.

“We’re about to shut the drive down,” Clare said through the computer’s wall speaker.

“I guess we find out what’s next now. No more speculating.” Mary stood, and we followed her out to the bridge, where Clare sat to the left, Mae still in the pilot’s seat.

Mae got up, relinquishing the seat to Mary. Her face was impassive, impossible to read. She looked worried, and we all were at that moment, hoping there would be a swirling wormhole or something to carry us across the universe.

“Drive down, normal engines on,” Clare said, and the viewscreen showed distant stars slowing from lines to points in space once again.

“Where is it?” I asked, looking around for a sign of the anomaly. I walked over to Clare, who was quickly typing in something on her console’s tablet.

“I’m not picking anything up. Shit. It’s gone.”

We stood there, frustration enveloping us. The mission had failed.

FIFTEEN

“Where’s the exact point they took off from?” I asked, curious more than anything. Before we started to debate the options Mary had suggested in the kitchen, I had to see it. I had to be sure.

Clare hit some keys, and a distant point on the viewscreen lit up. Mary maneuvered over to it, slowing the ship’s speed as they approached.

“Try one of the probes, maybe?” Slate said.

“What probes?” Mary asked.

“They didn’t practice with them, but we created some probes that are essentially nanotech. They’re tiny probes we eject, and they act as sensors for surrounding areas. We don’t have scanning technology like in the movies unless we’re right up on something, but the probes can be sent into atmospheres and will send back weather, gas levels, that kind of stuff,” Clare said.

“Clare, did you invent these?” I asked, and she blushed, answering my question immediately. “Good call, Slate. Send them off.”

We watched the monitor as blue lights indicated where the probes were. Three went flying toward the mark, and readings were being sent back to our ship.

“Wait. There is something there,” Clare said. “The radiation level changes.”

I saw the middle probe disappear from the monitor. “It’s gone!”.

“So it is. The readings from it are gone too. The others are still sending data back,” Clare said, perplexed.

“Mary, can you take us in? As close as you can get to where the probe disappeared.” I had a feeling we were right on it.

As we approached, the light changed, and a fold opened before us, just enough for us to see different stars beyond it. In my head, a wormhole was a dramatic swirling maw of light and energy, but what we saw before us was nothing but an illusion of space, a fold in the universe. It was amazing.

“I’ll be damned,” Mary said, and Clare literally walked toward the viewscreen, tears rolling down her face.

“It’s beautiful,” she said over and over.

“We have to make a choice. Do we go for it?” Mary asked.

“We know the other ship made it through, so by that, can we assume we will as well?” Mae asked.

“This is what we came for, and we have to stop them, so my vote is on entering the unknown,” I said.

“You’re in charge,” Mary said, and it struck a chord. Did anyone really think I was calling the shots? “Don’t panic, honey. I’m just kidding. Don’t worry, I won’t blame you if we disintegrate into a million pieces. Just give me a kiss before we do it.”

“I don’t remember Kirk ever kissing Sulu when they were going into a dangerous situation,” Slate said as I bent over, kissing my fiancée.

We would have all laughed if our lives weren’t at stake. Mary eased the ship forward, and we entered the almost invisible wormhole. I expected us to just appear on the other side, so when we started shaking, lightning flashing all around the viewscreen, it didn’t quite register. One minute I was standing watching the screen, the next it went blank and my head hit the ceiling.

__________

My eyes opened slowly, the soft alarm klaxons ringing in my head. I looked around and saw everyone strewn about. The viewscreen was blank. Getting to my feet proved to be difficult, so I stayed down, half-dragging myself to Mary, who was just starting to come to as well.

“You okay?” I asked. She just nodded, a distant look in her eyes.

I checked on everyone, and when I got to Mae, I knew it wasn’t good news. She was already so banged up from the other day, and now her head was bleeding from a scalp wound on top of it. We’d been tossed about like rag dolls.

“I think we made it through,” Mary said. “But the link to the viewscreen is broken.”

“Mae,” I whispered. Her chest rose and fell lightly. She was alive. “Where the hell is the Doc?” I asked, remembering he wasn’t on the bridge at the time. He must have been in the bunks.

Footsteps clanged from the hall, and he emerged, holding his arm up in a makeshift sling.

“Everyone okay?” he asked. “Thanks for warning me we were about to be tossed around like a sack of potatoes at the harvest festival.”

“We didn’t know it would do that. How could we?” Clare asked. “Help Dean get Mae to the medical lab, and I’ll work on the inertial dampener. I’m hoping the connections just loosened and it didn’t fry.”

That explained the flying around the ship. I made sure Mary was really okay, and headed with Mae down the hall, propping her up between Nick and me.

“I take it we found the wormhole,” he said, voice thick with sarcasm.

“I’m sorry we didn’t wake you. It just happened so fast. One minute we didn’t think it was there, the next we found it.” I felt foolish even saying it like that. He was right. We should have woken him.

We laid Mae down on the bed, and Nick went about looking over her. When he lifted her eyelids and shone a light in them, they darted around, and her leg kicked out at him.

“Mae! You’re fine! It’s just Doctor Nick,” I called in an effort to calm her. She stopped flailing, and I stood by her head, holding her hand.

“All the blood is from this small scalp wound. Their bark is far worse than their bite. I’ll have to stitch it up. You’ll be good as new, but with your other injuries, we’ll have to keep an eye on you for a concussion,” Doctor Nick said. I appreciated his bedside manner, especially after nearly being kicked by his patient.

“I’ll be at the bridge. Mae, let him do his job. We need you healthy,” I said. She nodded softly and squeezed my hand before letting it go.

I closed my eyes in the hall, trying to determine my own injuries. I could feel some pain in my knee, but I hoped it was just a bruise from landing on it. My left shoulder was a little tight, but again, that could be from falling on it. Nothing seemed too serious or broken.

A quick stop in the kitchen, and I was heading to the bridge with an armful of water bottles for everyone.

Slate stood, looking no worse for the wear, and Clare was absent, talking to Mary through her console speaker. “How about now?” her voice asked, and the viewscreen flickered, cut out, then stayed on, showing up the view before our ship.

Black sky, stars in the distance. Yep, pretty much what we had been looking at before, only I knew it was far different. No one from Earth had ever been this far out, and when we brought the map up, it zoomed in from tiny specks to large blinking icons. We were right on their tail.

The icon had moved trajectory since we’d last seen it, and to my non-spatial, linear mind, they were heading deep south in the 3D map. At their speed, it was evident the FTL drive was back up and running. As if she read my mind, Mary said, “Our drive will be good to go in twenty minutes. We were still holding a charge.”

I slumped down onto the console chair to the left of Mary, staring into the blank space outside, the blip of our target getting ever so farther away with each beat of my heart.

I wondered how long this journey was going to take.

__________

Two weeks later, we were settling into a routine. I’d become more of a scheduler than anything, shifts on manning the bridge swapping between all six of us. We took turns making meals and sleeping.

Slate had a great idea for training sessions, which not only allowed us to get in shape, but let us learn the ins and outs of every weapon on board.

I headed into the storage area, which had become a makeshift gym, mats layering the floor in a square. Mary and Clare were inside, doing push-ups with Slate counting them off.

“Time for hand to hand,” he said, grinning at me. If there was one thing Slate loved, it was hand to hand combat. He lit up every time, and I was sure he wished there was some competition aboard for a man his size. There wasn’t anyone close. I’d been at the bruising end of his moves a few times, but he had taught me a lot, and for that I was thankful. Now the smaller Clare was up, getting ready for some basic combat techniques against the better-trained Mary.

Watching Mary sweating like that, getting ready to kick someone’s ass, was a turn-on. I wondered where that primal emotion came from.

Clare was thin, and her glasses were off to the side of the room. As an engineer, she said she hadn’t spent much time worrying about athletics, but Slate said she was a natural. Mary wasn’t the biggest fan of the upbeat nerd, as she called her, but was willing to admit she was a useful addition to the crew, especially since she’d helped convert some of the alien technology on board to better suit our human needs.

The two women strapped on gloves, and Slate made sure their headgear was on firmly. Mary tugged her ponytail and planted her feet. Clare moved hesitantly, a feint, before attacking from the left. Her kick hit Mary in the side, who grunted and jabbed with her right, catching Clare in the head.

The smaller woman went down, and Mary was on her, two quick shots, before Slate stepped in and pulled her off.

“She’s down,” he said angrily. Clare was down on the ground, turtling her head, and Mary moved back, hands in the air.

“I’m sorry, got a little too into it.” She reached her hand out, and a heavily-breathing Clare grabbed it, letting Mary help her to her feet.

“No sweat. I’ll get you next time,” Clare said before guzzling some water.

Slate looked at me and raised an eyebrow, as if to say he was impressed with their cordial behavior. Frankly, I was too.

Mary grabbed a towel and started for the washroom, where I knew she’d take a quick shower. I still couldn’t believe we had a Kraski ship with a human shower and toilet on it.

“Everything okay?” I asked, when we were out of earshot of the others.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You just about took our engineer’s head off back there.”

“I just got a little too into it. And honestly, since you’re asking, I’m getting a little frustrated. I’m a pilot, but I usually get to leave my jet, not follow a bogey across an unknown universe. To top it off, I’m tired of Clare giggling at every little joke you say and batting her eyelashes under those Buddy Holly glasses she wears.”

The truth came out. “I get it about the ship. We’re all getting restless.”

She sighed, closing the door behind us, and started to take her workout clothes off. I didn’t want to be presumptuous, so I hung back, thinking I might be reading the room wrong.

She stepped into the now-steaming shower and stuck her arm out, wiggling her finger for me to join her.

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said, shucking my uniform in record time.

There were still some things we could do to ease the tension, and it wasn’t easy on a small ship with very little privacy. We chose our times carefully. This time, she just didn’t seem to care. She was taking what was hers.

Fifteen minutes later, we heard the speakers throughout the ship. It was Mae. “They’re out of the FTL drive. You guys are going to want to see this.”

SIXTEEN

Mary’s hair was dripping into a puddle on the bridge deck, and she was wearing a bathrobe, while I’d rushed and slipped my uniform back on. Doctor Nick winked at me as he entered the room, but I didn’t care about any of that. We were about to find out where Leslie and Terrance were headed. Were there Bhlat down there? Was this one of their conquered worlds?

“Our cloaking tech is working, right?” I asked, wishing I’d asked when we came out of the wormhole.

Clare was on her tablet but nodded. “One hundred percent active. They can’t pick up our signal, or see us, unless they fly into the side of the ship.”

We had slowed to our normal drive, getting closer to the world below. The hybrids ahead of us were nearing orbit, and they hung there for a time, allowing us to get caught up.

The planet looked amazing. It had been one thing to see your own planet from outer space, seeing familiar clumps of land look so alien from that height. Seeing this new planet was life-changing. My whole perspective on life somehow jarred at the sight. There were other planets out there with life. Scientists and theologians had debated the point for centuries, and we were seeing one firsthand.

I looked over, and everyone’s faces mirrored what mine must have looked like. Excitement for finding the hybrids but mixed with curiosity.

“Enough drooling, everyone,” Mae said. “This could be a Bhlat world. We have to be cautious.”

She was right. We waited, Mary having time to get dressed before taking over the helm from Mae.

“Can we send the probes down yet?” I asked.

Clare shook her head. “Great idea, but their signals aren’t hidden. They only make a small signal, but we should still wait.”

We didn’t say what we were waiting for, but I kept assuming they were going to lower planet-side. As if they read my mind, the ship started moving, descending through the planet’s atmosphere.

There were clouds on the large planet. It was hard to tell from our vantage point, but Clare said the world was a third larger than Earth. The system’s star was slightly closer, percentage-wise, to the world, which would make it warmer than we were used to.

We kept tracking the target ship as it crossed across the planet, and once they were far enough away, we flew in closer.

“Launching probe now,” Clare said. I stood beside her, watching the readout numbers scan across her screen. It only took a few minutes before we had the answers we needed. “Surface air temperature appears to be around 35 Celsius, and the air is within ninety-five percent of Earth’s, surprisingly. No toxins read that can be harmful, but we’ll get a better read when we land.”

“We’re going down there?” Nick asked, looking doubtful of the move.

“What choice do we have? Wait until they leave and blast them?” Slate asked, then answered his own question. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”

Mae shook her head. “We need to see what brought them here. If there’s a base, or a danger to Earth, it’s up to us to bring the fight to them,” she said, standing straight in her Earth Defense uniform.

“How about life-forms?” I asked.

“We aren’t there yet. We don’t have those kind of readings, but we’re picking up some images.” Clare pushed the pictures from her tablet to the main viewscreen with the press of a button.

The shots weren’t high-definition from this distance, but we could make out some buildings, and what looked like crops near a river. The green lush landscape overtook almost everything, and I was reminded of the thick deadly landscape in South America.

Clare switched to the map, and we saw the hybrid ship’s icon land near the marker she’d placed on those structures.

“Bingo,” I said. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go in.”

Clare looked ready to say something, but Mary cut in first. “Let’s wait a few hours, until the sun is set on that part of the continent. The cloaking works much better in darkness, under the cover of the night sky. They’ll never see us coming.”

We spent the next couple hours planning our move, and when it was all settled, we lowered toward the planet, nervous energy palpable on the bridge of the ship. We couldn’t make out a lot in the night sky, but the world was beautiful, unspoiled by pollution, and most importantly, humans. It made we wonder for a moment what would happen to Earth if the people were all gone from it. Would it reclaim the cities like in those post-apocalyptic movies? Would New York be covered in trees, and would deer walk down Fifth Avenue, making a home in Central Park?

We decided to scout a spot close enough to get to the village by foot, but far enough not to be spotted. The landing area was an empty copse of trees, which each stood over a hundred feet tall, surrounding the location. The ground was soft, and Mary decided to hover there rather than keep the weight on the grass. It was similar to a rainforest, and the chances of sinking into the bog-like terrain were high.

“Clare, you’re sure you know how to fly this thing, right?” Mary asked for the fifth time.

“Yes. I did help create it, after all,” Clare answered, impatience thick in her voice.

Nick stayed back, looking relieved that we didn’t ask him on the away mission.

“We’ll keep in radio contact. Any sign they’re leaving in the Kraski ship, you tell us and come pick us up,” I said, slinging a pulse rifle over my shoulder. I was thankful for the time Slate had spent with me, familiarizing me and the others with the vast array of weapons we had. My confidence holding the gun was much higher than it had been a year ago, when it was new and alien to me.

Mae had her EVA suit on, the door closing between her and us as the ramp lowered. A hand-held tablet in her hand, she walked down the ramp.

“Readings shows the air is breathable,” Mae said, and I felt my shoulders loosen. Skulking around without the suit on was going to be much easier.

The door opened, and I felt warm air rushing up the ramp and into my face. A strange smell emanated from outside, a mixture of barn and swamp.

Stepping on the ground, I felt it give ever so slightly. The grass was more like moss, the water table evidently very high. The high humidity was almost a shock after spending a couple of weeks on a closed-system ship, where climate was controlled to a tenth of a degree. My uniform started to stick to my sweating body nearly instantly, and I looked at the others, seeing much of the same. Slate was the only one who kept stone-faced. He was a soldier on a mission, and his mind was extremely focused on the task at hand. Being on a strange planet with terrorist aliens on it, I was more than happy to have the gigantic soldier alongside us.

“Clare, come in,” I said, testing the comm-system.

“Go ahead,” the reply came.

“We’ll keep our trackers on. Just don’t leave us hanging if things get hairy,” I said.

Slate took the lead with ease, and we followed him. I finally got a look around, which was hard in the dark. We were hesitant to use flashlights in case we were spotted, but Slate had night-vision goggles on. I felt mine strapped to my thigh and considered wearing them. Instead I followed the others, trying to not be distracted by the brand-new surroundings.

We were on another world, walking on the mossy ground. It was an amazing feeling to see the strange massive trees looming around us, a moist musky smell lingering in the air. The river was close, but I suspected smaller ponds or swamps nearby, judging by the dampness.

As we got near the tree line, I stopped to touch one. The bark was smooth, slightly sticky. The branches were thin near the lower end of it, with slim leaves unlike any I’d ever seen.

“Dean, let’s go. We can look at the flora once we nab Terrance and Leslie,” Mae said.

I just shrugged and kept moving. The village was a couple of miles away; we’d expected to take fifteen minutes to get there at a good pace. Reality was different.

Three minutes in, the ground was too soft to walk on. Slate’s substantial bulk sank in as he stepped down, and we had to help him pull his right leg out of the mossy hole. A smelly mud stuck to his boot when he pulled free, and Mary wrinkled her nose at the stench.

“That’s not something you want to walk in. Let’s see if there’s a way across this way.” She pointed north, and we found much the same issue. Doubling back took valuable time, but the ground was eventually firmer, and soon we were making our way to the village in the right direction.

In a few minutes, we could see lights from the town: a soft glow in the darkness of an ominous world. It called to me like a beacon, and suddenly I remembered the time my car broke down on the highway in the winter when I was first off at college, right before the days when cell phones were in everyone’s hand constantly. It was the middle of a snowstorm, and after seeing no one else was crazy enough to be on the main roads, I spent an hour walking down a gravel road seeking a house. Just when I thought my toes were going to fall off, I saw a light in the distance. I ran, more stumbled, toward it, and the family let me call a tow truck and stay there until the driver picked me up.

When I saw the village light, the same feeling hit me, and I ran ahead. A few steps into my sprint, I felt the ground make way for water and I fell forward, going under.

It happened so fast, my brain couldn’t comprehend it. One second I was moving in the warm air, the next my head was under water, a thick sludgy liquid. I flailed my hands, trying to find something to push against, but they just sank into the muck on the bottom of the ground.

I finally swiveled my legs out under me and pushed up, my head breaching the muck.

Laughter shot at me from behind, and I turned to see Mary’s outline snickering at my epic fail.

“Laugh it up, chuckles,” I said, angry I was so stupid to get into this situation. That anger was heavily mixed with embarrassment. “Can you guys just help me out?”

It looked like I was in a small pond, only thirty feet across. All we would have had to do was walk a few steps to the left and avoid it. If I hadn’t rushed forward, I would be up there with the rest of them, dry and clean.

Slate stepped forward and reached a hand out, when something brushed against my leg.

SEVENTEEN

“What the hell was that?” I asked, shaking my leg.

As I stretched my hand out to grab his, I felt it again, this time harder.

“Guys, something’s in here with me.” Panic was creeping into my voice, the embarrassment all but forgotten. Slate grasped my wrist and that was when the creature underwater made its move. It wrapped around my ankle, pulling at me. I still couldn’t see it, but it was constricting tighter by the second. Another tentacle twisted around my waist and before I knew it, I was gasping in murky water, flailing for air.

I hadn’t even noticed, but Slate was still holding my arm, tugging at me, a tug-of-war where I was the rope. I could hear shouting as my head ducked in and out of the water, me just trying to get air when I was able to. There were multiple tentacles now, and I had no idea if it was one multi-limbed attacker or a group of snake-like animals.

This was it. I was going to die my first hour on a new world. Water gushed into my nose, and I tasted the stale muddy water as I was tugged under it once again. The strong hard grip of Slate’s hand was gone suddenly, and I was pulled down and away from my friends. Clenching my eyes shut, I tried to stave off the panic, and fought to pull one tentacle from its crushing force on my abdomen. Nothing worked.

The water muffled sound, and I thought I could make out Mary’s voice from the ground a distance away. The swamp area was far larger than I’d initially thought, and I kept being pulled farther in. My lungs burned for air, and I knew it wasn’t going to be long. Light flashed in my closed eyes, and my body went from tense and flailing to calm and serene. The light was there for me.

Something splashed nearby, and I felt a surge of hope. The pressure on my waist ceased, and before I knew it, I wasn’t being pulled any longer. Next the grip on my ankle was gone, and an arm was under my chest, lifting me to the surface. My feet found muddy purchase on the swamp floor, and my weak knees helped keep me in an upright position. It was dark, and I retched out water, bile mixing with the thick stinky liquid.

“Are you okay, Dean?” Mae’s voice asked in my ear. She was panting, and my eyes made out her form beside me in the dimly-lit night sky.

“Mae,” was all I could muster through my clenched teeth.

“Oh, thank God,” she said quietly.

She was holding a knife in her hand, and that’s when I saw the floating tentacles to the right of us. She’d dived in and killed the thing with a blade. The others were calling to us from forty yards away. Mae helped me to them, dragging the creature behind us like a prize kill.

Slate reached down, picking up a limb and pulling the thing onto the ground.

“Dean!” Mary called, her voice strained and tearful. “Are you okay?”

I was out of the water, pushing my body further away from the swamp just in case another of those monsters decided to swing an arm up and grab me.

“I think so,” I said, lying on my back. For a moment, I just stayed still, staring at the strange star clusters overhead. I let my body tell me what, if anything, was wrong with it, and other than a tender abdomen and a pulsing ankle, everything felt normal.

“Mae, that was amazing,” Mary said. “She didn’t wait a second. As soon as Slate lost grip, she dove in, knife in her hand. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I turned my head and saw Mae’s outline watching the water, still holding the knife. She was soaked like me, her hair hanging long and dripping with mud.

“Looks almost familiar, doesn’t it?” Slate said, poking the dead creature with his heavy boot. It resembled a large octopus, but with six thick tentacles, each at least the length of a human. Beady black orbs sat on either side of its head, and even though the thing almost killed me a minute ago, I felt bad for it lying there dead. It was just doing what nature taught it to do, and we were the invaders.

“Amazing,” Mary said, looking at it now too.

I finally got up, testing my ankle and feeling it take the brunt of my weight. I lumbered over to Mae and put my arm around her waist. “Thank you, Mae,” I said. She was still looking over the swamp, and she leaned her head down against my shoulder. We stood like that side-by-side for a minute before Slate cleared his throat.

“We should keep moving. We’re almost there.” He took the lead, and I stayed back waiting for Mary.

“Dean, I’m so glad you’re all right.” Her fingers slipped between mine, and I squeezed her hand back.

“So am I. Mary, if anything ever does happen to me, just keep going on. We need to finish the mission.” I felt foolish for saying it, but a near-death experience was sure to bring up a couple of unwanted conversations.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to think about that. You’re fine now. A little wet and dirty, and to be honest, stinky… but fine.”

I sniffed, and the putrid swamp water that covered me did make me smell something terrible. A shower was probably out of the question. I laughed and pulled her close. “Now you can smell bad too.” She fought me off, and we were so distracted with each other, we nearly walked into the barn-sized man, Slate. He turned and shushed us like an annoyed parent. His finger went to his lips and he held his hand up, telling us to stay still.

The village was a few hundred yards away, and we were coming up to the first building in the area. A few dim lights were on, a soft yellow glow making me wonder just how different the inhabitants were from humans. It looked like a scene from a hundred years ago. I took comfort in the similarities, but knew it was only right to be cautious at the same time.

Slate motioned for us to crouch down, and he took a pair of binoculars out. He found something. He passed them to me, pointing in the distance. I scanned the area his finger extended toward and saw it too. Terrance and Leslie’s ship was there. They walked through the field toward a large dwelling built of logs, and smoke poured from a rock chimney in the roof. It looked like quite the quaint scene until I spotted the aliens beside them. One was insectoid in nature, legs bending opposite of ours like a chicken, large black eyes on an oval-shaped head, antennae poking up a foot into the night sky. There was another with it, and I recognized the race instantly. Deltra.

Relief that there were still Deltra out there washed over me, but dread quickly replaced it. The last time I’d seen a Deltra, they were trying to kill us, after convincing us to murder the entire race of the Kraski. It hadn’t ended well for them, and there wasn’t a night I didn’t close my eyes and see the explosion that had snuffed out their lives at our hands.

Mae nudged me, and I handed the binoculars over to her. So the hybrids had stolen a ship, traversed a wormhole, and traveled to a backwater planet. To what end? What did they want there?

“Just what are those bastards doing?” Slate asked, mirroring my thoughts.

“Let’s get in closer,” Mae said.

A voice spoke behind us in an unfamiliar language. My translator shot the words into my ear. “You’re going to be much closer.” We spun around to see two large Deltra holding pulse rifles toward us.

My eyes roamed to Mae’s hand, which looked to be twitching near her holstered gun. She looked toward me and I shook my head, hoping she wouldn’t get us all killed. She grimaced and raised her hands in the air along with the rest of us.

“Come with us,” the translator said.

They marched us straight to the building the hybrids had gone to, and more insectoid aliens and Deltra sentries came out of the surrounding woods. They’d either been waiting for us or were a very cautious colony.

The building was large and looked more like a big house as we neared it.

“Weapons on the ground.” The bigger of the two bald Deltra pointed from us to the ground with his gun. We obliged, even if I saw a second of hesitation from Slate. Every inch of him looked ready to pounce.

The front doors on the side building were large, on rails like a sliding barn door. Inside the garage-like hangar, we saw a ship unlike any we’d seen yet. It was about a quarter the size of our ship and had an insectoid frame, almost like a hornet. I suspected I knew which aliens it belonged to. A Deltra was inside talking with Leslie and Terrance. They stopped and looked toward us, surprise etched on both the hybrids’ faces.

“Terrance, you left your wallet on Earth. I thought you might need it,” I said, hoping a joke would break the tension. It didn’t.

“What do we have here?” the Deltra said in perfect English. The guards walked us further into the room until we were only a few feet from the three inside. The Deltra was tall, very thin, and had markings tattooed on his neck and hands. He stood straight, confident. The energy this guy was pushing out was amazing, and I knew he must be a leader among the Deltra, or at least of the colony there.

“How the hell did you find us?” Terrance asked, shaking his head. He scanned the four of us, eyes stopping on Mae for a moment longer than the rest of us. He wouldn’t have known about the new ships or technology adaptations.

I figured telling them wouldn’t do any harm. “The smart people back home found a way to add a tracking system to our ships.”

Leslie nodded. “I told you they might be able to find us. We were too careless.”

“And you brought them here,” the Deltra said. “What are we going to do with you?” he asked, walking over to Slate. He was as tall as our huge soldier, but about a third as wide, even with the billowing cloak he had on. The contrast was almost comical.

“Why can’t you just let us be?” Leslie asked. “We just remembered hearing rumors of this place and wanted to ask Kareem if we could bring the hybrids who want to leave Earth here to start fresh. Somewhere we can be ourselves and forget about the Kraski and the human blood coursing through us. Live out our days as a free people.”

“And to do this you would kill? You would slice a friend’s throat, and hang another after gutting them? Then attack one of your own, leaving her pummeled on the ground as you stole a ship and killed more guards?” Mary was standing up straight, her voice loud and strained as she attacked them.

“We killed no one!” Terrance yelled. “And we didn’t attack anyone. What do you mean?”

“Mae. You attacked Mae on your way out!” Mary yelled back. The guards got between Terrance and Mary, separating them.

“We didn’t even see Mae. The guard listened to us, and he let us go. We left unseen, and quietly,” Leslie said calmly.

My hands started to shake hearing this. If they didn’t kill those guards on Long Island or fight Mae, then who had killed them? And who had attacked Mae? I turned slowly, looking for Mae so she could fill us in. We needed to hear her side of the story, to bring the truth out, and show these hybrids for the liars they were. But Mae wasn’t there.

“Where’s Mae?” I asked quietly. No one seemed to hear me. “Where is Mae?” I asked louder, and the others stopped talking. We looked around the dim hangar, and she was nowhere to be seen.

“Mae!” Mary called. Silence.

“Go find the missing woman,” Kareem said, his cloak flapping as he pointed to the entrance in haste. The guards raised their guns and started for the doorway.

“It was her the whole time. She must have killed those guards after we slipped out of the University. She killed the guard at the base after we left, beating herself to make it look like there was a fight,” Terrance said, and it all made sense. I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t. But the facts lined up. Don’t trust her. The text I’d gotten from that unknown source at the gas station last month flashed through my mind.

We ran to the doors as we heard pulse rifles go off in the distance. Red beams shot toward the forest and moments later, a green light emanated from the area before a ship lifted from the clearing where we’d seen the hybrids’ ship as we’d scoped out the village.

“She’s getting away. And in our ship!” Terrance cried.

What just happened was taking a long time to process. One minute we were all there, and Mae used the moment the guards separated Mary and Terrance to sneak away. She got onto the hybrid ship and stole it.

“I can’t believe it,” Mary whispered. “All this time. All of this time. She gave you blood, Dean. She saved us after the Event. She stayed in our house.” Mary ran her hands through her hair, tears falling down her face. I wiped the tears away with my thumbs and brought her in for a hug. “She was… our friend.”

“What the hell is going on there?” Clare’s voice came through our earpieces. “Are you all okay? Do you need a pickup?” The questions came in frantic succession.

“It was Mae. She ran off, taking their ship,” I said in reply. The words didn’t even make sense to me as they left my mouth.

“Mae. I knew those damned hybrids were going to be the death of us,” Clare said, making my blood boil. Maybe she was right. Janine, Vanessa, Mae… they’d all used us.

“Why are you really here?” I grabbed Terrance by the collar, getting close enough to his face to touch noses. Anger flushed through my body so intensely I thought I might punch someone. As I stood there, waiting for an answer, I wished I was back home. Before any of this. Before the Event, and before Janine. I wanted to just go back in time.

“I told you! We just want to leave Earth. We need somewhere to go. Somewhere off the grid. This is it, a safe haven,” he said, spittle hitting my face.

Maybe they were telling the truth. Probably not, since history had told me all hybrids were full of shit.

“Leave him,” Kareem said calmly, and I looked back to see the two guards holding guns pointed at me. I wasn’t going to give them the honor. I let Terrance go, and he straightened his shirt. The anger was still there, but muted. I shoved it down, along with all the fear and suspicion. Bottle it up. That’s what a man was supposed to do, yet I felt worse for it, like I needed that anger to keep going.

“Come. We have much to discuss,” Kareem said, motioning for the guards to lower their weapons. They did so, and I felt slightly better off.

“We don’t have time for chit-chat. We need to go after her,” Mary said.

“It won’t take long, and I think you’re going to want to hear what I have to say.” Kareem turned and walked toward the home’s front doors. We had no choice but to follow along, and soon were inside the large open foyer. He took his shoes off, implying that we do the same. Embarrassed, I remembered I was covered in mud and stank something fierce. Kareem didn’t seem to even notice as he called to someone to bring langols, which my translator said was some sort of beverage.

Beside what looked to be a kitchen of sorts was a large wooden table. Some things crossed species well. There were a dozen chairs around it, and we sat, the three of us on one side, Kareem and the two hybrids on the other.

“First things first, tell me what brings you here.” His voice was calm, soothing, and I found myself comfortable around him.

Terrance told him the story of the Kraski, and Kareem twinged at the name but pulled it together quickly. This guy had a hell of a poker face. Terrance told him of the plan to remove all humans from the world, sacrificing their own hybrids in the process. Terrance was passionate as he talked about being created for nothing but sacrifice and death, and how he wanted to lead the remaining survivors away to be safe and live their lives out in peace.

Kareem sat stone-faced as Mary and I told him of our journey, and the backstabbing of the Deltra. I didn’t speak of them all dying, but he seemed to get the gist of it. He leaned forward as we told him about the final rescue, and how some hybrids came too, helping us stop the ships from exploding into the sun.

Leslie spoke of the year since, the internment camp they were at, and how for the most part humans had been nice to them. Kareem’s face softened at this, and we drank our langols, which was much like a hot flowery tea.

“We really just wanted to stop these two, whom we thought were murderers and terrorists, from getting to the Bhlat and…” I was cut off by Kareem instantly after saying their name.

“The Bhlat! Don’t speak that name here!” he yelled, getting to his feet. “If you thought the Kraski were bad news, you haven’t seen anything.” Just like that, the energy seemed to drain from him, and he sat back down, slumping forward. “I’m here because of them. My grandfather created the ‘Shield,’ as you called it.”

“That means you would have to be…” Mary started.

“I’m over two hundred by your calendar years. Yes, my grandfather was the one to create the device that would save our race from the Kraski. Only hundreds of years under their oppression seem to have turned my people from a loving, nurturing race, to a blood-lusting race, just as bad as their tormentors.” Kareem stopped, silence filling the room. The night’s adventures and the retelling of our harrowing story had sucked the life out of me. I looked him in the eyes, and he stared right back as if seeking something deep within me. “Dean, can I trust you three?”

The question hung in the air a moment. “You can,” I answered, wondering if I could trust him in return.

“Can I trust the rest of humanity?” he then asked.

That was a much more difficult question to answer. Humans had been through a lot, and most of my life I wasn’t sure I fit in. I hated our internal strife, our abuse of each other, warring for things like salt or oil or just plain power. But my views had changed after hearing the stories of the vessel ships. We had so many heroes, ones that deserved the title more than I did, and for the first time in my life, I did think that as a species we could be trusted. Past Dean would have struggled to get the answer out, but I felt confident and powerful in my reply. “You can. I trust them. You can trust them too.”

He looked me in the eyes, his pale thin lips pursing as he did so. His black eyes buried deep into mine, and eventually he sat back, grabbing his cup. “I believe you. I have a way for you to stop the Bhlat.”

Just like that, I found myself wishing I was back home in another time.

EIGHTEEN

Our ship lowered in the spot where the silver ship had been sitting over an hour ago. The ramp dropped to the ground, Nick and Clare walking down to greet us. Nick’s eyes went wide as he saw the alien beings around. The insectoids and the Deltra were quite the sight for someone who’d never seen them in person. Hell, I was still trying hard to not stare at them.

“I’m so glad you guys are okay,” Clare said, looking toward the two hybrids we’d followed there.

“We have a lot to tell you about, but for now, let’s get out of here,” I said. Slate held his gun tightly in his large hands, and I knew he was still feeling like we could be attacked. The man hadn’t relaxed since we’d landed on the planet. I didn’t blame him.

“Come on, Slate,” Mary said, and the big man walked aboard the ship.

“Kareem, we appreciate your help and advice. We’ll do our best to keep your location secret,” I said, and the tall Deltran man nodded to me in thanks. “Leslie and Terrance, I’ll talk to Dalhousie and make her see the value in letting you all leave Earth. I promise this.” I only hoped I’d be alive to keep the promise.

“I can see why people follow you, Dean. I’m glad we were able to find out we were on the same side of the fence,” Terrance said, extending his hand. I shook it, but the nagging thought that I couldn’t trust a hybrid took over my mind. It wouldn’t matter, though. They could leave Earth, and that was enough for me. Everyone deserved a chance to be happy and free.

“Remember what I said, Mr. Parker. And never turn your back on a Bhlat. They won’t lie to get on your side. They’ll just shoot you from behind.” Kareem turned, his cloak flowing behind him.

We walked up the ramp, the ominous words of the Deltra leader sinking in. The system’s star was rising over the horizon as we rose up, shining into our viewscreen on the bridge.

With our small crew, Mae’s absence was obvious; her betrayal still coursed through her blood inside me. Her ship’s blinking icon flashed on the map, and as Clare keyed in the coordinates Kareem had given me, we saw her trajectory matched ours.

“Is it a coincidence she’s heading the same direction as we are?” Nick asked.

“She knows,” Slate said, his face a square block of intensity. “She knows where we’re going somehow.”

“Shit!” I cursed. Of course. She’d heard the whole conversation. “Everyone, change your frequency.” I keyed in a new one and showed the rest of them. “She heard us talking with Kareem. How could I be so stupid?”

“None of us thought of it. We didn’t have our earpieces on the frequency with each other, just the ship. She was smart enough to know that,” Mary said as we zoomed through the atmosphere and toward the intense star in-system. The viewscreen dimmed as it grew, ever so slightly each minute.

“She’s got a head start on us. A couple of hours. Let’s just hope we’re not too late when we get there. She hasn’t hit the FTL drive yet. Leslie said it wasn’t charging when they landed, since they hadn’t been planning on leaving quickly. That gives us the advantage. Maybe,” I said.

Clare confirmed this. “We can hit the drive in a few minutes. It should be enough to get us there first.”

I looked at the estimated time of arrival to our new destination, a derelict Deltra station from fifty Earth years ago, and it said one hundred and sixty hours. Almost a week of twiddling our thumbs. A week to stew in anger at the betrayal. I sat down in the captain’s chair for the first time, hardly aware that I’d done so. I was exhausted, and my clothing stank.

If she was just going to leave us, why save me at all? She’d risked herself again for me in the swamp. Was it just for show? Did she think the others would turn back if I was killed?

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I looked up to see Slate there.

“Let’s get something to eat,” his mouth said, but his eyes said he wanted to talk to me about something. I obliged and followed him down the hall.

“Slate, start the coffee. I’ll be there in two.” I headed for my bunk and grabbed a fresh uniform before hopping into the shower for a quick rinse-off. I rushed, hardly letting myself dry before suiting up and getting back to the kitchen.

“You’d make a good military man. That was as fast as any I’ve seen.” He laughed, and I found myself joining in with him. I found myself really liking the quiet man. I’d expected him to be a lot like Magnus, but instead of the boisterous confidence of my Scandinavian friend, Slate gave off an aura of quiet confidence.

“I brought sandwiches to the bridge. Want one?” he asked, and I picked up a PB and J from the small stack in the middle of the table.

My stomach growled just at the sight of the food, and I ate half quickly, no words needed.

“Dean, I have a feeling when we get there, we’ll be fighting. I don’t know if Mae will be able to contact reinforcements, and at this time, we don’t even know whose side she’s on.”

Don’t trust her.

“The Bhlat,” I said, my gut spitting out the name. “It has to be. There’s no one left. If she’s not with the hybrids, and we ended the Kraski, that leaves the Bhlat. We always said if the Deltra were able to infiltrate the hybrids’ core, the Bhlat could have too.” Kareem had told us more about the alien race, and I almost wished he hadn’t. They moved from system to system, destroying lives, using slaves to mine each planet for minerals so they could expand their reign of terror. So far, they looked to be centuries from coming near Alpha Centauri or our solar system, if ever. Kareem stated that the chances of them even bothering were low, but a race of humans that managed to stave off the fleeing Kraski might entice them to visit.

“I agree. I just want to see where your head’s at. Can you pull a trigger if you see Mae’s face in the crosshairs?” He asked the question so softly I had to lean in to hear him.

Janine’s face. Mae’s face. Could I? I nodded, saying I could and would, but words were one thing. Action was another.

“Good. What do you say we continue our training after some sleep? I’m going to relieve Mary from the bridge, and you two can get some rest.” He didn’t even look tired, and there I was, ready to fall asleep at the table.

“Thanks, Slate.” He left me sitting there alone until a couple minutes later, when an equally tired-looking Mary came to join me.

“Let’s get some sleep, babe,” she said, coming over to me. I pushed my face into her stomach, and she ran her hands through my still-wet hair.

“I love you,” I said, my voice muffled by her uniform.

“I love you too. Just think of the stories we’re going to be able to tell our children,” she said.

It was the first time she’d mentioned kids, and until then, I hadn’t even realized they were a possibility. Maybe there was room for another life on our new world.

Standing up, I kissed her. “Take some pictures. There’s no way they’ll believe half of it.”

__________

I hit the ground hard, having been at the receiving end of Slate’s demonstration.

“Now you try,” he said, motioning Nick forward. The wiry doctor came at me, feigning a low kick, and struck out with his fist. I spun, mostly avoiding the impact, and followed through, momentum doing most of the work as I flipped Nick onto his back and pushed my knee onto his chest.

“Very good!” Slate yelled, clapping his hands together.

“Yeah, very good,” the doctor said, his words short and terse.

I got up and gave him my hand, which he hesitated to grab.

“Do I really need to learn this? I mean, I’m a healer, not a hunter.” Nick rubbed his chest with his palm.

“We don’t know what we’re up against. Nick, you’ve never told us your story. Why are you here?” Slate asked, surprising the doctor.

“I told you why. They needed a volunteer and I stuck my hand up.”

“We get that, but what drove you to stick your hand up?” I asked, genuinely curious.

We sat on the crates, drinking water, and Slate tossed us a couple of towels. I was covered in sweat and laid the towel over my head while he talked.

“I suppose a lot of my life decisions led me to that point. Where do you want me to start?” he asked.

“We have another four days before we get there. Go as far back as you want,” Slate said, leaning against the wall. “Tell us about your life. You know… before.”

It was hard for some people to go back to that life. To dwell on what was, because so much had changed with the Event. Nick’s eyes had that look to them, and that was probably why he was so tight-lipped about himself.

“I always wanted to help people. Even as a little kid. Where others would shy away from blood, it fascinated me. It was inside us, and if enough leaked out, we died. A weird thing for an eight-year-old to think, and my questions sometimes had my parents worried. They were simple folks from the Midwest. She worked part-time at a bank, and my pa had a small construction company. I remember the day he asked me if I wanted to take over his business. I told him I couldn’t because I was going to be a doctor. He looked crestfallen, but he never told me he was disappointed. They both supported me, and while I worked summers and part-time anything jobs while I went to school, they paid the lion’s share of my tuition.” His gaze had taken on a longing look to the far side of the room as he spoke, and I didn’t have to ask if his parents had survived the Event. They hadn’t.

“That’s great. That isn’t far off my own story,” I said. “Where did you go to school?”

“Medical degree at Stanford. I moved to California after pre-med for a life-changing experience. It sure was. I loved the beaches and people, but eventually got home-sick and went back to Indiana for my residency.” He took a drink of water before continuing. “I ended up joining the military ten years ago.”

“What made you do that?” Slate asked.

“A girl… rather, a woman, but aren’t we all just boys and girls at the end of the day?” he asked, a grim smile on his face.

“I suppose we are. Especially when it comes to following the heart,” I said.

“We went to Iraq. Different stations, and she was killed by a goddamn suicide bomber before I ever told her I loved her.” He stared at the wall, as if looking either of us in the eyes would open the bottled-up floodgates that were inevitably there.

Slate came over and rested his hand on Nick’s shoulder. He didn’t say a word, just let it sit there a moment before heading back to the spot he’d been leaning on.

“Not that any of that matters anymore after we got taken. The world was always an upside-down place. Now we just have to turn around with it, so we can see straight.”

The perspective on things was a good one. “When was that?” I asked.

“Two years before they came. I was a wreck. When I got back from the tour, I could hardly function. I started drinking too much and almost lost my job.” He stopped, just staying quiet for a few moments. “Then they came and changed it all. I was up there with people dying around me, everyone fighting each other like wild animals trapped in a corner. I helped save a few lives up there, and I got it back. That urge to survive, and to help others survive. It was like I needed that shock to bring me back to being myself. Anyway, here we are. I guess someone heard about my efforts on vessel twenty-six, and I was recruited to the cause.”

It was a great story, and I found myself liking the already affable man a lot more for hearing it.

“Want to get back to it?” he asked. “I’m ready to learn to fight. Thanks for making me talk it out.”

We got up, me doing a little stretch on my tightening back, and we got back into position.

“Go!” Slate called.

__________

“Everyone to the bridge.” Slate’s voice carried over the comm-system.

“Mary, time to get up,” I said, pushing the blankets off my body. The floor was cool under my bare feet, and in moments, I had the uniform on, socks included.

“Just five more minutes, Mom,” she said, her eyes still closed.

“I’ll see you up there,” I said, leaving her in bed but turning the lights on. Oldest trick in the book.

Nick came out of the kitchen, shrugging at me as we made our way down the corridor onto the bridge.

“What’s up?” I asked. Clare was at the helm, with Slate on the console next to her. Their faces were grim.

“Asteroid field. That bitch led us into it,” Clare said. Hearing someone call Mae something derogatory stung for a moment, until I remembered she’d betrayed us. I still clung to a glimmer of hope she hadn’t, that she had a good reason for what she’d done. My gut told me otherwise.

We were out of the FTL, stars slowed on the viewscreen, and the computer zoomed to pick out a few large chunks of rock, highlighting them in blue on our screens.

“They look easy enough to avoid. Let’s go around,” I said, sitting down.

Clare took us around them, the computer calculating a trajectory for each of the asteroid chunks, a stream of blue lines covering our viewscreen.

“She’s heading right for them,” Slate said, standing as he watched. “She must have a death wish.”

We were only a day away from the location of the space station Kareem had told us about. What games was Mae playing?

We kept going, Mae’s icon blinking along a thousand kilometers behind us now. She was getting awfully close to one of the asteroids. We saw her darting in and out of clusters, before the ship went straight toward a large chunk a few hundred meters across. Her ship’s icon blinked rapidly and disappeared from the screen.

“What the hell was that? Did she make impact?” I asked. I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked back to see Mary standing there, dressed, her hair in a tight ponytail. Concern etched across her face, and I knew she’d been clinging to the idea Mae might still be on our side too.

“Looks that way. The tracking is far more advanced on this vessel. You remember those ships. They have a proximity sensor more than exact calculations. She must not have seen it coming, or thought she could sneak by it,” Clare said.

“Keep going,” I said, my hand mopping my face. The urge to yell at someone surged through me, but there was nothing anyone did wrong. Mae had been the culprit, and now she was dead, and I’d never be able to ask her what her truth was. I knew we wanted to stop Mae from making contact, but I still thought I was going to be sick. My eyes shut, only to see the icon lights of her ship still blinking on the back of my eyelids. It all felt so anti-climactic. That was life sometimes.

“We’re clear of the debris field. Activating the drive now,” Clare said. Otherwise, the room was silent.

NINETEEN

“Let’s bring it in slowly,” I said, standing behind Mary’s chair. Our cloaking shield was running, making us look like the stars around us from a distance. Up close we would appear like an anomaly, and anyone seeing us would most likely investigate the disturbance.

Kareem claimed he’d abandoned the station over fifty Earth years ago. The translation wasn’t clear, but it made sense with how long he’d been on that planet. They’d been fleeing a Bhlat sentry ship, which apparently caught on that the Deltra were in possession of some new weapon. He didn’t know if the station still existed, but they wouldn’t have the code to start the engines.

He’d had every intention of getting back to it, but by the time he’d made planetside, he wanted to put it all behind him. To live a quiet life away from the war. His wife and child were with him, and that was enough for him to stay hidden.

“Is this worth it? I mean, now that Mae is gone, and the hybrids don’t want to sell us out?” Nick asked us for the tenth time since yesterday.

“If this thing will do what Kareem says it does, then yeah. It could secure our safety from invasion,” Mary said, creeping our ship toward the system. A ringed planet hung in the distance, a gorgeous juxtaposition to the ugliness I was feeling. A large moon was nearby, and just where we were told the station would be, it stayed, orbiting the planet beside the moon, its massive wheel-shaped rim spinning still.

“It might still have gravity,” Clare said, staring at the viewscreen, taking in the amazing piece of technology.

It had to be a hundred times the size of our ship, with no lights of any sort on the outside of it. It looked like what it was: abandoned. I couldn’t take my eyes off the circular space station, rotating so slowly, but that was probably because of the size of it. It was flat dark gray in color, patches of different material on the outside layers. It looked like there was an unfinished section in the center of it, a section probably closed off from the interior.

It gave off a coldness, looking at it. For some reason, the station made me think of visiting my father’s grave after he’d passed away, and I didn’t like the comparison in my mind. Nothing about it should have made me feel that way; nonetheless, it did.

“I have a bad feeling,” Slate said, mirroring my thoughts.

“Me too,” Mary whispered.

We slowed the ship, all silently watching the massive stationary vessel’s turbine slowly rotate.

“No signs of anything nearby?” I asked, knowing there wasn’t, because the map showed no vessels flying out there.

“Nothing within range,” Clare said.

“Okay, let’s do this. We stick to the plan. Clare, you stay here with Nick. Mary, Slate, let’s suit up.” I walked past them, to the hall.

“Dean,” Nick said, “take care, and good luck out there.”

I turned and forced a smile. “Thank you. Should be back in a jiffy. I wouldn’t mind a beer after all of this is over. Can you put some on ice?” I joked.

“We mean it. Be careful,” Clare said.

“We will. We have each other’s back. Right, Slate?” Mary asked, nudging him with her elbow.

“Right,” he said, his face set in grim determination.

With that, we exited the bridge in a line, and made our way past the storage area to the prep room, where our three suits hung on the wall, already prepared over the week. The lapels had the buttons attached to them. I hadn’t green-beamed through any walls for a while, and frankly, I wasn’t looking forward to it. The last time had been stressful enough. At least this time we were going into an empty ship, and the imminent death of millions of people wasn’t looming over our heads.

Our suits were much like the ones we’d used from the Kraski ship last year, only there were five fingers for the hands, and they fit us since they were custom-built. The material was light and thin, though protective from radiation and, as we’d learned, almost melt-proof. As I slid into the suit, I thought back to when Mae and I had harnessed up and shot toward the vessel heading for the edge of the sun, clipping it and saving countless lives. Why had she done it?

“Ready?” Slate asked. His helmet was clipped in, and he checked ours, ensuring they were sealed properly.

“I think so,” I said.

“You remember all the training we’ve gone over?” he asked us both.

Mary nodded, and he handed her the pulse rifle from the weapons cache. We were strapped with a handgun, and Slate had an arsenal of other weapons: concussion grenades, clubs, knives, and anything else he could carry on his person. He made for quite the imposing soldier.

“Overkill?” Mary asked him. “Expecting company?”

He answered with a toothy smile. “You can never be too prepared.”

I keyed into the storage room computer tablet on the wall, and we watched the viewscreen feed as Clare approached the Deltra vessel. Kareem had told us where the best spot to enter would be, and Clare hovered our ship just above it.

“Love you, Mary,” I said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it for a second.

“Love you too,” she replied.

“What about me? Am I chopped liver?” Slate asked, laughing at his own joke. It was nice to see him cracking a funny one, and suddenly I didn’t miss having Magnus beside me quite as much.

“We love you, Slate,” we said in unison, getting a laugh and an eye roll for our trouble.

We strapped the lanyards to the harness clip on our suits’ waists, safety cords should something go wrong between here and there. We had to travel through a few meters of space, and I didn’t want the beam to drop me out there.

“Here goes nothing,” he said, pushing the pinned button on his suit’s collar. Green light enveloped him, and he pushed off the bar as we lowered from the ceiling. He passed through the floor with ease, and we followed.

Mary went next, glancing up at me just as she was leaving through the floor. I couldn’t help but smile at her as I pressed my own pin, green light covering me. It was surreal to be doing this again. I pushed and had the odd sensation of crossing through something solid, as my particles bounced around super-fast.

I closed my eyes briefly to avoid seeing outside the ships. Infinite space and I were still on tumultuous terms after last year. Counting three seconds, I opened them, and pressed my pin again as my feet touched down on the metallic grated floor. I scanned the room, and my brain took a moment to catch up to what I was seeing.

“Mary,” I called into my headset.

“I’m here,” she replied, and I saw a movement to the side of the room.

“What happened?”

“Someone was here waiting. They fired into the room, and Slate went after them,” she said as I approached her.

“You okay?” I asked, worry creeping into my voice.

“Yeah, let’s go back up Slate.”

She raised her pulse rifle, and I followed suit, walking sideways to the doorway. “Slate, come in,” I said into my helmet speaker.

“There were five of them. I took two down so far. I’m coming back.” Slate’s voice was calm and quick in my ear.

We stood in the hall, guns raised in each direction.

The night vision on our display glowed green, showing us a basic hall of metal beams and grates. The place was built for function, not fashion. Something caught my eye to my right and I spun, seeing the bulk of Slate backing toward us.

“You know where you’re going?” he asked.

I tried to get my bearings and nodded. “He said it should be in the anti-grav generator halls. Under the level-three air ducts.” I wished it was closer to our entry point, but Kareem hadn’t counted on us being attacked when we arrived.

“Lead the way. I’ve got your backs,” he said.

We moved down the hall, sweat dripping down my arms as nervous energy raced through me. “What are they?” I asked.

“Big. Bigger than me. Heavy armor. Nothing we’ve seen before, but they may match the Bhlat description we’ve heard. It was hard to tell with them firing at me,” Slate said.

Bhlat. The name sent shivers through my spine; my finger crept closer to the trigger on my weapon. Our footsteps clanged on the floor, echoing down the quiet halls. I kept thinking how they must be hearing it, they would be around the corner; but for that first section, it was all quiet.

The anti-grav wheel spoked out at four points, and the door to the third one was my target. We made it there in peace, and I tested the handle. The electric pocket door hissed open, causing me to jump and almost fire my gun. My nerves were getting the best of me. We’d only been walking on the ship for five minutes and it felt like an hour to me.

“Go get it, Dean. I’ll watch the door.” Slate slipped inside after us, and the door hissed shut. The room was confined, with a manual hatch leading down the massive wheel spoke, for lack of a better term.

“I wasn’t planning on having the Bhlat here. Kareem said we need their DNA to activate it.” The device was awful in a humanitarian kind of way. The Deltra had built the Shield as a way to keep Kraski away from it, and in a small area, the high-density few-kilometer radius killing them instantly, as I’d seen when we’d destroyed them in their own vessel last year. The image of them melting from their proximity to the Shield still haunted me, and there I was, hunting for another weapon of mass destruction with even more power.

“I’m coming with you, Dean. We can’t get separated. We’ll be stronger together,” Mary said.

Part of me wished she would stay behind and be protected by Slate, and another part was happy to have her by my side. I tried to spin the hatch wheel, grunting at the stubborn thing. Mary joined in, and just when I was about to ask Slate for a hand, it started to move. We spun it open and saw a ladder heading upward.

“I’ll take the lead,” I said, climbing into the tube. It was a few feet wide, but not spacious by any stretch of the imagination. The rungs were metal, coated with small flakes that gave it grip. I raced up the first few; but looking up, I saw it went on for what appeared to be forever, so I slowed, pacing myself for the climb. We passed a small hatch that would exit to level one of the grav-system. Level three was our destination.

Pulse laser fire erupted from below us, and I had the urge to get Mary to pass me so I could get between her and any potential fire. But they could be above us too.

“Just keep moving. Slate’s trained for this,” she said, pushing my foot lightly. I listened without hesitation, adrenaline speeding me up as we made our way past the second hatch.

“Almost there,” I said, straining to hear gunfire below. Nothing. “Slate, come in,” I said. Nothing but static returned. “We’ve lost contact.”

The third hatch was upon us, and my muscles burned as I climbed toward it. This one spun easier than the one below had, and I climbed through the four-foot diameter hole, sticking my hand out to help Mary into the room. It was pitch black, and finally, I could feel the wheel we were in spinning. Our feet were planted on the ground from the gravity it was creating, and while I didn’t quite grasp the science very well, I was happy for it.

“Where is it?” Mary asked.

“He hid it. For good reason, apparently.” The room was bathed in green from my helmet display, and I scanned for the crate Kareem had told me about. It was there, right where he’d said it would be! My heart raced as I ran to it. There was another door to the room, a normal humanoid-sized one, perfect to accommodate the tall, lanky Deltra. As I approached the crate, the door hissed open. Mary was a few feet away, the doorway separating us. We both had our backs pushed against the wall, and I held my breath. Something walked into the room slowly, feet clanking heavily on the metal floors. It was huge: seven or eight feet when it stood straight after bending for the too-small entrance.

Mary didn’t hesitate. She stepped out in front of it and fired. It grunted and pushed back through the doorway, hitting its helmeted head on the way out. Red beams shot from my rifle as well, and it lay there twitching before Mary fired a kill shot at its head. The helmet burst open, exposing a thick-faced monster.

Shots fired in the distance, and Mary stood like a superhero. “Get the device. You have your DNA right here.” She kicked the body and ran down the hall, firing like a commando.

“Don’t leave. You don’t know what’s out there!” I yelled to her, but it was too late. She was long gone.

I stood there like a fool, holding the rifle and staring at the dead Bhlat for at least a minute. “Clare, they’re here. Keep your eyes out for any incoming ships.” I finally had the common sense to tell the ship what was going on.

“Slate told us. We’ve lost contact with him. Is he okay?” Clare’s voice came through, asking a question I couldn’t answer.

“I don’t know. Over.”

The crate was heavy, full of maintenance tools and spare parts for the anti-grav system. I had to empty it before it would even budge from the spot it’d been sitting in all those years. Soon a pile of junk was spread around the room, and the crate finally moved. The whole floor was sections of metal grates, each about three meters square, attached to grooves in T-bar style metal beams that made up the subfloor. I tugged on the corner square, and it lifted easier than expected. Leaning it against the wall, I looked for the device as Kareem had described it. Where the Shield had been large and heavy, this device was made with similar engineering in mind, but a couple hundred years later. It reminded me of cell phone technology in a twenty-year span, going from the clunky brick design to a computer in your pocket.

Empty. There was nothing down there. I ran my hands along the edges, and just as I was about to get up, I felt a slight protrusion. Excitement raced through me. I had to slide my torso into the opening, leaving my legs and back exposed, but I got the device in my grip, unclasping it from its secure hiding spot.

“I got it, Mary,” I said.

“I killed another one. But…” Her voice trailed off, and I could hear blasts echo from my earpiece and inside the ship.

I needed to get this thing going and help them out there. It had a metal case, made of some lightweight but durable black alloy. It unlatched, revealing a circular device the diameter of a coffee cup base. It whirred to life as I touched it with my nano-fingered gloves. Soft yellow light glowed from the edges, and a white screen blinked on the interface of it. Deltra words scrolled across it, and my heads-up display was kind enough to translate them for me. I hadn’t had a chance to test out this technology, so I was thankful for it.

I clicked the icon that translated to Genetics. The image of a double helix flashed onto the screen, rotating around. Words slid onto the screen, and my HUD translated them to: MISSING DATA.

What had Kareem said? I flipped it around and saw a small button, which I pushed. A small probe extended from it, and bingo, I had it. Now I just needed to get a sample from the huge corpse at my feet, which couldn’t be difficult with all the blood and gore at my disposal. Suddenly, the body seemed repulsive to me, and the power of the device in my hand scared the hell out of every inch of me.

I closed my eyes, seeing the Kraski victims spewing out green bile before crashing to the ground in heaps. Thousands upon thousands of them littered that vessel last year. So much death at my hands. The fact that they were going to kill us didn’t ease my conscience all the time. It was nature. Kill or be killed. Mary was out there somewhere, and she needed me to stop being a baby and get this done. I could think about the moral ramifications later.

The Bhlat’s helmet was half blown off, so that’s where I went, pulling the rest off the corpse’s head. Blood oozed out, red like ours. Its face had a dark pigment; where our noses were, it had three holes on an otherwise flat face, lips thin around a wide mouth, teeth sharp and twice the length of mine. But it was the eyes that threw me off. Swirling green- and blue-speckled eyes stared back at me, and I lifted my rifle for a moment, they looked so full of life. But they weren’t. It was dead.

Cringing, I stuck the probe from the back of the device into the Bhlat’s neck, where a blaster had hit it. The yellow light turned to red and it beeped, transitioning back to yellow. The words GENETICS CONFIRMED appeared on the backlit white screen of the device.

It kicked back to the main menu. ACTIVATE now showed highlighted, and when I hit it, settings appeared. I could adjust the strength, the distance to cover with the pulse, and could rotate through the DNA samples. This scared the hell out of me. With this, I could add human DNA and wipe out our entire race. I almost dropped it right then, but the sounds of battle in the ship through my headset kept me focused.

“Dean, is it working? I’m cornered,” Mary said through my earpiece. She sounded panicked.

Boots clanked in the hall, moving slowly, and it had to be a Bhlat trying to sneak up on me. How many of them were there? And why were they even here?

The steps got closer, and I stood in the adjacent corner to where the floor was lifted, aiming my pulse rifle forward toward the door. The steps stopped, and I could almost hear the Bhlat breathing from just outside the room. The device was in my palm. One click and I could test it. I just had to press CONFIRM on the activate option.

One more step and a boot poked through. My heart beat heavily against my chest, one finger on the trigger, the other hovered over the device icon. I didn’t get to do either as the ship’s lights came on in a steady hum. My night vision gave way to normal as the levels of light increased in the room.

The Bhlat said something in its language, and suddenly, the wheel we were in stopped spinning, the force throwing me across the room fast enough to see the Bhlat’s eyes widen at the sight of me before it went flying down the hall. Gravity was gone.

TWENTY

I’d hit my head on the wall, and my body expected me to fall onto the pile of tools and parts scattered across the floor. Instead, they floated beside me in the room, with no gravity present to keep us grounded. Someone had powered the ship back up and stopped the spinning wheel we were in from moving, stopping the artificial grav unit from doing its job. Air hissed into the room, the life-support system back up and activated.

As I floated there, contemplating what was happening, I noticed my left hand was empty. I’d dropped the device. Grunting echoed from the hall, and I remembered I wasn’t alone. Scanning the room, I saw the device floating there beside a large wrench and a soldering iron.

I pushed off the wall, arcing toward the device just as the massive Bhlat came flying into the room. Its gun flashed beams at me, narrowly missing and cutting holes into the wall behind me. I fired back but missed as well, hitting the roof instead of the large target. I collided with the far wall, with the Bhlat soldier piling into me with some serious velocity.

It felt like being pinned to the wall by a semi-truck. My chest ached, and I nearly let go of my blaster. The training from Slate took over, and I gripped a metal rail on the wall, kicking out with all my strength, sending the Bhlat back a couple feet. It left me just enough time to grab the device.

The Bhlat said something aloud, and my translator attempted a translation but failed. A strange noise emanated from the alien, and I guessed it was laughter. I must have looked like easy prey to such a large creature. His long blaster rose as he floated there, aiming right for my head. He said something else, and the translator annoyingly showed an error again.

The device was in my palm, still waiting for the CONFIRM command to be hit. This time, I did so with ease of conscience. It was kill or be killed, and I understood that now more than ever.

Time seemed to slow. His finger bent to pull the trigger just as I pressed the icon. It hummed quickly, vibrating ever so slightly. I almost didn’t feel the blaster beam rip into my side as the Bhlat nearly exploded before me. In my new slow-motion world, I saw his same green-blue swirling eyes widen just before his face pushed out, blood covering the inside of his mask. The rest of him seemed to melt, and when time started again, he was just floating lifelessly, a massive space suit of blood and bones. I nearly vomited in my own suit, and alarms were going off inside my helmet. The suit had been breached.

That was when I felt the pain in my side. My suit was torn open, blood seeping out into the room and floating around in tiny drops, each visible as I hung there staring forward.

“Dean.” I heard my name in my earpiece over the internal klaxons. It was Mary’s voice.

“Mary, where are you?” I asked, reality snapping back to my muddled mind.

“Main ship, near our entry point. They’re all dead. Are you okay?” she asked, her voice strained.

“I’m okay. Just a little shot. I’m coming down.” I grabbed the Bhlat’s weapon, knowing we wouldn’t have any more trouble from them on the vessel. Getting back down was easier with no gravity, and I was thankful, since my wound wouldn’t stop screaming at me. As I entered the tunnel spoke of the gravity wheel, I used the ladder rungs to pull me down the chute. Much faster than I’d gotten up not ten minutes before, I was back on ground level, in the center of the vessel.

“Where are you?” I asked, feeling like I might pass out. She gave me directions, but I could tell she was hurt. I pushed against the walls; every movement sent shooting pain through my abdomen. Blood trailed behind me, and I was thankful the life-support had come on; otherwise, I’d already be a dead man.

I heard something clank around the hall corner, and I raised my pulse rifle. Just because the device killed the Bhlat on board didn’t mean they couldn’t have had other friends on the ship with them. I moved slowly, my vision fading slightly. I’d lost too much blood. I needed to get to Mary. I needed to see her one last time. Ready to fire at an enemy, I pushed out, floating into the next hall, and saw it was Slate just before pulling the trigger.

“Dean!” he called, and I heard him with my ears, not my earpiece. His suit was banged up badly, and his left arm was floating uselessly at his side.

“Slate! Thank God, Mary is over here,” I said, feeling a renewed sense of energy.

We headed to the third room on the right, where she’d described her location to me, and there were four Bhlat in there with her. Four large floating corpses.

Mary was floating lifelessly as well.

Through the pain, I made my way to her.

“Clare, tell me you’re ready. We’ll be there in two,” I managed to get out, seeking a confirmation they were ready for us.

Mary was still breathing. Her suit was blasted open in a few spots, but none near her chest or head. Normally, I would have freaked out at seeing my beautiful fiancée’s injuries, but I could hardly make sense of anything I was seeing, my vision fading quickly.

Slate took charge, grabbing her, and moved faster than I’d seen him move before, leading me back to the room we’d started the mission in. Our ropes were still there, and we clipped them in.

Slate looked at me with a grim, exhausted expression. Yet he still smiled. “You did well,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear before my world went black.

__________

White light. That was what I saw first. For a brief moment, I thought that was it for me, that I’d passed to the other side, and a small part of me was ready for it.

“Dean, can you hear me?” a familiar voice asked. That wasn’t unusual. Theologians had speculated for years that we might be ushered into heaven by an old friend or loved one. “Dean, you’re back on our ship. Your wound was substantial, but I’ve managed to stop the bleeding and patch you up.”

So much for heaven. I was still in a trip to hell onboard a small spacecraft in the middle of some unknown galaxy.

My bleary eyes cleared and I could finally make out where I was. The bunks were stripped of any clutter, and a form lay on the one across the room from me.

“The medic bay wasn’t big enough for both of you, and I assumed you would both prefer to be in the same room, so we made do with the spare bunk room. Hope you don’t mind,” Doctor Nick said.

The both of us? It all came flooding back. The device, the massive Bhlat soldiers. Mary’s limp body floating there, blood hovering around her.

“Mary!” I tried to sit up, but the pain in my stomach stopped me from lifting more than a couple inches before falling down on my back.

“Dean, you have to calm down. You’ve been through a lot, but you’re healing faster than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

The hybrid blood in me helped with the healing process. Mae’s blood.

“Is she going to be okay?” I asked, seeing her chest rise and fall slowly. That was a good sign.

Nick stood between us, looking every bit the part of the doctor for the first time since I’d met him. He was a natural.

“She’s sustained a lot of wounds, but none in themselves are life-threatening. She was shot in the legs and the left shoulder. The suits are made to prevent the serious burning from the beams, but flesh and veins were still seriously damaged. She’ll be fine, but I have her sedated for the time being, while the grafting heals.”

“Are you telling me you have the ability to graft new skin on this ship?” I asked, dumbfounded.

He nodded, smiling widely. “We do. It’s amazing what we learned from the Kraski databases. I don’t think we’ve even begun to scratch the surface. Give us another ten years to analyze and decipher it all, and we could be living in a world with no illness, disease, or famine for that matter.”

The idea was a lofty one, but admirable. Earth needed hope now more than ever.

“Where’s Slate?” I asked, feeling foolish for not having asked after him yet.

“I’m right here, boss,” the big man said, stepping in from the hallway. “I wanted to give you some privacy while you woke up.” His arm was in a sling. He saw me looking at it. “It’s just sprained. I’ll be back to normal in no time.”

“Slate’s being humble. He dragged you two onto the ship and hasn’t left your side since,” Nick said. “I’m going to go grab some sleep, if you don’t mind. Dean, I left some painkillers beside you. If it gets to be too much, take one and rest.” With that, he left the room, leaving me alone with Slate and my unconscious fiancée.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, sliding a chair up beside my twin bed.

“Do you mind passing me another pillow?” I asked, and he even stuffed it under my head. I cringed at the movement in my gut, but propped up, I could speak to him properly, instead of staring at the ceiling.

“I’m not sure how I’m feeling. We got the device, met the Bhlat, and survived.” I looked over to Mary, hoping to God she was going to be all right. She should have stayed with me. She was always trying to protect others first, and it nearly got her killed.

“That we did.”

“How many did you take on out there?” I asked.

“Killed five of them. By all accounts, there were about twelve or so on board – that we saw. There could have been more hiding out.”

“What were they doing there? If they knew there was a device with the capability to destroy them, why not destroy the station and leave it at that?” I asked, stumped.

He passed me a bottle of water from beside the bed, helping himself to one as well.

“I’m not sure. That’s above my pay grade.”

“Take a stab at it,” I coaxed.

He stared at the wall for a minute. Slate was a trained soldier, but from my experience with him, he was a lot smarter than even he gave himself credit for.

“Kareem said they were chased away, forced to leave the device hidden because they didn’t have their DNA yet. The Bhlat are a big force, we can assume, so maybe they left soldiers here in the off chance the Deltra came back. They pretended it was dead, in hopes of luring them back. Or they’re no better than space pirates, trying to get someone to board, and then stealing their ships. Either way, I doubt they knew about the hidden killing machine Kareem left behind,” Slate said, impressing me with his speculation.

“But fifty years? It doesn’t add up. Unless Mae was able to communicate to them?”

“There was no ship there. They had to have been dropped off some time ago.”

“What happened with the grav-system out there?” I looked to the ceiling, even though I had no idea what direction the Deltra ship stood.

He smiled at this. “We were losing, and I wanted something to turn the tides.”

“Thank God you did, because I was about to get shot.”

“And how did that work out for you?” He nodded at my stomach.

“I got shot,” I said, laughing along with him. “Stop, it hurts.” My hand settled on my wound, which was extremely tender to the touch.

“Sorry, boss. No more jokes.”

“Are we still at the station?” I asked.

“We moved away a few thousand kilometers.” He crossed the room and picked up a tablet. “See?” He showed me the image from the viewscreen on the bridge. The ship lingered there, just in orbit of a gorgeous, lifeless world, particles, water, and ice creating a visually stunning ring around the planet.

“I can’t believe something so beautiful can be so treacherous at the same time,” I said, still staring at the planet on the tablet.

“I had a girlfriend like that in high school,” Slate said, straight-faced at first. Soon we were laughing, and I was literally busting a gut. The pills beside my bed were starting to call for me.

“You guys are going to want to see this.” Clare’s voice came through the room’s speakers. Slate’s tablet switched to the map mode; Clare was pushing through. A small icon blinked once again on it. “Mae’s ship is back and moving fast.”

TWENTY-ONE

“Mae’s ship?” I blurted, hardly able to believe what I was seeing. “How is that possible?”.

“We don’t know. She’s heading out from the asteroid field we passed just now. Maybe she found a way to hide from our sensors inside it.” Clare slapped her palm to her forehead. “We should have gone back and checked. Sit a ship on a large enough hunk of rock, with just the right amount of radioactive metals inside it, and it would probably jam our sensors.”

I nearly smiled at Mae’s move. She’d hidden from us on an asteroid and was now getting away.

“Follow her,” I said.

Three heads turned to look at me, propped up in the captain’s chair wearing a cheap med-suit, and solemnly nodded.

“What choice do we have? If we want to keep the Bhlat from knowing we were here, she’s the last moving piece,” Clare said.

“She has to be exterminated.” Slate stood tall, staring forward toward the map on the viewscreen. His words bothered me, but I knew they shouldn’t. He was right.

“How do we know where she’s going?” Nick asked, still wearing his scrubs.

“We don’t, but we can predict where her current trajectory will take her. We’ll aim for that path, and maybe we can even cross paths. We have the advantage because we can see where she is, but she can’t do the same with us.” Clare was taking charge, and I obliged her. With Mary incapacitated, we needed someone who could fly the ship and think outside the box.

“What do you think she’s doing?” Nick asked.

“She has to be going to the Bhlat. The Kraski are gone, for all we know… but maybe that was a lie from Mae. She had no affiliation with the Deltra, at least none that we knew of.” I thought back to my memories of the Deltra visiting Janine and convincing her to work with them. They, of course, tricked her, just as they had tricked us last year. I looked down at the new Deltra tool I held in my hand and wondered how I had trusted Kareem so quickly. Suddenly, the killing device I was holding made me want to throw up. How had it even gotten into my hands? For all I knew, they were tracking us with it. The urge to release it out the airlock passed over me, but we might still need the damned thing. After that, I was sure I needed to dispose of it, once and for all.

“Make that happen, Clare. Slate, can you give me a hand back to the room? I think I need to rest.” My body was in serious pain, and the events were leaving me lightheaded.

“For sure, boss.” He took most of my weight and soon I was back in the room, lying on the bed looking at the ceiling. I took another pill, and before I knew it, my vision was fading, my brain getting foggy.

__________

“Dean, I’m just going to go for a run. I’ll be back soon, and I’ll make breakfast.” Janine walked over to me at the kitchen island as I was pecking away at my laptop. She leaned over, resting her chin on my shoulder. I turned my head and she kissed my cheek, leaving her freshly applied lip balm. She always wore vanilla. I loved the scent.

“Have a good run. Can we have bacon with breakfast?” I asked. She rolled her eyes.

“Dean, do I go for a run just to counter a couple slices of bacon? Maybe you should join me.” She prodded me in the side with her finger.

“I promise I’ll go next time. I have some work to get done for this afternoon.” It was mostly the truth.

“Okay, babycakes. I’ll be back.” She hopped from one foot to the other, warming up her blood flow. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she didn’t have any makeup on. She was the most beautiful woman I’d even seen.

The door closed, and I went back to working on the Peterson file.

__________

I awoke from the strange dream wondering why I’d remembered that brief moment of my past. It was from eight years ago, probably not even a year after Janine and I had met. The pain pills left my mouth dry, another side effect of the medicine. Finding the bottle of open water on my table, I guzzled half the bottle before setting it down.

The dream had left me shaken, seeing Janine again. Mae looked just like her. I always felt like there was a difference I could notice between them, but since I hadn’t ever seen them together, it was hard to tell. Either that, or my brain filled in the Janine role in my dream with Mae’s face, her nuances.

“Dean,” a coarse voice whispered from across the room.

“Mary!” I exclaimed, so happy she was awake. “I’m here.”

Getting off my bed proved easier this time than the last, and I saw from the tablet on the wall that I’d been out for four hours. The pills really packed a punch.

I pulled the chair Slate had been sitting in and brought it to her bedside.

Mary’s eyes were closed, but she opened them when I touched her hand. It was warm, but not hot to the touch, and I took that as a good sign.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her, squeezing her fingers ever-so-lightly.

She groaned but smiled at me through the pain. “I feel like I fell from a cliff and landed on the ground in a poof just like a cartoon coyote. What happened?”

“You don’t remember? You talked to me, letting me know which room to find you in.”

“No. The Bhlat cornered me, and I tried to shoot my way free, then… nothing.”

“The device worked, and they turned to mush in their suits. It was terrible and lifesaving at the same time. We found you unconscious, and I was barely hanging on. Slate ended up hauling us the pair of us, passed out and bleeding,” I said, getting a slight snicker from her.

“We make quite the team.” She rubbed the back of my hand with her palm.

“We sure do.” I kissed her forehead, getting a shot of pain from my stomach wound, though it felt way better than it had. The hybrid blood was helping me heal from it at a welcome expedited rate.

We talked, and I filled her in on Mae’s ship reappearing. I hated to tell her, but she swore she wanted to know everything. With any luck, we would have time to heal a bit before we were back in battle mode.

“I wish Magnus and Nat were here,” Mary said, mirroring my own thoughts.

“Me too. I still can’t believe they’re married.”

“I wish we were,” Mary said. “I was running around that damned place trying to distract the monster Bhlats and all I could think about was walking on a beach with you, a little boy holding our hands between us. We walked, swinging the boy, sand warm and messy under our bare feet. It was wonderful and scary at the same time. I thought that was it. Like I was having an afterlife vision of what wouldn’t be, if that makes any sense.”

“It makes a lot of sense. I love you, Mary. Let’s go stop Mae from doing whatever it is she’s up to, and go home,” I said, wishing it were that easy.

“Deal. Now where can I find one of those crazy pills you were talking about?”

__________

“Has she changed course at all?” I asked. We were all on the bridge, six days after the adventure that had resulted in two of us being badly wounded. Slate still had a few bruises, mostly healed by that point.

“Nothing substantial. She only moves when there’s something standing between her and her target. Wherever that is.” Clare had gone from bubbly engineer to focused pilot. Mary took some light duties now, but she needed to walk around with crutches, which they surprisingly had stored on the ship.

I passed around the freshly heated freezer-pack dinners, though we really didn’t know what time our internal clocks were working on since we all had such different schedules. With just the five of us, we had to split the small number of chores.

I bent down, passing Clare a dinner plate, and noticed my side didn’t hurt at all any more from the movement. It was almost entirely healed. I only wished Mary had the same success. She was still in a lot of pain, popping more pills than she thought was healthy.

“Where the hell is she bringing us?” I asked for the hundredth time.

“I guess we won’t know until we get there,” Mary said between bites of her heated-up quinoa mixture.

The map on the side of the viewscreen flashed, expanding at Clare’s direction. Mae’s ship icon blinked and was gone, the map zooming out once again.

“Son of a bitch. Another wormhole?” Nick asked.

Setting my plate down, I almost looked for Carey, who would inevitably come sniffing around looking for a way to steal the chicken off my plate. But Carey was on another ship heading to a new world. As the map expanded, and I saw the universe enlarge around us, I suddenly wanted to be sitting back on Earth with Mary and Carey, in front of a fireplace at a resort in Vermont.

“That slows us down a bit, since we were aiming to cut her off on her trajectory. Looks like we can get to that spot in an hour.”

“At least we have time to eat,” Nick said, nearly getting a smile from Clare.

TWENTY-TWO

The wormhole was hard to spot again, but there it was, a window into another galaxy.

“Sending in probes,” Clare said.

“I’m no scientist, but even a theoretical wormhole is near impossible to work, let alone stay open,” I said, baffled by the phenomena.

Clare turned while the probes shot back data. “You’re right. They need an outside force.”

I pondered that before standing up fast, nearly knocking my empty plate over. “Outside force like technology?”

She nodded, pursing her lips slightly. “Sure. If there was a way for them to keep the gateway open, that might make sense. Bear in mind, I have no real understanding of this other than the Hawking books I read in college.”

“Send more probes out. Look for any electrical or nuclear radiance that isn’t coming from us.”

We waited for the results to come back.

“Probe 9351 found something. Wait.” Clare was almost giddy with excitement. “9714 found the same results.”

“Take us to one, please,” I said, standing behind the helm’s console.

Slate zoomed on the coordinates, and we saw a hovering satellite. No doubt this was one of the things keeping the gateway open.

“Look, I find this fascinating too, but every second we stay here looking at this piece of alien metal, Mae is getting closer to her target,” Slate said, clearly agitated.

“Just record their emittance frequency, and let’s get out of here.” I had a plan for when we passed back through the fold in space. If we came back.

Soon we were hovering in front of the wormhole. I was holding the device with Bhlat DNA affixed to its sensors. Just holding it was making me feel better about going into the mouth of the beast.

“Everyone strapped in this time?” Mary asked from her seat.

“Affirmative,” Slate said after a quick scan of the bridge.

“Three… two… one.” Clare eased the ship into the opening, and it felt like we entered the gates of hell. The ship lurched back and forth, like a boat in a tumultuous storm on the sea. The inertial dampeners, already patched up after our last venture, kicked in and out, and it felt like my head was going to rip clean off my shoulders. As badly as I felt, I worried for Mary as we tossed about, but just as quickly as it started, it ended as we exited the other end.

“Are you all okay?” I asked, getting out of my seat to cross over to Mary.

Her eyes were closed, and blood ran from her lips. My hand ran to her face, and her eyes darted open. “It’s all right. It’s just me,” I said calmly.

Her fingers traced her mouth, coming away with her blood on the tips. “I’m fine. I bit my tongue.”

“Well, that was better than the first time,” Slate said, getting up too. The map had zoomed once again, and Clare left the bridge to check on the engineer room. “She’s not using her FTL yet. That could mean a couple of things. Either she’s having trouble with her ship or the target’s near.”

Slate looked every bit as imposing as I’d seen him before. If I didn’t know better, he was itching for a battle; a final showdown.

Clare’s voice came through the console speakers. “Everything checks out here. We should be good to go.”

Mary moved to the helm position, though I could see her wince in pain at doing so.

“She’s slowing down,” Mary said, pointing to the map. “We’ll be at her location in thirty minutes.”

“It’d be a lot faster if we just toss this baby into FTL for a minute,” I suggested, getting a smile in return from Slate.

“I like the cut of your jib, boss. I’ll suit up. Care to join me?” he asked, and I didn’t answer because he wouldn’t like to hear what I really thought. I just nodded sullenly, anxious for a resolution to this chase, but worried about what that outcome would look like.

I felt my pocket for the Deltra device and couldn’t find it. Panic coursed through my body until I found it on the ground across the bridge. It must have gone flying when we were jostled around in the wormhole.

I pressed the touchscreen, and yellow light glowed in a ring around it. Everything looked fine.

“Be careful,” Mary said.

I leaned over, giving her a deep kiss, long enough to make a sailor blush.

“I love you,” I said, hoping it wasn’t for the last time. She mouthed it back to me, a tear falling down her cheek.

Leaving that bridge was the most difficult thing I’d ever had to do, and considering what I’d been through, that meant a lot.

“Nick, what are you waiting for? Suit up,” Slate said, causing the doctor’s mouth to fall open.

“What? Me? Out there?” Nick stammered.

“Why do you think I’ve been training you? So you can go home and win the Hill Valley state karate competition?” Slate asked.

“Oh crap, you’re serious,” Nick said.

“It’s time for the big leagues, my friend. Don’t worry; we just need you for backup. We still don’t know what we’re getting into,” Slate said, and I saw Nick’s tense look loosen up a little.

The corridor to the weapons room felt longer this trip.

“What do you think we’re going to find?” I asked Slate while Nick was busy getting his assigned suit on.

“She might be bringing us right into the hive of the enemy. Good thing you have that weapon,” he said, nodding his chin to the device in my hand.

As much as I wanted to protect Earth, I wasn’t sure genocide of a race was the answer this time.

“Of course, we’ll still need to eliminate Mae when it’s said and done,” Slate whispered in my ear.

I solemnly nodded, still not believing we had to kill my close friend. I felt so used by her.

“Don’t worry, boss. I’ll make the shot if that helps.”

It didn’t. “I’ll do what’s necessary.” The words came out, but I didn’t recall saying them.

We got suited up, leaving our helmets off, and lined them beside our weapons in the storage room next to the ropes and tethers. I pushed the pin on Nick’s collar just long enough to see him glow green as Slate held him.

“I’m not looking forward to this,” he said.

“Just press this, push yourself through on this bar” – I lowered the bar from the center of the room – “and don’t forget to strap in. You don’t want to end up floating around in space. We haven’t had a chance to train you on the suit’s propulsion system yet.”

This just made him pale more, if that was possible. A year ago, I would have looked just like him, but I’d been thrown into a desperate position with no other options.

“You guys have to see this.” Clare said through the speakers.

We crossed the ship and entered the bridge, amazed at what we were seeing.

“Our cloaking tech is functional, right?” I asked.

“They can’t see us,” Clare said.

The viewscreen showed us a planet in the distance, and one of the two stars in the system, on opposite corners of the planets, which made for a complicated orbit pattern and had to be hell on days and nights. Maybe whatever life was on them had adapted to that, if there was any life.

Before us was a satellite, a small moon for the closest planet, which reminded me of a sand-colored Mars. The viewscreen zoomed, and there was Mae’s ship, hovering near the moon.

“Look.” Mary zoomed closer and we saw a structure on the surface. It stretched out in an intricate system of halls leading to an assortment of outbuildings. There was obviously no atmosphere, and probably very little gravity, so they had a sealed colony.

Beside the structure, three ships were settled on the rocky surface.

“This looks like an outpost. We must be closer to their home galaxy,” Slate said, clenching his fists. “We can’t let Mae get to them.”

Mae’s ship was just hovering there. She was either contemplating her next move, or she was waiting for clearance. Clare tried to scan all communication frequencies, but nothing came across.

The good news was, they still didn’t know we were there.

“What do we do?” I asked, looking to Slate for guidance.

“We go down there, activate that death tool you have, and blow up Mae’s ship.” He said it so straight-faced, it startled me.

“What if there are more than Bhlat down there?” I asked, playing devil’s advocate.

“That’s why we have guns,” he replied, a smile crossing his face. It was more than a little unsettling.

“Does it end here? We stop Mae, we stop the outpost from ever passing on the knowledge we were here, and we go home. Right?” I laid it out and everyone nodded.

The device was light in my pocket, but the weight of what it could do almost caused me to sit down. The good news was, I would just need to use it one last time. To kill the potential enemy before they knew what hit them, in order to keep humanity a secret longer.

“How close do you think we need to be to use it?” Mary asked, not having to say what “it” was.

I shook my head. “I don’t know, but I doubt it will work instantly from a thousand kilometers. I’d say we fly over them and hope they can’t see us, turn it on, get Mae, and go home.” It sounded so easy. Part of me was excited that we might be on the way home in a very short amount of time; the other was tired of having to kill.

“Bringing us in,” Mary said.

Mae was still in space, and we went the long way to avoid crossing her path. The moon was rocky, small hills and mountains jutting out from it. The station was on the flattest part of the moon, which was even smaller in diameter than I had originally thought.

I tried to gauge the size of the room and hall structure as we approached, and put it at about six city blocks long with about twenty separate buildings, each connected with dark corridors, no glass anywhere.

When we hovered above the center of the area, I stood, sliding the device from my breast pocket. Tapping it turned the yellow ring on, and I scrolled to the icons, even though my helmet wasn’t on to translate the text. I remembered which to press.

“God forgive me,” I whispered as I tapped the confirm icon.

“Is it done?” Clare asked.

Nothing on the base looked any different. Were they dead?

The device ring shone red and started to flash. Text appeared over the screen. “I can’t read it, but I think something’s wrong.” Grabbing my helmet from beside my chair, I popped it on, locking it in, and let my HUD fire up. I scanned the device text again. DNA sample insufficient.

“Shit. The DNA sample has failed. Must have messed up when it flew onto the ground when we were tossed around in the wormhole,” I said, my hands nearly trembling. I tapped it a few more times, trying to get it to work, and the same result occurred. I even popped the sample tray open on the back, careful not to add my own sample to it. This thing was dangerous.

“You know what this means?” Slate asked, before answering his own question. “This means we go down there, kill one of them, and get a fresh sample. Then we beam the hell out and destroy them.”

It was as sound a plan as we had. “Couldn’t we just blow them to hell?” This from Nick.

“As much as I agree with the good doctor here, I think we need to get the sample. What if they do find their way to Earth? Having protection against them would be the difference between survival and extinction,” Mary said. I found it hard to argue with her logic.

“Then it’s set. Let’s go, Slate. We’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t leave without us.” I led the way off the bridge, catching a worried glance from Mary. I knew she wanted to be down there with me, but her injuries weren’t healed enough, and it was a lot safer on the bridge than in the spider’s web we were about to jump into.

Nick was there beside us, passing us our rifles. He slid his helmet on. “Call me and I’ll be right there.”

Slate clapped him on the arm. “Dean, you ready for this? We isolate a Bhlat, incapacitate him, take the sample, activate the thing, and walk out of here.”

“Deal,” I said, pressing my pin, green light covering me once again. Nervous sweat dripped down my back and sides as I pushed on the bar, passing through the floor of the ship and into the light atmosphere of the moon, before crossing through the two-meter-thick ceiling of the building we hovered above.

I emerged in a room, gun ready to fire at will, but it was nearly dark, soft lights coming from some wall computers. Slate was beside me; we unlatched our belts and made our way to the doorway.

“All we need is one.” Slate took the lead. The door slid open at our foot pressure, making more noise than I wanted. So much for stealth.

The hall went both directions, lights glowing along the floor. It was quiet. Left or right. Right would lead us to a group of larger buildings we’d seen from above, so Slate led us left, probably assuming there would be fewer enemies that way.

We walked quietly, our rifles held up, ready for action.

“Guys, Mae’s on the move. She’s landing in their shipyard,” Clare said in my earpiece.

“That doesn’t change anything,” I said, Slate nodding firmly. He motioned to keep moving, and we approached another door to the left. Slate stepped in front of it, gun ready to blast, and it opened. He rushed in, gun moving from side to side, but the room was empty. It looked like weapons storage, and Slate’s eyes widened at the sight of huge alien guns lining the walls.

“Later,” I assured him.

Alarms clanged through the halls, and I winced at the volume. They knew we were here.

TWENTY-THREE

“What do we do?” I asked.

“We keep moving,” was the reply I got.

We checked each room. Some were empty; each served a different purpose. Whatever this place was, these guys were there for the long haul, or at least intended to be. Bunks lined the walls of a massive open space, enough room to sleep fifty of the large warrior race.

Where were they all? We passed the kitchen and mess hall, and I couldn’t help but feel they weren’t so different than we were. Maybe there was hope we could all get along. Seeing the look of grim determination on Slate’s face, I doubted it. Hell, humans couldn’t even get along with themselves.

Slate slid a finger in front of his mouth in a shushing motion and crept forward slowly. “There’s a group of them ahead. This is one of this side’s larger rooms. Maybe an auditorium.”

The alarms still blazed, but not as loudly, and soon the sound went away, leaving just the flashing lights to annoy us. I snuck a peek but quickly turned around, feeling like one was about to sneak up on us at any moment. The coast was clear. These Bhlat weren’t uniformed. Instead, they wore something akin to a jumpsuit. They weren’t carrying weapons, either.

They kept moving in the same direction as us, and we poked our heads into the next room. It looked like a large laboratory, with indecipherable mathematic formulas on digital screens. The structure to them looked quite different than anything I’d ever seen, yet eerily familiar at the same time. My HUD translator read what it could understand to me, and it still made no sense.

“Maybe it’s a science station,” I said.

“It doesn’t make a difference.” Slate was trained for a mission, and he wasn’t going to sway from his objective. His linear warrior mind was focused on the task at hand, and my mind was moving a mile a minute which, after our faster than light travel, might not have been so fast.

Alien voices flowed down the halls toward us, a deep vibrating language different than our own. My translator spilled out what it could, constantly getting better as it learned more.

She comes alone. Talleidudne will be happy shiguedbggr is here. Time poloo answers.

They knew Mae was there.

We ducked into the science lab and waited as two hulking forms passed by, talking away, their voices muffled so my translator couldn’t pick them up.

“Keep going,” Slate said.

We approached the space where the group had emerged from a few minutes ago and entered an amazing room. Chairs lined the center of the space, and a glowing platform sat in the middle of the room. Either a stage or… a projector. My gut leapt as I realized this was a communication hall. They had probably been in there talking with a leader from a faraway planet, but they didn’t know the humans were here. They did seem to know Mae was, though, and it was only so long before they spotted the abnormal cloaked ship hovering above them.

Slate was right, we needed to end this now. Something rustled near the back of the room, and Slate fired a quick shot, killing the computer tablet on the wall, shutting the lights down. The helmets’ night vision sprang to life, and we covered the doorway so no one could get through. I stayed at the door while Slate headed toward the noise. I heard and saw three quick red pulse beams, and then silence.

“Slate?” I whispered into my mic.

“I got one, boss. Get the device and let’s do this thing once and for all.”

I moved to his location, seeing a Bhlat smaller than I expected. It was slender, and less ridged than the ones we’d encountered. I almost dropped the Deltra weapon when I realized what that meant. It was a female of their kind.

“Doesn’t matter,” Slate said, “just do it.” He was proving to be quite the robot, but that might have been what I needed right then.

Sliding the DNA sample stick from the back, I found a wound from the rifle, took a deep breath to stifle the wrongness of what I was doing, and jabbed it in. The device whirred to life again, following the same pattern as it had before.

“Make it snappy,” Slate called to me as we heard the door slide open.

What is idpewa here? a Bhlat asked into the darkness.

Slate fired a few rounds, and I heard two forms slump to the ground before the alarms raised again.

“What’s happening down there, Dean?” Mary’s voice came through my earpiece. I ignored it, not wanting to talk, mostly because I was holding my breath as I waited for the device to be ready to work.

“Dean, there are more coming!” Slate yelled.

“Come on, come on,” I said, and the icon glowed green. I hesitated, seeing the dead female Bhlat on the ground before me, and the door opened once again, laser fire blasting into the room at us. I nearly dropped the device; Slate grunted and ran across the room, shooting a volley of red death on the Bhlat.

Everything slowed for me for a split second. Laser fire inched around the room, Slate’s yells turned to slow-motion calls from the movies, and all there was on the moon was this device, and fifty living beings. I pressed the button, and time caught up.

“Thank God,” Slate said from twenty meters away. He was on the ground, green in my night vision. The Bhlat were all down, not a breath left in their alien bodies. I found, at that moment, that I wanted to know more about them: everything about their race, but I knew nothing, and I’d killed them without so much as the press of a touchscreen icon.

We’d been told they were evil, and that they would destroy us, but could we trust the hybrids or Deltra after all they’d done to us?

“Dean, what the hell is going on down there?” Mary asked again, this time not so cordially.

“Mary, we’re okay. It’s done.”

“What about Mae?” she asked.

I’d nearly forgotten about her. “Slate, are you okay?” I asked, moving to his slouched form.

He got up, dusting his uniform off. “I tripped on something, but no worse for the wear. Just a twisted ankle, and my arm’s still tender. We have to find Mae, and quickly.”

We entered the hall, stepping over the melted forms of the unarmored Bhlat, Slate hardly noticing them at all.

“I’ll go left, you go the way we came,” I said, taking the lead.

Slate’s large frame moved quickly down the hall as the sunken corridor lights flared red, alarms still blaring along the way. I tried to not look at the corpses spread around the floor. Some might have been children; most were unarmed.

“Mary, we’re searching for Mae. Is her ship still docked?” I asked.

“She’s still down there. Do you need assistance?” Mary asked through my earpiece.

We probably did, but the last thing I wanted was the doctor or my injured fiancée to be running around the outpost, looking for our missing hybrid.

“We got this. Whatever happens, don’t let that ship get away.”

“Affirmative,” came the stiff reply.

The outpost had wide corridors, probably enough room for three of the large aliens to walk side by side, and the ceilings were at least ten feet. The sound of a sliding door down the hall caused my heart to race, and I slowly moved toward it, firmly holding my rifle. The door was closed, and I stepped forward, letting it slide open as I moved to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of what was inside. It looked like a classroom of some sort, but I didn’t see anyone inside from that quick glance.

This time, I raised the rifle, moving through the entrance, spinning to the left and then to the right, before suddenly getting kicked in the knee as Mae came into view from the near corner of the room. My blaster went off, hitting the ground in a smoldering beam.

“Mae, listen,” I tried to say before getting kicked in the stomach. I was down on the ground in an instant, knee aching and breath torn from my lungs.

“No, you listen.” She kicked my gun away, stepping on my hand. It pinned my fingers and palm against the cold hard metal grate floor. “I came here to help you. To tell them you were all gone, dead in the war with the Kraski. This would have bought you a few years. You could have moved to Proxima. But you came here and killed them!”

Anger coursed through me. So she did know them and had left us to meet with them. It all sounded like lies over lies, and if there was a truth left in the story, it was so convoluted and buried, it would be almost impossible to uncover.

“Mae, I believe you,” I lied, hoping she would get off my pained hand. Her foot pressure lessened, and my training from Slate took over. I lifted her foot with all my strength, sending her small frame back a yard while I quickly got to my feet.

She wasn’t holding a weapon, probably not expecting a fight when she’d landed on the Bhlat outpost. We both eyed my rifle on the ground a few feet away, and when she lunged for it, I made my move. I swung my leg toward her body, connecting to her side, sending her sprawling away. She still managed to grip the barrel of the rifle, and while she tried to turn it around at me, I covered the distance and grabbed the rifle as well. We struggled with each other, her back on the ground, me bent over her.

Her injuries had healed nicely. “We found out your injuries at the base on Earth were fake. How did you do it? Hit yourself with a two-by-four?”

“It was the only way to ensure you guys left. I didn’t know where the base and ships were being held, and they would never tell a hybrid. I did it all for your kind. I did it for you.” The last words hung in the air as we struggled for the weapon. She tried to kick out, but Slate had taught me how to prevent that when grappling. The wind was starting to lessen from her sails.

“For me?” Realization came over me. “If you lied about Leslie and Terrance, and needed to find the base… then… it was you.” I couldn’t believe it. I fought in my mind, looking at the face of my close friend Mae, the woman who wore my dead wife’s expression as she started to cry. “You killed that guard Clendening and the other one in the garage.” Images of Clendening, sticky red blood soaked into his bed, and the bloated face of the woman hanging in the office nearly caused me to vomit on Mae right there.

“I had to. It was the only way for you to focus on them. I knew they were making a move to get off-planet. I knew everything that happened at that damned prison in Long Island.”

It all made sense. They just wanted to get to a ship to see if Kareem would take them in, and Mae used it against us, used our hatred of hybrids to fuel their capture, even though they wanted to get caught. They fed off each other, even if the pair hadn’t known it.

“You had to kill them in cold blood?” I asked.

“The ends justify the means. Just look around down the hall at all the innocent Bhlat you killed. Or the race of Kraski you ended to protect your own. We’ve both done terrible things, Dean, but I did them for you.”

She stopped struggling then, letting me take the rifle from her. She was right, but I still didn’t put those in the same category. I supposed it was a matter of perspective.

Mae looked so small on the floor as I raised the pulse rifle. She was far from helpless.

“You killed those guards to perpetuate our hatred, so we would follow them when they escaped?”

She nodded.

“And then made us think they assaulted you as they escaped? Did you have anything to do with them getting out?”

She nodded again. “They didn’t know it was me, though.”

“What were you doing here? For real? Why not just tell us you knew them, and that you could help us? Didn’t you trust us? Didn’t you trust me?” I asked. Her eyes welled up with tears.

“You wouldn’t have believed my story. I was turned by them years ago. I had so much anger, and nowhere to focus it. The Bhlat didn’t ask for much. They offered me a place with them when it was all over, but they really just wanted information. The Kraski were just a nuisance to them, but they were intrigued by their cloning ability, and we hybrids were something of a legend to them. At first, I thought they would dissect me, or throw me in a lab, but they treated me with respect and honor. It was the first time anyone had shown me respect, knowing I was the hybrid of a dying race and a human. The whole mission sparked their interest.” Mae slid over, sitting up so her back was against the wall.

“Go on,” I said, gun still raised.

“I hated the Kraski.”

They had wronged the hybrids, creating them to sacrifice themselves to convince humans to shut down the Deltra Shield, but there had to be more to the story.

“I feel like I’m missing something.”

“You are, babycakes,” she said, tears falling down her face. The pet name Janine had called me when we first started dating, but seemed to grow away from, hit me like a brick wall. Why had Janine’s phrase for me been uttered by Mae?

Looking at her curled up in the dim room, hair in her face, tears streaming down her cheeks, I suddenly understood. The pulse rifle fell from my hands, clanging on the ground. I knelt before the crying woman, my own eyes watering without control at that point.

“It’s you,” I said, hardly believing it.

She nodded.

“How?”

I was holding her wet face in my hand. “They were pissed at me for choosing you instead of that beefed-up military guy. They almost killed us both, but I convinced them I was right in choosing you. They let me stay with you that first year. You proposed, and it was so sweet. One day I went for a run, and they picked me up, told me I was being replaced, and that I was now named Mae. No one was to know. I met the other Janine, and they beat me when I wouldn’t cooperate by telling them intel on you. I guess they had enough, because they gave her my clothes and sent my replacement back to you.”

I slumped to the floor, looking at the real Janine sitting on the floor of an alien outpost so far away from home. The dream from the other day flashed in my mind, and I recalled that day. I remembered how strange Janine had been for a few months after that day, and how I’d let it go because she’d always seemed distant and brooding. Now it all made sense. I married another hybrid, lived with her for years. Watched her die. I had loved that woman too, and I honestly think a part of her had loved me, but Mae was the real one. The woman I’d met at the Boathouse in Central Park so long ago, drinking Scotch with me under the twinkle lights late into the night. Choosing me to help their cause over the other guy. My life would have been a lot simpler without that night. Maybe I’d be dead… maybe everyone would be.

It was too much to take as the alarms around us rang, red lights flashing from the hall. “How is this possible?” I asked, slumping beside her on the floor.

Could we go back to Earth like this? How would we explain it to the others? How would I explain it to Mary?

“Dean, I’m sorry it all worked out like this. You can’t imagine my thoughts when I saw you fly through that door on the vessel ship last year. It was a sign. It gave me renewed hope, and I kept telling myself that you would recognize me, that you would tell me you were in love with me still. But then you were with Mary, and I stepped back,” she said. I thought of all the times Mae seemed down, in a dark mood, and it made even more sense.

I held her hand, squeezing her fingers just like I used to do, and she rested her head on my shoulder. I almost laughed at the insanity of it all. The woman I’d fallen in love with that night, so many years ago, wasn’t the same woman I’d married and watched die. She was beside me on a remote outpost of an alien race we hardly even knew.

“Do the Bhlat know what happened?” I asked her.

“About the humans? I talked with them right as I got here, but they didn’t communicate it out yet, as far as I know. They didn’t have time.”

“We go to the ship, blast this place to smithereens, go home, and pray they don’t come for us.”

“I don’t think they will. It sounded like they were in the middle of a serious galactic battle out there, a long way away. They have a dozen outposts like this set up to ensure they keep the bloodlines intact, just in case.” Mae seemed to know a lot about them. I looked at her, and suddenly found it hard to believe I hadn’t known she was really Janine. My Janine.

“Are you ready?” I asked, getting to my feet.

“How is this going to work? Will they take me back?” She took my hand and got up.

“We’ll tell them what you told me. You were going to sacrifice yourself to go to their outpost to tell them there was no point in worrying about the humans. You knew we wouldn’t go for it, so when you saw the opportunity, you took it.” It seemed like the truth, at least the version she’d given me.

“And what about the other part?” The question came with a look I’d seen many times that first year with Janine. A cute, coy look.

I loved Mary, but this complicated things. Every bit of me knew I was going to marry her, but having my first real love nearby wasn’t going to make travelling in close quarters an easy task.

“We tell her. It’s only fair,” I said. She didn’t press me on my feelings, and I was thankful.

“Thank you, Dean.”

“For what?”

“Just for being you.” She moved to the door, and I was about to transmit to the ship that I had Mae with me, and we were coming back.

Mae took a step through the room’s exit and into the hallway, taking the time to turn toward me and give me a small grin. Then she fell to the ground. My brain didn’t understand what was happening until I saw the pulse rifle wound through her uniform, blood spilling down the metallic floor grates.

“No!” I yelled, grabbing my rifle from the ground.

“Target down. I repeat, target down.” Slate’s voice echoed from my earpiece and down the hall.

TWENTY-FOUR

“Nick, get your ass down here, stat,” I called into my earpiece as I ran into the hallway. Kneeling at Mae’s body, I checked for a pulse, and felt a light heartbeat.

“You okay, Dean?” Slate asked, setting a hand on my shoulder.

I swiped it off with an aggressive elbow. “You son of a bitch. You didn’t have to shoot her!”

“What are you talking about? That was our mission. I saw the target and took her down.”

I stood up, lifting my head to look up in the soldier’s eyes. Grabbing his collar, I pushed him against the wall, which normally would have been impossible, but he seemed to let me.

“It was your mission, not mine! I never asked for any of this. I’m an accountant from a small upstate New York city!” I shoved him a few more times, and he stood there, allowing the barrage of yells and abuse.

Nick came running down the hall, a panicked look showing even through his helmet’s face mask. It was one thing to green-beam down somewhere for the first time, but he walked into a place with melted aliens on the floors, a shot hybrid beside us, and me screaming at Slate.

He moved past us, going quickly into trained doctor mode, and opened Mae’s uniform up, seeing the gaping wound in her stomach. He checked her pulse and looked up with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry. She’s dead,” he said, his voice small.

“She had a pulse. Revive her!” I yelled at him now.

He shook his head. “There’s nothing I can do for this.” His eyes went from me to the deadly wound.

Mary’s voice came through my earpiece, and I couldn’t even comprehend the words. I was surrounded by death once again, and by all accounts, there was no one to blame but myself.

__________

“I’m sorry, Dean.” Mary sat on the edge of the bunk where I lay curled under the blankets. Two days had passed since the outpost adventure, and I still felt like a mess. Slowly the fog was lifting, and like anything, I knew the pain would eventually dull and pile on top of the rest of my life’s memories, both good and bad.

I turned, looking her in the eyes. “Thank you.” I had told her everything that transpired between me and Mae. She went on the emotional rollercoaster alongside me, as I talked then, and I was so happy she understood. We shared a bond; we had both married a hybrid and were in very similar mental states about it. Only she had never felt like Bob was truly in love with her, especially after learning the truth of their motives.

“We’ve downloaded everything from their computer databases that we could. I imagine we’ll learn all we ever wanted to know about the Bhlat with it.” Mary slid her uniform off and slipped into the bed with me. Her body was cool against my warm, blanket-covered chest.

“All the explosives are in place. We can blast them and erase all the evidence we were here. I don’t see how they could track any of this back to us. Clare’s good to bring the Kraski ship back?” I asked. We’d discussed blowing it up with the rest of the outpost, and their ships, but decided it was a valuable resource we shouldn’t part with if possible.

Mary was face to face with me, her breath sweet and fresh as she spoke. “She is. Slate will go with her.”

At the mention of the soldier, I closed my eyes, seeing Mae fall to the ground. I couldn’t stop seeing it.

“That’s good. Probably for the best,” I said. “If we’re here, who’s setting the explosives off?”

As if on cue, Clare’s voice came from the speakers on the wall. “Are you guys coming for the show?”

“Just video-record it. We’re busy,” Mary said, and we heard the line of communication close with a beep.

“We are?” I asked.

Instead of answering with words, her lips found mine, and soon I saw there were ways to find happiness still in the midst of so much loss.

__________

“And how is Slate going to fly the ship by himself?” Mary asked Clare. We were standing on the bridge, all in uniform, even though I wished I could be wearing anything but the Earth Defense badge at that moment.

Clare shrugged. “He said he could handle it. I imagine he has some military stims or something. The ship does have somewhat of an autopilot when we’re in FTL and not needed to maneuver. Plus, he’s really cranky.” Her eyes locked with mine for a brief moment before she looked back to Mary.

“What about Nick?” I asked.

“What about me?” the doctor asked back.

“Couldn’t you go keep him company? It’s only a couple of weeks,” I said. As much anger as I felt at Slate for shooting Mae, I couldn’t really blame him.

“Let’s get through the first wormhole and convince him to take Nick or Clare on board.” Mary’s idea was a good one.

Mary sat at the helm and communicated over to Slate that we were leaving. Slate was already in the Kraski ship alone, having flown it into space before detonating the explosives below. I looked to the images where the Bhlat outpost once sat, and it was nothing more than rubble and small craters.

The wormhole wasn’t far, so we didn’t hop in FTL like we had to beat Mae only hours before. Only hours. I couldn’t believe it. It felt like a week had passed since we’d approached the outpost. We all sat on the bridge, our task done, but somehow, I couldn’t help but feel like we hadn’t accomplished much. We’d found out what the hybrids were up to. I learned that Mae was the one to kill those guards in cold blood and realized that Mae was right. There was no coming back for her after that, unless we lied about it, and by doing that, we would have pinned it on Leslie and Terrance, who would never have their voices heard for the hybrids.

I wondered if President Dalhousie would let the hybrids leave. I hoped for their sake she would. They had been through so much. Created to deceive humans, then asked to sacrifice themselves and fly into the sun with vessels full of billions of us. Now we kept them in a cage, pretending everything was normal. It wasn’t. If she didn’t let them leave, I was going to make it happen.

“We’re here,” Mary said, slowly flying us to the wormhole.

“Wait, what is that? I asked, seeing a yellow icon appear on the map. It was nothing more than a glowing circle, moving quickly toward us.

“Slate, we have incoming,” I said through the ship’s comm-link.

“I see that, boss. I don’t expect it to be a welcoming party. You guys head into the wormhole and stick to the plan. I’ll hold them off.” Slate’s voice was grim.

“We can’t do that. We’ve already lost one of our own.” I wished I could take the words back as soon as I said them.

Mary zoomed on the approaching ship, and it matched the ones parked at the outpost. Probably a Bhlat ship on a supply run. They may have gone home to find everything gone, and now they would be seeking revenge.

“Just do it.” Slate’s ship veered off from our path to the wormhole as he attempted to take the Kraski ship away and lead the Bhlat with him. We were almost invisible to their eyes, but we didn’t know much about their sensors. Since we’d been able to sneak onto their outpost without them knowing, we most likely would be safe hiding in plain sight from them.

“We have to help him!” Clare yelled.

I sat in the captain’s chair, my head aching fiercely. We could just leave, go through the wormhole, and destroy it. If Slate survived, it would be a long trip home, but he would eventually make it. Years later.

If he survived.

“Dean, make the call,” Mary said, and I was almost surprised they were waiting on me to decide a man’s fate. As if I hadn’t had enough of that already.

We were survivors. I wouldn’t abandon the soldier. If I did, I was no better than our enemies.

“Follow them. We sneak up behind and give them a show. The Bhlat won’t know what hit them.” I was done feeling sorry for them, or myself. I just wanted to get my friends home, and away from this new threat.

Nick paled to the right of me as Mary swung us around, racing after the two blinking icons on our map.

We could finally see them in the viewscreen as they darted around, Slate trying to lead them on a wild goose chase away from us.

“Slate, we’re on their ass.” I stood watching the boxier Bhlat ship fly after the sleek silver ship Slate was racing away in.

“You had your window to leave!” He sounded angry with us.

“Just work with us, and we can be on the other side of that wormhole in time for lunch,” Mary said calmly.

I hopped to the console next to Mary and took control of the weapons. We hadn’t tested the new ones yet, but Slate had gone over them with us a few times, and I’d done well in the training programs.

“Slate, slow down,” Mary said. As soon as he did, yellow fire erupted from the Bhlat ship at him, narrowly missing him.

“They’re hostile.” I could almost hear his grin.

“You think?” I asked.

“Loop around behind us. I’m going to thrust facing up, and we’ll blast the hell out of them.” Mary had her Air Force persona on now.

Slate’s ship did just that, and we saw him fly over our viewscreen, quickly followed by a firing Bhlat ship. It was my turn. I aimed, letting the computer calculate their trajectory, and then fired the pulse gun. Red beams shot out, one hitting the ship. It kept flying, the small explosion not slowing it.

“I think you angered them,” Clare whispered as we saw their volley of fire increase, and one hit the Kraski ship Slate was trying to maneuver.

“They know I’m not alone now,” Slate said. “My shields handled that blast, but I don’t think they can handle any more.”

Their attention shifted toward our position, and though they couldn’t see us, it didn’t stop them from firing at will in our direction. Mary swept us away, avoiding the barrage.

“Wait for it,” she said, spinning us around the hard-edged enemy ship. They were still firing, nearly hitting our ship. My eyes darted to the viewscreen, where I could see the icon of Slate coming up above them. He blasted a red rain of fire on them just as I shot a combination of the pulse guns and torpedo, Mary racing away to avoid any crossfire.

The Bhlat ship took the barrage, and for a split second, I thought they might have survived it, before they exploded, the flames quickly disappearing in the oxygen-deprived vacuum of space.

“Woohoo!” Nick shouted, jumping from his seat.

“Let’s not celebrate too quickly. We need to get the hell out of here in case there’s more of them around,” I said.

“I agree,” we heard from Slate on the comm-link, “and thanks for coming back for me.”

“Anytime,” I replied.

We made our way back to the wormhole, this time not lingering at it.

“Everyone belted in this time?” Mary asked. When no one answered, she moved us forward.

“Slate, see you on the other side.” This from me.

“You got it, boss.”

We were off, travelling through the fold once again. We jostled around hard, but we were expecting it, and the trip didn’t feel quite as bad. Moments later, we were through, Slate following closely behind. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“We know what we have to do,” Clare said, keying in the locations of the sensors we’d found on the way the other way.

“Targeting,” I said, seeing the crosshairs of the pulse gun over the zoomed in wormhole stabilizers. “Slate, let’s blast this and get away.”

“We have no idea what kind of reaction we’re in for by destabilizing this. Best to err on the side of caution.” Clare was right.

“Three, two, one.” I fired two rounds, one after the other, and was rewarded with tiny twin explosions. Mary engaged the thrusters, and I changed the viewscreen to show the wormhole behind us. Flashes of light sparked inside it, and seconds later, it was gone. No explosion, no cataclysmic event, just vanished from space.

“That was anticlimactic,” Mary said, grinning at me.

I got up, set my hands on her shoulders, and leaned down to talk into her ear. “We did it. Let’s go home.”

Home. A place in disarray, under threat of aliens and ourselves. I suddenly missed Carey very much, wishing the small wiggly dog was with us. Magnus would be taking great care of him, but who knew what happened to them? I couldn’t wait to get back and see if there was word on their trip.

Mary leaned back, kissing me quickly.

“Home sounds good.”

TWENTY-FIVE

“Who’s ready for my galaxy-famous egg skillet?” Nick asked.

“By galaxy-famous, you mean that mix of boxed egg whites and rehydrated potatoes?” Clare threw a sugar cube at him, which he deftly caught.

“Breakfast sounds amazing.” Mary was in a good mood, and I found myself being so thankful for her around. Without her, I would be spiraling down an alley of despair. I was so in love with her, and what Mae had said didn’t change that. But the fact the real Janine had been with me, ever since finding Mae on that lone vessel last year, had thrown me for a loop. I couldn’t believe she was gone… again.

“Wait, if you’re here, and I’m here, and…,” I said, and it was my turn to take a sugar cube on the head.

“That joke was old last week,” Mary said. We had the autopilot on and would be arriving at the first wormhole the next day.

“Do we shut it down?” Nick asked the question we’d been wondering since we started the trip home.

“If we do, the hybrids are going to have a hell of a trip to the planet Leslie and Terrance are on. If we don’t, we leave a back door open into our solar system,” I said. “My vote is leaving it, and letting the government make the call. They can get back out here to shut it down if they decide to.”

“Slate agreed with that. He’s a soldier who wants to follow orders, not make decisions. So that leaves us,” Mary said.

“I vote leave it.” This from Nick.

“Same.” Clare poured another coffee and offered the pot to me. I extended my cup, letting her fill it up.

“I guess we are unanimous, the wormhole stays.” Mary grabbed a plate of food from Nick, and we all seemed glad to be so close to returning.

So much had happened in the few weeks since we’d left. The universe was huge, and our part in it so small, but I was more thankful for what we had then ever.

“Where will you guys go when we get home?” I asked.

Clare fiddled with her food. “I’m going to go get a fat burger and a beer from this place in Albuquerque. It was open long before the Event, and my dad used to take us there when we’d visit our grandma every summer. I miss them all so much. So I go there, eat a burger, drink a beer, and remember my dad’s laughter, and my brother whining about wanting no onions. I wish I could hear him whining about them again.”

“I’ll go with you. I have a great whining voice,” Nick said, his joke cutting the tension at just the right time.

Clare looked at him solemnly, before bursting out in a loud laugh we hadn’t heard from her before. Eggs spilled out of her mouth, and a snort or two followed, causing more laughter. Soon we were all red in the face, tears filling our eyes for no reason but happiness.

__________

Earth was so close I could almost smell it.

I zoomed in and could finally see the planet in all its beautiful glory.

“Wait. What is that?” Mary asked, pointing to the viewscreen as we raced toward our home. We were all anxious to be back, to set foot on the green grass and take a deep breath of good old American air.

I looked where she was pointing and saw what she meant.

“It looks like a station.” My heart jumped in my chest. Had Earth been invaded while we were gone?

“Slate, stay back for a moment. We can hide, but you can’t.”

“Affirmative, boss,” he replied from the comm-link speaker. His icon slowed and pulled away, heading back the way we’d come from. “Be careful.”

“Let’s come around slowly,” I suggested, and Mary nodded along.

The minutes went by slowly, none of us speaking for fear we would jinx something. Maybe if we blinked, the station would be gone, and everything would be back to normal when we landed. Instead, we saw the picture more clearly the nearer we got.

It was a space station of an intricate design. Ships much like ours hovered nearby, their cloaking not activated. No one seemed to be frantic, so it didn’t seem like a battle was happening.

“What’s happening?” Clare stood at the front of the bridge, touching the viewscreen with her right palm.

“Something tells me they’ve made some changes,” I said.

“In two months?” she retorted.

“What do we do?” Mary asked.

Before I could suggest anything, our radio silence ended. “Identify yourselves, unmarked cloaked ship.” The voice was tense, but in English, and not alien. That was a good sign.

“What’s going on? Can we speak with Dalhousie?” I asked, trying to add authority to my voice.

“Dalhousie? I repeat, identify yourselves.” The voice was getting angrier.

“We’re members of the Earth Defense Unit. Dean Parker here.”

Silence greeted us from the other end of the comm. Mary looked at me and I just shrugged.

“Did you say Dean Parker? What kind of BS is this?” a different voice asked.

“This isn’t bull. I’m Dean Parker, we were sent on a mission by General Heart just before they left. We’re back.”

“That’s impossible,” the voice said. “You’d better come and dock. We need to talk. Ask for Chen.”

“Do we trust this?” I asked, hoping Mary would have a gut feeling about it.

“What choice do we have? Leave?” she asked. Clare’s eyes widened at this.

“Slate, we’re going to find out what’s happening. It looks like the station is Earth’s. You want to join us?” I asked.

“Be right there, boss.”

We waited for him to arrive, and we disengaged our cloaking tech. Together we flew toward the large station, and instructions for docking were sent to our consoles. Things had changed here. But how had they done it so fast?

The station’s outer ring was circular, and not far off the design of the Deltra one we’d first seen the Bhlat on a few weeks ago. The same type of wheel was spinning, and that meant gravity. In the center of it were three huge uniform sections, channels leading between them. This place was bigger than I’d thought when we first laid eyes on it, at least four times the size of the Deltra station.

Behind, or underneath, depending on your perspective, a large hangar sat, a one-way force field letting us in but maintaining pressure. It was quite the feat. A dozen ships like ours sat there, empty.

“Dean, my gut’s telling me something’s wrong,” Mary whispered in my ear. I glanced at Nick, who was staring out the viewscreen with his jaw dropped just enough to look comical.

“We’ll soon find out.”

It had been quite some time since we’d used the ramp to walk off the ship, and my legs were anxious to be off the moving vessel. I led the way toward the storage area, hitting the ramp trigger, and it lowered to reveal two men in a uniform not too far from ours. If ours was an Earth Defense uniform, these were the two-point-oh version. Where ours were gray, they wore black, with a new logo featuring a blue planet, EDU stitched underneath.

I raised an eyebrow to Mary and she looked down at our uniforms, me feeling a little out of place suddenly.

The two guards were young, one man and one woman. We walked down the metal ramp, and they stood there watching us with wide eyes.

“It is you,” the brown-haired man said, hardly audible in the large hangar.

“And you’re you.” I stuck my hand out, shaking both of theirs, one after the other. The rest of our group followed suit, and we learned these two were Haley and Devon.

“The Hero of Earth. I had your poster on my wall,” Devon said.

Poster? “Wait, what?” I stammered.

Slate’s ship settled down across the hangar, and he beamed out of it. Quite the show. His long strides allowed him to cross the distance quickly.

He smiled at the others, the girls hugging the big guy, and Nick gave him a playful punch in the shoulder. He didn’t look me in the eyes, but he said, “I’m sorry, boss.”

I turned to stand right in front of him. “I don’t blame you for anything. Let’s see what all this is about.”

“General Chen wants to see you. Follow us,” Haley said, turning on her heel to walk us away from the hangar.

Nick and Clare walked just behind Mary and me, Slate bringing up the rear. Soon we left through a large doorway and were in a hall with what looked like polished concrete floors and composite walls. Definitely more style to it than the Deltra station we’d seen.

Other uniformed people walked by, some ignoring us, some openly staring. I just smiled at them all, wondering what the hell was going on.

“Right this way,” Devon said, his arm suggesting we walk into a room without him.

“Thanks, you two,” Mary said to the young guards.

We stepped forward, the doors sliding to the side with a soft hiss. The room we entered was a large office, and an older man sat behind a black marble table in the middle of the space, chairs placed all around with room to seat twenty or so.

He motioned us in, standing up and walking toward us with a big smile across his lined face. “If someone had told me the five of you would be showing up on my doorstep, I’d have bet my life it would never happen. Shows what I know.”

“Who are you?” I asked, apparently breaching some protocol, judging by his surprise at my question.

He looked serious, then started to laugh. “I’m General Chen. William Chen. I suppose you’re curious just why we have a station here, and how so much has changed since you left.”

“What we don’t understand is how you did all of this in such a short period of time,” Clare said.

He laughed again. “Yes, I suppose seven years is a quick turnaround to build this, but with the new technology, and the world working together for it, we had it operational in five.”

My stomach flipped. The room was suddenly far too warm as my pulse raced. Deep breath, deep breath. Clare flopped onto a chair, her face drooping, tears falling down her face. Slate stood as stone-faced as his namesake, and Mary looked far too calm as well. Nick just seemed confused by it.

“Are you telling us we’ve been gone for seven years?” Nick asked, sliding into the seat beside Clare and putting an arm around her shoulders.

“That’s right. We have a lot to discuss. What of the hybrids?” he asked, and finally looked around as if realizing someone was missing. “Mae?”

I shook my head, to which he nodded, understanding what I meant by that.

“Before we get into this, what’s happening down there? Are we under any new threats?” Mary took over.

“None we haven’t faced before. Watch.” He hit a button on the table and a projector lowered, flashing a video on the white wall at the left end of the room. He motioned for us to have a seat; someone came in, bringing waters and coffee. It was like being at a meeting with one of my larger clients. If a bar graph showing projected sales had been brought out on a slideshow, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

I took a sip of black coffee while the video started. It was news coverage, dated at the bottom. Within six months of us leaving, and the colony ship with Magnus, Nat, and Carey also gone, the world was in turmoil. China teamed up with the US and other world powers, and they forced a treaty on the rest of the world. Most joined without complaint. Others fought it. Images of the dead in the Middle East flashed on the screen, and I watched, not letting myself look away. In the meantime, a second wave of colonists was sent, about a million in total.

Two years later, the world was in a much better place, though still assaulted by the odd threat or bombing. Eventually, they became less and less, the penalties harsh to anyone not playing their part in world peace. We saw a speech by Dalhousie five years after we left, saying anyone could go to Proxima with the third wave, which would be a whole fleet of vessels if needed. She looked older than she had, tired. Her voice had lost the lift and hope, but her eyes still shone with pride.

The newscast showed us two dozen vessels leaving; over half of Earth’s remaining population was heading for Proxima, which they were touting as Eden. Images of Eden overtook the screen and I was leaning so far forward, I nearly slipped off my chair. It was gorgeous. Lush grass covered rolling hills alongside crystal-clear lakes.

Mary reached over and grabbed my hand, squeezing it.

We saw the creation of the station, where exploratory ships docked and new technology was tested in space. It was a massive undertaking, and more than impressive in its vast scope.

A priest was interviewed in one segment, spouting out some new religion. It was a little off-putting, but he appeared to have a lot of support. A camera flew over fields all over the world, showing healthy crops. Stats of world hunger being under one percent crossed the screen. Poverty didn’t exist, everyone had access to clean water, and illness was way down.

“This is amazing,” Nick said, eyes gleaming as they showed some state-of-the-art hospitals around the world.

“No sign of the Bhlat?” I asked, looking for a reaction from Chen. He sloughed off the question with a wave of his hand, and I didn’t like that one bit.

“I still can’t believe you’re all here.”

A mural panned onto the screen, a reporter interviewing people on the anniversary of the Event. People were crying, remembering their losses. The mural was of Magnus, Natalia, Mary, and me. Of course, they’d left out the hybrid that helped us.

Then they talked about losing us on our wild goose chase of Leslie and Terrance. It was surreal to see people speculate on what had happened to us, and then debate on the value of us even going on that journey.

It was a barrage of information for missing seven years, but for the most part, I was impressed with the state of our new world. I was also happy to know the colony was doing well. Seven years. My pup Carey might not even be with us any longer, and if he was, he was an old man. I’d only had him for a year but felt like part of me was intertwined with him. That I lost that time to spend with him was heartbreaking.

“Do we have contact with the colony?” I asked.

“It takes about a month to relay the messages.”

I nodded, accepting this as reality.

“What do you think?” Chen asked, a glimmer in his eyes.

“I can’t wait to see one of those hospitals! You really found a way to reverse cancer cells?” Nick was almost dancing in excitement beside the table.

“They did. Once we dug deeper, we found so many things the Kraski didn’t even seem to think important any longer,” Chen said.

“Is Dalhousie still here?” I asked.

He shook his head slowly, before taking a sip of his coffee. “She left to New Spero, in Proxima, with the last wave of colonists. We have an elected world government. Valerie Naidoo from South Africa is in charge. World President Naidoo, if you will. Speaking of which, she’d like to have a meeting with all of you.”

Mary smiled at this, and I appreciated the forward evolution we’d taken. Leading this healing planet would be a lot of work, but they finally had the mindset and resources to do it.

“Now what can you tell me about your adventures?” Chen asked.

I started in on our planned story. Meanwhile, our ship was translating the data we’d found on the Bhlat outpost.

TWENTY-SIX

The wheat fields stretched for miles in the remote South African meeting place. As we’d lowered to the Earth, I couldn’t help but feel how different it was on our planet. The air felt cleaner, and even though our technology had vastly improved, there was something that made me feel like we’d stepped back into a simpler time. Food, shelter, happiness for everyone. It was a mantra I could get behind. I looked and made sure Nick had the ring I’d brought along on his finger, turned inward so the green gem wasn’t visible. Slate had an earring on him, though I couldn’t see it. Clare was staying in the ship.

“Quite the place,” Mary said as she landed the ship on a dirt pad. A building stood a short way away, and three Jeeps sat parked beside it. “You sure all this is necessary?”

“Looks like this is a low-key meeting. We’re survivors, and we didn’t make it this far by being naïve.”

Mary rolled her eyes at that. “Well, maybe at first we were a little naïve.” My pointer and thumb separated about an inch, and she laughed at this.

“Watch your backs,” Slate said, giving us a hard look.

“Don’t be so paranoid, we’ll be fine,” Nick said, clapping him on the shoulder.

The air was warm… dry.

“Greetings, heroes.” A woman waved to us from the building’s front door. I recognized her from the pictures Chen had shown us: hair cut short, smooth skin showing a youthful strong woman leading the world.

Mary waved back, and we crossed the space. Guards became visible.

“Beautiful earrings,” I said to Mary. “They look as fetching as ever.” She laughed it off, never quite agreeing with my over-concern, but still playing along. My own green pendant sat against my chest, cool in the heat.

Before we were in earshot, I tapped my earpiece. “Clare, be ready on my mark. If this goes south, and my instincts are leaning that way, execute the plan.”

“Done. I just hope you’re wrong,” she replied.

I patted my breast pocket, feeling a small circular lump sitting over my heart.

The guards weren’t wearing the EDU uniforms we’d seen in the station above Earth. Instead, they were more classic military. They had strange-looking semi-automatics, which I imagined had both bullets and pulse power behind them. I smiled at them and got no expression in return.

“We’re so glad to have you here,” the World President said, sticking her hand out to shake ours. Mary shook it first and said some pleasantry or another. I didn’t quite hear it as I scoped out the area. A tower a few hundred yards away looked to be housing another guard.

When it was my turn to shake, I was surprised by the sweaty palm I found. I just smiled. “It’s a real pleasure to meet the woman who controls it all.”

“Oh, I don’t control much, but I facilitate our leaders, and it’s been working well so far. Please, come in.” She had a slight accent; probably grew up in a South African private school.

The building was squat and square, most likely built just for this type of off-the-radar clandestine meeting. The inside was plain, a large room with what appeared to be a couple of offices and bunk rooms at the far end, washrooms to the right.

“Can we get you anything?” she asked, glancing at Mary’s ears.

I pointed up. “Chen took good care of us up there.”

“Of course. General Chen is nothing but the best we have. He takes great pride in that station, and I don’t blame him.” She stood straight, poised.

“You wanted to see us?” Mary asked.

“Yes. You’re heroes, and Heart sent you away on some mission seven years ago. Everyone on this planet wanted to know what happened to you, and here you are. It’s a miracle.”

“Look, if you need us to do a press conference or something, I think we’re done with that sort of thing,” I said.

She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Don’t be silly. We just want to know what happened to you.”

“Apparently, flying through wormholes that take you thousands of light years away causes some time loss. Who’d have known?” I tried to laugh it off, but her face took a serious tone. “All this time, and no word from these Bhlat, huh? Thank God, because they look like some bad dudes.”

This got her attention. “Look?”

“Yeah, they’re huge. Big square ships, thick body armor.” I puffed up my chest in a display of size, and Slate grinned at me.

Her eyes moved to my chest. “No, we haven’t had word from them.”

“Really? That’s not what Chen tells me.”

She gave it away right then. My instincts paid off. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. If they’ve contacted us, I know nothing of it.”

But guards were already coming into the room, pulse rifles held up to their chests.

“Don’t make a deal with them. They’re not friendly. We have a drive with information from an outpost database. They’ve mined over one hundred planets, on sixty-three of which they either enslaved or killed entire races. The Kraski were one of the smarter ones, and they got away before the big fight.” We’d learned a lot, since we’d told Chen a mostly made-up story of our trip.

“Never mind. Give me the drive, and give me that,” she said, pointing to my pocket. If she knew what it was, she had been speaking to them for sure, but how had that information made its way to her already? Unless they had some schematics of a similar weapon on one of the few Deltra ships, or from a turned hybrid. In my mind’s eye, I saw someone with Bob’s face hanging from chains on a wall as the details were ripped from him at the same time as his skin.

The guards were getting closer, and we backed away. “We aren’t here to cause any trouble. Just hear us out. You can’t negotiate with them. The facts are there.”

“Do you think I got to be the president of Earth by being stupid? I’ll make the decision that is best for myself, and for humanity, and if that means cutting a deal with an alien race, then so be it.”

“Fine, here it is.” I tossed the device at her, and she let it slip from her fingers, the metal circle clanging to the floor.

I tapped my earpiece as the guards raised their rifles. “Clare, now!” I called, and the building shook as our ship hovered over it. Green beams entered the building, lifting the five guards and Naidoo. As Clare flew the ship away, they lifted in the beam, and I saw the guard in the tower looking on in confusion as we ran outside. He didn’t know what to do and knew his firing at the ship would be fruitless.

“Dropping them,” Clare said in my earpiece. Half a mile away, we saw the beam turn off, and the ship rushed back to us. The ramp was lowering even before the ship stopped, and we jumped the three feet up onto the metal grate, letting it shut once all four of us were inside.

“What a rush!” Nick said.

“I would have preferred to overthrow that woman,” Slate said matter-of-factly.

“This isn’t our world any longer,” I said, feeling it through and through.

“Were they going to kill us?” Nick asked.

I didn’t know, but the chances were high. Naidoo might have even used us as bargaining chips in her negotiation.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, guys, but we can’t stay here.” Mary walked the closed ramp, and into the storage area.

We made our way to the bridge, where Clare greeted us with a big smile. “Oh my God, that was exciting!”

“More like terrifying. We could have died. It was awesome.” Nick was turning into a regular adrenaline junkie.

I flipped the viewscreen to show behind us as we raced away through the atmosphere and kept going. No ships followed us that we could see, and I flipped on the cloaking from the console. “Slate, thank God you knew about that jamming signal unit in our supplies.” I checked and found the real Deltra device where I’d left it on the bridge. The one I’d left down there was comprised of spare parts from the engineering room,

“Yeah, should be a while before they realize why their radio communication isn’t working,” he laughed.

We bristled with hope and energy, but quickly grew sober at the ramifications. Earth housed just under two billion people, and they were all under a direct threat now.

“What are we going to do?” Clare asked, the jovial moment over.

“We go home,” Mary said, holding my hand, “to our new world.”

“Set course for New Spero,” I said. We’d survived another day.

The End of New Threat

The Survivors Book Two

NEW WORLD

BY

NATHAN HYSTAD

Copyright

Copyright © 2018 Nathan Hystad

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Cover art: Tom Edwards Design

Edited by: Scarlett R Algee

Proofed and Formatted by: BZ Hercules

ONE

The familiar hum of the FTL drive stopped as Mary pulled us out of hyperdrive. I was mentally prepared, but after traveling across our system toward Proxima for the last two months, the smallest noise difference caught me off-guard.

“Scan the area,” I said, and Slate went to work on his console, looking for anything that would show up on our sensors. We’d elected to pull up short of the colony planet, in case there were any surprises waiting for us. If the Bhlat were there, or some other complication cropped up, we wanted to be aware of it before we were detected. “Stay cloaked.”

We were at least six hours away, at our in-system speed: a stroll into our new home to get our bearings of the area.

“Slate, you’re telling us that all the press about Proxima b being inhabitable was a lie?” Clare asked once again.

The big man nodded. “General Heart said it was a backup plan. We had probes sent to all the corners of space we could.”

“Where’d they get that technology?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Beats me. I don’t think the general NASA employees knew about them.”

A shiver ran down my spine. Government conspiracies about space were nothing new, but FTL satellite probes being sent to the far reaches of the universe? That sounded suspiciously like alien technology to me.

“The stories about the atmosphere being too weak to sustain human life?” Clare prompted.

“I don’t know much; I’m just a soldier. Heart said it was a bunch of bull set up between the leaders of the science community and the governments. They had top-secret meetings about all sorts of things: Mars colonies, liveable stations, Proxima, and countless others,” Slate said, still scanning the area, this time casting his net wider as he zoomed out on his console’s map.

“They’ve made elaborate space stations, but not without help from our Kraski databases. I wonder how they expected to do them prior to the Event?” Clare asked, ever curious about anything to do with engineering.

I sank back into my chair, seeing the back of Mary’s head at the helm as she guided us through the system. The viewscreen showed us nothing but space. Proxima’s star hung in the distance, a red-hot omen. A star can mean life or death. It depends how you use it. The old words from my father came to mind. Where he’d gotten that saying was beyond me, but he’d used the reference to tell me that not everything was black and white.

“The video we saw of New Spero looked like paradise,” Nick said, walking onto the bridge, holding a cup of coffee. We were running low on a few supplies, but coffee was still prevalent. One of life’s small miracles.

“For all we know, that’s also a lie Earth’s telling. Maybe they didn’t even make it there.” I said the words but didn’t believe them. If Magnus, Natalia, and Carey hadn’t made it there, I had no idea what we would do. They were the goal at the end of the journey, and I hoped they were still there with open arms. It had only been a few months for us, but I missed them fiercely, especially my little furry buddy. Seven years for them. A lot could change in seven years.

“Then it’s a good thing we’re sneaking in,” Slate said. His vote had been for stealth, and I had to agree. To fly straight into a potential trap would be foolish.

“Maybe we should have tried to contact them,” Mary said.

“We discussed this. If New Spero is there, General Chen and President Naidoo would have told them of our arrival. And I suspect it wasn’t a message to greet us with medals.” I stood up and started to pace around the bridge. It felt good to get some blood flowing through my body. I could almost feel the hybrid plasma still inside me. Mae’s blood… no. Janine’s blood. The urge to hit the onboard gym coursed through me, but instead, I strode back and forth like a caged animal at the zoo.

“Boss, sensors are picking up something,” Slate said as the lights started to flash red, a warning klaxon echoing in time with each flash.

I crossed the room to stand behind Slate, seeing a blip appear on the screen, then another, and another. Soon there were six of them surrounding us, each a few hundred kilometers away.

“Looks like we weren’t as sneaky as we thought. Any way to tell if they’re ours?” I asked, proud my voice didn’t convey the nerves I was really feeling.

Clare went to work on her console, and in less than ten seconds, she had an answer for me. “They’re not doing anything to hide their IDs. They aren’t in our database, but they’re using the same number format as our ship, and the ones from Earth’s base. They’re ours.”

“Can we contact them?” I asked.

“Message arriving. In audio,” Clare said.

“Uncloak the ship, deactivate your weapons, and follow along. Do not attempt to contact us. There is no negotiating this.” The message ended. Clare played it again.

“Do we know that voice?” I asked, trying to put a finger on it. It was a man’s voice, but the message was so monotone, the Deltras’ lack of inflection came to mind.

“It could be Heart,” Mary said. “Dean, are we going to obey?”

What choice did we have? Something felt off about the whole thing, but if we tried to run, where would we go – if they didn’t blow us to smithereens on the way out? “Do what they ask.”

She nodded and soon we were visible to the outside world, weapons off, and flying toward Proxima b, or as our people were calling it, New Spero. I only hoped our new world was a friendly one.

It was a nerve-racking hour later that they sent another message. We tried to stay calm and keep the speculation to a minimum, since we couldn’t control what was going to happen to us. The planet had come into view some time ago, and with every minute, it grew larger on our viewscreen. The message alert came as we spotted the station hovering in space over the planet. It was much smaller than the one near Earth, but along the same design.

“Play the message, please,” I said to Clare, who tapped the console, and we heard the same clipped-speech voice over the speakers.

“Follow the lead ship to dock. We’ve reached our destination.”

“I don’t like this,” Slate said. “If they led us planetside, I’d feel better about it. Up here, they can do anything to us, and no one down there” – he pointed to the floor – “would ever know.”

He made a good point. We didn’t have many options. Either we complied or we made a run for it, leaving the system or heading for the surface. Any of those options could get us killed. Mary looked at me, eyes hard, and there was only one real answer. “We follow them in. We haven’t done anything, and if this is the colony, like we think it is, they’ll know us and listen to our story.”

Slate’s eyes still burned, but he didn’t push his opinion any further.

“Going in.” Mary eased the ship behind them, and five minutes later, she was entering a docking station on the far bottom of the station.

Slate was heading for the storage room already. I knew what he was doing and wasn’t sure if I should stop him. I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. What was the answer? I saw Mae fall, her wound instantly fatal, and Slate’s massive form there. Target down. I went after him.

“Slate, we can’t go in guns blazing,” I said, catching him strapping a pulse pistol to his calf.

“No, but we can be prepared for anything. Being prepared keeps us alive.”

I couldn’t argue with that. The rest of the crew made their way to the bay. Mary stood there, arms crossed and a frown creasing her forehead. “I’m with Slate. Let’s at least have something to give us a chance.”

I nodded solemnly. Even though they looked to me to lead them for some reason, I wasn’t a dictator, and they were probably right. “Small weapons. They’ll most likely take them from us anyway, but it can’t hurt to be cautious.” Everyone concealed some sort of weapon: me a knife, and even Nick, who used to be scared of handling a gun, pocketed a pistol with confidence. Two months on a small ship, and we were all trained and more fit than we’d ever been, thanks to time and Slate’s willingness to teach us.

“They’re waiting, I imagine,” Clare said, standing near the ramp. We hadn’t lowered it yet.

“Let’s make them wait another minute,” I said, suddenly feeling like we should have made a break for the planet. If they knew who we were, Dalhousie would have sent a greeting party instead of the curt messages and show of power.

It must have been five minutes before I nodded to Clare to hit the icon, lowering the ramp. She looked relieved as it sank to the floor of the hangar.

“I’ll go first,” I said, Mary holding my hand and walking up front with me. Slate stuck close behind, always on alert. We walked down the ramp, our boots clanging on the metal. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t what we found. At least twenty guards in black uniforms greeted us, and instead of handshakes and hugs, we had pulse rifles in our faces.

“Stand down,” I whispered to my crew through clenched teeth. I raised my hands in the air, and the rest of the team followed suit. “Who’s in charge here?” I asked the soldiers.

“I am,” a voice echoed from the far end of the room, but we couldn’t make out a face past all of the guns still pointed at us. Footsteps clinked on the floor, and in a minute, the guards were stepping out of the way, making a path for their leader. When he arrived, I was surprised to see I didn’t recognize the man. Seven years was long enough for a shift in power.

He stood there, not speaking as he silently assessed us. The man was wearing a suit, tie included, a fashion I didn’t expect us to hold on to on a colony planet. His black hair was slicked, and his dark pupils judged us through a squint. I instantly didn’t like him.

“Come with me,” he said, turning his back on us. No questions, no patting down, just an order; not that we had a choice, with twenty weapons pointed at us.

“What do you think?” I asked Slate behind me.

“We do what he says,” Slate replied softly, “for now.”

I stepped forward, and we followed the man, twenty feet behind him, until we were out of the hangar. From there, only three guards continued on the trip with us, the rest presumably staying behind to watch our ship. I had the urge to go back and raise our ship’s ramp, but I knew if they wanted in, they would get in.

The halls we were in were built to be corridors only; they were just metal studs and support beams, visible wiring running through them. Nick must have been dragging behind, because we heard a grunt from him, and I turned to see the rear guard shoving him with a gloved hand. This wasn’t what I’d expected our arrival at Earth’s first colony to look like.

Nick and I made eye contact, and I moved my head a bit to the side, to tell him to hurry and let it go. I’m not sure if it translated, but his gaze went to the ground and his feet sped up.

The lead guard stopped as their leader entered a sliding door to the right. I followed him in and found myself in a large open space, with tables and chairs like my university accounting classroom. It felt out of place here.

The man sat down at a table near the front of the room. It had stools all the way around it: one for each of us, and an extra. They hadn’t known how many of us there were. That might have been a good sign.

We each took a seat, with me closest to the man in the suit. It felt like five minutes before he spoke but was probably only thirty seconds. “Why did you come here?”

It was a simple question, but one that felt loaded in many different ways. “We came to see our friends.” The answer was short, but the truth.

He nodded to that. “And just who are your friends? We have a lot of people here on New Spero.”

“General Heart. President Dalhousie.” I almost smiled when I saw his eyes go wide at my reply, but I kept my composure. I was going to be a better poker player than him.

“Interesting choice of friends. Here’s what I do know. We received a message from World President Naidoo a while ago. Apparently, you threatened her and were in possession of a genocidal weapon. When confronted, you escaped and ran here.”

“Then did she tell you who we are?” Mary asked, obviously getting tired of this charade. I didn’t blame her.

He nodded once again, more slowly this time. “She did tell us who you claimed to be, but it’s impossible. Those Heroes of Earth are long dead. The Bhlat sent Naidoo video evidence. They attempted to attack an outpost of the Bhlat and were expunged from space for their efforts. That leaves me with some questions. Where did you get this ship? Did you steal it from the old base in America? Why take the most famous,” he paused, “or infamous people on Earth to imitate?”

I was getting tired of it too. “Listen here” – I motioned for him to say his name, but he didn’t – “fella. I don’t know what the Bhlat showed Naidoo, but it wasn’t us dying, and frankly, I don’t give a crap about your power trip, or whatever this is. Let me speak with General Heart or President Dalhousie, and let me speak to them now.” I tried to keep the anger out of my voice, but it was impossible to conceal.

“You keep saying those names, but I’m sorry to say, neither of them can help you now.”

“Then I want to talk to Magnus Svenson.” I said the name slowly.

He didn’t hesitate. “I’m afraid that’s not possible either.”

“Why? Why is that not possible?” Mary asked. “If you claim we aren’t the Heroes of Earth, then let’s bring the other two up here, and let them identify us.”

He shook his head. “I’m under orders to hold you for your crimes on Earth. Possession of alien weapons and conspiracy to murder the World President.”

I stood up, fists against the wooden tabletop. “Wait a minute! We did nothing of the sort. We went to talk, and she was ready to kill us for that alien weapon you talk about. She’s already in bed with the Bhlat, who’ll come and destroy every last person on Earth.”

“That’s what anyone would say to save their own skin.” His words were firm, but fear escaped his eyes. Hearing that she was working with the Bhlat probably sent some alarm bells ringing, especially after already knowing she had video from them. What was their arrangement? The man stood, and Slate moved between him and the doorway. The rest of the crew looked ready to spring into action, but I couldn’t let that happen yet. We were at a disadvantage.

“Let him go, Slate,” I said, the fury leaving me with each breath.

Slate stood firm, and the man had to go around him. I loved the power move by my large friend, but we weren’t in a position to intimidate either.

The door slid open, and I spotted a few guards out in the hall with weapons in hand. We were being quartered here for the time being.

“What the hell do we do now? Has this whole colony gone to shit?” I asked.

“Maybe there’s been a regime change, or,” Mary stood, “the station is run by that slimy man, and he’s in Naidoo’s pocket. That would allow them to control who arrives, or who leaves the colony, with the surface never knowing.”

It made sense. “I think you’re right. We need to get back to our ship and down to the planet.”

“How do we do that with all of these guards around?” Clare asked.

Slate had a twinkle in his eye as he came back to the table. “Do you all have your pins on?”

We each felt our collars, where the small metal pins sat that would lift us to the ship if needed. “It looks like we do,” Mary said.

“You know what that means, right?” Slate asked, and it clicked.

“But how will we have enough time? They have ships at the ready,” Mary said.

“Then we distract them. We have to get to the surface, and then we can straighten it all out,” I said, not fully believing my own words one hundred percent, but giving them a good chance. I looked around the space for signs of cameras or listening devices. They were undoubtedly watching us. I raised a finger to my lips in a “be quiet” gesture. We moved to the corner of the room that was most inhospitable. If any part of the room wasn’t bugged, it was that dark unfurnished corner.

The plan formed faster than I’d thought possible. We felt like a real crew at that moment.

TWO

“Come on, I have to use the bathroom!” Nick called to the guards on the other side of the door. It had only been an hour, but we weren’t going to sit around waiting for them to convince themselves to dispose of us.

Clare must have sensed that Nick wasn’t getting anywhere, so she went to join him. Maybe a woman in need would pull on their macho soldier hearts.

“Me too. I can’t go in here. Don’t you guys have any compassion?” she asked, layering in a thick sad tone to her voice.

After a minute or two, the door slid open, and a guard motioned for them to step through. It was tough to see, but even from across the room, I spotted the glint of the screw as Nick placed it at the base of the door, feigning tying up his shoe in front of the guards.

We hadn’t been counting on two of ours getting separated, but it was in motion now, and we couldn’t turn back. Slate was already moving for the door, which had slid shut but not all the way, as the six-inch-long screw stopped it from sealing so that it wasn’t locked. Clare had seen the blueprints on the original station plans, back on Earth at the base she’d spent a year working at. These doors had almost a faux lock; a precautionary thing for safety, not really meant to keep anyone in. Only prison cells would have the real locks that would alert someone if the door wasn’t sealed properly.

“Two guards, minimum, had to go with them. It looked like we only had three or four watching us, so I say we all go, swing the ship back, and grab the other two,” I said to Mary and Slate, the only others left in the room with me.

Slate nodded, gun already in his hand. I wished I’d seen this coming, because the knife in my grip didn’t give me the confidence a pulse pistol would have.

Slate stood at the door, three fingers raised. He lowered them one by one, and when his count was at zero, he gripped the handle and pulled it inward with a grunt. It slid open, and two guards were there, talking between themselves.

Before they could react, Mary was on one of them, disarming him and pointing her gun to his head. “Drop it,” she told the other one, and I bent down, picking up the pulse rifle from the ground.

“Do it!” I called to the last guard still holding his weapon. He lowered it, letting go, the metal clanging on the floor. “Mics,” I said, holding my left hand out. They looked at one another, and the smaller of the two took an earpiece out and set it in my hand. The other guy followed suit. “Thank you. So you know, we are the Heroes of Earth, and when this all shakes out, come down to the surface and I’ll buy you a beer.”

They looked at us, wide-eyed. “I told you it was them,” the smaller one said, grinning as we led them into the room we’d recently vacated.

Slate pulled the screw from the door jamb, and we left, locking them in.

“Let’s go before the other guards come back,” I said, wishing we had Clare and Nick with us. Even though we had a plan, leaving anyone behind was a chance I didn’t want to take.

We knew the way back, since we’d walked these very halls over an hour ago. Foot traffic was nonexistent; I wondered how many people lived on the station, and what exactly it was they did up here. I hoped I’d eventually learn the answer.

“This way,” Slate said as we heard footsteps coming from down the hall. We ducked into a side room, the door sliding shut as the steps reached us. We waited in the dark as the sound echoed away from us. My heart was hammering in my chest, and Mary had gripped my hand, a gesture of worry and comfort.

“Let’s go,” I said, heading back into the hall. The one good thing about function over fashion was that we could hear anyone coming from a hundred feet away on the metal floors. Twice more, we ducked into empty rooms before continuing on our way, soon making it back to the hangar. As we paused in the hall leading to the docking station, alarms blared loudly, getting the attention of the guards lingering inside the large room.

One of the guards held his hand to his earpiece, trying to hear commands over the noise, and he pointed to the door we were standing near. The three of us ran the other way, turning in time to see the guards from the hangar heading down the hall, toward the room we’d escaped from.

“Time to shine,” Mary said, rushing back to the hangar. There were only a couple guards left in the room, the rest likely sent to assist in searching for us. Mary ignored them and ran straight for our ship, which still had the ramp lowered. I followed her while Slate threw some covering fire at the guards’ feet and made for one of the other ships docked inside the hangar.

The guards didn’t even have time to fire back, which was a good thing. We had no intention of killing anyone today. They were doing what they were told, like any good soldiers.

Our feet clanged on the ramp, and I hit the button as I entered the storage area on our ship. Slate was still firing, and I caught a glimpse of green light emanating around him as he lifted into one of their ships. I still hadn’t seen a guard fire at us.

“Time to go!” I yelled as Mary ran to the bridge, firing up the engines.

Our viewscreen showed Slate’s ship leaving, erratically flying like a madman. We followed him out, and when he went left, we went right, back toward the middle of the station. It was only moments later that two ships came after us, but Slate was on them, firing at their shields, making more of a show of it than actually trying to harm them. It was enough of a distraction that the two ships focused on him rather than us.

“Come in, Clare,” I said after slipping my comm-device in my ear. The sound crackled, and as I thought they might not have been able to conceal the earpieces, her small voice came through.

“Dean, we’re down the hall in an office, about a hundred yards down from the room we were in. I can’t talk, they…” Her voice cut out.

“We’re coming now. Be ready.”

There was no reply as I told Mary the directions. When we thought we were above the section of the station they were in, I told Clare to activate the pins. The energy changed slightly in the room, and I ran to the storage room where the beam drive sat. Clare entered, and she was crying.

“They spotted it right before you came. Nick’s still down there,” she exclaimed.

“This complicates things,” I said, wondering if we should head to the surface now and hope we could deal with getting Nick back after. It might be the smartest move, but I hated the thought of leaving one of us behind. There were too many unknowns.

“That’s not going to matter, because you’re all going back,” a voice said, coming from the far side of the ship where the rooms sat. The black-haired man in the suit emerged from the dim hall, gun pointed at us, a sideways grin covering half his face.

The training Slate had engrained in us over the last few months took over, and I assessed the situation. For now, I would keep him talking.

“Find anything you like, or were you having a nap?” I asked, my voice level.

A flicker of annoyance passed his eyes before he smiled again. “Those quick to joke are covering their own insecurities.”

I wasn’t sure if he was quoting someone or just making up something stupid and irrelevant, but I played along.

“I heard that men who wear suits all the time are covering their own soft desk-job bodies.” I shrugged, and he raised his gun, this time pointing it at me.

“Dean, are we good?” Mary called through the ship’s intercom system.

“Tell her to join us back here,” the man ordered me.

I shook my head. “Why would I do that?”

He moved the gun to the side, firing at Clare, who saw it coming and rolled out of the way. “Because if you don’t, I’ll kill this one.” He fired again, but Clare was already pulling her own gun from the strap on her leg. She shot the man as his beam struck her in the arm.

It hit him in the leg, and he stumbled, dropping his gun. I lunged at him, tackling the shorter man to get him away from the weapon. Clare groaned but walked over to us, holding her pistol in her left hand.

“What’s going on back here?” Mary’s voice carried across the room.

“I’m dealing with a stowaway,” I said while getting off the man, leaving my knee on his chest.

Mary came to my side as the man cursed me, tears falling from his eyes. I wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or the humiliation.

“What are we going to do with him?” Clare asked, her voice grim.

“Collateral.” Mary and I got him to his feet, half-carrying him toward the bridge.

“You won’t get away with this!” he yelled, but I was beyond caring what this man said. I only wanted to get to the planet.

“Where’s the colony located?” I asked him as we entered the bridge. We half shoved him into the communications seat, and he almost slid out, his leg wound obviously painful. I took his tie from around his neck and used it as a tourniquet on his leg, cutting off the flow of blood. He screamed as I twisted it a little more than I needed to. “Where is it?”

“On the eastern coast of the largest ocean,” he said, head slinking down. He called out some coordinates, and Mary quickly moved us toward the planet.

“Clare, are you okay?” I asked, and she nodded, holding her arm.

“It’s just a flesh wound. I wish Nick were here to fix it,” she said, and I agreed.

“We’ll have him back sooner rather than later. I swear.” I hoped I could follow through with the promise.

The planet approached quickly through the viewscreen. It was a beautiful sight. Having followed the hybrids to another planet, and having seen Earth a few times from space, I knew I’d never grow tired of seeing a world from this vantage point. It was awe-inspiring.

Still, no ships followed us, and that meant Slate was up there causing all sorts of issues for them. I took a seat at the helm and checked the radar. Four ships followed a single one that was unpredictably flying away from the planet. I silently wished him luck as we entered New Spero’s atmosphere. The ship shook slightly, and then we were heading down toward the location our now-passed-out friend had given us.

The comm-device beeped, receiving a message. “This is NS-001. Your ship is untagged. Identify yourselves.”

Mary looked at me for guidance. “No point in hiding it. Take us in slowly.” I reached over to the console and tapped the reply icon. “NS-001, this is Dean Parker, Mary Lafontaine, and Clare LeBlanc coming at you from the past, requesting clearance to land this bird.”

There was a pause from the other end before a crisp message came back. “Dean Parker, we’re sending you the landing details. Over.”

Mary keyed them in, taking us over a desert landscape at five thousand feet, slowly descending as we neared the landing pad. The terrain changed as small mountains jutted out from the ground, the land growing greener as we went. Eventually, we were able to spot structures, and I let out a whistle. When I’d first thought of a colony, I pictured straw huts and campfires. I wasn’t prepared for the small city we saw.

There were no high-rises in sight, but a few multistory buildings popped up all over the area. A city full of residential areas, commerce, and agriculture was evident as we flew over it all. My heart pounded in my chest. We were here. New Spero.

The landing pad was a few thousand feet long. Dozens of different types of vessels sat idly, and we chose a slot as close to the outbuildings as we could. If we needed a fast escape, we wouldn’t have to traverse the long runway.

“How’s the readout?” I asked, knowing Clare was working on gathering data from the probes we’d shot as we entered the atmosphere.

“Perfect. It’s warm, like a spring day in California. Within two percent of Earth’s atmospheric blend. This is amazing.” She stared at the screen, her pain all but forgotten as the scientist in her took over.

The ship settled down. “We better bring him,” I said, indicating the groggy suited man in the chair. I tapped his cheek with my palm a few times. “Time to wake up,” I said, unsure of how our first steps on the colony planet would go. We might need him as a bartering chip.

Mary and I lifted him by the shoulders, mostly dragging him back to the bay, where Clare hit the ramp icon to lower it. “Remember, we’re survivors. Whatever we find down here, we’ll make it. Together.”

Mary smiled at me, blowing a kiss in front of the dead weight we were carrying around.

We stepped down the metal ramp, warm air blowing against us. I held a pistol in my right hand, Mary had one in her left, and Clare was in front of us, a pulse rifle raised and ready. I suddenly wished Slate was there with us.

We reached the ground, which was some sort of sandstone-like rock, a good place for a landing pad when you didn’t want to waste a large amount of concrete. No one was there to greet us.

“That was a little anti-climatic,” Clare said, lowering her rifle slightly and scanning the horizon.

We set the wounded man down, which gained a few groans from him. He needed medical attention; he had lost a lot of blood before I’d used the tie on his leg.

A slight hum came from the direction of a nearby warehouse. I spotted a cart, like the ones from the base on Earth, coming toward us.

“Get ready,” I said, holding my pistol up, ready to look for cover if I had to.

It closed in on us, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Magnus. The cart stopped twenty yards away, and a woman in uniform stayed in the driver’s seat as my old friend came rushing toward us. Clare still held her gun up, and I called at her to stand down. She’d briefly known the man, but he did look different. She listened and stepped out of the way as Magnus came crashing into me, his wide arms crushing me in a bear hug.

“Dean, you son of a bitch! Oh my God, it is you!” He held me back, gripping my shoulders tight. I saw his face then, the youth from his thirties gone, wrinkles creased around his eyes as he smiled at me, gray lining his hair and stubble. Tears were streaming down his face, and I found myself crying too. “Mary! I can’t believe you guys are alive.” It was Mary’s turn to be picked up and swung around by Magnus, and she squealed, matching tear for tear with the big man.

“You have no idea how good it is to see you, Magnus,” Mary said, wiping her face with her free hand.

“Magnus, before we do anything, I need you to call up to the base and tell them to stop chasing our friend, and to take it easy on Nick.” I didn’t want to break up the reunion, but I couldn’t let anything happen to my new friends.

He looked at me, confused, before cluing in. “No problem. Laura, comm the station.” The woman had been within earshot, and soon we heard her convey our message.

“They said Andrews is missing,” she called back to him. Magnus’ gaze found purchase on the body slumped on the ground. “The ships are calling off their chase.”

“I think I found him,” he said, grinning at me like old times. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

THREE

“Is he going to be okay?” Mary asked.

Magnus nodded. “He’s fine. Already up and walking. Modern medicine has changed a lot since we last saw each other.” He waved his arm in front of him. “Even in this backwater planet we call home.”

“I’d hardly call what you have here a backwater anything. It looks like paradise to me,” I said, following the man down the street. People walked by on the sidewalks, heading into different stores. They were labeled with basic names – clothing, grocery, seeds – and I couldn’t shake the feeling we were in some sort of science-fiction socialist regime. I wasn’t going to judge it, because under the right circumstances, it had every chance to thrive. The problem was, humans rarely allowed for the right circumstances.

“I know we’re going to wait to get to my house to really talk, but, guys, how is it you don’t look any older? What the hell happened out there?” Magnus asked, leading us past the stores.

“It’s a long story. One Nat’s going to want to hear too. How many people live here?” I asked. I had a general idea, because a lot of them had left Earth.

“This city? About half a million, but we’re spread out over two hundred square miles. We have places set up all across the world. Different things grow in different biomes, and we have each city manufacturing various supplies. That way, we can trade and keep everyone gainfully employed and productive. It’s quite the setup.” Magnus looked happy about it, but I could tell he was dying to know our story.

“What’s your main export?” Mary asked.

“Agriculture. We have the planet’s best soil, and grow everything from food, to hemp for clothing, to bamboo for various things. I bet you didn’t ever think I’d be a farmer.”

I laughed. There was no way he was being serious. “Are we almost there?” I asked, curious to hear if Nick and Slate had made it planetside yet.

“Not quite. That’s why we’re taking this.” He led us to a camo-covered Jeep-like vehicle, and we hopped in. Mary took the front seat, I grabbed the back. I sat in the center of the rear bench, watching wide-eyed as Magnus fired up the engine and drove down the dirt road. We left behind what constituted cityscape on New Spero, and in a couple minutes, we were away from any signs of humanity. The only evidence anyone had been here before were the tire tracks in the grass we were driving in. “See all this? It’s mine.”

I looked around us, seeing acres upon acres of farmland, crops growing in the summer-like afternoon. At least it felt like afternoon. I really didn’t know what time it was and realized I knew next to nothing about the planet we were on. It was remarkable. If I took a deep breath, there wasn’t anything there to tell me I wasn’t on Earth, in middle America, somewhere much like the state I’d grown up in. I suddenly felt homesick, but for what or where, I wasn’t sure. It was just a feeling gnawing at my stomach.

We kept going for a few minutes. Soon Magnus turned right and drove down a dirt road leading up to a cabin. It wasn’t big, and smoke poured out of a chimney on the left side of the structure.

“Home sweet home,” he said, his words adding to the aching feeling in my gut.

“This is amazing, Magnus,” Mary said, her voice cheerful. I hadn’t seen her so happy in months and tried to picture me and her living in a similar place, quietly farming, minding our own business. No more intergalactic strife to deal with. I wasn’t sure how we’d manage, but I was willing to try.

“It’s not much, but it’s home. I know I didn’t have time to tell you anything, but we have a few surprises of our own.” He parked the vehicle and we got out. The ground felt soft under my feet, and it did feel alien for a moment. I quickly forgot all of that when I heard a bark. A dog barking, on this faraway planet, brought normalcy back to me in an instant. It woofed again, and my heart sped up. I knew that sound. It was from someone that had become my best friend during the Event.

“Carey!” I called. My hands were shaking as I looked for him. Another yap, and I spun to see him running at us from the house. Natalia was at the door, her hand covering her eyes, trying to see who was with Magnus. He’d wanted us to be a surprise. Carey bounded at us, and I ran toward him, so excited to be back with the little guy. His ears flopped up and down as he raced to me. “Carey!” I said again. He seemed to know it was me.

I fell to my knees, and the dog jumped on me, licking my face with fervor and love. I couldn’t recall a time I’d felt more relief or pure joy, and I sat there petting and talking to him, trying to explain why I’d left him. He didn’t seem to care at that moment, and we just shared that time together as equals on the ground. After everything we’d been through, this was exactly what I needed.

Once we’d both settled down, I noticed how different he looked. He’d aged well, but at eleven, he was heavier than he’d been, and his eyes didn’t have quite the same glow to them.

“Thank you for being there for him,” I said to Magnus, who I could tell was behind us by the large shadow. My voice was thick with emotion.

“Dean, we love that dog. It was our pleasure, really,” Magnus said, walking over and giving me his hand. I took it, and he pulled me up off the ground. Carey rubbed his head on my shins, and I heard more barking. Natalia was walking toward us, two other dogs in tow. They were cockers like Carey, one brown, and the other buff like the older dog.

“Magnus, who’s with you?” Natalia asked as she neared us. Our backs were to her, and Mary and I turned to her, tears already falling down Mary’s face.

“Nat,” Mary said, stepping over to our friend. It was then I noticed there was a small boy clutching on to Nat’s leg.

Natalia cried out in anguish. I almost reached for a gun before it clicked that she was just surprised by us.

“How? How are you here?” she asked, her eyes instantly red, puffy, and adorable at the same time. She embraced Mary, holding on tight.

“If you have a cup of coffee, we can tell you,” I said, and she turned to me, grabbing hold of my arms and pulling me into a big hug. She was so warm, and I hugged her back, telling her how glad I was to see her. “Who’s this?” I asked, crouching to be at eye level with the boy. The three dogs came over and played, rolling on the grass between us.

“These are Carey’s little ones,” Magnus said. “Charlie, the boy, and Maggie, the little troublemaker there.” He pointed to the brown one, who gave him a bark. They looked young, but they weren’t puppies any longer. “And that,” he nodded to the brown-haired hiding boy, “is Dean.” Magnus looked at me, a twinkle in his eye.

“We didn’t think we’d ever see you again. It had been four years. We wanted to… remember you,” Natalia said, sniffling as she held Mary’s hand.

It was quite the reunion, and I felt like I’d been through an emotional wringer. “Hi, Dean,” I said. He peeked out from behind her leg and looked at me, the perfect little combination of Magnus and Natalia. I was so happy for them. “Look at what you guys have accomplished out here. It’s amazing. It’s… kind of the dream.” I felt the loss hard. They’d had seven years together, building a family and taking care of Carey, and we’d just been on a journey across space for a few months. It was hard to wrap my brain around.

“It’s been nice,” Magnus said, and I hardly heard him.

“Let’s go inside,” Natalia said, her accent still thick, but her voice softer than it had been.

We started the walk to their cabin, the dogs sauntering along. Carey stuck close to Magnus but looked back to make sure I was coming. I knew whose dog he was now, and to say it didn’t hurt would be a lie. I was glad he was a happy dog who’d had the opportunity to lead a safe and healthy life. I wasn’t sure if I could have given him that security.

The smaller brown cocker followed along behind me, playfully romping through the grass, her bark trying to get me to play along. I knelt and scratched her ears, which she rolled over for, kicking her back legs out for a stretch. “Well, Maggie, it’s nice to meet you. I think there might be some treats inside the house with your name on them.” At that word, she perked up and ran ahead into the house as Magnus held the door open.

Mary stayed behind after the other three entered the home. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. It’s just… a lot. How about you?” I asked.

She smiled. “I’m happy to see them. It’s just so weird. With the snap of a finger, we missed years of our friends’ lives. It’ll just take some time. Let’s go share stories and have a night where we don’t have to think about the next thing.”

We did have a lot of explaining to do to the powers that be; Andrews, the suit Clare had shot, was just the beginning. Our friends inside were high-ranking officers, and they were able to pull some strings to get us acclimated to their world before we got grilled the following day. I was grateful for it, but as I entered their house, I hoped the other crew were being taken care of.

“Any word on Slate and Nick?” I asked, taking in the cozy décor of their small home. It was sparsely furnished with homemade wooden furniture, a dichotomy to the futuristic screens on the walls and counters. Lights came on automatically; a clear screen above the mantel acted as a television. I recognized signs of Kraski technology everywhere.

Magnus keyed something into a screen in the kitchen, and a face appeared. He asked the man a few questions and was told the two men from the station were on New Spero, and that Clare was with them. We’d left her at the complex to wait for the rest of our team.

“We’ve built hotels for visitors from other cities to stay. Your friends are in the suites saved for city leaders. Much better than being cramped up on a ship for months, I tell you,” Magnus said after he ended the call.

“Thank you, Magnus,” Mary said. “Your home is perfect.” She walked around the living room and back to the kitchen. “Dean, maybe we can have something like this.” Her words were soft, hopeful. Little Dean came over to me, and I saw he was holding a wooden train.

“Of course you can,” Magnus said. “We’ll get right on it. I don’t want to speak out of turn, but there’s house a couple acres over if you want it. Share the land, so to speak. We built it…back then, hoping you would come claim it.”

It was all happening so fast, and I didn’t know how to reply. On one hand, it sounded amazing, but we had just arrived and had no idea what New Spero was really about. “I think we might like that.” I smiled at Mary, and she returned it. I knew Mary loved the idea right now, but her taste for adventure might kick in after a few weeks of feeding chickens and weeding a garden.

“Time for your nap, malen’kiy.” Natalia took her son’s hand, and he let her lead him into another room without complaint.

“What a cute kid. I can’t believe you have a son. The last night we saw you, you were just getting married,” I said, seeing his shoulders slump all of a sudden, like my words took the air out of him.

We sat in the living room, the smell of coffee flowing through the air toward us. I realized how tired I was then; sitting on the soft cushions, I had the desire to lie down and sleep.

“Dean… Mary,” Magnus said quietly, “we thought you were dead. Patty kept asking for word from you, from Earth, and eventually she stopped talking to us about you. I don’t think she stopped asking, but she could tell it was getting too hard for us to hear about you after those first few years.”

Carey looked up at me from the floor, his head turning sideways. “Come here, boy.” I patted my lap, and he jumped up, setting his head on my leg, letting out a sigh that he must have been holding for me for seven years. Soon his breath slowed, and I just rested my hand on his back, letting him know I was there.

“He’s yours, by the way,” Magnus said, looking at Carey from the other couch. Mary sat beside me, petting Maggie. Charlie was at Magnus’ feet.

I shook my head. “I can’t take him now; it’s been too long. He has his home now, his pack.” It hurt to say, but it was true.

“Tell us everything,” Natalia said, bringing a tray with coffee and cups from the kitchen.

“Where do we begin?” Mary asked.

“At the start.”

“You were married, and Mae arrived, beaten up. The hybrids escaped.” I said Mae’s name, and I could see they were aching to ask after her, but they knew she was dead. It was all over their faces.

We told our tale to them over the next few hours. The sunlight dimmed in the room, and soft lights automatically came on as we spoke. Natalia got snacks and we drank coffee, them on the edge of their seats at times, while at other moments, tears flowed freely from their eyes.

They learned about the Deltra still living on another planet. Magnus nearly stood as I talked about getting the smaller version of the Shield, and about Mary almost dying by the Bhlat warriors on that lone station far out in the universe. They sank into the couch and held hands as I told them about killing everyone at a Bhlat outpost. Natalia let out a cry as I told them the gut-punch of Mae really being Janine, the woman I’d fallen in love with. It hurt to bring it up and relive the story. Hearing that Slate had shot her took the wind out of their sails, and neither of them spoke for a few minutes.

When we got to the part about World President Naidoo communicating with the Bhlat, and how we thought she was going to kill us, Magnus turned red. “That bitch! We’re going to straighten all of this out tonight.”

“I think that Andrews guy is in her pocket,” Mary said.

“He has to be. If anyone ever shows up in our system, the station’s supposed to relay it to us and await instructions. Evidently, Naidoo asked Andrews to ignore our protocol and take you himself. I’m glad the slimy little slug got shot.” Magnus was still red, but Nat’s calming hand on his arm seemed to be working.

“That’s quite the story,” Natalia said. “Mag, I think its our turn.”

He nodded. “First, I need something.” He left the room, coming back with a bottle and four small glasses. He set them down on the large coffee table. I recognized the brand of Scotch as Magnus’ favorite from back on Earth.

“Is that…?” I started to ask.

“The one and the same. I’ve been saving this for something special. I’d say this constitutes something special, wouldn’t you?” The sparkle of my old friend was back in his eye. “Do you remember that day? We got the rings from that guy with the German shepherd.”

“And half a truckload of booze. Don’t you have distilleries here?” I asked, vividly recalling the day. It was only six months ago to me.

“We do, but there’s nothing like a bottle of twenty-year-old Scotch, aged a few more for good measure. God, I wish things had worked out differently that wedding night. I’m going to miss Mae.” He poured the liquid into the four glasses, passing one to each of us. “Even though she screwed us over a few ways to Friday, she was something.” He raised his glass. “To Mae.”

“To Mae,” we all said in unison, raising our own glasses in the air. I sipped the Scotch, letting the familiar burn ease down my throat.

“Our trip didn’t go so smoothly,” Magnus said, starting to tell us about their journey after we left. “That ship left with a thousand people, and we lost a hundred on the way from an illness we couldn’t cure. Now it’s nothing more than a common cold to us, but at the start, before we understood the way alien viruses worked, it was deadly. That was the least of it, but I won’t bore you with the details. The fact was, we arrived a month late, and our morale was low when we lowered to the surface.”

“My sister Isabelle?” I asked, fearful at what the answer would be.

Natalia’s face softened. “She’s fine, Dean. She lives out in Terran Five.”

I relaxed, nervous and excited to see the sister I hardly knew any longer. “What happened then?”

“They knew the layout of the planet from their first trip, but we didn’t know everything. The weather patterns surprised us, and the wildlife was so unique,” Magnus said, pausing for a drink, “but it was paradise to us. Free from the bull of Earth politics, we did what needed to be done. We started at ground zero here and built everything you’ve seen.”

“How did you end up being farmers?” Mary asked, a hint of laughter in her voice.

“I still work for the colony, obviously, but we wanted more. When Dean was born, we left the house we’d built in the city and gave it to a younger couple just starting out. We wanted to be away from the noise and people for once.” Magnus set his hand on Nat’s, squeezing it lightly. “She deserves a quiet place to raise a family.”

“You both deserve it,” I said.

We sat in the living room for hours, talking about all the stuff between their landing and now. We drank to old times, we picked away at a light dinner, and before we knew it, we were all tipsy and exhausted. I asked Magnus to pass word to the crew that we would see them in the morning, and Mary and I headed to the guest room Natalia demanded we stay in.

Mary was already breathing deeply as I pulled the blankets over my shoulders. I heard the light pitter-patter of footsteps approach our room, the door squeaked as it pushed open, and I recognized the sound of Carey jumping onto the bed. He came over to me, sniffed my face, licked it, and curled up between my legs.

I slept like I hadn’t in months.

FOUR

From the helicopter, we got a much better view of the settlement. We’d been so distracted when we’d lowered in our Kraski ship that none of us had caught a good look at Terran One. Now, flying over at a low altitude, I could make out all the different farms, then neighborhoods, as we headed for the base. Fields of varying colors stretched out beyond the horizon, a grid of sustenance and prosperity.

Magnus pointed landmarks out to us. He also described how each neighborhood had all the necessary supply stores, hospitals, and schools, so the locals didn’t need transportation to other areas. It reminded me of old city planning for lower-income areas. They wanted everything necessary along a bus route or within walking distance. For a colony, it made a lot of sense.

It blew my mind to see how far they’d come in just seven years. The amount of work that must have gone into creating what we were looking at had to come at a price. Magnus assured us that they owned worker robots for much of the labor.

In the distance, I spotted a large mountain, pristine lakes mottling the landscape near it, and I knew where I wanted to visit first. I wondered if there was anything resembling fish in that water.

We neared the base, a large structure by the landing pad we were at the day before. As we settled toward the ground, I spotted my friends near a bay door. Clare, Nick, and Slate stood looking no worse for wear, and I silently thanked whoever was listening for bringing them back in one piece.

“Time to make history,” Magnus said, opening the heli door. Mary got down, I ran out after her, and we jogged toward the building. The copter lifted and left us in silence after a few minutes.

We greeted our crew, Mary going for hugs with the two men we’d left in space, me following suit with what started as a manly back pat but escalated into a ‘thank God you’re alive’ embrace. “Everyone okay?” I asked, getting assurances that they were.

Slate grinned at us. “I was having fun up there. I think someone needs to train those pilots better.”

“Speak for yourself. Those guards were ready to rip my head off,” Nick said. Now that we were just a few feet apart, I noticed the red lines in his eyes and a bruise on his cheek.

“Did they hurt you?” I asked, anger boiling under my skin.

He shook his head. “No worse than I’d expect. I’ll be fine. I’m just glad the call came in when it did. I think they were ready to push me out an airlock.”

“I heard the news but wasn’t going to believe it unless I saw it,” a new voice said, coming from the doorway. “If I live to be a hundred, I doubt you’ll find me more surprised again.”

“President Dalhousie!” I called, happy to see the woman who made all of this happen.

She fluttered my comment away with a flick of her wrist. “No more ‘President’ for me. Just call me Patty, please.”

Patty had been a fit, healthy fifty when we’d last seen her, but the woman before us had been through a lot. She looked like she’d aged twice as much as Magnus. She was now a small gray-haired woman, but the fire in her eyes was still burning bright. Her once long hair was cut shorter, giving her a grandmotherly look.

“I’ve been filled in by the others, but come on in. We need to talk.” Patty hugged us tightly and turned, leading us into the large base through a steel door with guards at it.

“Still need guards?” Mary asked.

“This is a colony, not Utopia. Humans will always be humans, and yes, we do still need policing, and a military for space and New Spero,” Magnus answered for her.

We were led down a wide hallway, which ended eventually, and we turned left past a door that required Patty’s thumbprint to open. We found ourselves in a metal corridor, and I had flashbacks to climbing the tube on the Deltra station, Bhlat clomping around trying to kill us. Mary seemed to notice a change in me, and she grabbed my hand.

The corridor went on for a couple hundred feet or so, at an ever-declining angle, before opening into a large, cavernous room. Screens were set up at numerous long desks, with a massive screen front and center, where it looked like they could air multiple feeds at once.

“What is this?” Clare whispered, stealing the words from all our mouths.

“This is New Spero Central. We have feeds from all major centers here, and we watch for anything out of the ordinary.” Patty walked toward the front row of desks, where five workers sat, headsets on, screens showing various city shots and views from fence lines.

“You spy on everyone?” Slate asked. The question was so unlike the soldier, I hoped his being around me for a few months hadn’t made him question authority. Or maybe it was a good thing for the man who’d obeyed someone his whole adult life to be a free thinker.

“We don’t spy on them. This is a new planet. We watch for anything that might pose a threat to the people. We’ve saved countless lives with our perimeter cams catching predators lurking too close to villages and cities,” Magnus said, and I felt better about it all. If my old friend was behind it, then I would blindly follow his lead.

“What kind of predators?” Mary asked, stepping forward to squint at the screen’s images.

“Daniel? Can you bring up the feed from 1179, please?” Patty asked, pointing at the large screen in the front of the room.

It showed a snowy landscape, the area fenced with a twenty-foot-tall barrier. Red lights blinked on the concrete fence posts. It took a minute to see them, but once I did, they were everywhere. They were white, almost blending in with the snow. I couldn’t tell how tall they were, but they had to be four feet at least. The camera zoomed and paused to show us three of them in a cluster, reminding me of a cross between a lizard and a wolf. Long thick tails left lines in the snow behind them, powerful snouts sniffing the air.

“Holy crap,” Slate said, unblinking as we watched the video. It started up again, and we watched as they approached the fence, trying to touch it but getting shocked by electricity. A couple of them repeated the effort and failed, but were still moving, as if the shock was nothing more than an annoyance.

One of the creatures ran over to a concrete fence post, which was at least three feet wide. Another one stepped up, and they used each other to lift themselves up, until there were three of the animals stacked on one another, the top one jumping and grabbing hold of the top.

“We lost twenty people the first night we met these guys. That’s why we watch the feeds live.”

My stomach sank as I watched dozens of the things get lifted and climb over the fence. They were smarter than any animal I’d ever seen. Patty showed us another video of people forming a violent riot, and how they were able to subdue it quickly. It appeared all wasn’t paradise on this colony planet.

“Now, enough about us and New Spero. Tell me how you came to arrive seven years later, looking like nothing has changed, in the same ship you left Earth on,” Patty said.

“Should we wait for Heart?” Slate asked, looking around the room.

Patty turned to Slate, looking at him silently for a minute before speaking again. “The general isn’t with us any longer. He passed away two years ago: heart attack.”

Slate deflated at that and sat down in one of the swivel chairs at the long desks.

“A lot has changed for us. I think you know the new general.” Patty pointed at Magnus, who just shrugged when we looked over to him.

“Someone had to do it, and it might as well be someone I trust. Me,” Magnus said, getting a tense laugh from our group.

“I’d say congratulations, but I’m sure you’d rather be sitting on your porch sipping sweet tea than worrying about invasions and space station turncoats,” I said, clapping him on the arm.

“Speaking of which, where is Mr. Andrews?” Magnus asked Patty.

“He’s fine. Almost good as new. He’s finding a new home at Terran Three.” Patty tilted her head toward the screen, showing the city covered in snow. “He claims Naidoo threatened to hurt his family back on Earth, but I call BS on that. His accounts have shown some interesting deposits over the years. Either way, I apologize for your treatment, everyone. Can we have the story now?”

We moved to the back of the room, where a guard brought in refreshments. I guzzled water as we went through the trip, and my own personal emotional rollercoaster. I was ready to put it all behind us after this telling.

When it was over, Patty mopped her face with a hand, and looked to have aged another year. “After all we’ve been through, she wants to cut a deal with them. That might explain something.”

“What?” I asked.

“It takes a month to get a message to and from Earth. We’ve sent messages to them but haven’t had a reply in over a month. I was hoping there was just a technical issue on Earth, but it could mean two things. Either they’re choosing to not talk with us” – she paused, leaning forward in her chair – “or they aren’t able to talk to us.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Magnus asked, clearly frustrated.

“We didn’t want to worry you. You have enough on your plate,” she replied.

“You wanted me in this position, you have to tell me everything. Would you have held this back from Heart?” he asked, receiving a blank stare from Patty.

“The Bhlat are coming for Earth, one way or another,” I said. “Naidoo opened the door for them and invited them in. What do we do about it?”

“What do you mean? We need to worry about New Spero’s safety now. We gave those people a choice, and whoever’s on Earth chose to stay, knowing the dangers. They were all part of the Event, just like all of us. The universe is a dangerous place,” Patty said.

This wasn’t the president I remembered, always worried about everybody. She was older, tired, and jaded. “It may not be your job to help Earth, but I’ll be damned if we’re going to sit back and wait for the Bhlat to come to us too. Let’s look at it like we’re going on the offensive, and saving Earth is the positive result.” I thought speaking her language might help my cause. It appeared to.

“It takes two months to get back. It could be too late by then,” Slate said.

“Or they chose not to transmit because they knew we were arriving and would blow up their story. It might not be too late at all. Maybe a carefully worded message would do the trick,” Mary said, making a lot of sense.

“Another thing is bothering me,” Patty said quietly.

“What’s that?” I asked, wondering just what else could be wrong.

“The hybrids.”

I couldn’t believe I’d been so selfish to forget them. “The hybrids,” I repeated, a flush coming over my skin. “Where are they?”

“We thought they were trouble. As far as we knew, Leslie and Terrance were terrorists, and were the reason you were lost to us. They were killers, and we couldn’t trust the lot of them,” Patty said.

Dread set in. “Where are they?” I asked again.

“They’re in a prison in Russia. Half the world’s leaders wanted to ship them into the sun, but we compromised on prison. Forever.”

She looked terrible, the guilt of their anguish evident on her face.

“We have to do something!” I said, remembering the friendly faces we’d met in Long Island. Seven years in prison, and I doubted I’d get the same reaction from them. “I know where they’re welcome. I’ll send them there to have new lives.”

She nodded, but it seemed a distant, noncommittal action. “If we get through this, you have my word that you can do just that. I’m sorry about Mae too, for what it’s worth.”

An alarm chimed from the front of the room, and Daniel, the officer on the computer, called back to us. “General, you’re going to want to see this. Trouble in Terran Five again.” The screen showed us the white lizard-wolves stalking toward the city, this time in a different area. It looked like they were crossing a frozen lake.

“Wait, they aren’t coming for the fence,” Daniel said as we watched them change direction. It was snowing, wind blowing fiercely, causing a white-out. He zoomed in a mile or so, and we spotted a blurry barn. A group of people were outside, surrounded by horses.

“What are they doing outside like that in a storm?” Magnus yelled. He jumped on to a computer and tried for a few minutes to contact Terran Five. “No luck. The storm must have killed the transmission tower. All this technology, and we still use waves to communicate with each other. Come on, Dean. We have to go help them.” He tapped the face-to-face calling program, trying for any contacts under the Terran Five: Operations listing. They all failed.

If those creatures were that close, I knew there was no way we’d make it in time, but we had to try. “Are the other Terrans closer?”

“Good call. Dan, send a request for assistance to Terran Four. We’re taking a cruiser. Anyone else?” Magnus asked.

Mary and Slate ran after us, heading toward the landing pad.

__________

The ship was smaller than any we’d ever been on, more the size of a helicopter than anything I’d seen, but it acted much the same as the larger Kraski ships. Two seats up front, two in the back, and as much room as a cube van in the back for storage. The walls were lined with climbing gear, medi-kits, and weaponry: everything we needed for a rescue mission.

We’d tossed on suits before getting on board, and they reminded me of the modified space suits from our recent adventure. These didn’t have the helmet attached, and though they were thin, their primary function was to fend off the cold, with an extremely high puncture rating. That would help prevent one of those lizard-wolves from biting our extremities off.

“How far is Terran Five, exactly?” Mary asked, sitting up front with Magnus, who was acting pilot on the vessel. Slate sat in the back with me, his large frame tight against the undersized suit he wore.

“Eleven hundred miles as the crow flies,” Magnus said, the landscape of the planet zooming by as we flew near top speed toward the Arctic-like city. “That makes our trip a quick twenty minutes. Those monsters can go fast, but they were skulking along that snow, the storm probably slowing them some.”

“Why have a colony city in the snow?” Slate asked, breaking his contemplative silence.

Magnus shrugged. “Why do people live in northern Canada or Alaska?” He waited for a reply. “No, seriously, if you know, tell me.” He barked a laugh, and when no one else followed suit, he continued. “They have resources up there. A stone much like diamond, that sparkles like a geologist’s dreams and conducts electricity better than anything we’ve ever seen. And it isn’t always snow-covered. Just three-quarters of the year.” This made him laugh again, and I joined in this time, for his sake.

“Of course,” Slate said, his question satisfactorily answered. “Did those colonists lose a bet?”

“You’re a funny guy, Slate. I think I’m going to like hanging out with you. We asked for volunteers, and after all everyone had been through, living in a safe place with everything you could need to survive, we didn’t have to do a lottery. We had all the positions filled in a week. We were as surprised as you are.” Magnus tapped some icons, and the ETA appeared on the viewscreen. Ten minutes to destination.

“Did we get through to Terran Four?” I asked, and Mary sent a message to Dan back at the home base.

“Dan says they left just after us,” Mary answered.

“It’ll be close. Everyone ready? Shoot to kill. I know we’re the aliens here, and believe me, we do have animal rights activists on our asses here too, but lives are at stake. Stick together, and hopefully, we can extract the group before too much damage is done.” Magnus lowered us below the clouds, and instantly, we couldn’t see beyond the viewscreen. Snow enveloped the small vessel, but he had no problem flying it using the computer navigation system.

The plan was to land a hundred yards from the structure in the video, and get between the oncoming creatures and the humans, if we weren’t too late. It took another minute for Magnus to lock in on the coordinates, and when he did, we lowered quickly to the ground, still unable to see much more than blowing white flakes as we bumped the surface softly.

The doors hissed open, hinging toward the sky, and we got out, pulse rifles in hands. My heart pounded and sweat covered my back, a contradiction to the freezing temperatures outside. Why had we come with Magnus? Shouldn’t we have left this type of thing to the trained soldiers? Then it hit me: I was the only non-military among our group of four, and probably still had more experience in the field than half the actual soldiers now filling that role on New Spero. My confidence increased, my steps becoming firmer and my grip a little lighter on the rifle as I followed Magnus toward the barn we could just make out through the snowstorm.

“You two go right,” Magnus called through our earpieces.

Slate and I obeyed, cutting right to flank the people on the other side. Only when we arrived, there were no people standing up.

The familiar hum of a transport vessel came at us from our other side, and soon another ship landed near us, armed men emerging from the doors, much like we had only moments ago.

Magnus shook his head. “Damn it! We’re too late.”

That was when I saw it. The half-eaten horse lay blanketed by a thin layer of snow, a pool of blood staining the white ground. The closer I looked, the more I saw signs of a struggle, footprints from both humans and animals mixing, but quickly being covered by the ever-falling snow.

“They might still be alive,” one of the newcomers said to us. “These things will feed” – he pointed at the horse – “and drag anything else back to their nests. We have some at Four, but they’re smaller and fewer. Seen it a few times.”

“Let’s go after them,” Magnus said matter-of-factly.

“In this storm, we’ll be lucky to make it a mile without giving up,” the new guy said, the three other soldiers with him keeping quiet.

“Look…” Magnus started to argue, but we all stopped short as we heard a small voice.

“Help! Daddy!” it called from the barn.

I ran toward the sound, gun raised just in case. “Where are you?” I asked, voice rising above the wind.

A small figure emerged into the doorway, wearing a snow suit and a pink hat. It was a little girl, no more than seven years old.

“I’m Dean. What’s your name?” I asked, knowing she would be terrified.

“Monica. They took my daddy,” she said, fat tears arriving at the corners of her eyes.

“Who did? The animals?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Which way did they take them?”

She pointed to the west. “He told me to hide in here, under the hay pile. I miss him. We were out for a horse ride, and Queenie hurt her leg. The horse doctor lady came with some help. Then they came.”

I didn’t have to ask who they were.

“I like her.” The tears were starting to fall. “Isabelle, the horse doctor. She makes me laugh. Can you find my daddy?”

I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. Isabelle. My sister was a veterinarian, and Magnus had told me she lived in Terran Five. It had to be her.

“Guys, we’re going after them.” One of the men from Terran Four came over and gave Monica a heated blanket, ushering her toward their transport vessel. My friends nodded grimly. “I think my sister was among the ones attacked.”

Mary’s eyes widened. “How’s that possible?”

“I don’t know. The girl said her horse got hurt, and they were stuck out here from the storm, and a horse doctor named Isabelle came to help. That has to be her.” I was shaking with adrenaline and the need to stop talking and go rescue them.

“Let’s go. These little bastards are cave dwellers, so we either attempt to follow the tracks being covered by more snow every minute, or we assume they’re going to the mountain three miles west of here and fly there,” Magnus said.

“I’ll follow the tracks and meet you there.” Slate took off on foot. His pace was fast and efficient.

“You heard the man, let’s get on the ship or he might beat us there,” Mary said, moving for it already.

“You guys will never find them, and if you do, how do you know they aren’t already dead?” one of the guys from Terran Four asked.

“We don’t know, and that’s why we’re going. Get that girl back inside the gates, and tell them what’s happening right under their noses,” I said before rushing toward the transport.

Moments later, we were taking off, and if possible, it seemed the snow was falling even more heavily. As we neared the mountain, I felt a tugging I couldn’t explain. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I sat in the back of the transport, my blood starting to burn. I wanted to cry out, but I couldn’t.

“Ma…ry,” I squeaked out through the pain. Her face turning to me was the last thing I saw before all went black.

FIVE

When my eyes came open, I was alone in the small ship. My body still ached, but the searing pain was gone.

I felt for injuries and scanned myself for blood, but everything seemed normal, except for a throbbing headache. I moved to the medi-kit and shot myself with a small dose of painkiller, instantly feeling the thumping subside.

“Mary, Magnus, come in,” I said into my comm, but no reply came. They must have known I was breathing, and had gone for the people first, hoping whatever happened to me wasn’t fatal. Seeing me passed out, but having to leave my side, must have been difficult on Mary.

I threw on an insulated cap and grabbed any weapons I could fit on myself, along with a few rations of food and an emergency kit. One thing I remembered from those outdoor TV shows was you never went into a situation without being prepared. Especially heading into a mountain full of alien monsters, on a planet you’d just set foot on the day before.

Satisfied I was ready, I lifted the door, exiting the ship. The cold hit me like a brick wall, and I ran through the blowing snow toward the mountains. The footprints were fresh enough that they were still easy to follow.

“Dean!” a voice called thinly through the wind. “Dean!”

Gun ready, I spun, only to see Slate running toward me. “You okay?” he asked. When I nodded, he asked where the others were. I told him what had happened, and he stepped closer, looking me straight in the eyes. “You look fine,” he said, and with that, we were off together after Mary and Magnus.

“Did you see anything out there?” I asked, assuming he saw nothing but snow and ice.

“Yeah. They dragged them along this path. There must have been some fight left in the people, because one of the creatures was limping along, left behind. It was hurt pretty badly, so I put it out of its misery.”

The way he could casually talk about killing something always struck me as cold, but I think a part of me was only annoyed that he could turn it off when I held on to it so tightly.

The signs of the creatures and their prey were everywhere as we neared an entrance to the hillside. The mountain was tall, reminding me of visiting the Rocky Mountains as a teenager. Foreign trees lined the countryside, and I tried to focus on the task at hand, knowing I would have time to study this new world once we got our people back. The wind bit at my face, but the suit kept the majority of me warm as we followed the footsteps and drops of blood into an opening in the rock wall. The stark contrast of red human blood against the snow reminded me we probably didn’t have much time.

I tried the other two through the comm system, but either the storm or the rock was causing a disruption, and no one replied. The cavern opened up wide, and we turned our suits’ lights on, allowing us to see in the dimly-lit space. It looked like a huge bear cave, the kind you wouldn’t be stupid enough to run blindly into. We did just that, guns raised, ready for anything, but we saw and heard nothing.

The large room got smaller, the ceiling coming down rapidly as we went, and soon we were stuck with a choice of left or right. The cave separated into two tunnels, and we didn’t know which one to take.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Slate looked angry at having to decide. He was better at shooting first and thinking later, so this wasn’t his forte. “We could split up,” he suggested.

“With no radio communication, that adds to our risk. Let’s go left.” I went with my gut, and Slate seemed happy with it. He took the lead, gun up and lights shining forward as he bulldozed down the ever-tightening hallway. When I started to worry we would get stuck, it widened again and opened into another cavern.

“Where the hell did they go? Should we go back and try the other option?” I asked.

Slate started to answer, but I thought I could hear someone calling my name, and I didn’t make out his words. An alien sensation ran through my body, akin to the racking pain from inside the transport vessel, but more subdued: clearer now. My feet were moving, but I didn’t recall telling them to. It was as if an outside force was pulling strings, and I was a puppet. The rational part of my mind told me to be afraid and wanted to panic, but I didn’t. I went along with it, taking comfort in the new control.

“Dean?” Slate said my name, but he sounded miles away. I felt a tapping on my arm, but I didn’t stop and turn to him. I kept moving, flowing down the floor toward my goal. I wasn’t sure what that was, but it was close. So close.

“Dean! Stop walking; you’re freaking me out!” Slate was in front of me now, his large frame preventing me from continuing. I bumped against him, getting angry that he’d try to stop me from getting to wherever it was I needed to be. My pulse rifle raised, pointing at his chest.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he yelled, moving away from my aim, which didn’t follow him.

“I must get there,” I said, the words not my own, but from some part deep inside me. I could feel the blood pumping in me then, each beat of my heart pushing the life-force around my veins.

“Get where?” he asked, but I was walking faster, leaving him in the cavernous room as I exited through another hallway. This one wasn’t as tight as before, and for the first time, I noticed carvings on them. The part of me that was being pushed down tried to force itself out, to warn me something was wrong, but I didn’t let it. The hieroglyphics became denser on the walls as I went, and I could make out the sound of footsteps following at a safe distance behind me. Slate wasn’t a threat, so I didn’t worry about him.

The hall went on for a couple minutes before I reached my destination, which I knew the moment I crossed into the room. The energy was palpable, and my blood sang, thrumming in my ears like an airplane taking off. The LEDs on my suit flickered, and a small part of me wanted to scream. The other part was excited, ready for what was coming.

“Dear God,” Slate said from behind me.

A light illuminated thirty or so yards inside the room, starting out small: a clear gemstone, glowing blue suddenly. I stepped toward it and the light expanded, the drawings on the walls of the cavern burning hot blue as well.

“Dean, I think you should stop,” Slate said, but he didn’t come anywhere near me.

The room was at least one hundred yards wide, and I could see it all now, basking in the cool blue light. In each corner, manufactured pillars were erected, fitting from floor to ceiling. In the center of the pillars, which were spread out the full distance of the room, stood a table of sorts, made of the same material as the columns. The gemstone hummed a near-silent but constant song, and the blue rays pulsed in it, seemingly in time with my own heartbeat.

I neared the gemstone, squinting against the bright light, and saw the table had small illuminated icons on it. There were at least fifty of them, each a unique image of hard lines and squiggles. My hand settled flat over them, moving of its own volition, and I heard Slate calling to me.

The words were getting louder, and I turned to see him rushing toward me. I felt my finger touch down on the table. The icon it hit grew bright and bathed the entire room in green light. Slate collided with me, but something told me he was too late.

__________

The light was gone, along with the pounding of my heart on my eardrums. I lay on the ground, recalling walking away from Slate, and knew I wasn’t in control of whatever had taken over me. It left me feeling dirty and used.

“Slate?” I asked, not able to see anything in the dark room. I fiddled with the LED controls for my suit and they flicked on, casting a white glow over the larger man beside me. He groaned, sitting up before feeling himself for injury.

“Dean, just what the hell were you doing? First you pass out on the way over here, then that?” His voice was raised, telling me he was at his wits’ end with me. Slate liked things he could understand, and what had happened didn’t fall into that category.

“I have no idea. My blood was burning, pumping hot and fast, then my brain disassociated, allowing something else to move me. I’m sorry for pointing a gun at you. I swear it wasn’t me.”

“It sure looked like you,” he muttered under his breath. Slate turned on his own suit’s flashlights and stood up, taking stock of our situation. We weren’t in the same room we’d just come from. The air felt stale and thin. Slate unzipped a breast pocket, unfolding a breathing mask from inside, and I followed suit. With the mask against my face and strapped to my head, my breaths took on a smooth flow once again.

“How do we get back?” he asked.

“Don’t you want to know where we are?” I asked, scanning the room. It was a far cry from the rocky floor we’d left behind. This room was manufactured, the floor a solid metal alloy, the walls silver and smooth. A stone, much like the one in the cavern, sat behind a glass case; the same icons were visible on the screen. I walked away from it, seeing the drawings etched on the metal walls. Wherever we were, it was eerily similar to the place we’d just come from.

“I’d prefer to go back and help the others.” Slate was touching the glass screen above the stone, but nothing illuminated or moved. It was dark.

He was right. They needed our help. My fiancée was in danger and trying to rescue my sister. If I ever needed to get somewhere to assist, it was now.

“Why did it work back there?” I asked under my breath. My heart rate was fine now, my mind clear. “You felt nothing? No draw to that room, or to the light?”

Slate shook his head. “I felt angry. Angry at you for walking into it blindly.”

I couldn’t blame him. “Let’s look around, and maybe we can figure out how to get back. This has to be some sort of teleportation device. I wish we knew where it sent us. Probably to the opposite side of the planet.” I held my gun up, moving to the side of the room, wishing there were lights so I didn’t have anything jump out at me from out of the darkness.

“This time let’s stay together, okay?” Slate grumbled, moving in front of me. If he wanted to take the lead, I’d let him. I’d already shown there was a glitch in me. My back twitched, reminding me of being shot on one of the Kraski vessels during the Event. I had Mae’s… Janine’s blood in me still. That was it.

“I think the device picked up on my blood being alien. Maybe it recognizes the Kraski DNA and allowed me transport.” I was grasping at straws, but it was the only thing that remotely came close to an explanation.

Slate looked thoughtful a moment before turning to me, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Dean, if that’s true, what was it doing on New Spero? I thought this was an unspoiled planet. If there’s a device that allows Kraski transport, then –” He stopped talking, letting go of me, his shoulders sagging slightly. “We aren’t on the other side of New Spero now.”

I didn’t reply. Instead I walked to the doorway, which didn’t open. The power was down here. Slate grabbed hold of a manual lever, and pulled hard, the cords of his neck straining as he did so. Eventually, the door popped, hissed, and slid open.

The hall beyond was dark, ominous. My imagination told me there were creatures out there, ones that would attack as we passed any corner. Another part told me we were on a station where the entire crew was killed in an intergalactic attack, their spirits lingering and angry, waiting for redemption. With a quick shake of my head, I tried to let my childish fantasies dissipate, leaving me calculating the facts.

“If there’s no power, maybe we can find a backup system and turn it on.” If we could get power to the area, the touchscreen with the icons might lead us back to the cavern. It might have worked because there was no power needed for the carvings.

Slate didn’t reply; he just began moving quietly and efficiently down the hall. I tried to emulate his movements, making more noise than him, but not enough to put a target on our backs. We tried a few rooms along the way, manually opening the doors, but none of them proved helpful. It all had an unused feel to it, like it had sat empty for a very long time. I was left feeling queasy, and suddenly wished we were back at Magnus’ farmhouse, sharing a meal and laughing about the rescue we’d successfully pulled off. I focused on that feeling and set it as my intention. Now I just needed to get from here to there. That was the hard part.

“This place feels wrong,” Slate said, whispering the words near my ear. Our speech was muffled slightly by our oxygen masks, and I wondered at how much time we had breathing from them. We hadn’t had enough time yet to have their newly advanced technology explained to us.

“It feels old.” It all felt very far-future, but ancient at the same time.

We kept moving, seeing no signs of life anywhere. Eventually, we made our way to a large doorway, which opened into a massive room. Clear crystals glowed ever-so-softly in the middle of the room, casting an unwelcoming glimmer over the entire area. As we neared them, we could see they were encased in a tall glass cylinder that stretched from floor to ceiling, appearing to go on for at least fifty feet.

“Either this is part of a ship’s engine, or this powers the facility we’re in. I wish I knew more about advanced alien civilizations.” I meant it as a joke to lighten the mood, but even I couldn’t smile as I said it.

“I think we know enough for my liking.” Slate looked intense, like he was reverting from the fun-loving soldier we’d started to see on our journey together.

I turned to him, looking him in the eyes. “Other than the obvious,” I said, waving my hand, palm up, around the room, “is something bothering you?”

He seemed like he was going to slough off my question, but his mouth twitched. “I was up there, flying around space, avoiding being blown to smithereens by some inept New Spero station pilots, and I got to thinking, what if? What if I do die here? What if I’ve lived my whole life bent on revenge for my brother dying, before finding out there was no one to blame? The Event nearly destroyed our world, and many of us came out different people, but I was still a soldier for the same people I hated for sending us to war in the first place.”

“That’s in the past, Slate,” I said softly.

He ran his big hands over his close-cropped hair, and I could feel the frustration emanating from him. “What if I never find a good woman? What if I never have a family of my own? What if I die here, never getting an ending to my story, when it’s been so full of anger and resentment up to this point?” His words were getting quieter as he went, and I wanted to give the guy a hug and tell him it would be all right. But truth be told, I could empathize with his story, even though it was so far removed from my own.

“Tell you what. Let’s figure this out.” I pointed at the crystals in the tube. “Then we can find our way home and you can retire, meet someone at one of the colonies, and live that dream out on New Spero.”

“Do you think we’ll actually ever be safe, no matter where we go?” he asked.

I didn’t know, but the threat looming over our heads with Earth and the Bhlat clouded my thoughts. I resolved right then and there to make it my business. We’d been thrust, whether fairly or not, into the middle of the battle between the Deltra and the Kraski, and then the Bhlat over all of them, and unless we resolved it, we would never be truly safe.

“I’m going to make that happen.” I felt foolish for saying it, but Slate nodded, accepting that I meant what I said.

His jaw took on a hard line, a new resolve that we’d need to figure this puzzle out. We spread out over the room, looking for anything that might have power left in it, or a manual switch to turn on. A half hour later, we’d both found nothing and were back in the same spot we’d started the search from.

“Now what?” he asked.

“We keep searching.” I led the way back out of the room, upset we hadn’t found anything, but sure the answers were out there, within the metallic walls of the strange structure. The weight of the bag of supplies on my back was starting to get heavy, and I knew I was about five minutes from asking Slate to carry it for a while. I was glad I’d brought provisions into the caves. It looked like we might end up needing them after all.

Once again in the hallway, we kept going, avoiding the smaller side rooms, which at this point were fewer and fewer. Maybe the exterior of the hall walls was touching outside at this point. That would explain a lot. It could either be a pedway, if we were above ground, or just a corridor to connect two structures together.

Eventually, a door appeared at the end of the walkway. A small glass window allowed us to see through the thick metallic door, and I peered into it, expecting to see more of the same.

Someone was looking back at us from the other side.

SIX

“Get out of the way,” Slate said, shoving me to the side and raising his gun.

“Hold on. It didn’t look armed.” Whatever it was, it looked as startled as I’d been to see someone there.

Slate waited a moment, his back against the wall beside the door lever. He held his finger in front of his oxygen mask, telling me to stay quiet. We heard nothing. After staying like that for a long minute, Slate snuck over to the glass and looked through it.

“They’re still there. Sitting on the ground, arms in the air. What the hell is that?” he asked, and I moved beside him, looking in. The alien was stout, a dark uniform adorned its body, and it looked like it had multiple limbs. Two were in the air, another two fidgeting nervously in front of it. It was dark in the hall, but when I shone my light through, large eyes looked back, reminding me of a baby seal. Underneath the eyes, a protuberance emerged, not unlike an anteater’s snout, but only about five inches long. The whole effect was non-threatening, but things in nature often appeared that way to lull their prey. I wasn’t going to be fooled.

“What do you think?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe it can help us get back home.” He said the word home, and for a second, I thought of my house in upstate New York. That wasn’t my home anymore. We didn’t have one.

I agreed, and we decided to open the door, but cautiously, and with rifles pointed at the defenseless-looking creature.

The door popped, then hissed as Slate slid it, and I kept my rifle pointed at the alien, who scrambled back, all four of its arms now raised and waving around. It let out a series of squeaks and squawks in the process.

“Hello,” I said, lowering my rifle. Slate kept his pointed in the alien’s direction, but I took the lead. “I’m Dean, and this is Slate. We’re lost and need help getting out of here.”

It clearly didn’t understand me and kept chittering away, the noises a mix of bird and dolphin. “We don’t know what you’re saying.” I pointed down the hall from where we came, hoping it would know we’d emerged from the room with the solitary gemstone and hieroglyphics. I drew one of the symbols in the air with my right index finger and repeated it a few times before the alien seemed to acknowledge it comprehended.

“You coom from fer away.” It spoke in squeaks, and a speaker on its suit repeated in near-English. Once again, I was amazed by the universe’s ability to translate language. The more I spoke, the sooner we could speak fluently together.

“We do come from far away. Very good. As I said, I’m Dean,” I paused, putting a hand on my chest, “and this big man with a gun is Slate. We mean you no harm.” Slate lowered the gun beside me and tried to smile, but it looked forced and a little scarier than the gun. I glowered at him and he stopped, giving me a real smirk.

A few more squawks: “I am Suma. I mean you no harm.”

“That’s good. I was getting worried,” Slate said, noticeably relaxed in front of the short alien.

“Stay on guard. We don’t know anything about Suma here.” I whispered the words, but the alien got onto its wide feet, and I saw it was even shorter than I’d initially thought, no more than four feet tall.

“I stuck here. Want father.”

I clued in. This was a child. “How did you get here, Suma?”

It pointed the way we’d come. “Same way you did. Through the Shandra. The Stones.”

My blood turned cold at hearing the name. Shandra. It was as if part of me understood the word: an ominous portent of things to come.

“Slate. That name. The puppeteer guiding me through the caves. I think my Kraski blood led me there, and now I feel as though I know the name. Shandra.”

Suma’s eyes went wide when I said Kraski. “You not Kraski,” it said matter-of-factly.

“No, I’m not. But have some of their blood pumping through my veins.” Suma took a step back at that, like I was some sort of freak, hell-bent on stealing alien blood. “It’s a long story, and it was given to me freely to save my life. If we can travel through the Stones, let’s go. You can show us how it works.”

It squeaked a couple times, the translator not picking up what Suma said. “I cannot show you.”

“Why?” Slate asked, his jaw muscles flexing.

“Because we are stuck here.”

The thought of being stranded on this alien world turned my blood to ice. I needed to get back, to help my sister, but that outcome was probably already decided. I could only hope it ended with Mary and Magnus leading those people out of the cave, and back to their homes.

“How did you get here?” I asked Suma, who looked like an admonished child as it spoke.

“My father is the Gatekeeper on my world. I was playing with my brother, and I hid inside the Shandra. I somehow turned it on, and I came here by accident,” Suma said, and I was ninety percent sure Suma was a female of her species. I couldn’t bring myself to ask, in case I was wrong, or in case they didn’t have different sexes.

“Why won’t this one work?” Slate asked.

“The stone needs to be charged, and this one is too weak.” The translator was working almost perfectly.

“That means we need to find the juice to light this building up,” I said. “Do you know where we are? Are we still in Proxima?”

Suma looked at me, head cocked to the side, like she was trying to comprehend the name I’d just said. “I think this is one of the outer cities: a civilization that vanished thousands of years ago. My people haven’t studied all of the planets thoroughly yet, but I believe this is one of those abandoned.”

Thousands of years. I looked around at the hall we were in. To think a race of aliens walked them centuries upon centuries ago was mind-boggling. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to them. “You’re saying the stone can transport us to any number of planets, and they all have a similar room where you appear and can travel from?”

“Yes. Some are buried deep on worlds that have no idea the Stone exists. Others have been destroyed over the millennia. My world is one of those in charge of keeping them active where possible.” The squeaks and squawks became softer. “I’m going to be in so much trouble.”

“Do the different drawings on the table represent different worlds?” I asked, excitement at the possibilities causing my hand to start shaking.

“Yes.”

I glanced over at Slate, whose gun hand was at ease. He leaned against the hallway, deep in thought.

“How do we power up the stone?” I asked.

“I don’t know. There has to be a backup system somewhere, because my people have been here and returned before. I’m not permitted to see the logs yet.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because… I’m still a child in their eyes.” She looked down, her snout wiggling in discomfort.

“Suma, we’ll find the power and get you home safe. Right, Slate?” I asked.

“Right, boss,” he said, giving me a determined look.

“How long have you been here?” I asked the smaller alien.

“Two cycles of Saaranla.”

“Is that long?” Slate asked.

“I’ve had to sleep once.”

I slung the pack from my back, getting a bottle of water out. I opened it and passed it over. She looked at me dubiously, big black eyes glistening in the dim light. “It’s water. Take it. We have more.” I did have more, but only enough for a couple days, tops. When she found a way to stick her snout into the bottle top and slurp some liquid up, I passed her an energy bar, which she told me tasted like Laaran. I took that to mean something bad, judging by her reaction, but she ate most of it before tucking the last few bites into a pocket.

“Thank you, Dean,” she said through the translator.

“How far have you gone?” Slate asked her.

“Not very. I was afraid I’d get lost, or that my father would track me. But that’s foolish. The Stones don’t keep track of destinations. He wouldn’t know where I’d traveled to.”

“Boss, let’s keep moving the way we’re heading. It has to lead somewhere, and if we aren’t expecting any baddies hiding out in the shadows, we can move quickly and not worry about noise,” Slate said.

I looked at Suma, hoping we could trust her story. Every instinct was telling me we could, but I’d been wrong before.

“Let’s move.” Slate grabbed my pack, taking the burden from me, and I was grateful for the respite. We’d only left the complex that morning a few hours ago, but it already felt like days.

We moved as quickly as we could. Suma’s short legs carried her quite well, and she had no problem keeping up with us. We kept going, checking doorways as we went along. Half of the rooms were empty; the other half didn’t seem to have a purpose we understood. If the race had vanished a long time ago, maybe they’d packed up and left the world in search of somewhere else.

Eventually, we came to a large door, with nowhere to go but back or through it. Beside it a smaller slab stood, probably a maintenance closet. The large door had a viewscreen on it, but with the power out, it was blank, so we couldn’t see what was on the other side.

“This has to lead somewhere important. It’s the first entry with a viewscreen, and it’s much larger than all the others,” I said. “Suma, what do you know about these people?”

“Not much. We study the worlds in school, but I didn’t see what diagram I touched. It was all an accident. If it’s one of the outer worlds, it’s rumored they ran from something, abandoning whole worlds, traveling far away, never to be seen again.” She shifted on her large flat feet.

“Adds up. It looks like these guys left of their own volition, but why?” Slate asked, reaching for the manual lever. “Do it?”

I nodded. “Do it.”

The door opened, and we were hit with a gust of wind, sour air pouring in from outside. I walked over, trying to comprehend what I was seeing. We had to be a couple thousand feet up. Huge buildings were erected into the clouds, with intricate pedway systems between them. The city went on for miles in all the directions I could see from my vantage point. I felt nausea creep upward from my toes to my head, before settling back in my stomach. It looked like something from a nightmare. The sky was dark, electricity shifting from cloud to cloud before shooting lightning bolts down toward the ground.

Slate closed the door to shield us from the blowing wind. “What now?” he asked.

Suma’s back was against the wall, and I remembered she didn’t have an oxygen mask like us. “Suma, can you breathe?”

Her eyes were wide, and her snout frantically flailed. I slipped the mask off my face and hoped giving her oxygen wouldn’t do more harm than good. She breathed deeply through what passed as her nose but was still struggling to get enough air without a proper seal.

Slate opened the small door beside the entry. “It’s a closet. Bingo.” Slate rifled through piles of junk before he pulled out a mask, passing one to me.

“How does it work?” I asked, but Suma was already grabbing it and placing it on her face, twisting a cap on the bottom. It hissed and her panic subsided.

After twenty or so seconds, she removed the mask. “If we go outside, we will need these. The planet’s atmosphere is not stable.”

“There’s no tank on this thing. How does it work?” Slate asked.

She moved her lower arms in a gesture I took to be a shrug. “Look at your mask. Does it have a tank? Same principle.”

I hadn’t given it much thought, but it appeared a filter mask worked with a science that was beyond me. Or it was magic. Either way, I was okay not understanding it.

Slate, on the other hand, was playing with one, trying to comprehend the process.

“It’s the end of the line. Let’s mask up and go out there. The power source may be underneath us, a mile or so from the base of the building,” he said, looking at me for confirmation. When I nodded, he passed me one of the masks. “These look superior to the flimsy airline ones we have attached to us. Let’s use them.”

“What makes you think the power is under us?” I asked.

He pointed inside the closet door, where a paper blueprint hung above a shelf. It showed a few buildings, with blue lines coming from a source below that looked similar to the stones in the room we’d found earlier. It appeared to power a few square miles, each building having lines connecting to it. The image was detailed, and I ripped it off the wall, folding it up and shoving it into a pocket.

“Might come in handy. And here I thought you had some insight into alien technology,” I said, smirking at him. “How do we get down there?”

Slate started for the door. “Let’s find out.”

“Suma, do you want to stay here?” I asked the small alien female, who was already putting the mask back on. Her snout bent to the side inside the glass-encased mask, but she could still speak through her translator, though the squeaks were muffled.

“I will come. I may be of help,” she said.

The last thing I wanted to do was put her in danger, but if we didn’t power up this dead building, we’d all die here, so I didn’t argue with her.

Slate opened the door, the cool stale wind blowing against us again as we moved from the relative safety of the structure to outside. The lightning crackled, startling Suma, who grasped my arm; I patted her hand, letting her know it was okay. Even in the wind and eerily black sky, it was near silent out there, and that added to the strange feeling in my gut.

We were on a balcony that wrapped around the rectangular building. I walked around it, getting much more of the same vantage: miles of similar skyscrapers, all dark and dead, pedways connecting each of them. I pointed to a building next to us. “That has to be where we came from.” I ran a finger in the air, tracing our steps from the room we arrived in, across the pedway, and toward the door we’d met Suma at only a half hour ago. Out here, it looked like our journey so far had been nothing but a quick jaunt across a couple of city blocks. The sheer distance the city went on for, and the fact it was supposed to be abandoned, made me feel uneasy.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath of filtered air, calming myself. The only way to get back to New Spero was to power this grid up. I only hoped there was a way to do that below.

Slate was already walking in the other direction, his stride full of purpose. Suma walked along behind him, all four arms firmly at her sides.

“Dean,” Slate called, “I think I found the elevator.”

I hurried to catch up, focusing on them the whole time to forget I was so high up from the ground. I was worried vertigo would kick in and I’d be left clutching a wall, unable to help. I neared and saw the device he was talking about. It was a lift with four sides, but no visible cables. “What do we do with this?”

Suma stepped forward, pulling a small tablet from a pocket on the back of her uniform. “There is an energy reading still. Sometimes these civilizations ensured they wouldn’t get stuck, so they had backup systems in place.”

Slate looked at her dubiously. “They don’t consider the Shandra worthy of backup power?”

Suma just did her lower arm shrug again and continued. “I don’t begin to suggest I understand their reasoning. The lift appears to be controlled by these foot pedals.” She pointed with her top left hand to a spot where two metal squares were etched with different symbols on each.

We were all standing on the lift, looking closely at the floor, when Suma crawled over and pressed one of them. We didn’t have time to react as we started to move very quickly. I fell, pressure keeping me down on my knees as we lifted higher and higher. “Stop it,” Slate croaked.

Suma hit the same lever again, and we came to a stop at the next level. I stood up, this time getting a full view of the city. We were even higher, twice as high as we were, and even in the darkness, I could make out an ocean of lava in the deep distance. To the other side, mountains, as black as midnight, loomed like a bad omen. No wonder these people had left their home.

“I’m going to guess the other lever takes us down?” I hadn’t finished the question when Suma hit the lever, and we were quickly descending. This time, knowing it was happening, we were able to stay on our feet. I grasped the railing on the side of the lift, as did the other two, and I wondered if a harness system would have been safer.

As we lowered, I kept my eyes out for a structure we’d seen on the blueprint. There it was, a few standard blocks away, maybe half a mile in total. I only hoped we’d find a way to turn the power source on once we got there. I pointed toward it, and Slate nodded as the lift slowed and stopped at ground level.

We exited the lift, my legs and stomach both glad to be off the thing. The ground was made of a concrete-like substance, and considering how long it had sat at rest, there were very few breaks in it. Every twenty or so feet, I could see signs of something trying to come up through it. Nature always took over, unless you were on an abandoned alien planet. Maybe the lava and lightning were what constituted nature on this world. I didn’t intend to be here long enough to find out.

Slate moved with efficiency, Suma and I following along, me with my gun at ready, though I could see no sign of any threats. It never hurt to be prepared.

Suma began to slow, and I slowed alongside her. “Are you going to be okay?”

Her snout twitched under the clear face-plate of the filter mask. She squeaked a reply. “I’ll be fine. We don’t move this much at home.” I kept with her slower pace, Slate eventually noticing we weren’t right behind him. He slowed as well but kept fifty yards ahead.

There wasn’t much of interest down on this level: mostly just the bases of the skyscrapers, and some maintenance sheds. The living appeared to all happen above ground on this planet, or at least in this city. It wasn’t long before we made it to our target. The building, a squat, square brick-walled complex, looked out of place among the thin, cloud-high structures around it.

I ran a gloved hand along the smooth stone walls as we looked for a door. It all worked together: the traveling stones, the gemstones in the clear cylinder up top, and now this. My mind flashed to the stones we’d worn to stay on Earth while everyone else was lashed into the ships. It all worked together on a scale as large as our universe. One day, I suspected we’d understand it all. Today, I just wanted to find a door, get some power, and leave.

“Over here,” Slate said from around the corner. It was still quiet down on the ground, but the wind was blowing small debris around. Pebbles and small metal sheets clattered down the streets, reminding me the planet wasn’t so much different from our own.

Suma and I rounded the side of the building. Slate was there, pulling on the door. It wouldn’t move. I grabbed hold of what had to be the handle, and we both tugged on it, even putting our legs on the wall for leverage. Nothing.

“Keep looking for another way in?” I asked, but Slate was shaking his head.

“I’m growing tired of this place.” He lightly shoved me back and unslung his pulse rifle, red beam blowing a hole in the rocks. He did this a few times, until the opening was large enough to get through.

Suma had jumped and hid behind me. “You’re safe, Suma.”

She shook until Slate put the gun away. “What is that?” she asked.

“It’s a gun; a weapon.”

She tested the word, a strange sound through her small snout. “Weapon.”

“You don’t have guns where you come from?” I asked, curious that a race might be non-violent. No wonder she hadn’t seemed too afraid of our guns when we’d encountered her. She was just afraid of seeing pasty near-hairless aliens.

“We don’t have guns.” She didn’t elaborate.

“Boss, can we do this later?” Slate was getting into Rambo mode, and I was good with that. I closed my eyes for a split second, seeing Slate standing over Mae’s bleeding body. Target down. I shook it off and patted Slate on the shoulder.

“We can do this later. Let’s get some power.”

SEVEN

The inside of the power plant, for lack of a better term, was black. Our LEDs lit the way as we entered, guns raised against the off chance we were about to be ambushed. We stood at rest, listening for any sounds. All we heard was the wind dancing around outside the hole in the wall.

Slate motioned us forward, and Suma stayed behind me. I couldn’t tell if she was more afraid of the unknown or of Slate. Either way, I would try to keep her feeling safe. We were in a small room with lockers along the wall and a table in the middle of the room. I searched through the cubbies, finding uniforms and heavy boots. The material was thick on everything, but clearly made for something other than a human. I held one of the one-piece uniforms up, and imagined thin legs and a tail, with arms down to their knees. I guessed I’d never know for sure.

In the middle of the room, Slate searched under the table, and found an assortment of tools. Some looked much like ones you’d find in any house’s garage, and others were far more complex. “I hope we don’t need to use one of these to turn the power on.” Slate held up a device with ten prongs sticking out of it, and what looked like thousand-year-old grease piled on each tip.

Suma walked over to him, sorting the tools on the table, not saying anything. I smiled and headed for a doorway that would lead us further inside.

“Are you ready?” I asked, more for the sake of saying it than needing to.

Slate was always ready. He nodded, raising his gun as I turned the handle, feeling the years of neglect fight me as I pressed the lever. It eventually moved, and I pulled, opening us up into the next room. It was the right door, which was good, because it was the only door.

“This is it,” Slate whispered as we walked inside the large open bay room. Machinery sat in clumps along the edges of the room, but the center was what drew our eyes. A massive clear crystal the size of a dump truck sat glimmering as our lights reflected off it. The thousands of edges on it each angled the light out in a beautiful pattern around the room’s wall and ceiling. “Isn’t that something.”

It was. Where the crystals in the “boiler room” we’d seen up top had been glowing a tiny bit, this one was dead. It was just a crystal down here. The largest single crystal I’d ever seen, but it was here.

“Does the rock power things, or does it just act as a transmitter?” Slate asked, and I shrugged, having no idea.

Suma came behind us, her black eyes even wider than normal. She walked around the room, and just as I was about to tell her to be careful, I noticed she wasn’t just out for a stroll; she was figuring it out. She found an input into the crystal and traced it back to the machines sitting idly around the edges of the room.

Five minutes later, she was standing at a large machine that looked like a combination of a commercial furnace, an icemaker, and an oil derrick. It was just ten feet wide and twelve or so high, but she stood at the hunk of junk like it was going to be our savior.

“What do you have there, Suma?” I asked, breaking her from her analysis.

“This is the start. We fire this up, the rest will follow. In ideal scenarios.” The small alien continued to astound me. Clare would love this one. Mary would too. I’d been trying to forget about my friends and loved ones since we’d traveled, just wanting to focus on the task at hand. Thinking about Mary and getting back to her gave me a well-needed boost of energy.

“What do we do?” Slate asked, hands ready to work.

“We have to get each operational again. Mostly cleaning and lubricating.”

A few minutes later, we started moving from machine to machine, of which there were about seven, leading up to the initial power generator. Slate held the ten-headed lubricator tool and stuck it out, trying to get me to take it.

“No way. You made the joke earlier, you deal with it. It’s only fair.” I spoke too soon, because that meant I was crawling under the machines to make sure the wiring was in place and intact. They looked different than the cables I was used to, but I imagined the principle held the same. They were thick, round, and clear. Instead of metal as the conductor, it looked like a fiber-optic material, possibly the same as the crystal. I wasn’t sure.

An hour later, we were covered in dirt, grease, and sweat, but Suma thought they just might be operational.

“Let’s move back, just in case something goes terribly wrong,” I suggested, moving from the center of the room to the side, beside the first machine, from where we could also make a quick exit.

“It has a hard start,” Suma said, moving to a panel on the machine. It had a touchscreen on the outside, but it was dark.

“How do you know all this?” I asked her.

“My father is the Gatekeeper, and my mother studies how other races tick. She’s a technology expert of many solar systems. She wants me to take after her, so I’ve learned how to understand machines.”

“Is that what you want to do?” I asked.

Her lower arms raised up into her version of a shrug. “I suppose. I really want to take after my father, but after today, I suspect I’ll never be allowed in the Shandra again.”

Her honesty was refreshing, and I hoped we could get her home to hash it all out. Whatever she did, she’d do it well. Her hands found what looked like a large primer and pushed it, while turning a knob to the left and holding it. Soon my feet vibrated, along with the floor.

“You did it!” Slate exclaimed. Suma beamed, her snout twitching inside her filter mask.

Lights appeared on the first machine’s touchscreen, and symbols I didn’t recognize glowed on a white background. Suma peered at them thoughtfully before hitting a series of icons. The vibrations increased as each machine began to spring to life, one at a time, ten or so seconds between them.

Recessed wall lighting glowed white as the power made its way around the room, and soon our suit lights were unnecessary. Mine turned off automatically, and I saw Slate’s do the same. My friend was grinning ear to ear, and he stuck his fist out for a bump. I happily obliged.

“You’re amazing, Suma. How long before…” I stopped asking the question as the huge crystal began to glow from the center out. It was like watching the sunrise from a high vantage point. One moment it’s dark, the next a soft glow, and in a while, you’re covered in all the sun’s glory. We stared at the stone for five minutes, feeling the energy vibrate off of it. A series of cords glowed from underneath it, snaking out toward the city, the clear fiber optics blue with energy. It was a brilliant sight. Eventually, we had to avert our eyes to avoid damaging them.

“Time to see if our building is up,” I said, making for the exit. “Great work, Suma. Your parents will be proud of you.” Her pace slowed at this, and I put an arm around her short shoulders.

“Thank you, Dean,” her translator said after a small squawk.

We headed outside and could already see the effect of the power being on. Buildings started to light up floor by floor, until we were covered in the soft glow of a long-dead city block. Street lights I hadn’t even seen before were on, lighting our way back to the tower.

“That’s better,” Slate said, casually walking with his rifle slung over his shoulder. “We should be able to get back up and to the room in twenty minutes.”

I was happy with that timeline. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been gone, but it hadn’t been more than a couple of hours yet. Given the circumstances, that was a win.

The sounds of the city had changed when the power turned on. There was a constant hum as things turned on for the first time in centuries. In a few lower buildings, which appeared to be stores of some sort, I spotted screens playing advertisements.

“Hold on,” I said, walking over to one. A thin alien, with a tail as large as its legs, talked to the audience, his language silent through the glass window. His face was long, with no visible nose and a slit of a mouth. His eyes were deep-set and marble-sized, black as the night was now. He pointed up, long arms extended to a sky that was still partly blue but in the middle of a lightning storm. “I think this was before they left. Before things got too bad here.” The video was short, ending and repeating on a loop.

The constant hum we’d been hearing accelerated, and the ground shook violently, almost enough to send us sprawling. I grabbed the wall, and Slate caught Suma, steadying her.

“That can’t be good,” Slate said, looking around for a sign of trouble.

“Who knows what happened when we fired it up? Maybe we caused an explosion in a building’s power system.” I was going to say more, but a loud screech cried through the air, causing us all to cover our ears.

When I looked up, five small drone-like ships were hovering near us. They were each only about a foot across, but the red lights flashing on them made me think they weren’t there to guide us home.

A series of robotic commands came through the front one’s speakers, and Suma’s translator automatically relayed the message. “You are trespassing. Drop any weapons. Place hands on your heads.”

The message repeated twice before we caught it all. “What happens if we don’t?” I asked quietly, hoping Slate was on the same page as me. Our eyes locked, and his finger twitched, ready for a trigger. I spun, pushing Suma behind me, and fired my rifle in quick succession, hearing Slate do the same thing. The unsuspecting drones didn’t even move as we blew four of them out of the air, scrap metal falling to the ground in a clank. That left one, which flew away spewing out commands Suma’s translator didn’t pick up.

“Run!” I said, keeping Suma in front of me. The drone was following us, and we were only half a block from the lift to bring us back to the platform where we’d started this city walk. Small blasts hit the ground between us as we zigged and zagged down the road, Slate firing back over his shoulder as we ran.

Just as we neared the lift, Slate turned, stood firmly, and took aim just as a red beam fired at him. He let off a volley of shots, being rewarded with a small explosion. He jumped to the side to avoid the red beam, which ended up hitting the ground at my feet. “Yeah!” he cheered.

“Let’s get out of here.” I moved to the lift and we all got on, Suma hitting the pedal again. The sooner we got back, the sooner we’d get the hell out of this abandoned nightmare. The lightning seemed to be flashing more often now, and after having been below, walking the city streets, I could see why a race would want to leave this place. It was unnerving.

The lift carried us upward, my knees holding firm against the sudden change in trajectory.

“What’s that noise?” Suma asked, moving to the side of the lift.

I hadn’t heard anything, but when I concentrated, there was a constant hum again, this one getting louder by the second.

Suma pointed, and Slate and my gazes followed along to see a cloud moving to intercept us.

“What the hell is it?” Slate asked, his voice panicked, but it only took us a few more seconds to answer that. It was a horde of drones.

EIGHT

“We have to get inside!” I yelled as the lift stopped short of the platform we needed to get to. “Suma?”

“It’s stuck.” She pressed the pedals, but nothing happened. “Maybe they jammed it.”

We were only five feet from the ledge, and Slate jumped, pulling himself up with a grunt. I saw the cloud of drones coming in fast, and at this distance, I could make out individual units, rather than a clump of them. We were running out of time.

Slate’s hand reached down, and Suma grabbed it. He pulled her up with ease as I jumped, grabbing the ledge myself. I worked at pulling myself up, the months of training having done wonders for my upper body strength. The first laser fire hit as I rolled to my side on the platform, Slate and Suma already running for the doorway. I chased after them, smoking holes appearing on the walkway around me as the hundred or so drones fired away at us.

The door was there, and Slate got it open, ushering Suma in first. When he turned to let me in, I felt the shot hit. It burned into my leg, nearly causing me to fall, but Slate grabbed hold of my collar and threw me inside like a bouncer tossing a drunk onto the street. He slammed the door shut behind us, pulse fire hitting the outside of the building like rain on a tin roof on a hot summer day.

“Will it hold?” I asked no one in particular. My leg was bleeding, but it looked more like a graze than serious damage.

Suma was moving down the hall to a touchscreen on the wall, which was lit up in glowing green light.

“If I can…” Her mask was off her face, and her snout was straight forward, the ends of it mechanically moving back and forth. The gesture seemed a mixture of concentration and nerves. Her thick hands fluttered across the screen deftly, and in a minute, the firing ceased.

Slate was activating the window screen on the access, which had been black before we had the power on. It now showed us what was on the other side. The hundred or so drones had stopped attacking and were slowly moving back the way they’d come.

“Great work, Suma. How did you do that?” I asked.

“I knew they would be linked to the network somewhere. I just had to break through their clearance settings. It was basic. We’ve had this technology for centuries.” She made it seem so easy, and I stumbled toward her, throwing my arms around the small alien girl.

She didn’t seem to understand the gesture at first, but soon I felt her four arms wrap around me, and Slate was there, picking both of us up.

“Quite the team. You did well, little buddy.” He patted the girl on the shoulder, and she beamed, her big black eyes wide. “You too, boss.” As if I needed the motivation. My calf was burning up, but I knew we could get back soon if the device would work. Slate slipped some water out of my bag, and we all drank, relishing the refreshment. I realized just how tired I was; the exhaustion of the day started to take its toll.

I found a bandage inside the pack, and after rolling up my pant leg and painfully washing the wound with a liberal amount of water, I placed the cloth over my calf. It stung but already felt better. They evidently had improved the bandage, because if I didn’t know better, it was healing me on contact.

“Time to go home, Suma.” I got up, and we started to walk back the way we’d come. The place was lit now that the power was on, making it much easier to see our surroundings. I could see the signs of centuries of vacancy, even in the sealed corridors. Our footprints were still on the floor, evidence we’d been the first people to tread on the floors in a long time. When I closed my eyes, I could feel the echo of a race that had once lived vibrantly in a technologically advanced society. I prayed they still lived and thrived on a new world, much like we would on New Spero.

The trip was fast, and soon we were walking past the room I thought of as the boiler room, the stones glowing blue, energy thrumming out into the halls and rooms of the high-rise. We kept moving, arriving at the Shandra, the room we’d started our adventure in.

“Here goes nothing,” I said, approaching the door. My heart pounded in my chest, my face getting flushed as I worried the room would be dark, dead. We’d be stuck forever on this horrible empty world.

The door slid to the side with a hiss, and Suma let out a tweet her translator didn’t relay. The room was dim, but as we entered it, the hieroglyphs came to life along the walls. So many places to see, so many worlds out there. I couldn’t let my brain think about it, because it made everything I knew seem so small and insignificant. If there were hundreds of known worlds with rooms just like this, that meant the universe was so much larger than even the corner we’d seen, travelling faster than light and traversing wormholes.

Suma led us to the center of the room, where the table stood.

“Which world do you need to go to?” she asked.

Slate and I looked at each other. The sickening feeling that had finally started to subside was back.

“Proxima. We call it New Spero.” My own voice sounded distant to my ears.

She looked at the icon options. “Which one?”

“We don’t know. Until a couple of hours ago, we had no idea what a Shandra was, or that we could use them to travel between worlds,” I said, trying to keep calm, but failing.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know where your home is.” The squeaks came out softly, and I could tell that Suma was upset she couldn’t help us.

“Your father is a Gatekeeper?” Slate asked, showing more common sense than me.

“Yes. My world’s finest, and we come from an ancient lineage of gatekeepers.”

“Then he’ll know how to get us home.” Slate slid his pack and rifle off his shoulders and nodded to the table. “Take us there.”

“I can’t. If I bring strangers through, he’ll be very upset. I wasn’t supposed to be using it. I’ll never be allowed through again.” Her squawks rose in pitch.

“Suma, he’ll understand. I’ll take the blame,” I said, hoping the rest of her race were as sensible and kind as she’d been.

“Okay. I do want you to make it home. I like you both.”

I smiled at this, and Slate’s face stayed intense and impassive. I wondered to what lengths the big man would have gone to twist her arm into helping us. I pushed it away, since we weren’t going to have to find out.

“Are you ready?” she asked. We held our belongings and said that we were.

She used the console on the table, tapping an icon with four arrows crossing over each other like a compass. A mountain range stood behind the symbol. Soon the rock lit up, and the room went so brilliant I had to close my eyes. This trip was far less startling, since we hadn’t been moving and were expecting it, but I still felt nauseous as the light dimmed, and we found ourselves in a totally different place.

A siren emanated from beyond the door at the far side of the space. This room was massive, at least twenty times the size of the last one, and the pillars stood a great distance apart. The floor was white, like pristine marble, not a speck of dirt evident to my gaze. The walls were adorned with pictures on screens, reminding me of my favorite section of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York suddenly felt like a lifetime ago. I looked up, but the light coming from the ceiling was too bright for me to see how high the room went up.

“Tell me this is your home,” I whispered to Suma, who gave a lift of her snout, which I was starting to associate as a smile.

“It is home.”

The doors opened, and a dozen beings entered, their thick legs and torsos looking a lot like Suma’s, but they were at least twice her size, dwarfing even Slate. “Oh boy,” I said under my breath as Suma stepped between us and the quickly advancing entourage of her people.

“Stop,” she said, twitching at how loud her own voice came out. She fiddled with something on her sleeve, and when she spoke again, the translator was turned off. It was a private conversation, and she didn’t want us to be part of it.

A man at the front of the group knelt as he arrived at Suma, wrapping his four arms around the smaller alien. He squawked at her, his voice much deeper and more threatening than hers. She visibly shrank at his admonishing, and I instantly knew the sight of a daughter being disciplined by her father. A minute later, he rose, lightly pushing Suma behind him, and he stepped forward until he was only two yards from us. I saw Slate tense beside me, so I reached a hand out, setting it on his arm. “It’s okay,” I said, hearing my words translate through Suma’s father’s suit.

“It is not okay. You should not be here, hoomans.” The last word came out wrong, and it felt all the more ominous for the misnomer.

“We agree. We just want to get home,” I said, adding a hint of supplication to my voice. “Suma is an amazing child, and we can’t thank her enough for helping us get out of that city.”

“From the sounds of it, she wouldn’t have been able to get back without you two either. I suppose I owe you some gratitude,” his deep bird-like words translated.

“We really just want to get back. We don’t want to waste any of your time, sir.”

He motioned for the rest of his crew to relax, and a few of them left the room, their heavy steps echoing in the large open chamber.

“You now know of the Shandra, and I cannot allow you to leave,” he said, pausing, and Slate reached for his gun, “without being trained how to use it properly.” Slate lowered it, giving me a side glance. At least I knew he was always ready to survive. I needed a guy like that at my side.

“Come, we will take refreshment.” He turned, leading us away.

“You sure this is a good idea, boss?” Slate asked when we were a good ten yards behind Suma’s father.

“If we’re going to win a war against the Bhlat, I have a feeling we’ll need every trick in the book.”

Slate’s eyes lit up, and I could see him already beginning to calculate how we could use the Shandra to our advantage. I had an inkling and hoped the training we received would be enough to implement it and change the tides of the inevitable war that was coming.

NINE

“Goodbye, Suma,” I said, hugging the small Shimmali girl. We’d learned a lot about their people in the short couple of hours on her world. I promised we’d be back, and she was excited to meet my mate, as she called Mary. “Thank you, Sarlun.” I stuck a hand out to Suma’s father, who, once you got to know him, was a strong and intelligent man. It made a lot of sense to have this man guarding their portal to other worlds. Shimmal was a small tropical world, with lush green trees rising hundreds of yards in the air as far as the eye could see. They lived on a fruit-like diet, and though they had an abundance of amazing technology, they elected to stay grounded and close to nature. It was a prime example of an elevated society.

Suma and Sarlun left us at the table, now having confidence we could get back home. I slid the tablet into my pack. It contained the star charts for every Shandra planet out there, and with it, we could go anywhere. There were also notes on each civilization from each planet they had on record. There were some that remained unknown, and Sarlun urged me to avoid many more. When he handed me the tablet, I swore I would.

I waved as the door closed, and Slate and I were left alone in the bright white room.

“What do you think, boss?” Slate asked.

“I think knowledge is power, and we’re a lot smarter after today. I also think I need to go back and make sure my fiancée and Magnus made it out safely.” If they or my sister were hurt based on our disappearance, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Sarlun assured me some beings were drawn to the stones like a Slil to a flame, which I assumed was something akin to a moth. When I’d told him about my near out-of-body experience when I first found New Spero’s portal, he just gave what could only be a knowing smile.

I tapped the table, like I’d been taught, and found the symbol we determined to be that of New Spero.

“Ready?” I asked, and Slate nodded his assent. The icon glowed as I touched it, and the room went bright once again.

When I opened my eyes, we were inside the cavern, the etched hieroglyphics glowing softly. I now found myself recognizing some of the symbols and felt the power this new tool at our disposal had.

“Quick, let’s see if we can find any signs of our friends.” I ran for the doorway, Slate following behind, his rifle at the ready. We hurried through the caves, back the way we’d come, and at the entrance, elected to go the other direction, deep into the mountainside. Cold air filled the halls, the smell of decaying meat mixing with the stale breeze.

“This way,” Slate said, taking the lead. We emerged in a large room, where the signs of a battle were evident. I saw dozens of dead animals and a lot of blood. Scraps of human clothing lay in tatters across the floor, and I knew there was no way everyone had made it out alive. The urge to cry out for Mary was strong, but I didn’t want to draw attention to the deadly animals if they were still lingering around a corner.

“Let’s go. I think they got out. Look,” he said, pointing to footprints in the pools of blood. They were heading the way out. I saw signs of those same footprints as we went back for the exit, and soon we were back outside, freezing cold air filling my lungs as I ached to scream Mary’s name.

The snow was still falling heavily, any signs of footprints long gone. We’d been away all day, at least eight hours, and when we reached the spot where the transport vessel had been sitting, there was no evidence one had ever been there.

“Damn,” I said quietly.

“Come in, Terran Five,” Slate said into his headset. He repeated it a few times, but he just got static in return. “Looks like we’re walking. You up for it?” He glanced at my injured leg.

“I think I can make it. I’m more worried about freezing to death.”

“The sooner we get moving, the sooner we’re warm.” Slate started to walk, taking my pack again.

Terran Five was only a couple of miles away, and even though the snow was piling around us, making each step a difficult one, I knew I’d find Mary at the other end, and that was enough to keep me moving at a fast pace.

__________

Mary and I sat side by side on a couch, hot coffee on the table in front of us. I felt like I’d never be warm again, even though I’d been inside for an hour already. Her arm was bandaged; otherwise, she looked no worse for wear.

Her hand slid over to me, intertwining her fingers with mine. We left the rest unspoken. We’d both thought there was a chance we’d lost the other today, and the relief was great as Slate and I showed up at the gates. They’d told us Magnus and Mary had returned with the missing people. I’d fallen to my knees as they said the words, half from the pain in my calf, half from happiness that they were all right, no thanks to me.

Magnus walked into the room, smiling wide at the sight of us on a couch. “You guys make this all seem so normal.” The hospital waiting room was cramped, and with Magnus in it, the space we had shrank in half.

“I just want to see my sister,” I said, butterflies dancing in my stomach as we waited. Mary assured me she was going to be fine. Isabelle had been bitten by one of the creatures and had lost a lot of blood, but she was in good hands.

We gabbed, me finishing my story about the Shandra while drinking coffee. An hour or so later, a nurse approached us and told me I could come in.

“Are you coming?” I asked Mary.

She shook her head. “You go alone. She needs her brother.”

I understood but still wanted her by my side. Setting my cup down, I got up on a sore leg and realized just how exhausted my body was. I’d end up in a hospital bed myself if I didn’t get some rest soon. I took tentative steps while following the nurse down the short corridor, and after a few doors, she led me into a room with beeping machines and blinking lights. My sister lay on the bed; bags were hooked up to her, and her eyes were closed.

I went to the bedside, reaching out to grab her hand. She looked so small and pale. Someone moved in the corner of the room, and I noticed we weren’t alone.

“Hey, are you a doctor?” a familiar voice asked.

The day had been rough, so when I saw the man’s face, I nearly dropped to the ground. I hadn’t seen him in a long time, not since a few months after the Event.

“Dean?”

It was James.

My old friend came toward me, a questioning look on his face.

“James! What are you doing here?” I asked.

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here is the better question!” Both of our voices had risen, and I saw Isabelle stirring from her slumber. “You’re supposed to be dead.” He lowered his voice; the word dead was nearly an inaudible whisper.

I grabbed the man, hugging him fiercely. Seeing someone from my pre-Event life brought it all back, and I stood there holding James, tears flowing freely from my eyes. When we pulled apart, his eyes were red and puffy, probably a match for my own. “I’m not dead,” was all I could bring myself to say.

“Am I?” a small voice asked from the bed.

“No, Issy. You’re not dead.” I turned to her, really seeing my little sister for the first time. She looked so much older than the last time I’d seen her. Seven years was a long time. Seven years with interstellar travel, and life on a harsh colony planet, could be a lifetime.

“But… how?” she asked.

James pulled up two chairs, and we sat there, each telling our stories of how we ended up together on this night. Theirs was far longer than mine, but luckily with much less danger. Until today, when Isabelle had gone out to help a lame horse in the snowstorm.

“And you two?” I asked, looking from face to face.

James nodded. “We heard you were dead. Magnus held a ceremony for you all, one that Dalhousie wouldn’t sanction. He said she never believed you were lost. Issy and I were among the few that knew you, and the only people there that knew you before everything. From our old lives. We’d both been through a lot, just like everyone, and our connection drew us together. She saved my life, Dean.” He said the simple words, used over and over by people over the ages, but in this case, I believed him. His face was full of lines, his hair gray and receding, but there was a sparkle in his eyes that only the love of another human could provide.

“I couldn’t be happier for you two. I’ll come back later with Mary. We can go on a double date.” I laughed at how silly it sounded, but maybe something so normal would be good for all of us. “You sure you’re okay?”

Isabelle slowly nodded, her eyes sagging closed. “Dean. I’m so glad you’re here. I love you.”

“I love you too, sis.” I patted the back of her hand lightly, and her eyes fully closed.

“She needs some sleep. Coffee?” James asked, and we stood, leaving the room to its beeping machines and blinking lights.

__________

Terran Five was quite the complex. I could hardly consider it a normal city, since most of the buildings were connected via corridors and pedways. It reminded me of the alien bases and cities I’d seen. Were we heading in the same direction as those other races? They did it here because of the long cold months, where being outside for more than a minute could result in frostbite, or worse.

Our rooms were in a visitor apartment, not far from the landing pad and military base, and we were grateful for the private suite.

Light crept in through the windows, the midday sun occasionally peeking past the thick cloud cover that T-5 never seemed to get rid of. Mary was still sleeping soundly beside me, her chest rising up and down slowly in a mesmerising flow, lulling me into a semi-conscious state. I’d slept for a solid eleven hours, and I still felt like I needed more.

Mary and Magnus had left me in the transport, worried I was dying of some unknown cause, and I let them know they were right to do so. The lives of the colony people were more important at that moment. They followed the tracks into the cavern and were ambushed by a few of the creatures as they entered the room where I’d seen the blood. All in all, they killed twenty or so of the wild animals before the rest scampered away, but they got their say in, biting Mary in the arm and Magnus in the thigh.

One of the colonists had been dead on arrival, but the other three had made it back, Isabelle being the worst off. As I watched Mary sleeping, I wished I could have been there to help, but knew the resource I’d found was more important. I’d told Magnus and Mary about it, and we decided to keep it under our hats for the time being. If we passed the details on, we had no idea what kind of abuse the Shandra would suffer, or for whose cause. No, we would keep the information to ourselves, and make that decision when the time came.

“Dean?” Mary asked as she rolled over and rested her head on my chest. It was familiar and comforting.

“I’m awake. Just thinking.”

“I was dreaming that we took a vacation. I don’t know where we were, but there was a beach, and some drinks.” Her warm breath was lulling my eyes closed.

“We should go on a vacation. Or find somewhere on New Spero to relax for a while.”

“We should. Let’s talk to Magnus about helping us set it up,” Mary said before her breathing deepened again, and I decided to close my eyes. Today could wait; I needed more rest.

Sleep came, and I rolled fitfully as I dreamed of the Shandra, the star map, and the palm-sized Deltra device I still had stashed away.

TEN

“I can’t tell you how good it was to spend some time with you. With both of you,” I said, looking across the table at my sister and James. “You look great, sis.”

“I feel about a million times better. You didn’t have to stay all week, you know. James was here for me.” Isabelle glanced over at her husband. I’d learned they’d been married last year. It brought a dichotomy of feelings to me. On one hand, I was so happy they’d both found love, but on the other, I was upset I hadn’t been there for either of them, and I’d missed my little sister’s wedding.

“It’s been great to see you too.” Mary had met them each once after the Event, but both occasions had been a whirlwind of rushing, interviews, and politics. For us to be able to spend a week with them, just talking and playing games, was priceless.

It still felt strange to see everyone around us seven years older. It was as if we’d blinked and missed out on such a huge important chunk of everyone’s lives.

“Mom would love seeing us like this. She always wanted us to spend more time together. I’m sorry I was such a spoiled brat when I was younger. I don’t blame you for not coming to the coast with us. You had your own life, even though I didn’t know it back then,” Isabelle said. “I’m sorry about Janine too.” She looked sideways at Mary and gave a small smile that said, “Sorry for bringing her up.”

“Thanks. It is all pretty unbelievable.” I’d told her about Mae, and how it was really Janine, the woman I’d met those long years ago in Central Park. To Issy, that was fifteen years ago. Hearing my sister talk about our mother and father over the past few days brought up a lot of pushed-down emotions. It was easy to forget all the things and people who made you what you were when you didn’t have anyone reminding you of them.

“You guys are off?” James asked, stating the obvious. We were at the Terran Five landing pad, inside the hangar to keep the cold blowing snow off of us while we waited for the rest of our crew.

“Back to Terran One, and then we don’t know. We’ll be in touch, one way or another,” I said, spotting Slate coming through the doors and heading our way. Magnus had left the day after the mountain. He needed to get back to his family, but Slate wouldn’t leave until we did. His loyalty was to a fault, and I really appreciated it. We’d been through a lot together.

We took turns doing the hug goodbye dance, Isabelle and I locking eyes for a moment, and my heart longed to go back to those days in the country. Dad would be tinkering in the garage, and Mom’s nose would be stuck in a book, sitting at the front door, letting the sun cast its glorious rays on her for the afternoon. It made me miss them both so much.

Mary must have seen the misting of my eyes, because she kissed my cheek and led me away.

“Keep in touch, buddy,” James said, waving when I looked back.

“You know I will.” These were the people I needed to protect. They all needed protecting, and deep down, I knew we had to go on the offensive. There would be no beach vacations for Mary and me. Not until the Bhlat were dealt with.

The transport vessel that was earmarked for us sat fueled and ready to go, the doors already open. Mary would pilot it, and Slate took the back seat so he could stretch out.

Soon we were lifting off, my tablet full of downloaded images from my sister and best friend’s wedding, my heart full yet heavy at the same time.

__________

“You’re telling me there’s still no word from them?” I asked Patty. She looked like any other woman of sixty in our living room, wearing jeans and a sweater. Some things never went out of style, even on a colony planet.

“None.” She sipped her tea and leaned back on the couch.

“And you still think it’s Naidoo cutting off communication with us?” Clare asked from beside the former Earth president.

Patty nodded. “I do.”

We were in our new house’s living room, which was spacious when it was just Mary and me there, but the space was getting tight with our whole crew and extras hanging out. Magnus and Nat were there, with little Dean in tow. I was positive the kid was far better behaved than I’d been at his age.

Slate stood behind us, listening thoughtfully but not saying much. I’d grill him on his thoughts later, maybe over a Scotch in the backyard after dinner.

The back door closed and Nick sauntered into the room, a beer in hand, wearing an apron that said “Kiss the Cook.” They’d really gone all out, bringing supplies from Earth. “Burgers are almost done. Grab your buns and get ‘em while they’re hot.”

I couldn’t believe we were having a barbecue in a house on New Spero. Not just any house, but one that Patty said they’d built for us years ago. It had stood empty and was only a few miles from Magnus and Natalia, which suited us just fine.

Carey nudged my leg as he came in from outside, leaving his perch beside the barbecue that any red-blooded dog would be happy to drool by. The younger pups came along with him, following his lead, and Maggie plopped down on my right foot. I scratched behind her ear, and Carey looked up at me before moving over to Natalia. He hopped up and lay his head on her lap. I caught Nat looking over at me, to make sure I was okay. I loved my time with Carey, and when they left later than day, I would give anything for Carey to stay behind, but I knew he couldn’t. It had been too long. He had a new family now.

“Dean?” Mary elbowed me lightly. The room was looking at me, waiting for a response.

“Sorry, what was the question?” I had been so lost in thought, I hadn’t heard them.

“Do you think we should send someone to Earth?” Patty asked. I didn’t like the way she was looking at me, like there was a secret being passed between us.

“I think it might be a good idea. Maybe it could be resolved by having a face-to-face with them. I’m sure she was pissed after her little puppet man from the station was apprehended, trying to keep our arrival quiet.” Or the Bhlat had already shown up, destroying Earth and stripping it of all its minerals and water. I closed my eyes and pictured people around the world, chained to each other, faces dark with dirt and backs slumped in exhaustion. I wasn’t going to tell the rest of them what I really thought might be happening.

“Food’s ready,” Mary said, changing the subject. I knew she was tired of speculating. “Patty, if you want to send someone to Earth to check on things, I say do it, but know that Dean and I won’t be on that ship. We just got here and can’t leave it all behind again.” Mary’s words poured out hot and fast, her back turned to us in the living room.

I noticed Patty’s eyes widening just slightly before settling back to normal. “I wouldn’t dare, Mary. I was thinking of asking for volunteers.”

Magnus grunted, and I caught the tail end of Nat’s elbow hitting his stomach. That was her way of telling him there was no way he could stick his hand up. Magnus made eye contact with me and winked.

For a minute, no one spoke, everyone seeming to ignore Patty’s comment.

“I’ll do it,” Slate said, speaking for what felt like the first time that evening.

Patty brightened. Slate and I had discussed a plan, should the need arise, but I wasn’t sold that the need was there quite yet.

“Good. I need a strong young man like you beside me.” Patty stood up, moving toward the kitchen, where the food was laid out on our table.

“Wait. What do you mean, beside you?” I asked, following her. Maggie slipped off my foot and trudged along behind me, sitting between my feet when I stopped.

“I’m going,” she said matter-of-factly. “If it’s just the new woman being spiteful, then I’ll talk to her and explain the truth. If it’s the worst, and the Bhlat are there, we need to know.”

“Your people need you here,” Mary said, coming to my side.

She shook her head slowly. “These aren’t my people. I’m not their leader anymore. I’m just Patty. They have leaders at each Terran site, and we have people like Magnus in place to care for us. And now you.” She looked side to side from Mary to me, a sad smile on her face.

“It’s too dangerous.” I didn’t know what else to say. She made a good point. She might be the only one who could talk sense into Naidoo.

“What you all have done for our people hasn’t been dangerous? I’ve sent you across the galaxy only for you to have to kill again, and then come back to see your lives turned upside down. Let me have this. I need it.” Patty grabbed a plate, putting potato salad on it, and prepared a bun for her hamburger.

Doing something as normal as having a barbecue while talking about sending our former president on a ship to a potentially hostile Earth wasn’t the strangest thing I’d seen in the last few weeks.

Should I tell her about the Shandra? I wanted to, but I also didn’t want the details to leak out. If she went to Earth and was taken by the Bhlat, they would have ways to make her talk. I needed to keep the stone portal in our tight little circle.

“I can’t argue with that,” I said. “What do you have to say, General?”

Magnus shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Believe me, we’ve had this discussion a few times. I never win. I support her at this point.”

Patty walked by him to the pile of burgers Nick had set down. “Damn right you support me.”

“I’ll go,” Clare said, surprising me.

“You will?” Patty asked.

“Me too.” This from Nick. “I have nothing here but some distant family I don’t even know. I’d rather be useful than static.”

“Quite the team I’m amassing. Thank you, everyone.” Patty moved back to the living room, her plate full.

Mary and I stood flabbergasted in the kitchen. Guilt coursed through me, but I wasn’t going to leave so soon after coming. We had a new life here. “Then good luck to you all.” I raised my glass of beer in the air, and we drank to their venture.

Magnus put some music on, trying to break the dark mood that was settling over the room. We chatted, ate until we were stuffed, and drank more than we should have, a group of old and new friends in our house.

It was close to midnight when people started to file out of the door, a friend of Patty’s arriving to usher everyone back to their own places.

“When will you be leaving?” Mary asked Patty as we stood by the door, the night fighting to get inside our house.

“In three days,” Patty said before turning and walking in an unstable line toward the passenger van waiting for her. Magnus and Nat were left with the dogs as the van drove away, a cloud of dust lifting as it moved down the gravel road. It was a lone sound in an otherwise silent night. The only other noise was a humming sound that echoed down the countryside every night as the sun went down, and Natalia explained it was a bug akin to our grasshopper.

“Good party.” Magnus slid his free arm around Natalia’s waist. His other arm was propping up his son Dean, who was sound asleep with his face tucked into his dad’s neck.

“It was nice to have you all over,” Mary said. I hardly heard them. The journey my new crew was about to take worried me too much. “Dean?”

I was at the edge of the front porch, my toes hanging over the first step, staring up at the sky. I saw thousands of points of light in the dark space above. Could I travel near some of them with the Shandra, or were most of those stars dead a long time ago? The chaos of the universe threatened to overtake me. So many worlds, each with their own climates, animals, plants, and insects. So many other races of beings. So much love and hate, peace and violence.

“Dean?” Natalia asked this time, and I could make out her soft footsteps on the wooden porch. “It’s okay, you know? It isn’t your responsibility.” Her hand moved to my shoulder. She was right, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was my calling.

I remembered working for a big accounting firm in New York when I first started out. They’d seen something in me: the way I worked overtime, how I was extremely affable with the clients, and how I always got the job done before the deadline. I was promoted a couple times and felt the weight of the company on my young shoulders.

One day, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was working too much, and too hard for someone in his twenties, and I ended up quitting, taking the plunge to become my own boss. I’d thought they would fall apart. There was no way they could survive without me. The thing was, they didn’t just survive; they flourished. A new guy came in, attracted some huge corporate clients, and they were on top of the world. Lesson learned: you’re always replaceable, just like I’d replaced that muscle-bound army guy in the Boathouse that night I’d met Janine.

I blinked, and the stars zoomed back out, just pinpoints of light again. “Thanks, Nat. You’re right. My place is here with my friends. We deserve a break, don’t we, babe?” I called back to Mary, who stood in the dim glow of the porch light smiling at me.

“We sure do. Maybe we can make our own little mini-Dean.” I winked at her, and we all laughed.

“If you’re getting started on that, we’re going to get going. Thanks again, buddy. See you tomorrow?” Magnus asked.

“You bet. I need someone to show me how to use that backhoe so we can get this garden planted,” I answered.

We took turns at the goodbye hugs, and when they walked down to their vehicle, Carey stopped, saying goodbye, jumping up, front paws on my thighs. I leaned down and whispered something to him. He gave me a lick and bounded off after his family. Something was still sitting on my foot after they were all down at the SUV.

“Dean, it looks like someone wants a sleepover. Do you mind?” Magnus called from the driver’s seat.

Maggie looked up at me, her pink nose glistening, head cocked to the side.

“We’d be happy to.” I wasn’t ready for a dog quite yet, but having this little girl stay over for a night seemed harmless enough. For some reason, she seemed to like me.

Soon they were down the road, leaving Mary and me in the silence of the night, outside Terran One, on New Spero. Our new home.

“We made the right decision,” she said quietly.

“I hope so.”

We sat on the porch, sipping our drinks, looking up at the strange night sky, while Maggie slept between us.

ELEVEN

“You have everything you need? Did you bring enough of that egg mixture? It wouldn’t be a trip without Nick’s omelettes.” I made the joke to cover the tension I was feeling. Seeing them loading a ship for the journey back to Earth made it all the more real. They were leaving, and Mary and I were staying behind. It felt wrong.

“Of course we have the mixture. I even managed to pry a couple dozen real eggs from the market downtown.” Nick smiled widely, but I sensed part of him was wishing he could stay. If Clare hadn’t volunteered, I doubted he would have stuck his hand up.

Magnus exited the ship, Slate right behind him. They chatted quietly for a minute, out of earshot of the rest of us, and the younger man nodded along to the advice Magnus was giving him. Slate got a clap on the shoulder, and they walked down the ramp toward the rest of us.

“Slate, take care of everyone, would you?” I asked. “And yourself.” I added the last bit, and he gave me a hard stare.

“I wish you were coming, boss,” he said. “Don’t worry about anything. They’re in good hands with this crew. We’ll make sure Patty gets where she needs to and talks some sense into them. If it’s the alternative, we’ll do what you said. Gather as much information as we can and relay it back.”

“Perfect.”

The trip would take them two months, with another month for any message to get back to us. Waiting that long was going to be next to impossible. My pulse quickened as I thought about the Shandra. Should I try to go to Earth? Sarlun had identified the icon for our home planet, but he did warn me they hadn’t tested it. It could be damaged, making it a one-way trip – or worse. Where would it open up? The unknown made it not only dangerous, but potentially deadly.

Patty arrived wearing a black uniform. The New Spero colony logo of a red sun behind a series of buildings was on a patch sewn onto the breast of the garment. It looked sharp.

“We’ll be in touch along the way,” Patty said to Magnus. “Take care of this place for me.”

I had the urge to disclose the Shandra then but kept it to myself. Slate knew about it, but he wasn’t going to break under pressure, no matter what they did to him. I tried to stop thinking about the worst-case scenario, but lately, that was all I seemed to find myself in.

A half hour later, we watched the ship lift up, then head away; the trip to Earth was under way.

“Godspeed,” Mary said under her breath, and I followed suit, wishing them a safe and uneventful journey.

“They’ll be okay. I have a feeling we’ll hear good news in a couple months.” This from Magnus. I was feeling the opposite but kept it to myself.

“How about we go into town and get some supplies for our garden?” Mary asked, anxious to get working on our little house and yard.

“Deal. See you later, Magnus? We still on for dinner?” I asked.

“As long as you guys are bringing cash for the poker game after.” Magnus and Natalia had invited a few couples from the area over, and since there was no currency on New Spero yet, I had no idea what we were buying into the game with. I had the clothes on my back, and not much more for possessions. “The dogs will be happy to see you both. Maybe Maggie can stay over again?”

Maggie had spent the other night over at our place, hogging the bottom of the bed and waking me up in the middle of the night to go outside. She was really sweet, and having an animal around felt right.

On the other hand, she belonged with her family too. “I know what you’re trying to do. Mag, I really am okay with Carey being with you guys.”

“It just must be so hard. You blinked and seven years went by. He still loves you.”

“I know he does. That’s why I’m happy he’s been able to grow old with people that love him too. I don’t think we’re ready to have another dog yet, but I’ll let Maggie stay over any time she wants.”

Magnus’ suit’s comm beeped, and he tapped his ear. “Good. Thanks for the update,” he said to whoever was on the other side of the conversation. “Our ship just passed the station. I have some work to do. See you two later.”

“Bye,” Mary said, leading the way off the landing pad and toward the SUV we’d been given. Having our own wheels and house was a strange feeling, especially since it was just ours. There were no payments, mortgages, or leases. We were just given the keys, and our names were on the database as owners of them. The rest of the colony participated in the bartering utopia of ideal socialism. I knew it had been tried before on Earth, and while the thought was good, it never worked out as hoped. Patty and the other leaders had high expectations about their colony world.

As we drove into town, the buildings got larger. The roads were paved, and traffic picked up heading into the core of Terran One. It was a couple hours after sunrise, and people were on their way to get supplies for their daily tasks or to work in one of the countless manufacturing plants or stores.

We stopped at an octagonal stop sign: some things were universal, even on another world. My window was down, letting the early morning air creep into the vehicle. The sounds of a six-story apartment complex being erected carried to us, and Mary commented on how lucky we were to have a house in the country.

“I think our days of city living are over,” I said, but as we drove on, we passed some quaint shops, coffee shops, and restaurants, and the idea of leaving your home to walk down the street for dinner did have a certain appeal. It was one of the things I’d always missed about being young and living in Manhattan.

“How have they accomplished this in just a few years?” Mary asked, staring at the impressive inner core of the city.

“I have no clue. I was expecting some metal buildings, cots set up with curtains to separate sleeping chambers, like a field hospital. Maybe not that bad, but you get where I’m going. It must have taken a lot of minds, a lot of work, to come up with plans for five cities.”

“Nat tells me they’re all on the same footprint.”

I thought about Terran Five and inwardly scolded myself for not noticing that. I blamed the exhaustion and the snow-covered streets. “That makes sense. Still…they’ve done something quite amazing.” I followed a white van and turned where it turned. It had Garden Supply painted on the back and sides, and that was where we were headed.

I parked, turning the engine off. “Babe, are you sure this is what you want?” I asked, looking at Mary in the passenger seat. She was in capris and a red tank top, her brown hair pulled into a loose ponytail. I was the luckiest man on New Spero.

I was already starting to sweat, finding we were in the middle of what passed for summer in our region.

“I want a garden, if that’s what you’re asking.” She pulled out her tablet, and she thumbed to the supply list she’d sent the store yesterday. “Should be ready to pick up.”

I set my hand on her left arm as her right reached for the door handle. “That’s not what I mean.”

She stopped, turning to meet my gaze. “Then what?”

“This. Do you want to live in a country house on a strange colony, living out our days tilling the soil and chopping wood?”

She didn’t speak for a minute. “Dean, I just want to be with you. I want the fear of an alien race coming to steal us, or kill us, or enslave us, gone first, though. Then I’m happy to sit on our porch, sipping sweet tea and watching you chop wood, while Mary Jr. plays with dolls beside me.”

I smiled. “Me too. If things go south with our friends at Earth, we have to do something.” I didn’t ask this time; I just said it matter-of-factly.

She nodded. “We will. I’ll be by your side.”

“Mary Jr.?” I laughed, and we got out of the car. “That sounds like a good life to me. Let’s get there and start by loading up a trailer with your garden supplies.”

“My garden supplies? Don’t think you’re going to put all of this on me.”

We walked through the large building’s front doors, which slid to the side as we stepped near them. It reminded me of the large orange box store I had in my hometown, and the comforting smell of wood and soil reached my nose.

There was a pick-up counter to the left, and we approached, waiting in line behind a large man talking to an employee.

“What do you mean, you don’t have any more four-by-eight cedar left? I need twenty to finish my job,” the burly man said, his voice rising.

“Sir, if you’ve noticed, we’re on New Spero, and our tree farms aren’t at full maturation yet. We’ll be happy to substitute oak in place. We still have oak.” The woman was keeping her cool but looked like she’d had about enough of the man berating her.

“Fine, but I’ll be talking to the council about this. Gave away all the damned cedar, even though I’d requisitioned it last month.” He turned from her and looked in our direction. “Can you believe this?”

So much for a utopia. I just shrugged, and we made our way to the woman. “I’d ask how your day’s going, but I think we know,” Mary said to the lady. “We sent our list in yesterday and are here to pick it up.”

“It’s true. You are here.” The forty-something-year-old woman’s eyes grew twice their size, and she nearly squealed. Her name was Tammy, according to the nametag. “Mary Lafontaine and Dean Parker. I heard from Sally that you were here, but I didn’t believe it. I thought it might be some propaganda to keep the people hopeful. But by golly, you’re here in the flesh. You both look so…amazing. Are the rumors true? You got married at an alien court and had to offer your firstborn to their leader to escape?”

I barked out a laugh, and Mary nudged me, suppressing her own laughter. “I have no idea where you’re getting that from, but I assure you…we only have to ‘lend’ our baby to the king for a year.”

Tammy’s eyes grew even larger, and I thought for a moment that they would pop out of her head. “Oh my God!”

“Tammy, relax. She was just kidding,” I assured the frantic woman. “Where did you hear that crazy story?”

She pulled out a stack of what looked like magazines. “From these,” she said, sliding them out like a deck of cards. They weren’t magazines; they were comics.

I grabbed one and read the title. “The Survivors of Earth” was scrawled across the top of the cover in black lettering. A silver ship chasing a dozen smaller, clearly made-up vessels across space, with a gray planet underneath, was the cover image. Red beams fired from the silver ship.

I thumbed it open and saw the artist’s rendition of Mary in a tight body suit. Her figure was modified to the ideals of a teenage boy, and now she did laugh when she saw it. The artist’s Dean looked older than I was; silver streaked the edges of his dark hair. The artwork was good, if not a little exaggerated.

“Can I take these? I’ll bring them back.” I asked, getting a nod from Tammy.

“Only if you sign them after,” she said.

“Sure. Oh, and who makes them?” I asked, looking for a name.

“Leonard. He works at the permits office. He started making these before we came here. Now he has tens of thousands of downloads a month for each new issue. He only prints a few, since paper has become harder to come by.”

“Thanks, Tammy. Now, where can we get our supplies?”

TWELVE

“You guys knew about these?” I asked, waving one of the comics in front of Nat and Magnus. Little Dean made a grab for it, his sticky boy hands trying to reach the paper, but I managed to pull it up in time.

“We did. I’ve had more important things on my mind to talk to you about than comics.” Magnus twisted the cap off a beer and passed me one. “Have you seen issue seven? That’s where we meet. They got it all wrong, but I’m amazed there’s even a passing reference to the reality. Leonard must have had a source on the inside who knew some of our real story.”

“The one where Slate blows up an entire planet was good. How dare that virus try to spread to humans.” Mary grabbed the bottle of red wine and poured herself and Nat a glass.

“Quite the imagination. The stuff happening on Earth, was that true?” I asked.

“Some of it. It was getting bad. The forced treaties and weapons agreements…things got out of hand. We needed to separate ourselves from it. Earth will never be home to us any longer.” Magnus put his arm around Natalia, who gave him a loving gaze.

“Mag, they may still need our help,” she said, ever the caring woman. She inspired me to be better.

“What are we going to do if the Bhlat are there? Fight them? Our fleet isn’t ready for that. If what Dean said is true, and they’ve mined all those worlds, enslaving and killing entire races, then we may be doomed. I’m going to enjoy the food tonight, have a few beers, spend time with my loved ones, and do it all again tomorrow, until we can’t anymore.”

Natalia took a step back, putting herself between her son on his chair and her husband. “You listen to me. If they need our help, we’ll help them. All of this around us isn’t real if the Bhlat are out there threatening it. I will not stand by while my son’s life is in question. And neither will you.” Her pointer finger pushed into his large chest.

He raised his hands in supplication. “I hear you. Okay. I’m with you, but if it comes to it, you’re staying here, and Dean and I will go kick their asses. We’ve done it before and will do it again.”

“Don’t you dare leave me out of this ass-kicking. I’ve been thinking about it since the first time they chased me on that space station, almost killing me. I’m in too.” Mary stuck her glass in the air, and I hesitantly clinked it, along with Magnus and Nat.

The last thing I wanted was to fight the Bhlat, especially with Mary by my side. I wondered if there was a way I could stow her away with Suma, somewhere safe and protected. The Shandra. My mind clicked, and a piece of the puzzle fell into place.

“I have an idea.”

The doorbell rang as the first guests arrived. My friends looked at me, waiting, and when the bell rang again, Magnus stuck a finger in the air. “This conversation isn’t over. Dean, I love it when you have big ideas. It usually means a win for our side.”

__________

The sun beat down on us, and Maggie barked as I threw the ball down the yard. Mary beckoned me from beside the garden, her sun hat covering her face from this angle. I could tell she was excited by her posture.

Maggie ran to my feet, dropping the ball with another bark. I tossed the ball toward Mary, jogging after it while Maggie ran full throttle, ears flopping in the air.

“Look how well it’s coming along,” I said, standing beside Mary, who was beaming at the large assortment of sprouted greens coming from the twenty-by-forty-foot patch of garden. Some food like lettuce was already being used on a daily basis, and others were just growing, their cycle a lot longer from germination to harvest. The last few weeks had been a lot of work but had gone quickly.

“We should be able to feed our wedding guests with our own food,” Mary said.

Maggie dropped the ball at my feet, and I threw it as far as I could; the excited cocker raced after it. The ball bounced off the ground and she hopped, trying to catch it in her mouth but failing. She lay down with it in the cool shade of a New Spero tree, panting heavily.

The sound of a vehicle racing down the road carried to us, dust kicking up as it drove up our driveway.

“Are you expecting anyone?” I asked Mary, who shook her head in return.

We walked around the back deck, toward the front of the house. The instant I saw Magnus, I knew something was wrong. His face was dark, a scowl shoving deep lines in his forehead.

“We heard from them. You need to come with me,” he said. Maggie barked at him and rolled at his feet, but he was too upset and focused to notice her.

Patty and the crew had made it to Earth. It had been three months. My hand shook slightly and I took a deep breath, knowing suddenly that we were going to need to move ahead with my plan. I had hoped it wouldn’t be needed.

I picked Maggie up, putting her in the car, and we jumped in. “Let’s go.”

He raced down the roads, which rarely had other cars on them out here. He took the gravel streets around the city, and in ten silent minutes, we arrived at the base. I knew better than to even ask what happened. Magnus would talk when he wanted to. I saw sweat dripping down the big guy’s brow as he pulled into a parking spot.

“You two are going to help, right?” he asked tensely.

“You know we are,” Mary said, and some of the pressure eased in Magnus, like she’d hit a relief valve on his tank.

“Good. We need you.” Magnus opened the door and we all got out, Maggie following along and looking around timidly.

The base wasn’t large. It was made up of a handful of buildings that lined the landing pad. The largest structure was the hangar, where a couple dozen ships sat idly. People moved around now, more than I’d ever seen there before. They all wore uniforms.

Magnus led us into the two-story building beside the hangar, where he and Patty had offices. We walked past their offices and into an elevator that took Magnus’ fingerprint to access. We lowered, and the doors opened to the room where Patty had shown us the footage from Terran Five.

“We’ve had a lot of messages from our ship since they left. Once every couple of their days, to be exact. The farther they get from us, the longer the messages take. Two months to arrive, and one month for that last message to arrive to us. Technically, it’s been eighty-seven days. Today, we received this message. Daniel, play it, please,” Magnus said to the white-uniformed officer at the screen controls.

A message started, sound waves dancing on the screen. A throat cleared. “We’re about to arrive and should be able to see the station around Earth in a couple of hours. Our sensors are showing activity, but…” Patty’s voice went quiet, the sound bar falling to the bottom of the screen. “God help us… they’re here… If you get…” The message ended.

“That’s it?” I asked, a cold shiver racing through my spine. God help us. They’re here.

“That’s it. We’re waiting for another transmission, but we know that message is close to a month old. Anything could have happened by now. We need to discuss options. The other Terran military bases’ leaders are coming here for a briefing in a half hour. Do we tell them about your plan?” he asked me, putting the pressure on me now.

“No. The less they know, the better.”

“Dean, I mentioned some war vessels being built. I may have left a few details out. They’re ready.”

“Ready? I thought they were just a concept. Where are they?” Mary asked, expressing the same angry tone I was feeling.

“They were in-system but far enough away, should the testing go wrong. They’re operational.” Magnus had a grim look across his tired face.

“Then send them toward Earth. We may need the backup,” Mary said. “Are they capable of FTL like our smaller ships?”

“Same drives, just scaled up for size. If anything, we can go out fighting if things go south. I suppose it’s a good thing I sent them a month after Patty and the others left,” Magnus said, his grimness transforming with a smile.

“You sly old dog!” Mary shouted happily.

“They needed to be tested anyway. What better way than in defense of Earth?” Magnus asked. “The other Terran leaders will be here soon. I’ll tell them you’re off on a mission to help our cause.”

“Are you sure we need to even mention Mary and me?” I asked.

“It’ll give them hope. We named this world New Spero. Spero means I hope, and they need it. Earth needs it. Will you stick around?” Magnus asked.

I looked over at Mary, wondering if she was ready to do our part. “Dean and I will go now. Sarlun swore he would help us if we needed it. We need it.”

“Do you have the supplies I requested ready?” I asked.

“Daniel will show you to the lockers. I got them together the minute we started this plan. Take the transport to the mountains and do what you have to do. We need to know where the Bhlat homeworld is for this to work.” Magnus sat down, playing the message again.

They’re here.

We left, making assurances we’d be back as soon as possible. I was glad Magnus was staying behind for the time being. New Spero needed him to take charge, and Nat would be furious if we took him away without her saying goodbye. I could tell from his eyes he wished he was coming with us. He’d feel more useful out in the field on a mission than behind a desk with a bunch of suits, as he’d call them.

“I wish Slate were coming with us,” Mary said. With the rest of our crew gone on the trip to Earth, it was just the two of us.

We were at the lockers, just outside the hangar, standing in our underwear. I went to the door and made sure it was locked. “Mary, I’m sorry we got sucked into this again. I wish things were different. I wish we could just have a normal life.”

She walked over to me, placing a cool hand on my stubble-covered cheek. “We’ll never have a normal life. It’s not ours anymore. We were chosen to help the Kraski get our planet, and we foiled both sides. It’s up to us to protect the people we saved.” Her lips touched mine warmly. “Let’s end this. Then, and only then, can we say the word normal again.”

“You’re right. Let’s suit up.” I slid my uniform on, noticing how nicely it fit now that they’d taken measurements. I slung a pack over my shoulder and felt my breast pocket, where I found the Deltra portable shield Kareem had given me. It still had Bhlat DNA in it, and I expected I’d need to use it again, though a strong part of me wanted to throw it on the ground and stomp it to pieces.

“We’ll do what we need to do, together,” Mary said, reading my mind.

I just nodded, grabbed the other pack, and moved for the door.

Soon we were in the lander, Mary piloting us toward the ice-cold part of our planet, heading for a portal to multiple worlds.

THIRTEEN

The caves were just as we’d left them. We used an air horn to startle away any of the dangerous creatures hiding in the area or tunnels. Terran Five dispatch told us they hadn’t had any altercations with the animals since Magnus and Mary had rescued my sister and the others, and I hoped that meant they’d moved on in search of other food sources.

The sky was clear, and the whole area was far more beautiful to look at now than it had been while I was sick. Snow piled down in sheets from the dark sky. It reminded me of the Rockies from my ski trips, and Mary said something along the same lines.

“Last time, you left here with a wild animal bite, and I left after spending the day on a deserted alien world. What will today bring us?” I asked, adding a chuckle.

“Hopefully, right back here in an hour, with the Bhlat planet icon for your portal.”

“My portal? I don’t think it’s mine.”

“Then why did you get drawn to it?”

“I think it has to do with Mae’s blood inside me. It’s changed me…made me part Kraski…I don’t really know.”

We left the supplies we didn’t need to bring, and we each carried a pack on our backs, with our rifles held firmly in our hands.

“This way.” We entered the caves and took the path down the tunnels Slate and I had walked a short few months ago. It was all familiar, but in the way a dream was familiar. I knew the path, but if you’d asked me which directions to go before heading in, I wouldn’t have known. My feet led us to the doorway where the Shandra stood. “Here we are.” I unslung the pack and headed for the middle of the room. The large gemstone in the center of the room began to shine; the hieroglyphs on the walls shone to life in their blue luminescence.

“It’s beautiful,” Mary said, spinning to catch all the different icons on the walls. “The spacing seems off. Are some missing?” she asked. I just shrugged and walked to the table.

My blood wasn’t singing or burning this time, and my body movements were of my own volition, so I hoped I could make the stone work. The room was bathed in blue light as I touched the table. I slid my tablet out of my pack and found the data from Sarlun. A series of icons appeared on my handheld screen, and I picked the one labeled for their world.

After finding the corresponding icon on the table, I took Mary’s shaky hand and tapped the icon, which glowed bright green. Instantly, we were covered in green light.

A flurry of deep squawks came at us as the light dimmed.

“Is this it?” Mary asked me quietly.

“Yes. Turn your translator on.” I used the pad on my sleeve to turn the recently upgraded translator on. We had earpieces in and small mics at our suits’ necks that would take our words and relay them aloud in the appropriate language. After a few more squawks came to us, the translator clicked, telling me it was ready.

“Greetings. We’re here to see the Gatekeeper,” I said in English, then heard the Shimmali language emanate from my suit.

The voice had been coming from a speaker, and after a few minutes of silence, the main far doors slid open. Something was running toward us. Mary looked ready to hold her rifle up, but I set a hand on her arm.

“Suma!” I called. The short, stout alien girl ran on thick legs, approaching quickly, then stopping suddenly as she saw Mary.

“Who’s this?” she asked, her black eyes staring at Mary.

“I’m Mary Lafontaine.”

“You look funny,” the small alien said.

“This is my mate. Mary’s a human female,” I said.

Mary just smiled at this.

“What are you doing here, Dean?” she asked, her snout lifting in the air.

The deep noises of Sarlun carried down the open room. “Dean Parker. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“We need your help.”

__________

Outside, music played in the garden, where amazing flowers and plants of all colors and sizes grew. Shimmal’s two stars burned at opposite ends of the sky, and I was sweating the instant we stepped from the cool building into the humid tropical outdoors.

The melody was soft and instrumental. Our races really weren’t that much different from each other. Other Shimmalians walked around, some wearing robes, others in uniforms. Some were in what I could only guess was loungewear, the equivalent of shorts and a tank top on Earth.

“You want to find the Bhlat homeworld? We don’t like to speak of them here. Though they are far away, the tales of their power have reached even our distant world.” Sarlun gestured with his four arms as he spoke.

“So you don’t know where they are?” I asked, feeling my hopes crumbling quickly.

“They are not on our Shandra table.”

“Does that mean they don’t have a portal?” If they didn’t have a portal, our plan was going to be almost impossible with the time crunch we were under.

“Not necessarily. The Shandra were created ages ago by the Theos, long before any races of beings lived on the worlds on which the portals existed.”

My fingers were going numb. Sweat beads ran down my back, and not just from the humidity. He was telling us a race of gods had created the portals before any of us existed. Was that possible? “How do you know this?”

“We’ve studied with dozens of other beings, compiling and contemplating religion, history, and science. This is the truth we have come to know.” Sarlun sounded sure of himself.

“Could there be worlds with portals that aren’t on the table?” Mary asked, and I chided myself for not thinking of it. It was nice to have her analytical mind around.

“Yes. We believe some have been shut off. Whether they were removed as a safety precaution, or for other reasons, stands to be seen. We believe the Deltra had something to do with it. They were always trying to get ahead of their time: a young race with highly skilled scientific minds. Last we heard, they were under the thumb of the Kraski, but if your tale is to be understood, they are gone now.”

Guilt at his casual discussion of our destruction of the Deltra aboard the Kraski mothership echoed through my body.

He continued. “If there was any hope of opening the hidden worlds from the Shandra, they would be the last resort now.” Sarlun’s black eyes stared hard into mine. He knew we’d killed the Kraski off, and most of the Deltra with them. I judged his people to be a peaceful one, but I wondered what he would do if his world was threatened. He seemed to have an understanding with me.

“The Deltra may not all be gone,” I said, watching his expression change and his snout twitch.

“Is that so?” he asked, his usual deep squawk now lighter, airier.

“Can you help me find a world on the table? I have the coordinates in here.” I pulled out my tablet with the location of the hideout planet Kareem was on.

“Come with me.”

An hour later, we were in Sarlun’s private office, which was substantially cooler than outside. Everything on this world was so cold and sterile on the surface; then you would see a splash of color and understand how much they appreciated the arts. Less is more might have been their mantra. His office was no exception: cool white walls, with one small bright piece of art in the center of each.

We stared at the star chart: a wonderful 3D hologram of the system in question appeared. The planet was highlighted, and the icon for its portal was showing on the wall screen.

“That’s it. We haven’t been there for over a century. Last time we arrived, there was nothing but flora and some wildlife. Dangerous creatures.” Suma sat beside her dad, staring up at him as he spoke.

“Dean, where’s Slate?” Suma asked, sipping green liquid from a glass.

“He’s in danger. That’s why we’re here. All of our people are in danger.” I hoped we’d find the answers we were looking for with Kareem.

“Dad, is there anything else we can do?” she asked.

“Where was their town?” Sarlun asked.

Mary took over and directed him to the spot where we’d landed and walked to their village.

“The Shandra is not close. We’ll supply you with a few things to assist you along the way.” Sarlun hit a comm-button and started squeaking out orders, turning off his translator. “The supplies will be ready. I have something else to share with you.” He reached down, pulling out four small devices, and handed them to Mary.

“What are these?” Mary asked, carefully looking at them.

“They will allow you to communicate instantly with anyone, no matter their distance in space,” Sarlun said.

“Thank you. These will come in handy.” Mary passed one over to me, and I noticed it looked much like a cell phone, but with a clear crystal casing.

“Thank Suma. She wanted to be able to reach you.”

Suma sat in her chair, her legs hanging down, and her snout lifted slightly. “I’ll show you how it works.”

Ten minutes later, she considered us able to communicate between the devices. Once we were able to lock in her frequency so she could talk to us, she was happy we understood how to work them.

“With these, you might have an advantage against your enemy. Or they might have the same knowledge, but at least you’ll be on an even playing field.” Sarlun stood up, his large frame making the office feel small. “Whatever happens, do not utter our names to the Bhlat. We haven’t had dealings with them and would appreciate staying out of their way. We do these favors as friends, but that friendship only goes so far. We are a peaceful world.”

I stood up and stretched a hand out. He took it with his lower right arm, and I shook. “Gatekeeper Sarlun, you’ve been more than helpful. I look forward to sharing stories with you when this is all done with.”

“I as well. Come, we’ll escort you to the Shandra.”

Mary chatted with Sarlun on the way down, and Suma sidled up to me in the hallway. “Dean, please make sure you save Slate. I like him.”

“I like him too.”

“And be sure to contact me whenever you like. I need to get updates.”

“Suma, thank you so much for everything. You’ve been a godsend.” The squeaks and squawks that came from my translator sounded excited.

She looked up at me with her big seal-black eyes. “Who would have thought that being abandoned on that world would have turned into the most fun day of my life?”

Fun? I wished I could look back at it and feel the same way. “It was meant to happen.”

We walked the corridors, passing numerous white-uniformed Shimmalians. Some spoke greetings; others kept to themselves. It wasn’t long before we were at the Shandra room, where two guards were stationed at the doors. They saw Sarlun, bowed, and let us through without hesitation.

Inside the large white room, I spotted supplies by the gemstone and table. It had me thinking that we could transport larger items than just people from planet to planet, depending on how large a room the Shandra at the other end was housed in. New Spero’s room wasn’t that large, but a room like this could take a transport vessel or a large group of people.

“This should be enough to get you there. These will allow you to move quickly.” Sarlun pointed at two vehicles that looked a lot like motorized scooters. You sat on them, but there were no wheels. “The tutorial is on it, and we loaded your path into the mapping system already.”

“Thank you,” Mary said, running a hand over the cool metal of the machine. She loved motorbikes, so taking a rip through an alien planet on a hovering scooter would be just up her alley.

“We also have provided cooling tents. From what you said, the temperatures are similar to our planet, and if you’re stuck outdoors at night, you’ll get eaten alive outside or sweat too much inside. Our tents will keep you safe from both.”

I was eternally grateful for their assistance and hoped the combination of their supplies and ours would be enough to get us to Kareem, and home again quickly. We didn’t have time to spare.

Suma ran to me, giving me a hug, and hesitantly gave Mary one too.

The pair started to walk away, and Sarlun stopped, turning to us. “Be careful. May the Theos guide your path.” With that, they left.

His words rang in my mind, sending goosebumps over my body.

“Mary, are you ready for this?” I asked, knowing her answer.

She nodded, and we found the icon for the planet Kareem, Leslie, and Terrance were on. At least we hoped they were still there. Mary took the honors and tapped the table. Blinding light enveloped us, and then it was gone.

FOURTEEN

When I opened my eyes, the room was black. I hit the LEDs on my suit, and so did Mary on hers. We found ourselves in a room, four posts in the corners, and it couldn’t have been more than forty feet by forty feet in size.

“You good?” Mary asked.

“Just looking at the room. If the Theos made each of these rooms, why do they look so different from each other?” I asked.

“Some of the races may have updated or adjusted the aesthetics. Do you think Suma’s people found theirs like that? I’d say they moved and upgraded it to suit their Gatekeeper needs. See the walls here? Wood supports with dried vines. They used the local plants and supplies to build the room, and it appears we’re underground too. So they dig it up, support it, install their columns, carve their hieroglyphs, and voila; we have a Shandra.” Mary waved her arm in a flourish.

“Sounds plausible. Let’s see if we can get out of here.” The hover scooters sat on the ground, propped up on their bases. Mary tapped the screen and we watched a quick tutorial, using our earpiece translators to decipher the message. In a matter of minutes, they were up and running, blue light softly glowing underneath as the scooters lifted off the ground.

We slung our supplies over the seats and moved for the doorway, which wasn’t mechanical like the others we’d seen. It was a large wooden door, ancient-looking, on thick black metal hinges. It squealed as I pushed it open, and I wondered when it had last been used. Maybe Kareem had come to the planet using it, contrary to his previous story. I wouldn’t blame him for trying to keep the portals a secret. I’d done the same, even with my own people.

With the scooters hovering along with our hands controlling them, we wound our way down the dark soil-walled corridor. At times, it was too narrow to walk side by side, and I took the lead, rifle ready for anything coming at us. Nothing did. It was silent and sealed off. The incline told me we were underground, and that an exit would appear soon.

The end came abruptly, and only a short distance from the portal room. We used the door, both of us having to use all our weight to pry it open, and soon the humid night air hit us. We were outside. When we closed the door, we noticed it was well hidden away in the face of the hill, a wooden handle almost invisible among the shrubs and rocks placed beside it.

Mary tapped her screen. “I’ll mark our location.”

“Good idea. I’m all out of bread crumbs.” The joke didn’t stick, and I let it go. I was nervous. Anxious about traveling a couple hundred miles at night on a floating Vespa, and not knowing whether Kareem would cooperate. That was if they were still on this out-of-the-way world.

“Terrance and Leslie aren’t going to be happy,” Mary said as she straddled her hover scooter’s seat.

“We’ll make the promise again.” I had already told them I’d try to get the other hybrids on a ship to unite them here. I’d failed to do that. It weighed on me alongside everything else I’d done and would have to do.

Mary didn’t reply. She just donned her EVA suit’s mask, which would give us night vision and better oxygen supply as we raced into the night. I copied her and felt the rumble of the hover device as I sat on it.

I’d never been one for riding motorbikes or all-terrain vehicles, so the concept was a little foreign. The tutorial had made it seem so easy, and when Mary sped away, I hit the map function, showing the terrain and a line leading to our destination. This unit was all hand-controlled, and I hit the thruster. It started me forward too fast at first, and I almost flew off the thing. In a couple of minutes, I caught up to Mary, who was clearly waiting for me.

“Do you have the hang of it?” she asked through my helmet’s earpiece.

I gave her a thumbs-up and nearly bucked myself again. I needed both hands.

Once I was going at a decent speed, and not worried about falling off or hitting a cliffside, I started to look at my surroundings. A large moon hung in the sky, light from the close star showcasing the lines and craters of the celestial body. The area looked much the same as I remembered the planet: mossy, warm, and lined with the large trees we’d seen before.

The map showed us making good time, and though it was on a different time system than we understood, I estimated another two hours before we arrived. An hour in, and the scenery was getting repetitive; I already wished the journey was over. My mind wandered to the task at hand. A lot of pieces needed to come into place in order for us to defeat the Bhlat, but did we need to defeat them? I set the goal in my head to work with them, to show them we were strong and not someone to be walked over, but that we also had compassion. Would a malevolent race understand the concept of compassion and empathy, or was war so engrained in them from birth that they were well past negotiation?

The base we’d arrived at almost a year ago had shown me a different side of the Bhlat. We didn’t know much about them, and the details we’d downloaded from their base were mostly military. But there were children, women, and scientists on the base, telling me not everyone was a warrior. That was a good sign. The downside to that whole scenario was…I’d killed them all. I could still see them when I closed my eyes some nights, mixing together with the image of the Kraski puking out green bile, and the Deltra becoming all but extinct as we blew up the Kraski mothership.

Every one of them wanted to take our world, so I had to let it go. It still hung over my head like a dark cloud most days. As if on cue, real clouds rolled in as the wind picked up.

“Hang on,” Mary said.

The wind blew from the west, pushing us to the right as we generally headed north. The speed was picking up, and rain began to fall on us: light drops at first, then fat heavy drops that made our visibility near nothing.

“What should we do?” I asked, fighting to stay upright.

From a few yards away, Mary fiddled with her map. “When I zoom, I see hills a couple miles to the east. Let’s head there and hunt for some reprieve from the storm. If this is anything like a tropical storm, it may only last a short time.”

I agreed and followed her lead, the wind pushing hard at our backs now.

The ground changed from swampy moss to something a little firmer-looking as it became unlevel, small hills protruding from the surface. Moments later, we stopped on the far side of a large hill, with a flat cliff on the east side. We were protected from the wind and most of the rain as we stepped off the scooters and leaned our backs on the soft wall of the knoll.

“I guess we wait it out,” I said, wiping my face mask with a gloved hand. The night vision was on, and it gave me a basic view of the dark swamp that stood before us. It went on as far as my eyes could see, and I tried to step farther away from it, remembering the creature that had pulled me under the last time we were on this planet. I didn’t want a duplication of that, especially at night in a storm.

Mary got off her scooter and started to walk along the hillside, looking for a spot for reprieve from the onslaught of rain. I joined her, jogging to catch up.

“Doesn’t look like much… wait, what’s that?” She pointed to a crevice where two hills met up. They were pushed close together, but there was enough room to walk between them, and trees grew from both sides at angles, creating a makeshift canopy.

“Looks good to me. Better than standing beside this swamp.”

We grabbed our supplies and brought them over to our new resting spot. My stomach rumbled as we settled along the wall of the opening, small splashes of water dripping down from the trees above, giving way to the torrential downpour.

Unclasping my helmet, I set it to the side and reached for my pack, when I heard howling. Mary was moving around, and I raised a finger to my lips. She stopped, and the howl rang through the night air again, this time closer.

“Can’t we find a liveable world with no deadly animals on it? Just once?” I joked, grabbing my pulse rifle.

“Let’s just hope they stay away, and the rain subsides sooner rather than later so we can keep going.” She passed me an energy bar. “Here, take this. We may need it.”

We sat back to back, watching each end of the opening we sat in, guns in our laps, and chewed on our bars.

“Just once, I want something to be hassle free. Remember our old lives? We used to complain about having to get up in the morning to go to work. But at the end of the day, we could just relax and watch the game on TV with a cold one. I guess those times are gone.”

“I never felt that way. I was in the Air Force and loved doing it. What’s that old saying? ‘If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life’? That’s how I felt,” Mary said.

“I was an accountant, so working on small business ledgers wasn’t something I could classify as loving. Though there was something calming about going through the sheets and balancing on the first try. It acted like a meditation for me at times. There were worse careers I could have chosen.” I shifted closer to Mary, moving away from a drip from the rain above. “Do you miss it?”

“I do. I miss the schedule of it all. Waking up at five in the morning, working out before breakfast. But even though we’re in a crazy situation, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I met you. I needed to meet you.”

“Do you think our first marriages even count?” I asked.

“How do you mean?”

“The way I see it, we were duped: married to aliens. That can’t really count.”

Mary laughed and leaned her head on my shoulder. “I suppose you’re right. I like that idea. How about you? Could you go back to pushing paper and doing someone’s books?”

“No way. All of those years of practice, and now I don’t need the skill.”

“Every skill makes up who you are. You think a certain way because of it, and that’s proven to be valuable. I won’t be flying F-16s any longer, but that training allows me to succeed in our new universe. One that’s rapidly expanding.” Mary stretched her legs out.

“At least you can still fly ships. That’s one skill that’s transferable.” The wind was decreasing; the pools of water outside rippled less and less as we talked. “I think the storm’s dying down.”

We sat there chatting, waiting to hear another howl, but we didn’t. It was a half hour before we got up, seeing the rain was nothing more than a light patter now. Mary made for her scooter, her rifle on her back, her pack in her hand. As she strapped it to her seat, I walked out, looking at the sky to see if the clouds were still moving on. To the west, I saw amnesty coming in the still-dark night.

Mary was almost done and had fired up her ride when something jumped into my view.

“Dean, look out!” Mary called, but it was too late. The thick creature hurled itself off the canopy above the hillside and landed with a squishing sound right in front of me. It sank a couple feet into the soft ground, giving me just enough time to roll out of the way before its large paw wiped my face from my head. I felt the swing just clip me as I rolled to the wet ground, my rifle all but forgotten as I scrambled to evade the second swipe.

The thing reminded me of a bear, but its face was smaller, more human, making the whole attack that much more terrifying. It released a long howl as it came at me. I fought to back away from it, but my hands sank into the mossy ground, handcuffing any movement. This was it for me. There would be no saving Earth from the Bhlat, and after everything that had happened in the past two years, I was going to die by the paw of a monster on a planet I didn’t even know the name of.

The creature stood on two legs, an angry scowl on its tortured face, and it growled as its right arm came flying toward me.

“Dean, get your head down!” Mary’s voice yelled, and the smell of burned fur and blood hit me like a brick. I ducked and got a hand out, rolling to the side as the huge thing fell beside me, surprise crossing its face before it smacked into the swamp, water splashing a yard high.

The whole attack had only been a few seconds, but I was out of breath. My hand shook so hard, I had a hard time taking Mary’s when she offered it to me. She pumped a couple more blasts from her pulse rifle into the hide of the dead monster for good measure.

“We need to go. If there’s one, there are probably more. I don’t want to be around when they show up.”

“Why do I get all the terrible attacks on this planet? Good thing I have people to help me, or I’d be dead twice already.” I made the joke to cover my dread. I’d thought I was going to die, and it wasn’t a feeling that shook off in a minute.

Howls came at us from every direction as we got onto our hover scooters. “Which way?” I asked.

“No idea.” Mary put her helmet on, and I did likewise, turning the night vision back on. “I’d suggest keeping your rifle at ready.” She started to move north, and I joined her getting around the hills. More creatures cried out in the night as we raced away, hoping to not come across any of them.

FIFTEEN

The two-hour trip took its toll on my body. The wind was still blowing, and we passed through a couple more areas with inclement weather, reluctant to stop either time. We plowed through, ending up near the spot where we’d first landed on the planet all those months ago. We rode by the swamp where I’d been pulled under, and I recalled Mae saving my life. I shook it off as we rode, until coming to the town. It had expanded since we’d been there. More log cabins were erected, but few beings lingered on the streets as the sun started to rise, pushing through the thin clouds. Mist rose from the damp ground as we shut the scooters off.

“I hope they ask questions before shooting,” Mary said, holding her rifle.

“They did last time.”

We were in a large clearing, just past the tree line separating the village from the forest and swamps. A few ships were nearby, quietly sitting on the ground. I recognized one of them as the insectoid ship we’d seen last time. Another wasn’t familiar.

A Deltra sentry could be seen a hundred yards away, walking the other direction. Worried they might think we were sneaking in, I stuck my pinky and thumb into my mouth and whistled sharply. That got his attention. He spun around, gun raised, and I was impressed at his reaction time. I suspected the sentries didn’t have much action here, unless those smooth-faced bears were a problem in town.

He said something in Deltran and I threw my hands in the air. Mary lowered her rifle and did the same.

“This better work,” she whispered.

“Who goes there?” my translator said in my ear.

“Dean Parker and Mary Lafontaine,” I said loudly. He was only thirty yards away now, and I saw his expression change.

“Keep them up,” he said, gun still raised as he approached us. “How did you get here?”

Mary nodded toward the trees. “Hover scooter,” she said, and he looked confused, the translation likely not clear.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“We’re here to see Kareem. It’s urgent.” I was getting tired of holding my arms up, and I started to lower them. When he didn’t object, I let them drop to my sides.

“Come with me,” he said, letting us walk in front of him. He didn’t ask to take our weapons, but when I glanced back at him, his grip on his gun looked tight, and he eyed me with suspicion.

We neared the same building Kareem had been in before. When we got to the door, the sentry knocked and was let in. Another guard came out, watching us as the first sentry disappeared into the big structure.

“Nice morning,” I said to the newcomer, getting a grunt in return. “Not a big talker? Sorry for waking you guys up. We didn’t have a choice.” I swear the guy cut me a smile, and if I wasn’t mistaken, that was the first smile I’d seen from their race. It was nice to see the commonality.

“You’re Dean, right?” he asked, his voice quiet.

“My reputation precedes me.”

“Terrance and Leslie have been waiting for their friends.”

Guilt washed over me. Just a second ago, I’d been making jokes; meanwhile, the hybrids were probably dying in the Russian prison on Earth.

“I’m sorry. I failed them,” I said somberly. Mary set her hand on my forearm.

“They won’t be happy. I hope you have better news for them and Kareem,” the pale hairless guard said, his smile wiped away.

The door swung open, the first sentry waving us inside. “He’ll see you now.”

We followed them into the large space we’d first been in when Mae had escaped in Leslie’s ship. They took us farther, through a doorway at the far end of the room. It smelled sterile in there, reminding me of a hospital. I’d spent enough time in one of those with Janine to recall it vividly.

The door opened into a hallway. Wooden floors led us to a series of rooms; some doors were ajar, with Deltra and other races milling around, getting an early start to their days. No one stopped us, but all of them stared curiously as we passed their bedrooms. I wanted to stop and look at the different aliens, to talk to them and learn about their people. There would be time for that eventually. Other things were more pressing now.

“In here,” the first guard said, ushering us through the doors. The room was dimly lit but was a good size, with a bed on the side. Machines beeped softly, and I wondered why they’d brought us there. Then I saw the bed wasn’t empty. Kareem was in it. His skin was even paler, if that was possible, and as I walked to the edge of the bed, I knew something was wrong.

“Kareem?” I asked.

His eyes opened, and he looked from Mary to me. “We meet again. I wasn’t expecting this. Have a seat.”

The guards slid a couple chairs over, and the lights in the room brightened by a few watts.

“Are you okay?” Mary asked the sickly-looking Deltra leader. I could just make out his tattoos peeking out from under the thick blankets.

“No. I’m dying.”

“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say to his calm statement.

“Tell me why you’re here,” he said.

Where did I start? “We need your help. We think the Bhlat have invaded our planet.”

“You think they have? What does that mean?”

“Many of us have moved on to a new planet, at Proxima. But our communications with Earth take two months to relay, and our leader went back when the messages ceased to come.” I explained to him what had happened after we’d last met. How we thought Mae had died crashing into an asteroid, and how we found the device he’d described to us. He seemed pleased it still existed but was surprised the Bhlat knew of it and were waiting there.

Mary took over and talked about us chasing Mae to the Bhlat outpost. She skipped over the intimate details of who Mae was to me and cut the murderous part I had in killing all of their innocents on the base.

Kareem listened, asking few questions. When the tale was over, he asked one simple but important question. “How did you get here? We had no signs of a ship arriving, or they would have told me.”

“The Shandra.” I used the Shimmalian word for the portal to see if this had any meaning to him. His otherwise calm demeanor changed drastically. One of the electronic monitors beeped loudly, causing a small Deltra to enter the room, pushing us out of the way. Kareem shooed him away with a flick of his wrist. “I’m fine,” he said in Deltran before switching back to English. “Where did you hear that word?”

“From Sarlun, the Gatekeeper of the Shandra on Shimmal.” I didn’t flinch. This seemed to flummox him even more.

“Then it’s out.” He sank back in the pillow, almost disappearing into the bed.

“Is that such a bad thing?” Mary asked.

“We spent a lot of hard work to isolate the portals. We blocked off all that we could. The Theos were short-sighted creating these back-door accesses into so many worlds. It was like giving the Kremlons a key to the barn,” Kareem said, his reference not hitting home, but I imagined it was something like giving a fox a key to the hen house.

“We need the portal to the Bhlat homeworld.” I leaned forward as I spoke. I said the words just loud enough for Kareem to hear them.

“Preposterous!” he yelled, sending his frail body into a coughing fit. When it finished, he wiped his thin lips with a slender arm. “What would that accomplish?”

I told him our plan, and he didn’t interrupt once. A few times, he looked like he would interject, but each time he changed his mind, and sat back. When it was over, he looked at Mary. “You agree with this plan?” he asked her.

She nodded, but I noticed a hesitation to it. “What choice do we have?”

“There’s always a choice. There’s always…” He coughed a few more times. “A choice.”

“I think it’s our best bet. Unless we can rally enough support from your allies out there.” Magnus, Mary, and I had discussed this, but ultimately, we didn’t have the contacts or time to attempt such an endeavor.

“Their portal was blocked off centuries ago. The Theos Collective fought us on the decision, but the long-running religion ended up dissipating as the years went on, and eventually, they forgot about it, just like everyone else. Now there are only a handful of races that even know of their existence. Your friend Sarlun is one of the last remaining Gatekeepers in the universe.”

“Something’s been bothering me. If there was a portal on Earth, why didn’t you use it to help your cause with the Kalentrek?” I asked.

“How do you think we got it there? Through the portal. We were a captured race, so few of us were left outside the Kraskis’ clutches. All we could do was wait for the right time.” His face took on a look of heavy loss. He noticed my reaction and spoke to me softly. “Dean Parker, you are an honorable man. I don’t blame you for the destruction of my people. The plan was to rid ourselves of the Kraski with your help, not destroy you all and take your world. We deserved our fate.”

“You’ll help us?” Mary asked.

“I will. But you have to do something for me first.” Kareem’s words gave me pause. We didn’t have time for favors.

“What? We’ll do anything,” Mary answered before I could counter.

“You told Leslie and Terrance that you’d get their people here.” He looked me in the eyes. “Your people now by blood.” He sniffed the air, and I wondered if he could smell the hybrid blood running quickly through my veins. “Go get them. Use the portal and bring them here, to their new home.”

“We don’t have time for this!” I stood up, knocking my chair over. A guard came in, gun pointed at me.

“It’s okay. We’re fine. Just having a discussion,” Kareem said to the guard. “Aren’t we, Dean?”

I righted the chair and sat back down, getting a glower from Mary.

“We’ll do it,” she said firmly.

“Wait.” I started to speak, but she set a hand on my knee.

“I said we’ll do it. We owe them that much. We left them there when we took off, and it’s weighed on us long enough. They need our help too,” Mary said. Instantly, I knew she was right.

“Sarlun showed me Earth’s icon but didn’t know if it was still functional. Is it?” I asked, sweat forming under my arms.

“It is.”

“Where is it?” Mary asked.

“You call it Egypt. Under a large pyramid. The Theos planted it there before humans wandered the dust, and when it was discovered by your people many years ago, they built a tower to protect it. They didn’t know what it was, only that it was clearly ancient, and alien,” Kareem said. “Do you have your…?” He left the question unanswered, his eyes glancing at the pin on my uniform’s lapel.

I almost barked out a laugh. For so long, we’d imagined the pyramids had a link to aliens, and they did. Machu Picchu was rumored to involve aliens, and it did. I wondered what other rumors were true. Area 51?

“From the pyramids to a Russian war camp. We’re going to need help,” I said.

“Patty told me to contact Jeff Dinkle if we ever make it to Earth and need someone on her side. Magnus knows how to reach him.” Mary looked ready to leave.

I turned to the door as I heard a familiar voice demanding to be let in. Terrance came pushing past the guard, toward us.

“Not in here!” Kareem called, stopping the angry hybrid in his footsteps.

“Where are they?” he asked, his face dark red.

“Earth,” I said, ashamed I didn’t have better news for the man. “We’re going to get them now.”

“I’m coming with you,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, but Kareem spoke up.

“Take him. He’ll be helpful. Bring them back, and I’ll expose the secrets my people worked so hard to hide. I want the secret to be yours, and yours alone. It will die with you, do you understand?” he asked, a grave look over his gaunt face.

I did understand and told him as much. He nodded and closed his eyes. He didn’t speak again, and we stood up to face Leslie and Terrance. Leslie had shorn her hair short, but otherwise was the spitting image of my now dead wife, and of Mae. My heart ached for a second as I looked her in the eyes. “Let’s go. If you’re coming, can you fly us back to the portal?”

“What portal?” Leslie asked.

“Come on, we have a lot to talk about.”

SIXTEEN

“Are you sure you can make this trip with us? What about Natalia and your boy?” I asked Magnus.

“She wants me to go. She said if she can’t be there to protect you guys, I’d better be.” Magnus opened the transport’s door, and the cool air rushed inside. It was still cold by Terran Five standards, but it was in their spring season. Snow was melting, leaving a sloppy mess near the cavern entrance that would lead us to the portal.

Leslie and Terrance were suited up and hadn’t spoken much on the cramped ride from Terran One to the mountainside. They were anxious to help their friends, and I could completely understand the feeling. We all got out, bringing a vast array of supplies. The small Kalentrek device was in my breast pocket, though I didn’t expect to have to use it yet. Mary was the last to get out, from the pilot’s seat, and I gave her a kiss as she stepped onto the slushy ground.

“One thing at a time. We can do this, get the Bhlat world icon, and finish this once and for all. What do you say? Another ass-kicking mission for old time’s sake?” I asked.

Magnus gave a hoorah and stuck his hand out. I settled mine on his, flat-palmed, and Mary followed suit. Terrance rolled his eyes but joined in, followed by Leslie. “Let’s go kick some ass!” Magnus said. We all repeated “kick some ass!” and raised our hands. It felt good to be part of a team, even a desperate stitched-together one, off doing someone else’s mission. I reprimanded myself for thinking that. I had promised to help the hybrids, and I was about to follow through on that. Their lives were just as important as the people of Earth’s.

Magnus went first, blowing the air horn. Terrance did the same at the rear of our line as we entered the cavern. I took over the lead, taking us down the tunnels I was becoming very familiar with. Magnus hadn’t been there before, and he gave a low whistle as we entered the room. The hieroglyphs lit up, and Leslie and Terrance looked a little less sickly than they had at their new planet’s portal. Apparently, it had affected them like it had affected me the first time I’d been led here, but because they weren’t fighting the urge, they didn’t have the same out-of-body reaction.

The symbols on the walls glowed as we approached the gemstone in the table. We all gathered around, knowing what to expect, as I scrolled to find the icon for Earth on the screen. It was there: two horizontal slashes, one large circle, and one small circle, which I now attributed to Earth’s sun and moon.

“Everyone ready?” I asked, and when no one commented, I hit the icon and closed my eyes.

When I opened them, we were in a different room. This one appeared twice as large as New Spero’s portal room, with the same etchings on the walls, which dimmed within seconds of arriving. I noticed their placement on the walls was different than they had been in New Spero, and different yet from Shimmal.

“I’m not sure I want to get used to this,” Magnus said, already exploring the dark space. We all had our suits’ LEDs on, lighting up the room. It looked basic – ancient, even – untouched by anyone in a long time.

We were still wearing our helmets, just in case the room was sealed off or some deadly gas had seeped through the ground, ready to kill us on arrival. The sensors showed there was air, oxygen levels normal. I unclasped the mask, the hiss loud in the quiet area.

The air was stale. It was like walking into the back of my grandfather’s barn when I was a kid. Layers of dust had covered countless items he’d stored away from the turn of the century. The only living things to even go into that room were the spiders, who made happy homes of their own on the old oak furniture.

I assumed spiders would be prevalent here as well, but when I looked for them, I saw nothing but dirt walls and dust particles floating around as we disturbed the portal room.

“The door’s over here,” Leslie said, in her more than familiar voice. “It looks like stone.”

We didn’t know just which pyramid we were under, or if we were going to be stuck trying to get out. I’d had nightmares the night before that we arrived, only to have the doorway inside covered by fallen rocks. It had been a few centuries since the portal had been used, so we had no idea what the condition was on the other side of the door. I pushed my fear of the unknown down, not letting myself worry.

“Open it,” I said, and walked to them as Terrance used his weight to push on the large stone wall.

“It won’t move!” Terrance grunted.

Magnus moved beside him and started to push. After a minute of exertion, they gave up.

“Wait. It wouldn’t be on hinges. It’s probably round. We need to roll it away,” Mary said, and I pictured a large stone circle on the other side. I lowered to the ground and saw slight openings at the corners of the doorway.

“She’s right. We need to roll it.”

“Which way?” Leslie asked. We had no way of knowing.

“Look up here. I think these are handles.” Magnus ran his hand over the stone slab and showed us where a couple of handholds were recessed. “Not much room, but I bet we can get enough leverage, as long as there isn’t something jammed on the side of the circle out there.” I went beside him and jammed my fingers into the second opening. We pulled to the left, and after ten seconds of hard yanking, it started to roll. We kept pulling, and it rolled open.

My heart hammered from effort and joy at our success. It was short-lived when I thought about how much further we needed to go before we could come back to this room to leave. It wasn’t going to be easy.

We all ushered out of the portal room. “Should we close it up?” Mary asked me.

“Good idea. I doubt anyone’s coming down here, but better safe than sorry. Mary, can you pin our location on your GPS?” I asked as Magnus and Leslie rolled the door back closed. The hallway we’d emerged into was shallow and went beyond the room in both directions.

All we knew was we were underground, a pyramid on top of us. We just needed to get to higher ground, and then we could find our way out.

“Look for elevation changes in the pitch of the ground,” Mary said, and we chose to go left from the room, because it seemed to rise slightly as you walked along it.

The ceilings were low, and Magnus had to duck a few times to avoid hitting his head on jutting rocks. The halls were primarily dug from dirt, but rock was stuck into both the walls and ceiling, probably to help support the opening. We walked along the path for ten minutes, slowly moving and breathing in stale air. Mary had elected to put her mask back on her helmet, and Terrance joined her. If we didn’t get out of the basement here soon, I’d need the fresh air as well.

“I’ll be damned,” Magnus said, stopping so suddenly that I walked right into his broad back.

“What is it?” I asked, stepping around him to see for myself.

The hall opened to a room, this one with more hieroglyphs. These looked different from the Shandra ones and were most likely done by ancient Egyptians. It showed small figures bowing on the ground to large people in animal masks, presumably their representations of the Theos they wouldn’t have ever seen.

“At least they were smart enough to seal the portal and build a pyramid overtop it,” Mary said, running a gloved hand over the stone walls.

“Do you think…?” I started to ask and let the question fall quiet.

“I know what you’re thinking, and I bet some sad soul was lost on the other side a few times before they assumed their friends were just being killed.” Magnus was filming the room with his suit’s surveillance.

I pictured an ancient Egyptian child playing with his sister, chasing her down a tunnel they’d found in the desert. She made it to the room first, awestruck by the glowing gemstone. She stood still, the game all but forgotten. The walls began to glow as she neared the table, and the pretty drawings put her into a trance. Her brother called to her from the doorway, older, more aware of danger. She ignored him, her heart pounding so loud she could hardly hear his words. She touched an image on the screen. The room shone brightly, and when it subsided, the boy was left alone.

I opened my eyes and wondered if that had happened, or if my imagination was just filling in the blanks.

“This way. I see stairs,” Leslie called from the far corner.

Each step kicked up a puff of dust as we climbed them. They were made of stone now, not carved out of dirt like most of what we’d seen so far. I guessed this section was newer than the other one, added on when they were about to build the pyramid, or built afterward to connect the two.

We found another door at the top, a stone circle we had to roll out of the way. Once out, we followed a hall in the dark, our suits lighting the way. I spotted old torch holders on the walls, some of the torches still mounted, the majority of their shapes gone to dust.

“Anyone else feel like lighting one of those just to see what happens?” Magnus asked, and I could almost hear his grin.

“I imagine they’d burn for a minute, then be ashes in your hand. They don’t just look a couple hundred years old, they look a couple thousand years old. I don’t need a carbon dating test to know that,” I said, trying to remember anything from the documentaries I’d seen as a kid in school. “If I recall, the pyramids housed the tombs of a queen and king, each in separate chambers. I’m sure there’s more to it, but if we follow the path that leads us up, we should be able to either get out or go to the ancient Egyptian mummified royalty.”

“That sounds right to me too,” Mary confirmed. “I don’t know which pyramid we’re in, but they all took an insane amount of effort. I can’t believe there’s been a hidden portal down inside, and no one’s found it.”

That got me thinking. “These days, they have all sorts of ultrasonic sensors that tell them what density of soil and rock are under things. How did they not learn there was an opening down here?” I asked, perplexed.

“No idea. I’ll chalk it up to ancient alien gods,” Magnus said.

I looked back at the hybrids, who had remained very quiet to this point. “Are you guys okay?”

“The sooner we get out of this dusty tomb, the better. I’m not a fan of tight underground spaces,” Leslie said.

Terrance slid his hand into Leslie’s. “Me neither.”

The walkway kept going slightly uphill, but eventually, it came to an end. Magnus was ahead; he and Mary were feeling the walls.

“There’s no exit,” Magnus said, and I instantly felt the walls closing in on me.

“What do you mean, there’s no exit?” Leslie’s voice lifted, on the edge of panic.

“We’ll find a way out,” Mary said.

I tried to get a feel for where we could be. We’d walked a short way, and at an uphill trajectory. We were probably near the ground level, where they’d plopped the pyramid on top of the portal access. If archeologists hadn’t found what was below, there had to be a layer of thick rock between the levels.

We spent an hour looking for any sign of an exit, and by the time we’d given up, we were covered in dust and Leslie was crying.

“We’ll be okay. We can always go back,” Mary said, trying to comfort her.

“We aren’t going back!” she yelled. “Our family is up there, stuffed away in a prison, tormented and dying. I’ve seen enough of humans to know how they’ll treat us.”

“Kind of like how you were trying to fly our comatose bodies into the sun, hey?” Magnus asked, egging her on. It was clear he was at his wits’ end with Operation Stuck-Under-a-Pyramid too.

“I don’t have to justify it. You all know our story. We repented and asked forgiveness. Some of you gave it, some of you couldn’t.” Terrance took over for his sobbing counterpart.

“The last time anyone from Earth knew what was happening, you two escaped a secret military base and snuck around the Long Island camp, having midnight clandestine meetings. Remember the bodies? Who do you think they blamed for that?” Magnus added fuel to the fire.

“We did it for them!” Terrance said, pushing himself chest to chest with Magnus, though he stood a good six inches shorter than the Scandinavian.

“Lot of good it did them. You two were living easy on planet log-cabin, and they were blamed for everything!” Magnus yelled back, spittle flying from his mouth as he shouted.

“It was your goddamn friend Mae that killed those guards! We aren’t to blame!” Leslie screeched from the ground, her hands on top of her head in a frantic gesture.

“Enough!” I called, standing between the two men, pushing Magnus back. For a second, he looked like a Rottweiler who’d had a bone taken from its mouth; I was worried he was going to snap at me. But his common sense took over, and he turned, walking away. “Neither of you are right, and neither are wrong. Both sides are to blame. We may not be able to fix it, but we can change the outcome now. We won’t be able to do that and set an example if we can’t even work together without fighting.”

Terrance leaned against the wall and slid down until his butt was touching the dirt floor beside Leslie.

The hall had gotten pin-drop quiet, and Leslie broke the silence. “You’re right. We’re with you. No more bad blood. I’m sorry for all the trouble we caused. If we hadn’t escaped, you wouldn’t be here right now. Maybe humans would eventually have seen us as friends. Instead, we ran away, which was exactly what Mae wanted. The Bhlat are now knocking on your door, and it could be our fault, and we made you lose seven years of your loved ones’ lives.”

We hadn’t told them all of this, so clearly, they’d been listening as we talked to Kareem. Something struck me at that moment. Something Kareem had asked, or almost asked.

“Guys, Kareem started to ask if we had our…something…then cut himself short before he looked at the pin on the uniform. What if someone added a lift on the other side of the ground? Anyone with this technology could press their pin, glow green, and lift toward the target embedded above by the Deltra or some other ancient race after the pyramid was built.”

I walked around the halls again, this time with a renewed vigor. Magnus and Mary were near the end, and I moved them out of the way as I searched, this time not for a handle or a secret door or hatch in the ceiling, but a sign on the floor. I used my boots to brush away dirt from the ground near the end wall and found that section was really a slab of stone with dirt covering it. Mary got down on her knees, and I joined her, wiping the stone surface with our gloved hands, clearing the dirt off, until we could see it.

Laughing, tired, and covered in dust, we hugged; the image of Earth’s icon was emblazoned on the rock.

“You did it again,” Magnus said, clapping me on the shoulder after he helped Mary up off the dirt.

“I’ll go first.” I looked up at the ceiling, wondering how thick the space between us and the well-trodden paths of the pyramid above was.

“Are you sure?” Mary said, worry thick in her voice.

I nodded, ready to get out of the sealed-off trap we were in. “There have to be openings here too; otherwise, we wouldn’t be breathing in this stale air. If anything happens to me and my plan fails, look for a spot with air flow. It may be your way out. And if that doesn’t work, go back and convince Kareem to give us what we asked for. We’ll bring your friends back after we deal with the Bhlat.” The last bit was for Leslie and Terrance. I caught his gaze and held it there for a moment. He nodded solemnly.

Mary took my face in her hands. “Do it. Communicate back to us, and we’ll be right up.” I felt the press of her lips against mine. They were dry and covered in old sediment, but I didn’t care. Not caring who was watching, I kissed her back.

“Enough already. Tell you what. You get us out of here, and you two can have seven minutes in heaven at the Queen’s chamber up above,” Magnus said.

I stopped the kiss short and smiled at Mary. She was so beautiful; so wonderful. The few months we’d had on New Spero just being a couple was the best time of my life. We walked Maggie, tended the garden, chopped wood… that was the life I wanted for us, at least part-time. She seemed to be reading my mind, because she just gave me a slow, soft nod, her eyes just on the brink of tearing up.

“See you on the other side.” I clasped my helmet tight, hearing the familiar hiss as it pressurized, then hit the pin on my uniform. The familiar weightless feeling engulfed me, and I floated upward.

SEVENTEEN

I forced myself to open my eyes, only after a count to five. I instantly regretted it. I was still inside the rock, and even though I couldn’t feel it, I thought it was going to crush me. Just as I calmed myself out of the sudden shock, I emerged from the stone.

The green light around me dissipated, leaving me on shaky knees in the pyramid passageway. My lights were on, and they showed me two directions to go. One careened at a downward angle, the other elevated at an acute pitch. That was the way we needed to go.

“Dean, are you there?” Mary’s voice carried into my ear. I’d been so distracted, I’d forgotten to tell them I made it.

“I’m here and the path is clear.” I stood out of the way, making room for my counterparts to float their way to the main section of the pyramid with me.

“Gotcha,” came the reply.

Soon four figures covered in green breached the hard floor, and I noticed the link in the ceiling above. There was another symbol on the ceiling, which was at least ten feet high here, too high for most people to reach unaided. The Deltra must have planted the beaming magnet above the symbol.

“Let’s move. We wasted enough time down there.” Magnus moved past me, taking charge. I was happy for him to do it. “Shouldn’t we run into tourists or something?”

“After everything that’s happened, and is currently happening to Earth, I think the travel business to ancient structures is a thing of the past,” I said, hoping I was right. We wanted to get in and out as stealthily as possible.

The pyramid paths were much cleaner up here, the walls cut out of large stone blocks. We came to a set of stairs leading up, and knew they’d been added in the past century. Long wooden rails lined the sides, with manufactured steps to keep tourists from falling or suing someone. The sudden jolt of modern in the ancient pyramid was jarring.

“Looks like we’re on the right path,” Terrance said from behind us.

We kept moving up the stairs, taking two at a time in a jog. It didn’t take us long to get to a fork where there was an option to turn a one-eighty and go up again. Signs pointed with images of a tomb for the Queen’s chamber and the King’s chamber above, with pictures in the backdrop of the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the seven wonders of the world.

“Now we know where we are, at least,” Mary muttered.

It felt far from Russia, and we just hoped that when we got outside, we weren’t too late.

“As much as I want to go see a real mummified corpse, let’s make a move,” Magnus said. When no one disagreed, he moved for the exit.

I expected to be blinded by sunlight as we left, but it was night; the area’s lights were shut down. Closed for business. We left, ready for anything as we did so, passing two columns at the front of the pyramid. At the same moment, we all craned our necks to the sky, looking for signs of battle or destruction.

Nothing. Just the light of a half moon, and stars shining at us from light years away.

Magnus looked at me and shrugged.

“How do we reach Dinkle?” I asked, though we’d been over it a few times.

Magnus pulled out a tablet. “We left the cell technology on our tablets for just such an emergency. As long as Jeff is still kicking, we should be able to reach him. Patty asked him to stay behind so that someone she trusted was here.”

“Did he want to leave?” Mary asked.

“He was the world’s most alien-obsessed man, with a talk show about it. Of course he wanted to get to a colony planet. But at the end of the day, he listened to her because she heard him out at the start and brought him onto the team. He was there when we tested our cloaking technology and dismantled the Kraski ships. It was the equivalent of you seeing the inside of the Yankees’ locker room.” Magnus walked some way out, and even in the dimly-lit night sky, I could make out the smaller pyramids nearby, the grounds a barren rocky plateau.

That brought me back to the day two years ago, when I’d gone to Yankee Stadium with my new little friend, Carey. Running the bases with him chasing after me had been a bright spot in an otherwise overwhelming time.

Magnus opened the facemask on his helmet, and we removed ours, stashing them in a sack from my pack, and placed them under a grouping of broken rocks where they would be almost impossible to find. We also slipped off our uniforms and did the same thing with them. We were going to be conspicuous enough walking around with rifles in our bags. Blending in was going to be key.

Magnus was fiddling with his tablet, and after he tapped the screen one last time, he crossed his other fingers and looked to the sky. “Jeff?” he asked, speaking into the earpiece mic. “Oh, thank God. It’s Magnus. We need your help.”

They talked for a few minutes. Magnus nodded while Jeff spoke, and I wanted to hear the other end of the conversation. “We’re at the Pyramid of Giza. Yeah, that one. One hour? We can wait it out. See you then.”

“Well? What the hell’s going on here?” Leslie asked impatiently.

“They’re here, but so far no fireworks have gone off. Naidoo has just made a statement for everyone to stay calm, but that’s not going so well. As far as Jeff knows, the Bhlat have hung in space, and the connections to the station up there have been severed. He’s bringing a transporter over here. I guess he was in London, or what’s left of it.” Magnus’ mouth was set in a grim line.

“What now?” Mary asked.

“We wait for Jeff,” Magnus said, sitting down on a half-sized pyramid stone jutting out of the ground.

Leslie and Terrance set their packs down and ventured off together, whispering quietly.

“I still don’t trust them,” Magnus said about the hybrid pair.

“What choice do we have? We can’t get to the Bhlat world without them. We’re committed,” I said.

“All that data from the Bhlat base you downloaded and all the details on locations were encrypted, hey?” I wasn’t sure if he was making a comment or asking a question.

“They aren’t stupid, that’s for sure. They made sure their location was hidden from anyone finding an outpost,” I said.

“We trust them now, but promise me this. We have each other’s backs no matter what happens. You, Mary, and me. If shit goes south up there, we leave them and force the information from Kareem if we have to.” Magnus’ voice was a low growl, and a vein on his forehead was starting to throb.

“Deal,” Mary said first.

“Deal.” I knew I owed the hybrids something after they’d turned around and worked with us to get our people home, but it only went so far. My friends came first. My people too.

The hour went by slowly, and I marked the passage of the moon by its position over the Great Pyramid. I almost went back in, wanting to see the other chambers, but the risk of bumping around inside in the near dark wasn’t worth it.

Being in Egypt after traveling through a portal felt like being on an abandoned alien world. No one was in sight, ancient structures pushed into the sky. It was surreal.

After some time, a light shone in the sky, moving quickly toward our location. Leslie and Terrance meandered over to us, both holding their rifles at ready. I didn’t like the look in Terrance’s eyes as he stared toward the incoming ship.

“This better be Dinkle,” Magnus said, holding his own gun at ready.

The small transport landed, similar to the ones they had on New Spero, but it looked simpler and more worn than theirs. Probably an early model. The door opened, and a familiar face hopped out.

“I’ll be damned. The rumors are true,” Jeff said, a smile covering half his face. He laughed and walked over to us, arms stretched out.

He set them on Mary’s shoulders and kissed each of her cheeks before coming over to me and giving me a firm hug, complete with a back slap to end the embrace. He did the same to Magnus and gave a curt nod in the hybrids’ direction before speaking again. “The Heroes of Earth, back again. We thought you were dead.” He said this so matter-of-factly, like it didn’t bother him either way. “I’m glad you’re not.”

“So are we,” Mary chimed in.

“Why are you so chipper? Aren’t the Bhlat hovering somewhere overhead?” I asked, his demeanor bugging me.

The smile fell from his face. “I’m sorry. When I heard from you, I got so excited. If anyone was going to get us out of this mess, it’s you three. I see Mae’s no longer with you?” He looked at me intensely, like he was trying to say something with his eyes, maybe pass a secret message to me.

“She’s dead,” I said quietly.

“I see. So you got my text, then?” he asked.

Text? I hadn’t had a text since… Don’t trust her. “What the hell are you asking me? It was you?” I crossed over to him, grabbing him by the shirt collar. A uniformed man from the transporter got out, holding a gun in the air, and asked me calmly to let him go.

Magnus and Mary quickly had their weapons in the air, pointing at Jeff and his escort.

“No need to get out of hand. I was trying to help you.” His voice was ragged as I clutched him firmly.

“Why did you send that text?” I was suddenly furious. Rage filled my veins as I recalled getting the message on my cell phone outside the gas station near Nashville. Mae had been with us, chasing down the two hybrids now beside us. Only now, she was gone.

“She was dangerous. I didn’t have enough proof, just the word of one of them.” He nodded in Terrance’s direction.

I let him go. The anger was still there, but he was right. She did screw us over, even if she thought it was for the best. “What signs?” I asked, nodding to my counterparts, who let their weapons down. The air thinned as the tension lifted.

“Before we get into this, do you think we could have this discussion in the air?” Magnus asked. “We have an objective, and fighting each other isn’t going to get us there.”

One by one, we loaded onto the transport ship, which had barely enough room for us to sit side by side. Jeff sat in the back with us, and Magnus took a seat up front by the pilot. I was hip to hip between Mary and Leslie. Our bags and rifles leaned behind the back seats, in the small storage area just out of sight.

“Explain,” I said once we were in the air, leaving the pyramids behind.

EIGHTEEN

We moved quickly through the night. Part of me wished I could watch the ground fly past us as we traveled, moving over the Middle East toward Siberia, where Jeff claimed the hybrid camp was located.

“I had a talk show for a few years on extraterrestrial beings, and the likelihood of life outside of Earth. Ever since I was a child sending letters to MUFON, I’ve been ridiculed for my beliefs. It didn’t stop there. Even as a successful television host and blogger, I had hate mail, and naysayers putting me down. Could you imagine the thrill I had when one of the hybrids approached me a year before the Event?” Jeff’s smile started to creep back onto his face.

“What?” Mary asked, as incredulous as I felt.

“Kyle came to a filming of one of my interview shows. He sat in the front row, and there was something familiar about him, like I’d seen him before. It turned out that I had, on a conspiracy blog about aliens among us. It showed images of Kyle’s other lookalike hybrids. He was the Caucasian male, dark hair.”

I glanced over at Mary, knowing Jeff was describing the hybrid that had looked like Bob, her husband. She just turned and gave me a forced smile.

Jeff continued. “The site had done a good job of identifying this man all over the world. There were at least ten sightings; each of the men looked very similar, though some wore their hair differently and dressed differently. The site wasn’t a big one, and most people assume these things are fake or Photoshopped anyway, so it didn’t make any mainstream news. When I realized this man in my audience was one of them, I couldn’t wait to speak with him. I remember how nervous I was after the show was done filming. Kyle lingered in his seat, long past everyone else’s departure, and once the crew was gone, I walked over to him, heart pounding, knowing this was the moment I’d been waiting for. I was right.

“He told me his name and asked if there was somewhere we could talk privately. I agreed to it, and we left the studio. We walked to an all-night café nearby where only a couple of night-shift workers were hanging out, giving us ample opportunity to talk without prying ears.

“The story he spilled was insane, even to me, a full alien believer. He claimed that a race of aliens was coming, fleeing their own system and making the trip to Earth, where they would dispose of us all, claiming the planet for themselves. I asked him how he knew this, and he said he was a hybrid alien, part Kraski, part human. He looked sickly and was coughing up a lung by the time our pie came to the table.” Jeff paused briefly to look at Leslie, then Terrance, before starting again. “I asked him what I was supposed to do about it, knowing he had to be crazy. I would have left it alone if I hadn’t seen him on that conspiracy website. That he was already being touted as an alien by some blogger made me listen to him. The idea that he may have been the guy behind the website crossed my mind, but this man was so into his story, I almost believed him.”

The ship jumped a little bit, and my heart hammered in my chest, thinking we were being attacked. “Just turbulence,” the pilot said from the front seat. I craned my neck and there was Magnus, listening to Jeff’s story with interest. After a few more bumps, I clipped my seatbelt on, the rest of us following suit.

“What happened after that?” Mary prompted.

The TV host was looking forward, not meeting the gaze of anyone, just silent for a moment.

“Jeff?” I asked.

He turned to me, his eyes coming into focus. “Yes, sorry. I was lost in my story, I guess. So much has happened since that day, but it’s so clear in my memory. I can tell you what color and style his shirt was, and that his white sneakers were old, with dark scuff marks along the sides of them. I’ll never forget his next words.”

I leaned forward, drawn in like everyone else listening.

“He said we had no chance. He hated being used like a puppet and said that the Kraski could go to hell. That’s when he told me about the Deltras’ plan. It sounded insane and had far too many moving pieces to work,” Jeff said, his eyes shifting to meet mine. “He told me there were a few of them in the mix, but not to trust one in particular.”

He paused again, and Mary leaned back, pushing out an irritated sigh. “For the love of God, just say the name already.”

Jeff smiled, making me want to slap the words out of his mouth. “Mae. He told me not to trust Mae.”

“What good did that do?” I asked. “You didn’t tell anyone, and then sending an anonymous text to me telling me not to trust her. It could have meant anyone. Mary, Natalia, Patty… hell, even Leslie here. What did he say about Mae?” I was getting tired of Jeff’s demeanor, and wished he’d just sent the transport and stayed in London. “What did he know about her?”

Jeff shrugged. “I was trying to help you. She was with the Bhlat, wasn’t she? He was right, and I was right to warn you.”

“I think the part we’re having a hard time wrapping our heads around is this: you could have had a conversation with us before we traveled off into space with Mae by our side. Maybe, just maybe, these two could have stayed on Earth, and we could’ve not lost seven years with our loved ones. Maybe the hybrids wouldn’t be on lockdown now, wasting away in Siberia like murderers and terrorists,” Mary said, keeping her voice calm. I gripped her hand, squeezing it for support.

“Yes, but… then the Bhlat wouldn’t have come,” he said, his grin so wide I saw all of his teeth. His comment didn’t even register as I looked at him, thinking how much he looked like a wild animal with his teeth bared like that.

“What did you say?” Magnus asked from the front.

“Then the Bhlat wouldn’t have come.” Jeff repeated the words, and before we could react, he pulled a gun, aiming it at Terrance’s head. “Anyone moves, and I blow this man’s head off his shoulders. And I use the term ‘man’ loosely. He’s more of an alien monstrosity. Part Kraski, a terrible race of cowards, mixed with another race of turncoats and self-abusers: human.”

“Magnus, where are we going?” I asked, not able to see through the front window.

“We’re moving up, heading into the clouds,” my large friend said through a clenched jaw. If I knew Magnus, he was holding down the urge to slam the pilot’s head into the dash.

“Dinkle, what’s the endgame here?” I asked, feeling stupid for instantly trusting the stranger. We’d fallen right into his trap. Patty had been played by the man she thought she knew.

“The endgame is this: we already have Dalhousie and your other friends up there. Now we have the famed Heroes of Earth to bring as a sacrifice. Rumor has it they want your head on a stick, Mr. Parker. I wonder what for?”

My throat had closed, and I swallowed hard. They knew me. Naidoo had probably sold me out.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, the words burning on their way out. We’d come all this way, and now it was going to end at the hands of this slick television talk show host.

“No, I don’t, but humans have never interested me. Aliens? Now them, I can get behind. They’re going to show me amazing things. Speaking of which, how did you get to Egypt? Inquiring minds want to know your tricks.”

“You really think we’re going to tell you that?” Mary asked vehemently. I set a trembling hand on her thigh.

Terrance was staying far calmer than I would have with the cold steel of a gun against my temple. I had to hand it to the guy; he was cool as a cucumber. Leslie was fidgeting. I hoped she wasn’t about to lunge at Jeff, because her friend would probably end up dead if she did.

Magnus whistled up front, just a light one, but I knew what it meant. It was the same whistle I’d used to teach Carey to roll over. I scanned the seatbelts, seeing everyone was wearing one but Jeff. I got ready. We bumped into some more turbulence, and Magnus made his move. He must have snuck his hand to the steering column because we suddenly were torn to the side, the ship turning hard to starboard. Jeff went hard into the sidewall, still holding his gun. I unclasped my belt just as we came out of the barrel roll and lunged at the dazed man.

“Don’t even think about it,” Magnus said from the front seat, presumably at the pilot, as I arced through the air, the training Slate engrained into me on our previous journey taking over.

Jeff’s eyes went wide as he tried to swing his gun around in time to aim at me, but he was too late. Our bodies collided. My fist went into his gut and he bent over, fighting for breath. Terrance was already digging behind him to the storage area, and when I glanced over, he was passing the pulse rifles to the others.

Jeff was still gripping the gun, but I clasped his wrist while he coughed loudly. Mary came over and pried it from his fingers; soon he was slumped back in his seat, his head bleeding from the side.

“You don’t know what you’ve done,” he spat angrily. “They’re expecting us. When we don’t show up, they’ll come looking. Do you think they’ll spare the people in their search?”

“Don’t put this on us. This is all on your hands,” I said, surprised his perspective would allow him to see that vantage point. This type of man always reasoned with himself when he did things. He justified his terrible actions with righteous causes, but at the end of the day, he was in the wrong.

“Take us to Siberia,” Magnus grumbled from the front. He was now pointing a gun at the pilot, whose shoulders took on the inevitable slump of someone caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

I went to the storage compartment and found some zip ties, which we used to tie Jeff’s hands together. He protested, but soon he was sitting in the back on the floor, head on his knees.

“Should we give him something for his head?” Mary asked quietly.

I shook my head. “We’ll figure it out later. For now, I have a hard time showing the man compassion.” I shifted my attention to the front of the transport. “What’s our ETA?” I asked.

When the pilot didn’t answer, Magnus peered over to the console. “Ten minutes. Here, look at this.”

He passed me a tablet and told me to press play. It showed a snow-covered entrance to a large stone-walled prison. Guard towers were visibly manned, and a name was carved in the rock in Russian.

In the video, a stream of people emerged from a Kraski ship. Their hands were chained, and they wore orange jumpsuits. My stomach lurched when I saw who they were. Every few people, the faces were the same. Leslie clenched beside me, a low growl coming from her throat.

“This is where we’re going,” Magnus said. “I found it online. Maybe we should take them and let the Bhlat have this world. I’m sick of the things we put each other through.”

“Just put yourself in their shoes, Magnus,” Mary said. “We chased after who we thought were murderous hybrids, and never came back. They had to do something with them. When the Bhlat contacted Earth, they must have felt like they’d done the right thing. That doesn’t make it right, but it makes it understandable.”

The video kept playing, showing the inside of the building, the lines of cold bleak cells, and a pitiful bunch of hybrids sitting and eating in the mess hall. They were a beaten-down group, and I felt so terribly for them. We had to right it, and even though we were wasting precious time on this mission, it was an important one, no matter the outcome of the impending war.

“Arriving,” the pilot said, all the fight gone out of him. He was a hired hand and most likely didn’t care about causes, only a paycheck and seeing his family at night.

Snow was falling as we lowered from the cloud line, reminding me of Terran Five.

As we neared the building, something was off about it. “Shouldn’t there be lights on somewhere?”

Magnus nodded and mumbled something along the same lines.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Mary said. The feeling was mutual, and almost a constant for us over the past couple of years.

Leslie and Terrance stayed quiet, their gazes never leaving the view of the structure we were approaching. They were so close to their friends, nothing would stop them from getting to them now. I knew we had to watch our own backs. As much as I wanted to say these two were on our side, I knew they were looking out for themselves and the rest of the hybrids first, and I didn’t even blame them.

The transport ship landed softly, near the entrance we’d seen on the video minutes ago.

Leslie was already half out the door, followed quickly by Terrance. Jeff was tied up in the back, and we did the same to the pilot, making sure they had no weapons.

As I followed Mary out, Leslie was standing at the large iron gates. She looked back at us and pulled. The gates swung open. We still couldn’t see any lights on inside, and the towers located around the building looked to be empty.

“It’s like it’s abandoned,” Magnus said, holding his rifle at ready.

We walked past the gates, toward the dark prison.

NINETEEN

The main doors were tall and double wide, large enough to roll through supplies. Magnus was ready to blast them open, but Leslie held up a hand and tested the handle. It depressed, and she pulled the door open.

“This is odd.” Mary looked around, pointing at a camera in the corner. There was no light on it, and it didn’t move with us. Was anyone watching? Wind blew around the building, pushing light snow over us. Visibility of the area was poor, but that might help us get out of there.

“I’d planned on Jeff getting us a ship. How do we move this many?” I asked, hoping someone had a better idea than I did.

“First we see how many we’re talking about,” Magnus whispered, getting a dirty look from Leslie. He ignored it. “A place of this importance might very well have a ship parked out back.”

The entry was dim; even the backup emergency lights had expended their battery charges. There was an old bulletin board on the wall, half empty, and a depressing dirt-covered entry mat.

“Where the hell are the guards?” Magnus asked.

“If they’re still here, they aren’t doing a very good job of keeping anyone out. Hopefully, they did a better one of keeping them in.” I got a glare from Leslie. “I didn’t mean it like that. We’re going to find anyone left and get them out of here.”

The door closed behind us, clicking ominously. There was finality to the sound in the otherwise silent entryway. Mary jumped, smiling nervously in my direction.

The mud room, as I thought of it, had two more doors leading into a hallway we could see through the metal-lined glass. Leslie moved ahead, impatient to find her people. I expected the push lever to stop firm, keeping us from entering, but it moved, the door opening easily.

Leslie started forward, but Terrance reached an arm out to slow her. “It’s not going to do us any good to run in with guns blazing and get ourselves killed. We need to scope it out first.” She pulled away from him but heeded his advice, falling back and letting Magnus take the lead.

Magnus looked like he’d done this a thousand times, so we followed him, moving as a unit down the hall, keeping close to the wall as we did so. We passed a vacant reception desk; an old boxy computer monitor sat there, a reminder of the past. If I didn’t know better, I would have said Jeff had been pulling our chain the whole time. He’d sent us to the wrong prison.

Our LEDs illuminated the way, beams jostling up and down on the walls as we moved, shadow figures dancing in our wake.

“I hear something,” Mary said, and Magnus stopped, then held a finger in the air. We all stopped, and my heart thumped in my eardrums.

There was a faint noise coming from down the hall. It wasn’t much, and I couldn’t place what the sound was, but someone was inside the prison. We moved along, the tension thickening with each step. The clinking noise grew louder every ten seconds, and in a minute, we were past all of the offices at the front of the building. Doctor’s office, warden’s office, staff change room, lunchroom – all showing signs of recent use.

“They’ve abandoned it,” I said.

“Someone’s still here,” Mary replied. The next set of doors led us to a guard station, and a large metal door stood between us and the wing of prison cells.

“Give it a try, Leslie. You have the magic touch.” Magnus moved out of the way, making room for the smaller hybrid woman. She tugged at it, but it didn’t budge.

“Locked,” she said.

“The keys have to be around here somewhere.” Magnus started to rifle through drawers.

We all set to different parts of the room, sifting through paperwork and desks. I found an assortment of poker chips, half-full flasks that sloshed as I slid them out of the way, and a couple of erotic Russian magazines that looked like they were from the eighties. No keys anywhere to be found.

Jingling metal rang from the other side of the room, and Terrance looked pleased with himself, like he’d just won a prize on a game show.

“What’s behind door number one?” I whispered in a low voice.

“What?” Mary asked.

I just shook my head, waiting while Terrance inserted the metal key and turned it. With a click, it unlocked, and he pulled on the bars. They slid open, and Terrance walked through the opening.

“Stop where you are!” a panicked voice called from behind us.

I spun, pulse rifle ready to fire. Slate’s training took over again, and my finger settled on the trigger ever-so-lightly as I gauged my target.

A haggard man approached us, his face red with exertion. He was holding a revolver, and an old one by the looks of it. A white beard covered most of his face and neck. I almost fired, but there was something in his eyes that made me lift my finger off the trigger.

“Don’t let them out!” he yelled, panting as he came in the room.

“What happened here?” I asked, looking around the disheveled guard’s room.

“They all left. When those damned aliens started arriving, everyone left. Said it wasn’t their job to babysit and get killed in the process,” the man said.

“So the Bhlat came, you all found out, and assumed they would come for the hybrids, killing you in their wake?” Mary asked, her voice taking on a calming tone.

He nodded. “Something like that.”

“How long ago was this?” she asked.

“About three months now.”

“Then why are you still here?” I asked.

“Someone had to keep the animals penned up after what they did to us. We heard the stories of them being the masterminds behind the Event and all. Then killing those people, Dean and Mary and whatnot. Way I figured it, if the aliens came for them, I’d be spared for keeping them safe and in one place.” He shuffled on his feet. From his perspective, he was doing something honorable, and it was self-preservation at the same time.

“Just put down your gun. We’ll explain everything,” Mary said.

He flinched, his gaze darting from face to face, and for the first time, he saw Leslie and Terrance.

“You. How did you get out?” He raised his revolver, shakily pointing at Terrance, who had stepped in front of Leslie.

“They’re with us,” I said. I glanced over at Mary. “You thought Dean and Mary were killed by the hybrids? I have news for you: you’re looking at us.”

He looked from my face to hers, and back again. “That’s impossible. You’re too young to be. You don’t look a day over thirty-five.”

“It’s the truth. That big man…” I pointed to Magnus. “…is Magnus.” I lifted my chest, putting on a bravado this man might buy in to. “You’re looking at three of the Heroes of Earth. What vessel were you on?” I asked, using my old trick.

“That doesn’t matter anymore. We’re all doomed anyway.” His shoulders slumped, and his gaze lowered to the floor for a moment. Mary went for him, racing to him with her shoulder ready to plow into his, but he spun with far more agility than I would have guessed. Mary went past him, her momentum too much to slow, and he turned with his gun pointed at her.

A red beam lashed out from behind me, striking him in the back just as his gun went off. He went down in a heap and stumbled onto Mary.

I rushed forward, rolling the man off of my fiancée, careless of his condition. She was all that mattered. My throat went dry, and I said her name in a croak, seeing blood on her uniform. Her eyes opened and she grimaced.

“Fast for a skinny old guy,” she said, feeling her abdomen and chest. “It’s his blood. Lucky for me, he’s a poor shot.”

“We didn’t have to kill him,” I said, helping Mary up.

“You want to let that raving lunatic walk around with a gun?” Leslie asked. She was already going for the opening in the bars. “We don’t have time for this.”

The hybrids took the lead, Magnus close behind them. He took a quick look back at the body on the floor and shook his head. “What a waste,” he muttered, and kept moving.

Another body. But given the choice, it was going to be a stranger on the ground instead of my beautiful Mary. I didn’t even ask which one shot him. It wasn’t important.

I grabbed his gun and tucked it away into one of the half-full desk drawers and looked to his belt for a keyring. A guy like this would always keep the keys to the cells close at hand, and from the looks of this place, automation wasn’t in the budget. I found the ring in his pocket but tied to his belt on a leather strap. Pulling out a knife from my boot, I cut the hide and took the keys.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked when no one else was in the room.

Mary looked down at the dead man and back at me. “I’ll be better when we’re back on New Spero, picking tomatoes and having tea on the porch.” The skin at the sides of her eyes crinkled as she forced a smile at me, and I leaned in, giving her a kiss on the lips.

“Me too.”

“Over here!” Magnus called from a distance, his voice carrying to us easily.

I ran to him, unsure of what to expect. What I saw was heartbreaking.

Leslie was fumbling with the locked bars, but the key she had didn’t fit. She was crying, a soft sob as she struggled to open the lock. Beyond it, a dozen or so hybrids were in a mess hall. A couple were lying on tables. Others sat together, heads low to the tables, none of them speaking.

One of them looked up, saw us, and put her head back down like we were nothing more than an apparition. Another one – who looked like Terrance, only ten years older and gaunt – looked toward us and stood up on shaky legs. “Are you real?” he asked, his voice a gravelly whisper.

“Brother!” Terrance called through the bars. “We’re here to bring you to paradise.” The excitement and energy in Terrance’s voice was electric. I took the keys in my hand and went to the lock, trying them one by one until one inserted and turned to the side. Leslie slid it open and rushed into the room.

“Where is everyone?” she asked one of her people, who were still coming to, realizing something important was happening. They seemed like zombies, their skin gray, the flesh tight against their bones. It was horrifying, and we’d done this to them. Humans had locked them up to waste away.

The man who’d first spoken was hugging Terrance, and he broke free to answer the question. “This is all of us.”

TWENTY

“What do you mean, this is everyone? When we left the compound on Long Island, there were twenty times this many.” Terrance stood straight, his posture rigid and his fist cocked like he was ready to punch something.

All of them were now over beside us. Mary had already gone with Magnus to find food from the guard areas for these sad souls.

“They left us here. We heard the guards say something about the Bhlat being here, and within a week, they were all gone except some sadistic bastard. We begged him to let us go, and he said it was his duty to keep us locked up. When we realized he wasn’t going anywhere and wouldn’t let us go, we plead for food. We had a little bit stashed away here, and he wouldn’t dare come inside with no backup, so we ate for the first couple months. Now we have nothing left. You’ve come at just the right time. Steve died this morning.” The first one to speak to us had called himself Byron. His hair hung in his face in greasy clumps as he told us his story.

“I’m so sorry. We thought we would help by leaving.”

“It is you two. Terrance and Leslie, our fate sealers,” one of the women said, her voice so weak it came out like a whisper.

Leslie already looked a wreck, but that comment set her over the edge.

“We couldn’t have known!” she cried. “We were trying to improve our future.” She slid to the ground, her face in her hands.

“All you did was give us a bigger target than we already had, and we didn’t think that was possible,” Byron said, the others nodding along.

“This isn’t all their fault. Were you all on the vessels, piloting our people to their deaths?” I waited for a response that didn’t come. “Humans didn’t trust you from the start. Would you have? If the Kraski had suddenly told you they had a change of heart and they wanted to be your friends, would you have listened?”

“No,” the woman said, abashed.

“Then cut these two some slack. They found a world for you to go to. The only glitch was that the wormholes messed with our timelines. We’re going to get you food and water, then take you to your new home. Let this be a new bridge to your future, and let your past go. Mourn for your losses and be grateful for your lives, because we’re all lucky to have them at this point.” The speech was a little overdone, but I meant every word of it.

“A new world?” one of the others asked. “With sunlight?” He raised his face to the dark ceiling, closing his eyes like he was feeling the rays of the sun on his pallid skin.

“Yes, my brother. With sunlight, and rivers, and food aplenty. We live there among others, the Deltra included.”

“Don’t forget swamp monsters,” I said under my breath, getting a glare from Terrance.

“Deltra? What the hell are you doing with them?” Byron asked.

“They weren’t all evil. Even those ones were only doing what they needed to keep their people alive. Even Dean likes Kareem, right?” Terrance looked at me, raising his eyebrows in a signal saying he needed support.

“Sure. He’s a stand-up guy. In an ‘engineer weapons of mass destruction’ sort of way.”

They looked unsure, but the subject changed when Magnus and Mary came back with a duffel bag of supplies.

Magnus dumped it out on a table. Water bottles and bags of chips with Cyrillic script on them fell out. The hybrids scrambled for them, and my heart sank, feeling terrible for them. I couldn’t wait to see their faces as we left the portal and walked onto their new planet.

Thinking about it made the urgency increase. “Gather anything you need, and let’s leave,” I said.

“How are we going to get everyone back?” Magnus asked.

“The transport isn’t big, but there are only twelve of them.” Mary scanned the group as she spoke. “By the looks of them, they won’t take a lot of room. I think we can make it work.”

“What about Dinkle and his pilot?” Magnus asked.

“I think we have a good spot for them just around the corner.” I followed his gaze to a cell just beyond the mess hall. “We’ll leave them a little water and food, of course. It’s more than they deserve.”

Soon a line of hybrids in tattered clothing, smelling like death, followed us out of the prison, their eyes wide as they walked past the guards’ station and into the main halls. Byron set his hand on the whitewashed cinder blocks making up the wall, looking like he was about to pass out. I set my hand on his bony back and he turned to me, eyes glistening.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You didn’t deserve this. We’ll make it right.” I knew we could never make it up to them, but even though I wanted that Bhlat homeworld portal location, this was important. I was glad Kareem had made us barter for it. These people needed our help.

Snow blew on us as we pushed out the entrance doors, the hybrids covering their eyes from the bright light of the Siberian morning. They weren’t dressed for the cold, and we ushered them quickly to the ship. Magnus and Terrance hauled Jeff and the pilot out of the transporter.

“What are you doing?” Jeff asked, his face covered in blood from his head injury. “You can’t leave me here. The Bhlat are expecting me.”

“Have they seen you before?” I asked nonchalantly.

“No, when would I have met…” He seemed to catch on and hung his head.

“Tell us what you were supposed to do, and we let you live,” Magnus said, standing over the tied-up man.

He looked defiant, and Magnus gave him a light kick. Jeff didn’t need to speak, because the pilot did.

“He was going to take you to them, and in exchange, he was promised he would live like a king among their people. I heard the conversation. I had nothing to do with this. I’m just a hired hand.” The pilot looked up with pleading eyes.

“Fine. Put Dinkle in the back, leave this guy tied in the guards’ room. We’ll call for someone to get him later,” I said, knowing I had no one to call.

“We’ll bring them,” Terrance said. He and Leslie grabbed them by the arms, hauling them both to their feet.

We loaded the hybrids into the transport; I glanced back at Leslie as they entered the prison again. They came back out just as we had everyone set, Mary in the pilot’s seat and Magnus and I squished beside her. From the grim look on Terrance’s face, I wasn’t about to ask how it went. I really didn’t want to know.

With the sun behind the clouds, and a small ship full of potent-smelling hybrids, we lifted off the snow-crusted ground on our way back to Egypt and the Pyramids of Giza.

In a cramped hour, we reached our destination, my back aching from being squished into my seat. When the doors opened, we saw them: ships lowering into our atmosphere. They were bulky, reminding me of the oil rigs used to dig in the ocean.

Magnus stated the obvious. “That can’t be good.”

“We need to hurry,” Mary whispered.

I hoped Kareem was still alive when we got back.

__________

Kareem slowly opened his eyes, blinking away his sleep. He looked surprised to see us, but it quickly gave way to a coughing fit. An attendant held a cloth to his mouth for him, and it came away with flecks of blood on it.

“You did it?” he asked once his breathing was back under control.

“We did,” Mary answered.

“How are our friends doing now?”

I wasn’t sure how he would react to the story, so I elected to keep it as simple as possible. “They’ve been through a lot. Only twelve came back with us.”

He nodded from his lying position, his head propped up on a soft-looking pillow. “We will care for them now. Thank you for helping. Everyone deserves a chance at freedom and happiness. The sins of our past can never be wiped clean, but we can try to learn from them and better ourselves.”

The comment struck home, and I thought of the bodies I’d left in my wake as we’d struggled to survive over the past couple of years. “It’s time, Kareem. It’s time to tell me how to access the hidden worlds with the Shandra.”

“A bargain is a bargain. But it’s for your eyes only. Do you understand?” He looked from me to Magnus, and then to Mary, lingering on her for a moment longer.

Mary and Magnus began to leave the room, but Kareem shook his head. “Stay. It is us who are leaving.”

Kareem’s attendant helped him sit up, and he bent over, rummaging through the small nightstand beside his bed. He pulled out a small device and smiled at me. His teeth were yellow, with small dots of blood on them. I almost pulled back, away from him, but he grabbed my arm with unexpected strength and pressed a button on the device.

A tingling energy pulsed from my toes upwards, and soon my whole body was vibrating. Mary was standing, looking at us with horror. I saw her mouth move, but no sound made it to my ears. The room around me faded, but Kareem was still there, gripping my skin, his hand hot as sauna rock against my arm. His smile was terrifying, but it told me he was enjoying his little game.

When our surroundings came back to focus, we weren’t in his room any longer.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, still feeling the energy coursing over me, even though he’d let go of my forearm. Looking around, I recognized the portal on this planet we’d just come through with the hybrids earlier that day. “How did you do that?”

“The answer to both those questions is the same.” Kareem’s knees gave way, and I caught the tall man, finding that he weighed less than I would have guessed. Standing up, I could see how rail-thin he was; his white cloak billowed around him like an oversized sail on a small boat. “This is another one of my inventions. I’m willing to give it to you to complete your mission. I have a feeling you’ll need every bit of advantage you can get.” He handed it to me. “It isn’t magic. You just have to set the coordinates of your target location in. Ideally, you program it in when you’re first at the spot.”

“You got us here by being in this exact spot before, then saving the location?” I asked, looking at the light device. It seemed obvious it was made by the same people as the smaller Shield device I’d used against the Bhlat. The look and feel was the same. He spent a few minutes going over the simple process with me, and when he was sure I understood, he moved on. I was holding him up by then; his sick body didn’t have the energy to stand on its own.

“Kareem, how long do you have?” I asked.

“It won’t be long now.”

I half-walked, half-carried him to the portal room. He made me stop at the entrance and said a string of Deltran words: likely a prayer of his people. He regarded the room with a reverence that I hadn’t, and it made me think of the portals differently. So far, they’d been a tool to help me survive, but they’d been put in place thousands of years ago by an ancient god-like race. We were standing in something older than anything we could imagine, with the power to transport us from planet to planet. The longer I thought about it, the more in awe I was of the whole scenario.

Kareem coughed a few times. “Never take it for granted.”

“What?”

“Any of it. We’re specks in the universe. We all think we’re so much more, the centers of our own worlds. We fight each other. Even my people orchestrated the deaths of races to their own benefit. There’s something different about you. Bring them together. Make them see the universe has more to offer than killing. When I look at you, I see the aura of a Theos.”

My heart hammered in my chest, beads of sweat forming on my brow. What was this man talking about? “I’m just an accountant from New York who got lucky a few times. I’ll leave all of that to the professionals. I just want to help us survive.”

“Don’t you see? It’s saying things like that, that makes you special. You didn’t say ‘you’ just want to survive. You want to help your people. Therein lies the difference between you and ninety-nine percent of intelligent life. Your instincts put them first, and you second.”

I didn’t know if he was right, or if by allowing myself a chance to survive, others had been saved. “I’m no god.”

“That’s right, because they eventually died and were forgotten. You’re something new.” With that, he entered the portal room unassisted, taking hesitant steps.

I walked behind him, hands ready to catch him if needed. The closer he got to the table above the large gemstone in the middle of the room, the brighter the icons and hieroglyphs glowed on the walls.

“Come. See the missing worlds,” Kareem said, his voice strong once again. He tapped on the screen, accessing files no one else would have known were there. He showed me the unique string of symbols I’d need to open it again, and we spent half an hour going over it, until he was sure I’d memorized them. “You cannot write or save them anywhere but in your mind, do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Do you understand?” He stood straight, towering over me, his face grim.

I stepped back from the threat and answered him properly. “Yes, sir. I do.”

“This information isn’t even known by modern Gatekeepers,” he said, quietly locking eyes with me.

Gatekeepers. I mouthed the word, my lips sticking together as everything suddenly went dry.

The table screen showed the icons I was familiar with, but Kareem directed me to scroll to the left now. I did, and red icons appeared, each with their own unique symbol.

“If you type your code in, you can access information on each world.” He had me tap it, and then the icon for the first red one. What had to be a hundred language options appeared, and he showed me how to access English.

Trellion: Class three ice planet. Life forms: Core-dwelling bipedal. Intelligent.

The details went on for pages, and under different circumstances, I could have spent days reading about other worlds and learning why some were hidden over others. I thought back to the huge drilling ships we’d seen entering Earth’s atmosphere hours ago and knew I didn’t have time for that now.

“Where are the Bhlat?”

“They are here.” He had me scroll to the next page, pointing it out in the second row. “They live on multiple worlds now, but this is their homeworld, where their royalty lives.” Kareem let out a series of coughs, doubling over on the table. I lowered him to the ground, worried when he couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

“We have to get you back,” I said, reaching for the device.

“No. Let me die here. It would be an honor to die among the gods.” He coughed again, blood dripping from his chin. His skin was clammy, and he lay himself down on the stone floor. His breathing was ragged, and he closed his eyes between his hacking bouts. “Dean. This is your destiny. From the day you stepped foot in that restaurant in Central Park, you’ve been on a course. This is where you were meant to end up. Be the man I see you are. Change…the universe.” His words came out slowly, between breaths, and then it was over. His chest stopped rising and falling, and I sat there holding his thin hand as the last breath left his ailing lungs.

Change the universe.

TWENTY-ONE

“Thank you for following through on your word,” Leslie said, giving us each a hug. The normally cranky hybrid woman was in high spirits, having her friends back. The rescued hybrids were doing well, their ailments fixed and their body weights rising. We’d said goodbye to them before Terrance gathered us to fly us down to the portal.

“Look us up if you ever need anything.” This from Terrance.

“We will. You two take care of the others,” Magnus said with a wink. “And each other.”

The two of them looked at one another and smiled.

We left them behind, just the three of us on our way to another impossible mission.

“After it’s all said and done, I don’t mind those two,” Magnus said.

“You weren’t the one chasing them around on a fool’s errand,” Mary said, mirroring my own thoughts.

Soon we were back in the portal room, where Kareem’s body still lay. Some of his people had covered him with a veil, and a glowing shield surrounded him so he wouldn’t be tampered with. Mary looked at him uneasily, as if he would rise from the dead and walk toward us with his white sheet covering him. We were told the shield would prevent his body traveling with the portal.

“Time to get back to New Spero,” I said, scrolling to the right icon. The walls were glowing when I tapped the symbol for our destination, and when I opened my eyes, we were back in the mountainside portal room near Terran Five. I slid out the relocating device Kareem had gifted me and added this location into it. It would be a time-saver to be able to travel right here from Terran One later.

As soon as we got out of the tunnels and into the transport ship, exhaustion took over. We’d been up for a long time and needed to sleep before we took the next step. Running around alien worlds half asleep wasn’t going to do anything but get us killed.

My eyes fell closed, and as we took off for Terran One, I turned to a light sleep. Dreams of Kareem dying, of the dirty Siberian prison, and the impending trip to the Bhlat world hit me as my subconscious took over. In one of the visions, Mary ended up dying. It was a terrible glimpse into a potential future I was going to make sure didn’t happen.

When I woke, Mary’s head was leaned against my shoulder. Magnus was in the front piloting us safely back to the landing pad at the home base. It was dark outside, a cloud-covered night sky casting an unusual blackness to the surroundings. I woke Mary and hesitantly stepped down out of the comfort of the transport’s cab.

It was nighttime on New Spero, but that didn’t stop the base from being a bustle of activity.

“General, are we ever glad to see you back in one piece. Unless something happened, our fleet is due to arrive at Earth in less than two days,” a breathless uniformed officer said.

“Anything else, Tucker?” Magnus asked. He looked like he was almost asleep on his feet.

“One of our transport vessels went missing this morning,” Tucker said.

“Can’t you track it?”

The man shook his head. “The tracking was cut off. The culprit knew what they were doing.”

“Probably some kids going for a joyride. If nothing else is urgently needed, restock our supplies and charge our weapons. We leave at first light. Mary, Dean, are we good with that?” Magnus asked us. He was using his take-charge “general” voice.

“Yes, sir.” Tucker turned around and left at a brisk walk.

“You two want to go home for a few hours?” This from Magnus.

Mary nodded, and I knew Magnus was aching to see his family. I tapped the base location into the Relocator before we left. Then we were heading back down the dirt roads that had led us away from our house just a couple of days ago. So much had happened since then, and the weight of it all pressed on my temples as my head pounded.

Our house appeared, and we told Magnus we’d see him in a few hours.

“Say hi to Nat for us,” Mary said. “And Magnus?”

“Yeah?”

“Get some sleep. We need to be on our toes for this to work,” she finished.

He threw the Jeep in reverse and left us standing in front of our house in the dark.

Mary’s hand slipped into mine, assuredly squeezing my fingers. It was her way of telling me everything was going to work out, without saying it.

In less than ten minutes, we were both showered, hair still wet as we crawled into bed. The pillow felt like heaven as my head hit it, and I only had enough time to tell Mary I loved her before drifting off into a deep sleep.

__________

Dreams riddled my sleep, and I tossed and turned as I future-projected our upcoming day. Every way I saw it, Mary ended up dead. In one of the dreams, I saw us walking fictitious streets on the Bhlat world, and I walked into a house where a thin woman lay on a bed. My old bed. The one I’d shared with Janine. Only it was Mary coughing up blood. She looked at me with sad eyes. “When the ships come…wear the necklace.”

I woke in a pool of sweat, fumbling for my neck, where the chain still hung after all this time. Mary was still sleeping soundly beside me, and I leaned in, kissing her cheek lightly. I couldn’t let anything happen to her, and while I knew it was my subconscious worrying, my gut told me she couldn’t come to the Bhlat world with me. I needed to do this by myself.

The floor was cold to the touch as my bare feet hit it. I nearly tripped over the pants I’d left on the floor, and I snatched them up, careful to not let the belt jangle.

I fumbled in the closet, found a long-sleeved shirt of an unknown color, and walked to the hallway with the clothes. Once dressed, I made for the kitchen, where a notepad sat beside a pen. Mary’s gardening notes were listed on the first few pages, and I ripped a blank page out from the middle.

Mary was going to be pissed with me, but I felt like there was no choice. Our fleet was arriving soon, and bringing in a half-dozen war machines wasn’t going to end well. We needed to beat them to the punch and use the warships only as backup.

My thoughts swung to my friends: Slate, Clare, and Nick, alongside Patty. They were up there with the Bhlat. I had no idea if they were alive or dead, and the irrational part of my brain blamed myself for not going with them, for somehow not protecting them from the Bhlat when I clearly couldn’t have changed the outcome.

After a brief stop in the safe under the living room floorboards, I took inventory. I had the small Kalentrek with the Bhlat DNA spec still loaded into it; the communicators that allowed us to talk in real time over any distance; and the Relocator Kareem had just given me. I could do this job by myself.

I scrawled out a long note on the paper, my hand cramping from the frantic writing by the end of the message. They had a big part to do, and I’d do mine. We’d reconvene when it was all over. One of the communicators sat on the counter beside the note.

When I was satisfied I had the plan relayed properly, I snuck back down the hall and gently pushed the bedroom door open. Soft light from the kitchen wound its way into the room, and I watched Mary as she slept, her chest rising and falling in even movements. I wanted nothing more than to just get back into bed, stick my head under the pillow, and let someone else deal with the second invasion of Earth, but I couldn’t.

“Dean. This is your destiny.” Kareem’s words echoed through my head.

I made a silent promise to my fiancée that I’d be back. That we’d have the wedding we both wanted, surrounded by our friends and family. That the threat would be ended in a day’s time.

With that done, I turned, leaving the door open a crack, and walked out onto the porch with my supplies.

The air was crisp as the sun began to rise over the distant horizon. Alien insects called to each other as the world around me woke for another morning. I took a deep breath in, letting my body revel in the fresh air, the freedom, and the feeling of home. Then I pressed the Relocator button.

TWENTY-TWO

I appeared at the base in a split second, the energy still tingling through me. I could get used to travelling so quickly but didn’t want to know what was actually happening to my molecules as I did so. People were moving around in the early hour; a group of trainees ran laps around the landing pad near where I appeared. I ducked and took cover beside a large-wheeled vehicle.

Clare had told me about some prototype uniforms that used the cloaking technology, and I needed every advantage I could get. I headed past a couple of buildings, careful to not be spotted. I knew there would be cameras on me, but hopefully, I’d be long gone before anyone spotted me creeping around on them.

The engineering building Clare had been so excited to show me before she left was to the side; I ran to it, and a locked door greeted me. I took out the keycard Magnus had given me, hoping it had clearance for the research and development areas. The light went green as the card slid, and I breathed a sigh of relief, pushing the door open.

The room was dark, but soft lights came on as I entered. She’d shown me the cloaks at the far end of the room, and I found them hanging on the wall, right where I’d seen them before. I lined one up against my body. Too long. The next one looked a better size, and I slipped into it, finding it to be manageable. It covered my boots and hands, with built-in grips on the soles of the clothing, and gloves for the hands.

All of it was covered in the newly upgraded cloaking material. It was lighter than I’d expected, and I pulled the hood up, then faced the nearby mirror. Remembering Clare telling me the on/off control was in the glove, I tapped my thumb and pinky together, feeling a light energy cover me. When I looked into the mirror, I could see the room behind me, but only a faint glimmer of a body was visible, and only if you knew what you were looking for. I stuffed one of the large ones in a pack I’d grabbed on my way in.

With the new suit on, I left the building, heading for the transport vessel where Magnus had told Tucker to leave our supplies. If Mary woke up and saw my note, they’d be on their way, so I had to hurry. Avoiding a few officers walking from building to building, I snuck over to the landing pad where our ship was sitting, ready to carry us to the portal caves.

Beside it three bags sat, one with pulse rifles and other assorted weapons. One had food and survival supplies, and the last had the EVA suits. I took what I needed, shoved them into my bag, and ducked behind the transport, leaving it between myself and the base buildings.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the Relocator and tapped it until I found the coordinates from the portal region by Terran Five. With a deep breath, I hit the icon and felt the energy spin around and then through me. When it stopped, I was outside the portal room. Before anything, I took a long drink of water and ate an energy ball from the rations. It tasted like mud but filled my stomach enough to stop the growling. I slid the cloak off and put on the thin EVA suit and clasped the helmet onto it. The oxygen from it cleared my tired head enough to make me feel temporarily rejuvenated.

I grabbed one of the hover scooters Mary and I had stowed away, then entered the portal room.

As I threw the cloak back on over the EVA, something made a noise nearby. It could have been a footstep or a rock falling from a wall. With a quick glance, I saw nothing out of the ordinary, so I moved to the middle of the room, where the once dormant gemstone began to glow.

“Here goes nothing.”

I followed the instructions Kareem had given me, thankful I had been able to memorize the intricacies in a short amount of time. There was no one to ask now that he was dead. The red worlds’ symbols appeared, and I found the one for the Bhlat home planet.

Before I pressed it, I took the time to read the few details they had stored into the system about the world. Not much of it was useful, but it did say the locals didn’t know of the portal’s existence, at least not at the time of the entry. A lot could have changed since then. There were a lot of warnings on the Bhlat. It said they were conquerors, always seeking out expansion of their colonies, often resulting in the extinction of worlds. The phrase hit me like a ton of bricks. The flying drills I’d seen coming down on Earth were what the notes spoke of. Earth was about to be eradicated. Time was running out.

I checked the seal on my EVA. When I saw the green light, I sat on my hover scooter and fastened the supply bag to it, keeping my rifle in my hand.

I pressed the icon and was bathed in light, hoping there were no long-term implications of using the portal so often over a short period of time. They were becoming an integral part of my unwanted adventures, and my tired body wished I’d give it a rest for a while.

My internal battle within my mind paused when the light ceased, and I saw someone in the room with me. How did they know I was coming? My rifle came up lightning fast, and I felt my finger brush the trigger.

“Don’t shoot!” a voice called in frightened English.

I lowered the rifle just enough to get a good look at the man, and he fell to the ground, rolled into a ball. He just kept repeating “Don’t shoot” over and over.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked him.

“My name’s Leonard Birkhower, sir. Don’t shoot.”

Leonard? “Wait, the Leonard who does the Survivors comic series?”

He moved his arms from covering his helmet in a futile attempt to stop my pulse rifle from killing him. “You know of me?” He grinned from ear to ear, and I almost laughed at how silly this young man with thick black glasses looked on the ground covered in dust.

I reached down, and he gripped my outstretched hand with a sweaty palm. “What are you doing here?”

“And miss out a chance to see Dean Parker kick bad guy ass?”

“You do realize I could get killed here?”

“Not you. You’re invincible.”

“Kid, this isn’t a comic book. I’m just a man like you.”

He dusted his clothing off and looked me in the eyes with an admonished glance. “I’m nothing like you.”

Who was this guy, and why was I feeling bad for him? He very well could get me killed. Of all the people I wanted to have beside me on the dangerous world full of Bhlat, Leonard the comic book artist wasn’t one of them. I mentally chided myself for not searching the room better before hitting the icon.

“Regardless, how did you get here?” I asked, my patience beginning to wear thin.

“I was at the base. One of my buddies is a custodian there. We drink beer and shoot rocks in the hills sometimes.”

“This buddy wouldn’t be where you’re getting top secret information about us, would it?” I thought of the issues I’d seen that touched a little too close to the truth.

He turned red and averted his eyes from my gaze. “Maybe. Your stories are too awesome to keep away from the public. We all need to know what really went down. You’re heroes, and we all need to look up to you guys. You give us hope. You think it’s easy moving away from Earth after seeing your family die on those vessels? Some of us have nothing else.” His pitch was rising, and I had the urge to give the kid a hug, but I needed to play hardball.

“How did you get here?”

“Jeb gave me a suit and showed me how to use it.” He flipped a switch; when he spoke again, a series of Deltra words echoed his speech.

“Enough of that. He knew where the portal was?”

“Is that what you call it? Of course, it makes sense. Yeah, he overheard the general talking with Tucker.”

We would have to take precautions now that the location of it was out there. People traveling to other worlds would bring a lot of issues.

“You can’t stay here. I have to bring you home.” I started to use the console to find New Spero’s portal symbol. For the first time, I looked around the room. It was much the same as the rest of them, but years of disuse showed. The ground was covered in a thick dirt layer, cobwebs hanging in all nooks and crannies. I wondered how far underground we were, and how far from a city we would be. The four corners had the columns like the other rooms had.

“I won’t get in the way. Let me help,” Leonard said in a small desperate voice.

My communicator vibrated lightly, and I fished it out of my pocket. I knew what this call was about.

I pressed the accept icon. “Dean here.”

“Dean, I’m not going to get into it with you now, but don’t think this conversation is over. I hope you understand how angry I was to wake up with you gone and a note in the kitchen.” Mary’s voice was angry but low.

“I’m sorry. I had to go with my gut.”

“Make your gut go faster. We’re on Earth now, and it’s not good. Whatever they’re doing is messing with our atmosphere, and fast. If we don’t stop them, our people aren’t going to make it.” She sounded near-panicked.

“Dean, hurry the hell up. We’re going up as planned. This should be interesting.” Magnus had obviously grabbed the communicator. “Do what you have to do, Dean. Remember, this is about saving our people.”

I would do what I had to and patted my pocket where the small killing machine from the Deltra station sat, waiting to be used one more time. I couldn’t let this wide-eyed kid who looked up to me see what I was going to do with it, but I didn’t have time.

“Good luck. Mary, I love you, babe.”

“Holy crap. Was that…?” Leonard stared with his jaw dropped to his chest.

“Yes. Mary and Magnus. You really want to help? Promise me, whatever you see, that you won’t make a comic of what’s about to happen. If things go south, and they might, I have to do something I don’t want to.”

The kid nodded.

“Promise me!” I almost yelled the words.

“I…I promise,” he said hesitantly.

“Put this on,” I said, tossing him the backup cloaking outfit.

He put it over his EVA, breathing heavily as he did so. I caught him once to keep him from falling over as his boot got stuck in the pant leg. When it was done, he looked down and smiled at me. “What does it do?” he asked. Instead of answering him, I showed him, and clicked the hand control. To his eyes, most of me disappeared.

“Wow. That’s going to look great in the comics.”

“What did I just say?” I asked, regretting my decision to let him stay. “You stay here in the portal room, sit down, and stay cloaked. No one will know you’re here. I’ll be back for you.”

He suddenly looked terrified, as if being left alone here was far scarier than roaming a hostile alien planet. “Don’t make me stay. I’ve always been too afraid to do anything. I didn’t play sports because the other kids told me I was too slow or too fat. I’ve never asked a girl out, because I know they’ll just reject me. If there’s one thing the Event taught me, it’s that I need to live. Not just survive, but thrive. Let me help you. I need to help you. I want to help them.”

As I was about to tell him “no,” his words soaked into me. Standing there wasn’t a scared kid, but a man who was willing to risk his life to help people. “Fine, but don’t do anything stupid. Listen to anything I say and do it. And when things get tough, keep going. No matter what.” And don’t hold my actions against me, I added to myself.

He beamed for a second and then paled, finally realizing he got his way.

I pushed the pack at him and he grabbed it, slinging it over his shoulder with a grunt. The hover bike came with me, and we exited the doorless room, walking into a hall leading away from the portal. Already I could feel the heat of the planet, and my suit began to cool me. I saved the coordinates in my Relocator and kept moving.

After a half hour, we came to a dead end, where a pile of small rocks barred most of the way out. We set everything down and set to methodically moving them. After another half hour, we were breathing heavily and sweating in our suits, but we had an opening large enough to fit through with the hover scooter.

I crossed through first, my rifle ready to fire if needed. My cloaked head poked out, and I let a low whistle fly. We were on a mountain, water as far as the eye could see below, a dark red star casting a devilish glow over everything.

“Welcome to hell,” I said to myself.

TWENTY-THREE

“Maybe I should go back,” Leonard said as the view came into his sightlines.

“It’s too late for that. We have to get moving.” The range of mountains we were on rose up another hundred feet or so, and I made for the peak, careful of my footing on the rocky surface. For the time being, I left the scooter behind, knowing it would be more of a burden than a help. “Stay there,” I said back to Leonard, whose silence told me he was happy to do so.

The sun was still high in the sky, but the dim glow it cast was difficult for my eyes. I tripped on a few rocks on my way up, my path jagged as I made for the most acute inclines I could find. Still, I was near the top of the peak in only a few minutes. With a deep breath of my suit’s oxygen, I peered over the edge, praying I wouldn’t see more water. If we were on an island, my hopes of finishing my mission would be dashed.

Squinting to get a better look, I saw what I’d been wishing for: land. The mountain went down at a gradual decline toward a hard-looking surface below. Red topiary covered the distance: likely a forest on this strange world. Bright lights rose into the sky beyond, indicating a large city in the right direction.

“Leonard, I’ll be right there. We have a way down,” I relayed through the suit’s comm, and when I looked down at him, he waved, giving me a gloved thumbs-up. The task at hand truly scared me. I only had the centuries-old details from the portal file to go by, but according to it, their closest capital city was southwest of the portal. I could only cross my fingers that it was still there, and that what I was looking for would be present.

“What’s it look like?” Leonard asked as I neared him.

“Let’s just say the comic won’t be lacking for inspiration.” I turned the hover scooter on and guided it with my hands to the peak, my tag-along’s footing stumbling as we went. “You seem to be taking this well.”

He grunted as he lifted a leg over a large stone. “All my life I’ve been afraid to do anything surprising. I was picked last for every sport in physical education, I was made fun of for having my nose stuck in the newest Star Battle books, and because of it, I stuck to myself.”

We made it up top, and Leonard gasped as the Bhlat world’s view came into sight. “It’s beautiful,” he whispered. The red color palette over everything had felt malevolent initially, but the longer I looked at it, the more I just accepted it was the nature of the planet. Was it so different than where we came from?

“You’re right. It is,” I agreed. “What changed?” I prompted him. The more I kept him talking, the less he’d realize how dangerous our surroundings really were.

“You.”

“Me?”

“You more than the others. Magnus and Natalia were commandos. Tough as nails and went through some serious crap during their time as mercenaries. They were prepared for the Event as much as anyone could have been. Mary was Air Force, trained as well, smart and…” He paused, looking at me. “Beautiful. Not that that has anything to do with it.”

I held back a laugh, and now understood how Leonard had made the Mary version in his comics all the more voluptuous than any real woman.

“But you, Dean. Dean Parker, chartered accountant from a sleepy town in upstate New York. A guy who worked hard and watched the love of his life pass away so young. A man who liked to drink a pint and throw a baseball around with friends. You’re the everyman who came from obscurity and saved the world. And that’s why I want to be a better man.”

I stopped walking and looked Leonard in the eyes. Through the helmet’s visor and his glasses, his brown eyes had a red glow to them on this world, and they looked hard at me. I hadn’t given much thought to my own story over the last couple years. It seemed so irrelevant with everything going on, and I was a little shocked to learn that anyone actually knew me. He’d painted a fairly accurate picture.

“Thanks, Leonard. I never thought of myself as anything special.”

“That’s what makes the best hero, don’t you see? I’m just happy to be here with you. Can you fill me in on the plan?”

“What do you know so far?” I asked as we started down the other side of the mountain.

He looked contemplative before speaking. “The Bhlat are really there, aren’t they?”

I nodded, the weight of my helmet exaggerating the gesture. “They are.”

“Son of a sailor. I didn’t believe Jeb when he told me the president went there and was missing.”

“My other friends are with her,” I said, trying to let him fill in the pieces.

“Slate, Nick, and Clare, right?” This kid knew his stuff.

“You seem to know a lot.”

“I have to pay attention to every little detail if I want my comics to be accurate.”

I thought back to a couple of crazy plots from the books and asked him about the one where Mary and I had to give our firstborn to an alien race’s king in exchange for our freedom.

“You were gone so long, I could only speculate on what was happening to you out there,” he said. “Pretty kickass, though, right?”

“I’ll be honest, I did enjoy reading them.”

“Seriously?” he asked, and I noted how much farther down the slope we were. Another half hour, and we’d be able to get on the scooter. My tired body was looking forward to the break.

“Only one thing,” I said.

“What?”

“You made my hair gray in the later issues. How old do you think I am?” I asked as a joke, but the truth was, I had been seeing some grays creeping into the sides of my hair, like unwanted visitors you knew would never leave once they showed up.

“You were gone for seven years. I expected you to have aged.” It was a valid point. “So the Bhlat are at Earth. How are we going to save the day?”

His optimism lifted me up. Such a simple question, but important to my current mindset. But his question was one-sided. It was as if he knew we were going to save the people of Earth; he just wanted to know how I was planning on doing it.

“We’re on their world. We need a bartering chip. There’s no way we can fight them without losing. We have to play our one hand, and that’s what we’re doing here. Playing our hand.” I didn’t go into further details, and Leonard seemed to accept that it was need-to-know, and he’d know when I needed him to.

“Then let’s do just that.”

My communicator vibrated, and I tapped it through to my suit’s earpiece. “Mary?”

“Dean, we’re almost to their ship. They seem to have bought our story. They asked about the one we call Dean, and we told them you were dead.”

Goosebumps lined my arms, like her saying that was a harbinger of things to come. “Be careful. Don’t let them take the communicator. We’re heading to the city now.”

“We?” she asked, worry and anger mixed together in her voice.

I forgot they wouldn’t have known I wasn’t alone. “The comic book kid, Leonard, conveniently learned we were on a mission and beat me to the secret portal. We need to lock that place down when we’re back.” When we’re back.

“Don’t let anything slow you down. Anything.” Mary had an edge to her voice, and I glanced at Leonard, who couldn’t hear our conversation.

“I won’t. Stay safe. It’ll be over soon, one way or another.”

“If this is it…”

“It won’t be,” I said, trying to keep the tremor from my voice.

“If it is, I want you to know how much you’ve meant to me. To be really loved and have a partner has meant the world to me.” She laugh-sobbed in my ear. “It’s meant many worlds to me. Just remember me, Dean Parker. Remember the spark we had so long ago on our trip to Peru and beyond.”

I held back tears, turning from Leonard so he couldn’t see my emotions threaten to overtake me.

“I won’t, babe. I never could. I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon.” The connection went dead.

I shoved the pain in my gut down and kept moving.

Once the ground leveled out enough for me to trust using a hover scooter with the added weight of Leonard and our gear strapped to it, we hopped onto the vehicle. There was just enough room for us, me pushed too close to the front, and Leonard complaining half of him was hanging off the back of it.

Time wasn’t on my side as I hit the thruster, a little too heavily at first. Leonard’s arms wrapped tightly around me to keep him from flying off the end.

“Sorry,” I said into my mic, and eased up a bit. The lights of the city seemed distant as we moved from the hillside into the red-tinged forest. I had to slow to navigate the trees, and a couple times we could have walked faster as the copses got denser.

“It looks so much like home,” Leonard said. “Or Earth, at least,” he corrected himself. Earth was no longer this man’s home.

The bark on the tall thin trees was smooth and pale, the tops of them growing high in the sky, looking to reach the dark red sun beyond. They fought to rise above the canopy of their neighbors, to reach the heavens, and grow deep in the ground to reach maximum sustenance below.

As I gawked at my surroundings, I felt a connection to the world we’d entered uninvited. If you closed your eyes and felt around, you wouldn’t know you weren’t on Earth. I wondered what it smelled like outside. The HUD on my suit’s mask told me the air wasn’t toxic to us but would be thin and hard to breathe for long. That was better than instant death, should something unplanned occur.

The ground was covered in small plants: thin grass fighting for life down below a thick overhead covering of branches and red leaves. I felt like the grass. We had to fight to stay alive, but this grass had been doing it symbiotically for years among the trees. They hadn’t tried to snuff the life from the taller plants; instead, they accepted their role, and did that make them any less a part of their environment? I spotted a growth on a tree and wondered if it was invited or not. The whole ecosystem worked in harmony, a dance of life, and growth, and death.

Could we as intelligent lifeforms learn from their coexistence? Could humans be on the same side as the Deltra, the Shimmalians and the Bhlat? Would we ever find a way to cohabitate in the universe? Kareem’s dying words ran through my head, and I wondered what he saw in me. The big picture was one you needed a ten-thousand-foot view to see, and I was down in the trenches, seeing it all way too closely.

“Watch out, Dean!” Leonard’s voice carried into my earpiece, and he pulled tight on my abdomen. I narrowly avoided running into a large felled tree lying horizontally on the forest floor.

“Thanks. Sorry, I’m in my own head.”

The forest opened up the farther along we went, and before we knew it, we were nearing the edge of it. A narrow stream ran alongside it, steam lifting from the babbling waters. Something told me it was hostile, a dangerous liquid. There were few plants near it, and those that were close angled away from it, rather than toward it for nourishment.

“Hold on to your butt,” I said as I pushed the throttle forward. The scooter pushed faster, and we carried past the edge of the forest and over the small river. Once clear of the trees, the grass got thicker, still red in hue. It was like a field after a battle in the ancient days; the grass looked like it was covered in the blood of the slaughtered. I almost expected to see fallen soldiers, but it was quiet, not a tree or animal in sight.

Leonard reached over my shoulder and pointed forward. “Look.”

The city crept up on us, only a few miles away now. The buildings rose high into the midday sky, some above the rose-colored clouds. The skyscrapers reminded me of the abandoned city where Slate and I had met Suma those few months ago; only this city wouldn’t be abandoned. It was full of Bhlat, and at that moment, they were in possession of my loved ones, trying to take over Earth. The Kalentrek pressed against my chest as it sat tightly in my breast pocket. I wouldn’t risk taking it off my person. The power it possessed was immense. The life it could snuff out in a heartbeat scared me.

What would Leonard think of me if I activated it among them? What would I think of me? I clenched my jaw, resolved to do whatever I needed to do to save my friends, but at what cost?

“Now would be a good time to tell me the plan,” Leonard said when the city limits looked two miles away. I spotted roadways, and ships were flying through the sky: some were small, like floating cars, while others were large vessels, criss-crossing through a three-dimensional rush hour.

“First step, hide the scooter.” I pulled over in a field lined with young trees. Crops grew from what seemed like fertile ground; loamy soil stuck to our boots as we got off the vehicle.

“Then what?”

“We activate our cloaks and walk to the palace.”

“What palace?”

“The one where our target’s located.”

The communicator buzzed again. This time, Magnus’ voice came into my ear. “Dean, we’re on their ship. This’ll be our last communication. Are you almost there?”

“We’re at the city. Give me a couple hours.”

I heard the hiss of an airlock, a string of Bhlat words, and the call cut off.

TWENTY-FOUR

I activated the translator so I could make out what any passing Bhlat were saying. I showed Leonard how to use it, and the first time he heard a Bhlat’s voice, he stopped in his tracks, unable to move. It was even harder to get him to keep going once he laid eyes on one of them.

We were on the outskirts of the city, but luckily for us, most of their transportation happened in the sky. Massive pedways connected the buildings, like in the dead city I’d visited, leaving only a few to roam the streets below. This was to our advantage. Though we were wearing cloaking uniforms, they weren’t infallible, and eventually, someone would notice us.

The first Bhlat civilian we encountered was once again much smaller than the initial contact I’d made on the Deltra station. That one had been an eight-foot-tall warrior, and this was a six-foot male, wearing a robe on the warm day. He moved slowly, like time meant nothing to him, causing us to slow down behind him. I mentally urged him to move along, but he just stood there, face to the red sun, sniffing in the afternoon air.

He said a string of words that translated into my ear as, “Blessed are those who are still walking today.”

He said it a couple more times before opening his eyes and looking toward us. I froze, my heart pounding so hard I thought it was going to jump out and startle the Bhlat. It felt like his eyes made contact with mine; pinks and oranges swirled beside each other in his eyes, and I stared into them, petrified and mesmerized at the same time. Then he looked away, moving on to whatever chore he was set upon.

“Dean, was that a Bhlat?” Leonard asked quietly once no one was around.

“It was.”

“They don’t seem that scary,” he said, a trembling hand still set on my shoulder.

“They won’t all seem intimidating. Who are you more scared of: an old man back in your hometown or a jacked-up soldier with a gun?”

“I get it. This place just seems so normal.”

“We keep moving,” I said, ignoring his comment.

The surface of the sidewalk was paved with a dark asphalt-like substance. It was hard but had a slight give to it, one that wouldn’t crack with season changes. Each building had doors leading into it, a couple with armed security guards. I wondered if they were banks, and just what Bhlat commerce was like on the planet. We avoided anywhere we saw Bhlat outside, and every so often, I looked up to make sure we weren’t being spotted from above.

Terrance had passed some rumors on about there being a palace from which the Bhlat fleet was ruled. A king or emperor ruled them with an iron fist, killing any that opposed him. I took it all with a grain of salt, since they were just distant rumors, but now, they were all I had to go on. The farther we got into the city, the more people we passed. Our clothing made it next to impossible to see us, but we still made noise and had a physical presence. If someone bumped into us, it was over.

We came across all sorts of Bhlat as we kept close to the sides of buildings. Children kicked a ball in the alleys, dust covering their robes. Females chatted about the weather as they carried boxes from one building to another. It all seemed so normal.

Sweat poured down my body, and even the suit’s built-in air conditioning couldn’t stop me from overheating. It was getting warm out; with the layers on and the anxiety of where we were, I was flushed all over.

“How are you holding up, Leonard?”

“Terribly. Is this what being a hero is all about?”

“Pretty much.”

“Then you can have all the glory from now on.”

A loud Bhlat voice carried over to us from around the edge of a high-rise building, and we stopped. I motioned for Leonard to go flat against the wall. I wanted to grab my rifle, but that would expose me, so I stayed still.

“The Tarna will not be seeing petitioners today. Go back home,” the voice called. The word Tarna didn’t translate, and I understood that to be the name or title of someone.

Taking a peek around the corner, I saw a line of people that went on for as far as I could see, toward a section of the city to the east.

“I’ve read enough medieval books to know that the peasants petition the king at the palace. Follow that line, and we find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” Leonard said, nervously laughing.

He was probably right. A group of petitioners turned and walked past us, their heads down low. “We need water. How are we going to grow the crops? Theos bless us,” a Bhlat woman said through long sharp teeth.

“Shhhh. Don’t say that name,” her friend hissed back. “Sometimes I wonder why I spend time with you. Shouting out blasphemy on the streets.”

They kept moving, and my heart rate returned to only slightly escalated instead of full-on panic. The woman had mentioned the Theos. The old gods’ name still escaped the lips of our enemy. That was interesting, yet they didn’t know about the portals, which made it even more of a mystery. Maybe there was a card I could add to this last hand I was playing.

Motioning for Leonard to follow, I turned around, heading toward the block parallel to the line of people. We’d follow the line, but from a distance. From here, I spotted what could only be the palace. It was a huge building, walls standing as tall as the skyscrapers near it. It looked a meld of glass, stone, and metal from our vantage point: as futuristic and imposing as I could have imagined.

The closer we got to our destination, the slower the travel. More and more bodies cluttered the alleys now, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay hidden. Leonard’s deep breathing was crossing through my earpiece, and I had to tell him to calm down a few times. He didn’t reply to my prodding.

A city block away from the immense towers ahead, I had to make a decision. If we kept creeping around cloaked, we were bound to be caught, and we were running out of time.

“Leonard,” I said when we were out of earshot of any Bhlat on the streets, “change of plans.” I told him to follow me, and we ducked and turned away from the wide entrance to the palace. Huge stone steps rose to a large open doorway, where armored guards kept a watchful eye on anyone coming or going. This wasn’t going to work.

Around the corner, we found what I assumed would be there: a servants’ entrance. A couple of Bhlat men were hanging outside, smoking a potent herb from something resembling a pipe. They were in the same white robes, but these were hooded. The men were taller than us by a good foot; smoke blew out one man’s three nostrils.

As they entered the door, I gripped it just before it closed and followed them into the room. Boots and uniforms lined the walls, and before the two of them knew it, I decloaked, holding my pulse rifle up toward them.

“Don’t shoot,” the first one said, his words translating through my earpiece.

“Listen to me.” I paused while the translator spat out the appropriate Bhlat words. “Do as I say, and you can go home to your families tonight.”

This got the two wide gray faces to nod along. I got a good look at a Bhlat for the first time. These two had the same swirling movement in their eyes as the others I’d encountered, and mucus flew from one of the left alien’s nostrils. As much as I was taught that something with teeth that sharp must be a monster, these two seemed like normal people, no different from anyone on the street back home.

“Good. Now tell me who’s in charge, and where I can find them.”

__________

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Leonard asked me from beneath his cowl. He looked like an overweight ghost in the get-up, and I doubted my plan.

“No. I’m liking the odds less and less.” I pushed the cart down the hall toward the Empress’ offices. The Bhlat had told us they were scheduled to do maintenance on her floor atop the towers that morning. After grilling them for an hour, we donned their clothing and made our move.

The cart held our supplies inside, and I had a pulse pistol tucked away under my too-large Bhlat uniform. I was swimming in it, worried each step would cause me to trip over it and make myself known.

The handheld Kalentrek was in my palm. The only solace of that was in knowing I could activate it and kill any Bhlat in the area. That might save my and Leonard’s skin, but it wasn’t going to help our case back at Earth.

We used a key fob on the elevator, the door opening. We entered and pressed the icon the Bhlat had advised, but instead of a lift, an energy surge raced through my body. The next thing I knew, we were on the top floor.

“Freaky,” Leonard said.

I checked my pocket for the Relocator and reminded Leonard to stay close. If we needed to bolt for the portal, I had to be touching him when I activated the device.

Before we left the room, I passed the Kalentrek to Leonard. “Don’t touch it,” I warned him. I climbed on the cart, hoping no one would enter the transporter elevator, and lifted a ceiling grate. “Pass it up,” I said, taking the small device and setting it there. With my tablet, I took an image of it there, turned on so the lights on it glowed softly.

“What’s that for?” Leonard asked as I took the device back and replaced the grate.

“Backup plan.”

TWENTY-FIVE

The doors opened, and we entered the beehive. Armed Bhlat strode down the halls, half as wide as they were tall in their armor. We kept our eyes down, our uniforms and servant cowls covering our far-too-obvious human faces.

I didn’t know much about their leader, but they said she ran all things under the ever-expanding Bhlat colonies. I’d asked what kind of woman she was, and their eyes had gotten wide. They clearly feared her.

The room was open, with three halls heading in different directions from the floor’s foyer. The guards seemed uninterested in us, and I doubted they’d ever been infiltrated before.

“Left,” I whispered, and pushed the cart down the left hall, with Leonard following close behind.

A tall, slim female walked past us, her clothing colorful and rich: a stark contrast to the clothing we’d seen the regular ground-dwellers wearing. I heard her footsteps slow as we walked the opposite direction, and I could feel her eyes on my back as we kept going. Sweat dripped down my torso as my fears escalated and threatened to take over. I thought of Mary on their ship above Earth, and all of my friends in danger there. It was enough to keep my feet moving. The female’s footsteps started up again, getting quieter the farther apart we got.

With a quick glance, I looked up and spotted two hefty guards at the end of the hall. They looked much like the warriors we’d faced on the Deltra space station, and I wasn’t looking forward to fighting them again. But I didn’t have a choice.

“Stay behind me,” I said to Leonard, who happily slowed his pace.

The guards said something to me, but without my translator on, I couldn’t make out the words. I nodded, my face still covered, and when I was ten feet in front of them, I reached under the cart I was pushing, my hand coming to rest on the butt of the pulse rifle.

They spoke again, this time louder, angrier. This was it. I had to get through the doors if my plan was going to work. My last resort was still in my pocket, and I nearly reached for it with my other hand. I could end them now, show the power at my fingertips. Show them we weren’t to be trifled with. Humans weren’t going to roll over for them. I had seconds to act, and I closed my eyes for a tiny moment, remembering the forest on the way down from the portal just hours ago. Kareem’s last words echoed in my mind as I gripped the Kalentrek with my left hand, and the rifle with my right. Make things different.

My left hand let go and I raised the rifle, pointing it at them before they had time to react.

The guard on the left grunted, his sharp teeth bared at me. He spoke a string of hostile commands, but I didn’t waver. I held the rifle straight between them, waiting for an excuse to shoot. Their armor was thick, matte black, and dangerous-looking. I had to shoot for the head, like Mary had when we’d first encountered them.

I nodded to the door, and they seemed to understand. The one on the right moved to open the door, and the other reached for a gun on his hip. I shot him in the head so quickly, it even startled me.

“Dean!” Leonard shouted behind me, but I didn’t turn or reply. I just motioned for the door again, and the Bhlat guard laid his gun down to open it. Nudging the barrel of the rifle in the air, I waved for the guard to go in first. He did, hesitant to show his back to me.

“Drag him inside,” I said to Leonard, my voice grim.

“Drag… drag him?”

“Do it,” I said, and followed the guard inside. The room was wide, tall panoramic windows letting in red sunlight from a wide angle.

A red-robed female Bhlat sat on a couch with a small alien beside her. They talked quietly and didn’t seem to notice us at all.

Behind me, Leonard groaned as he fought to pull the gargantuan Bhlat in with us. I motioned for the guard to help him, and he obeyed. Soon the door was shut, the dead guard’s blood a smear across the entryway.

“Stay here,” I said to Leonard, and passed him my pistol. He took it with a trembling hand.

He pointed the gun at the remaining guard, who glared at me with hate and distaste. “Don’t let him get too close. If he does, shoot him in the head.”

“Dean, I don’t know if I can.”

“You have to. Do it and let yourself grieve later.”

He nodded, and I turned and walked toward the Empress and the child.

The room had a boardroom-style table in it, and it was uncanny how much their civilization mirrored our own. A holographic video played in the center of the table: images of large Bhlat ships moving around a planet. I watched it for a few seconds and realized it wasn’t just any planet; it was Earth.

I almost grabbed the communicator to make contact, but waited. I stepped toward the couch, and the woman said something quietly to the child before turning to me.

For a Bhlat, she was stunning. Her wide face was framed by thick black braids, and her eyes were a light swirling red, making me think of molten lava. Her lips parted in a thin smile, sharp teeth making her look like a dangerous predator.

“I wondered when someone would make it up here. I expected it from the Kraski, if I’m being honest, but not a human.” She spoke in perfect English, and I was caught off-guard. I closed my mouth, not wanting her to see my surprise.

“We’re craftier than you think,” I said, playing along with her banter.

“Whom am I addressing?” she asked. Beside her, the little girl’s blue eyes danced as she stared at me intently.

“Dean Parker,” I said, glad to get a reaction from her.

“You’re a hard man to kill, it seems. Admiral Blel told me only a while ago he had your friends, and that you were dead. They seemed to want to barter but claimed they wouldn’t talk yet.”

“The timing just had to be right.”

“Yes, so it seems.” She looked over my shoulder to where Leonard was holding a gun to the guard; then she glanced to the floor, where the dead one lay in a pile. “What is it you want?”

“I want peace. I want you to leave Earth and never come back.”

“It’s too late for that. We’ve already begun the harvest. There’s no going back.”

I cringed inwardly. I had to pivot. “Then let us leave, and you can have it.” I was literally bartering away a planet, but given the circumstance, I didn’t have a choice.

She looked intrigued. “Is that so?”

“Yes. Take the planet. Use its water, use its ore, but let us leave. Don’t make contact ever again.”

“Or what?” she asked.

“You don’t want to find out,” I said, almost bluffing, but knowing I could still end their city with the touch of a button.

She stood silent for a minute, analyzing the situation.

“We have a deal,” she said, and I felt a fraction of the tension in my back ease up. She moved for the table and tapped an icon glowing on a built-in screen.

She said something in Bhlat, and I caught the name Blel. A gruff voice called back, and they went back and forth. I heard the name Mary carry over, and I gripped the rifle harder.

“What did he say?” I asked, remembering the dreams I’d had in which Mary was killed in our final confrontation with the Bhlat.

She didn’t say anything for a long minute, and my eyes started to well up. “What did he say?” I yelled.

“He said there was an altercation. One of the human guests has been killed.”

My gut clenched, and my vision went black. “Which guest?” I asked, knowing the answer.

One word escaped through her sharp teeth, her swirling eyes conveying a touch of sympathy. “Mary.”

The door blew open before I had a chance to let it soak in. I almost didn’t turn to the concussion blast. If she was gone, then what was the point?

Leonard’s yelling voice brought me back, and I spun, firing at the incoming guards. Red pulses erupted from my rifle, and Leonard’s pistol joined me as a dozen armed Bhlat raced into the room. I just needed to touch the Empress and Leonard, and we could get out of here. Only when I looked back at her, she and the child were near the window.

We ducked behind the table, trading fire with the newcomers. I made a lucky shot and saw one of them drop dead. Leonard had his hand up over his head, firing backwards with his eyes closed. One of his shots hit, and footsteps started coming our way, closer to us.

The Empress called out a command, and the firing instantly stopped. She said another string of words, and the warriors lowered their weapons. I didn’t do the same. For all I knew, we’d raise our hands and get killed for our efforts.

I stood up, rifle pointed at the eight or so standing guards, and crossed the room to the imposing woman at the window. The Relocator was in my other palm now, and Leonard got close.

The Empress looked at us, and to the dead guards on the floor. She held her daughter’s hand as I reached to touch her and Leonard with my bare hands. I touched the Relocator.

TWENTY-SIX

“If we made a deal, why did we take their Empress?” Leonard asked, his hands still shaking. I was impressed with how well he’d handled himself and told him so.

“For insurance. I don’t trust them, and right before we got rudely interrupted, we heard that… they killed someone.” I wouldn’t believe she was dead or let myself dwell on the implications, because I’d be a mess on the ground if I did.

“Where are we?” the Empress asked, her child finally done crying. We were in the portal cave, but I wouldn’t let her see outside and let her know where the portal was located.

“Don’t worry about that. Leonard, blindfold them.” I ripped some fabric from the woman’s robe, and Leonard gently tied the red fabric around her face, then the girl’s. Neither protested.

Once they couldn’t see, we led them to the portal room. The last few days’ events raced through my mind. Mary’s last words to me rang in my ears, and I almost stopped right there. We were close to the end, I knew it. I just didn’t know what the end meant. The end of the conflict, or the end of us?

Soon we were standing behind the table in the center of the room, and I found Earth’s symbol with a shaky hand.

“Dean?” Leonard asked, breaking me from my daze.

Instead of answering him, I just tapped the icon, and light enveloped the four of us.

__________

The trip to the surface took a while, since we had to rise through the thick earth in pairs. This time, I kept my eyes closed the whole time, our counterparts not having to think about it with theirs covered. The child whimpered in my arms, but I ignored her. Their comfort meant nothing to me. All I could think about was getting up to the invading Bhlat ship where Mary was.

Once we made it outside, I nearly doubled over. Last time we’d left, the Bhlat mining machines had been lowering. Now the sky was covered in clouds, the atmosphere thin and breaking up.

The huge mining vessels didn’t seem active, so maybe the Bhlat were here to barter. Looking around, I knew it was too late to salvage our world. My stomach sank, and my already morose mood took on an all-time low.

I’d lost the woman I loved and a planet in the same day.

Leonard looked around in wide-eyed wonder, his face having gone pale the instant he’d stepped outside.

With no other option, I took out my communicator. “This is Dean Parker. I have your Empress. Send a ship to me, and we end this now.” I was done messing around.

A Bhlat voice spoke through the communicator, and the Empress translated for me.

“They have dispatched a ship and are willing to parley peacefully.” Her voice was firm, even though her hands were tied and her eyes covered.

“Peacefully? Look at this!” I yelled, ripping the cloth from around her head. She stared upward with bright red eyes. The sky crackled, wind angrily blowing dust around the pyramids.

“I’m sorry,” she said, voice smaller than I’d heard it yet.

“For what? For taking our water to expand your fleet, so you can do this to another world?” I was shouting now, tears flowing down my dusty face.

She looked down, abashed. “I heard you were barbarians. No better than a Tarkan from the outer reaches. When I gave my support, I thought we were doing the universe a favor. You killed the Kraski and most of the Deltra,” she said, as if this were a good enough reason for what her people had done.

“They tried to kill us first. The damn Kraski were on the run from you! It all starts with you! You’re a discredit to the universe, and the Theos would be ashamed.” I wasn’t sure why I said their ancient race’s name, but it seemed to strike a chord.

Her tense posture loosened. “You’re probably right. But all my family has done is solidify our standing in the pecking order. It’s kill or be killed.”

“I understand that more than you know.” And I did.

Minutes ticked by in silence before a boxy ship lowered from above, blue thrusters pointing at the earth as it flew down before stopping a couple hundred yards from our position. The Empress was holding the girl now, and I pointed my rifle at them.

“Leonard, take the girl,” I said firmly. He hesitated. “Take the damn girl!” He rushed over and set a hand on her small shoulder. “Get your pistol out.”

He looked back at me, a grim expression on his chubby face. I hated to force his hand on this, but he wanted to be in the middle of it, so this was it.

A large Bhlat warrior stepped out, oversized gun in hand. He wore an EVA suit, the air probably nearly unbreathable for them as well. I could feel the thin air making my head light. Mix in the lack of sleep, and I worried I wouldn’t be on two feet for long.

He motioned for us to come closer, and we walked toward him, the Bhlat woman and child between us and the ship.

The Empress said a few words in Bhlat and he nodded, lowering the gun. We entered the ship, but my finger didn’t leave the trigger for a second.

We entered the rough-looking fifty-foot ship through a side ramp, and I got stared down by a few hulking armored soldiers, each kneeling as the Empress stepped on board. It looked to be a drop ship of some sort, and I wondered how many of these they usually used on an invasion. Or did they just steal the resources from space, defending the miners when needed? It was dimly lit, and we stayed in the bay, weapons and cold metal seats with belts lining the walls.

No one spoke until we’d been inside for five minutes or so.

“Dean Parker, we can still make our deal.” The Empress turned her head and spoke softly into my ear.

“Mary,” was all I said back.

“If this was your mate, then I’m truly sorry. I lost a mate once, far too young. Linna there is all I have left of him.” She nodded to the little one, scared to death under Leonard’s light grip.

“What do you know of the Gatekeepers?” I asked before thinking.

She stiffened. “Why do you use that name?”

“Answer the question.”

“The Theos left us. Yes, we once walked worlds with them. It is said that the first Bhlat were found by them on a distant planet. One day they left, and rumors said they were seen on countless worlds sporadically over the next century or so. We never knew what they were doing, but the name Gatekeeper made it back to us eventually. That you ask me about it now is of extreme interest to me.”

“Why?”

“Because you speak of things long lost and forbidden to our people. That you do so at such a tumultuous time for your people brings great importance to the portent it bears.”

“For someone who hasn’t met a human before today, you sure have a way with our words.” This from Leonard. His voice was light, his hand still shaking, but not nearly as much as it had been. His gaze lifted from us to the large guards across from us.

“I can share thousands of languages with you if you so desire. It is but a simple procedure, mastered centuries ago by our scientists,” the Empress said, and I wasn’t sure if she was trying to impress us or distract us.

“Enough about that. That’s all you know about the Gatekeepers?” I asked, anger still thick on my tongue.

“Yes. I have no reason to deceive you.”

“Why is it forbidden to speak of the Theos?” I asked, curious, recalling the Bhlat on the street, worried they would be overheard using the name.

“The Theos abandoned the universe. Many beings out there think they are gods, that they created all.”

“And you? What do you believe?” I asked.

She looked at me sidelong from her spot to my left, where I still aimed my gun at her. “I believe they were a wise race, far beyond our scope of understanding. They grew bored and left us all behind. The universe is a large place, one where they may still be hiding.”

“Maybe they aren’t hiding, just living their lives out in peace,” I said.

“Peace. That is such a powerful world, but rarely one anyone takes at face value.”

“Will we make this deal?” I asked, trying to read her expression. Her deep red eyes danced while staying still.

“We will.”

“Will you keep doing this to other worlds?”

“We will.”

“Why?” I asked, my lips sticking together as I moved my mouth.

“My world’s water is contaminated. We are many, billions upon billions, and water becomes the most important resource in the universe.”

I thought back to exiting the forest on the way to the Bhlat city, and how life crept away from the snaking river we’d passed.

“What about the metals?” I asked, knowing they weren’t just mining water on Earth.

“If we’re taking water, why not take every resource we can? It would be foolish.”

Kareem’s face floated to the forefront of my mind. Change the universe.

“Empress, what if I had a solution to your resource problem? What if I offered you coordinates to places out there that you could colonize with fresh water, and metals unheard of? Would you be willing to stop invading? Stop killing innocents for your own sake? Would you work with me, and change…” I cut myself off, not wanting to make it too cheesy. “Change the future?”

Her red eyes twitched, and a wet line streamed down her cheek. She glanced to her daughter, who looked back with wide eyes at her mother. “I would.”

If she was acting, I was buying it, but I had to proceed with caution. The ship jostled and landed, presumably inside the Bhlat ship where my friends were being kept. Mary. I had to end this all and see her one more time. I felt like screaming in anguish for my lost love. It was my fault. If only I’d brought her with me to get the Empress, none of this would have happened. She’d still be at my side. I was so selfish, and I’d never live it down.

The doors whistled open, jarring me from my own thoughts. We started to walk forward; the Empress turned to me and said, “Dean Parker, we will give in to your terms. Let me speak with Blel, and you will be allowed to leave with your…” She cut herself off, remembering my mate. “You will be allowed to leave and evacuate your planet.”

The guards went first, and when no one was looking, I slipped the Relocator out and saved our current location into it. A quick escape might be necessary, and I wasn’t taking any chances.

Leonard went in front of me, still holding the little Bhlat girl near him. We exited the ship, and the Empress called out in her native language as a large group of Bhlat warriors lined the immense open hangar we’d landed in.

The ship must have been huge, because there were at least twenty drop ships inside the hangar, and a full hundred or so warriors stood there, suited up and ready for battle. I felt like a fool wearing an oversized Bhlat servant’s robe, but at the end of the day, I didn’t really care what they thought of me. I only wanted to get my friends and leave.

The group of Bhlat separated, making a path for us to walk out of the large room. The hair on the back of my neck rose as I moved forward, leaving dozens of armed soldiers at my back. I waited for the feeling of a pulse blast ripping through me, but it didn’t come.

We exited through a cold metal slab of a door, the two guards from the ship still leading the way. I wanted to look around, to see the inside of a great warship from one of the universe’s most deadly races, but I kept my eyes forward, watching the back of the Empress’ head as we passed groups of gawking Bhlat. Here we found Bhlat in normal uniforms, men only slightly taller than humans, and women of all sizes. A ship this size wasn’t housed by warriors and guns alone.

“Where’s Blel?” I asked the Empress, who shrugged.

“They’re taking us to him now,” she said, her posture stronger and straighter than it had been since we’d first met.

We moved slowly down a couple of wide hallways. Some people shouted out to the Empress; others kneeled when whispers about who she was reached their ears. We kept moving, the Empress stoic and unresponsive to her people as we went.

My grip was tight on the pulse rifle, anxious sweat making my palm slick. I was almost there; I only needed to hold on for a little while longer. Long enough to make the deal and start moving our people.

TWENTY-SEVEN

The walk felt like an hour, but after a few more minutes, we were brought to an elevator. I didn’t like the idea of entering the cramped space with the guards.

“Where does this lead? To Blel?” I asked.

The Empress asked something in Bhlat, and the guard grunted and nodded. “Yes, to the bridge.”

“Then the four of us go alone,” I said.

She relayed it, and one of the guards looked ready to pull a weapon. I tightened my grasp on the Empress, and she said something to them in a calming voice. He stepped back and let us enter the lift alone.

Unlike the elevator back at her palace, this one functioned like a normal one, and once inside, we lifted quickly. When the doors opened, I was ready for the fight of my life, but didn’t need to be as we were greeted by two tall thin Bhlat in dark gray uniforms.

The first one spoke, her words coming through a translator. “Welcome, Dean Parker. Your Majesty.” She bowed, and the other followed suit. “This way.” They turned and walked toward the main bridge.

It was immense, at least ten times the size of our small ships’ bridges. I spotted around twelve Bhlat officers on board. The lights were bright but not severe, and the space was spotless and shiny. This Blel was obviously a man of cleanliness and order. Almost familiar sounds emanated from the computers, once again reminding me that our races might not be as different as we seemed on the surface. I could use that.

“Mr. Parker,” a thick accented voice said in English. The man rose from what could only be his captain’s seat, front and center to the thirty-foot viewscreen at the far end of the bridge. He turned, and I expected to see an eight-foot-tall behemoth of a Bhlat warrior. Instead, I was greeted with a shrivelled, ancient-looking creature, shorter than myself and hunched at the back. He was bald, save for a tuft of hair that stuck out to one side from the top of his head. His eyes were black and beady; from this distance, I couldn’t make out any of the swirling visage the other Bhlat had. Blel wasn’t a young man. He breathed heavily, and gray hairs fluttered by his three nostrils as he did so.

“Blel,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Let her go and we can talk,” he said, his garbled words still translating.

I shook my head. “We talk, your forces back down, you give me my friends, and then we leave.” I almost said “show me her body,” but refrained.

“What do you hope to achieve here, Mr. Parker?” I hated the way he was saying my name, almost spitting it out through his dull, yellowed teeth.

“I hope to make the deal and get the hell out of here, that’s what.” He was giving me a bad vibe, and I felt the Empress stiffen as we had our back and forth.

“Is that so? Why should we let you live? Humans are a scourge to the universe.”

“And the Bhlat aren’t? I’ve seen the carnage in your wake.”

“Is it so unlike your own, Mr. Parker?” His accent was heavy, but his words slapped me in the face regardless. “We started the destruction of the Kraskis, who were no stranger to death and slavery. Then you single-handedly destroyed them along with the Deltra, and most of their abominations while you were at it.” His word for the hybrids set my blood boiling, but I let him continue. “We make quite the team, Dean. Maybe you should stay on my ship, and we can work together.”

“Can we cut the crap and make the deal?” When he didn’t reply, I kept talking. “You can have your Empress here, her kid, and Earth. I want my people back, and for you to vacate the area for ten Earth days while we evacuate. Then it’s all yours.”

He seemed to consider this, and a tall Bhlat leaned in to whisper something in their native tongue.

“No deal,” he said. “You ended a whole outpost of ours. Women, children, all gone in an instant. This is unforgivable.”

My pulse rifle lifted in the air, and I fought back the instinct to fire at the old unarmed Bhlat leader. “What do you mean, no deal?”

“Blel, this isn’t your decision!” the Empress yelled in English for my benefit before shouting other words in her language to him.

“You sit in your palace as your mother did before you, barking orders and rewarding us for killing worlds, and now you have a heart?” His voice was loud and gravelly. “You don’t get to decide any longer. I’m taking charge.”

I kept my gun up and glanced to Leonard, who was sweating profusely down his brow. The officers on the bridge looked torn, deep colorful swirling eyes looking to each other for an answer on what they should do. Who did they side with?

“How dare you think to speak to me like this, Blel? I’m your Empress, and you will address me as such.” The Empress started to walk forward toward him, but I held her back. If this was going to get ugly, I needed a hostage. That would only work if the crew sided with her.

A noise carried from his small mouth, and at first, I thought it might be a cough, but quickly realized it was him laughing. “Empress, I care as much about what happens to you as I do this one’s mate, Mary.”

He said the sentence, and I stood there blankly, body exhausted from the last couple of days, my mind taking a minute to catch up to the translation.

“Stand down, crew! Blel, you’re now relieved of your duty to the Empirical Core, and are hereby declared a traitor, and you will die like one.” This time, I did let her loose, while Mary’s name still echoed in my head. She moved to him, her hand raised, red power glowing from her palm.

I spotted at least three armed crew coming from the edges of the room, and knew one of them would fire at her before she killed Blel.

“Stop!” I yelled, pulling my tablet from the small pack strapped to my chest. It sat beside my small Kalentrek, which would decimate the bridge and the ship’s crew at a touch. It was a last resort, but one I’d be willing to use to save my friends.

Maybe Blel was right: we weren’t so different. I left the Relocator and mini-Shield inside and flipped to the image of the powerful device sitting in the ceiling back in the palace. “Let’s just say I brought more collateral.” I held the tablet up for Blel and the others to see. “This is the same device I used on your outpost, and it’s sitting in your capital on your homeworld now. I have a switch to activate it, and a friend on the outside has one too. If you don’t leave in fifteen minutes…” I let the bluff linger without finishing it.

Some of the crew looked around nervously, clearly having family back at the capital city.

“What’s it going to be, Blel?” I asked.

The Empress was still standing between us, and she was clearly ready to do some nasty business to her turncoat military leader.

“Do it. We sacrifice the old to build the new.” Blel’s voice was grim, and I almost panicked when he called my bluff. But the Empress didn’t. Her palm glowed a fierce red, and she moved to attack him, only he pulled a small handheld gun and aimed it at her with unexpected speed.

He fired, but not before being tackled by a female officer next to him. It all happened so fast, I nearly didn’t see it. The Empress dropped to the floor and I rushed to catch her, narrowly avoiding letting her head strike the hard surface. Her daughter, now free of Leonard’s grasp, ran over to her.

Two groups of Bhlat were forming around the now disarmed Blel. He was being held by the woman who’d taken him down. Tension was thick as they yelled back and forth between supporters of their military leader and the Empress.

I knelt by the Empress, who was breathing. A wound in her side smoked where the ray had blasted her.

“Can you translate?” I asked.

She nodded with a grimace.

“The battles can stop. I’ve already made a deal with your Empress.” I waited while she translated into their rough language. A few kept shouting at each other, but most stopped to listen.

She must have asked them to listen, because soon the room was silent; only Blel’s labored breathing whistled across the bridge.

“I have a way for your people to have water and other resources, and I’ve offered it to her on the condition that we’re no longer enemies. That you stop the genocide of other worlds and take what I can offer you.”

The words translated. Many of them looked relieved or intrigued.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to be with your families, instead of fighting and mining planets with resistance?” I had them, I knew it.

Blel started to spout something off in Bhlat, but when they wouldn’t listen, he spoke in English. “Mr. Parker, we are Bhlat. This will never be. We are…” His words were cut short as the sound of a pulse coursed through the bridge. Leonard stood there, pistol raised, hand trembling.

“I’m sorry,” he said shakily. The young man dropped the gun and stood there, mouth open, tears falling down his face. “I’m sorry.”

No one attacked him as they let Blel’s dead body slip to the ground.

One crew member said a phrase in their language and came to help the Empress up. They moved her to the captain’s chair and kept saying it.

“What does it mean?” I asked her.

“Long live the Empress, we bask in her eternal light.” She smiled through sharp teeth, the red galaxies in her eyes twinkling as she looked at me.

Alarms sounded, and I raised my gun in defense, but they had nothing to do with what was happening on board. The wide viewscreen turned on, showing an image of Earth below, and something in the distance. One of the helmsmen ran to a console and zoomed in.

New Spero’s fleet had arrived. They were going to attack this ship.

TWENTY-EIGHT

“What trickery is this?” the Empress asked. Medics ran onto the bridge and started to work on her.

“No trickery. We sent them ahead months ago, as backup. Wouldn’t you have done the same?” I asked, knowing she would understand. “You have their leader, Magnus, on board here. Where are the prisoners?”

She said something to the crew member beside her, who I took to be the first officer, judging by the way the rest of the Bhlat responded to her.

“Tres will lead the way. Dean, you must prevent a war today. I can feel hope in my people. A veil has been lifted. I’ll keep them from attacking your ships for as long as I can. Stop them from coming any farther.”

“We will. It’s best if your fleet evacuates the system. Give me a few minutes to leave the ship first.” I reached and took her hand. Cool slender fingers met my sweaty palm, and she gave it a squeeze.

“Until we meet again, Dean Parker.”

I smiled at her, then at her little daughter, before grabbing Leonard.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, and he followed along wordlessly.

We moved closely, with Tres leading the way. No one came to stop us, but I still kept my gun close at hand.

We raced through the ship, the odd Bhlat looking confused as we moved along following their first officer. She held a lot of power, so none questioned her.

We entered an elevator and lowered into the belly of the vessel. When we got off, the surroundings were much different than they had been on the main levels. It was dingy, cold metal walls and floor, with less than ideal lighting. We were in the barracks.

My heart pounded in my chest, and I was extremely anxious to see my friends, but worried that I would find out Mary really was gone. What was I going to do without her? I’d already gone through losing someone I loved, and this time, it was even more different. Our shared trauma and situation had put us in a pressure cooker, and we’d come out together so strong and bonded.

I needed Mary and couldn’t bring myself to see a future without her beside me. Each step we took down the narrow hall felt heavy, the immense weight of what we’d accomplished pressing me down like an increased gravitational pull.

If we didn’t get off the ship and stop our fleet from attacking, we would be inside the enemy while a battle raged on, and no one was going to win that altercation. But a part of me didn’t care anymore.

“Mary,” I said through almost closed lips.

“Dean, are you okay?” Leonard asked as we walked, speaking for the first time since he’d shot Blel.

“I’m fine.”

Tres turned to the right and touched a keypad; the door slid open, revealing five forms sitting or lying on the cold floor in the near dark.

I scanned and my eyes adjusted, picking out Magnus’ and Slate’s large forms, then Clare and Nick huddled together in the corner. Someone lay facing the wall, and I assumed it had to be Patty.

“Guys, it’s me.” I said the words and couldn’t hold back the floodgates. I wanted to run into the room, but I didn’t trust Tres not to pull a fast one and lock us away with them.

“Dean?” Slate asked, rushing over to me. He enveloped me in a big hug, his unshaven beard brushing against my forehead. He smelled like a man who’d been in a cell for months.

“We need to get out of here. Our fleet arrived, and only minutes after we struck a deal with the Bhlat. We need to stop them from attacking.” I said the words, and a flood of emotions hit me. Tears fell down my face, and I wiped them away as Magnus came up to me and clasped my arm in his meaty hand.

“Brother. You did it.” His eyes were wet too, and I smiled at the big man.

Clare and Nick were next, and they hugged me.

“We don’t have time for this,” I said, pulling the Relocator from the small pack strapped to my chest. “Let’s go, Patty.”

They all stood around the entrance of the room, blocking the inside.

Magnus spoke softly. “Dean, I’m so sorry. Patty didn’t make it.”

I reeled. “Then who…”

A more than familiar woman squeezed through the broad shoulders of Slate and Magnus and wrapped her arms around me, kissing me deeply like there wasn’t a care in the world. I felt Mary’s love and passion all intertwined as our lips met, and when we broke apart, I was crying and barked out a confused laugh.

“I thought you were dead,” I said so softly only she could hear me.

Her cool hand rested on my cheek. “Why did you think that?”

“Oh, Patty didn’t tell the Bhlat her real name. When we arrived, she called herself Mary Lafontaine, in hopes it would give them some respect for our group. It made things worse,” Clare said, clearly upset by Patrice Dalhousie being gone.

“I can’t believe it,” Leonard said, wide-eyed, probably conflicted between feeling terrible for killing someone and trying to record everything in his mind for his next comic issues.

Mary was alive, and I was so shocked I nearly forgot what we were doing.

“We have to go. Everyone touch my arm.” I held my arms out, the Relocator in my left hand. I nodded to Tres, who kept her distance, and she gave me a grave nod back. With the tap of a button, we all disappeared from the prison cell doorway.

__________

“Anyone know how to fly this thing?” Magnus asked as we made our way from the back of the Bhlat drop ship to the cockpit. The craft was empty, so we didn’t have to fight our way out.

I grabbed the communicator from my pouch and tapped it. “I need to speak with the Empress.” A garbled voice said something unintelligible before the Empress’ weak voice carried over the device.

“Dean Parker, missed me already?” she asked.

“We’re in one of your drop ships. Have them open the bay doors. We’re going to head out.”

“Done. We will leave as promised. Good luck.” She said another phrase in her native language, and the communication ended.

“I think I can muster some semblance of understanding here,” Mary said, and I couldn’t help but smile as she sat there, looking confused at the alien controls.

Slate stood behind her suggesting things, and soon, with Clare chiming in, we had the engines running and Mary was ready to give it a go.

“Say a little prayer,” she said, and I instantly thought of the Theos. Were they still out there? Could they hear a prayer?

She gently lifted a lever, and we moved slightly.

“We don’t have all day,” Magnus said, clearly frustrated.

“Do you want to fly?” Mary asked, and jammed the lever back, lurching us toward the hangar ceiling. She pulled down just in time to narrowly avoid crashing. She cringed and smiled back at us before moving the ship toward the open bay doors. The opening was a couple hundred feet across; a dim green barrier glowed as we passed through it, and into space.

We were free of the Bhlat ship. My tight back loosened for a second before I spotted the gigantic fleet ships coming toward us.

“Damn if they don’t look impressive,” Magnus said proudly.

“When they blow us out of the sky, you won’t think so,” I said. “How do we contact them and tell them to stand down?”

Nick crowded in behind us, and I got a sense of how poorly they’d been treated. He’d lost a good fifteen pounds, and his eyes had a look I’d never seen in them before. “Is there any way to send a message?”

Clare moved into the seat beside the pilot’s chair and attempted to find a communication device. The viewscreen had radar on it: the green lights, which identified the Bhlat master ship and their other orbiting ships, were moving away from Earth. The red lights, showing our incoming fleet, started to move toward us.

“I can’t see how to do it.” Frustration and panic melded together in her voice.

“They’re coming for us. If we don’t tell them what transpired, they’ll chase the Bhlat and break our peace.” I had to think of something. “Magnus, you have the Kraski beams in those ships?” I fiddled with the chain and pendant still around my neck.

“Yeah, you can use the suit’s pins to get access if needed. That’s just an emergency EVA situation…” He stopped his thought, looking at me and grinning. “One more adventure for old times?”

I smiled back, hiding the stress I was feeling. “One more adventure. Did you leave the pack by the pyramid?”

He nodded.

“Mary, we’ll be right back. Magnus and I will get on board the lead warship and get them to stop.”

Our eyes met, and a flicker of hope and exhaustion transferred between us. I mouthed “I love you” to her, and she said it back.

“I’ll see if I can find anything useful in the back,” Slate said, moving out of the cramped cockpit.

“Ready?” I asked Magnus, and touched his arm, hitting the location for the pyramid on the Relocator.

TWENTY-NINE

The first thing we did, when we got the EVA suits Magnus and Mary had stashed near the pyramid, was try to communicate with the fleet in space approaching Earth.

“They’re too far for these suits’ comms to work,” Magnus said, slipping into his suit. Mine was made for Mary, and the fit was tight. They had a little give, so I was able to stand up in it, but not comfortably.

“How do I look?” I asked, serious behind the face shield.

“Like a man that would do what it takes.” I’d expected a joke in return.

“I don’t think Earth has much time either.” The clouds were black, angry, and the air was thin and getting harder to breathe. We needed to get these people off the planet. It was as if all the things we needed to do had severe urgency, but we couldn’t save the people without stopping the fleet from attacking the Bhlat.

With a tap of the Relocator, we were back on the drop ship, and I once again thanked Kareem silently for the gift.

Slate jumped at our sudden appearance. “Look what I found.” They were backpacks with thrusters. The kind of thing I’d dreamt of flying over the farm fields with when I was a little kid, wishing for something more than canola crops and chicken feed. I guess I’d gotten my wish. Now I wanted to swap with myself and live that quiet life.

“How do they work?” Magnus asked, already trying to put it on.

Our suits had the mini-thrusters Mae and I had used to tether the vessels heading toward the sun almost two years ago. Two years.

“Boss, are you with us?” Slate asked, concern on his gaunt face.

“I’m here. Wearing down, and my mind is drifting. Go ahead.”

Slate showed us how he thought they worked, and we had nothing to lose. If we flew up to our approaching ships, they would blast us away. We needed to have some stealth.

“Will they show up on the sensors?” I asked Magnus.

He shook his head. “The sensors are for ship drives and radiation, mainly. Whatever’s fueling these will be so minuscule compared to their search parameters, we’ll be able to slip by with no problem.” He looked to me and shrugged. “I hope.”

That didn’t give me full confidence, but we had no choice.

“I can go instead of you, boss.” Slate looked ready to take my place.

“If you haven’t noticed, I barely fit into this suit. And even though I’m tired, I haven’t been in a cell for months at the hands of an evil alien race.”

“Godspeed,” he said, clapping me on the back, then Magnus. “Make sure you stay out of their range.” With that, Slate left us in an airlock, sealed it, and we opened the doors to dark space.

The jetpack was heavy on the ship, but out here, it didn’t matter. My stomach lurched at being out here again, untethered this time. The huge ships from outside New Spero loomed in the distance, and we had some distance to travel to get there. Our suits were made for this, but I still worried something would happen.

“Let’s test this out,” Magnus said through my helmet’s earpiece. He hit the handheld controls and one thruster fired up, sending him into a slow spin. “Damn it,” he said, adjusting and getting both going. Soon he’d stabilized himself, and he called instructions to me. After a shaky start, we were both close to competent with the packs, and we started toward our target.

“I think they’re moving,” I said, thinking they were getting closer to us faster than our packs were taking us.

“You’re right. Stay the course.”

“What happens if they’re going too fast when we cross paths?”

Magnus laughed uneasily, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear his answer to that. “I have a plan for that.”

I really didn’t like the sound of that.

We moved this way for almost an hour, the ships getting closer each minute. In the distance, there was nothing but the expanse of space, and my mind drifted to the countless worlds out there we could now access with the portals. What was out there for us to discover? I put the thoughts on the backburner as the half dozen warships grew, until we couldn’t ignore them coming toward us any longer.

“There’s not going to be anywhere to grab a foothold on them. We have to beam into them.” Magnus said this like it was no big deal. Go for a beer, walk your dog… beam into a warship while traveling in the opposite direction in an EVA suit, with a jetpack thrusting you toward it.

“Is there no other option?” I asked, hoping for a miracle.

“Come in, NS-1007. This is your general. Stop where you are. The war is over. I repeat, slow your thrusters and cease your pursuit.” He waited and said it again, but still received no reply.

The lead ship was beautiful. The sleek exterior was rounded, giving way from the boxy design of the Bhlat ships or the cube vessels of the Kraski. Our people had found a way to incorporate the size of the vessels but mix them with the slim and smooth smaller ships. They were a testament to how far our race had come in a short period of time. And if we weren’t careful, we were about to be smashed like bugs on the warship’s windshield.

The ship grew as we slowed our thrusters.

“Crap. They’re powering up the cannons.” Magnus pointed toward the bottom edges of the ship, where a red light started to glow. “They’re going to fire at the retreating Bhlat.”

“You sure this is going to work? We won’t end up in a wall or out the other end?” I’d used the beam pins on our suit enough times, but not on a target moving so fast.

“The ship’s big. We’ll be fine.” He said it with confidence, but as we got closer to each other, I could see the dread in his eyes.

We were close enough to the lead vessel to see the rough edges that made up the exterior. From a distance, they looked smooth, but up close, they were anything but.

My heart raced as we floated there, waiting for the ship to come close enough to beam into it.

“You’re a good friend. Let’s get this over with and have a Scotch on your deck,” I said, hoping they weren’t my last words.

“Deal. Dean, those years we thought you were dead… were the hardest of my life.” He looked over at me, and I smiled at his unusual emotional talk. “Enough about that. See you in a minute.”

I watched him press the small pin on his EVA collar, and he was covered in green light, the ship now only yards away from us. We couldn’t see inside the ship, but I imagined the looks on a helmsman’s face when they saw two floating Earth Defense suits outside their cameras.

I pressed my pin, feeling the familiar thrum of the beam’s energy. With a deep breath, I blinked as I entered the warship. This time, I opened them sooner and spotted Magnus coming out of the beam, turning solid and rolling to the floor. I joined him, my momentum keeping me moving. I hit the hard floor and flopped forward, hitting the wall with a thud.

“You okay?” he asked, holding his left elbow.

My back was tender and my right knee howled at me, but as I rolled over and tried to stand, I found I wasn’t too bad off.

“I think so.” I took my helmet off and tossed it to the ground. Magnus did the same. “Where are we?”

“Damn it. In a storage room. They’re locked from the outside.”

“We don’t have a lot of time.” I found my pulse rifle on the ground and picked it up, motioning Magnus back. The red beams smashed the door, sending shards outward, opening a hole large enough for us to crawl through.

“Subtle,” Magnus said as we emerged in the hall.

“Stop! Drop the weapon!” a female voice boomed from behind us.

“Gladly.” I dropped the gun, glad to be away from the enemy and on our own people’s ship.

“Turn slowly,” the woman said.

When she saw Magnus’ face, she did a double take and saluted him. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Just call the bridge. Tell them to turn the cannons off. Our mission has changed.”

__________

“You did what?” Naidoo stalked angrily around the room, and I didn’t blame her. I’d essentially given our world away. It was far better than the alternative.

“I know you don’t like me, but what choice did we have?” I was getting irritated with her but didn’t want my heart to talk over my head. I lowered my voice and calmed the erratic timbre. “You tried to make a deal with them, right?”

She stopped in her tracks, turning slowly to look at me. The room in Cape Town was full of dignitaries from around the world, as well as our group. When we’d arrived, the nations were in widespread panic. An alert had gone out over all remaining media that an announcement was coming, and for everyone to gather their belongings and loved ones.

That set off more fear, but after all these people had been through, they were getting used to it. We heard stories trickling in about groups working together, and leaders of communities taking charge, directing people to gather in town halls or city parks.

The air was thin; conditions were far from ideal. Oxygen tanks and respiratory centers were being erected around the world for anyone with pulmonary issues. I was proud of the people of Earth.

“They were coming anyway,” was her defense.

“Then you did what you thought best, and they decided to steal our water with us still on the planet.”

“How are we going to get everyone off Earth? And where are we going to put them all?” a mature red-haired woman asked. She looked at Mary and me with thoughtful eyes, concern etched on her face.

Magnus took this one. “Our warships have space to transport a large group of people. We’ll have to bring more supplies to feed them on the two-month journey, but it can be done.”

“And the rest of us?” she asked.

Magnus’ eyes roamed toward me, and the whole room set their gaze in my direction.

I looked around the room: tall ceilings. Mahogany wood beams ran across them. Large windows allowed the midday light to cascade down on us at the central table, where we sat at the south end. It would have been intimidating sitting there with all of these people looking to me for answers in my previous life. Now, I was ready for it.

“We walk to New Spero,” I said, waiting for a response.

I was about to continue when almost everyone in the room began speaking at the same time.

“Trust me. We have a way to transport ourselves from Egypt to New Spero. We’ll send a team there first, tell them what’s transpired, and they’ll begin to accommodate for the new influx of people.” I expected more questions, but that seemed to quiet them.

“How?”

“I’ll show you.”

THIRTY

“You need to sleep,” Mary said as we sat down outside the Giza pyramid.

“I’ll sleep when we’re home.”

We ate sandwiches while watching the procession of people heading into the pyramid, down toward the portal. Clare and Nick were running the trips now, and we’d let the powers that be organize the logistics of getting people from Earth to the warships in orbit, and the rest to Egypt.

The dirt layer separating the bottom of the pyramid from the portal halls had been excavated. It felt wrong to destroy something the Theos had built so long ago, but we had to live another day, and this was the only way.

“What happens after this?” Mary asked, leaning her head on my shoulder as she chewed the last of her roast beef.

I watched the lines of people walking into the Giza pyramid, and spotted a young family with two small children. The mother held her small son in her arms, and the dad held his daughter’s hand, leading them to an uncertain future. Life as they knew it was over, for everyone.

“Dean?”

“After this?” I smiled at her. “We help build a new future for everyone.”

Leonard came out of a tent set up with food, carrying a sandwich and a bottle of water. “Mind if I join you?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Mary said, patting the unused pyramid stone beside her.

“How are you hanging in there, Leonard?” I asked, seriously concerned about my new young friend. We’d been through a crazy adventure together, one where he’d been forced to kill, and be part of something that turned our people’s future forever. His eyes had deep purple bags under them, evidence of the last day’s trials.

“You had to do it,” I said, knowing he’d understand what I referred to.

“Dean’s told me all about you, Leonard,” Mary said. “We’re both very proud of you.”

The man I’d met a couple days ago would have blushed at that, but the new version wasn’t the same youth any longer. “I think I’m done with comics.”

“You don’t mean that. People will want to know what happened.” I surprised myself by saying that.

“Really?” he asked, looking at me with tear-filled eyes.

“Really. You’re a great guy to have by my side. You’ll always have a place on my crew.”

His posture straightened up, and he looked up to the sky, the clouds breaking for a moment so the sun beat down on his face.

We sat there in silence, enjoying each other’s company in near silence as countless people moved from Earth to our new world. Each one of them with a story: a tale about their pre-Event lives, how they survived the Event, why they elected to stay on Earth rather than travel to New Spero, where fate was bringing them after all.

I wondered where their tales would lead them. For that matter, I didn’t know where mine was headed. I sat my hand on Mary’s thigh and gave her a light squeeze. She smiled at me, her hair in a loose ponytail, and a few strands broke free, covering her face. She blew at them, and I loved her more at that moment than ever before.

My future wasn’t set, but my fate was now intertwined with hers. We were partners in whatever was to come.

Magnus approached as the sun went down, followed by Clare and Nick when they swapped out with a duo Magnus trusted to make the portal journeys with the people. The room held four hundred at a time, and they could make the trip every five minutes; the people from Earth arrived at the caves near Terran Five on New Spero.

The warships were able to take a quarter of the Earth’s population, and because of the distance to the pyramids, the Western hemisphere was being brought to the ships rather than to the portal. All in all, almost everyone would be off Earth in five days or less.

Camps were set up, and all Terran cities were pitching in, taking in refugees and donating food, clothing, and shelter where needed. My sister and her husband James were leading the charge at Terran Five, and I couldn’t have been prouder of them.

Slate was the last of my old crew to arrive, and he brought something brown in a clear bottle.

“Where’d you get that?” Magnus asked, taking the bottle and sniffing the contents. He shrugged and grabbed some empty water bottles from around us, filling each with two fingers’ worth.

“What are we toasting to?” Nick asked, looking as exhausted as I felt.

“To surviving.” I raised my plastic bottle in the air, and everyone joined in. “To surviving.” We tapped our drinks and downed some of the liquid.

With that one done, Mary had one more. “To Patrice Dalhousie. One of the strongest and most visionary people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”

“To Patty,” we chorused, and drank the last, Magnus pouring a splash onto the dusty ground.

__________

Mary raced across Africa in the old-style Kraski ship. It had been only six days since we’d made the deal with the Empress, but it felt like weeks.

“Looks clear.” Mary lifted up, taking us higher.

“One more pass?” I asked her.

“Dean, we can’t save them all. If they didn’t make it by now, we can’t do anything.”

Slate made a tapping motion on his wrist, telling me time was up. “You have a last job to do, and so do I.”

Mary nodded and gave the controls over to him.

“Slate, we’ll see you in a couple of months. Don’t worry, we won’t do anything crazy without you,” I said, getting an eye roll from him.

“Like you didn’t do anything crazy the last time I left you?” He laughed.

We neared the pyramids. After days of commotion there, they seemed eerily quiet and serene on the viewscreen. Nothing was left but some tents and millions of footprints from around the world.

“It’s always more fun exploring ancient alien planets with you, buddy. You know that.”

He lowered us, and we headed to the ramp in the middle of the ship, opening it to a brisk midnight desert breeze. “You have everything you need?” he asked, passing me a heavy pack.

Mary swung on a winter jacket and tossed me mine, which I caught with my free hand. “I think so. Sad to think this is the last time we’ll see Earth.”

“You never know,” Slate said back. “Especially with you, boss.”

Mary hugged our big friend. “Zeke Campbell, you’re one in a million. I can’t wait to see you back home. Thanks for keeping Clare and Nick safe up there.” She kissed his cheek, and I hugged him too.

“I couldn’t keep us all safe,” he said somberly.

“You couldn’t help that,” Mary said.

“I guess so. I wish I could just leave this ship behind and come with you, but Magnus is probably right. Every asset should be saved.”

“See you soon.” I saluted him, and we walked down and toward the pyramid. Slate lifted off and headed upward toward the last warship, waiting for the remaining Kraski ships to join them for the journey home.

We watched him leave, looking at the starlit sky. This was it. No more Earth. I thought about my farm back home, my parents now both gone. With a glance over at Mary, I knew she was thinking about it all too, and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

I stretched out my hand, grabbing hers. “New Spero will be our new home. A fresh start for everyone.”

“I’ll miss what we had.”

“Me too.”

We stared into the sky for a while longer before shaking it off and heading toward the pyramid.

“After you,” I said, waving Mary into the entrance. We walked along the pathways in silence; recently installed battery-powered LEDs lit our path. The walkway slanted down the whole time, and soon we were at the floor built to separate our people from the portal.

Crude stairs had been dug into it during the excavation process, and we carefully stepped down them, aware of how many feet had walked down them over the last week.

It looked far different than the portal we’d emerged from not long ago. Now the walls had lights mounted on them, and the halls had been widened to fit more people through at once. The entrance to the portal room was there, the round stone door open just enough to allow us to slip through.

I lowered the heavy pack to the dirt floor, thankful for the reprieve from its weight.

“Let’s set them down the hall a way too,” I said. Mary grabbed a few of the small bombs from the pack and lined the hall with them, one every three yards. They each packed a punch, but we wanted to make sure the portal was gone for good.

Once we emptied the bag of them, Mary took the detonator and slid it into her breast pocket. I tried to roll the door closed, but it didn’t matter. None of it would survive the coming explosion.

“What about everyone we didn’t remove?” I asked, feeling the guilt weigh heavily on me.

“We don’t have the time or resources.”

I nodded and moved to the center of the room where the table sat, its gemstone glowing now. We’d run this portal ragged, but it didn’t seem to have any limitations. That was good to know for other planets. I’d have to fill Sarlun in on my findings. He’d be saddened to hear we’d destroyed one of them, but I hoped he’d understand why.

With the icon loaded for New Spero, Mary slipped the detonator out.

I grabbed the communicator that was linked to the one we’d left behind on the Bhlat ship housing the Empress and tapped it.

“Empress,” I said into it.

“Dean Parker.” Her voice sounded stronger than the last time we’d spoken.

“It’s done. Earth is yours.”

“Thank you.”

“Remember our deal. Our conflict is over. When the dust settles, I’ll contact you with the locations I promised you.” I held my breath, half-expecting a retort.

“Our conflict is over.”

With the communicator back in my pack, Mary set the detonator timer to twenty seconds.

“Goodbye, Earth,” she said quietly.

I pressed the icon, and everything went white.

THIRTY-ONE

“I do,” Mary said through a beautiful smile.

“I now pronounce you man and wife.” The officiant clapped her hands together.

I leaned in, taking Mary’s hands in mine, and I heard the words “you may kiss the bride” after we were already deep into our first kiss as a married couple.

Our friends cheered us on. After a few seconds, I pulled back, not wanting to overdo it.

Mary was so gorgeous, wearing a contemporary wedding dress, her hair in an updo I hadn’t seen before. I wore a tuxedo, the dark pink accents matching her flowers, but it all felt a little out of place on our acreage on New Spero. We’d discussed swaying from tradition, but in the end, elected to follow the old ways from Earth. We couldn’t lose those types of conventions, not with the loss of our home so fresh in everyone’s minds.

We turned to the crowd. I spotted almost everyone we knew, and then some. The day was warm, the planet’s summer season in full effect, and some of the guests were using handmade fans to cool themselves.

Natalia stood beside Mary, acting as her maid of honor, with Magnus at my side as my best man. I glanced and smiled at the front rows, spotting Slate sitting with Clare and Nick, all of them smiling widely. I waved and got a thumbs-up from Slate.

“Time to party!” Mary yelled, getting another cheer. Music came on the speakers, and we walked through the crowd again, stopping to chat here and there. I saw Isabelle and James talking with Leonard, who looked great in his new suit.

Suma and her Gatekeeper father Sarlun were there too, beside Leslie and Terrance. They’d all traveled here for the event via the portals.

“I’m really happy for you two lovebirds,” Magnus said, wrapping his big arm around my shoulder. “I knew we’d make an honest man out of you.”

Natalia was fixing something in Mary’s hair, and little Dean ran up to his dad; Magnus scooped him up in his arms.

I felt something on the back of my leg. I turned to see Carey, holding a toy and pushing it against my calf. I knelt down, so happy to see the aging dog still with so much energy. He accepted my incessant petting and eventually rolled over to let me rub his stomach.

The younger pups found their way over when they saw this, and soon I was playing with them all, tossing a ball while they ran after it. After a few throws, Carey slumped his butt down on my shoe, and watched the more exuberant dogs keep chasing the object.

I loved that dog so much, and he knew it. I could feel Magnus’ gaze on me.

“I’ll be fine. He’s your dog. I only selfishly wish that had worked out differently,” I said.

Maggie trotted over, and Magnus’s son handed me a small bag. I opened it and found a leash, a dog dish, and some food.

“What’s this, Dean?” I asked the boy.

“Maggie’s going to live with you, buddy,” Magnus said, while his little boy shyly hid behind his dad’s leg.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said, looking at the cute dog rolling in the grass.

“Believe me, we have enough going on, and she’s never happier than when she’s over here with you. Don’t say no. You need it as much as she does.”

I didn’t argue. I just picked up Maggie and got a faceful of licks for my trouble.

As I looked around, surrounded by so many familiar faces, I struggled to remember the man I’d been before the Event.

Magnus set up, chasing Dean and the dogs, and everything felt right.

“We did it,” Mary said in my ear as she wrapped her arms around me from behind.

I spun around and kissed her again, this time not caring about first-kiss protocol. I heard James yell, “Get a room.”

He had the right idea, but we had the reception to get through first.

__________

The night wore on, and soon there were only a handful of us left outside our house. Isabelle and James had gone to our guest room, staying with us while they visited from Terran Five.

Clare, Nick, and Slate all sat down at the outdoor fire pit, where embers were glowing hotly in the night air. So much had changed, but so much about us had stayed the same.

“I need to get Suma to bed soon.” Sarlun wore what must have passed for formal wear back home and was as colorful as a flowerbed. He wore it with dignity and grace befitting a man of his stature.

“Thanks for coming. I’m looking forward to spending our honeymoon in your hot springs,” I said, amazed that such a spellbinding place existed. Sarlun had offered his second home there to us, and when he showed us images of the area, we couldn’t say no.

“Dean.” His translator said my name after he spoke. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” His eyes narrowed, and his extended nose twitched. He was nervous about something.

I took a pull from my beer bottle. “No better time than the present.”

“The Theos may be back.”

I spit out the beer I’d sipped and wiped my mouth with my shirt sleeve. “How do you know?”

“One of the Gatekeepers found something,” his speaker translated.

“What is it?”

“I cannot tell you. Only Gatekeepers may know.”

My stomach clenched, and I looked around at what I had: a wonderful small home on a large piece of land on New Spero, with a newly-wed wife, and a dog that followed me around everywhere I went. That was the dream. It had always been mine.

“We’ll do it,” a voice from beyond the fire pit’s light said. Mary walked over, her dress traded for something more functional. She had a beer in her hand too, and she clinked the near-empty one I was holding.

“We will? He hasn’t asked us anything.” I wasn’t sure we should be rushing into this, but our path had already been forged.

“I will ask you. Dean and Mary, will you join our ranks as Gatekeepers? My daughter was right about you. You are special.” He looked me in the eyes without breaking the gaze.

My hand found Mary’s, and I gave it a squeeze.

“We’re in.”

The End of New World

The Survivors Book Three

THE ANCIENTS

(The Survivors Book Four)

The action continues with The Ancients

“The Theos await you. Only then will we stop the Unwinding.”

The threat of invaders is gone, and Earth has been bartered away as a price for peace.

Yet, the human world of New Spero is thriving and full of hope.

Joining the rank of the Gatekeepers, Dean and Mary set off to explore worlds connected by the mysterious portals.

When they stumble upon a strange symbol, they are led to an ancient object, one that sets them on an unstoppable path.

The journey takes them through multiple worlds, before they can find what they’re searching for. Long ago, the ancient race called the Theos vanished without a trace, and have been next to forgotten for centuries. Do they still exist?

Dean intends to find out, but when he’s faced with the truth, he fears everything he loves will be lost.

Books by Nathan Hystad

The Survivors Series

The Event

New Threat

New World

The Ancients

The Theos

Red Creek

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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The Ancients is now available. Get the exciting continuation of the Survivors series.

Nathan Hystad is an author from Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada. When he isn’t writing novels, he’s running a small publishing company, Woodbridge Press.

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Content

Nathan Hystad
THE SURVIVORS: BOOKS 1–3

THE EVENT BY NATHAN HYSTAD

Copyright

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

NEW THREAT BY NATHAN HYSTAD

Copyright

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

NEW WORLD BY NATHAN HYSTAD

Copyright

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THE ANCIENTS (The Survivors Book Four)

Books by Nathan Hystad

ABOUT THE AUTHOR