Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
They made Knightley get back into bed for a few last checks before he would be moved to a room. I suggested my room since I wasn’t willing to stay with Colt again. I wasn’t sure what they were going to do with him, but I doubted they’d send him back to try again.
“He will be moved to another ship,” the big guy said, confirming my thought process. “Those who are dangerous to our people are separated and monitored more closely. But you aren’t going back to that room either.”
Well, shit. Guess I was getting my ass separated, too.
“Wait, he didn’t hurt anyone,” Knightley protested. “Why is he being punished?”
Knightley didn’t know how I got here, and I felt like an idiot having to explain. “I, uh… may have been the reason Colt got out. I cut the wires on the locking mechanism.” I shrugged at Knightley’s incredulous look. “He wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone.”
Rolling his eyes, Knightley dropped his head back.
“Only you. Only you would be so annoyed with someone that you literally hot-wired the door to let them escape. How many years did you avoid getting promoted just so you didn’t have to deal with people?
” He lifted his head again, raising an eyebrow at me.
“And what? You decided to go along with him? You can’t be that stupid. ”
I made a face, wrinkling my nose. “Hell no. I told him to go by himself. But then no one came looking for me, and I was worried about your injury, so I thought I’d look for you and make sure they weren’t doing any weird alien probing or something.
I got caught by this guy wandering around,” I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder at Aster, who looked a little smug, to be honest. It was annoying, but then again, he didn't have to put in much effort to catch me.
“Then he called in the cavalry, and they were nice enough to bring me here to check on you.”
“Aww. You snuck around on an alien spaceship to check on me? How sweet,” Knightley teased.
Aster growled before I could give the guy the finger, and we both jerked around to face him. Aster looked pissed for some reason, and his hands kept flexing, like he was struggling to keep them to himself.
“You alright, man?” Knightley asked, a hint of trepidation in his voice.
The big guy answered for him, his expression irritated. “He is fine. You are not going back to your room because we need more information. We have done you a favor to let you see your friend. Now you will come with us.”
Shit. Did I just make myself beholden to an alien race because I wanted to check on my friend?
Should’ve just stayed in the damn room. Knightley looked worried, which was fair.
Who knew how they were going to extract information from me.
How many sci-fi movies had people hooked up to electronic shit and had their minds scrambled as people poked around in there?
I wasn’t exactly a genius, but I didn’t want my head messed with if I could help it.
I didn’t have time to overthink the possibilities.
A tentacle wrapped around my elbow, dragging me away from Knightley and toward the door.
I’d seen little octopi at the aquarium as a kid.
I always thought their tentacles looked fragile.
Not like they could drag me around like a damn doll.
I tripped over my feet at one point and only that firm grip on my elbow kept me moving.
They marched me back toward that fancy-looking room with the plants and the windows, walking straight through it toward another hallway.
I stared out the window, trying to get an idea of where we were.
“Is that… Los Angeles?”
Aster nodded. “Yes. We have occupying over major cities on planet.”
“Humans are surprisingly spread out amongst the lands,” the big guy interjected with a frown. “Are there not spaces that are incompatible with life?”
“Uh…” I wasn’t sure I was supposed to be answering questions like that.
I wasn’t anyone important, but it didn’t seem like a malicious question.
Just curiosity. I didn’t see the harm in answering it.
“Well, yeah, there are a few places that are definitely not safe for humans. In Antarctica, for example, the only people who stay out there are scientists. Pretty sure some deserts are too hard to actually live in, too.”
The hallways we were going down now actually had windows instead of just lines of doors, so I could see out over the city.
I was surprised it wasn’t on fire. People panic, and every alien invasion movie I’d ever seen showed the panic leading to accidents and billowing fires, plane crashes, etc.
It looked surprisingly quiet. Which was a little unnerving, honestly.
There was no way the human race would stay silent for long.
Just how long would they attempt to get us back before they decided it was safer and easier to just nuke the alien ships and say to hell with the consequences?
“In here.” Aster led me into what looked like a command center.
Monitors filled the wall, flicking between videos of different areas in the western United States.
There were still ships out picking people up, and I watched in horrified fascination as one swept over a base like a vacuum, plucking people right off the ground.
Other monitors showed stats, though I didn’t understand their language, so I wasn’t sure what they were for.
There were computers all facing the monitors, with aliens in front of them.
Watching specific ships, maybe? Who the hell knows?
There were no windows in here, but it was still bright and lacked the terrifying vibe I’d expected.
“Sit,” the big guy demanded, pointing to a chair at a table in the middle.
The room was busy, aliens scurrying around with their fancy tablets, a few watching the monitors and speaking into microphones to whoever was on the other end.
I got some curious looks and some apprehensive ones, but mostly they just left us alone.
Aster sat beside me, his chair practically up against mine. He was hovering again, offering me water or food. I shook my head, giving my attention to the big guy. He seemed annoyed with Aster’s fussing, and I didn’t want his patience to snap while I was the one sitting in front of him.
“I, uh… I don’t know what to call you.”
His gaze flicked to me and narrowed suspiciously. He didn’t answer right away, silently studying me for a minute. It was almost like he could see straight through me, which freaked me out a little. Could aliens read minds? Was he listening to my every thought right now? Did he know I needed to pee?
“You may call me Trevuk.” His answer yanked me out of my panic spiral, and I gave him my attention again.
“Trevuk. Okay. What exactly are you wanting information about? Because if it’s about military movement or locations of nukes or whatever, I’m not going to answer. I don’t even know the answer, but I wouldn’t anyway. So if that’s what you’re hoping for–”
“We need not that,” Aster interrupted.
Trevuk nodded in agreement. “We have already disabled your missiles to better protect ourselves. And we are nearly finished removing military personnel from the planet’s surface.”
I accidentally snorted. In my defense, it was a little funny.
They thought they got all military members in a matter of what?
Half a day? I wasn’t sure exactly when they showed up or what time it was now, but I doubted they got everyone.
There were always inactive duty, reserves, the draft.
Hell, we were still over the United States.
Groups of Americans with more firepower than the local police could be planning an attack as we spoke.
They might not have military training, but they were still dangerous.
“What’s funny?” Trevuk demanded.
“Nothing,” I answered quickly. That got me another suspicious look from Trevuk, but hey, I wasn’t about to give up our advantage to a bunch of aliens just because I managed to open the door to their little prison.
I was loyal to my country first. Or maybe my species was more important.
He said they were all around the world. We must not have been the only military who was picked up.
Aster put his hand on my forearm on the table, drawing my attention to him. “We not here to hurt humans. We here to save planet.”
I frowned, looking between the two of them. “Save it how, exactly?”
If it was eliminating humans, then I seriously wasn’t going to help them, and I would consider fucking with their systems more to figure out how to get ahead of them. I wasn’t going to sit around and let them terrorize us.
Aster made a face and muttered something in his own language. Trevuk gave him a bland look. “I told you to get one sooner. You wanted to wait.”
Aster grumbled something again before jerking his chin at Trevuk, who rolled his eyes before turning to me.
“We were sent here by the Intergalactic Alliance for the Ecological Protection of Planets. We are here because your planet’s health has reached critical levels we can no longer ignore.
We normally don’t make contact with a planet before they’ve accomplished light travel, as they are often not receptive to life forces outside their own planet, but it is necessary.
Your practices are killing your planet. We are here to help fix that. ”
Everyone and their mother knew about global warming and the shit that was going down in the environment.
Not everyone believed it, but I did. I saw the evidence in every warm winter or ice caps melting.
I did what I could to recycle and compost, and I thought most people did the same thing.
Scientists said we still had a chance to fix it.
I figured we were making progress on it.
Apparently, the aliens felt differently.
“So, what? Are you coming to eliminate us or something?” I demanded, my stomach twisting at the thought.
Going after the military first would make sense if they were going to eliminate us.
It would leave the rest of the world scrambling to find fighters to protect themselves.
Who knew how long it’d take to get anything moving if they destroyed the bases, too.
But it didn’t make any sense that they were treating the prisoners so well, if that was the plan.
Aster shook his head quickly. “No. We help. Stop environment damage. Teach new ways.”
Looking slowly between them, I tried to wrap my head around what they were saying.
“Let me get this straight. You’re here to help us fix the planet and teach us new ways of doing things that won’t hurt it in the process.
And you figured the best way to initiate that conversation was to abduct military personnel from every country around the world? ”
“And government,” Aster supplied helpfully with a smile. “They reside in main ship so we can talk better.”
Pressing my lips tightly together, I raised my eyebrows and nodded slowly. The alien version of Greenpeace shows up out of nowhere, abducts every military member and government official they can find, and expects to get their message across to save the planet.
Yup. We were all going to die.