“So… Now what?” Alice asked all present, saving me from the extremely awkward position I’d found myself in after the man at my feet had stabbed himself and seemed to silently ask for my approval.

  “Now, we rest. None of you should be getting any worse anymore and it’s been a day.” I told her, my own exhaustion starting to catch up to me as the adrenalin slowly wore off.

  In truth, I had no way to know if their ‘condition’, for lack of a better word, would continue to get worse, their view of reality more and more warped to the point of unrecognizability, but with no better options I had no choice but to act on the hope that whatever parasite I’d seen trying to dig into their brains had been rendered inert for the time being. There would definitely have to be some in depth studies done once we could get out of this goddamn space tree to see if the effects it had already had on them could be reversed but there was no way that could be anything other than a future problem.

  Onto more immediate concerns, however, I turned my attention to whatever it was that had been poking at my neck uncomfortably since I’d been tossed through a wall. I tried to fiddle with the collar of my suit as best I could but no matter how hard I tried, I could not find whatever it was that was causing the annoying sensation, much less even begin to try and fix it. After a good few minutes of awkwardly trying, I turned to my trio of companions.

  “Hey, I think something’s wrong with my suit, could any of you try to have a look and see if you can spot what’s poking me?” I asked while still pulling at the offending equipment’s collar, and was met with a resounding silence.

  “What suit? You’re not wearing anything that I can tell.” Alice answered, looking dumbfounded for a second before her expression turned downcast. Curt had predictably stayed silent, sitting on his knees as he slowly recovered from having stabbed himself, being tended to by an also silent Sarah, who hadn’t even acknowledged the question.

  “Right. Shit.” I muttered to myself. In my focus on a different task, it had slipped my mind that the way they looked like to me –like humanoid Guardians almost indistinguishable from the ones that had chased and imprisoned us, and missing all the equipment they’d been carrying when we first left our pod– was also the way I looked like to them, and even if we had, to some extent, gotten over the confusing and disturbing effect it had when trying to interact with each other in any way, no amount of care and logical thinking could get past the very real limitations that such a discrepancy in what each of us perceived had when it came to more delicate operations.

  “Sarah, think you could…?” I turned with little hope, still pointing around my neck, to the only person present other than myself who could see me the way I was rather than as some freaky alien abomination.

  “What was that? Oh, I guess I could take a look, but then again…” Sarah spoke up, at first distractedly, being broken out of whatever silent conversation was going on between her and Curt, and though her first words gave me some hope that she could help out, she finished by raising a single finger tipped in a wicked looking curved talon. “This looks like a normal finger to me, and after everything that’s happened I don’t know if it would be safe to go poking around your neck with it.”

  “Probably best not to.” I once again muttered under my breath.

  It was looking like the only way I could properly take a look at it would be by stripping out of my suit entirely, its design meant to securely encapsulate the wearer’s body having left little room for modularity, and having already spent more time than I’d ever care for climbing, crawling and being tossed through surfaces coated in the ever present slime of this space tree, I was not willing to take off my protective equipment and risk having it get into more places where it wasn’t wanted.

  “Well, nothing to it, I guess. I’ll look at it with fresh eyes later, but for now, I’m exhausted.” I spoke to no one in particular with feigned nonchalance, then picked a random spot on the floor indistinguishable from any other to lie down in.

  “Wait, you’re just gonna sleep there?” Came a question from Alice just as I was getting comfortable.

  “Yeah, why?” I asked back, not opening my eyes.

  “This is an apartment.” She told me, her seemingly mundane statement punctuated with the slightest trembling of her voice that she did her best to hide. “There’s beds over there.”

  “Really? Where?”

  To answer my question, she simply walked towards the wall I’d made a hole in and then… Did something. The best I could describe it would be that she squeezed through a tiny orifice in the wall, so small that it had been invisible until I looked for it, which expanded as she went to accommodate her passage, tightly hugging her body the whole way but offering no resistance that I could notice. Her action was then mimicked by the other two and, were it not for the large hole in the wall I had been tossed through and through which I could now see the trio on the other side, I would have thought I’d been left completely alone in the cave I’d taken over.

  Naturally, rather than doing whatever that was, I simply stepped through the much larger opening in the damaged membrane that passed for a wall in this cave, apparently.

  “Pfft, couldn’t go through the door like a normal person?” Alice asked me with a chuckle from where she lay on a spot on the floor that looked exactly like any other.

  “Absolutely not.” I told her, trying to hide my true thoughts with a bit of humor.

  “That the bed?” I asked her, and at her nod, I simply collapsed next to her, all energy for the day completely spent.

  Alice laughed faintly and proceeded to wrap me around in her arms as well as her… not arms. It was something I could have done without, especially since, much like everything else in this tree, the three people with me were absolutely covered in the pervasive slime that I would rather not be also coated in, but between her recovering but still unstable mood and my lack of energy, I simply refrained from commenting.

  “You look comfortable.” Quirking an eye open, I saw Sarah’s slightly amused face after having made that comment. She had walked away from Curt, who sat with his back against the opposite ‘wall’ to us, and she then took a seat next to me and opposite Alice.

  “Can’t complain.” I lied. Her response was a half smile that didn’t let me know if she had noticed or not.

  “How’re you feeling?” I asked her softly, keeping my movements to the absolute minimum.

  “I don’t know.” She started. “Scared… Confused… Mostly tired, I guess. And worried for the future.”

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she needed to vent to someone, and it fell on me to listen to her.

  “I mean, I’m trying to figure out how it’s all gonna go if we manage to get back home. I look at us and I feel like it’s all gonna be fine, but then I remember it’s not fine and we’re not how we look, and then I look at Curt and all he’s been through in just a few hours and what everyone’s gonna think about it, if they even take the time to listen to us and don’t just shoot us on sight thinking we’re just some other Guardians…” On she went for at least a few minutes, airing her fears and concerns, both present and future, until I saw an opening to interrupt her downward emotional spiral.

  “When.” I said firmly with whatever dregs of energy I could drag from my tired body.

  “What?” She asked, dumbfounded, seeming to have forgotten about my presence with her emotional turmoil.

  “You said ‘if we get back home’, not ‘when’. It should be ‘when’.” I told her, grabbing and gently squeezing her hand that had landed just within reach of mine as I lay in the sort of flesh cocoon that Alice had wrapped me up in. The woman had studiously avoided being part of the conversation from the start and now if she was only pretending to be asleep, then I could honestly say she had me fooled.

  It took a while for Sarah to gather her thoughts enough to understand what I’d pointed at, but eventually she did, and they almost immediately began to spiral again.

  “Right, sure, but that’s all besides the point. What happens when we do meet the others? How do we explain all that happened? Hell, can we even explain-?”

  “You keep assuming the worst.” I once again interrupted her ramblings. “Are you forgetting that I’m still here? And I don’t think I’m flying off the handle coming to crazy conclusions and treating you all like monsters, am I?”

  “No, but-”

  “But nothing, I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it as many times as it takes. I know who you are and I’ll be damned if I let anyone make a fuss about it when we all get home, are we clear?”

  “Right… Thanks Captain.” She said, and we fell into companionable silence with another gentle squeeze of her hand held in mine, which she reciprocated shortly after.

  “Feeling better?” I asked her once her breathing had calmed down.

  “Yeah, I guess I am.” She said with a sigh.

  “Good, cause I can see someone who could definitely use some kind words.” I told her, pointing with my gaze at Curt, the rest of my body still mostly immobilized.

  Sarah, it seemed, needed no further instructions as she let go of my hand and went to take her place next to the former pipsqueak turned goliath.

  In truth, throughout that entire conversation, I had been eyeing him somewhat nervously, as he had been… jumpy. He’d had this subtle twitch to his arms and legs every time I said a word and every other time that Sarah spoke that made it seem like he’d been ready to pounce on us at any moment, and given what I’d been told about what he’d been up to, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had been. That, even more than the grip Alice had me in, was the main reason why I’d gone out of my way to avoid making any sort of movements, as I was painfully aware that any action I took to try and help might be perceived as something else. As it was, I could only hope that Sarah would be able to put his worries to rest.

  Without warning, I received a gentle, full-body squeeze from the flesh cocoon Alice had encased me in, before quickly relaxing back to its previous position. The small gesture let me know that she had absolutely been faking her sleep the whole time, but also that she appreciated my actions and my willingness to stand by my previous promise to her in spite of everything that had happened, the simplicity of it enough to transcend the bizarre nature of our situation and ensure the meaning carried through.

  And with that, I passed out into blissful slumber.

  I awoke next to Curt where we lay on the bed we’d appropriated in this little apartment, in the same room up against the opposite wall where Alice had picked her own large bed to sleep in, and Chloe, despite being invited to share that bed, had passed out on the floor next to it for some reason.

  Being the first to come to consciousness, I got a great view of Curt’s shuttered eyes, slowly, tentatively, beginning to open ever so slightly as he roused from his sleep.

  “G’morning.” I gently whispered to him.

  He snored in my face.

  Right, completely misread that, I guess.

  Honestly, I wasn’t even mad. This bit of mundanity had been just what I needed after the emotionally exhausting day that yesterday had been, so, taking care to move as slowly as possible to avoid waking him for real this time, I began the careful process of getting out of bed.

  “H’wa…? S’morning already?” Curt asked halfway through a snore. Evidently I hadn’t managed to move without waking him.

  Rather than answer, I just shot him a smile and his response was to grab me by the hip and pull me back beside him before promptly trying to fall back asleep while hugging me like I was some giant stuffed animal. It was small things like this that made everything worth it, and that energized me so I could get ready to tackle the events of the coming da-

  Right, shit. We need to do some things today.

  The events of the last few days and what they meant going forward suddenly came rushing to the forefront of my mind where they threatened to immediately crush my rising mood. Fortunately they didn’t quite manage it, but they did manage to sober me up enough to pull myself out of bed and into full wakefulness, despite much groaning coming from beside me.

  “Morning.” Alice said groggily from where she was just beginning to come to consciousness. As she did, she let go of the captain, whom she’d held onto from the edge of her bed throughout the night, causing her to stir, and immediately bolt upright the instant her eyes cracked open.

  Everybody froze for a second as Chloe’s fight or flight response cycled and after an awkwardly long second, she came fully to her senses and recognized the people around her.

  “Right… Sorry everyone, and good morning.” She greeted everyone lamely, a bit of tired embarrassment leaking through her tone. That and the visible bags under her eyes made it clear that her sleep hadn’t been as restful as mine, yet in typical Chloe fashion, she quickly rallied and filled her body language, if not her face, with the energy we associated with her.

  I was about to return her greeting when I was stopped by a scream from behind me.

  “Shit!” Curt yelled, panicked at seeing and hearing the captain first thing in the morning, and in that instant I was already there to try and calm him down.

  “Shh. Hey! It’s not what it looks like. We talked about this, remember?” I told him from where I’d positioned myself to cover his entire field of vision. Unable to see what had scared him, he slowly recovered, taking deep breaths to calm himself down, an effort that was almost immediately ruined as the captain called out.

  “What was that?” She said, almost reigniting Curt’s panic attack.

  “Nothing!” I told her.

  “Didn’t seem like nothing…” She grumbled.

  “Ok. Ok… I’m ok.” Curt told me, speaking softly.

  “See?!” I asked the captain over my shoulder.

  “See what?”

  “Nothing!”

  Ugh. This is gonna get old very fast.

  Still, annoying as it was, leaving Curt to suffer by himself was out of the question. From what he’d told me, he’d been unable to look at Chloe and not see her doing something nefarious, snarling, lunging, clawing and generally attacking every time he laid eyes on her. This was regardless of whatever she actually happened to be doing at the time. In his eyes, she would always be doing something threatening, which became even scarier when he took his eyes off her for a few moments, only to turn back and see a twisted version of her like some kind of cheap horror movie jumpscare. It had apparently been something he’d first began to notice at the start of their fight when he first set foot in this apartment, and hadn’t stopped since. It had been a big part of why that fight had even taken place to begin with.

  To add onto that, for some strange reason, he had no way to actually communicate with her, and neither could she talk to him, each straight up unable to hear the other’s words, so it fell on Alice and I to pass on any necessary information and de-escalate tensions that arose from whatever was messing with our senses.

  The whole thing was extremely concerning. Exhausting at best and dangerous at worst. It meant that, no matter how hard he tried, Curt would always have to keep his guard up around our captain, and unless she also did the same or either of them lost the presence of mind to keep track of what’s what for even a second, then things could get bloody really fast. It was why it fell on me to be there for Curt to help him calm down in spite of the overstimulation his eyes fed him, while Chloe, the only one of us unaffected by whatever the pillslugs had done to us, could mostly be trusted to keep herself in check, so long as everyone remained careful.

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  “Right. So! Plans for today!” Chloe called out to everyone, this time not making Curt jump since he had mostly gotten himself together. “First order of business should be to regroup with the other half of our squad. It’s something that’s already been put off longer than I’d like so it should be priority number one. We know the shuttle is likely destroyed so chances are they’d be hiding out in the pod, so we backtrack there. That done, we check on their situation and go from there. We don’t really have maps anymore so we’ll be going mostly blind but we don’t have any other choice. Anyone have anything to add?”

  I was half tempted to make a snarky remark about having breakfast before going out but I held myself back, Chloe’s serious attitude conveying that this was no time for jokes.

  “What did she say?” Curt asked me, and if my humor had been restrained before, now it was shot dead. Still, I knew it wasn’t his fault, so I relayed her words to him, and he made no further comments.

  “Then out we go!” She ordered while injecting just a tiny bit of cheer to her voice that lifted my spirits somewhat after having been confronted with Curt’s situation twice in the span of five minutes. As we all moved to the exit of the apartment and Alice walked out first, however, Chloe stopped at the door.

  “What’s that?” She asked, her face twisted in an expression of disgust.

  “What’s what?” I asked her, unsure of what was making her have such a strong reaction. Instead of answering, she just waved at everything ahead of her, which happened to be the three of us and the doorway.

  “You mean the door?” Alice asked, poking her head back in, and I could swear I almost saw Chloe gag, despite her best efforts to hide it.

  “Sure. ‘Course it is. Well, I will be taking the other exit if you don’t mind.” She said, moving towards the back of the apartment. I was halfway through asking what she meant when she jumped off the balcony to presumably plummet onto the streets below.

  “Should we be worried?” Alice asked.

  “Pro’bly not?” Curt answered her, though he did not sound so sure himself.

  One elevator ride that seemed to stretch on forever later, we were all outside, where fortunately there were no obvious signs of where the captain had gone splat, but unfortunately there was no sign of the captain either.

  “Ah, shit, not this again. Anyone see her?” Curt asked, already exasperated, looking around and above at the building behind us.

  “No, but not what again?” Alice asked him, also keeping an eye out.

  “We’re split up again!” Curt raised his voice, causing Alice to flinch at his words. “Not two steps away from where we slept and already we are in the same position that caused all our problems yesterday!”

  I’d initially thought he’d been dreading the prospect of losing sight of the captain and the subsequent jumpscare that would have to follow when he spotted her, but he had a point. Most of our problems had stemmed from being split up from the rest of our squad, either by choice or by force, and not even an hour into the day and we’d already lost track of someone.

  “We need to go look for her.” Curt grumbled a direction for what was left of our group as the acting Sub-Captain, and started to move away from the building, only to be interrupted by a voice coming from behind him as he started to march off.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Came the captain’s voice from a first floor balcony of the building we’d exited from, which also caused Curt to let out a less than manly scream.

  “To look for you!” Alice called back as the captain scaled down the outside of the building like some sort of lunatic.

  “I’m right here. Why would I be anywhere else?” Was her answer, and much as we all wanted to come up with a proper response to her quip, we simply settled for a short bit of silence.

  “Right, well, first things first, we look for the pod. Now I’m no navigator, but unless I’m misremembering, it should be in that direction.” She said, pointing to her left in the direction of the building next to the one we’d just exited from.

  “You mean, down the street that way?” Alice asked her, pointing down the street to her right and Chloe’s left.

  The captain, for her part, looked confused at the mention of a street before answering: “Sure, but not quite, I mean towards that opening.” She said, still pointing towards the same building.

  “You want us to go into another building?”

  “No, just… follow me.” She finally ordered, moving down the street in the direction Alice had pointed.

  “So… where’re we going?” Asked Curt in a low voice, sensing the strange mood.

  “Pod.” I told him succinctly.

  “And what’s this about going into a building?”

  “Apparently nothing!” Alice grumbled somewhat loudly.

  “What was that?” Chloe asked from her position in the lead of our formation.

  “Nothing!” She called back.

  “Sounded like something.”

  “Well, it wasn’t”

  “So it wasn’t nothing?” Curt butt in, only able to hear two thirds of the dialogue going on.

  “No, it was!”

  “Ah, then what was it?” Chloe asked, stopping her walk and turning around to address her.

  “Well if it was nothing then why are we stopping?” Curt asked.

  “Are we sure the pod was this way?” I asked, also interrupting the conversation and pulling it in an entirely different direction.

  “Well that’s what she said earlier.” Alice grumbled.

  “Wait, when did that happen?” Curt asked her.

  “Right after we left the apartment!”

  “What did I say after leaving the apartment?” Chloe asked once again.

  “Where the pod was!”

  “Ok, and did you think it was somewhere else?” She asked sweetly.

  “No, but Sarah asked if- Oh fuck all of you!” Alice said without malice, having finally caught on to our game and pouting up a storm in fake outrage that didn't take long to crack and become one of her tiny smiles.

  Sharing a quick laugh at that moment of levity, we moved on. It soon became clear, however, that none of us had a good enough grasp of where the pod had ended up to be able to backtrack towards it without maps, so it didn’t take long before we had to stop or risk getting completely lost.

  “Any ideas?” The captain asked everyone.

  “We could ask the locals.” Alice supplied after a moment of silence.

  “Come again?” Chloe asked her.

  “Well, the locals might have come across the pod, I figure it should be pretty easy to spot against the local architecture so maybe they did and we can ask them!” She explained, already calling out to a random man walking down the same street as us.

  …

  “A space-pod, you say? Well, I don’t know about that, but I do remember some commotion going on that the police were trying to clean up down on the intersection of Primrose and Honeydew Avenues, maybe that’s what you’re looking for?” The man supplied at Alice’s questioning.

  “And when did this commotion start?”

  “Well it started some two weeks ago when people noticed this weird thing poking out of a wall, but it really only became a problem like two days ago when the police got involved. I think it’s calmed down since then, though.”

  “Right, and where can we find the intersection between Primrose and Honeydew?” Alice asked again, this time a little more insistently than the last time.

  “Oh, that’s easy, just walk four blocks down this road, then you’ll reach Primrose, turn right and walk two more blocks and you’re there.”

  “Thank you, sir!”

  “It was no problem at all young lady, best of luck to you.”

  “Well, you heard the man, let’s go!” I said, already starting off to follow his directions.

  “No, I didn’t, what just happened?” Chloe asked me, stopping me in my tracks.

  Right, this shit again, it’s basically Curt all over again.

  “The man told us where we could probably find the pod.”

  “Come again?” Chloe asked again, and I just shrugged at her with my arms up in an expression that I hoped would convey ‘I don’t know what you want from me here’.

  “Ok, and where is that, then?”

  “Primrose and Honeydew!” Alice chirped from behind me, to the captain’s complete befuddlement.

  “Are you fuckin’– You know what, no. If you know where that is, then lead on.” She said, evidently done with our shit, whatever that was.

  …

  “Does this look weird to any of you?” I asked any who would answer.

  “What does it look like to you?” Chloe asked me.

  “Well… Like someone took a circular cutout off a brick wall and then filled it back up without bothering to align any of the new bricks.” I answered honestly. “Is it any different to you?”

  “No, pretty much the same. Except replace the bricks with space tree nastiness.”

  “You think this is…?”

  “Yeah.”

  I didn’t need to finish my question for the captain to be ready with an answer. After all, what were the chances we’d found signs of person sized, circular shaped damage on the walls of this space tree and it being unrelated to the pod with a person sized circular hatch we’d used to dig a hole into this tree from space? I wanted to hold onto a hope that maybe the entrance to the pod had simply been covered and it was still there behind these bricks, but even then, the only thing out there should be the void of space, so for better or for worse, the pod and anyone who had been in it was lost to us, and with it, our last hope of getting back to our mothership and back home.

  “Does that mean… we’re stuck here?” Alice asked weakly, her last bits of hope leaving her with every word spoken.

  “No.” The captain spoke quietly, but with finality.

  “But then how-?” Alice began to ask, but stopped when she noticed the captain was talking to herself and not really listening to the world around her.

  “No, this tree has to be mobile. It has to be or they wouldn’t have been able to get it into orbit in the first place. But then where do they…” Chloe continued to mutter to herself.

  “Hey, so, is that what I think it is?” Curt asked from my side.

  “Yeah.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Alright, new plan!” The captain suddenly yelled, drawing another startled scream from Curt which she ignored as if she hadn’t even heard it, which, in hindsight, she probably hadn’t. “This tree has to be able to move, or else it never would have reached or be able to sustain a stable orbit, so if we can’t take a pod or a shuttle to the mothership, then we take the tree to the mothership. We’ll need to commandeer whatever way the locals have of flying it so that it can be brought close to the mothership. Once there, I can do a short space walk to hop into a shuttle and ferry you all back since none of you have any EVA suits. Any thoughts?”

  Alice and I stayed quiet for a few seconds and it took me longer than I cared to admit to realise that Curt had likely got none of that plan, so I relayed it to him.

  “Okay, several questions.” He started, with me acting as an intermediary between him and Chloe. “How do we know this tree can even make it to the mothership, much less move at all?”

  “We don’t know for sure, but it’s all we’ve got at the moment.”

  “How are we even supposed to find whatever passes as a control room for this tree, if it even exists?”

  “Ooh, there’s street signs!” Alice interrupted me before I could even voice Curt’s question. “Command Center should be twelve kilometers that way-ish!”

  “There are? Oh, yeah, good find.” Curt commented.

  “There are? Fuck it, ‘course there are. Anything else?” Chloe asked, sounding exasperated.

  “How are we supposed to fly a gigantic alien space tree?”

  “Well, it’s likely we’ll need the help of the locals and with everything that’s happened I don’t expect them to be friendly or willing to help. Since you can talk to them, that makes this whole plan at least possible in theory, but then the question becomes: Can you get these creatures that look like people to do what you want them to, by force if necessary?”

  The silence stretched on for what felt like an eternity as Alice, Curt and I processed her question. Could we threaten people into doing what we needed them to, even if they tried to resist? People who were just going about their lives and, aside from our unfortunate interactions with Guardians, had been nothing but friendly? There was no telling what kind of aliens we would find in this ‘Command Center’, so we’d have to go in mentally prepared for anything, which just brought the question back around. Could we do it? It felt like something as cruel as it would be necessary, which just made the whole question all the more distasteful to even consider.

  “If you don’t think you can, then I understand. I can think of some other plan, but I need to kno-”

  “We’ll do it.” Curt interrupted our captain. “We have to.” He spoke with finality, and with that, our decision was made.

  The 12 kilometer walk to the command center had been mostly pleasant for most of us, but absolute hell for Chloe. While we’d had time to relax in the pleasant atmosphere and take in the true scale of this space tree to let go of the tension of the previous days, Chloe’s feet apparently kept getting stuck to the ground with each step for whatever reason, which was no way to travel that kind of distance, so we’d made camp in an under construction building to rest for the night and tackle the command center the following day. Luckily the uninhabited nature of the spot meant we could set up with no casualties among the locals this time, which was infinitely worth the discomfort of having to sleep on hard, dirty concrete with no furniture.

  The following morning, we’d taken some much needed time to stretch and massage our stiff backs from having slept on the floor before truly starting the day. The one exception had been Chloe, who couldn’t seem to find a difference between this husk of a building and a fully furnished home, and had made a habit of sleeping on the floor besides.

  “Well, this is it.” The captain spoke to us from where we stood at the gates of a skyscraper clearly labeled ‘Command Center’ by a helpful sign near its entrance.

  Shit, this is happening.

  This was a moment I’d been dreading since the moment the plan was outlined. From the day we’d signed up for this job, we were meant to be explorers, going out into the stars to find new places to call home. We were not meant to be police, military and most certainly not whatever this was, and yet our circumstances left us with no choice but to go through with this plan that anywhere else would be seen as criminal at best, and an act of terrorism at worst.

  “I’m hoping to avoid casualties as much as possible, but once we start breaking into places where we’re not supposed to be, I can’t imagine a scenario that doesn’t involve some form of chaos, so heads on swivels. Let’s go.” She ordered somewhat somberly, crushing my hopes to stall for time a little longer as we all moved into the large tower.

  The instant we set foot in the building, all our gazes, immediately and in perfect synch, locked on to the terrified receptionist behind a front desk. Well, all our gazes except Chloe’s, who instead looked at each of us and followed our line of sight to the poor civilian before dashing towards them with a muttered curse. This almost led to Curt attempting to pounce on our captain but luckily I managed to hold him back. Alice, meanwhile, dashed after the captain who, for her part, tossed her stick at the civilian who was still paralyzed in fear.

  Oh no… I thought as I watched the deadly projectile sail through the air. It didn’t even really arc, due to the combination of the strength behind the throw and the low gravity of the environment, instead travelling in a perfectly straight line towards its destination.

  Perhaps for that very reason, the weapon missed its intended target, instead burying itself by the tip in the wall behind and slightly above the shocked receptionist. Chloe reached them half a heartbeat after that, but luckily so did Alice.

  “Terribly sorry about that, I assure it won’t happen again! I was just hoping to have a word with you for a moment?” Alice told the shaken receptionist in an attempt to de-escalate the situation while subtly holding back Chloe, who moved to retrieve her thrown stick but otherwise didn’t interrupt.

  “A-ah I see.” The receptionist spoke through her shock with a halting voice, before continuing more steadily. “Well, if you are looking for the kennels and embracing chambers, then I’m afraid you won’t find any in this building-”

  “Thanks, but that won’t be necessary.” Alice interrupted. “We were just hoping to bring this one to Central Command. Rare specimen, you see. We were hoping to establish communication with someone who can point us in the direction of where we could bring it to a transport hub. It’s a bit too lively to be treated in Skyhaven, as I’m sure you’ll agree.” She rattled off a bunch of excuses that would hopefully sound generic enough to be believable, all while asking for access to communications and transport out of the space tree. I had to admit, I was genuinely impressed by her quick thinking.

  “Of course, down the hall to your left, then take the elevator to the top floor, I’ll make sure it’s unlocked for you.” The receptionist said with a serious voice, apparently finding no reason to doubt Alice’s words.

  With a few parting words and polite smiles, we departed in the direction we’d been pointed to, much to Chloe’s confusion.

  “What just happened?”

  “We got directions and authorization to be here.” I answered in place of Alice, who had deflated the moment we were away from peering eyes. “One elevator ride and we’ll have access to communications and transport. And we are meant to be there, so no one should bat an eye.”

  “That’s… brilliant, actually. Although, why did you ask for communication?”

  “Well…” It was Alice who answered this time. “Their cities look advanced enough. I thought maybe if they had cameras or something we could use them to try and find Mike and the others before leaving.” She spoke shyly.

  The captain didn’t answer. I’d known her long enough to know she was glad for the opportunity to find our missing squad members but I also realized that our mission had simply gone so far off the rails that we had no choice but to prioritize getting out of here as quickly as possible, and when the time came, sge'd be the one forced to make that call. I did not envy her position at the moment.

  In no time at all, we were in the elevator which, despite the captain's complaints and constant shivering all the way, carried us smoothly to the top floor, and we waited outside what was presumably some form of central command room on the other side of a pair of closed, solid steel sliding doors.

  The captain took a deep breath before addressing us. “Well, we’re here. You’ve all done well to keep us out of trouble so far, but we need to take control of whatever’s beyond these… doors. So, things will get ugly, and likely fast. All I ask is that you keep an eye on each other, and then we’ll go home. Everyone ready?” At our nods, she finished. “Let’s go.”

  As she ordered, Curt opened the gates for us and we were met with a large circular room with its walls covered in monitors and computers being manned by a wide assortment of people, none of which seemed to be paying us any mind. The one that did, however, stood on a raised platform surrounded by a large circular workstation type desk covered in computers much like everything else in this command center, and standing on this central platform, was Captain Chloe Paxton.

  I was at a loss for words.

  Seemingly everyone else was too. According to our plan, we should have been making our presence and intent to commandeer this space known, and yet nobody said a word.

  “Can I help you?” Chloe asked from her spot on the central platform.

  “You again. I hope for your sake that you are feeling more cooperative this time.” Another Chloe, the one we’d walked in here with, spoke from beside me. Her doppelganger didn’t answer, a silent conversation occurring between them through their glares.

  “As planned, we’re taking over this facility! Keep everything contained while I deal with that fucker!” The Chloe that stood next to us ordered, followed shortly by the other one: “Well, what are you waiting for? Capture that creature!” And all hell broke loose.

  It was only because we had gone over our roles beforehand that Curt, Alice and I knew what to do while the Chloes dealt with each other. We were to make sure no alarms were raised or unknown defense systems activated, and we did just that, rounding up the occupants of this room, none of which were combatants so it wasn’t a difficult task, and collecting them in isolated groups that were as large as we could confidently manage.

  While we were doing that, they didn’t even try to stop us, just looking at us and the Chloes with scared, confused and betrayed expressions, and often pleading with us to see reason and let them go. We didn’t.

  For all that our task was viscerally disturbing, it was glancing at where the Chloes fought each other that grounded us enough to see the necessity of it. Where one Chloe was a whirlwind of controlled violence, the other stumbled after every step. One would lash out occasionally with measured and impactful strikes while the other would flail around wildly, achieving little of note. It didn’t take having watched many of Curt, Alex and Chloe’s ‘sparring sessions’ to figure out who the impostor was, and the infuriating thought that someone could try to pass themselves as someone I respected to try to give me orders was enough to erase any doubts in my otherwise extremely questionable actions. From what I could see, the other two seemed to be thinking the same, as none of them made any move to interrupt the fight or release their captives.

  It didn’t take long for the fight going on in the center of the room to come to an end, with the obvious impostor being knocked back with a spike dug into her shoulder.

  “So, I’ve asked this once before and I will only ask this one more time. Who are you working for? On whose orders are you acting?” Chloe spat.

  “Is that…?” Alice asked tentatively and received an answer before she’d even finished her question.

  “Yeah, this is the one in charge of the monsters that captured us, and the one that did… whatever it was, to all of you.” Chloe told her, not once taking her eyes off her doppelganger's prone form.

  “What are you doing, you traitors?! Stop gawking and capture this thing!” The impostor roared at us, once more trying to use her stolen face to get us to follow its orders, and once more being met with silence.

  “Traitors? You think they’ve ever been yours?” Chloe mocked her doppelganger. For her part, the fake didn’t give her a proper answer and instead just growled.

  “Please,” Chloe said with a mocking laugh. “You can change our bodies, twist our view of the world so it’s barely recognizable, even try to turn us against each other, but you don’t get to take away our humanity. And as humans, we take care of our own. None of them would ever follow you after what you’ve done.” She delivered with finality.

  Her copy continued to growl all throughout her short speech, and finally exploded with rage once it was done.

  “You aliens are all the same! You come into our homes, attack our people, refuse enlightenment and even now you still stand against the march of progress! Well, I’ll be damned if I let you continue to run rampant through my Skyhaven. Fuck. YOU!” She yelled and then slapped her hand on a console on her desk that she’d been knocked against, and my world went upside down.

  I’d been standing one second, the next, I was flying. Up and down lost its meaning, air escaped my lungs, and the only thing I could tell for certain was that I needed to hold on or I would be lost forever.

  A dark mass approached me, its solid black coloring contrasted against the background spotted by the stars, and as I crashed into it, I grabbed on desperately with every limb at my disposal. To let go was to die, of that I was certain.

  After taking several seconds to slow my heart and steady my breathing, I tentatively started to take in my surroundings.

  I was… In a field at nighttime?

  That was the only conclusion I could reach. The dirt plains around me, utterly devoid of vegetation or signs of civilization, seemed to stretch out as far as the eye could see in every direction, while the light of the stars overhead was just barely enough to see by.

  “Curt?! Alice?! Are you there?!” I called out into the darkness.

  “Here!” I soon heard Alice’s voice, and it didn’t take me long to see her approaching in the distance.

  “Shit! I need help!” This time it was Curt’s voice, and he sounded panicked. He also sounded close, and after a quick search, I spotted him, crouched not far from where I’d ended up, so I immediately made my way to his position.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked once I was close enough.

  “It’s Chloe! I don’t know what’s wrong with her but she’s not moving!” He said, and true enough, he held the unconscious form of our captain in his arms.

  “Shit! Is she injured?! Captain, wake up!” I yelled, my panic rising as I looked her over, unable to find anything wrong other than the fact that she was unresponsive. In the back of my mind, I barely registered Alice’s approaching steps, but I was too focused on trying to get the captain to wake up to pay her any mind, gently slapping her and shaking her to see if she showed any signs of life. I was aware that that was not something that should be done to an unconscious person, but now wasn’t the time for such considerations. We were in hostile territory, reeling from some kind of unknown trap, we needed her awake and aware yesterday!

  “Oh, no…” Alice mumbled from behind me, but was ignored.

  It was as I was in the middle of my increasingly panicked attempts to get her to wake up that something finally happened. Hundreds of tiny glass shards erupted from the collar of her suit, and gently floated off into the distance, heedless of gravity.

  I didn’t know what to make of that, so I turned to the nearest person, Curt, who looked just as confused as me.

  I then felt Alice calling my attention with a poke on my shoulder, and turned to see her pointing at the empty night sky.

  Only, it wasn’t empty, as dominating the skyline was the cloudy yellow sphere that was the pillslugs' homeworld.

  The meaning of this came crashing like a freight train into my mind.

  “But how is…? But then…?” I mumbled uselessly, and Alice finished voicing my thoughts, already sniffling and tears forming in her eyes.

  “Her EVA suit failed to deploy. She’s gone.”

  Chapter 13: Failure