Invasion
Chapter 20

She leads them to thecentral chamber where most of the station’s controls lie. On the walls andfloors: nothing but consoles and computers, blinking yellow lights. Above theroom, there’s a window, and on each other side are openings that lead to theother corridors. Before anything else, she heads over to a container-likeobject and grabs some bottled water and throws it to them. “Here, forhydration,” she says. “Ohhh, thank you, thank you!” Olivia expresses hergratitude, happy to see some water. She quickly opens it and drinks it all theway, as do the others. They must be very thirsty after all that. The cosmonautthen heads over to the central console and presses some buttons, and thestation starts moving again. It moves by releasing bursts of air through smallopenings on its corners. They can see the rotation through the window bylooking at the stars moving in the blackness. Of course, they aren’t reallymoving. It’s just the relative movement of the station. She then points to thewindow and says, “There is the object you seek, no?” Everyone tries to look atit, it’s difficult to see at first, but they eventually see it: the mothership.They all stare at it for a few seconds. “It is bigger than I imagined,” Sergeysays. “That shouldn’t be much of a problem,” Takashi replies. “Why not?”“Because we don’t have a choice anymore. It’s now or never,” Olivia continues. “Butthat’s too far for us to just spacewalk. How do we get there?” he asks. “I havea small ship here. Should fit all of us,” Alexandra adds as she floats towardsone of the openings. “All of us?” Olivia asks. “Yes, all of us. If you thinkthat I am not coming with you…” “It’ll be dangerous,” she continues. “Of courseit will be dangerous. But I cannot just wait here anymore, feeling helpless.Besides, I know how to handle myself, thank you.” She then grabs one of theedges of the consoles and launches herself to one of the openings. “Follow me!”she shouts.

“This corridor will leadus straight to the shuttle, but it needs to be refueled,” she explains. “One ofus will have to do it, while the rest prepare the shuttle.” “Okay, I’ll do it,”Olivia suddenly volunteers. “What?? Why?” Takashi asks. “I don’t know. I canget around faster?” “Yes, good. She will do it,” Sergey says. “Alright, becareful,” Takashi tells her. She then gives him a kiss and a smile beforeheading off with Alexandra. She leads her to another corridor past the centralchamber. At the end of it is another branch leading downwards. “Alright, so thefuel control is down there,” she tells Olivia. “Okay.” The cosmonaut goes downthe slightly narrower corridor first. When they reach the bottom, she tries toexplain how it all works. Of course, Olivia’s replaceing it a little difficult tofollow her instructions, given her accent too. “Alright, so basically I justpress this button to start the process and the one below to stop it. And Iwatch the gauge to see when it’s full before stopping it. Did I get thatright?” she asks. “Yes, that is correct. Just one more thing, this lever is foremergency stop. Pull it in emergencies to stop the flow, but I am sure that isnot needed,” the cosmonaut continues. “Alright, good luck. I will see yousoon,” she says going back up, “wait for the signal!”

Back at the shuttle, theothers are busy admiring it, especially Takashi. It’s a dream come true forhim, to be up here and being able to experience all this. It feels peaceful. Atleast for now… The shuttle isn’t very big like she said, but it should beenough. Actually, a smaller ship would be better for sneaking quietly as they probablyplan to do. There are only four seats plus two other for the pilot andco-pilot. Looks like one of them will have to stand, or rather, float. “Hey, weare ready for refueling,” Alexandra returns. She heads over to the pilotcontrols and opens up the fuel lines. She then grabs the radio and contactsOlivia, “Alright, you may start the transfusion now.” “Okay,” she responds asshe presses the button. The gauges to her right suddenly light up and theneedles begin moving from left to right in a curved pattern. “Uh, okay.Something’s happening here. It’s on, I think,” she says. Hearing the sounds ofrattling and cluttering, “Yes, it is working. Standby.” She puts the radio backbefore going to check the fuel gauge on the shuttle. Yep, it’s rising. “Okay,now we wait.”

Olivia floats and spinsaround as she waits for it to finish, bored. She looks at the gauge again and replaces it still moving, noteven halfway there. “Huh,” she sighs. She spins upside down for amusement,though replaceing it a little difficult in the quite confined space. Back at theshuttle, they’re discussing a plan to quietly enter the mothership. Of course,no other plan really comes into mind other than driving straight towards it.Sergey thinks it’s way past sneaking around and time to just hit them directly,hard. “Maybe…” Takashi considers, “but this ship would never stand a chancewith an attack like that. I say we use this ship to sneak aboard their shipfirst, and then we hit ‘em hard.” “Thatis good plan, I think,” the cosmonaut says. “Please tell me you brought someweapons,” he asks them. “Only the ones we brought. We did not bring more,”Sergey answers. And even that doesn’t have much ammo left. They have a fewgrenades and a grenade launcher… Alexandra floats to a cabinet and reveals asmall cache of weapons onboard. “Do not worry, this will help,” she says. “Myfriend, you are savior,” Sergey tells her. Takashi stares at the weapons thatcould help them, amazed by Russians’ ability to acquire and have any sort of items.This is a space shuttle after all, though not your average type. It’s sort of anewer design the Russians have been working on, smaller than the usual ones.

Back at the fuel control,Olivia notices that the refueling is almost complete. “Hey, Al--Alexandra? Thething’s almost full, should I stop it soon?” she asks. They hear her chatter onthe radio, mixed with a little static. She quickly floats to it to reply. “Ithought you said the creatures can intercept our radio?” Takashi asks. “Onlytransmission outside the station, I believe. If it is within, we should besafe.” “Should be??” Olivia also notices that the pressure gauge is going uptoo high…probably. She doesn’t really understand fully, but it doesn’t lookright. “Yes, Olivia. Come in.” “Uhh, the fuel gauge’s almost full, but there’ssomething else. The pressure gauge is reading...uhhh, very high. Is theresomething wrong?” The radio has a bit of interference on the other end. “Hello?Olivia?” she repeats. She tells everyone to quiet down and listens closer. Shockedafter finally hearing what she said, the cosmonaut quickly rushes back to thecentral chamber. Indeed, all sorts of alarms and lights are, surprisingly, quietlyringing and flashing. “No, no!!!!” she shouts. She quickly tries to “swim”towards the panels, rushing, and she sees the gauges going critical. “Fuck!!”She grabs the radio close to her, “Olivia!! Get out of there now!! I repeat,get out now!!!” she screams. “Sorry, what?? I can’t hear you very well,” shereplies. Takashi quickly flies out of the corridor, worried, followed by therest behind, “Alexandra, what the hell’s going on??!!” Suddenly, they hear abump coming from outside. They all stop what they’re doing and look upsimultaneously. Between all the ringing alarms and flashing yellowish lights,it was a little hard to hear, but they heard it. “What was that?” Andrei asks.The cosmonaut’s eyes are looking around furiously. She launches herself up tothe window above and looks outside. A creature suddenly lands on the windowfrom somewhere, surprising them all. “Argh!” Alexandra and the creature spend afew seconds staring at each other before she pushes herself back, moving slowly.The creature then starts to punch the window in an attempt to break it, whichmakes them jump again. “Do something,” Sergey says to Takashi. The windowstarts to crack a little. He then forces it off the window, carefully, sendingit flying off to space. “Hello? Hello?” Olivia talks through the radio. Alexandragrabs the radio to reply. All manner of problems are occurring down in the fuelcontrol. “Uhh, guys?? All the gauges are spiking and these alarms are ringing…”she continues. White gases start spewing out as well. “My friend, listen to mecarefully. Get out of there now. Do you hear me? Turn off the fueling processand get out now. We meet back at the shuttle. And seal your helmet.” Finallyhearing what she’s saying, she can reply back clearly. “Alright, I’ll see youthere.”

She shuts off thetransfusion and starts heading up. “That goes for everyone, seal your helmets.”They all do so as she retrieves a helmet from one of the cabinets and puts iton. As they head back to the shuttle, something like an explosion rocks thestation. Olivia feels it as well, knocking her back and forth in the smallcorridor. “Guys, what the fuck is going on??!?” she freaks out. “Just hurry upand get back here, Liv!!!” Takashi tells her. “Okay!” She launches herself up,but before she can exit, something breaks through the corridor and she’s flungout into space. She manages to catch herself outside, but two creatures arewaiting for her. “Shit.” Hearing the explosion, Takashi quickly contacts Oliviato make sure she’s okay, but there’s no answer. “I’m going back for her!” hesays. “No! We do not have time!” the cosmonaut warns him. “Do not worry aboutthem! We have to prepare the shuttle!” Sergey tells her. Fuel is leaking outfrom the pipes into the cold darkness, forming bubble-like shapes as they floataway. Olivia fights off the creatures as best as she can. Though in the spaceenvironment, it makes it hard to do so. She tries to fly towards the brokencorridor to re-enter the station and get to the shuttle, but they keepthwarting her. She slams into the station’s outer wall, but quickly recoversand positions herself ready to launch. As soon as they rush to her, shelaunches and punches through its chest, killing it. Yellow now colors her suitand helmet. She slides her hand out of its chest as the other one catches herby surprise. Suddenly, a burst of energy forces it away. “Come on, Liv!! Wedon’t have time!!” Takashi yells to her. She flies to him quickly. “What thehell happened?” he asks looking at the blood on her. Then, an explosion rocksthe station again. The mothership is trying to destroy it, firing electricalbursts at them. “Shit! We gotta go. Come on, Liv!” But unfortunately, theexplosion causes the station’s emergency protocols to activate, sealing all thecorridors. “Nooooooo!!!!” Sergey yells as he rushes to the sealing, circulardoor. Takashi and Olivia suffer the same fate. “Nooooo!!!” He starts kickingand punching the door to no avail. “Open this door now!!!” Sergey yells. “Icannot!!! Emergency protocols are activated, no way to open door!!!” Meanwhile,the station continues to get bombarded by the mothership. It eventually hitsthe fuel lines causing it to spark and explode too. “That’s it! Stand back,Liv!” He fires an energy pulse at the door, but it does nothing, only sendinghim to the back wall.

At the shuttle, Alexandrainitiates start-up sequence and prepares to launch. “What the fuck are youdoing??!?! We are not leaving without them!!!!!” Andrei yells to her. “You wantto die???!?!?!” They both stop, catching their breath, frustrated. “Sweetie,are you okay??” she asks him as everything crumbles around them. “Yeah.” “Okay,cause I think I found another way outta here!! But we gotta hurry!!” Shereaches up to the ceiling where a vent cover appears to lie. She pulls it openand they go through. The cosmonaut closes the door and activates the engines. “Alright,we are ready!!!!” Takashi and Olivia emerge from the vent in the shuttlecorridor and they can see the shuttle’s door already closed. “Fuck! They’regonna leave without us!!!” Olivia shouts. Most of the station has already beendestroyed or has exploded sending metal parts into space. They speedily launchthemselves to the door as the central chamber explodes. “Hey!!! Open thedoor!!!!” they shout and they bang on it. “It is them!!!!” Sergey yells. Hequickly gets up and opens the door. As soon as he does, they fly in and he seesthe explosion behind them, racing to catch them. He hurriedly closes it back upand yells to Alexandra to floor it!!! They barely made it out of there as theentire station is decimated in a fiery explosion. The shuttle suffers some minordamage, but it’ll still take them to their destination. It isn’t that faranyway. As the vibrations and aftershocks come to an end, they take a moment torelax and breathe a sigh of relief. “Fuck, that was close,” Olivia says. “Thatis why I told you not to touch anything,” the cosmonaut replies. “But we didn’ttouch anything,” Takashi adds. “Well, there you go.” Fortunately for themthough, the aliens don’t seem to notice that they’re still alive. Maybe theirplan to sneak aboard may still be viable.

“Alright, we are makingour approach.” It’s much, much bigger up close. It seemed quite small from thestation. The ship is a huge rectangular shaped, metallic vessel, and not verywide. And like the hovering machines before, it’s lined with spikes or spikyprotrusions like antennas or rods. Electrical arcs fire off from these fromtime to time. They fly up close to its side, taking care to avoid theelectrical sparks, and try to replace a place to dock. “I don’t see any kindof…opening,” Takashi says. “So we keep looking,” the cosmonaut replies. Thewall suddenly grinds and starts moving in front of them to their left, openingup. She stops the shuttle immediately as one of those hovering machines exitsand makes it way towards Earth. “We should destroy it,” Sergey suggests. “No,if we destroy the mothership, it’ll stop every one of those things at once.Quick, get in before it closes!” Inside is a huge docking area, now empty, asthe vessel had just left. “Stick to the plan. All we can do now is try todestroy this ship before all those small ones succeed,” she explains further. Theyfly through carefully and quietly, but they don’t have much time. The damagecaused by the station’s explosion makes the shuttle not space worthy for muchlonger. They’re not major damages, but it’ll make it unusable for a while. “Wehave to land or dock somewhere soon, she cannot take much more.” There are lotsof platforms around, but none of them seem big enough to land the shuttle on. “Wait,there,” Andrei points to a space they can land on. “I see it.” She sets it downcarefully and shuts it down. “Okay, so the shuttle requires repairs, yes? Ifear I have to stay behind and do that while you guys go and stop them,” sheexplains. “Alright, good luck. And stay safe,” Olivia says, “I don’t think weshould remove our helmets, we don’t know if the air’s breathable.” “Or if there’seven air,” Takashi adds. Andrei, Sergey, Viktor, and Alexei grab some weaponsand a few grenades and explosives from the cabinet, and they all refill theiroxygen supply before they exit out.

It’s dark out on theplatforms with very minimal lighting. Though they can sorta see the otherplatforms to some degree and where the machine would dock. The place seems evenbigger than before, cold too. They can see their breath as they exhale andshiver and rub themselves. “Okay, so where do we go now?” Sergey asks. Shethinks for a second before saying, “This way.” She starts walking even thoughshe can barely see what’s in front of her or what she’s stepping on, butnevertheless she replaces her way. Leaving the docking area, she leads themfurther into the ship—they hold hands so they don’t get separated. It’s darkeverywhere, it feels like a cave, though the walls are made of metallicmaterials. Since the aliens don’t need light to see, it does make sense thatthey don’t have forms of lighting on their ship. There’s also some kind of transparentconduits attached to the walls, presumably to allow them to travel around theship faster. “Wait a second. There has to be a flashlight on this gun… Yes!”Sergey says. He turns it on and their path is finally illuminated. “Don’teveryone use all at once though, it might attract them,” Takashi tells them.She touches the wall with her right hand and her arm glows bright white, hereyes too. The residual energy she absorbed from the staff before is interactingwith the ship’s environment. Through it, she’s somehow “connecting” to the shipand…something else. “Aaarrggghhh!” She falls back. “Liv! Sweetie, you okay??” hepicks her up. “Yeah,” she mutters, “I’m fine. Come on, I know where to go.” “Wait.How do you know again?” She looks pretty excited, breathing heavily, “I don’tknow. I just know. You know?” “No, I really don’t,” he replies confused, “isthis another aspect of our powers or something?” “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’tthink so. Please, trust me.” “Well, we don’t have much of a choice anymore.” Shenods and they proceed back on their way. Sergey continues to light the way. It seemsto get darker and darker as they go deeper, though the electrical conduits onthe walls provide very small lighting. Olivia though sees the world differentlyright now. The energy inside her allows her to see almost as the creatures do,to see energy paths. It appears to be leading her somewhere. After a while,they reach a branch where they can go straight, left, or right. But she onlysees the path that the energy shows her, and it seems to be going left. “Thisway,” she says. As they go through this corridor though, the conduit to theirright lights up and sparks. “What’s going on??” she asks. Right now, she’spretty much blind to everything else, only seeing the energy that’s leadingher. Sergey points the light at the spot and they back up from it. “Liv, getback,” he pulls her back. It gets distorted, like it’s coming out of the electricalconduit. They all stare at it in confusion. It suddenly blasts them through thewall and they fall through to the room adjacent. Everyone slams to the floor,which is lower than the corridor’s, and it hurts. “Oh, come on!! Really??”

Olivia still can’t seeanything. Everything is just dark. “Guys! What the hell just happened?!” Shecrawls around a bit trying to get a feel of the room. That seems frustrating,and annoying. The others are still feeling the impact. “Ohhhh… Liv? Are youokay? What’s wrong with you?” Takashi asks. “Takashi, I can’t see.” “What??” “Ican’t see. Everything’s dark.” “Uhhh, what is going on?” Sergey asks. “I canonly see a moving light, where we need to go. It’s higher now.” “My friend,what is going on?” “I have no idea.” The roars and screeches of the creaturesare getting audible now. “We should get moving,” Takashi suggests. “Uhhh, myfriend?” Sergey says pointing to his leg. “What?” He looks at it to realizethat a sharp, steel object went through his left leg. He goes into a bit of ashock at the sight and loss of blood. He tries to pull the object out, verypainful, and successfully does so after much screaming. “Baby, what’s going on?!”She then starts to regain her normal vision, “Omg, sweetie!” “I’m fine, just…”he says starting to get a little faint. “That is not problem, my friend.Problem is, your suit is now ruptured. You will start to lose oxygen faster.”“Great,” he speaks sarcastically. “We should go then, now.” Olivia picks him upand holsters him on her shoulder. He tries to heal it, but is too weak to focushis efforts. They are ready to go, but there seems to be no way out. Theyappear to be standing on a platform, and the sound of rushing water can beheard. Below them is flowing water, something akin to a sewer: a sewer systemperhaps? Right now, the broken wall where they fell through seems to be theonly way out. But suddenly, it repairs itself and the walls to their left andright open, in a weird, alien way, to reveal a new passageway. Cranking andmetallic noises are heard throughout. A bridge system also materializes thatallows them to cross the chasm. The environment is suddenly reminiscent of anold castle-like structure. Even though it’s not, gears start to come to theirmind. It may look old, but the machinations of this ship are definitely prettyadvanced. Who knows how advanced. Ormaybe it’s just very old.

They get confused anddon’t know which path they should take. The one to their left seems promising,no one knows why, so they take it. “It’s coming back, Liv,” Takashi says,half-crying, as they cross the bridge. “Nooo!! We’re gonna make it throughthis!! You can do it!!!” she replies. “I know!!!” he starts to fully cry. Sergeyand Andrei get even more confused about what’s going on. Nevertheless, theycontinue onwards. Going through the darkness, they replace themselves arriving atthe same place they were in before. “What is this??” Andrei asks. They’re backon the platform, and below them is the flowing water again. The bridgedematerializes and the walls close. Now they appear to be stuck again. “What’sgoing on, Liv??” he continues to cry, “it’s coming back!” She grabs him by theface as they both kneel down and says with a serious expression, “Now youlisten to me. We’re gonna make it through this, okay?! I know it’s hard, but wecan do this! You…can do this.” She wipes away the tears from his eyes andcheeks and gives him a smile. “It’s stupid, isn’t it? This repetition,” hesays. “Maybe it is, but that’s just the way humans are,” she replies, “but youknow, we don’t really have to follow that. All you have to do is let go.” Helowers his head in despair, “I can’t…I just can’t.” “You can… You have to.” Whatdoes that feel like? To be burdened by that feeling. Is he crazy?? Is heinsane?? Is it all just in his head? Maybe… But that doesn’t mean the emotionsaren’t real. This is just one of those things that he has to deal with…acceptand deal with. He understands, but wonders yet again what keeps him going. Why,after all the pain, does he keep fighting? “If you guys are done…” Andrei says.“Give them a moment,” Sergey tells him. “Sweetie, if you can’t do it for you,then do it for me,” she says to him. He’s reluctant, really wanting to just givein, but accepts. “Now let’s fix this wound of yours before we go.” Of course,she understands too. Those feelings… Most people, if not everyone, should knowthose feelings. Perhaps she was right. It’s just a part of being human…ofliving. She is right. But it seemsthat some people can handle it better than others. For those who can’t, maybethey’re just incapable of handling it, and are “fated” to feel like this forthe rest of their lives. Or until they kill themselves, which is a very sadending to their story. But is it though?

As Olivia begins to healhim, the walls above them dematerialize and an alien stands behind it. Itcontinues to open up all the way and reveals a many amount of aliens. The gangstares at them in worry. “Oh, shit.” Takashi really wants to say for them to goand leave him here, but he shakes his head around, a little furiously. Oliviastops the healing and picks him back up so they can get out of there. One ofthe aliens jump down to the platform, shaking it a little, and slams Takashiand Olivia away, going through the wall as it opens and closes back up,trapping them behind it. “Hey!!!!” she bangs on the wall. Without them, Sergeydoesn’t like their chances of survival right now. “This is not good,” he saysslowly. A few of the other aliens join the lone one at the platform to finishthem off. Sergey and Andrei aim their gun at them, while Alexei and Viktor aimat the ones still on top. Speaking in Russian, “What do you think, my friend?”Andrei asks. “I think…we should start firing now,” he answers. “I think that’sa good idea.” Bullet casings start flying as the aliens screech and jump tothem. Olivia can hear the gunfire and battle from behind the wall, screams too.“Noooo!!!!” Takashi lies down on the floor, his wound taking its toll. “Ohhhh...”he moans. “Takashi!” She runs back to him and quickly tries to heal his leg asbest as she can. Unfortunately, the object broke through his bone when itpierced his skin. Healing a major wound like that won’t be a stroll in thepark. And being tired already doesn’t help at all with the healing process. Hescreams in pain as his leg heals. The bone growing back, muscles and nervesstitching back together… Though she can’t muster up the energy to fully healhim, she stops after a while, sweating profusely from exhaustion and worry. Herhands are red colored from the blood. “Liv, stop. Please don’t push yourselftoo much,” he tells her, “you’ve done enough. I feel better, really.” Shedoesn’t really believe that, as she sits down, looking at the still existinghole on his leg. “What happened to Sergey…and the others?” he says gasping forbreath. “I don’t know, we were separated by the creatures. Can you walk?”“Yeah, just…help me up, will you?” He notices that she’s also sweating tired. “Forgetabout me, are you okay?” “I’m fine.Just a little tired from trying to heal you.” “You shouldn’t do that. Not toomuch, at least. With me like this, we’re gonna need you at full strength ifwe’re gonna get through this,” he explains. “Right. Come on.”

Shedrags him a little quickly because they just don’t have time. “Oh, no,” shesays. “What?” Her vision changes again, the pathway returning. “I see it again.Should we follow it?” “We don’t really have a choice do we?” Going againthrough the maze of corridors on this ship, they follow this strange vision inher head. It’s pretty scary for him, having normal vision, seeing the darknessaround, the sounds of clanging and cranking makes him jump everytime. Shedoesn’t get even a little annoyed at this, that’s how much she believes inhim…how much she loves him. She knows what he went through. He knows how luckyhe is, but still can’t help feeling that despair. No matter how small it’llalways be there. But he can outgrow it to make it seem small.