Invasion
Chapter 23

She turns on theflashlight to aid her, though it’s not completely dark in this area. Smallfragments of light are around, coming from somewhere, though she also turned onthe shuttle’s lights for extra illumination. She begins her journey and headsup the flights of stairs to the levels above, the place still seems to be empty—luckyfor her. She still treads carefully though. She roams around the upper levelfor a few minutes, trying to get her bearings. She shines the flashlight to thedistance to see, only to be startled by shadows and pipes and steam. (In thedarkness, your mind plays tricks on you, you see, especially when you’realready insane or have been living alone for months) As a cosmonaut, she spentmonths in that space station, alone. It was actually kinda sad for her to seeit explode and destroyed. It was her home. The metal platforms were arranged sothat this chamber would fit the huge machine. Most of it’s at the far back,attached to the walls with long ones to the right and left, heading towards thegate. She looks up and there appears to be two more levels above. In thedarkness, she can’t really see what’s up there and what’s below, meaning thatshe actually has to go and explore to replace out—that sounds scary. Since thecontrol panel doesn’t appear to be on this level, she heads up the flights ofstairs again. Being alone again without anyone or anything around or with hermakes her feel nostalgic of her time alone in the space station. After so longof no human contact whatsoever other than through the radio, it feels naturalto her, this silence and quietness.

She can feel thestillness in the air as she goes about and searches the level. She remembersone time when she was in the space station with nothing to do, and she gotbored—that’s no surprise, being alone and all. She was afraid of going crazy orinsane. It was only her second month in space and she still hadn’t gotten usedto it yet. How much can the human mind take before it snaps from loneliness? Humansare a social species, whether we like it or not, and require, at leastsometimes, contact with other humans. Well, people say that humans aren’t meantto live alone, let alone survive by themselves. Thought it’s true some peopleprefer loneliness, yet even those people have some form of human contact from time to time, whether it’s withtheir parents, siblings, close friends, psychologists, etc. Pain…is a powerfulthing.

Anyway, rather than goingcrazy from boredom, she decided to go outside for a little spacewalk. Maybe the“fresh air” would do her some good, she thought. She headed to the airlock and puton her EVA suit, made sure everything’s okay—made sure the tethers are placed,locked, and secure, and depressurized. As she opened the door, she felt…weirdor strange. Even after a month, she was still adjusting to the sensation ofweightlessness, especially floating around outside. But it also felt…amazing. Itfelt cool. She didn’t move or try to fly or anything…she just let it happen. Floatingaround and spinning in near-Earth orbit, it felt weird cause there’s really noorientation up there. Without gravity, there isn’t really up or down. She justenjoyed the experience though, looking at the huge, wide universe…seeing theEarth from above, the moon, and the stars… How many people get to experiencethis moment or get to say that they have and know what that feels like?

She leans on the railingwith her hands while remembering that moment. The calmness was nice too, thepeace and quiet…

It was an extremely rareexperience. She spent some time out there for a while, forgetting about all theworry and boredom. Sometimes loneliness can be nice. And maybe this could be abeautiful experience after all.

She snaps back to thepresent and shakes it off. She picks up her gun that she lowered and continuesher search. Shining her light to the distance, she can see what seems to be theobject she’s looking for and heads that way. Every footstep makes a clangingand banging sound on the metal platform. She didn’t realize it at first (amazinghow you sometimes don’t realize things at first) Finally reaching it, and thelanguage on this one is also unreadable, of course. This is an alien ship afterall. “Perfect, how am I supposed to open this thing?” she says to herself. Withno idea what to do, she starts pressing buttons randomly. Some things activatearound the area such as a crane-like object and extending platform. “Come on!” Asshe continues pressing, suddenly something opens up behind her, some sort ofmechanism or panel? “What the fuck??” she says. Touching it gives her a mildelectric shock. “Oww!” she exclaims. As she tries to get rid of the pain, sheremembers that the aliens are electrical in nature. It must need an electricalsurge to operate. She looks around and checks her person, but replaceing nothing,runs back to the shuttle. On the shuttle, she searches for anything electrical,anything that can give out electricity. Finding a taser, she quickly runs backout and up the flights of stairs to reach the mechanism again. She points thegun at it and fires, sending out an electrical charge. It gives life for amoment before dying again. “Fuck!! Not enough.”

She returns once again tothe shuttle to try and replace something else, but there’s nothing. Stressing out...The mothership suddenly gives another big rumble, prompting her to get out,worried, pointing her rifle everywhere. The flashlight then wigs out on her, asdoes the shuttle. Crash! Suddenly, something crashes through the back wall. Analien has crashed itself along with Takashi through the wall and they land onthe platform, fighting. It’s then blown away by a grenade and falls down to thebottom. Sergey drops the grenade launcher down, saying, “That was the last ofthe grenades.” Olivia helps Takashi up and they run to the shuttle.“Alexandra!! Why the hell isn’t the gate open yet?!?” she screams. “It isdifficult, you know??! You think it is easy?!? The mechanism is specificallydesigned for the creatures to interact with! It needs a surge of electricity tooperate, a big one. And it must be constant,”she explains to them. “Well, do we have anything to do that??” Takashi asks. “No,just a taser. Already tried it, it doesn’t work.” “She is right. Only one ofthe creatures would have the energy necessary to power such a mechanism,”Sergey deduces. “If you are right, then unfortunately, we need one of them toopen it for us,” the cosmonaut adds. “Great, sure, we’ll just go and ask them,”Olivia says sarcastically, “come on! Seriously??” Takashi wanders off in hismind, thinking. “Hmmm, does it need to be alive to do this?” “One would assumeso,” she says. “But, it should still be able to generate electricity when it’sonly been dead for a few seconds, right?” They all throw their hands into theair, completely clueless about how they work. “We don’t have a lot of time here,guys,” she asserts what they already know. Having no other options, Takashiquickly runs back inside the ship to change into a spare EVA suit to replacehis damaged one, just in case, before walking out to replace one of them. “Hey.Hey! Where do you think you’re going?!” she asks, grabbing and pulling his arm.“To replace a creature. Like you said, we don’t have a lot of time. This is theonly way.” “Well, then I’m coming with you. I told you, I’m not letting you doall this alone.” Roar!!! They all stare at the hole they created, worried; theyfear the worst.

“Turn off the lights,” hesays to the soldiers and the cosmonaut, “turn it off, now!” The cosmonautquickly does so. “You guys stay inside, okay? No matter what happens. And holdon to your weapons,” she tells them. “Let’s go, Liv.” The both fly up over the“abyss”. As they feared, the queen shows her ugly face entering through thehole. Luckily, their combined energy is enough to make her focus on them andnot on the shuttle. “Oh, shit. What do we do?” Olivia asks, terrified,whispering. “We can use her to open the door.” “What??” “Alexandra, where isthe mechanism?” Suddenly her tentacles come for them. They just barely dodge itand fly up one level. Her majesty transforms quickly and speeds up through thestairs in a flash, transforming back just as quick. She grabs them both withher tentacles and tries to absorb them, though they’re resisting. “It is onelevel above you, at the far end near the gate!” “Aaarrggghhh!! Got it!!”Takashi grabs the tentacle, channeling the energy into himself and, andredirects it to her. The blast knocks her back and through the wall, severingthe tentacles holding them. They shake it off for a few seconds and he’s suddenlystruck with an idea. “That’s it.” “What’s it?” “Our way outta here.” The shipbegins to crumble all around them. They need to hurry their ass up. “Guys, whatare you doing??” He flies up to the control panel, Olivia following behind. “I’mgonna need her to grab me again!” he says. “What??! No way! That’s too dangerous!!”“Liv, we don’t have time for this!!! Look around you!! I have to do this! Nowplease listen up, here’s what we’re gonna do.”

He tells her the plan,and also for Sergey and Alexandra to hear too. The queen then returns frombehind and zips to them quickly in a flash, knocking them back. “Argh!” theyfall down, seemingly unconscious. She wraps them in her tentacles again andlifts them up… “Now!!” he shouts. Olivia screams and punches her majesty rightin the face, doesn’t do much of course, but then she flies to her back, wrapsher arms around her neck, and starts squeezing. With that, the queen begins electrocutingthem again, just as planned. It’s very painful, yes, but one they have toendure for a few seconds. They resist with all their might and energy. Takashiagain channels the energy into himself, but this time redirects it to the mechanism,powering it up. It’s activating. “It’s working!!!!” he shouts in pain, buthappy too. The gate cranks and moans as it opens to show an ocean of starsbehind it in the dark background as the air begins to get sucked out. “Liiiivvvv!!!!”He slams with all his might to her majesty as the platform breaks and fallsdown. The electrocution stops and the three fly and levitate in theair—fighting the force of the suction—the queen making it difficult for them todo so. They both close their visors back up and Takashi cuts the tentacleswrapping him and flies to Olivia to assist her, but her majesty grabs his legwhile Olivia tries to break free. They slam and smash into the wall and drop tothe platform below. They quickly grab on to avoid being sucked out. It wasenough distraction for her to free herself from the queen. Takashi thenmanipulates and moves the platform to stab her and wrap it around her, holdingher in place for a while. Or at least they thought. She gives out a loud roar. “Guys,just take off!!!! We’ll follow you!!! Wait for us outside!!!” he contacts them.“Okay!!!” She activates the engines….clang!!! An alien jumps to the frontwindow. Her majesty, with her roar, has called back her army to the fray. Itpunches the window several times, just as it’s about to break it clean through,it’s slammed away to the corridor. Regaining her composure, the cosmonaut thenquickly shuts the door, refills the oxygen supply on the shuttle, and takesoff. Throwing the throttle to maximum, they fly back out to space as more andmore creatures zip in. She stops just a few meters away from the edge of theship to wait for them. Olivia’s still fighting with the creature she slammedaway. Takashi tries to help, but one of the aliens grabs his leg by tentacleand pulls and slams him down, to which then they gang up on him. He fights themoff as best he can. “Sergey!!! Blow it up, now!!!!!” he screams. “No, you guysare still there!!” “Just do it!!!!” Reluctantly…he presses the button, settingoff the explosives scattered around the ship. Boom!! The ones planted on thereactor goes off too, and along with it, the explosion is enough to destroyeverything as it spreads outwards. Olivia forces and slams the alien on her tothe roof of the corridor, then levitates it over the darkness to let it falland gets sucked out. She then flies at mach speed to help Takashi and crashthrough the aliens, releasing an outward horizontal burst of energy. The aliensget sucked out. “Sweetie, you okay??” “Yeah… We need to go, let’s go, now!!” Shepicks him up and they both fly towards the exit as fast as they can, avoidingfalling debris along the way. They barely exit as the entire ship explodes piece-by-piece,ending in a glorious flash of light followed by an outwards horizontal energywave that sends them further away from the ship. “Urgh!!!” they exclaim.

Takashipasses out from all the excitement, just floating in space. Olivia wants to aswell, but stays strong for a few more minutes. The shuttle then comes up onthem and, using her last remaining strength, grabs him and heads for it. Sergeyopens the door, his friend holding him back, letting the oxygen rush out.“Hurry!!!” After they enter, he closes the door back up, struggling to do so. “Thatwas perfect. You guys just wasted our supply of oxygen,” the cosmonaut says,half-jokingly. Catching her breath, “Please just tell me we have enough to getback to Earth?” “Hahaha, yes we do. Next stop, home,” she tells them withoptimism. The monitors and screens flicker for a brief moment. “Everythingokay?” Sergey asks. “Yes, the explosion, both of them, caused minor glitches inthe system, but we should be fine,” she explains.