The one thing pilots always did when traveling through the danger zone was narrate the environmental changes to all passengers. It typically prevented panic rather than not knowing what was happening at all – even if everything was going smoothly. But, today, there was nothing more than a little hum from the speakers. Everyone ceased their shuffling about, each face turned to watch the speakers, waiting. Nothing.

Something’s wrong. Senna seemed to be thinking that a lot lately. She found herself getting up and approaching the door towards the pilot’s cabin. As soon as she reached the door, a voice rang through the intercom.

“Attention all passengers. The ship has landed at Station One, safely.”

Passengers murmured among themselves, surprised, to say the least. Senna backed away from the door. That quickly? Passengers began to shove by her as she retreated back inside the oxygen chamber. It wasn’t until everyone had nearly all unboarded the ship that she decided to follow suit. Sure enough, they were at Station One. But safe? From what Senna could see, they were far from safe.

Station One had been overtaken by the ETs. The moment she stepped off of the starship, it zoomed away and joined a fleet of other starships settled on the far end of the station. Not a single ET made eye contact with them. Not a single one spoke to them. They were herding passengers into the opposite side of the fleet, barricaded by iron gates that spanned the length of the station. Senna was swept along with them. What are they doing? She stood beside another young woman, about the same age, blond hair, green eyes.

“Do you know what they’re doing?” Senna asked nervously. Was that a stupid question? Does anyone know? The blond girl shrugged, hanging her head.

“Not letting us return to Earth, that much is a given.”

“They don’t give a shit about us,” another girl stated bluntly.

Senna turned to her other side. It was a young girl, probably in her late teens. Dark skin, long, black hair in curly ringlets and swirling brown eyes. She didn’t seem angry, despite her choice of words. In fact, she seemed to be providing an observation. Her eyes followed the ETs, watching them with intent.

“They don’t care what we do. As long as we don’t get to the ships.” She motioned with a cock of her head behind them towards the left. “A few hours ago, someone got in a tussle with one of the passing ETs. He strangled it, and not one of them even stopped to look and see what was going on.” She looked Senna in the eyes, casually. “They don’t seem to care about anything but the starships. Not even their own kind.”

Her eyes wandered off, tailing another ET passing in front of them. Senna followed her stare, fixating hers on the ET itself rather than its path. Pale skin with a greyish undertone, not unlike a fresh human corpse. Muscular physique, long limbs, dark round eyes, and an agile gait. He bore some resemblance to a human form and Senna thought that with some makeup, he would have blended it effortlessly on Earth. It was the first time she’d ever thought to really look at an ET – not that she had the time regardless of the many opportunities there were to do so. If there was an ET on Earth, it was time to run and hide, not stop and study.

“If they don’t care, then why don’t we just attack them and take over?” Senna wondered aloud. There were several hundred, possibly a thousand humans corralled together. Clearly, they were all beyond frightened, anxious, and receptive to emotional persuasion. Rallying them up to attack wouldn’t be an arduous task. Senna refocused her attention to the girl who was still watching the ET.

“Because,” the girl stated, pointedly, “that would be reckless.” Her eyes were moving deliberately between the ET and the general direction he was headed. She lingered her sights on a small mobile station for about a minute and then shifted to a group of ETs that had just landed and were keeping tightly close together. She and Senna stood side-by-side, in silence and observation, for another few minutes. Senna didn’t quite figure out what exactly this girl was looking for or trying to see, but Senna herself began feeling ants crawl up her limbs, her spine, and inside her body. Her hands were growing moist and tingly, as if she had a pinched nerve and was sweating at the same time.

“Are you okay?”

Senna blinked. The girl had stepped in front of her, raising an eyebrow with mild concern.

“Huh?”

“You’re breathing really fast and you’re pale.”

“Oh I-I’m fine. Just really confused and…exhausted.” Senna took a deep breath. The girl nodded understandingly and offered her hand.

“I’m Amari. I came here with the first group of refugees taking off from the Cicada Dock.” She attempted a friendly smile, but found it difficult after making worried grimaces for four days straight. Senna hesitantly shook her hand, unsure of whether to try and smile back or stay serious. It was difficult to concentrate.

“Senna. I’m Senna. I just…got here,” she said, cringing silently. Yup, as if stepping off a ship didn’t make that obvious… Her knees felt weak. The world started turning grey.

“Whoa there,” Amari quickly slipped an arm around Senna’s back, catching her just as her knees buckled. “Why don’t you sit down for a moment?” She suggested, pulling Senna away to a…somewhat emptier space and gently setting her down. Senna glanced back at the ground and hesitated.

“It’s just dirt, I promise,” Amari assured. Senna let gravity do the rest. ”I’d offer you some water, but it seems the ETs have that under lock and key, too.”

“Right.” Senna took a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut as she held the air inside her lungs. One caterpillar, two caterpillar, three caterpillar… When she exhaled and opened her eyes, Amari was sitting beside her, loosely hugging her knees. She didn’t make eye contact.

“Sometimes I get panic attacks.” Senna said, sheepishly.

“It happens,” shrugged Amari. Somehow, that was actually comforting. An ET strolled by, their face blank, lanky limbs swaying in a rhythm.

“Hey! Can we get some water over here?” Amari called out. It paused, pivoted on its heel exactly 90 degrees, and looked plainly at Amari. Then Senna. Returned to its original gait, moving on without so much as a huff of inconvenience. Exactly two minutes later, it returned with a flask of water and placed it a meter from Senna, cautiously keeping its distance.

Senna eyed the flask suspiciously. It looked sealed and she recognized the Starboard Alliance logo on it, the same logo that was on every rescue starship to fly from Earth to refugee camps on other planets. She looked at Amari, who nodded in affirmation to its safety. Senna drank the flask and folded it neatly into a little square, tucking it away in her pocket. She felt silly that the first thing she thought after relieving her thirst was, now where do I recycle this?

After a beat of silence, Senna felt a calmness wash over her. Well, relative calmness. “Thanks,” she said, managing to pull together some semblance of a friendly smile at Amari. She wasn’t sure what to say, or if there was anything to say at all.

“How long have you been here?” Senna asked, leveling her voice as best she could, as if she was asking how Amari felt about the weather lately. Amari held up four fingers. “Four days.”

“How many of you?” Senna struggled to form the right sentences, to ask the most useful questions, something that she never struggled with in the lab.

“Hmmm,” Amari looked up at the endless sky thoughtfully. “Well, there were about five ships arriving around the same time including mine. I’m assuming they were packed, considering Earth’s…situation. So, that’s 120 people on each ship. Guess that means…600?”

“So, combined with the ship I arrived on, that makes about 720 of us.” Senna let that number sink in. She felt her heart pick up pace.

“Well, not really.” Amari looked at her feet, chewing her lip nervously.

“What? Not really what?”

“A group of us – myself not included – thought, ‘hey, if we band together and rush them, they’ll have to come over and break it up and another group can hijack the ships’. Turns out it doesn’t take many of them to break up a fight.” She looked up at Senna warily. “They’re strong. Really strong.”

Up until this point, Senna had the impression that Amari was unfazed, carefully observing from afar. But, the look in her eyes spelled fear.

“Well…maybe the group wasn’t big enough?”

“It was two groups of about hundred each.” Amari darted her eyes away. “There are not 720 of us. There are just barely 500.” She confirmed, quietly. Senna took in the information silently, begging her body and mind to keep the panic at bay.

“How many of them, then?” She followed up.

“About a hundred, I think. But, they come and go.” Amari motioned over to where the starships were stationed. “Most of them guard those ships, which means it’s vital for them to keep us here.” Before Senna could ask, Amari added, “I don’t know why.”

“We have to think of a plan,” Senna insisted. “We can’t just sit here waiting for them to… to… to eat us!” Her eyes widened at her own thought. She didn’t even know if they ate humans, but why not? No one has captured one to study their dietary needs or digestive processes. To her surprise, Amari burst with laughter, falling backwards on her elbows.

“Eat us?” She laughed again. “If anything, they’re disgusted with us. Don’t want to touch us with a ten-foot pole if they can help it.” She shook her head, chuckling softly before returning to seriousness.

“It doesn’t matter if we come up with the most brilliant plan. We need opportunity. Even a loose, on-the-spot plan could work if there was the right opportunity.” Amari explained with an air of experience coating every word.

Senna looked around her. Opportunity? What did that look like here? She shuddered at the thought of having to kill an ET. Do they bleed like humans? Do they feel pain, too? She was no stranger to the casualties of war and the ugly necessities that came with it, but necessary and easy were two very different things.

Just as she was about to resign her throbbing brain to watching and waiting, a peculiar-looking ship landed. Not human. It was camouflaged, wisping in and out of vision as it bulged with life. The ship itself was alive, as if it was made from the very essence of nature itself. No hard lines, no sharp edges or corners. Organic. It was invisible but imposing, like a black hole in the depths of space, blending seamlessly into its environment but instilling awe and drilling a pit of fear into everyone’s stomachs. Natural, but unnatural all the same.

A dozen ETs swiftly exited the ship in impeccable order. The ship seemed to go into slumber.

Chills ran up Senna’s spine. Amari stood to get a better look. The ETs were markedly different from the ones watching them at the station. These ones were tall, too, but their skin was human-like and stature the evolutionary ideal of man. They looked like what humans could have been had humankind succeeded as a species.

It wasn’t obvious until Amari nudged Senna’s elbow, whispering, “Look slowly.” She pointed at some of the ETs who had been hanging about the fleet of starships. Every now and again, a couple of them would trickle away to join the new ETs that had arrived. Senna slowly turned her head, noting the nonchalance of their diversion. “Something’s going on. They’re being called, but they don’t want to draw attention.”

“What…?”

“Shh.” Amari shushed. “We don’t need to know what or why.” While most of their fellow humans were watching the new ETs and clamoring about nervously about the newcomers, Amari and Senna watched as the starships slowly became unguarded. Amari grabbed Senna by the wrist and led her out of sight, weaving through the crowds slowly but deliberately. She stopped at the edge of the fence that separated them from the fleet, looking for a way to open the gate.

“Amari!” Senna hissed, backing up against the gate. The ETs had suddenly turned to the crowd and all of them were sifting through the hundreds trapped behind the iron fence. People were tossed aside like unwanted toys. Amari had no time to watch them advance. The gate was auto-locked with voltage running through. She could reach through and unlock it, but not without a crippling shock that would take her down for at least a minute. Did they have a minute? Amari took no longer than a second to answer that herself. It doesn’t matter. We may not have a minute, but we have an opportunity. She reached through and pulled the lever, all the while screaming for Senna to run.

“SENNA! Get to a ship!”

In an immediate second, Amari was thrown to the ground, convulsing uncontrollably. Senna bolted towards the open gate before anyone else realized it had been open, but stopped in her tracks when the voltage had sent Amari to the ground, writhing. She hoisted her up, Amari’s body shaking still and dragged her through the gate. Alarms were blaring, loud enough to disorient.

“I can run!” Amara gasped painfully. The world spun but she could make out Senna’s fuzzy figure. “Go! Just pick a ship and go!” At this point, a few people managed to escape with them before the ETs initiated the lockdown protocols, sending heavy steel walls up from an invisible seam in the ground. Everyone else was trapped inside a giant metal box.

They stumbled up the nearest ship, closing the hatch and locking all entrances before anyone else could reach it, human or otherwise. Amari ran to the command center and pressed a few buttons on the flat glowing screen.

Oxygen equalization initiated. All doors locked. The ETs surrounded the ship. Weapons Senna had never seen before were aimed right at them. One ET stepped forward, scanning the mirrored windows for something. Just as it locked eyes with Senna, her locket burned.