Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

ALINA

E verything smelled like sweat and skin, and at first it made Alina feel sick, but after a while she'd begun to get used to it. Besides, Alina smelled like sweat and skin now too. She looked around—she'd seen most of these people before on the command deck, but didn't know any personally. Most of her friends had been from the CRD or the maintenance and cleaning crew, not officers.

The invaders had chosen to corral them in one of the nearby canteens to await their fate. They huddled in a corner with eight-foot giants loitering about. The uhyre had all removed their helms, and while their monster eyes were bright and hollow and their expressions indecipherable, Alina thought she could see the droop of weariness in their armored shoulders.

She turned to the comms lady, who was sobbing in terrified silence.

"Hey," Alina muttered. "It'll be all right. Commander Hal…" Alina swallowed, glancing at the aliens. "Mr. Halen is striking a deal. You heard him."

The woman looked uncomforted. "My kids. They would've been in school. Do you think they're home?" She pivoted her wide eyes to Alina, as though expecting her to know somehow.

"I'm sure the kids are fine," Alina chanced a squeeze of the woman's shoulder as her eyes swept the invaders again.

They looked like they shouldn't be real. She'd seen vids, of course, from Old Earth. She knew that uhyre existed… But only now, seeing them in the flesh, did she really understand. Their size, the glowing cracks in their skins, all of different hues. Alina wondered how they lived among humans for a whole thirty years back on Old Earth.

How did humanity ever look at these creatures and think, Hmm, yeah, let's share our planet with these guys ? Of course, once addiction to their exorin took hold, it wasn't much of a choice.

"My daughter stayed home sick yesterday. I don't even know if she's eaten," a man joined the conversation in a hushed voice.

So go do something about it.

Alina chastised herself for the biting thought. This was not a "do something" situation. This was a "your worst nightmares have just come true" situation, and no one could be blamed for being afraid.

She sucked in a breath and held it, giving herself a few seconds to sit with the comforting stretch in her lungs. Then she stepped forward to the edge of the clustered human throng.

"Excuse me." She found the glowing red male in the group, drawn to the one who'd hit her before out of some fucked up sense of familiarity. Her temple throbbed in sync with the reminder. "Excuse me," she tried louder, taking another step.

Rustling of bodies behind her met the clanking of weapons in front as glowing eyes turned her way.

The red one cocked his head. He looked over one shoulder, then the other .

"Yes, I mean you… Sir?"

"Back, human," he snarled in guttural Universal as she approached, hoisting up the barrel of his weapon to stop Alina in her tracks. She had managed maybe three steps across the canteen and was now planted between her people and their captors.

"These people," Alina gestured to the officers behind her, "they have families. Children who are waiting for them."

I hope.

She saw no recognition on the uhyre's face and chose to interpret that as a promising sign that he was not aware of his men killing any kids lately.

"Let them go home," Alina pressed. "To take care of their… offspring?"

Maybe the uhyre didn't know what ‘children' meant?

The red one tilted his head the other way. "Get back," he repeated.

"You don't understand," Alina's protest withered when he jerked his chin to what seemed to be a female uhyre by his side. At least Alina thought it was a female… She was marginally more slender in build, and the spikes lining her scalp were slightly shorter. The maybe-female cleared the distance between them so fast that Alina didn't even have time to register the fist swinging toward her until it connected with her already tender rib cage.

The hit sent her sprawling backward into the people huddled in that damn corner. The people who drew back instead of forward, clearing the hard floor for collision with her spine. Pain blanched her vision, cascading down her vertebrae.

It was only after Alina lay with her spine on fire and her breath knocked out of her that human hands found her, dragging her back.

"I know you mean well." A man's face appeared above her. "But shut the fuck up, will you? You're gonna get us all killed."

Tears pricked at the backs of Alina's eyes and she blinked fast, staring at her feet as she rose achingly to a stand, hunched against the wall. She'd only been trying to help. Instead, she fucked up and got reprimanded not just by the invaders, but by her own people. Alina stared straight ahead, grateful that the tears at the edges of her eyes dried up before they spilled.

She didn't know how long they loitered in that cluster, waiting for deliverance, or death, or something. The mutterings of the surrounding officers were faraway whispers in her ears, and more than once Alina was tempted to try to speak up for them once more, but what if they were right and she got them all killed?

She had been brooding on this and similar thoughts in ever-tightening circles, her mind flailing itself and replaying all the embarrassing shit that she'd just done in the span of a few hours. Running into the command center like she was actually needed. Yelling for Kaia only to end up disregarded and trapped under an alien's arm like a bug. Getting knocked out because she couldn't keep her mouth shut. And then foolishly thinking she could convince the monsters who just occupied their ship to let them all go to bed.

Idiot .

It all replayed in her head so insistently that at first Alina didn't even hear the commotion all around her when the cyan uhyre, the supposed new commander, entered the canteen.