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A few minutes later, we are taking stock of our damages and preparing to board the other ship. I don my armor and silently pray that today will not be the day I die.
* * *
“Go, go, go,” I say as we run through the hot and humid Octopod ship. I hate that their ships are slippery and slimy everywhere, and the smell is like bad breath.
“They’re down this way according to sensors,” one of my officers says quietly, motioning down a corridor. Our sensors don’t work well on the ship. And these are upgraded Dulu ones, our standard-issue Alliance ones wouldn’t be working at all.
I’m skeptical if that’s really the way. I look down the other corridors. They are all dark and quiet. Would they keep their most precious cargo close to the bridge, which is to our left, or near engineering to our right? On Alliance ships, we always keep our cargo near engineering, but Octopods don’t think the same way.
“Access the computer. Where’s medical?” I ask.
“This way,” my officer points down a third corridor.
“We go that way,” I say firmly. “Quickly.” My men begin moving in formation. I know they think we’re going the wrong way, but I don’t think Octopods would keep humans in their cargo bays these days, even if they’re next to engineering. And although we got the surprise attack on them now, it doesn’t mean they didn’t always have internal sensors to throw us off to overtake us once we’re onboard. That’s what I’d do if I were in their position, and in my experience, only the Dulu give up easily once Alliance officers set foot on their ships.
Halfway down the dark corridor, I hold up my hand for everyone to stop.
My officers’ boots stop, and we listen. We hear nothing at first. Then, I hear it. There it is again and again. The faintest sound of humans talking. No. Not talking. Humans crying.
I say nothing but direct my men to move forward with a hand gesture. Soon, we are outside a door that reads “Medical” in Octopod, with all its extra squiggly ‘o’s.’ How many times have I entered enemy rooms like this? A hundred times? Five hundred times? And the last twenty times, I’ve been in command, and although it’s new to me, it feels so natural. I take a second to glance back at my men. Then I make sure my gun is ready and give the order. “Enter.”
The medical door is suspiciously unlocked, and we move in. Guns ready. I see humans everywhere. All human women in all states of undress. They’re crying, and some of them are ill. Some of them are dazed and covered in Octopod blood. And those same women are coming out of their stupor now and are turning whatever makeshift weapon they can find on us.
I lift my face shield, raise my hands in a way they’ll hopefully recognize as a peaceful gesture, and say in English, “You’re okay. We’re here to take you back to Earth. Please put the weapons down.” At the same time, I make eye contact with the human woman in front of me with a medical laser. I motion for my men to open their visors as well. Behind me, I hear the sound of their visors all being raised.
Our resident disciple, whom the High Priestess appointed, begins to explain to them that they’re the Lost People, and that’s why they look so similar to us. He also tells them that Earth’s governments don’t want them to have contact with non-humans, which is why they’ve never heard or seen us before. He also tells them that we protect Earth and have a base on the dark side of the moon, which usually makes some humans laugh. Except today, there was no laughter. Only tears.
“Can you get these things out of us?” a young human woman asks from the back. Her voice is so juvenile. I have to control the anger building up in me for what these Octopod rogues have done to her and all these women, using them as surrogates to hold embryos. I swallow hard. Now, everything has become more complicated by Alliance and GC law. Those Octo embryos are innocent. This will be a matter for our doctor, and thankfully for these women, our Alliance Force doctor sees these laws more as guidelines, as does most species in the galaxy. But this new resident disciple sees things as the Empire would. I wish he weren’t here. If it were up to me, I’d take the Octo embryos out, put them in stasis, and turn them over to an Octopod representative, not caring whether they survived. However, it’s our duty to protect all life unless it’s threatening us. “Our doctor will see you and do what he can.”
“Can he take these out? Otherwise, I’m going to cut them out with this,” a woman says, grabbing a knife from a dead woman’s hand. “And I’m assuming you can sew me back together with your advanced technology? If you have spaceships, surely you can sew me back together again.”
I see the sheer determination in the woman’s eyes. I understand. I’d probably feel the same way in this situation. I reach out my hand to her in the air to plead with her, “Please don’t. I can only promise they’ll not be inside you forever, and you’ll survive this. I’m not a doctor, so I can’t say more about...”
The disciple begins to explain, and I try to stop him, but before I can finish my sentence, I hear gunfire behind us. I duck and yell to the humans, “Get down and hide.” I don’t need to say anything to my men. They’re on it. We know this drill. We fire back and find cover. Those are Octopod blasters, and the shooters are well-covered. After twenty minutes, it seems like a stalemate that will last forever. Both sides have too much cover and too much ammunition. “They’re going to wait us out,” I say to my men in Alliance.
“And then we’ll lose, and all these women will be taken. Octopods don’t need rest like we do.”
“I know,” I say and then look back through the medical center. “Hold your position.” I run back in. When I enter, I can’t see any of the human women. They’re all doing an excellent job hiding, but I can hear them. Some of the women are crying, and others are breathing hard. When I turn to see why, it’s because a few are cutting their abdomens open to remove the Octo embryos while hiding behind medical beds. “Please don’t do that. We will help you, I promise,” I tell them as honestly as possible. However, there’s little point in my saying this. The women are in the zone of single-minded thinking and cannot hear anyone. I tear my eyes away from the horror and ask the other women, “Are any of you chemists? Or know anything about sleeping medicine?” My English isn’t perfect, and I struggle to explain myself. I reach to turn on my translator, but a woman stands up.
“I do,” a brown-haired woman says. She’s the one who killed one of the Octopod doctors, as she has Octopod blood all over her clothing, hands, and face. “But I can’t read any of this,” she motions to the Octopod language all around us. “But, if you show me the molecular structure and if these aliens are anything like humans, I can have a good guess as I imagine even among aliens, science is science, right.”
“Yes.” I bring up the molecular structure of the sleeping agent on the medical 3D computer. We both look at it. This diagram means very little to me. “I don’t know how potent something would need to be to put them to sleep and not kill them or us in the process. In the medical beds, there’s a mist that puts you to sleep.” I can tell by the way she’s looking at me I’m not using the correct words to describe the sleeping agent, but I don’t have the vocabulary in English.
“I understand, and I think I understand how this is supposed to work. But how will we get that out there? They must breathe it in at close range. The further they are away, the less potent. This isn’t meant to be used the way you want to use it,” she tells me unnecessarily.
“We can redirect it into the corridor,” I explain. “I’m good with computers. I can move things around and into the vents. I don’t know how much to move into the air,” I begin searching for the sleeping agent and find the supply in the medical center. Just like in most ships, it’s set up to be administered to any medical bed, meaning that it’s stored separately. “It says here,” I point to the screen more for myself than the human’s benefit, “Two units are needed to put one person under for ten minutes. I think there are four or five in the corridor.”
“Can you close the doors around them?”
“I can only close one door, meaning we will be exposed as well, but at a distance.”
“How many units can you blast in there, and how long will it take? You can’t have them running away.”
“Good point,” I say. “I’m going to have to risk poisoning them.” I begin reprogramming the computer to divert the gas to their location. I try again to trap them with the doors, but I’m blocked out with a security code. I also don’t want to try too hard with the doors because then I may be blocked out completely.
“Aren’t your men trying to kill them in the hallway right now anyway? What’s the difference between guns and poison? They’ll all be dead either way.”
“It’s legal with guns,” I explain. “But we are at a standstill. Too much ammunition and Octopods have more energy.”
