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“Yeah, yeah, we’re coming, okay,” Addie calls out. “WHO are you anyway...?”
“I’ve been waiting here for three days for you to arrive here...”
“But who are you?” Addie repeats.
“Best we use no names until we’re inside,” the man answers, “and once you’re inside, you’ll understand what is going on...”
Taylor turns and looks at his friends for a moment. As the oldest, it was his responsibility to keep them all safe. For once, though, he was uncertain what to suggest. “Addie,” he says after a few minutes of thinking, “if you, and not me, was the leader, so what you would do right now...?”
“I’d go with Kaylee’s instincts...”
“Oh, now you go with my instincts,” Kaylee hisses, “so what about when—”
“Hush, I know when I lost the argument, okay,” Addie snaps, “But we need to decide quickly whether we’ll believe him. He looks like he’s getting into a panic over there...”
“I’d say we GO!” Sam grunts.
“I go with Sam’s suggestion,” Joey adds.
“I think Bree and I are a GO, too,” Kaylee says after looking at her friend and sees Brianne nodding at her, confirming she’s agreeing with the plans being made.
“I think we should go,” Addie says, glancing at every individual for a moment.
“Okay, I guess that’s a unanimous ‘yes’ from everyone,” Taylor says, then he calls out, “We’re coming...”
“GOOD, we have minutes left before all hell will break loose everywhere,” the man calls out. “Hurry...”
The six youngsters rush through the undergrowth towards the man. He points to his left and frantically waves his arm to urge them on to greater speed. Occasionally he glances towards the west...
“Hurry, they cannot see us go inside...”
There’s panic now in the man’s voice, and as he pushes the others towards the opening Addie turns to glance west as well. In the distance he sees a cloud. But not one that makes rain...
Addie leans against the wall beside the door that the strange man seals tightly. A loud rumble. The small window in the door darkens.
The man turns and leans against the wall opposite, heaving sighs loudly. “I guess you’re the last to come...” he hisses.
“The last?” Addie asks. “Why...?”
“Because the attack against them has started. By the way, my name is Thomas, and welcome to the Alliance,” Thomas answers. “And why is because all the Habitats are currently being destroyed by those left behind. This door was the only thing that wasn’t hidden from the aliens. What you see around you is one of their ships that was captured about ninety years ago, and which hundreds of scientists in the Alliance have been altering to make a place humans can survive in...”
“So, it’s true this is a ship that is taking us to another planet?” Taylor asks.
“Indeed!”
Seven pairs of eyes glance down the narrow corridor when the answer come from a woman rather than Thomas.
“I’m the leader of this... facility. My name is Madge, and you’re on board of what will be humanity’s boldest attempt to be safer in the future, or at least as safe as we can get to be if we do things according to a hundred years of planning and testing,” Madge says. “We’re going to take off in a matter of hours, and where we’ll go is a place, the aliens won’t dare to follow us... or at least that’s the stuff they’ve been telling us for the entirety of our lives.”
“So, is this a spaceship or not?” Brianne asks sharply.
“It is, but their technology works different from how we expected to function,” Madge answers. “We’ve already done four test runs, which were more dangerous than this last journey. It was three years ago when we finally increased the output range by tenfold. We can do two consecutive bursts and then we’ll just keep flying onward...”
“Hmm, if I’m right, it would take them at least five decades to catch up,” Joey says.
“Ah, another scientific brain to be of use to us,” Madge says. “I guess I know what team you can help in the last hours until the countdown... We’re at T-Minus eighteen hours as of right now...” Madge lifts an arm and points at a round object on her arm. She’s about to speak further when they hear a loud rumble, becoming louder by the minute, and finally all of them drop to the floor in the reaction to the earthquake they feel underfoot.
“What the fuck is that?” Brianne asks.
“That, my dear, is the rest of humanity seizing to exist,” Madge grunts. “As of T-Minus eighteen hours, there are exactly seven hundred thousand humans left on Earth. All inside this spaceship, all going into space to save humanity from whatever the fuck the aliens are doing to this planet. I don’t think that humans can live on its surface for much longer...”
“So, our parents, friends, everyone else... are... all... dead?” Kaylee asks. “Everyone outside this place is now dead?”
“Yes, they are to be blunt,” Madge says. “But almost anyone above the age of twenty-five knew this day would come, eventually. The aliens caused the earthquake you just felt and heard in their last action of terraforming our planet from a human planet to a planet belonging to them...”
Madge scrambles to an upright position, glances at all individuals for several minutes, then clambers to her feet, “... but where we’re going, we’ve found an unexpected ally. Two jumps put us inside the territory of a species calling themselves, well at least in their language, the Last Tribe, and they know of them...” Madge points towards the door. “... they arrived minutes after our second test jump. Which was unexpected? They’ve offered a planet to the survivors that has similar conditions to how Old Earth was before—”
“SIR, come please, we got an alert on the main deck!”
Madge spins around when a man of around twenty years old arrives in the corridor behind her, snapping at the younger man standing in the doorway looking nervous and giving the small doorway a few glances with darting eyes. “What’s the alert for?” Madge asks before she briefly turns back the newcomers and says, “I guess the rest of the history lesson will have to wait... Follow us...”
~~~
“I WONDER WHAT’S GOING on?” Sam whispers, leaning towards his friends. “I want to know what the alert is for. She said she’d be back to tell us, but it’s been hours already...”
“We should be patient...” Kaylee whispers.
“But you heard her...” Sam whispers back. “She said Joey might be useful for his skills. If that’s the case, then why is HE still here...?”
“We don’t know if it’s safe to be on the science deck,” Kaylee hisses back. “Maybe all other young people are in similar rooms. You could smell the air outside in the last few days. It tasted like rancid food. Something was off about it. Maybe there’s a leak and they need to make sure we survive the effects of whatever air the aliens breathe...”
“Kaylee is right,” Joey states in her defence. “Also, maybe we’re in a room to get us conditioned to the air inside this ship. Going from one sort of air to another may also be dangerous for us.”
“I still cannot believe that just one week ago we were simply a few teenagers trying to cope with living in the Habitats and our way of having fun was to play pranks on older people,” Brianne says. “Now I know the same people cared about us and few hundred others and orchestrated to get us to freedom. I cannot even thank them for doing it...”
“Maybe we can hold a memorial for them when we get to the planet that Madge spoke of,” Taylor suggests gently, placing a hand in solidarity on the girl’s shoulder. “I already miss Ma... I hope she... they didn’t suffer in the end...”
“Do you think the earthquake was from them doing something to the Habitats?” Brianne asks.
“Ma said that whenever I could hear the earthquake it would mean they, not the aliens, have destroyed all the Habitats to give us time to escape from the planet. All the Habitats, that is... Not just the ones we came from a week ago,” Taylor says, grimacing at Brianne a moment. He liked her for her directness and had noticed that Addie and Brianne had become close in the last few days. He wonders if Brianne had the same concept of falling in love as Kaylee, remembering the conversation about her going against rules set by the aliens. Rules that in hours from now won’t matter anymore, Taylor thinks while he frowns momentarily. And once we’re safe, we can create new rules and new laws. Laws that will show we won’t make the same mistakes that Old Earth made...
“I hope we’ll escape,” Brianne whispers as she stares intently towards the door, almost willing for Madge to reappear and reassure them that everyone is okay. All the previous rebellious behaviour had now disappeared from Brianne’s demeanour, and they just behaved like a frightened individual, unsure what would come next. Taylor glances towards Addie, then he nods sideways at Brianne, and a moment later vacates the bench beside her for his friend to sit down there. He drops to the floor beside Kaylee, who was the person he’d become interested in...
“Is Bree, okay?” Kaylee whispers.
“Just anxious,” Taylor says. “Are you okay?”
“I’m worried, but something about how Madge spoke makes me less worried,” Kaylee answers. “I can’t explain why, but for the first time in my life I feel like things are going to be okay for us all...”
“Have you felt more of the earthquakes since the big one?” Taylor asks.
Kaylee nods her head once, then she tilts her head like she’s listening for something, or someone. She shakes her head before she speaks once more, “One elder in my Habitat had spoken once about the humans of Old Earth knowing of a way to measure when the ground shakes,” she explains. “He said to listen for the trembles that follow the first and the count them. He said that after about five or six extra trembles, the ground settles and it’s safe. I’ve heard one extra shaking... I’ve been waiting for the others...”
“Maybe that’s why Madge hasn’t come back for us,” Taylor suggests. “They might have equipment somewhere in this place to measure the earthquake. They may count it just like you...”
Taylor glances at Kaylee to see a self-satisfied grin on her face. It’s the first time they’d had to kill the alien that she had smiled. Now emboldened by her smile, Taylor takes his chance, “I like it when you smile,” he whispers.
“Do you now?” Kaylee says softly.
“Yes...”
“I like you too,” Kaylee says, nudging Taylor playfully momentarily, “but we need to wait with... errr... whatever it is we’re doing right now...”
“I know, but please remember I like you,” Taylor whispers.
“Am I your first?” Kaylee asks.
“Errr... yes,” Taylor answers. “I hope you’re okay with that?”
“I had no one before either,” Kaylee says, looking down. “I guess I didn’t have time for this sort of feelings with all the troubles the aliens were causing in Habitat 5-A...”
“What sort of troubles were you having there...?” Taylor asks. “Why would the aliens do things to make things more difficult than they already are...?”
Taylor notices Kaylee hesitating with continuing the conversation and that she glances several times towards Joey who sits at the edge of the shadow staring towards the sky, looking in different directions periodically, like he wants to keep his attention focused on that instead of appearing to listen to the conversation going on between Taylor and Kaylee.
“I don’t know—” Kaylee answers. “It was Sam’s Pa who told us to be careful. And then he’d keep telling Sam and I to go with you. Sam had a girl in the Habitat... She had to stay behind in the Habitat. And the same with Joey if you were wondering about him...”