by Morgan Rice
Luna watched in horror as the aliens closed in. There were so many of them, too many of them. They were everywhere that she could see, advancing toward the UCLA campus, the sheer unbroken line of them adding to the horror of it. Beside her, Bobby started barking, as if sounding the alarm, but Luna could already see how bad things were.
“Get the crystals and the meteorite,” she yelled over to Ignatius. She looked around for anything that she could carry them with, running down to the first floor and into a reception space. She found a couple of plastic boxes there, filled with files. She tipped them out and ran back upstairs with them.
The sounds of battle surrounded her all at once, guns sounding outside, and booms as energy blasts hit the university buildings, sounding in cascades of stone and concrete. Luna looked out of the window to see the fighting starting down below, the Survivors and the others firing guns, spreading the vapor from their few vapor weapons, fighting hand to hand with controlled who weren’t even trying to convert them, just striking out trying to kill them. The aliens had learned quickly, or perhaps they just didn’t care about making more of the controlled now.
“Down!” Ignatius yelled behind her, and Luna saw the flicker of an energy blast approaching.
She threw herself flat, dragging Bobby with her, and a shower of brickwork flew overhead as the blast hit, cracking casings and shattering glass, Luna felt something scrape across her back, pain flaring, and for a moment she just wanted to lie there until the ringing in her ears went away. Then Bobby licked her face, and Luna realized that she had to get up again.
She scrambled toward the spot where the crystals sat, and where she’d been disappointed with how they looked before, now Luna stared at them. They glowed, with a blue light that seemed to fill the space around them.
“They’re reacting to the energy of the blast,” Ignatius said, struggling to his feet a lot more slowly than Luna had.
The glow faded from the crystals slowly, and they were a dull blue-gray again. Ignatius picked them up, putting them in the plastic boxes as Luna held them out. The meteorite was heavy enough that Luna barely managed to hold it.
“All right,” Ignatius said. “We have what we came here for. Now, can we get out of here before we’re all killed?”
Luna hoped so. “Come on,” she said. “We’ll find a way back to the bus.”
When she looked out of another of the museum’s windows, though, it seemed obvious that things wouldn’t be that easy. The plaza in front of the museum was awash with fighting now, and since the controlled looked almost exactly like the people who had been freed from the aliens’ control, it was almost impossible to tell the difference from that height. The Survivors who had taken the vapor guns continued to spray people almost at random, and some fell as the vaccine did its work, but the most the ones with real guns could do was fire at anyone who started to attack them, and by then, it seemed to Luna as though it would already be too late.
“I don’t think we’re getting out until the battle’s won,” she said. “If we tried to escape now, we would lose half of our people trying.”
“If we can get away with a way to win this, then maybe—”
“Don’t say it,” Luna snapped back at him. “I waited for you at the base. We’re not abandoning people.”
Besides, even if Luna had wanted to, she suspected that there would have been no way to do it. The controlled blocked the exits to the plaza now, while the stranger, alien things stalked into it, striking out with limbs that were weapons in themselves. One went down, brought down by a barrage of shots from the Survivors, but there were more.
“We need to get down there,” Luna said. “We need to help.”
“And how do we help?” Ignatius asked.
Luna didn’t have an answer to that. Other people had the vapor guns, and Luna didn’t even have their makeshift vapor grenades. Even so, she felt as though she had to do something. She couldn’t just leave the others to do all of the fighting, and she still at least had a dart gun.
“Wait here,” she said to Ignatius.
“Where would I go?” he countered, gesturing to the chaos outside.
“Just… make sure you’re here when I get back,” Luna said. “I need to check on the others.”
She ran downstairs with Bobby by her side, plunging down into the chaos. It was instant. Around her, there were people fighting everywhere she looked, some with the dead white pupils of the controlled, some fighting back noisily, shouting to one another as they did it.
“Keep shouting!” Luna said, realizing that it was one thing they could do that the controlled couldn’t. “If you’re saying something, we can tell that you’re not one of them!”
She wasn’t sure how many of them heard her, but some did, and they started doing all kinds of things. Some shouted encouragement to one another, some yelled battle cries of their own invention, some sang, only adding to the cacophony of the battle.
Luna saw Leon and Barnaby in the midst of the battle, fighting with controlled after controlled. Barnaby had one of the vapor guns and was spraying it all around, keeping them at bay. Leon was striking out with a machete in one hand and a gun in the other, mostly trying to keep them back from Barnaby long enough for him to change more of them back into people.
Luna started to fight her way across to them, pushing people out of the way, ducking under a pair of grabbing arms and then darting forward past a thing that was swiping out with claws as long as daggers. Another of the controlled jumped at her, and Barnaby leapt to meet it, snapping and snarling, knocking it back with both paws before returning to Luna’s side.
She pushed her way through to Leon, lifting her dart gun and bringing down one of the controlled who was moving in from his side.
“We’ve found it!” she yelled over the noise of the battle. “We’ve got the substance. We can get out of here!”
She knew that wasn’t a real option, but she felt as though she had to say it, just in case there was some way out of there that she hadn’t seen.
“There are too many of them,” Leon said. “There’s no way out.”
“Then we have to win this,” Luna said. She loaded another dart into the dart gun and shot another of the controlled.
Then she saw one of the alien things heading toward them, stalking forward on legs whose knees bent the wrong way, and which had scales that shimmered like an oil slick. It bared crocodilian teeth and roared, swiping people out of its way as it tried to get to them.
Luna loaded one dart after another, firing at it without stopping. A dart plunged into a space between some of the softer scales, then another, pumping the sedative into the beast. It kept coming forward, barely slowed, but Luna kept firing and firing. For a step or two, it didn’t seem to make any difference, but then, finally, the alien thing stood there and gave another cry, sounding mournful and bereft, then toppled over like some great scaly tree.
“We got one!” Luna yelled out, punching her fist in the air.
Then she saw a dozen other creatures just like the first coming into the edge of the plaza, smashing into the people there.
“We won the last fight,” Luna said, trying to convince herself as much as Leon or Barnaby.
“We’re losing this one,” Leon replied, shooting at another of the alien things as it came closer. The bullet struck it, but it kept coming, pausing to swing its claws around to rip through a couple more of their people.
People were dying everywhere Luna looked. The controlled were faster and stronger than the humans, and the alien things were even more dangerous than that. They tore into the Survivors, throwing aside the people who had been changed back from being controlled like they were rag dolls.
Amidst the chaos of it all, Luna saw Cub leap forward, hacking with a blade as long as his forearm, slicing into a gap in one of the creatures’ armor. He plunged the weapon deep then sprang away, riding the momentum of an arm sweep that tried to send him flying. Luna heard the creature howl and then fall as anoth
er dozen people struck at it.
She kept her eyes on Cub. He struck out at one of the controlled and then another, with the kind of confidence that came from years of fighting, and the kind of recklessness that made Luna’s heart tighten in her chest to see it.
Then she saw him stiffen and stop, far too still against the rest of the fight. He turned, and Luna could have sworn that he was looking straight at her, standing and just staring against the background of the violence.
“No,” Luna whispered. “Please no…”
Her heart all but broke in two as Cub turned back to the fight, moving with the speed of the controlled, his long knife cutting into first one of the Survivors, then another.
“No!” Luna yelled, but it didn’t matter what she yelled, didn’t matter how much she wanted to run down there and make this stop. Cub was already changed, already one of them, already back to being nothing more than a puppet of the aliens.
“No, this can’t happen,” Luna said. “I can’t… first my parents, then Kevin and Chloe, now Cub, and soon…”
Soon it would be her. Luna could feel the pressure of it inside her, wanting to rise up, striving to take over every second that she didn’t push it back down. Soon it would be too much, and maybe it would even be better like that. Maybe it would be better not to have to think, not to have to feel, not to have to hurt…
An explosion came, and a wall collapsed, and it threw her against Bobby. Both of them lay there, trapped, the controlled closing in, and Luna knew they were finished.
She looked at Bobby, tears in her eyes.
“You’re really soft,” she told him. “I could just lie here on you and sleep and not wake up.”
The trouble was, that was exactly what was going to happen. She would be one of them, and then she would either be lost out in the world, or she would be killed, or she would lose herself so completely that there was no coming back. There was nothing she could do about it.
Maybe it was better to lie there and close her eyes.
She turned to her dog one last time.
“I love you, Bobby.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Kevin had known, from the moment the doctor told him, that he was going to die, but he hadn’t thought that it would be like this. The spaceship hung dead in space, in spite of Chloe’s attempts to press buttons, and her occasional kicks at the side of the pilot’s console. Ro sat on the floor, staring in silence.
“I am starting to think that emotions are not always a good thing,” he said. “Before them, I would not fear death. I would not feel so alone.”
“You’re not alone,” Kevin said. “We’re here.”
“And we’re stuck here,” Chloe said from the pilot’s seat as she brought her hand down on the controls, hard. “I can’t get us anywhere.”
She had the familiar note in her voice that said that she was on the edge of panic, and for once, Kevin couldn’t blame her. Even so, he went over to her and put a hand on her shoulder.
“I know you feel trapped,” Kevin said. “I do too, but I’m here. Whatever happens, I’m here.”
Chloe managed a brief smile. “I guess if I’m going to die with anyone, I’d like it to be with you.”
“I’d rather you didn’t have to die with anyone,” Kevin said.
“Yeah,” Chloe agreed. Her hand closed over his. “I don’t want to die, Kevin.”
Kevin realized that he didn’t want to either. He’d come to terms, kind of, with the idea that he was dying from a disease that he couldn’t control, because it didn’t look as though there was anything else he could do about it. This was something different, though. This cut away even the little time that he’d thought he’d had.
“I know,” Kevin said. “I wish…”
He wished all kinds of things: that he hadn’t tried to stop the Hive with a virus that hadn’t worked. That it hadn’t meant he and Chloe had been taken to the world ship. That he’d been able to stop the Hive from making him a part of it. That he hadn’t hurt Chloe. That he hadn’t been a part of destroying the world below.
There was no world there now, just a field of asteroids beyond the ship that bumped and bounced from one another like balls in some gigantic game. Ro had seemed horrified before that the Hive had left without taking any of it, and Kevin guessed that he could see that. If they were going to destroy a world to steal every resource it had, that was evil enough, but to do it and just abandon what they had destroyed? There wasn’t even any reason to it then. It was just cruelty for its own sake.
Mostly, though, he just found himself thinking about the people who must have been on the planet when it burned.
“How many people do you think were down there?” he asked.
“It is impossible to know,” Ro said. “The shields blocked any attempt to scan them, and even then, the Hive would not have found everyone. Not many, I would guess. A few tens of thousands.”
“Tens of thousands,” Kevin repeated, thinking of the way he’d helped to let the Hive in. Tens of thousands of alien creatures could be dead because of him.
“It is hard to be sure,” Ro said. “This was a place of refuge rather than their home world, so I doubt that their entire population would be there, and there are only so many it is possible to hide, but I suppose that theoretically, as many as a million might—”
“You aren’t helping, Ro,” Chloe said. “Kevin, this isn’t your fault. You didn’t have a choice.”
“I still did it though,” Kevin said. “When it happened, it was still my voice giving the orders, my brain making the decisions.”
“Not your brain, the Hive,” Ro said.
Kevin shook his head. “You know what it’s like as well as I do,” he said. “It’s still your brain in there. Just your brain without any of the emotions.”
“Without compassion,” Chloe said. “Without a conscience. They took those things away. You can’t blame yourself for not having them.”
Kevin tried, but it was impossible not to look at the vast field of asteroids and feel guilt. It was impossible not to imagine the screams of people as they died in a disaster that he had helped to make. Before all this, he had tried never to hurt anyone. He’d gotten in only a few fights, and most of those had been because he’d been backing Luna up. Now, he might have been responsible for a million deaths… it was too much. It was too many.
“Some people will have gotten out,” Chloe said, standing up to put a hand on his shoulder.
“A million?” Kevin asked, thinking of the transport ships he’d helped to target.
“More people than would have escaped if you hadn’t warned them, and Ro hadn’t distracted the Hive,” Chloe said. “As soon as you were yourself again, you tried to help. You did help.”
“Just not enough,” Kevin said. “Not enough to save all those people, and not enough to save you.”
“I don’t need saving,” Chloe said, with a defiant look.
“We all do,” Kevin replied. “We’re sitting here in space, and if we sit here long enough, we’ll starve, or we’ll crash into an asteroid.”
Kevin wasn’t sure which he would prefer. The first option gave them more time, but more time to do what? Hang in space and feel guilty? The second option would at least be quick, but Kevin couldn’t bring himself to wish for it. A part of him still wanted to keep going, because as long as they were still alive, there was still hope, there was—
“I think that there is a problem,” Ro said, in a concerned tone.
Kevin looked over to see him staring down at the pilot’s console. A red light was starting to blink there.
“What does it mean?” Chloe demanded, the fear in her voice easy to hear.
“It’s probably nothing,” Kevin said, trying to reassure her automatically, even while he could feel his own fear building, making his throat feel tight, his breath coming shorter, the air feeling thin around them.
“It is the oxygen sensor,” Ro said. “I’m sorry, I feel that was a bad thing to say.”
“We’re losing oxygen?” Kevin said. Did that mean that the way he felt right then was real? He felt as though the room was closing in, the air pressing in on him.
“I thought we got the shield back up,” Chloe said.
“It may not be perfect, and with the damage to the ship…” Ro said.
“So we’re all going to die?” Chloe said, and Kevin could hear the panic building in her voice.
“We were all going to die anyway,” Ro said. “This way, we are merely going to die in a few minutes, rather than—”
“It’s really not helping, Ro!” Chloe snapped, moving away from the pilot’s seat and going to huddle into a ball next to the wall.
Kevin went to sit down next to her. He held onto her, not knowing what else to do. He couldn’t promise that things would be all right, because they wouldn’t. He couldn’t tell her that he would make any of it better. All he could do was be there, and maybe, at a time like this, that was enough.
He sat there, holding onto Chloe, not saying anything because there was nothing he could say that he wasn’t already showing her just by being there. He felt the warmth of her huddled close to him, but he also felt the way the air was getting thinner, felt the way that each breath seemed to bring a little less life with it than the last.
“How long do you think we have?” Chloe asked.
“I don’t know,” Kevin said. He was already starting to feel a little faint from the lack of air. “I just… if I have to die with someone, I’m glad it’s you.”
“I’d rather be on a beach somewhere,” Chloe said.
“Yeah, me too.”
He sat with her silently after that, feeling his breaths come shorter and shorter as the oxygen ran out.
He could see the room growing darker and darker, the edges of his vision closing in around him.
Chloe was still beside him, her breathing so shallow that Kevin could barely feel or hear it.
Ro hadn’t said anything for a while now.
Blackness closed in on Kevin.
This it, he knew.
This is how it ends.