“Hello! Is anyone there?” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I tried to move again, and this time pushed with my left hand. I propelled myself to my side, my back in agony the whole time. I fell forward and was too late catching myself. Before I knew it, I hit the ground, my hand coming up just in time to protect my face. I didn’t know what was wrong with my motor skills. I heard a hiss and what sounded like a sliding door. Light poured in and the clink of metal headed toward me.
I tried to look up and got a face full of dog tongue as a reward. “Carey?” He yelped a bit and licked me some more.
“Dean, what happened?” a voice asked. Hands grasped me under the arms and helped me back onto the bed.
“Janine?” I asked, looking at my wife. My memory flickered and I saw the hospital, and that final moment in our bed, then the coffin at the service.
“No, Dean. It’s Mae.”
“What happened to me?” I asked, still unsure where exactly I was.
Her face was grave. “You were hit. In the spine.”
“Dean?” a new voice asked from the doorway.
Seeing her standing there, with light pouring in behind her, I felt my heart flutter.
“Mary,” I said, remembering all of a sudden. I recalled seeing her ready to sacrifice herself to save us and the people in that room, and then she’d seen a hybrid who’d looked like her husband Bob. That pause was enough to almost get her killed, and apparently almost enough to get me killed too.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Well, I’m confused and my back hurts like hell, but I’m alive. What’s happened?”
“We killed them all and brought you into the bridge. You were out, and it wasn’t good. It seems you took a shot right in the spine. We got you onto a cot and scoured for a doctor. This ship picked up its load from Egypt, so we had a hell of a time finding someone who understood us. Once we had a translator, we found a doctor.” She paused and held my hand. “He said if you didn’t die, you would be paralyzed.”
I wiggled my toes and fingers just to be sure, and they all moved. “But I’m not,” I said, maybe a little too defiantly.
“No, you’re not. We did the only thing we thought might help.” Her eyes told me she was scared to tell me something.
“What is it?”
“We injected you with hybrid blood. Mae had heard of some of the hybrids on Earth healing their partners of illness or ailments without them knowing, using their own blood. We didn’t know if it would actually work… but it seems to have.”
Hybrid blood. I really didn’t know what to say. How could having an alien transfusion be any worse than being paralyzed? It seemed a fair trade-off to me.
I looked at Mae. “Was it yours?” I asked quietly.
She nodded. “It was mine.” I could see she looked drained, even a little pale in the dark room.
“Thank you. How long have I been out?”
“Four days,” Mary said.
“Four days! What’s going on? Are we on the way home?” I couldn’t believe I’d slept through so much.
“Calm down, Dean. We have the world’s best and brightest at our disposal. We’ve appointed leaders to each container, and the dead have been isolated to a few floors on each ship. Mini-hospitals have been made, and we’ve distributed the small rations we found. More are going to die on the way home. We simply don’t have enough food and water, and we’ve had more than a few incidents. Bad people are still bad people even in crisis, it appears.” I left it at that, because I understood what she was implying.
“How many? How many are dead?” I needed to know.
“Dean, don’t worry about that now. You just worry about resting and getting better. In a couple hours, you can come and see our progress. We’re only a couple days away from home,” Mary said.
Her avoidance of the question was enough to know that we’d lost a lot of them. Earth would never be the same.
She kissed me on the lips, and I was self-conscious of how dry mine were. And how my breath must smell like a rotten tomato, but she lingered on them for a moment and smiled at me after, a cool hand on my face.
“I’ll come back in a bit with some food. Have a rest. Carey will stay with you.” She walked away, and Mae followed her.
Carey jumped up onto the small cot with me and curled up between my legs. I lay there in the dark, my mind reeling at everything that had happened. Closing my eyes, I could swear I could feel the other blood coursing through my veins. But even now, my back felt better than it had when I woke up. Slowly, I drifted into sleep.
Four Years Ago
I was on the couch watching the Pirates destroy the Yankees on a cool fall Sunday afternoon. “Sunday in New York” was blasting from the Yankee stadium speakers and the announcers were talking over the song, complaining about the weak bullpen this year. I agreed with them, but I always laughed at the overweight, middle-aged guys telling the world how a team should play better.
The doorbell rang, and Janine hurried from the kitchen to answer it. I took a sip from my now warm Brooklyn Lager, and the room started to spin. I glanced to the door and saw Bob step in, looking frantic. Bob, the name almost came out of my throat, but it refused to emerge. Was there something in my beer? Maybe food poisoning?
They spoke in hushed voices, and I didn’t put much thought into it as my eyes closed and the hum of the commentators shrank in my eardrums.
“Don’t worry about him, Bob. I put something in his beer. You know I hate doing this to him. Can’t we just talk when he’s at work?” Janine’s voice carried over to me.
“It couldn’t wait.”
“Well, what is it?”
There was a pause. “Plans are changing. I think we need to move to plan B. Teelon’s plan.”
Silence. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. The Kraski are desperate, and they won’t stop until they find a new home for themselves. I know some of us feel like we owe them, like they’re our parents, but the truth is, they’ve done nothing but grow us in a lab and send us out to do their dirty work. The Deltra want to help the humans. We have no choice but to trust them.” Bob’s voice was a hurried whisper. The kind that wasn’t really a whisper at all, but I could hardly process what they were saying. The room was still spinning.
“So it’s true? The Kraski homeworld is gone?” Janine sounded like she was on the verge of spilling tears.
“Yes. It’s true. Billions of them were killed before they could board the transport vessels. Word is the Valiant got away, and they took the vessels with them.”
“Why take the transport vessels if they don’t have the population to move any longer?” Janine asked, voice strained.
“Take a guess. Humans. They’re going to take everyone off the planet, turn off the Shield, and voila. They have a new world. Sounds simple enough, right?”
“So we play along, but in the end, switch sides and do what Teelon says. Get our people… our spouses,” she paused, “to get to the Shield, bring it to the Valiant, and kill the Kraski. Then the Deltra will bring the humans back, and everyone lives in peace and harmony. Sounds like a long stretch, but I do trust Teelon. He hasn’t given us a reason to not believe him.”
I heard their words, but they seemed to flow in one ear and out the other.
“Will Earth be safe from the Kraskis’ enemies?” Janine asked. “They’ve destroyed billions of lives, countless planets.”
“The Kraski think they have technology to prevent leaving traces to follow, but they’re worried about being crossed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Deltra, the Kraski, or even one of us has been turned. If that’s true, then there’s no hope. Earth’s destruction will be inevitable.”