Cassandra

The hour was up. I could hear my heartbeat whooshing in my eardrums as I finally pulled away from Lyre, slowly dressing, wanting to make every moment last longer. As I finally exited the building, I could feel his hand gripping mine tight, like it had so often through our entire journey. It was hard to focus and I felt numb, like I was on autopilot. I said my goodbyes to everyone, smiling and reassuring Lexie that I’d make sure her family was safe and let them know she was okay.

Finally, I turned to look up at the dark black orb as it hovered close. I pulled my hand away from Lyre’s as I did so, taking a deep and shaky breath. I felt his fingers brush against the back of my hand as I pulled away, and could feel his reluctance to let go in the gesture. “I’m ready,” I said, my throat feeling dry. I could barely speak around the feeling of my heart blocking my throat. “Take me back.”

For a split second I felt like turning around to catch a last glimpse of Lyre, of everyone, but it happened so fast I never got the chance. The colors of the world around me swirled into light and sound and I gasped as I felt an immense weight press all around me, my ears popping at the pressure of it. It felt like I was going to implode. It was hard to maintain consciousness – I blacked out.

When I came to, I found myself on my knees, coughing and gasping for air, and I pressed my eyes shut against an overwhelming sense of vertigo. The floor beneath me was metal, cool to the touch, and I leaned forward to press my forehead against it and screamed.

When I finally stopped, I became aware of how heavy my body felt now. I could immediately feel the dull ache deep in my hip on the side that had been crushed in that car wreck so many years ago. I could feel a strange exhaustion set deep in my bones. I felt my breathing quicken for a moment as the realization hit – the cancer was back. I was going to die. Maybe not today, but soon. I wanted to indulge in curling into a ball on the floor and sobbing. A tremendous sense of loss washed over me, and I didn’t want to open my eyes and face where I had arrived. But I could hear noises around me – in the distance, there was a muffled alarm sounding, like hearing emergency alerts on other peoples’ phones in public. There was the stirring of air as I heard a door opening, and I sensed something moving close to me.

Before I could look up, cold metal pressed against my neck. Gasping in surprise, I jerked automatically, pulling away from whatever it was. There was a soft hissing sound of air pressure, and a metallic clang as something bounced off the floor below me. I immediately reached for my magic – I did it without thinking, having used it so naturally for months at this point. I could feel it – it was weaker than before, empty and solitary, lacking the presence of T’Keran – and I used it to push the person that had pressed the metal object to my neck away.

Opening my eyes, I found myself having to squint at how blurry my vision was without glasses. I moved closer to the slumped figure I had attacked to see it more clearly. I was in a small square room and the force of my magic had shoved the person I attacked all the way out into the hall. It was humanoid, with three arms and three legs and a broad face. Three eyes blinked up at me in a daze as its large mouth gaped open, and it emitted a soft noise of pain and surprise – somehow it must have hit the doorframe on its way out and broken two of its legs. I winced, seeing one leg twisted unnaturally under its body and the other splayed out limply with a bone poking through. I could see that it held a strange metal object firmly in its hand, that looked alarmingly like a gun. It weakly raised the object to point it at me, and I lashed out with my magic again, slamming the hand back and causing the metal object to fling down the hall.

I paused, completely unsure of what to do. I felt immediately guilty – if these were the creatures that brought me back, would they decide to attack Earth because of what I had just done? Should I have surrendered? I stood floundering in indecision, wondering if I should heal the creature before me, wondering about the loud blaring alarm in the distance. A strange croaking voice said, “Human! Cashdra-human!” My head swiveled toward the sound – I was in a hallway lined with semi-transparent doors, and I could see at least two blurry figures standing close to those doors, watching what was happening. “Let out! Let out!” the voice croaked, sounding a lot like a very large frog.

“What?” I asked stupidly, feeling a swell of anxiety. I moved closer to the door. There was a button right next to it, and I wondered for a moment if it could be that easy before I pushed it.

The door slid open.

I squinted at the figure standing before me. It actually did look like a giant humanoid frog – the skin was dry and pebbly, giving it a more reptilian look. Its large eyes and strangely shaped pupils focused past me at the creature still slumped on the ground, and its body mass expanded as it drew in air, releasing it in a shockingly loud hiss. I stepped back, shocked at the explosion of sound, and the frog-thing rushed past me. It moved faster than I would have expected, and began to slam the head of the tripod-thing into the floor repeatedly using its strong hind legs. I gasped and looked away, completely shocked at the sudden gore as the head smashed open and the insides splattered out, and I felt my knees give out.

I sat on the floor, trembling in terror. My mind reeled, wondering what was happening. I had returned home, hadn’t I? I could hear the heavy breathing of the frog-thing as it moved past me, having beat the tripod-thing to death – it opened the other door and the other shadow stepped out.

The frog-thing approached me. “Cashdra-human,” it said, reaching out its strange three fingered hand. I gaped at it, wide eyed with shock.

“What?” I asked again, my voice a lot quieter this time.

A different being moved forward, this one tall and thin with almost translucent gray skin. It looked almost human, and had large green-black eyes. I could not see a mouth moving when it spoke, the voice seemed to simply hover out of its chest. “He is calling you by name and clan. Cassandra, human.”

I shivered, staring up as the other figure moved close to me. “How does he know my name?”

“We’ve all been watching you while you journeyed.”

I felt my blood run cold as my head swiveled around and I squinted at each of them. “Watching me,” I repeated, my voice flat as I tried to comprehend the statement.

“We are all victims here. We have all shared the same story. We have all traveled by magic between worlds, and been brought back by the threat of our home’s destruction.” The gray figure reached a hand out to me – it had the appropriate number of fingers, but they were long and thin, and the hand looked almost too fragile. I hesitantly took it and was surprised to find it was stronger than it appeared. I also reached out and took the frog’s hand. Together, they pulled me up easily. “I am sorry, human. They lied to you. They plan to destroy your world regardless. The invasion of your Earth will begin soon.”

“What!?” I shouted. “They’re going to invade anyway?”

The creatures in front of me glanced at each other, their expressions a mix of sadness and understanding. The frog nodded. “They invade. No matter choice.” It moved past me and back to the body of the tripod-thing, rummaging through its clothes.

“We have to do something,” I said. Doing my best to ignore the mess of a body still sprawled on the floor, I moved over to the metal object it had been holding. “Is this a weapon?” I asked, picking it up and examining it.

“Not entirely. It holds small metal magic dampening devices, that would inhibit casting ability.” I shivered as the gray alien spoke, realizing how close I had come to being rendered completely defenseless. “They use them on all of us, to make sure we can’t use our abilities against them.”

“You can use magic too?” I asked, surprised. I dropped the gun.

The creature nodded, and said, “We all can. And they can too. Its how they find us…”

I moved forward, placing my hands on either side of the creature’s face. I focused my healing ability, remembering how I could sense illnesses and infections in a body, I instead focused on finding anything that seemed foreign, and found it – no larger than a grain of rice, a small metallic piece in the base of the neck. I frowned, trying to think of how to remove it, before deciding to simply rip it out. I focused on pulling it straight out the way it had entered. I heard the gray person gasp and tense under my fingers as it felt the metal move, and then it cried out as the dampener ripped through its skin. I heard the metal clatter to the floor, but focused instead on healing the small wound left in its wake. Finally, I stepped away.

The gray being lifted a hand to its neck, touching where the wound had been. A strange series of expressions flitted across its face – then it pointed a finger out toward where the magic dampener had landed. The small piece of metal rose into the air. The gray being twisted its wrist and clenched its fist, and the metal twisted and disintegrated. “I can…” its voice trailed off briefly, then it looked at me and nodded. “Thank you,” it said.

“How many others here are like us?” I asked.

“Many. They have been to many worlds.” It turned its head towards the frog. “Have you discovered why the alarm is sounding?”

I grimaced. Many worlds? Destroyed? What kind of people would do such a thing? I realized the frog had taken a tablet like device from the body, and was now examining something on the screen. “Alarm. Intruders here.”

I frowned as he spoke. “Where is here, anyway?”

The gray being nodded, a thoughtful look on its face. “We will explain. But help us free the other prisoners, and remove their dampeners as well. We will have a better chance then.”

I nodded. “Lead the way.”

---

Interlude

After seeing the Stream go dark, Jennifer turned to Polypt, her mind racing. “When you were brought back, what happened? Were you brought to this ship immediately?”

The alien tilted its mantis-like head, regarding Jennifer with its large black eyes. “I was brought to the ship, directly to my prison here. The first thing they do when you return is embed a device into your body that dampens your ability to use magic. Immediately after, the invasion begins.”

Jennifer paused a moment, trying to process that information. If she had known that they were so close to starting their plans, she would have immediately reached out to other departments so everyone could be on high alert back on Earth. Her suicidal rescue mission had suddenly grown a lot more complicated. “How do they proceed with the invasion? Do they already have units on the planet ready to strike, or do they leave from the ship directly?”

Polypt made a gesture – Jennifer realized it was a shrug. “I was in captivity. I was not privy to the details.”

Jennifer let loose a string of expletives under her breath and twisted on her heel, immediately issuing orders for Reese and Hall to get the other humans to the nearest vehicles they could find and get them home. She also told them that the invasion was going to start, maybe had already started, and they needed to alert everyone as soon as they landed. She told Polypt to go with them. “I could help you here,” Polypt protested briefly.

“They’re going to need at least three vehicles to get everyone back to Earth,” Jennifer said. “And you’re the only other one that can operate one. Also, having an actual alien warning against an alien invasion should light a fire under someone’s ass.  I’ll go alone. Any ideas on how I can find the prison block where they’ll keep Cassandra?”

“Much of this level is made up of prisons,” a low growling voice said, surprisingly close. Jennifer frowned, looking over at the furry creature, which now stood close to her and Polypt. She hadn’t been aware of it moving up to them in the first place, but she didn’t allow her discomfort at that to show. For a moment, she wanted to ask how everyone seemed to know English – was it watching the Stream broadcast daily for so many months? Was there more magic at work? But she quickly dismissed these thoughts – they were questions for a less hectic moment. “But there is another row of prisons on the far side of the ship as well.”

“So she could be close,” Jennifer said again. She paused, not certain what to say to the creature, then settled for, “Thank you. If you want to escape, you can go with the humans.”

The creature regarded her passively, with those strange glowing eyes. Jennifer kept her expression carefully composed, annoyed at how inexpressive both aliens before her appeared. “I will go with you. We will release all the prisoners, and seize control of the ship.”

Jennifer blinked, a little surprised at the idea. She hadn’t thought of recruiting help from the prisoners on the ship, but it made sense, and if the invasion launched from the ship, perhaps they could cause enough chaos to delay or even stop it before it really got underway. “How many prisoners are there?”

“Impossible to say. Sometimes they take multiple prisoners from planets – hostages, in case they are discovered before their drama plays out, and the travelers that return to save their homes.” The creature’s eyes burned brighter for a moment, set and determined.

Jennifer nodded. “Let’s go.”

There were multiple hallways like the one that Jennifer had exited, each holding rows of cells. Some were empty, some held only one or two individuals, and others were packed full. Jennifer boggled nearly every time they released hallway after hallway of strange looking aliens – there were so many different looking creatures, some that looked humanoid and others that looked so vastly different that she wondered at first if they even understood her as she addressed them. But she kept a clear head and gave clear and concise instructions – whoever wanted to escape was free to find their own exit. Anyone that wanted to stay should join them in taking the ship.

There were many that stayed. It seemed the desire for revenge was strong amongst them, which made sense if they had all witnessed the destruction of their home worlds.

The siren from earlier still sounded, but the Bastards hadn’t figured out that the prison levels were a problem yet. Jennifer prayed silently that her original team had stayed safe through their own dangerous game of cat and mouse around the ship, and was pleased that it had kept danger away. “This is the end of the cell blocks on this side of the ship,” the furry creature informed her after they freed the last hallway of aliens.

Jennifer sighed. She had searched nearly every strange face for Cassandra, but hadn’t seen her daughter yet. Her fingers absently brushed the pocket where the letter was still secured. Jennifer glanced back at the ragtag group of aliens that filled out the hall behind her. She weighed her choices. If they took the ship, she could search for Cassandra at her leisure – her daughter would be safe enough holed up in a prison cell. Nodding decisively to herself, she said, “Does anyone know where they control the ship from? Is there a… a bridge? A command center?” A few of the aliens did know. “Good, lead the way. We’ll check rooms as we go – we’re looking for any weapons we can use, and we’ll beat them out of the hands of anyone we run across. We’re going to take this ship.” A strange chorus of cheers, hoots, and growls echoed in the air around her.