Jennifer had made the mistake of asking Vincent and Polypt if there was a way to see outside of the vehicle. It was made of a smooth opaque metal and there were no windows of any sort – the only structures the ship seemed to have inside included a storage cabinet that looked half built into the smooth wall and a control panel that Polypt had been showing to Vincent and the other team members as they arrived. She had thought that perhaps a screen would display the outside of the ship, but instead the smooth metal of the hull itself seemed to become transparent, giving a full 360-degree view of the outside. The control panel inside remained solid and opaque, as did the cabinet.

Jennifer had shifted nervously at the change, glancing down to see that even the floor of the ship had gone transparent. It unnerved her to be standing on something that felt solid enough under her feet but that she couldn’t see – like she was floating. She wanted it to return immediately to how it had been, but her stubborn streak kept her silent – she didn’t want to admit that it unnerved her.

 They waited for the rest of the team to arrive, each member getting a basic rundown on vehicle operation. Jennifer felt inwardly relieved to see that some of them were more visibly disturbed by the interior view. Once they were all gathered, Vincent had made a final plea to be included in the mission. “I’ve already learned so much about this craft. Just let me stay in it, you don’t even have to take me into the mothership,” he pleaded.

 Jennifer pursed her lips when he said “mothership,” wondering if he was taking any of it seriously, and gently but firmly insisted that he could not go. He finally nodded and stepped off the ship, still upset but at least following orders. Once the exterior was sealed, Polypt operated the controls. It was like zooming out on Google maps if they had decided to make Google maps a VR experience. There was nothing to grab onto, so Jennifer clenched her hands into fists and held her breath as the ground dropped away at an alarming rate, and Vincent’s pouting figure disappeared beneath them.

 If someone had told Jennifer that she was on a moving vehicle, she might not have believed it. There was no rumbling, shaking, or gravitation pull as the ship accelerated into the sky, so as far as her body was concerned, she was standing completely still in a quiet room.

 That made the view somehow worse.

 A part of her had thought that it would take longer. That the trip itself would be more substantial. But instead, the horizon of the world peeled back, revealing the curvature of the Earth, and all too soon they were above the atmosphere. Several members of the team gasped in awe at the sight spread below them, Jennifer included. It was amazing. For a moment, her mind reeled trying to tick off in her head how many women had been to space, but it was a subject on which she was woefully lacking in knowledge. The moon landing had occurred when she was a toddler, but she still had vague memories of the day, of her father’s excitement and how contagious it had been.

 “We’re approaching the ship,” Polypt said, her mandibles clicking softly as she spoke. Jennifer’s head swiveled, trying to spot it, causing Polypt to make a strange rustling click that Jennifer realized was a laugh. “It’s invisible. The sensors on the control know where it’s located at least, and will dock us into a craft notch appropriately.”

 Jennifer nodded, feeling a flutter of trepidation. “And they won’t know we’re coming?”

“No. They know that I escaped on one of their craft, but they are not expecting my return. They sent several craft down to search for me, but I have been using my time waiting for your team tracking those vehicles. Vincent was able to make it appear that we are another of those craft, returning earlier than scheduled.”

Jennifer nodded, frowning slightly. “Vincent was able to do that?”

 Polypt nodded. “He learned quickly what I showed him, and improvised intuitively from there.”

Jennifer considered that for a moment, already experiencing her first twinge of regret so early in the mission. “Do you think we should have brought him with us?”

Polypt’s head swiveled around as her body remained still, tilting slightly, and staring at Jennifer with large, glittering eyes. “No. He would have not have been helpful going forward.” Jennifer stared back wordlessly as Polypt’s head turned to focus forward once more. “We are ready to dock. The location this craft notches into leads out into a hallway There should be no one there to greet us, but we should be cautious exiting in case someone happens to be passing by.”

 Jennifer nodded, gesturing for her team to arm themselves and to step close, reaffirming the plan although they had all gone over it already. As a prisoner, Polypt had very little knowledge of the ship. The only interior space that she was aware of as large enough to store a full airplane was a docking bay where equipment and supplies could be loaded. They would go to investigate the airplane and retrieve the black box. After that, Polypt would lead them to the area where she had been kept, where there were more holding cells for other prisoners. Polypt suspected that humans were being kept in the cells neighboring hers.

If they were caught, the plan was to split up – Hall and Reese would accompany Jennifer and Polypt to the holding cells to find and account for all the human prisoners. The Rescue team would take anyone they found immediately to whatever nearby craft they could escape on. The others would split up and cause chaos, drawing the Bastards away from the Rescue team. After an hour, regardless of mission success, everyone was to find the nearest craft to abscond with and operate it well enough to at least crash into the Earth below.

  It was suicide, but it was the best they could manage on short notice. What if the humans were imprisoned in a different part of the ship completely? What if they weren’t alive? What if the plane had been broken down completely? What if they were immediately spotted and their tactics and weaponry were easily outpowered and outmaneuvered and they were captured? What if, what if, what if… and even if they did everything great and all piled into the nearest several crafts they could commandeer, what if they controlled the thing so poorly that they shot off into space instead of towards the Earth? They all only had a basic crash course on operating the vehicles, after all.

 The craft slid into place so smoothly that Jennifer didn’t know they had finished docking until Polypt said, “Be ready.” Jennifer nodded, gripping her handgun loosely at the ready, gesturing Manuel and another member of the team forward. As the exit opened, it revealed a beige hallway with taupe floors that looked almost like a smooth stone. The color scheme threw Jennifer off for a moment – perhaps in her mind she had a mental image of something sleek and futuristic, gray, black and white, smooth metal like the vehicle they had just arrived in before it had gone transparent. Something with harsh white and blue lights.

 The two that had moved toward the door peaked down both sides of the hall, then gestured that the coast was clear. Polypt took the lead – she claimed to have a peerless internal sense of direction and remembered the way clearly. As the entire team moved down the hall, Jennifer realized she could hear the faint sounds of voices speaking in English. “What is that?” she asked quietly.

“They play the broadcast – what you call the Stream – through the entire ship. It is available to watch in every room, and as such is easily heard even in places where it is not playing.” Jennifer strained her ears for a moment, attempting to pick up the sounds of her daughter’s familiar voice, then shook her head. She had no time to focus on anything but this mission.

Luckily, the first part went smoothly. Polypt led them directly to the storage bay, and they only had to duck back to avoid a pair of figures walking ahead one time. Despite their curiosity to see what the Bastards looked like, not a single member of the team attempted peaking too long at them, and Jennifer was inwardly proud of their resolve. The storage bay seemed miraculously unoccupied. The plane sat out in the open, gleaming in the lights that flickered to life automatically as they entered the room.

 “That’s it. Flight 5071,” Reese let out a low whistle, lowering his weapon as he looked over the length of the plane. “All in one piece.”

 “Think of how many hours we spent looking for broken bits,” Hall griped, grimacing.

“This is good, we know that the crew and passengers all came aboard in one piece,” someone else said as well.

“Enough chatter. Obtain the black box and perform a cursory search of the plane.” Jennifer stood back, keeping an eye on the door with Polypt and Manuel as the others entered the plane, performing a quick sweep and grabbing the black box. She listened to the sound of the Stream playing faintly in the air, and heard a voice shouting loud within it, fiercely declaring, “She’ll die! She had less than a year to live!” Jennifer frowned, her fingers traveling to the pocket where she kept the letter from Cassandra, and wondered what was happening in the Stream.

Hall and Reese were back out first, Reese securing the box in his pack. The rest of the team trailed out after their cursory search of the plane, reporting that the people were predictably absent. In fact, most of the plane’s interior had been cleaned out. All the oxygen masks had been hanging loose and the trays were down, and all the chairs were in their upright position. All the luggage compartments were open but empty. The plane itself was intact, but most other items had been removed. The food cart, the snacks, the brochures, the luggage, anything that seemed immediately removable was gone.

 “What would be the point in cleaning everything out and leaving the plane intact?” one asked, ruffling his hair.

 “Perhaps they let the passengers keep their personal items? Maybe they were studying everything? Hard to say,” Manuel responded.

 Jennifer turned to Polypt to ask her to lead the way to the holding cells when Reese, still standing at the door, hissed, “We’re about to have contact!”

 Reese and Hall quickly moved back from the entrance and let the door shut behind them. Every member of the team took aim. There was a long and drawn-out moment of anticipation. Jennifer wondered if perhaps the alien would walk past, continue down the hallway, and it almost seemed like that might be the case. But then the figure paused, turned back and stepped through the entrance, frowning up at the lights that were inexplicably on when they shouldn’t be.

Everything about it came in threes. It moved on three legs, set evenly around the body like a tripod, and had three arms, one set on other side of its humanoid torso and one smaller appendage rising from its sternum, holding what looked like some kind of electronic device like a tablet. Three eyes arranged across a broad flat face. For a moment, Jennifer had a hard time understanding the face, which seemed to lack a nose or mouth, until a seam somewhere near the chin gaped open, revealing small, round, pearly teeth. Its skin tone was just a little too unnaturally pink, and the eyes were large and pale grey in shade.

  The eyes widened as the mouth gaped in shock, and it pushed up with all three legs to its full height and let out a soft shriek, like an animal trying to make itself look more threatening. It slammed one of its hands down on the tablet it held in the smaller appendage just as it was ripped to shreds by gunfire. Polypt’s head swiveled as a faint ringing sound started in the distance, not dissimilar to a radio alarm clock.

  Jennifer grunted angrily, kicking the tablet out of the weakened grip of the creature’s body. Purplish black blood left a smear in its wake as it skittered across the floor. “Okay, people, we’re on a time crunch now. Go, draw attention away from the Rescue crew for one hour, then find a vehicle notch and launch back to Earth.” Several grim faces nodded, filing out into the hallway, and splitting up to run in different directions. Jennifer sighed and turned to Polypt, Reese, and Hall. “Take us to the prisoner cell blocks,” Jennifer said.

 Polypt led them into maintenance ducts to keep them out of sight. The alarms were more muffled here, and as they moved past rooms, Jennifer could hear bits and pieces of the Stream a bit more clearly. She could hear snatches of conversation about someone returning. So the choice had been presented… Jennifer wished she could sit and watch for a moment, find out who was being sent back, but she didn’t have time for that. If the choice was presented, the attack on Earth would be starting soon.

Despite her size, Polypt crept easily through the space. It wasn’t long until Polypt swiveled her head back around to say, “We are in the cell block where I was kept. This maintenance passage attaches to each room on this side, so we can begin to check the spaces as we pass.” Polypt’s head swiveled back to the room they were next to. “This one does not appear to have a human. This individual was here when I escaped.”

She moved on ahead of them. Jennifer followed, peering into the room curiously. Inside was a strange, furry creature that was laying on the bed. The room was sparse, but did appear to have some basic amenities and the creature did appear to have some personal items in the room. Just ahead, Polypt said, “This was my cell.” Something in her voice was strangely emotional for once, and she moved by the room quickly. Jennifer peered in curiously, but it had been cleared of personal items, or perhaps Polypt didn’t have anything to her name.

 “There are newer occupants here. They appear to be human.”

 Jennifer sighed in frustration. The cell block stopped at 30 cells and even with 2 people to each cramped space, they had not accounted for all the passengers and crew. “I don’t suppose you know of another cell block?” Jennifer asked.

  Polypt frowned, shaking her head. “I do not,” she said. “This is just one side of this hallway. There are an equal amount of cells on the other side.”

 Jennifer frowned. If those were all loaded with more people per room, there was a chance that it meant everyone was here… but if they had other aliens, or even if they had two people to each cell like they did on this side, that still didn’t account for everyone. They found an exit and checked the rooms on the other side, walking down the hall and peaking into the doors. The other side was thankfully all humans, but there were only 2 to each room as she had suspected, which accounted for 116 individuals. Including the 4 that had traveled to another world, they knew where 120 people of Flight 5071 were. Which still left 12 either dead or unaccounted for. Still, the vast majority of people they were looking for were here and they were on a time crunch. Polypt found a panel that opened the doors in the area, which slid up into the ceiling. Curious faces began to peak out, and Hall and Reese moved down the hall, greeting the people they met and giving firm assurance that they would all be returned to Earth, as well as asking questions to determine identities and figure out who was missing. Part of the reason that Hall and Reese had been chosen for this rescue was that they had memorized the list of the missing, and they quickly assessed who was and wasn’t present.

  The furry creature stood at the end of the hall. It had also been freed when all the doors had been opened, and it had stepped out of its room, but now it stood back and simply observed the proceedings. The only thing that made it look like more than a large stuffed animal were the eyes – they were small and beady, but glowing green pupils shifted at the center, moving quickly, watching everything around it. Polypt watched it with curiosity, but did not seem to think it was harmful. “Just another victim of the Bastards,” she said when Jennifer asked.

 The noise level of so many people talking was worrying Jennifer. “How close are we to the nearest three vehicles?” she asked Polypt, figuring they would need at least that many to cart this number of people back to Earth. She hoped that the distraction team had carried all the activity far from them – they were going to have a hard time getting this many people out safely as it was.

  “Not far,” Polypt began giving directions, but Jennifer was immediately distracted by something. Her daughter’s voice. She moved close to the nearest cell, peaking in to see that an image of the Stream was playing near the ceiling. She could see her daughter staring back into the screen, staring directly into whatever device was recording her. “I’m ready,” Cassandra said. “Take me back.”

 “Cassandra…” Jennifer whispered quietly as the Stream stopped.