Heavenly Bodies

Heavenly Bodies 2

Heavenly Body2

I'm running through the hallways attempting to make it to my Simulation. It's been a month since we got the warning from the alien race known only in the Upsetters. They knew humans had escaped Earth on the Pioneer and they were coming after us. They were going to finish what they started when they destroyed the Earth.

"Watch it---motherfucker."

I'm stopped when a boy bumps into me down one of the long hallways of the Pioneer.

"You bumped into me," I tell the boy.

It's still so easy to get lost on the Pioneer even after a month. The only things we learned about the Pioneer is what Captain Kane choose to share with us a week ago. The Pioneer was built as part of a study into potential long-term habitation of space. It was based off a wheel design. The wheel rotated like the Earth did creating artificial gravity. We all live in different sections on that spinning wheel. The fake sunlight is provided by a series of mirrors on the ceiling. The wheel-shaped space station leads to a central `hub' station. This section has the lowest gravity and that's where most of the ships dock. That's also where Admiral Lincoln is. We haven't seen Captain Lincoln or the ships of the Pioneer as of yet.

"Yo---he's one of Kane's," someone else says.

"Is that right?" the main boy says.

The boys look like a bunch of smart asses. They are Americans. They all have these deep, ghetto accents though. It's clear that they are thugs. We are supposed to wear these ugly gray uniforms that the UCE provided us, but they were wearing regular clothes. They were looking at me like I was nothing to them. There are several dozen squadrons that have Americans in them. You would think we'd all be closer.

"Kane snitched to my squad Captain for bringing weed in my personal bag," another boy says.

The main boy stares at me for a long time. I don't like that stare. I had only known Chad Kane for a month now and besides the first day I had met him I knew that Chad Kane played by the rules. He did it painfully so. The fact that he was rubbing some of the privates underneath him the wrong way wasn't surprising. He was a stickler. No one liked that shit especially in the mind states some of these people are already in.

"We should beat his fucking ass and send him to Kane missing a few teeth," the main boy says.

Footsteps come out of nowhere the next moment.

"Nah, don't touch him," a voice says.

I turn at that moment and see Lucky. I should have thought someone like Lucky would know guys like these. I watch as the main boy who was fucking with me takes a step back. He gives Lucky a little knowing nod at that moment and crosses his arms.

"You know this dude Lucky?" the main boy asks him.

Lucky looks at me. I haven't said two words to Lucky since I found out that we were in the same squadron. He never showed up. A few of us had thought he got into some trouble and got shoved out an airlock into space. That was how rare it was to see Lucky.

"He's with me, Koopa," Lucky states.

The boys nod at that moment, give each other confirming looks and then walk away without saying another word.

I look over at Lucky confused on why the hell he came out of nowhere to help me out in this situation.

"Thanks," I tell Lucky.

"Man whatever," He responds walking away.

He's walking fast. I can tell that he doesn't really want to have a conversation with me. It's weird to be honest. People usually liked to talk to me. For the past month Kakashi and Cassie hadn't left me alone not even for a second. Lucky was different though. He was weird as fuck. Even now he has his gray uniform on but the pants are hanging off his ass and his shirt is buttoned halfway down showing a tatted muscular chest underneath.

"Hey you headed to simulation?"

"Fuck no. Fuck would I do that for?"

I wasn't surprised. It was a dumb question.

"You know which way it is?" I ask him.

"Damn you not street smart are you pretty boy?"

"Nah I'm not street smart. And well we kinda in space right now so I guess I'm not space smart either," I admit at that moment.

Lucky doesn't laugh but he does smirk a little bit and stops walking. He signals his head for me to follow him at that moment.

"Keep up. I'll show you where it's at. I'm not motherfucking staying though? You hear me? Don't tell that bitch-ass Captain Kane you saw me either. You hear me? I'll bust your ass if you tell him. You hear me motherfucker?"

He points a sharp finger at me at that moment.

"Nah. I won't say anything. I owe you for those dickheads back there. You would think guys would be nicer right?" I state.

He looks over at me as though seeming a little confused.

"Koopa and his boys? Man those boys are from the worst places in America. Southside Chicago, Detroit, West Philadelphia. You think they give a fuck about being nice yo?" he asks me.

"Those your friends?"

"They coo. I get along with them more than I do your Suburban ass. Where you from? Idaho?"

"Fort Washington."

"Where?"

"It's a suburb in Pennsylvania."

Lucky gives me a long stare. It's a real long stare. He's judging me. It's kind of annoying really to say the least. All he does is grunt and continue to walk after staring at me. He doesn't say a word. You would think he doesn't even know me anymore.

I hate it.

"You don't think we all need to stick together?" I ask, "Chicago, Detroit or the fucking suburbs...it doesn't matter anymore does it? They are all gone now. Everyone should just get along now..."

"Why?"

"Because the Earth was destroyed."

"So you think people will change because of that? No. Humanity is humanity. Shitty people are shitty fucking people. It's in our nature. It's probably why the Upsetters want to wipe us out."

I had never thought about that. I guess I hadn't thought much about the Upsetters at all. It was easy not to think about the aliens that were going to wipe you off the face of the planet.

"You think?"

"Man, fuck yes," Lucky tells me, "Whatever we got, we deserved."

I don't say anything else to Lucky until we get outside of the simulation. The simulation was in the part of the space station that was pretty much locked down. Everything was a big fucking secret around this part of the space station. It was easy to get lost because you couldn't just open doors and look around. You had to know exactly where you were going. Luckily Lucky was a master of navigating through these fucking long hallways already. The spinning from outside the glass panels doesn't even seem to faze him. I still get dizzy as fuck looking at them. He keeps walking and slows down as though annoyed when I don't catch him.

Finally, he shows me the room that my simulation was in.

"You owe me motherfucker," he tells me.

I can't tell if Lucky is being real or not when he says that. It's kind of hard to read him. He's just so rough around the edges that he can actually be trying to be nice and I would have no idea. Or he could be dead serious. He could really have expected me to owe him something for taking me all this way and vouching for me against Coopa and his boys.

"This it?" I ask.

"Of course. Get to class like a good boy and stay the fuck away from brothers like Coopa before you end up with your own personal version of the Upsetting," he warns me.

"You should come in."

"Man fuck that. And fuck Captain Kane. Snitch bitch motherfucker," Lucky says, "Let me see that dude out of uniform. Fucking snitch."

I'm not sure what sort of situation Chad had with Lucky but whatever it was seemed to end badly. Lucky didn't seem to care for him---at all. They had to be complete opposites though if you thought about it. Chad played by the rules and Lucky broke them.

"Alright well I'll see you around," I state.

"No the fuck you won't," he tells me.

He walks away putting up two fingers in a way to gesture that he was done with the conversation. I can't help but to watch him walk away and smile. There was something sexy about him. He spoke fast as hell and he had a really smart mouth but for some reason I didn't mind it. For some reason all those things seemed cute to me.

"You're late," Chad immediately says to me as I walk through the room.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry what, cadet?"

I roll my eyes. It's just like him to pull this rank shit. He's been doing it for a while now. It's getting pretty goddam annoying to say the least.

"Sorry, Captain Kane," I respond.

"Tonight you are going to volunteer with cleaning the mess hall after dinner," he responds, "As punishment for your tardiness."

Idris breaks out into laughter. Anne and the others look away. They can tell I'm steaming. I get up at that moment. I'm pissed. Katashi had been late twice during the week. Idris normally took 10 minutes too long to come back from mess hall because he wanted to have a prayer service for the deceased with the UK squads. Kane never fucked with them. Then you had Lucky. Lucky NEVER even showed up for any of this shit. The guy literally walked around like he owned the fucking space station doing what the fuck he wanted all day. God knows what he was up to now. Where the fuck was the discipline for Lucky?

The Captain stares me down at that moment. He gives me a hard look. It's the hardest look I could imagine.

"You got something to say to me, Private Powell?" he asks me.

"Naw."

"Naw what?"

I bite my lip. It almost pisses me off that he's doing this. The same guy that I shared that intimate moment with during the end of the world. The one who I had spent that entire day with holding...looking in his eyes. That person was different from the dickhead that was here in the room. That person quoted bible verses to me and made me feel comforted in a time when I needed him. This person was just...a fucking dickhead.

"Naw, Captain Kane," I respond.

Kane nods at that moment, "Good now to your work station. Now..."

I'm shaking as I take my seat at the simulation of the military spacecraft. It's Cassie who puts her hand on my arm and gives me a short but tight squeeze.

"You OK, handsome?" she asks.

She hasn't stopped flirting with me even though I told her I was gay. For some reason it makes me smile. I don't say anything back to her because knowing Kane he would purposely ignore the fact that she initiated conversation to purposely call me out.

Kane stands in front of the room.

"As we were saying can someone tell me what FTL means?" Kane asks.

Anne raises her hand.

Kane ignores her looking around the room, "Anyone else besides Anne?"

It's nice that Kane calls everyone else by their first name but goes out of his way to call me Powell. I can't help but notice that.

"Faster than light," Royce answers, "The Pioneer has a FTL drive that makes it possible for the space station to be instantaneously teleported from two points. With our FTL drive we can travel many light years away in an instant."

"Right," Kane says, "Today is going to the first time we initiate our FTL drive. We are going to be leaving the Milky way."

I raise my hand.

"Excuse me."

"I wasn't taking questions, Private Powell," Captain Kane says.

"It was relevant, I promise," I state and quickly ask before he answers, "Who invented the FTL drive? Where'd it come from?"

"The government."

"Who in the government?"

"That's classified," Captain Kane says, "Moving on..."

Classified. That was another word that flew around a lot nowadays. Back on Earth, before the upsetting everyone said that things were JUST A PRECAUTION. The government loved to throw these terms around and they meant absolutely nothing then so I knew they meant absolutely nothing now. I cross my arms and lean back in my chair.

Kane goes on preaching almost forgetting what I was interested in.

"Our mission is simple. Once we enter a galaxy we are to search as far as we can for habitable planets in our spacecraft. We are looking for a 2nd Earth."

So it was true. We had no idea where we were going. We had left the Earth without a plan or a destination. We weren't being trained to fight the Upsetters. That was impossible. We were being trained to find another home before the Upsetters came back and destroyed us.

"That's exciting," Anne says.

The others are just as excited as her. Even Idris is excited and he doesn't get excited about anything. I don't know how I feel about that. It just seems odd.

"Yes it should be simple Anne," Kane says giving her a smile, "However we must work as a team to make sure we are back on the Pioneer like all the other space crafts before the next FTL jump."

"What happens if we don't?" I ask.

"If we don't what?" he asks.

"What happens if we don't make it back before the Pioneer leaves."

"That won't happen. We'll make it back, but if we don't then we'd be left in a galaxy alone. We won't last long," Kane states, "It's essential that we all work as a team and you all listen to my instructions to make sure we gather the data we need and make it back to the Pioneer."

"What's the chances of success?" I ask.

"Of finding a 2nd Earth? Pretty good."

"With all due respect Captain Kane, pretty good isn't a good enough answer," I respond.

"You are a question box aren't you?" Chad asks.

"I'm curious."

"It's called hope, Selah," Royce tells me, "Damn..."

Anne nods as she agrees with Royce. She gives me this pat on the back as though telling me everything is going to be OK. I was tired of people telling me everything was going to be OK. They said everything was going to be OK before the Earth was destroyed. I can tell others in the class are thinking the same thing. I've taken up the mantle as being the negative one. That wasn't what I was getting at though. I was done with optimism. I want realism. I wanted someone to speak to the truth here and for some reason I feel like Kane is holding back.

"I believe in hope. But I also believe in math. I was just looking for a percentage of chance," I state, "Look the galaxy is big. It's endless. That's all I'm fucking saying here..."

Katashi nods his head, "Hate to say it but Selah has a point. Let me get this right. The Pioneer jumps into a galaxy, hundreds of shuttles leave the safety of the Pioneer in hopes of just stumbling on a habitable planet that we can live on?"

"Our mission is simple. Other information is classified," Kane explains.

"Then unclassify it," I respond.

There is a silence that fills the room.

I'm challenging Kane and I can tell he doesn't like it. The tension is so broad right now. It's so fucking heavy you can cut it with a knife. Everything was a secret since we left Earth. If we hadn't heard the broadcast from the Upsetters the government probably would have kept that a secret too. They were hiding everything.

"Please," Johnny says.

Johnny doesn't speak much so when he does I think Kane softens up. If it was just me asking questions he would continue to avoid them.

Kane stares me down, looks away and turns to the group.

"I can tell you all this. The FTL drive on the Pioneer is smart enough to only take us to galaxies that have a chance of having habitable planets. The shuttles are fast enough to get to these planets, test the habitability and then get back to the Pioneer."

"And what happens if we don't find a habitable planet?" I ask.

Chad takes a deep breath. He's getting impatient with my questions and I am getting impatient with the fact that he is evading every question.

"We keep looking."

"And what happens if we don't find that planet before October 16th?" I ask.

"Like you said before the galaxy is a big place. We will be light years away from the Upsetters."

"They found us before...why can't they find us again?" I ask, "What if they find us before we find another planet? What if we find another planet and the Upsetters just destroy that too? Is it just me or does anyone not wonder the same thing? What's the fucking point?"

Trucker starts crying again. I don't mean to upset him. I watch as Royce and Anne immediately run over to help him as if it's going to do anything at that point. What's the point of comforting him? What's the point of him crying in the first place? I don't get the point of any of this.

I know that I've pissed off the entire room even though I don't mean to.

"You guys can all head out to the mess hall early," Kane announces out of the blue.

Katashi looks over at me.

"That was interesting."

He has a smile on his face. I'm glad for a brief moment Katashi backed me up even if it was probably just because he wants to fuck me. I decide to start heading out of the room with him but before I get far I am stopped. It's Chad Kane. He looks at me at that moment and gives me a stare that says a million goddam words all at once.

"You stay," he states.

Katashi and Cassie look at me. They usually wait up for me and walk with me, but it's clear right now they don't want to get into any shit with Captain Kane. I watch as they get up and walk away relatively quickly with Katashi whispering, "See you at mess," through pursed lips.

I wait in the room as the Captain instructs. It gets awkward the longer we are in the room. Trucker is the last one out of the room. He's still crying so he lags behind making sure that he's gathered all his tissue.

Kane stares at me long after Trucker leaves the room.

"Let's get this all out," Kane says, "What's your fucking problem?"

"My problem?" I ask.

"Yeah. Your problem," he repeats, "You are scaring everyone half to death with this shit."

"You don't think they have a reason to be scared?" I ask him.

"Fear is not effective right now," he explains to me, "Do you know Trucker calls me every single night telling me that he can't go to sleep? He says that every time he closes his eyes he sees all the dead people he lost staring back at him. I had to sneak into the medical wing and steal some sleeping aids for him. The kid is a teenager. He should be out chasing girls and getting his first kiss but he's struggling to find the future for humanity."

Fuck.

I shake my head at that moment, "Look, I had no idea Captain Kane. I am not trying to make things worse. I just need to know what our motivation is."

He leans up against a table at that moment. He presses his butt up on the table. He puts his hands in his head and takes a deep breath. I haven't seen him like this since the Upsetting. He barely shows any emotion. The only way you can tell he's feeling something is when he gives you that angry stare. I've never seen someone as composed as him before. He bites hard on those big old lips of his.

I can tell he's fighting back tears as he sits there.

"No one wants to be here. No one wants to do this," he tells me, "All we can do is keep going one day at a time. All we can do is hope."

Hope.

Royce had said it earlier but not in the same way that Captain Kane is saying it now. He drags out the word and puts such a heaviness on it. Hope. It weighs a ton leaving his big lips.

"I'll be more sensitive next time," I state.

I start walking out of the room. I don't make it far. I make it close to him. Really close but then he stops me. He holds his arm out. His muscular arm is stiff from his military suit. He smells like a light sweet Egyptian musk. I turn to him but all I end up doing is looking at those big lips of his as he stares back up at me.

"You are still gorgeous," he tells me out of the blue.

I look down at my hand. He looks down as well. Together we can see him slowly playing with my fingers. Our fingers intertwine with one another. Slowly he lets his fingers rub through mine. He lets his thumb press up against mine.

"What are you doing, Captain Kane?" I ask him.

"Just Chad now," he responds.

I sigh a little bit, "Shit must definitely be worse than you are letting on if you are giving me attention. Last time I was allowed to call you Chad was during the Upsetting."

Chad faces me. He's close to me. He's real close. Our eyes line up next to one another at that moment and I swear space and time stops. My heart is racing when Chad looks at me and even though I'm trying to put on this tough exterior it gets difficult at every stop.

"I have to keep it professional with you," he explains, "Trust me---I don't want to."

"Is this what you want?" I ask him.

I lean in for a kiss. My lips get close to him. So close. He wants it as bad as I want it. Our warm breath merge together like a solar flare. His arms circle my arms. I grab his shoulders, massaging them with my fingers.

"More than you know. That night was...special..." he admits.

"So that's it? That's why you single me out...all the time. Worse than the others."

"Because you have potential," He responds, "You ask all the right questions. You analyze things better than others can. I'm harder on you not because I find you attractive. I'm harder on you because I think you could one day be the most valuable member of my crew. I believe in you."

My heart warms all of a sudden. All of a sudden I remember the boy who I had met that night. I had remembered the strangeness of us telling each other how we loved one another. I imagined how strange those moments together would have been to anyone else but us. I wanted to share those moments again and I think he wanted to as well.

"You don't know what that means to me," I tell him.

I kiss him. My tongue goes down his throat. He grinds up against me. I grind up against him. The passion between us is something that neither of us expects at that moment. All the tension from arguing for a month just clashes together in these next few seconds. I almost collide into him. He collides into me. I end up falling down on his command station and he's on top of me dry humping me, winding his hips slowly into me while kissing me deeper.

"Damn I can't believe we're doing this again..." he tells me.

"I've wanted this for a while."

"You?" he asks, "Every time I see you I picture myself bending you over on one of the stations and just making love to you all over again like the day we met. Doing it for hours. Over and over. Just for an eternity..."

"Then why don't you?" I ask.

"I'm your superior. I can't," he responds, "It's against the UCE rules."

"Fuck the UCE," I tell him.

"You can't do that. I could have you in solitary confinement for saying that," he warns me.

"Am I talking to Chad now or Captain Kane?" I ask him.

He takes a deep breath, "Chad."

He gives in a little bit. He exhales into my mouth. We stand back up but we are still holding one another. Our chests are pressed up against one another.

"If I get caught I'd be stripped up my title," he explains to me, "Admiral Lincoln already made that clear to all of us before the Pioneer left Earth. This isn't a regular mission. This isn't a regular army. The fate of humanity is at stake. We can't be...sloppy."

The words coming out of his mouth are more like Captain Kane but the tone is most definitely Chad. He sounds reluctant to say them. It's almost as though the words were drilled into him or something. I know how important our mission is.

"We can be slick. I can skip Mess hall...we can go back to my room and..."

I grab onto his dick at that moment through his pants. He exhales as I do it. His dick was already rock hard before I touched it and I don't think he was expecting me to touch it. He exhales deeply. All of a sudden the door flings open and I am shocked when Trucker walks back into the room.

I'm not sure how much Trucker sees but he pretends as though he doesn't see anything, "Sorry just...um...getting some tissue."

Trucker runs to his station and grabs the tissue he left out. He takes it and starts heading back out of the room. He makes sure he closes the door real tight behind him.

"Fuck," is all Chad manages to squeeze out.

He damn near throws himself off of me and makes it to the other side of the room. It's as though he needs to stay on the other side of the room to maintain himself around me. I can't help but follow behind him like a lost fucking puppy either. I just want to touch him. I just want to feel his arms again.

"It's OK," I tell him, "I'll talk to Trucker. He is the nicest fucking kid. He won't say anything."

"Even if he doesn't, it doesn't matter," Chad explains, "This is wrong."

"Fine transfer me out of your class."

"I already requested that. It was denied," Chad explains, "The Admiral specifically matched up every team. He refuses to make a change."

I'm shocked that Chad went ahead and requested to have me transferred behind my back. I'm not sure what to feel about it at that moment honestly. I just look at Chad wondering if I should say something about it but I don't. I'm just surprised.

"What does this mean for us?" I ask.

"I'm sorry," Chad responds, "It means this is the last time you can call me Chad."

~

The mess hall is packed with people and it's late at night when I'm on duty cleaning it because `Captain Kane' ordered me to do it. Every piece of dirt I pick up I remember how it felt to be near him and kiss him and touch him. I can feel how much he wanted to be with me and how much I wanted to be with him. The Captain was full of duty though. He was full of pride. He knew that humanity was on the line and that humanity was bigger than his own selfish needs.

I shouldn't have been mad at Chad but honestly I'm pissed. The anger keeps building up and building up. It gets worse. I find myself throwing milk across the cold dark floor.

"If you were smart you would have saved that," a voice says, "You know we are on limited supplies don't you?"

I recognize the voice of Lucky. The smokey, fast talking voice that I know. He walks in there without a shirt on. Seems like every time I see the guy he is wearing less clothes. This time his shirt is wrapped around his waist. I can see the full band of tattoos at this point. They are beautiful drawings really. Some you can tell are amateurish but those are the most amazing ones to me.

It's late at night. Really late. It's not easy cleaning up a hall that holds almost a thousand goddam people. We were supposed to clean up after ourselves but Kane wanted this place spotless or he said that he would fine me.

"What the hell you doing in here?" I ask.

"Kane took away my food privileges for not coming to his stupid simulations," Lucky responds, "So I sneak into the kitchen. Steal some shit at night. I heard you out here throwing a tantrum so I had to come watch."

"He has me on clean up duty for the whole fucking space station," I respond.

"You're going to be here all night."

No shit. I look around. The mess hall was huge. I'd be here until the morning and then I had to wake up first thing to go to the simulation again where Kane was going to discuss piloting the space craft.

"I know."

"Unless you leave."

"Lucky I'm not leaving."

"You do everything they ask you to do, pretty boy?" Lucky asks me lifting up his eyebrow.

I think about the conversation that I had with Kane earlier, "You wouldn't get it. Humanity is at stake here Lucky."

"Fuck em'. What has humanity ever done for you?"

"You do realize you're a human right?" I ask, "This space station is humanity's last hope."

"Humans didn't even make this space station."

I turn to Lucky.

"What?"

"You didn't know, did you?" he asks me.

My mouth gets dry all of a sudden. I'm thinking a million things at once. Lucky pulls an apple out of his pocket. He must have a thing for them. He takes a big bite out of the apple and stares over at me smiling. I can tell that he's amused by my reaction to his news because he's being annoyingly dramatic about it.

"If this isn't a human ship then whose is it?"

"This is Alien technology," he responds.

"Bullshit."

"Is it? Think about it? Since when do humans know about FTL drives, space-time continuums and battle star ships? Please. We stole this technology and made some tweaks to it to make it our own. Ever heard of Roswell? Ever heard of Area 51? Humans knew about the Upsetters long before that broadcast."

"You don't know that."

Lucky gets real close to me. It makes me uncomfortable. It makes me real uncomfortable actually. He stands only a few inches away from me.

"I can prove it."

"How?"

"Follow me, pretty boy," He responds, "Try to keep up this time."

~

We go through an area that is classified. Lucky opens the door with one of the key cards that he has on him. I notice several others that he has in there. It's clear that Lucky should not be having access to a lot of this shit.

"I got this card just yesterday," he explains, "I haven't showed anyone yet."

"Showed anyone what?"

"You'll see."

"Why me?"

Lucky stops moving at that moment and stops to stare, "I heard you in class today. You were asking a lot of questions about the FTL drives and all that."

"Wait...you were in the simulation?" I ask.

Lucky nods, "From time to time I listen through the vents."

"Why not just come in?"

"What's the fun in that?" Lucky asks, "I rather spy."

"Wait. What else did you hear?" I ask him.

Lucky gives me a knowing stare. My heart drops at that moment.

"Your deepest darkest secret..."

"What?"

"I'm just fuckin' with you yo," Lucky says, "I wasn't listening to that dumb shit for long. I was in and out. Really quick. Why, what did I miss?"

There is a pause, "Just show me what you got to show me Lucky."

Lucky sighs, "Fine. Get ready OK. I'm about to open it."

He stops at one more door.

"What's behind the door?"

Lucky holds up the key.

All of a sudden an alarm goes off! The alarm rings all over.

"Fuck!" Lucky says.

"Lucky what the fuck?"

"They must have changed the code. They must have been onto me," Lucky states at that moment.

He's panicking. The two of us start running. We don't make it far though. There are soldiers on the other side of the wall. They must have been having some sort of meeting in the room because they were just way to fast to open the door. Lucky attempts to run the other way but he doesn't get too far from that end either. I look at him with the most pissed off look I've ever given to any one at that moment.

We are held there for 10 minutes until a tall slim white man walks up. He comes walks up to Lucky and I at that moment. We have retreated back to the door that we were attempting to open.

The man gives us a hard stare. He looks important. I can tell by all the medals on his chest.

"Who are you?" I ask.

Lucky seems annoyed that I don't know, "This is Admiral Lincoln."

The Admiral! Not only had we been caught sneaking around but we had been caught by the fucking ADMIRAL! My heart is racing. I can't believe I followed Lucky here. I should have known the guy was just fucking trouble. The guy had trouble written all over him.

The Admiral gives me a hard smile at that moment, "Curious kids I see. Curious and very resourceful."

"Sir---we didn't mean to," I state, "We were just lost."

The lie doesn't get far especially with Lucky mean mugging the Admiral like that.

"You fucking people are hiding something," Lucky states out of nowhere.

I can't take this guy, "Lucky---"

We were standing in front of the most powerful human left. He might as well be the president. No. It was something bigger than that now. It was something much more important. He was over all the nations of Earth. The fate of all humanity was in the hands of this Admiral. Lucky was here cursing at the guy like it was someone he just met on the streets or something. I can't believe I'm in this position. I can't believe this is the first impression I get of the Admiral.

"Open the door for them," The admiral instructs a woman standing next to him.

"Admiral Lincoln."

"Show them what they want to see," the Admiral explains before looking over at the hesitant woman, "It's OK."

The woman looks scared for some reason to open the door. She has the reluctance written all over her face. I'm so confused. Why is she so scared? Why is Lucky so mad? Why is the Admiral so curious to see our reactions? I watch how he studies our faces as his assistant opens the door. The door slides open and I take a step back.

I'm shocked by what I see.

"Oh my god."

The Admiral puts his hand on me before pointing, "We captured it not too long ago. Keep your eyes open. No need to be afraid. It's knocked out. This is what you wanted to see. Isn't it? This is what an Upsetter alien looks like."

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