At the Special Unit's command center, Liz felt both calm and confident. Of course she worried about how Max and the others fared onboard the ship, but the circumstances that Liz could control went quite well.
The Special Unit's deployment of the EMP grenades proved a marvel to witness from their advanced command center. They split the wall of screens into four quadrants. One showed a bird's eye view of the larger area. Two of the quadrants offered a more zoomed in view that divided the target area in half. The final quadrant focused in on the Humvee containing Max, Michael, Isabel and Ava. When Kivar's ship flashed into existence like a special effect from a science fiction movie, Liz got caught up in the emotion of the room, which filled with cheers, fist pumps and even some applause from the Special Unit agents on hand.
Then, Liz witnessed the Royal Four charge out of the Humvee on foot and approach the ship. Drone footage stayed with them until they activated a boarding ramp and raced inside. Ever since then, the command center grew more quiet, as the various agents stationed at the workstations along the wall of screens took readings and measurements of the now visible spacecraft and prepared to activate the airstrike to sink the ship into the ground once the Royal Four cleared the area with Zan. The Special Unit looked closely for signs that the ship might look to take to the skies, despite the hope that the Royal Four's presence would keep their hands full inside the ship.
Liz and Serena stood near the center of the wall of screens, several feel from the back of the chairs at the workstations around them. It offered a good angle to survey any information on the wall of screens and Liz felt too amped up to pull up a chair from the conference table behind them. Agent Samuelson also remained on his feet. He paced back and forth, glancing up at the screens and leaning over to say something softly to various agents at the workstations. During the EMP grenade launch and Royal Four's storming of the ship, Samuelson took up a position near Liz and Serena and gave commands to the agents to coordinate the action. Agents manning the workstations also shouted back updates to Samuelson.
The current state of the Special Unit's command center seemed orderly, as they waited for their next cue to sweep into action to order the missile air strike intended to immobilize the ship. Liz and Serena didn't speak much to each other this whole time, though they did draw each other's attention to various noteworthy items on the screen. The room bustled with conversation, and it reminded Liz of the ambiance of the Crashdown Café during a busy lunch or dinner hour. Perhaps that association helped explain her calmness.
Liz didn't allow her concern for how Max and the others managed inside the ship to dominate her attention. She found herself glancing around at the screens and slowly panning her eyes back and forth. She would get some relief and a burst of excitement when Max and the others fled the ship with Zan and the airstrike came screaming in.
None of them ever discussed a contingency over what might happen if the Royal Four failed. Liz couldn't bring herself to dwell on the possibility. Her whole world would collapse if Max didn't make it out, but she needed to keep her faith in her husband and the rest of the Royal Four and how powerful they became. An unspoken confidence that they would succeed lived within her because she didn't experience a vision of anyone getting killed or seriously hurt. And Liz did get the vision when they planned to storm the site with Zan and without the support of the Special Unit, so she clung to the logical reasoning that if that same fate awaited them, another vision would've warned her. That didn't mean everything would go off without a hitch, but Liz believed the Special Unit's command center was the best place to get updates and offer input into how to proceed.
Even before Max left the base, Liz started preparing herself for the perception that the whole sequence of events would appear to unfold astronomically slower for her standing idly by at the Special Unit base compared to if she accompanied Max and the others on the ship. Liz made no effort to keep track of time and continued to let herself get swept up in the ambiance of the command center that left her with the sensation that things were under control.
During this phase of the operation, Liz and Serena could only stand idly by and wait for their next purposeful action. This would occur after the Royal Four cleared the ship with Zan. If the Special Unit succeeded in burying the ship to prevent it from flying and prevent Kivar and his forces from getting off, then their next move would take them to the Granolith Chamber outside of Roswell.
Liz knew Max, Michael and Isabel didn't want to go with Larek aboard his ship back to Antar, which Larek told them was the only option. Liz chose not to let her mind venture down the path of worrying about that. Instead, she fell back on the one-problem-at-a-time mentality that she adopted through her years of road life. They always seemed to find a way to think their way out of circumstances that appeared bleak, so Liz wanted to believe they could do so again, despite not yet working out how that might happen.
Something started to change in Serena. It broke Liz out of her calm malaise. The changes were subtle, but Serena's posture noticeably stiffened. It seemed like Serena scanned the room with more intent, and Liz caught her snapping her head around from one part of the room to another a couple of times. Liz tried to assess if the agents at the workstations became more focused and less passive but didn't observe any obvious changes. After a few minutes, Liz couldn't stand guessing anymore, and the gravity of the dangerous mission the Royal Four attempted became more troubling to her.
"Serena," Liz started to address her softly.
"Hold on a second," Serena cut her off and held up her pointer finger to signal Liz to wait.
This only magnified Liz's anxiousness because it affirmed her suspicions that something going on began to trouble Serena. She looked in the same direction as Serena, but she didn't know what to look for. Nothing stood out. Liz still couldn't sense a major shift in the overall atmosphere of the room. She would wait for Serena to explain, but now she started letting her mind worry about the apparent long time that passed since the Royal Four entered the ship.
"There," Serena said, able to speak slightly louder than a whisper and stay only within earshot of Liz, "did you see that?"
"See what?" Liz asked, not noticing anything.
"Samuelson just checked his watch," Serena explained.
Liz saw it, but at first it didn't register as something to draw suspicion.
"Maybe he's just curious about how long it's been," Liz reasoned, continuing to keep her voice down.
"And if that was the first time he checked his watch, or maybe even the second, I wouldn't think anything of it, either," Serena said. "But this is the fourth time he's checked his watch in the last 10 minutes."
"Like he's tracking something," Liz offered.
"Or counting down to something," Serena added.
Liz's eyes grew wide and any sensation of calm abruptly vanished. If the Royal Four didn't leave the ship after a set amount of time, the Special Unit might order the airstrike with everyone still inside. She wondered why that never occurred to her earlier.
"And he seems to be moving about at an uneven pace," Serena continued her analysis. "Sometimes he moves to one of the agents briskly. Earlier, he casually paced back and forth collecting status updates the other agents offered up. Now I'd swear he's doling out instructions or requesting specific information, perhaps both."
Liz didn't doubt Serena, though the whole scene seemed quite benign to her until Serena shared until her observations. Liz could credit everything she went through the last several days and her current worry for Max and the rest of the Royal Four as cause that likely diminished her own detective skills. Yet Serena picked up on subtle and nuanced details that left Liz questioning if she would notice herself even if fully rested and at the top of her game.
"How are you so good at recognizing all of this?" Liz asked.
"Years of practice," Serena answered simply.
It occurred to Liz that despite the events of their current adventure, she actually knew very little about Serena's background and training. Now she started to become curious. Serena shared that she researched a lot of their activities since the signal from Max and Isabel's mother went off. But there were still a lot of gaps about what caused her to become so engrossed in the alien mystery and what she worked on before learning of the alien signal.
Liz decided she needed to compartmentalize and would table the questions about Serena popping into her head for another time. She turned her attention back to the information Serena just shared about the shift in tone in Samuelson and his agents. It made perfect sense for the Special Unit to want to move ahead with the airstrike if they thought Max failed. They'd want to take their shot at disabling the ship before it turned on the military or took off somewhere else and restored its cloaking system.
"Is anything wrong, ladies?" Samuelson apparently noticed Liz and Serena's conversation and asked the question upon moving back toward their position.
"You tell us," Serena retorted.
"I'm not sure what you mean," Samuelson offered carefully.
"Are you going to bury that ship with my husband and our friends still onboard?" Liz asked, but the look on Samuelson's face told her they called him out correctly before he could even attempt an answer. "I thought the plan was to wait for everyone to clear the ship, no matter how long it took."
Samuelson proved already that he could lie with skill. It occurred to Liz that he didn't seem interested in trying to hide the plan from them.
"We may be reaching the time when your plan and our plan are going to diverge and no longer be aligned," Samuelson said coldly.
While Liz got a brief glimpse of Samuelson's authority and willingness to take a darker approach to his work during their first conversation, this comment put it starkly on display. Samuelson mostly treated them with a kind, friendly demeanor that clearly masked a shadier side to him. It struck Liz as somewhat eerie from the start. Circumstances forced her to work to look past that given how desperate a situation they faced and how much she believed they needed to take the deal. Liz sensed Samuelson was on the brink of treating them as full-blown enemies now. She knew they needed to proceed very carefully, but Liz's emotions threatened to swell up and boil over with mainly her anger toward Samuelson and at herself for not suspecting such a contingency earlier.
"If you think something's wrong, why not send some of the armed military in to attempt to help them?" Serena asked.
"We have no idea what we'd be sending them into," Samuelson shot back. "And while I may be coordinating some facets of this operation, I'm not in full command of the military's assets. I don't have the authority to order ground units inside."
Liz assumed Samuelson received broad authority to handle the alien landing given the Special Unit's expertise and specialization as an alien task force. In fact, Samuelson essentially implied as much in their previous encounter when he bragged about the military reporting to him and that Samuelson himself reported to the President.
"I don't believe you," Liz took the risk at challenging Samuelson directly but delivered the line with a soft, solemn tone meant to minimize the eruption of a heated argument.
Samuelson's eye narrowed. "Yes, well, you'll just have to trust me when I tell you that sending ground troops aboard that ship isn't going to happen, regardless of whose decision it is."
Samuelson turned to resume his interactions with his agents at the workstations. Liz figured if she or Serena became unruly, they would call agents in to detain them, so she started to become overwhelmed by the helplessness of a spiraling situation with the Special Unit on top of knowing nothing of the status of Max, Michael, Isabel and Ava in their rescue attempt of Zan.
"I must admit that I'm surprised to hear you're thinking of taking such a risk," Serena blurted out.
Samuelson stopped and turned back toward them. He didn't look pleased, but he also didn't look outright angry. He stared ominously at Serena and that cued her she could elaborate more.
Serena continued, "You have no guarantee that your airstrike will bury the ship and succeed at both keeping all the occupants trapped inside and rendering the ship unable to get out of there. If you attack and our friends are still alive and everyone manages to get out, then what good will it do to have all sides pissed off at you? That's exactly the worst case scenario you were trying to avoid by inviting us to work with you in the first place. Like it or not, I think we're both screwed if our friends fail. So all we can do is wait and hope they come out of there in one piece."
Samuelson paused for a moment before reacting. "I'll admit… It's a delicate situation."
Once again, Samuelson turned to head back toward the screens. Liz wanted to scream at him and warn Samuelson that they weren't going to forget his betrayal, especially if he ordered the airstrike with Max still inside. She took a deep breath in, but she felt Serena's hand on her shoulder before she could speak. Liz exhaled as she made eye contact with Serena who shook her head to signal Liz to back down.
Liz recognized that Samuelson clearly commanded the scene. He likely calculated that if the ship took to the air, it would leave the Special Unit and military without a plan of attack. It seemed clear now that Samuelson would order the airstrike if he believed too much time passed for the Royal Four to pull off their rescue plan.
She also knew Serena rightly signaled her to stand down. Liz and Serena could do little to fight the Special Unit just the two of them. The calm sense of waiting to rejoin Max and the others now felt like a distant memory. Butterflies erupted in her stomach. Liz desperately watched the screens hoping to see Max, Michael, Isabel, Ava and Zan clear the ship while she braced herself for the possibility of hearing Samuelson order the airstrike.