CHAPTER 21

This is Mike Donovan right now:

The back of your neck is soaked in perspiration, and you find yourself breathing hard. Your heart is going a million miles an hour, thumping in your ribcage and feeling as if it's liable to leap out and break free.

You're deep inside the Mother Ship.

It's a place you've been to before. It's a place that feels like you visit far too often.

The Visitors refer to this part of their gargantuan vessel as Section 34.

It is dark where you are. Perhaps not pitch-black dark, but definitely far darker than what you're used to. You can see these oddly-shaped translucent objects arrayed in rows and columns as far as your eye can see, as well as catwalks and staircases and access ramps here and there. There are also machines of unfamiliar design attached to all of those oddly-shaped objects.

Always gives me the heebie-jeebies just looking at all this.

And where you are is filled with sound. It isn't loud nor particularly unpleasant to your ears, but there is a hum and drone of machinery running constantly that pervades everything and makes it nearly impossible to hear hardly anything else.

Gotta stay alert.

There is a hint of a chemical odor in the air too. Kind of like in a hospital, but not exactly like it either. But being someone who doesn't particularly enjoy being in a hospital – who in his right mind would, other than doctors and nurses?, you ask yourself – it's a bit of a disquieting mental comparison.

Actually…

For some reason, and for not the first time, you think it feels more like you're in a gigantic morgue.

Damn it.

Stop thinking like that.

Especially because you're here to find one person.

Someone you love more than life itself.

You walk up and down the various rows and columns of these semi-transparent objects, peering into each one. When you're more than three feet away all you see is the shape of these objects. But when you press your nose up to each one, you remember that each of these shapes is actually a container.

And none of these containers is empty.

There is someone inside each of these things.

When you peer into every single one you can see faces.

And naked bodies.

Men. Women. Children.

PEOPLE.

I've got to find him.

He's in here somewhere.

You feel your heart and soul sink, entrapped in a mire of desperation, knowing that you just have to find the one person you're looking for.

But beyond desperation, you also feel despair.

These poor people.

What can I do to help them?

I can't free them all.

You try to ignore the twin monsters of desperation and despair gnawing at your soul and persist on your quest. You don't know how long you've been in here, nor how many of these of these coffin-like containers you've looked in, but you know that you won't stop until you finally succeed.

So you keep on looking inside each one, searching for that one particular face. Your hope dies a little with each unfamiliar one you look at. You don't even know how long you've been searching. But you know you'll keep on searching, until you finally –

Sean.

It's really him.

You've found your son.

Your heart leaps with euphoria, but as quickly as that flash of joy is, it is tempered by the realization that you don't know how to get him out of that container he is in.

You didn't think that far ahead. It's not your way to plan things out. You've always preferred to fly by the seat of your pants.

So you look around, searching your immediate surroundings for something you might be able to use to get your boy out of that container he's in.

Almost magically, your foot grazes a metal tube. It is solid, about three and a half feet long. You pick it up, feeling its weight and smooth surface, and imagine the possibilities.

Maybe I can smash that thing Sean is in.

So you measure the distance between yourself and the container your son is in. Holding the metal tube like a baseball bat, you swing like a slugger at home plate and hit the container.

Again and again you do so, and all you seem to get is an increasing pain in your hands as it absorbs the multiple shocks created by the collisions between the tube and the container.

But you don't stop. You keep on swinging.

You don't care about the noise you're making, nor about the fact your hands feel as if they'd been tenderized. You don't care about the bruises you are sure they'll have.

I have to get him out.

Your hands are bleeding by the time you see the first spider-web cracks on the translucent container. But this spurs you on, makes you ignore the pain, and prods you to swing even harder.

Until finally, one last mighty swing finally breaks through. The glass-like material of the container cracks like the shell of a hatching egg, with pieces of it falling near your feet. And as the container breaks apart, a clear, slimy, viscous fluid gushes out.

You drop the metal tube and catch your son's inert body as it starts to fall in a heap inside the broken container, then lift him out with great care. Covered with the slime Sean is slippery, so you move slowly, mindful of the jagged edges of the broken translucent coffin where he'd been asleep for so many months.

You sit on the floor and cradle Sean in your lap, then press a finger on his neck. You panic when you don't feel a pulse.

"No," you say. "Don't die. You can't!"

Unsure about what to do, you start to massage his chest. You feel angry at yourself, now regretting that you didn't pay close enough attention to the CPR training courses you'd gone to years ago. But you keep on repeating the routine of chest massage and checking for a pulse, hoping like crazy that somehow your boy won't die in your arms.

Then, suddenly, he starts to cough and blink. He gasps and draws in a massive swallow of air, as his lungs haven't worked for so long.

Drawing him close to you, you hug him, tighter than you've hugged him in your life.

"Thank you… thank you," you keep on saying.

Your heart leaps again when you feel Sean wrap an arm weakly around you.

"Sean," you say. "Son, it's Dad."

"Dad," he says, his voice hoarse, his speech labored. "Dad."

"It's gonna be okay," you tell him. "It's gonna be okay."

You hold him in one arm, then start to remove your leather jacket. It's the only thing you can clothe him with at the moment. You mentally kick yourself again, realizing you really didn't plan any of this out.

"Here, son," you tell him as you swaddle him into your jacket. He just looks so feeble. He's over twelve years old, but seeing him like this somehow brings you back to happier times, when he was still a baby and you enjoyed those increasingly infrequent times when you came home from your job as a news cameraman to spend time with him.

Your eyes are filled with tears as you lift him up with your bloody hands. But they are tears of joy, and relief.

"We're getting out of here," you say as you stand up, slinging Sean into a fireman's carry over your shoulders.

You pass the innumerable other containers with people in them, again trying to ignore the compulsion to somehow free all of them from this death-like sleep they're in.

Before long you find yourself out of this secluded part of the Mother Ship, the part that the vast majority of people in the world have never ever seen, nor even suspected existed. You're hurrying down the more commonly seen white corridors on your way to one of the docking bays – you hope you're going the right way – when you notice something.

Actually, what you notice could be better described not as something, but nothing.

There's nobody here.

No Visitors.

No technicians. No engineers. No Security troops. No Shock Troopers.

What the hell –

As these thoughts fill your mind, you suddenly see a flash of red and black in your peripheral vision as you cross a four-way junction of corridors.

Shock Troopers!

Damn it!

You run faster now, no easy feat with your twelve year-old son slung over your shoulders. You dare not look behind you to see the Visitor soldiers, but there's no doubt they saw you and are now in pursuit.

One of them fires his weapon – you hear the pulsing whine from it – and misses you to your left. A couple of more shots also miss, one to each side of you.

There are multiple shots now coming at you in fairly rapid succession, all of them missing to either side you.

That's weird.

Why are they all missing?

Not that I want to get hit, but –

Then you realize something.

They're funneling us into the middle of the hallway! I can't find cover this way!

As soon as you understand the tactic the Visitor soldiers are using, you feel a burn on your left foot. An explosion of intense heat and sparks heralds a near-hit, but it's hot enough to make your brain erupt with pain signals from your foot.

No.

I'm falling.

NO!

You fall onto the floor, and in doing so you drop Sean from your fireman's carry. As much as it hurts you to fall, you're far more worried about dropping your son.

But other things now demand your attention.

The Shock Troopers have caught up to you and have surrounded you, each of them with their rifles drawn and aimed at you and Sean's crumpled form.

Two of them grab you by your biceps and manhandle you into a kneeling position. Another one stands over you, the barrel of his weapon a meter from your face.

"Please," you say, "take me. But please don't hurt my son."

One of the Shock Troopers now moves toward Sean. As alarmed as you are in seeing this, you notice something very strange about this particular alien soldier.

She looks like a woman. You can't see the soldier's face, but it's easy to tell from the shape of her body and the honey-colored waves under the helmet. You don't ever recall seeing a female Shock Trooper in all the months you've been fighting a guerilla war against the Visitors.

Doesn't mean they can't have women in their ranks, I guess.

But more than that, the other thing that stands out to you is the fact that she is far smaller than the rest of the Troopers holding you in thrall.

That's definitely weird.

Something else bothers you as you watch her. You notice the very slight limp in her gait.

I don't know why, but there's something familiar about her

You gasp and struggle to free yourself from the two soldiers holding you down when the female Shock Trooper puts a foot down on Sean's neck as he lies prone a few feet away from you and aims her rifle at him.

"You leave him alone!"

The female soldier turns towards you.

"Like you left me?"

Her voice.

I KNOW her.

You watch now as she leans her rifle against her leg then reaches for her black helmet and takes it off.

You gasp as soon as you see her face.

"Julie!"

It's the same soft, kind face. The same blonde waves.

Her eyes, though.

There is a coldness in those blue-green eyes you've never seen before. You never ever thought you would ever see anything like this in those eyes.

"You left me behind."

"I – I didn't want to!"

"You left me behind," Julie says again, then she looks away from you. She drops the helmet onto the floor and picks up the rifle.

She aims it at Sean.

"Say good-bye to your son."

"NO!" you scream and fight to break free from the soldiers again, but it's a useless struggle. The whine of Julie's weapon doesn't drown out your screams of ultimate pain and outrage, and the electric blue flash that ends Sean's life makes the side of his face transform into char is a sight you can never ever unsee.

"Why?!" you asked, crazed out of your mind, your soul devastated beyond comprehension. "Why did you kill my son?!" Tears have now filled your eyes.

Julie now aims the weapon at your face. "Why?" she asks. "Because you left me behind at the hospital. Because of what they've been doing to me for the last thirteen days."

You blink away the tears, and you see that she too is crying. "Because I thought you loved me – but Diana showed me the truth."

"The truth – ?

"If you truly loved me, like I felt and thought that you did, you would have risked your life to save me."

"Julie – " you start to plead.

But she cuts you off. "Diana was right." Her eyes are now angry slits as they fix themselves on you. "So much for love."

And the last thing you see is a blinding blue-white flash.

Mike Donovan was drenched in sweat as he sat up on his bunk.

He was dreaming.

Actually, he was having a nightmare, and this nightmare has been one that he has been having for months now. He'd lost count of all the times he dreamt of his son getting killed.

This time, though, things were a bit different.

All times previously, Sean had been killed one way or the other by the Visitors. It was beyond cruel now for him to dream about Julie murdering his son in cold blood. Not only that, but to be reminded of his feelings of deep guilt for leaving Julie behind at the hospital was especially painful.

He couldn't believe how hard and fast his heart was going. It took him a few moments to calm down. He pulled his soaked shirt off and sits on the edge of his bunk, thinking about his nightmare. He looked at his watch and remembered that he had taken a short nap after lunch. He and Tyler were meeting with Martin tonight, and, deprived of sleep, he thought he'd take a few hours off for himself to recharge.

Then his heart jumps anew when the door into the trailer he was in opened suddenly.

"Donovan!" Father Andrew, red-faced and out of breath, stood at the doorway.

"Yeah?"

"You better get out here, right now!"

Donovan, still shirtless, followed the priest out of the trailer. "What's going on – "

He knew exactly what Father Andrew was so excited about as soon as their feet hit the ground. He saw it.

And he felt it.

The air itself seemed to be vibrating, and something huge had cast a shadow over the entire rebel camp.

"God in heaven – " Donovan said, mouth agape as he and the priest watched a Visitor Mother Ship glide in the sky above them.

"Is that –" Father Andrew stuttered. "Is that the L.A. ship, or a new one?"

Donovan squinted into the bright early afternoon sunlight as he studied the gargantuan vessel, noting it had several strange protrusions that looked like giant blisters on its underside, the likes of which he'd never seen before. "This one's new. And it looks like it's even bigger than Diana's." He looked towards the southeast and saw the Los Angeles Mother Ship still parked over its usual place above the city's downtown area. He eyeballed the direction the new Mother Ship was moving in. "I think it's heading for a rendezvous with Diana's ship."

By now the rest of the rebels could see and feel everything Donovan and Father Andrew were experiencing. The unpaved dirt streets of the southwestern movie set filled up with every person in the camp, all of them craning their heads up to watch the new Mother Ship's progress. The spacecraft was so big it took around two minutes to completely pass over the camp.

Donovan gestured at Ham Tyler, who was walking towards him and Father Andrew.

"God damn it," Tyler said, completely indifferent to the Roman Catholic priest in his company.

Donovan gestured upwards to the passing Mother Ship. "What do you make of this?"

Tyler's face was inscrutable as always. "This war just became a whole lot harder to win."

Donovan looked at Tyler, and all he could do was nod.