(Thank you all for your encouraging feedback! This chapter will focus on Paul and Graeme's perspectives again. I think next chapter I'll have all three perspectives of Paul, Graeme and Tara, but we'll see how this update goes first. I hope you enjoy this! Good day (or night) to all!)

(Please forgive the tardiness of this update. A lot has been going on in my RL and I hardly had time to focus on this. I thank you all for your patience and reward you with this addition! Enjoy!)

Chapter 5: Learning to Survive

-Paul-

"What are your skill sets? What are you most proficient in?" The Ularan asked us in English without looking away from his tablet, which he was tapping at with a stylus. The body had been removed from the room a few minutes ago by other Ulara who I guessed were either medical or research personnel. The suited guard was still at the door, watching us. We still weren't saying anything; I wasn't planning on cooperating with these assholes and Del was with me on that.

The Ularan glanced at us before sighing, seemingly frustrated. "Look, if you want to survive here, you have to make yourselves useful somehow or we'll have no reason to keep you alive. Despite how you may feel about this whole situation, it's in your best interests to tell me how we can put you to use."

As much as I really hated to admit it, he had a point. Besides, if we wanted to figure out how to escape this place, we'd need the opportunity to see more of it and doing whatever bullshit tasks they gave us could allow us just that. It's how I escaped Area 51 on Earth. Sixty years of observation and some inside help goes a long ass way. Since it wasn't just me this time, if we were lucky, it wouldn't take us that long to come up with something of an escape plan, assuming they'd let us see each other over time after this.

Del was the first to answer, looking aggravated. "I'm a pilot."

The Ularan didn't react much to that. "Well, unfortunately we don't have many openings for pilots here. Do you have any other skill?"

Del seemed to hesitate, I assumed he was unsure if he should answer that. "General weapons engineering knowledge."

Right. I forgot about that. Del was practically obsessed with guns and all sorts. He knew almost anything about them ranging from standard side arms to military grade frigate cannons. I'm pretty sure the only thing that kept him from making a career out of them was the fact that since my people declared universal peace, they've basically been outlawed and only historical displays and data remain.

He could own one as long as it wasn't armed or loaded, but he could never use it for target practice. The Ularan glanced at him as if slightly amused. "Interesting..."

He swiped upward on the tablet and tapped at it before turning to me. "...and you?"

I just shrugged. "I'm sort of a 'jack of all trades'. I can pretty much do anything you tell me to do."

The Ularan raised an eyebrow as he tapped at the tablet some more. "Fair enough."

He turned to the guard at the door and ordered something to him, gesturing at Del. The guard moved towards him and the Ularan stepped back.

"It's Del, right?" He asked. Del and I both looked at him, neither of us expecting that. The guard pulled Del to his feet and he wrenched his arm out of his grip.

"How do you know my name?" Del asked, his tone almost a demand.

"We extracted some personal data from the communication terminals in the helmets we confiscated from you." The Ularan replied simply.

"That shit's encrypted!" I argued.

"Not as well as you might think, Paul." The Ularan rebutted. The guard shoved Del ahead of him and ushered him out of the room. Fuck... If these assholes knew who we were, who the hell knows what else they knew about us.

Well, actually, they couldn't have known too much about us if he had to ask us what skills we had. With any luck, our names and what we were doing in the Delta Quadrant would be all they knew of us. If they ever found out about Tara and Lil'... No, they were safe. My people may have surrendered most offensive weapons to secure peace, but we still have damn near impenetrable defenses.

They'd need one hell of a massive armada to get through our planetary defenses and maybe someone on the inside. As it stood, they were an endangered species with apparent minimal resources and I couldn't think of anyone who would be stupid enough to stab our own people in the back. So I knew they were safe. I just had to find a way to get through this to see them again. It seemed to be the story of my fucking life now...

-Graeme-

Survival of the fittest. Before all of this, whenever someone would talk about what they'd do if they had to be in such a situation, they'd always make it sound so easy. When it all comes down to it, however, it's one of the hardest things to live with. It isn't just all the running, dodging gunfire and explosions, hiding and trying to figure out the next move. It's going through every day wondering when it'll be your turn to die, where your next meal is coming from and who you might have to fight or even kill to get it. The hardest thing for me to accept at this point was that no matter what we did or what decisions we made, we would never be safe, not from aliens or even other people fighting to survive.

That was probably the worst of it. It wasn't bad enough that alien invaders were ravaging our planet, humanity couldn't even assist itself in a time that it clearly needed it most. Leslie was only one kind person amongst billions of terrified people looking out for themselves. Her altruistic act of helping us in the nick of time would've been seen by most people as a weakness that they could exploit, but I, of course, felt different. Her kindness may have been an advantage for us, but it came as an advantage for her as well.

She probably realized she stood a better chance to survive with a group than alone, which would explain why she elected to stay with us even after we fled the basement of the apartment building we had met her in. Before I would've said that there was power in numbers, but with the way things were looking for Earth against these invaders, I was beginning to have a difficult time believing in such things anymore. There was virtually no communication between civilian survival groups or any possible refugee facilities, so as of this point, it seemed, we were on our own. Even if we did happen upon a heavily defended refugee shelter, we couldn't be certain how long it could hold up against the technology of an advanced civilization.

Also, considering the unimaginable amount of people being displaced by these events, I highly doubted that any shelter would have room for us and if we ever needed to escape should the worst happen, there would be practically nowhere to run. So it was unanimously decided amongst us that refugee camps, shelters and the like were now, strategically-speaking and even figuratively, death traps. Instead, we decided to try and make our way out of the city and to the country-side, seeing as the invaders were mainly focusing on the densely populated areas of the planet for now. There was no telling when that would change, but it would buy us some time to figure out how to survive this or even fight back if possible. We knew we weren't getting there on the surface, it was much too dangerous, but we figured perhaps if we stuck to sub-transit tunnels, we'd stand a better chance at eluding any hostile aliens looking to abduct any civilians.

We had no idea what we would find down there so we remained vigilant, ready for anything, as we took the stairs below. As I had thought, only half of the stairs were illuminated by day-light, the damage to the power-grid substantial enough to take out any lighting in the subways. We stuck to the railings to prevent anyone falling down the steps. Carefully, I felt the ground below with my feet, eventually discovering that we had made it to flat ground. I heard Leslie trip and swear a few moments after.

"Are you alright?" I asked, listening to the rustle of her dusting herself off and some jingling sound.

"I'm fine," She replied a bit gruff, "I think I tripped over a security guard."

It was pitch black down here, but as my eyes were starting to adjust I could only see her dark silhouette moving around. I supposed she was searching him for anything useful, perhaps a flashlight.

"Ah, got it!" She clicked on the flashlight, moving the light over the body. We could only gasp at the sight before us. It was a security guard, well...what was left of him at least. His head and most of his upper torso was missing, looking as if it had been ripped off by a very large animal. There were lightning shaped burn marks along his arms and his clothing appeared singed near the wounds. Poor bloke...

At first, I worried if there were any hostile aliens lurking in the dark tunnels ahead, but Leslie followed a trail of blood leading up the stairs we had just come down with the light. The trail looked more like splatter than as if the body had been dragged.

"I don't think he was killed here." Leslie seemed to be following on the same train of thought that I had, "He was probably thrown after they killed him."

She shined the light ahead of us and around on the walls until she saw something. "Look! There's a map of the tunnels!"

We hurried over to it, careful not to trip over anything else and eager to leave the body where it lay...

Leslie looked over the map, pointing at a location on it. "We're here, so if we go left through this tunnel here and stay on it for about five miles, we can take the tunnel to the right for another eight miles, then go to the left tunnel the rest of the way."

"We can't go to the right," Clive rebutted, "that tunnel will take us right underneath the main line of defense for the city. It's too dangerous, plus the battle's probably caused a cave in by now."

"It's the quickest way to the country-side, unless you want to surface it about half-way through and risk getting picked off in the night by the side of the road." Leslie argued.

"And I suppose possibly taking the full brunt of an explosion or risk getting incinerated by a laser cannon is a much better survival plan?" Clive countered. I walked up to look at the map myself. There had to be a better way than risking a crawl beneath a battlefield.

"What about utility shafts?" I offered, not about to listen to them debate this, "They could take us around the fight, couldn't they?"

Leslie blinked as if the idea was obvious and then looked at the map again. "Yes, in fact if we go left for five miles and then go to the right, there should be a utility shaft about half-way through. It would take us around to a parallel tunnel for three miles, but then we can run north for two miles, take this shaft around and then take this tunnel the rest of the way. We'd almost completely avoid the battle."

"Almost being the operative word." Clive reminded.

"Yeah, it'll take us along the very edge of the battle, but it's a lot less risky this way." Leslie said, matter-of-factly.

"By train, this would normally be an eight hour trip, but on foot..." Clive trailed off, knowing how daunting this task might just be.

"We should get going then." I walked beside Ruth and Preston as we climbed down onto the tracks. Leslie took the lead, the flashlight illuminating the tunnel ahead as we trekked down the path we agreed upon. We were probably going to be stuck down in these dark pathways for at least a day or two, but we needed to get out of the city no matter what. I only hoped the invaders were focusing on the surface and that our progress would remain unnoticed for the duration of our journey.

(Disclaimer: I don't own Paul or any other characters created by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I do, however, own Del, the Ulara, Preston, Leslie and Tua. Read and review please!)