---Air---

  ---Musso’s perspective---

  I’m sitting in the lounge area of the cramped System Patrol craft I’ve been aboard for the last [16 weeks] or so now, about [50 lightminutes] from home.

  I’m playing a game of chief’s gambit with Uktuv and Jokusu, the only others aboard.

  “Take that!” cackles Jok, laying a winning hand on the table.

  Me and Uk both groan as he scoops the tokens we wagered towards himself.

  “’Nother round?” he smirks, holding up the deck in invite “You want a chance to win your chips back before you’re fully cleaned out, don’t you?”

  “Grrrrrh!” I snarl in frustration before pointing at him accusingly and holding out my upper right for the deck “Last round… and I’m dealing!”

  “You accuse me of cheating(!?)” he asks, bringing his lowers to his chest and feigning hurt.

  “I know you cheat, you rotten bastard, I just don’t always know how!” I growl, snatching the deck from him while using my other three arms to pick up last round’s hands.

  “You should really be more trusting, Mus…” smirks the cheater with boundless amusement at his own effeminate whimsy.

  “Said every traitor who ever stuck a knife in his clansman’s back(!)” I scowl back as I shuffle.

  I’ve just begun to deal when a sudden, blaring noise sounds from everywhere at once.

  A noise I’ve never heard outside of practice drills!

  The alarm!

  The three of us are immediately on our feet and sprinting the [20m] to the cockpit, past our bunks and bathroom on the left and the door displaying the vacuum of space on the right.

  “By the Father!” I swear in horror as I see what the readout displays but which is too far yet to see with the naked eye “That’s an invasion fleet!”

  It’s monstrous!

  Hundreds of ships, not one of them less than eight times the size of the one us three are sitting in, and more warping in by the [second]!

  That flagship’s got to be a [kilometre] long!

  I jump into the pilot’s seat and take the yoke.

  “Uktuv! Get on com to command! Let them know what’s happening!” I order, decisively “Jokusu! You man weapons and try and keep them off us as we-FATHER!”

  I burn hard enough to subject us all to [3G] as I desperately try to evade the torpedo that’s been fired at us!

  I’m just thinking I might have successfully dodged it when it reaches [15km] from us and the screen in front of me goes black as the entire craft is plunged into darkness along with the crackle of electronics being destroyed.

  I begin floating off my chair before I pull myself back down onto it.

  I look out the front window for the rapidly expanding blast of a nuclear detonation.

  I see none.

  “EMP.” I announce to the other two, their faces visible only by the starlight “They wanted to knock us out, not kill us.”

  “What do we… do?” asks Uk, stupidly.

  “What can we do, idiot!?” I snarl “You wanna get out and fight them with swords(!?) Because they’re all we’ve got left right now!… We sit here and wait for them to pick us up if they choose to… or we suffocate some time tonight if they don’t… There’s no choice to make in a bricked ship, is there… Just try your best to stay calm. We want to look dignified if they give us the opportunity to surrender. If we disgrace ourselves as men by blubbering and crying, it’ll be all over their propaganda immediately!”

  At that point, the craft gives an unnerving jerk to the right as it begins accelerating, presumably towards the position of the alien invaders’ fleet.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  About [1G] of acceleration is applied to us, painfully forcing my hip into the arm of my chair.

  I turn to face the direction of travel so it forces me into the padded seatback instead and, after some dithering, the other two follow my lead.

  We spend about [13 minutes] facing right in the cockpit, subjected to an uncomfortable amount of gravity, before we start to float again briefly.

  “They’re decelerating us.” I explain to the two dimwits, turning my chair 180° “Turn around before you’re flung into the right wall.”

  I hear the rattling of the game chips being flung across the back of the ship from my left.

  The apprehension I feel as I’m forced to face away from the direction of the enemies for the next [13 minutes] is almost unbearable!

  With no warning aside from my own internal clock, my eyes are suddenly blinded by the harsh light of an alien hangar, about the same luminosity as [1,500km] from anywhere habitable, out on the sunward side!

  Gravity asserts itself in the right direction for the first time in [27 minutes].

  Grimacing as I squint against the harsh light and swivel my chair to look through the window, I make out the shapes of armed, bipedal, bimanous combat droids striding about in the airless hangar, their outer shells made from glossy, dark toned metal, swords on their hips with some of them wearing capes.

  Their movements look far too natural for them to be autonomous, they must be remotely piloted.

  “Snivelling cowards!” I spit, disgusted “Weakling aliens think they’re mighty enough to invade our home and can’t even give us the respect of showing their faces like men!… Won’t even look us in the eyes without a remote link in between!”

  I get up and pat myself down.

  “Check yourselves for weapons or things that could be mistaken for them!” I instruct “We have no idea how competent the operators are and you don’t want to be shot because they’re too moronic to tell a threat from a nonthreat!”

  I step to the door to look out into the blindingly lit, airless space beyond as our craft touches the deck of this invading ship.

  I straighten my back and compose a look that is defiant without being threatening, to have the best chance of preserving both my dignity and my life!

  A crowd of the squat little droids (the tallest of them only around [2m], the shortest not even half my height!) form a perimeter around us as one directly approaches to adhere a device to the outside of the polymer.

  That one retreats away and another, about [10m] from and square on to the door, wearing a cape, raises a hand from its compact rifle.

  A deep, powerful and entirely comprehensible voice reverberates through the door from the translation apparatus on the other side “Honourable Don defenders, this is LtCol Ragnarr ‘Knuckles’ Sigurearsson of the United Terran Coalition Marines. If you are able, we require that you relieve yourselves of all weaponry and exit the vehicle with your hands raised above your heads. You will not be harmed and will be treated humanely as prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Convention. If you are unable to comply, please state the reason clearly into the door. We will hear you and understand you.”

  “We are unable to comply!” I answer, horrified, looking left to the vacuum of space entirely filling the front window from this vantage.

  “Please state the reason for your inability to comply.” answers the same voice.

  It seems the answer to how competent they are is ‘terrifyingly inept’!

  They haven’t realised that just because their droids don’t need air, doesn’t mean we don’t!!!

  “Sir! We only have a single vacuum suit aboard and, even if it’s functional after your attack, whichever of us put it on would still be likely to be killed by the violence of the ship’s decompression! You need to close the hangar door and pressurise this chamber before we can exit! We’re willing to surrender, not execute ourselves!” I explain, incredulous that beings with such advanced military technology as they’ve demonstrated could be so monumentally stupid while employing it!

  The caped droids bodylanguage falters for a [quarter of a second] before its operator turns its head to look out into the gaping maw of space.

  “Ah…!” the translated voice returns “…I see.”

  I’m awash with relief at the fact that it seems he’s realised his mistake without us being shot or forced to eject ourselves into a vacuum!

  “Kjárrsdóttir… would you be so kind as to take my helmet for me?” asks the one piloting the lead droid to the droid next to him.

  “Of course, Sir.” answers a female voice as that droid raises its weapon to point at the ceiling and shoulders it against its left arm, holding out its right.

  The momentary disgust I had at these aliens apparently letting women pilot their combat droids and the way the commander issues orders phrased as requests is entirely erased as the lead one takes its left arm from its weapon, reaches into the gap beneath the shell of its head and pulls it off, revealing not sensors or mechanical parts but a repulsively featured, organic head!

  The alien’s skin is pallid in tone and its eyes emit no glow at all… like a corpse!

  Fur grows thick from its lower face but, in contrast, the sides of its head are bald and asymmetrically marked with a dark toned tattoo.

  Thick ropes of plaited hair run the length of its scalp from front to back.

  Its sickeningly short ears are rounded off.

  Looking up at me with those lightless eyes, the alien (who it takes me [0.4 seconds] to remember is a man after having realised he’s a person, not a droid) points sharply to his bare head and says “See? There’s air out here. I’m not dead. I’m able to talk to you. The last Terran ship to be outfitted with an atmo containment field was 20 years ago. That’s before I’d even enlisted… We can’t close the doors, I’m afraid. We’ve got more of your craft coming in and it needs to stay open for them… Now that you know you won’t die, I instruct again; relieve yourselves of all weapons and exit the craft with your hands held above your heads.”

  Agog… and still not fully trusting that this isn’t some sort of perfidy… but not really seeing why they would go to all this effort just to kill us like this (except, maybe, because aliens might think it was funny?), I reach for the manual door release lever.

  I yank it.

  The door falls to the invaders’ deck without the three of us being violently ripped from the craft by outrushing air.

  I’m still breathing…

  I step out, holding all four hands above my head.

  Musso |