“Honey hurry up,” Emma called to Marcus. “I can’t contain the kids any longer,” Emma said.

“I am coming in a minute and we are going,” Marcus yelled from the bathroom.

Marcus’s phone buzzed again, frustrating Emma further, it seemed like that phone never stopped buzzing after Marcus’s promotion. Marcus took over the whole division that specialized in CyberSecurity. He was a little bit less busy with work now than when he was a developer, but with this new title, he had to be available 24/7 as he was responsible for over ten teams working on different projects. They were one of the top CyberSecurity companies in the world, which in turn meant they were in charge of the most popular streaming services, news outlets, and even some government project Marcus was not allowed to share with anyone, and he always respected his employers and contract obligations.

All five of them needed this vacation, they needed some quality time together, it seemed kids were growing up faster than they could adapt.

The phone rang again and this time Emma was determined to turn it off, but once she took the phone in her hands, she saw over 70 missed calls in the last twenty minutes and several messages from Marcus’s bosses that urged him to pick up the phone instantly.

“Marcus, get down here now, your phone won’t stop ringing and there are dozens of messages that it’s urgent,” Emma yelled once again.

“I told them not to call me for the next two weeks, what could be that urgent,” He said as he walked down the stairs.

“I don’t know,” She said. “But better fix it quickly we need to leave in five,” Emma said and chased after their youngest son.

Marcus was surprised by all the calls and messages, yes his phone was usually on fire, but never to this magnitude. He quickly returned a call to Brian, the company’s CEO, the phone rang once and Brian immediately picked up.

“Where are you, have you seen this,” Brian was frantic.

“Calm down, I was getting ready to leave for the airport, what’s going on?” Marcus said

“We lost control on all of our projects, we are breached, we can’t access anything,” Marcus told and then shouted at someone in the office. “Get here right now, it’s not only us, everyone is locked out of their-” The phone cut off before Brian could finish.

Marcus took his laptop out of the backpack and tried to log in to StreamRush, the leading streaming platform of the last three years but his access got denied, he tried to log in as an administrator, same result. He tried other websites and applications but nothing happened.

“Honey, turn on the TV please,” He yelled.

“We don’t have time for that now, we have to leave,” Emma yelled back.

“Just do it, something weird is happening.”

“There is nothing on, Cable is down,” She yelled back. “Oh wait, something is appearing.”

Marcus walked into the living room and the TV turned from static to black and then a zoomed-in face appeared. It took him a moment to notice it wasn’t a human face, it was humanoid, yes, but everything was off. The skin color was light violet, the eyes had several colors, and the face looked slightly elongated.

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“Change the channel,” Marcus said.

Emma changed several channels, but that face was still on them. Marcus took the remote from her and turned on StreamRush, the same face again, looking straight ahead.

“What is this? Some new movie or game promotion?” Emma asked.

“It can’t be, this is illegal on so many levels, no one can promote like this,” As soon as Marcus finished his sentence static could be heard from the TV and the creature started talking.

“Greetings citizens of planet Earth, we are the Kraz’oxs and we come in peace,” The alien said in pure English his voice sounding no different than the ordinary human.

“What kind of a sick prank is this?” Emma asked.

“I don’t know,” Marcus answered.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but our ships will be entering your atmosphere in less than a minute and that should be proof enough.” The alien continued.

Marcus and Emma looked at each other confused as ever and then a loud bang came from the outside. They took the children in their arms and ran outside. To their utter shock and surprise, the bang was from the massive alien ship entering our atmosphere. The scene sends shivers down Marcus’s spine and he instinctively gripped his child harder. The rest of the neighborhood was out on the street hands on their foreheads and looking towards the sky.

Marcus took his phone out of his pocket and opened StreamRush once again.

“By now you should have been able to see our ships on most parts of the Earth or at least on the video,” The alien continued. “But fear not, once again we come in peace, we have no intention of hurting you…”

*****************

James was shocked by the sight of all these alien ships, if what Azcrawford said was true, humanity was in a lot of trouble.

Azcrawford yelled first in their own animalistic language then in English for everyone to leave everything they are doing and rush back to the station. He didn’t have to repeat it twice as everyone dropped their tools and used their tethers to pull themselves towards the station.

Once inside the mostly calm Anoi looked frantic, whether what they said Azcrawford said about everything was true was yet to be seen, but they were clearly afraid of what had just arrived in our solar system.

“Can we jump now?” Azcrawford one of his crew members.

“We didn’t have time to fix much,” The alien answered and the translator was still on, so the whole ISS crew could understand them.

“But is it possible?” Azcrawford said.

“The drive will turn on, but our navigations will still be rocky, chances we end up inside or too close to a star or stranded in the middle of nowhere are high,” The alien answered.

“We have to take these chanced, we can’t get captured here, they torture us until they get all the information they need, and then they will kill us all,” Azcrawford said.

Azcrawford looked around the station both at his and the ISS crew.

“Everyone get inside our ship now!” For the first time, he yelled.

“Why would we go with you?” Meng asked

“We will have to jump from this point and it will 100% blow ISS into billion pieces, we don’t have time to move away as soon as we turn on our ship they will target our drives, for now, they most likely think they are down and they will try to board this station, kill you all and then capture us,” Azcrawford said and gestured everyone towards the tunnel.

When presented like that, it was a simple choice, to die or board the alien ship and the ISS crew followed the aliens inside their vessel.

Once inside the Azcrawford instructed all the astronauts towards one of the rooms near the hangar and gave all of them the same suits the Anoi were wearing. He explained that they would not survive the jump without the suit and that the suit would adapt to their build, they were universally used across the coalition so that’s why they were adaptable.

There was no breathable air inside the ship for a moment, so that’s why they had to put the helmets on first. James took his breath in and then took his helmet off and then quickly put the alien one on. The helmet adapted to perfectly fit his head, and he could barely feel like he had anything on his head. He had a full vision, nothing obstructing his peripheral like was the case with most helmets.

Once they all had their full suits on, Azcrawford, instructed them to mount themselves to the wall, there were these tiny handles on the wall all over the ship, James notices that the first time around, and once they touched them they fully embraced the suit and fixated them to the wall.

Azcrawford did the same near James and then yelled for his crew to turn on the ship and instanenuiosly jump towards the coalition’s space.

The ship came alive, bursting with vibrant colors and before astronauts could marvel at it, their vision went black, the Anoi initiated the jump.