“Hey, little bud. Hey. Wake up.”

I batted at the hand gently shaking my shoulder. I felt disoriented and tired, even groggy despite myself – did I oversleep again? Aw man, Dad’s gonna be so mad when he finds out I missed the bus again–

I yawned a too-wide mouth open, rolling my tongue over and sitting up against the cold, cozy corner of the wall I’d been lying against, blinking open eyes just a little too sensitive to the harsh, off-orange light pouring down on us. I breathed deep the stale, filtered air and rubbed a set of unfamiliar hands against my eyes as I tried my best to remember where I was, and why everything felt so wrong.

Well, for one, I’d been sleeping on a metal floor for a while with nothing but a thin blanket covering me, but that wasn’t all that bad now that I’d gotten–... changed… by those aliens… and I’m still on one of their ships trying to– wait is it my shift again? I sighed to myself. And it all felt so real for a second…

I looked back up at the big woman who’d been nudging me, Scoutmaster Tibbs – no, I’m not a scout, she just likes being called that – one of the members of our cool little escape posse, in her twenties and a veteran of World War Two (Yeah, weird, right?) with a heart of gold and the creepiest nonchalance about any sort of injury short of ripping one of her limbs off, with a mat of scars dotting every inch of her to show for it. She knew a lot about survival and wasn’t at all afraid to get shot by lasers, complemented by her newfound ability to heal almost instantly, kinda like Deadpool but without the cancer, which I guess is how we even got this far in the first place. I wouldn’t say she’s pretty in a conventional way, but she’s straight-jawed and endearing in an overbearing aunt kind of way. The torn and burned greenish-teal jumpsuit she had on was… a bit less flattering, but it’s all either of us had to wear.

I rubbed one of my – em – new ears, and gave her the best smile I could without looking as tired as I felt. “Hey, Scoutmaster… what’s up?”

“Vil says we’re nearly there. Imagine that – we’re really going home! Ahh!” she squealed, wringing her hands. “Isn’t that great?”

“Yeah…” I smiled. How long has it been since I got abducted? A few months? My parents have probably driven each other sick over me being gone that long… and I missed graduation too. I just had to choose the worst day to go camping, huh? One moment I’m hanging out with my girlfriend, trying out my awesome new song for her, the next there’s one big saucer overhead and my scrawny ass getting beamed up to meet the Zetans for a nice, long stay in a test tube.

“Come on, c’mon! We’re about to slow down! Vil also said we might be able to catch a look at Jupiter if we get there quick enough.” Tibbs lifted me up by the hand and half carried me over to the bridge in her giddy rush. It’s just one of her things, you know; after she got over the whole abduction situation, she was actually pretty psyched to be in space.

Not really having much choice in the matter if I wanted to keep my wrist unbroken, considering I was being dragged bodily by a woman twice my size and a whole lot stronger, I went along with her; it wasn’t like I didn’t want to see what our deceleration would look like anyways. We passed straight through the Star Trek-esque self-opening doors and over to the bridge in record time. it wasn’t any different from the other three rooms on the spartan ship style-wise, but what it did have to separate it from those other rooms was a huge monitor covering the far wall, covered in weird, squiggly writing none of us even tried to understand, along with a control array beneath it and a chair that wasn’t especially people-friendly. Also the other three occupants aboard our life raft.

First, sitting in the chair was an alien who might generously be called a mockery of nature, a greenish-gray, feather-covered thing with orange goat eyes, a horribly underbitten muzzle full of something resembling sharp teeth, and a flat, slitted nose, with hard, taloned hands and feet, three digits each – also a foot shorter than me and wearing the same, horrible greenish-teal jumpsuit as me and Tibbs. He mostly spoke to us through a very convenient translator that I stole off a scientist while they were sticking needles in me, and was currently piloting us home with some much-needed encouragement in the form of an armed escort. None of us could say his name right, so we just called him Abis.

Second, standing next to Abis with one of the aliens’ beam rifles not quite raised to his head was Vil, short for Vilius because nobody wants to waste two syllables when we all know who we’re talking about. A brown-haired, blue-eyed cavalry officer of the Huns, he’d been experimented on the least and would have been left to rot in stasis for eternity if I hadn’t rescued him and the others. He was wearing actual clothes this time, a long, moderately filthy gray coat with red trimming, along with matching trousers and gray-brown boots wrapped with cloth. He was apparently a Lithuanian noble from Memel, not that I even know what a Lithuania is, who’d graduated from the University of Silesia with a major in Physics and a minor in English. He’s alright, a bit scary at times, but he’s chill and cool-headed.

Third, leaning against the other wall and staring off into space was our resident cowboy, Leon Cameron, who'd gotten a bit more of a shock from some rather nasty invasive experimentation than Tibbs, but not quite to the extent as me. Well, technically he wasn’t actually a cowboy, he was just an actor out in sunny California who was shooting a Western before he got abducted, but same difference. Nowadays, he was looking a little more wolfish than usual, by which I mean he looked like someone who was obviously a werewolf but trying not to show it… er, wolfish might be a bit misleading. More like… coyoteish? Something like that. His features were decidedly sharp in that vein, with piercing brown eyes, large, pointy ears, and a huge shock of sandy hair running from his head down his back where you could see it, and he was wearing one of those dirty, almost-stereotypical cowboy costumes, you know… big hat, duster, stirruped boots and jeans, all that stuff. Even a revolver to fill his holster, courtesy of Vil.

And then there was me filing in behind Tibbs, Ketty Radomir, Virginia high schooler and lead guitarist for little garage rock band Xonerate feeling way out out of my depth, looking for all the world like a big, patternless, spaced-out raccoon with no sign of turning back no matter how much I want it. At least now I have some ridiculous reflexes and the sort of flexibility that’d make a trained ballerina jealous as compensation, but I hate feeling so wrong all the time. Also now I’m scared of mirrors and bright lights. Thaaanks, alien overlords…

But we can worry about that later, right? Because now, we’re going home, and I’m not missing it for the world.

“Hey, folks,” Leon drawled as he caught sight of us, “about ready for some fireworks?”

“Am I ever!” Tibbs said, walking in to lean on the chair of our uncomfortable pilot.

Vil and I exchanged a Look, the kind that betrayed both a level of exasperation and cynicism, but also a bit of finality to it all, in that one way or another, we’d at least be free of this nightmare… and Tibbs’ constant cheeriness. Then he cleared his throat.

“Khm. Now tsat we are oll hier, may I have your attentsion for a moment?” Now, we don’t actually have a leader per se, but if we did, it would be Vil. He’s a pretty soft-spoken guy with a mind for just about any troubles we’ve had up here, so it was no surprise when we all paid him mind, even Abis. “Much sanks. It has likely come to all ahf you tsat we are to anchor a return to our muhser home in short order today, and in tsat spirit I humbly invited you all to obserfe tsis joyous occasion. Time to arrifal, Abis?”

Vil waited patiently as the translator perched on Abis’s leg squawked its translation to the pilot, then watched as he swiveled around in his chair and garbled something incomprehensible into the translator, which responded with a chirping, mostly monotone, “[Fifteen minutes], sir. As informed previously.” Most talks with the xeno went like that, awkward but serviceable.

“Good man. Well, you heard im, we make port in fifteen. Sit down, imbibe what you wish and enjoy tse last of tsis while you can, becahse green grass and fresh air await tse rest ahf our lifes. God knows I am nefer going to take blue skies for granted efer again.” Vil shouldered his rifle, scrounged in the pockets of his coat, and produced a crushed-up cigar and his lighter for one last smoke. I’m not sure that’s a good idea considering the whole ‘space’ thing, but I also don’t care. We all deserved something after the hell we went through.

Leon left and came back with the rest of our rations, and we all sat down to watch our progress on the big screen, by which I mean we watched the countdown tick down its weird numbers under what I hesitantly assumed to be ‘Time to Dewarp,’ seeing as it held a steady pace and Abis told us that’s what it was. Over our week of warp velocity, the timer had gone from seven digits long to a measly four digits, which was unquestionably good news. As the countdown reached just three digits, Abis did something to the controls and we all gasped at the screen now presenting us the external view, which showed some very red stars in the background slowly turning semi-normal, but more importantly, a much closer star far and away to our right and a shot of Jupiter itself neatly coming into view on our left.

“Wowie…” Tibbs said first.

“What a sight,” Leon agreed, watching it visibly come in closer and closer (though not taking up much of the screen at all). “Hey pilot, mind turning the camera around?”

Abis squeaked in his chair and said a crackled, “Functionality unavailable. Apology.”

“Eh, worth a shot.” The grisly cowboy brought out a flask and began drinking, as the huge planet slid out of view.

“Does anyone else kinda want popcorn?” I asked offhandedly. “Feels like a popcorn situation, you know?”

“Oh, God, I forgot just how much I miss popcorn,” Leon sighed.

As we all (except Vil, who was busy closely monitoring the situation at the console) chatted about what it was we were going to do first when we got back for the next five or so minutes, the ship continued its ludicrous (but still sublight) speed across the solar system, when Vil pointed out a steadily-growing blue dot.

“Ehrts ahoi, žmones!” He announced, drawing his saber in the manner of a sea captain making notice to a vessel and severely startling Abis. The theatrics probably weren’t necessary, but we all cheered our approval, because damn was it exciting. “And ahf course, all sanks to ouer dzutiful pilot. Much gradtitudte, sehr.”

Abis paused momentarily before stuttering a squeak into his translator. “Acceptance. Query: non-disposal of self-entity.”

“Ehm…”

Seeing Vil’s grasp of English fail at the excessively technical ask, I just told him what the alien was trying to say.

“He’s asking if you’re gonna kill him, man.”

“Oh! Oh, hefens no, ahf course not, you hafe behn a good pilot and I appreciet your diligence. I stay eh mahn ahf my word, you are to be free upon ouer retorn.”

Abis spun in his chair nervously before the translator finished relaying Vil’s reply. “...Response acknowledged. Gratitude.”

Tibbs crossed her arms. “Well that’s rather needlessly grim, we only kidnapped you because we couldn’t fly the ship. We’re not murderers.”

“Well, I’d beg to differ there, miss,” Leon added, “but hey, what’s a little killing if it means not dyin’ in the endless cosmos in some big beaker jar?”

We got back to watching the little blue dot slowly grow on screen. It started to be where we could make out the continents and clouds, and the beautiful shine of city lights across the right side of the North American continent. The tension between us all was like being trapped in Jello; we just couldn’t look away. Well, I couldn’t. As I kept watching, I brought up a thought.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Hey, um… can this thing maneuver, like, a little bit more north?”

“Why? What’s the problem?” Tibbs asked, before Abis reported a response.

“Fuel reserves null.”

“Umm, just… you know…” I stuttered. “I kinda feel like we’re gonna hit Mexico at this angle, and, um… does anyone speak Spanish? ‘Cause I don’t.”

“Mi comprende, amigo,” Leon listed in what I’m pretty sure was barely an attempt at non-accented Spanish, “don’t you worry. Besides, I think we have something of a bigger problem than a little miscommunication to worry about right now.”

“We do?”

“Yeah, you feel that shakiness?”

I looked at him kinda funny, and I was about to say ‘no’ before I leaned against the wall; sure enough, it felt just the slightest bit off.

“Oh… y–yeah, I guess.”

A look at the screen showed that the expanse of Earth had filled our vision, and that licks of flame started flowing over our craft while the shaking increased in intensity to where I could hear it as a faint rattle.

“Uhh…” I looked over at Abis and quietly asked, “Is it supposed to do that?”

Abis paused for a lot longer than it took for the translation to be relayed. “...Negative. Safe landing procedures require further maneuvering; fuel currently unavailable.”

“Ohh, so that’s, like, really bad then.”

Tibbs gasped and shot up from her spot. “Are we about to die?!”

Leon just sucked air through his teeth, while Vil shook his head and Abis chattered something long.

“Possibility. Result unlikely; inertial dampeners maintain negative transferal of external momentum. Likeliest result: destruction of ship, concentrated along bow. Recommendation: transfer to rear of ship.”

Vil sighed. “Tsey did not teach me tsis in unifersity… ah, fery well, it was good while et lastedt. Tsu the back, people, ahn yes, you too.”

The screen filled with fire before Abis turned it off, and we silently walked in a line to the furthest room away from the soon-to-be-cratered bridge. Inside, we each took to the grim situation in our own ways; Leon held on to his stuff for dear life, Tibbs made a joke about pancakes that fell flat, Vil accepted that he couldn’t do anything about the situation and chatted with Tibbs while putting on his helmet and gathering up his rucksack, Abis strapped into one of the crash harnesses on the far wall that were both too small and too awkward for any of the rest of us, and I braced against the wall facing the bridge like it was one of those big Gravitron rides. Man, imagine how jealous I could make those screaming kids when I tell them I’ve been on a real spaceship… hah… I really hope Abis was right about us probably not dying.

As the shaking grew to near-deafening and everyone started panicking just that tiny sliver more, I looked over at Leon.

“Hey, bro!”

Almost hyperventilating, he met my eyes. “Yeah, ‘coon?!

“If we die here, I just want you to know… you guys were the best people I could’ve ever asked to get stranded with!”

“Okay, space cadet! …Honestly, I liked you too! It’s been one hell of a ride!”

I tried to say more, but the clanging noise got too loud to shout over and the whole ship crashed a few seconds later anyways. So with a massive orchestra of sounds including a whoosh, a spray of shrapnel hitting the closed door, and a lot of crackling (also the internal gravity abruptly cutting off, slamming everyone into a flip that ended with the floor becoming a ceiling), we tumbled about like pachinko balls for a heart-stopping twenty seconds.

At the end of our ship’s rapid unplanned disassembly, I was laying on top of Tibbs in a very uncomfortable position and had somehow not broken anything, while Vil was on the ceiling-floor trying his best not to move too much, Leon looked unconscious, and Abis was fine but stuck on the floor-ceiling. Tibbs was probably fine too.

I got up first and rubbed my scalp, feeling a little rattled. “I dunno whether to ask why we don’t have a parachute, or why we didn’t turn into meat paste, so I’ll just settle for asking if everyone’s okay.”

Vil spoke first. “It’s notsing I hafe not dealt wis before.”

“Mmh,” Tibbs grunted with a casual thumbs-up, still laying on the floor.

“Requesting assistance disentangling self-entity,” came Abis after a moment of squawking.

I looked back over to the cowboy. “...Leon?”

I padded over to the unconscious cowboy with Vil and Tibbs, and flipped him over. He was bleeding from his head, and when Tibbs took a turn looking him over, she gave us a diagnosis.

“He’s breathing steady, but he’s likely got a concussion at the very least and I’m pretty sure a rib and his left leg’s broken.”

“Ooh…” I sighed.

“I’ve got no material to work with here, and we’re stuck in a hulk right now. Not exactly ideal circumstances.” Tibbs took a moment to look around and think. “Vil, come help get that door open. Ketty, get Abis out of his imbecilic baby harness and helping us.”

I had to resist saluting her clear tone of medical authority for the sake of getting things that sounded a lot more important done. “On it, ma’am.”

I sprinted across the room and helped Abis unhook himself, then sat him down and looked him in his weird rectangular eyes. “Hey. Listen to me. Leon is injured. Is there anything aboard that can help us? Some emergency supplies?”

I impatiently waited for an answer while Tibbs took Vil’s saber to the door like a needlessly sharp crowbar. Abis didn’t speak though. Instead, he walked over to the left wall, dug through his pockets, and held something up to it. A section of wall swung out to reveal a vacuum-sealed package, which he tore open and out of it handed me a cloth bundle and hinge-locked metal box.

“Advisory: medical case may contain elements toxic to non-Sheoueckawwraacc life. Use with caution.”

I blinked at the very helpful act of generosity. “You’re a really nice alien.”

With the stuff under my arms, I bolted back for Tibbs to see her leverage the sputtering door open with a pop. “Hoo! Gol-ly, that’s rough.”

“Got some things!” I shouted.

She spun around faster than I’d ever seen her do. “Perfect, great. Where’d you get that?”

“Abis.”

“Alright bud, amazing.” She relieved me of my supplies before waving over Vil. “Go check outside. He probably needs a good hospital check-up… Actually, maybe we all do after all that.”

I nodded, and looked over to the door. It was decidedly non-powered, and jammed open at an odd angle. Through the crack in the door, I could hear faint crackles and see some dancing lights; fire. I hopped up and through it to see the former hallway a wreck, caved in at the front, and in the command room everything was broken. The small fires actually weren’t that dangerous, but I avoided and tried my best to sweep away the shrapnel on the floor because I still didn’t have shoes. The exit, formerly a hatch on the floor, now a hatch on the ceiling, I opened with a pull on the manual override and leveraging the valve open, which got the entire contraption swinging inwards to beam down sunlight, blue skies, and fresh air for the first time in forever. It really felt like a gift from God right then, but as much as I wanted to stay there and enjoy it, I had to get my friends out first.

I climbed back through the door, and reported what I saw to Tibbs and Vil, who were trying to bind Leon’s head with something akin to gauze and working on some kind of stretcher respectively.

“The ship’s totaled, but we made it. I got the hatch open.”

Tibbs breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, that’s great news. Let me just…” She continued wrapping up Leon just a bit more until she was satisfied, and ripped off the remainder of the roll. “Okay, Vil, help me carry him outta here.”

Vil put his roll of cloth aside and grabbed onto Leon’s bottom half.

Tibbs counted down, “And one, two, three!” and they got him up between themselves.

I, meanwhile, was watching Abis gather stuff from another secret compartment; from what I could gather, it was some kind of pack with a different objective in mind; another, separate box labeled differently, a fancy alien laser pistol, a water canteen, a broad-looking sword, and probably quite a few other things still in the pack.

I cleared my throat to get his attention. “Hey, so, um… what’cha doing?”

He responded without looking at me, slotting the sword and pistol into the loops of his jumpsuit. “Survival preparation. Contact with homeworld infeasible; self-entity predicts negative response from local governance regarding unplanned landing and xenophobia from natives. Sadness.”

“...Well, I mean, you could come with us if you want. It’d be good to have someone vouch for you.”

Abis turned to regard me with that strange look of his. “...Acceptable. Graciousness.”

“It’s just the right thing to do.”

Abis put away his stuff and swung his pack on. I walked him over to the door, boosted him up and through, and followed after him, then did the same with the ceiling hatch. I jumped up and hoisted myself out of the ruined ship and saw the outside for the first time; beautiful, leafy green forest, clear blue skies, the browns of tree trunks and dead grass, a white building across the lapping blue of a lake… also a smoking crater behind us… it was just so much of that color and vibrancy that I’d sorely missed onboard the sterile, gray ships. I took a deep breath, and took in smells that weren’t just choking, stagnant air and packed bodies (no offense guys, but it gets musty when nobody washes for weeks on end). I heard, um… fire and sparking, which admittedly weren’t quite as welcoming, but I heard actual birds too! I missed birds. And lastly, I felt the kiss of actual sunlight on the side of my face, like the Sun was hugging me and ushering me inside for a tray of cookies. It was everything I remembered and more, and I smiled, because I was finally back home.

And then I remembered Leon was still injured and snapped myself out of it.

I leapt off the ship pretty easily and, after helping Abis down, walked with him over to where Tibbs and Vil were carrying Leon a dozen yards away, around the big lake (and towards the big building across the lake). The structure was, as I said, white across its wood walls, and had gray shingles with only a single story, but it flowed out a lot. In front of it was a few figures, looking across at us, but far enough away that I couldn’t really get a good picture of them.

“Hey guys,” I waved.

The both of them turned to me, looked over at each other, and set Leon down as gently as they could.

“Ketty,” Vil greeted neutrally.

Tibbs beamed at me. “Hey, bud, great job there!”

“Yep.” I looked from Leon back to Tibbs. “S–so, um. We made it.”

“Just need to get Leon up, but otherwise… yeah. Wow… I never thought we’d get this far.”

“Yeah, no, me neither.”

“We oll hed ouer part to play,” remarked Vil. “It took much sacrifice, efery skill we hed, and far too much luck. Efen tsen, we could not expect to come out unscethed. Let us be most sankful to God tsis day.”

“...So are we gonna make a stretcher, or should we wait for those guys, or what?” I pointed out the figures across the lake, one of which had gone and gotten out a blue pickup truck from around back and was coming around to meet us.

Tibbs visibly brightened at seeing them. “Oh, that’s perfect! Maybe they can get some help! Come on, we’ll carry Leon up a little further, the sooner the better!”

----------------------------------------

It was a late Friday afternoon in the quiet town of Eugene when Eliza pulled back into her family’s driveway. She’d had a long day of high school behind her, and was looking forward to having some friends over for the weekend, maybe playing some of her Dad’s board games or screwing around on the old Wii Sports and beating her boyfriend’s high score at the archery minigame. In fact, she was even brainstorming what movie they should watch with her friend group when a huge explosion of noises slammed through her thoughts, and she looked out from her kitchen’s sliding door to see some large, angular vehicle flipping across the other side of the lake before jarring to a stop, alight with flames and smoking to high Heaven.

“What…”

She found herself gawking and lost for words at this strange turn of events, before her father came rushing in followed by her mother and her young brother.

“God almighty, what’s all that racket, I’m trying to work here–” her father started, before her mother screamed hysterics at the sight just outside their window.

Eliza looked uncertainly between her parents, as her younger brother tugged on her mother’s dress and asked what was happening. Her father stared blankly at the wreck and Mom clearly wasn’t in any state to do anything, but Eliza felt like something had to happen. Right? What was this… freak accident outside their doorstep? Surely someone had to do something about it.

Her father agreed. The larger man turned to his eldest, and told her, “Come on, sweetie. Let’s have a look,” in no uncertain terms.

The tightness in Eliza’s chest grew as they came out to look at whatever burning catastrophe it was over yonder. She couldn’t spare the feeling that something terrible had just happened in front of her, but she held her anticipation firm as her father made his judgements. The large man nodded sadly, and spoke to his daughter, not taking his eyes off it.

“Call the cops. Looks like a small plane’s crashed. I’ll go check it out for myself.”

Eliza fumbled for her phone as her father left, and quickly dialed 911. She stared across the lake as it ringed once in her hand, twice, three times.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

Eliza hesitated before speaking to the operator. “Uh– um, hi, there’s been a… a plane crash? Like a small plane?”

There was a pause on the other side of the line. “Where’s the accident, ma’am?”

“Um, it’s near my parents’ house, 1114 Robinson Drive.” She looked up from the dazzling lake to see a group of people carrying… was that…? “I think there’s someone injured? Could you send an ambulance, please?”

This was not how Eliza expected to be spending her Friday afternoon, that’s for sure. Well, she thought… maybe it’d make a decent story.