The white walls of the cafeteria unsettled me. On the first week of our arrival into the stars, I noticed how artificially clean it looked.
Yet, as I sat down, I couldn’t help but feel like everything was a façade. I rolled the chair forward and braced my elbows on the table, watching Cade’s every movement, but he had been heavily sedated. He was silent, but he had a big smile on his face.
Juliana was the complete opposite of Cade. Although she carried her confidence well, her face bore some worry she wasn’t able to hide. When things got to these heights of crazy, she undertook a lot of responsibility.
“I want to know what it is,” Manny said, dropping his set of tools onto the floor in defeat.
More prisoners stood. Mutiny had yet to form, but the seeds of rebellion were all around us. All they wanted was one reason to react.
I just wanted to carry on our legacy. I needed to make sure women could bear children in a new atmosphere. Without that ability, life was meaningless.
As we spent more time in the cafeteria, all of my hopes and dreams were starting to get derailed.
Another prisoner, Jackie stood. “Better yet, I think you need to tell us how the fuck Ms. Captain is going to deal with it?”
Slamming her bolt stunner against the side a table, Juliana retained some order in the room. She looked at them as a leader might look at a burning empire, but the inmates didn’t care or see what I saw. “We’re working to the best of our abilities,” she said, knowing full well how fucked we were.
“Work faster.” Jackie clapped her hands twice.
Tensions were rising, our confinement starting to feel a little too obvious. Outside, I could see glimmering stars, but they only inspired uncertainty.
The last one to enter was one of the horticulturalists, Red. His hands were covered in wet soil, but he made no attempt to wash them. He wiped his palms clean until the tops of his boots balanced small pillars of soot. “Just got the buzz. Some kind of cargo breach?”
I motioned for him to sit down, which he did, albeit slowly. Cade breathed calmly and eased back on his smirk. “You didn’t hear? There’s a fucking alien on board.”
This time, Red smiled and nodded. He clicked his tongue and sighed. “An alien. No shit?”
“Yeah, some little green man waiting to be taken to our leader,” Cade joked.
Manny paced around the room. His face was scarlet, and his forehead crunched with concern. Everyone had signed up for a reason, even the prisoners.
“This is not a time for joking around,” he said, shifting back against the automatic doors. When it didn’t open, I shared a glance with Juliana. For the time being, she had locked us in, a precaution I was slightly worried about, but it needed to be done.
“His blood,” I interrupted. “I think I saw his blood dripping from the pipes in the ceiling. He’s injured.”
“Bastard came for the batteries, as well as our supplies,” Manny argued. “He’s in survival mode. He’s just waiting for an excuse to kill us all.”
“Seen this movie before,” Red said, smile fixed.
Juliana glanced up at the ventilation system. The ship was massive. He could have hidden anywhere. “What makes you think it’s a he?” she asked.
Cade leaned back. Out of all of us, he was in the best of spirits. “Six years up in space, brothers and sisters. Six fucking years, and I ain’t seen no fucking aliens. Just the reflection of nothing,” he said, voice cold but direct. “Out of all of the species in the universe, we must have been the only ones dumb enough to leave our world behind.”
“Doubt it,” I said.
Juliana remained stoic. There wasn’t that much time left on the journey to find our new home. We needed to calm everyone down, and we sure as hell needed those supplies.
She tried her best, but the crowd wouldn’t settle. “I want to assure everyone that all personnel are fine. The cryogenics’ vitals are in good shape. This is just a minor event to investigate,” she said.
“Doesn’t really do much to ease the tension,” I whispered.
Juliana flashed me a dirty look, but nothing felt okay anymore. We could have stayed and tried to develop solutions on Earth. We had chosen the easy way out. We were cowards, and everyone knew it.
Our captain raised her voice so that she could realign our focus. “Therefore, I have decided to initiate a temporary suspension on some of the system functionality. For the next twenty-four hours, we will all be confined to this room.”
Everyone surged to their feet. The crew raised their concerns in a clamor, but our captain just kept moving forward with the protocol. “There should be no debate surrounding this call. We were all briefed on emergencies during orientation.”
Even though I respected Juliana, I couldn’t understand her logic. These people were dangerous. Perhaps more dangerous than the alien itself. I wouldn’t oblige. I wasn’t going to be trapped in a room with these people. “You’re putting us on emergency power?”