Extraterrestrial Refugees
Chapter Five

Oscar hated crowds. He had been to one concert and decided it was something he never needed to experience again. He pressed his way forward, flashing his ID at any military personnel who tried to stop him, not that they actually could—they were far too outnumbered. He could not believe how fast the civilians made it to that middle-of-nowhere spot. It was a strange crowd, both hostile and enthusiastic. He listened to their shouts as he weaved his way between them.

“Why aren’t they shooting them yet?” an older man holding a rifle hollered. “Blow ’em to smithereens or I will!”

“Take me with you!”

“Go back to where you came from!”

“You don’t want to live on this terrible planet, believe me!”

“Bring back Elvis!”

It was a great struggle, but he had finally made it to the bottom of the ramp. A line of heavily-armed soldiers struggled to keep the crazies from running up it. Oscar peered up to what seemed to be the gate. It blended in flawlessly with the ship’s sleek exterior. He pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Charles to let him know he had arrived. He couldn’t avoid seeing what time it was, although he really didn’t want to know—2:53 in the morning. Fortunately, the adrenalin was keeping him from realizing how exhausted he was and how much his feet were throbbing from trekking across the desert in a pair of discount dress shoes.

“Hi, I’m Oscar Torres, secretary of the Secretary of Defense.” He had to yell to be heard. “What’s going on? Why haven’t they come out yet?”

“Technical difficulties. Supposedly the door won’t open,” the soldier replied.

“Oh. Huh.” Technical difficulties wasn’t an issue Oscar expected aliens and their super fancy spaceship to have. However, everything he knew about aliens he had learned from movies.

There was a sudden roar of excitement. Oscar looked around him as the people surged forward. The crowd pushed him from behind and the soldier barred him. He lifted his face and gasped for air. And then he noticed what all the excitement was about. The door was opening. The peoples’ shouts became deafeningly loud.

Oscar watched as about a dozen people slowly emerged from the ship, bathed in the helicopters’ spotlights. They were led by the beautiful woman who announced their arrival that morning. Gemma. Her golden hair fell in soft curls to her shoulder blades. Were all the alien women this beautiful? Oscar wondered.

“They’re humans!” Oscar heard a lot of people in the crowd shout. Again, the reaction was as diverse as the people who had gathered there. Some sounded relieved, some surprised, some happy, some disappointed, and some seemingly angry.

The aliens stopped about twenty feet from the bottom of the ramp. Gemma smiled at the crowd, radiating confidence and calmness. A shot was fired. Oscar flinched and ducked. The crowd screamed and began scattering like ants on a disturbed ant hill. One of the aliens cried out in pain and fell to the floor with a thud, holding his left foot.

Oscar watched as a soldier bulldozed his way through the crowd and tackled the shooter. He looked to the soldier standing in front of him. “Is there a medic here? That man’s going to need medical attention.”

The soldier glanced over his shoulder and stammered. “Let them take care of their own. We’ve got enough on our hands right now.”

“Then may I? I used to be an EMT.”

The soldier shrugged. “Ah… do what you want. If you’re abducted, that’s your own fault.” He stepped aside to create a gap just big enough for Oscar to slip through.

Gemma knelt beside Clarence as Oscar approached. She either didn’t notice him walk up or chose to ignore him. “Where are you hit?” she asked Clarence, shocked at first by the sound of her amplified voice being blasted from the ship’s speaker system. In all the chaos, she had forgotten that she was wearing a microphone.

Clarence winced in pain and groaned behind clenched teeth. He banged his head against the ramp lightly, not enough to really hurt himself, but enough to divert his mind a little. “It’s my ankle.” He panted as his blood trickled out onto the ramp.

“We need to get some pressure on that,” Gemma and Oscar said simultaneously. He knelt down as she reached out and pressed down hard on the wound with both of her hands. Gemma shot a glance over at Oscar. “Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m Oscar. I work in the Pentagon.” After he said it, he wondered if Gemma had any idea what that meant. The nod she gave made him think she did. “We need something to bind this with.” He looked around. “My belt!” He started unbuckling his belt and pulling it free.

Barkley stood over Clarence while Oscar worked on creating a torniquet. Clarence looked up at Barkley. “Go ahead and say it—you were right,” he groaned. “It isn’t safe. We should retreat.”

Gemma’s eyes trailed up the ramp until they landed on the gate where she could see the shocked faces of the technicians peering down at them. They, and everyone else aboard the Fortuna and the other vessels, were counting on her to make this work.

“I’d like to stay out and talk to these people,” Gemma said. Oscar looked at her, astonished by her bravery. “Who will take him to the medical center?”

A few people, clearly terrified, volunteered. They helped him to his feet and rushed up the ramp, leaving a trail of blood behind. Gemma and Oscar stood up at they watched them retreat back into the ship. Gemma turned to Oscar. “He’ll be fine. We have a fully-equipped medical center on our ship with some of our best doctors who are trained in the most advanced medical treatments.”

Barkley leaned in toward Gemma, who was looking down at her bloodied hands. “You’re being a fool. You shouldn’t be out here,” he grumbled. Gemma reached up and turned off her microphone.

“If you want to go back to the ship, Barkley, then go. I won’t accuse you of being a coward. But I have spent the past two years trapped on this ship and I won’t spend another day in there if I can help it.” Barkley grimaced at her, but she didn’t notice it—his face was in a permanent grimace anyways. Besides, she was too busy trying to work out how to get Clarence’s blood off of her hands. Still staring at them, she said, “Actually, they’ve just given us a perfect publicity opportunity.”

Oscar bobbed his head, knowing she was right. Now the aliens would look like the innocent refugees who the trigger-happy Americans shot at—again. Speaking of trigger-happy… He let his hand fall over the small of his back. His own weapon was still there. He became abruptly aware that he was ready to use it in defense of this aliens, even if it meant firing at his own people.

“I got your back,” he said to Gemma, just loud enough for her to hear over the helicopters. Fortunately, the crowd had quieted down significantly. Enough of them had dispersed away from the ship during the commotion of the shooting that it enabled what few military personnel and the Border Patrol who were on the ground to establish a bigger, more controlled boundary around the ship. Oscar pulled out his phone and began a live stream.

Gemma activated her microphone again and took a few steps forward, slowly raising her hands and holding them out for all to see. “Earthlings, may the blood of my colleague on my hands be a reassurance to you that we bleed the same as you. We live the same as you.” She paused and scanned over what she could see of the crowd in the shadows beyond the blinding spotlights. “We die, same as you.”

She slowly dropped her hands to her sides. “We truly mean you no harm. We come in peace, an iconic phrase we believe you are all familiar with and that we sincerely speak. In fact, it is our greatest wish to improve your lives. We have so much to give you. Again, I can tell you in all honesty that if you were to come aboard our ship right now, you would replace no weapons or other things of malice. Only people—people trying to live peaceful, happy lives.”

Oscar’s heart drummed its way up his throat as he recognized the opportunity he could jump at—the chance to be the first to board the gigantic spaceship. He wasn’t sure how out-of-line it would be. Perhaps it was the President who should be the first. Then again, someone needed to make sure it was safe beforehand.

Gemma continued: “In continuing with our pledge to be upfront and honest with you in every way, I will tell you this,” she smiled, and held a hand over her stomach, forgetting the blood on her hands. It left a red smudge on her navy dress. “I am very hungry. And tired. If you’ll excuse me and my colleagues, we will retire for the night. We look forward to making more—hopefully nonviolent—contact with you in the morning.”

She and Barkley turned around and started up the ramp. Oscar touched her shoulder as she passed. She raised her eyebrows at him. How was her beauty so flawless in every way? Oscar grinned. “Pardon me, I just had a, uh, rather bold question I wanted to ask…”

“Yes? What would that be?” She could not have looked less interested.

“Could I have the privilege of coming on your ship with you?”

“Now?” Barkley scoffed.

“Well, that was the hope, yes.”

“For what purpose?”

“I, uh…” Oscar looked to Gemma, whose soft face was far more welcoming than Barkley’s gruffness. “I was thinking it would help ease some of the tension.” He held up his cellphone. “Especially if I could show everyone.”

Barkley chortled. “Do you think we need help showing everyone what’s in there?” He jerked his head toward the ship. “You forget, boy, that we hacked the communications of your entire planet.”

“You can come,” Gemma said, ignoring Barkley. “The people will be more likely to believe it if it comes from one of their own.”

Oscar smiled from ear-to-ear. He turned briefly and waved to the crowd below and the helicopters above then jogged after Gemma and Barkley. Gemma looked over her shoulder at him. “You’re not worried we’re going to abduct you or dissect you and do experiments on you?” she said as they stepped over the threshold and into the quiet protection of the ship. Oscar was a little distracted to answer her question immediately.

“I’d be lying if I said the worry hadn’t crossed my mind,” he replied with a chuckle. He nodded his head at the people gathered around the ship’s gate. “Hello, name’s Oscar. I work for the United States Secretary of Defense.”

“I think you brought the wrong person onboard,” Barkley said to Gemma.

“Why’s that?”

“Wrong office. Shouldn’t we be meeting with the military?”

Gemma shrugged her shoulders. “Does it matter?”

The chaos of outside was sealed away as the gate slid into place and locked. Oscar looked around his surroundings still in total disbelief that he was there. The entry hall was well-lit and as clean as a hospital, aside from the trickle of blood trailing off in one direction. He pointed at the red specks on the glossy floor. “Is he okay?” he inquired.

“He will be,” a woman replied. “We were told he’s in surgery now having the bullet removed.”

“I’d like to see him and apologize to him, if I could,” Oscar said.

“I don’t think he’d like to see you,” Barkley grunted.

“I don’t believe that’s true at all,” Gemma snapped. “And once he’s in recovery, we can get that arranged for you.” She started walking straight ahead. Oscar, unsure if he was meant to follow, walked behind her. She led him to the restrooms where they were able to wash the blood off their hands. Oscar snapped a few pictures, surprised to see how similar their facilities were to the ones on Earth.

They met up again in front of the restrooms when they were finished. “Listen, I wasn’t joking about how hungry I am. I haven’t eaten in hours,” Gemma said.

“Me neither,” Oscar replied.

“Oh, would you care to try some Tetranese food? Unfortunately, it’s nothing in comparison to the food we had back home. At this point in our journey, we’re pretty much down to nutrition bars, which don’t taste any good, but they fill a whole. However, this is somewhat of a special occasion, so perhaps we can scrounge up something a little tastier than that.”

“I doubt it,” Barkley piped in. “Hopefully everyone else is doing the only sensible thing to be doing right now—sleeping.”

“Oh, he does have a point there. The chefs are probably asleep.” She let out a big yawn. “Which I would also love to be doing right now.”

“Look, I don’t need to be a burden. I’m also very tired. I can just replace a spot to sleep on the floor somewhere and you can show me around some more tomorrow,” Oscar said.

“We can do a little better than the floor.”