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Owen’s outburst was not taken personally. She was accustomed to the little people accusing her, her family, and her associates of far worse. Of course it was always guilt by association, but in this case such things were big issues.A challenge, you most deficit of souls, Rend is truly your name, for I can see you tearing this new world apart with your pride. Go ahead and answer, why exactly is our very existence in jeopardy because of politics?
A smile could not help but slip from Echo’s lips as Owen threw accusations at the seasoned debater and eloquent master of minions. And then came the shouting and the arguing, but to Echo’s surprise, the concept of murder and dominance emerged where there would never have been before. Rend would be arrested, put in jail at the very least, his popularity would plummet, his empire would crumble, and his financial options would evaporate by pulling a gun on someone. But there were no jails or financial prospects any more, the empire was not only crumbled, it was buried in the sands of the thousands of hour-glasses of history. As atrocious the thought, Rend was making a perfectly reasonable and tactful move (if not a very civilized one.) The rules to the game had changed.

Moments crawled by like seconds, distorted by the deafening report of the gun, and as soon as it started, it was now flipped around entirely. Rend was overpowered and Tahlia was the one in dominance. If only there had been just one more bullet, the situation could have been resolved without such dynamics. Now, instead, there was a power vacuum that tugged at the remainder of the crew. If Rend would have killed Tahlia, then he would have intentionally established a reign of fear. Now, Tahlia was in danger of establishing the same, only without intending to do it. Now was the moment, now was time for a leader to arise. But who was there to take action? Benji? He was so radically changed from the quiet fellow before that the weight of leadership would likely scare him witless. Where was he anyway? Would it be Yasmin? She was nice, but no leader. She would be taken on Mr. Toad’s wild ride by the whim of anybody who had an opinion. No, it called to her loudly and she found herself compelled to action.We dare not live our lives in fear of Tahlia’s eagerness for violence, we shall be no better off than savages.
-
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Echo rushed over, reaching out and grabbed, of all people... Owen.
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She locked eyes with him a moment, no fear in her eyes, no emotion, no pleading. This was a carefully calculated move. She shoved him toward the violence, “You must intervene.”I am sorry to rush you into all of this, but we are out of time.

There was no mistaking it. She didn’t give a crap about Rend’s life, or Tahlia’s pending atrocity and reduction of the human population by 1/6th. There was a greater cost, one that Echo could not meet, but she knew who could. It was a call specifically to Owen.

---

---

Owen shot Tahlia a wild-eyed glance as she yelled at him to knock it off, his knuckles turning white as his fingers dug into his palm. Instantly, his mind went to the worst outcome: he had alienated himself by verbally assaulting an old man. He regretted instantly not talking to her earlier about his concerns regarding their unwanted guest; if he had explained his concerns to her with a cooler head maybe she would have been more understanding. Instead, he felt betrayed. Yet, her words did corral him and put a tie on his tongue. He tucked his fists under his armpits and turned ever so slightly from the others, his head hung in shame.

You should’ve handled this better, Owen.

However, it turned out his initial instincts were wrong: Tahlia had taken his side.

And then everything went to hell.

What happened next was all a blur, witnessed from the edge of his peripheries. Rend made a move with his arm as Tahlia closed the distance between the two. A noise, loud enough to cause Owen to instinctively throw his hands over his ears, rang out in the room, accompanied by a flash. He felt his heart begin to race faster than it already was, thumping against his chest at a hundred miles per hour. The bang sounded familiar yet so very foreign at the same time. A gunshot? He could hardly comprehend it. Owen had probably heard it a million times in movie and on TV, but in real life it had a different, dangerous quality to it. Tahlia yelled something. Another bang. Benji blurred by him. The next thing Owen knew, once his brain was finally able to catch up with all of the action that his eyes were processing, was that Rend was on the floor and Tahlia was standing over his body with a handgun trained on his head.

Owen tried to move, even if it was just his lips to say something to stop her, but it was as if he was in a dream. His body was slow, unresponsive, useless. His hand had only just begun to twitch, his lips had only just begun to part, when he heard the click, somehow louder than any of the previous gunshots. His mouth hung open stupidly. If he had the time to process everything, if he was the kind of person to think logically, perhaps he would have been a bit more understanding. After all, it could be argued that Tahlia was only acting in self-defense—any way you color it, Rend had fired two shots at her. But Owen only saw Tahlia try to execute a man she had already gotten the better of; a person he hated, true, but a person still the same. Of all of the feelings he had whenever he saw Tahlia, he never thought fear would be one of them. Now, he worried that perhaps fear would be the only one he would ever have again as she descended on Rend, ready to finish what the gun could not.

And he still couldn’t do a damn thing.

“You must intervene.”

Echo had appeared in front of his face, grabbing and forcing him towards Tahlia and Rend. It was bizarre; she did not look as disturbed by all of this as he was, as any of them should have been. Her words were not those of someone powerless, of someone who could not bear to see violence. They weren’t some hopeless demand by someone who didn’t want to be held responsible for the upcoming disaster, something they could point back to later as if to say, ‘Well, at least I said something.’ Her words were simply just a fact. Owen had to intervene. Of the last six people in the universe, he was the only one who was possibly capable of making sure that one of them wasn’t dead and the other one didn’t become a murderer.

It was funny. If somebody had told him that Ailbeart Rend had been murdered by a woman he had tried to kill some hundred years and one cryosleep ago he wouldn’t have been upset, probably would’ve even cracked a joke or two. Now that it was happening, he couldn’t think of any of the quips he would’ve had lined up. All he could think about was that he was about to let Tahlia become a murderer if he did nothing. He knew he couldn’t let that happen. Echo was right. He must intervene. He stepped behind her, watching Rend’s one good eye bulge as she pressed her elbow into his neck. Even while dying and gasping for air, the old man still managed to look smug.

I’m going to one day regret this.

“Tahlia. Tahlia! Stop!” he shouted, reaching under her arms and trying to pull them back in some bastardized full nelson. He just needed to get her off of Rend long enough for her to realize what a horrible mistake she was making. He knew he was no brute, however, and prayed that his size coupled with her better senses would still be enough to pull her off. If she was truly intent on ending Rend’s life, she still quite possibly could. “Telling me to knock it off—please, come on, nobody wants this. You don’t want this. Just—Jesus—come on!”

Tahlia, of course, wasn’t having any of it. She wrestled herself away from Owen’s grip without a problem and shot him a deathly glare. “I’m doing all of us a favor! This man is a liability and a threat! I’m doing what no one else will!” she said, pressing harder into Rend’s throat. Really, there were easier ways to kill him; he wasn’t exactly very strong, and his age likely made him pretty feeble. In reality, Tahlia could have killed him already, and somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that. She probably would have too, if she were more in her right mind at the moment. Or she would have simply disarmed and subdued him, as opposed to performing such a vicious display of brutality.

“Nobody wants to watch you kill someone, even if it is a jerk like Rend,” shouted Owen, his hand raised in an angered attempt at a plea. He felt that his words would have little effect, if any, on Tahlia, yet he still refused to let this happen without doing something. There were better ways to handle Rend. He couldn’t think of any, but he was certain that anything was better than this. Yet he couldn’t overpower Tahlia. He looked down at the gun. He didn’t know that it couldn’t shoot, and he certainly didn’t intend to shoot it even if it was loaded, but it could be used in a more primitive way. All it would take was one strong bash to the head and Tahlia would be out cold; Benji would be able to take care of her, hopefully.

Yet he hesitated. Perhaps he thought that Tahlia would still see reason and relent, or maybe he was concerned with how much damage he could actually do with a quick application of blunt force trauma. Or, perhaps, at some base, petty, animalistic level, he wanted Tahlia to go through with it. Whatever it was, it was enough time for Tahlia to realize that something was up, or to finish what she had started. Reaching down, he wrapped his fingers around the gun, seemingly fully prepared to strike Tahlia if he must, but almost certain that he didn’t really have it in him.

“Tahlia, I’m begging you, don’t make me do this.”

At that, Tahlia couldn’t help but stop. She looked up at Owen, quizzically, wondering what he meant. She noticed the gun in Owen’s hand, though he was holding it more like a bludgeon, and he was ready to use it. He was threatening to hit her... to get her to stop killing Rend. She snapped out of it and fully realized what she was doing. She looked back and forth between Rend and Owen, and even looked around at the others, easing off of Rend’s neck. Rend took in several ragged breaths and choked out a series of heavy coughs. He tried to speak, but all it did was prompt further coughing.

Slowly, Tahlia got off of Rend, walked over to Owen, took the gun and disassembled it, throwing some of the individual pieces to the others. “We won’t need this. If everyone has a piece, and at least someone is unwilling, we won’t be able to use it again.” She gave the frame to Owen, the slide to Echo, the barrel to Yaz, and kept the trigger group for herself, intending to give a piece of it to Benji later on.

Owen felt the breath he did not realize that he was holding escape from his mouth as Tahlia backed off. The feeling of relief overcame him like a wave, and for a moment he felt as if he was going to sink to his knees. He wiped at his eyes, slightly embarrassed to find that they had been watering, and stepped over to Rend to make sure the old man was going to be okay. His lips drew into a tight line as he knelt next to the man he despised. Technically he was a doctor, but his field was curing the mind, not the body. Regardless, he knew things looked grim; even a child would be able to guess that Rend needed medical attention. The old man choked again, sputtering helpless like a fish out of water, his fingers grasping for Owen's leg in some pitiable cry for help. And Owen knew that only Benji, not himself, could help and try to save Rend.

And, of course, Doc was nowhere to be seen.

“Someone, go find Benji,” he said, his voice strained with anger and weariness. He punched the ground, sending a web of pain up through his arm; a stupid, hopeless attempt at asserting some form of dominance, some kind of control over a situation that was quickly spiraling out of his grasp, as if he ever had hold of it in the first place. He turned and glared at the three others, his brow knitted, his face tight as if he had just tasted something sour. A better leader would've assigned the task directly to someone, would have remained calm in the face of crisis, and, ironically enough, would've been like Rend—seemingly heartless, but always knowing the right person to use for the job. Owen just didn't have it in him to keep his cool, didn't know who really to send, and just didn't have the right answer. He knew that, and now the others knew that. Still, it didn't change the fact that they should be listening to him, even if just this once. “Why are you still here? All of you. Go. Get him. Now!”

---

---

Yazmin had been sitting silently at the table through-out the entire meeting. She hadn't been paying full attention, even trying to ignore the raised voices as she prodded a processing unit from Benji's cryo-tank. In her mechanical hand, she held a black soddering pin, currently connecting a wire to one of the micro-processors. From what she had gathered from the machine, the particular processing unit was what regulating temperature control. As long as that piece was in place and working, the tank would maintain a freezing temperature. However, the burst pipe inside his tank had done a little bit of damage to the part, but it was nothing unfixable.

On her head was a black monocular headset from the storage area that hyper-magnified what she was looking at. She pressed a button on the side to zoom the lenses out to minimum distance. She slid them to the top of her head and observed the small unit. Her attention was pulled to the argument as Rend began shouting at Tahlia, who would have none of his attitude.

Rend proceeded to look at Yazmin with a look of disgusting, verbally noting the disgust he found in her mechanical arm. She looked at him, dumbfounded by his words. What on earth had she ever done to him?! Well, what had she done to his company that he was aware of? The young woman's brow creased, and she was about to say something when Tahlia took over.

The gun came soon after. Tahlia dodged the first bullet and forced his arm towards the left - towards Yazmin. She dropped to the floor just as the second shot was fired, but found that it missed her. Memories of gunshots and explosions flashed through her mind. In actual time, it only happened in half a second, but Yaz felt as though she was transported for hours back to the day she'd been rescued by a special forces team from the people that had kidnapped her.

When the moment of shock passed, and Yazmin realized she was still on the Artemis, she registered Tahlia, beating Rend to the ground. She was going to kill him. "Tahlia, stop!" She yelled. She wanted to physically stop her, but she was half the size any of them. She was relieved when Owen stepped in, forcing Tahlia off of Rend. The old man might have been a terrible person, but he didn't need to die.

Owen turned and shouted for someone to find Benji. Yazmin placed her arm on the floor, moving to do the same with her mechanical limb. She found that the mechanical arm seized up and contracted, then went stiff for a moment. She looked to her forearm, where she saw one of the wires had been hit, presumably by one of the bullets. She swore under her breath, but pushed herself up with her flesh arm. She stood and ran into the hallway. She wasn't very fast, but she went as fast as she could to reach the cockpit. She found the intercom microphone and pressed the button to talk. "Benji, you've got to come back! Rend could die if you don't help him! You're the only one who knows how!" She waited a moment, breathing slightly labored, then added. "I know you're scared, Benji, but we need your help! We can't do this without you!"

Owen had propped himself up with his hands on his temples, his head hung low and eyes closed as if he was deep in thought. Once he saw that Benji hadn't lost his qualifications as a doctor and that Rend was still breathing he had quietly slipped out of the doorway, unable to be in the same room with Tahlia or Benji lest his tongue started lashing out again. He probably should of felt some sense of relief or some modicum of pride that he had stopped an unnecessary killing, but he didn't. All he felt was a creeping uncertainty about everything; all he had was even more questions about things he wasn't sure he wanted the answer to anymore.

He sighed. It had been a while since he tried talking with God. Owen always figured it was kind of pointless. Even if something was omnipresent and all-knowing, he doubted that it would take the time to listen to, and certainly never respond to, one little ant in a sea of billions of other ants. However, now that he was more than fifteen percent of the population of known life maybe he'd have a chance of actually being heard. Then again, maybe it was better to be quiet. If God was real, then he had let humans destroy the world, meaning he was useless. Alternatively, he had destroyed the world himself, a likely thought considering his track record, and Owen felt that their futuristic Noah's Ark wasn't something sanctioned by the big guy upstairs.

Best not to get his attention, then, thought Owen.

The seat jostled and bounced, but was designed for the weight of a human body collapsing in it. Rend had just been carried out of the room, and for the moment it was just Echo and Owen. She stared up at the lights, eyebrows raised and blinking while in silence. Oh, heavens, even with a population of 6, mankind still eagerly chases after war...
There was Owen, just as silent as her seated across the room. The silence, though she preferred it, was rude. She knew this because she was taught so by teachers, relatives, and society in general. Something had to be said. We should all accept the inevitable, we’re meant to destroy ourselves.
”Penny for your thoughts,” she addressed Owen. With the statement she rose and started probing around in attempt to locate damages caused by the bullets.

"That's about how much they're worth," he said as Echo's voice drew him out of his own mind. He opened his eyes and tried to smile; it looked more as if he had winced in pain. As he spoke his voice was low and quiet, as if he was too exhausted to speak loudly. "I'm frustrated. Confused. I kind of wish that I never signed up for this project in the first place. If they weren't all dead now I'd definitely give Cryonautics a negative review. Like, how is this even supposed to work? Why withhold information? Why let outsiders in, or be unsecured enough that they can find their way in? Even the original goal is a pipe dream."

"Part of me thinks this is all just an experiment, or maybe just a lame kind of joke like one of those old hidden camera shows. Cryonautics tricked all of us or a few of us into believing that we'd be frozen for the future, when really we're just gassed and knocked out for a few minutes, and now they're studying or laughing at us or both, all in preparation for the real deal. What crappy celebrity guest could we get? What if we convince them that they're in space? Man, I kind of wish that was the case."

He laughed a bitter, short laugh. He was supposed to be the shrink, yet he was the one doing all of the venting.

"Ecks, I feel like you know more about this project than the rest of us, right? Did you," he paused for a moment, picking his words carefully so that it didn't sound like he was accusing her of anything, "Did you have any suspicion that things were going to end up like this?

"Not like this, no. My expectations were greatly divergent." She explained with a smile and bugged out eyes. For one thing I am supposed to be dead.
She picked at the hole in the ceiling a moment, she couldn't see any wires or pipes or fluids leaking out so it was probably okay. She popped the panel open and began looking into the interior to make sure that her initial assessment was true. The outer protective titanium foam layer of the electrostatic artificial gravity plate held the bullet barely embedded into the surface, the kinetic energy had been devoured by the plate, but it was no threat... the protective layer was designed to absorb harder, smaller, faster objects traveling near the speed of light. Echo did not know any of this, but shrugged and pulled the bullet out a little perplexed. Other than a dent everything seemed okay.

"I am capable of putting your mind at ease in some regard. Rend didn’t come in here shooting security guards, and holding a gun to a scientist’s head seconds before launch. The freezing process would have killed him since he would require a panel of drugs and decrystallization agents and would have had to have a baseline established before he could even know the dosage needed without killing himself. I know from our perspective, we took a pill and woke up in a pod. That was just an ambio stasis anesthetic used while they work their magic.” Which should have reacted to the liamin, a common additive to swim lotions that prevents water logging, it should have killed her upon freezing by making ice crystals explode every one of her cells in her body. Somehow it failed.
“I seriously doubt that there could have been a tactical team that slipped him in here already frozen. There was armed security that nobody told us about. Apparently it works. If there were any intruders, there would be laser holes peppering a path clear to the airlock.” At this she proceeded to her cabinet door that had been placed on the table and flipped it over to reveal the laser marks from a hundred years ago, still frozen in metal.

"I find it almost humorous when I say that I am not surprised in the least by the presence of our guest. Rend didn't need any form of violence to get in, he just needed to play politics. The management of Project Renaissance was malleable at best." at this she released a good-natured and cheery laugh, one that clearly struck her funny bone, "Do you honestly believe I would be here if I were about 15 pounds heavier and hadn’t dyed my hair red? However apprehensive and distasteful the concept may be... this is the imperfect time-capsule left by a vicious world constructed by an erroneous corporation run by pernicious people and inundated by a self-righteous government. The amazing thing is that somehow in putting forth their greatest effort at spectacular failure... they succeeded anyway. Call it dumb luck or destiny, even an act of God that we are standing here now, what with the shortcomings of EVERYONE involved,” Echo smiled as she gazed deeply into Owen’s eyes, looking for anything that might glimmer in her insight.

"Yeah, it's truly amazing. Gold stars all around," he said dryly, responding to her smile with a thin, grim smirk. He knew she was right, at least in regards to the susceptibility of the Project's managers to external pressure that would effect its outside appearance. If word got out that Rend had weaseled his way inside, if they had only chosen people from one race, heck, if they didn't have a pretty face to put on the marketing then it probably would've been ravaged by critics and would never have gotten off of the ground. Still, he couldn't accept the thought that they actually succeeded. If anything, Owen believed that they were spiraling towards a failure even more spectacular than any of them could imagine. It was like in a film where it seemed that the heroes are about to make it, but you know that there's still an hour left and something's going to blow up, or the AI is going to go rampant, or there was another masked man with a knife, but unlike a Hollywood film it wouldn't get a happy ending pasted on after poor test screenings or executive meddling.

"But how long do you think we can last upon dumb luck or the will of God or whatever? The tanks are either broken or prone to sabotage. We're in the middle of space where an asteroid can smash into us at any time. We have a limited amount of supplies. And half of the time we're all in the same room together somebody ends up almost dead—that's not really a great track record," said Owen, flipping his hand out to emphasis his point. "All signs point to us screwing this up, and I'd wager that it'll be sooner rather than later."

"And," he said, forcing a smile, "to make matters worse, now I know that you're not actually a redhead."

Echo heard Owen's concerns and couldn't help but widen her smile more and more as he spoke. It was like the sunrise on a fine morning in early summer that seeped in through the screens and spilled over the furniture in golden light of the future."You don't realize what you have done, do you? You, by your own hands, created a world that has never been seen before! A world that has chosen justice instead of vengeance, mercy instead of hate. Dreamers have longed for what you dismay. A new world is not pending, it is already upon you... a better one if you and the others decide to keep it so. I find a conspicuous level of success is already at hand. The cryo-tank survival rate alone is staggering. The experts said that there was only a 25% success rate to actually freeze someone, when coupled with the duration and possibility of failure over time, it was highly unlikely that even one person would wake again. Yet, we find Benji alive and well even after tank failure. Any further good fortune is likely to see us to land and air and sea."The success rate was accurate, but all of her words were habit. She honestly didn't absorb her own optimism, but she was so practiced that it did not show. Leaders only existed in the presence of support and self-deception.
"Has anyone ever told you how un-, um, inexhaustibly positive you are?" he said, shaking his head in disbelief. Uncomfortably positive was what he actually intended to say, but better judgment won out in the end. He couldn't help being slightly unnerved by her smile, although perhaps it was because he had never heard that there was a 75% chance that he would've died in the cryo-tank. Still, he couldn't help but recall his earlier conversation with Tahlia and how she had mentioned that Echo seemed off in a way. Then again, maybe she was just coping with all of the recent excitement and didn't want to focus on the negatives that he was so quick to point out (like how their "new world" was still totally going to fail). Perhaps it'd be best if he stopped trying to push that realization on her, or anyone for that matter. The power of positive thinking, right? He made a noise that was something between a laugh and a scoff.

Yet Owen couldn't help but notice how she seemed to exclude herself from the responsibility of keeping their world a better one. Did she just assume that she'd obviously make things better, or did she think so little of herself that she'd absolutely have zero effect on their future, or...

Owen folded his arms over his chest. "I don't think it's very fair that you put all of this on me. For starters, I didn't really do anything. Tahlia stopped because she's not a murderer. Yaz got Benji because she wanted to save a life. All I did was yell at people. And, seriously, I can't tell if you're trying to be humble or coy or if you actually don't even realize it, but the only reason I even tried anything was because of you. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't been there, but I do know that the only reason Rend's alive right now is because you acted first. If you want to believe that we did something incredible—which we didn't, we just did the right thing—then go ahead and tell yourself that we created some wonderful world full of love and peace and other junk like that. That's fine."No, Owen, I CANNOT take this from you, not any longer. It is out of my hands.
He pointed a finger at her. "But at least take some credit when credit's due. If it weren't for you, things would've been screwed." He looked around the room, noting the missing panel, the bullet casings, Rend's blood that was drying on the ground, and frowned, rolling his eyes as he relaxed back into his chair. "More screwed, I mean."

He wasn't getting it. All of the normal tactics Echo was applying were carefully avoided and countered. Owen really was a confusing person to Echo. Most leaders would gobble up her nuggets of encouragement with their ego. Those who feared leadership would simply accept it as an isolated incident and close up shop. Owen was neither. Echo couldn't do anything but sigh and pinch the bridge of her nose a moment before flipping her hair to the side and smiling again. If the subtle approach wasn't going to work with him, she was going to need something more direct. "Owen, oh, Owen your reluctance to lead is unmistakable. You have heard the siren call of counselor, and your heart resides therein. You seek to keep the wellspring of words flowing until their own solutions wash out before their very eyes. Such we cannot afford any longer. In the haste of the moment, the true colors of our comrades have been revealed. Believe what you wish now, but Tahlia was going to kill. Your very actions spoke of that conviction. When you raised the cost of her actions by a threat of destroying your alliance she didn't have the stomach for it. She stopped by your command. Yaz found the doctor... by your command. The doctor took action by your command. If these situations are left to run their course disaster would surely follow. So, perhaps you screw up, be assured that even in such folly, it will be nowhere the calamity as left to its own devices."

Owen was silent after Echo finished speaking. He had shifted in his seat while she had been talking, leaning forward with his fingers perched in a triangle under his lips. He didn't want to believe Echos assertion that the only reason Tahlia stopped was because of him, but he knew Echo was right—Tahlia seemed just fine slaughtering Rend until he had stepped in. Yet what was this talk about being reluctant to lead? He wasn't reluctant; he wasn't even considering it. They didn't need a leader, they just needed to be understanding with one another.

Yeah, Owen, like you believe that's even possible. You just don't want responsibility, he thought.

"I hear what you're saying. I'll consider it," he said, an ambiguous reply at best. "But right now this room is an absolute mess, and if I sit around letting that blood stain my clothes any longer I might have a panic attack. I'm going to see if I can't find anything to clean all of this up."

He pushed himself out of his chair and started towards the door. Owen felt that Echo would take this as some sort of excuse to avoid the thing she was trying to push him into and, well, he was. He found it unnerving how she seemed to take everything he had said and twist it back to him. Owen always believed that there were two kinds of shrinks in the world, regardless of whether they were a psychiatrist, psychologist, or something else along those lines. There were the kind who listened to and observed people and then made their diagnosis and helped others, and then there were the kind who made their diagnosis and then only heard and only saw signs that confirmed it and, inadvertently, harmed others. Plenty of shrinks had been both in their lifetime. Owen wished to believe he was exclusively the first, but he knew that sometimes even he dipped into the second role. Still, as he got up out of that chair, he couldn't help but feel as if Echo had been playing the role of his shrink and, worse still, he could not tell which type she was.

Echo watched him go. After his departure, she sighed and hung her head. Was that some sort of fight? It felt like it. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a control panel. She pressed the clean cycle and allowed the room to rejuvenate itself as she returned to her quarters, cabinet door and bomb in tow. The harmonics of the cleansing cycle made the composite deck plating sing.

---

---

Upon exiting the med bay, Tahlia immediately went to her quarters, locked the door and dimmed the lights. She made her way to her bed and let herself fall onto it, burying her head into the pillow. She tried to clear her head, but it didn't work. The memories of her deployment and the result of her transgressions flooded her head with demons she thought she had buried. Why did this have to happen? Why couldn't the mission have just gone as planned? This event would have lasting ramifications on the entire crew, not least of which herself. Of course, brooding about it wouldn't do much of anything. She needed to do something to distract herself, or otherwise restore equilibrium to her psyche, and she had the perfect plan.

"FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK!!!"

She screamed into the pillow while pressing her face into it as hard as she could. As gratuitous, mindless, and unhealthy as it was, she felt slightly better afterwards. She got up and took several deep breaths, then almost without thinking about it, threw herself onto the floor and began doing push ups. She refused to stop until she was physically incapable of continuing, at which point she simply let herself collapse to the floor. She then switched to sit ups and repeated the process, simultaneously taking off her jacket and tossing it aside. She wasn't even keeping count, she just needed to sweat and work until she just couldn't continue.

Eventually, after something like 80 or 90 sit ups, her abs failed her and she fell on her back with a thud. Her arms were still shaking from the push ups, and her breathing reflected her exertion. She brought one arm over her eyes and shut them for a moment. The workout had helped, but her thoughts were still clouded. Still, she figured she had done enough to clear her head for one moment and decided the next thing to do was to take a quick shower and then get to the cockpit and try to calm herself.

---

Freshly showered, clothed, and hair still damp, Tahlia left her room and made her way to the cockpit. Upon entering the kitchen, she noticed where one of the bullets had hit. It wasn't more than a meter away from the window. Dumb fuck could have jettisoned all of us in one fell swoop. Physics - 1 | Human Race - 0. She shoved her sarcasm aside and pressed on, passing through the adjacent corridor until she got to the cockpit. The door opened, and she was greeted with a similar sight as before. With the cockpit fully lit, it was hard to see anything other than a few stars out of the window. She sat herself back in the pilot's seat and dimmed the lights again, hoping to return to the state she was in a couple hours prior. She got comfortable and focused on her breathing, keeping a slow, steady pattern.

Her breathing technique didn't help much. It was easy when she didn't already have a lot on her mind, and while it generally helped, she found it more difficult to clear her mind this time. It had been well over a year since the last time she was nearly this stressed out. She let out a heavy sigh and kept trying.

Her attempt was interrupted a moment later when the ship lurched slightly. The anomaly drew her attention for a second, but she wrote it off as a stellar wind and tried to resume her routine. Not even ten seconds later an alarm sounded and the lights came back up. Tahlia immediately stopped and looked around, trying to find any indication as to what was wrong. The HUD changed suddenly, showing a sphere with what she figured was a waypoint on it, a heading indicator drifting away from that point, and a pulsating circle, low and somewhere around the 5 o' clock position, along with two warning messages.

ALERT: FLIGHT PATH DEVIATION
WARNING: MAGNETIC ANOMALY DETECTED

"What the hell?" Tahlia uttered as the engines began to spool up; the roar of the thrusters echoing through the ship. Evidently, the autopilot was trying to correct this. She looked at the ship's velocity. It had dropped dramatically, and was still dropping, even though the engines were at full power at this point. Naturally, her first instinct was to try and correct this herself. She got on the controls and scrolled through one of the displays until it brought up the autopilot. She turned it off and took control of the ship, grabbing the yoke and turning it to the left and pulling up, orienting the ship such that it was pointed in the opposite direction of the anomaly. Of course, her knowledge of astrophysics was extremely limited, and anyone that was more knowledgeable would tell her this was futile. Regardless, it made little difference in changing the ship's actual heading. It's orientation shifted, but it kept accelerating towards the anomaly, the velocity indicator still dropping.

Tahlia started looking for an override button on the controls. That's how these things worked, right? Surely there was some way to boost power to the engines. She eventually got to a power management option, which allowed her to allocate extra power to the thrusters. The ship shuddered as the extra power was pushed through the engines, but it still had barely any effect, and another warning showed up telling her that the reactors were in danger of overheating.

"FUCK!" Tahlia shouted, releasing the controls and bringing the power back. At this point, there was nothing she could do. The ship was caught; the mission was over. No doubt they were plummeting towards a black hole, or something equally horrifying and far too large to escape. They were doomed. Humanity was doomed. Tahlia stared at the HUD in disbelief. At this point, the heading indicator had them moving straight towards whatever was pulling them in. She turned the ship towards the anomaly to confirm this. Sure enough, there was a pulsing circle somewhere in the distance, and the heading indicator was right over it. She couldn't see what it was, but the indicator was there. She lowered her head and found the intercom button. She figured the crew deserved an explanation.

"Attention, all hands, this is Tahlia. I..." She stopped. It was a damn shame. Mankind had gotten so far, and their snowball's chance in hell was about to evaporate. "I regret to say that the ship is... It's changed course. I tried to stop it, but it won't budge. The ship is moving towards something. I have no idea what. On the off chance that we survive what's about to happen, brace yourselves."

That was it. That was all she could say. She brought her knees up to her face, wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her head. Tahlia had hoped that she could do something, but there was nothing to be done. They were going to hit something, and they were going far too fast to survive the impact...

Although...

Tahlia brought her head up. Clearly the ship had pre-programmed flight instructions, and if the people that made it weren't stupid, they would have designed it to avoid any significant hazards, and would have probably documented them in such a way that the ship could track them and make corrections should they move. Furthermore, even if it wasn't something that was documented, the ship's systems should have been able to recognize what it was that was pulling them; that would be the smart thing to do, at least, as opposed to simply labeling it an "anomaly". Whatever was there must have either not been there before or moved too quickly to track, and be something no one has ever documented, which could only mean one thing.

Tahlia got back on the intercom. "Disregard last message. All hands get to the cockpit." As crazy as it sounded, it did make sense. Unless she just didn't know what she was talking about and was being hopelessly optimistic. Furthermore, the possibility of what she suspected opened up a completely new can of worms chock full of possibilities that were both better and worse than the alternatives. Regardless, in a few minutes, it seemed very possible that the words "foreign relations" were about to take on a whole new meaning.

Deck-plating rattled, sending any unsecured articles bouncing around like one of those vibrating football games. The roar of the main boosters and their liquid fuel propellant tore through the ship permeating to the bone. There is no possible way to explain the magnitude of the sound and its completeness. With throbbing music at least you knew where to go in order to avoid it, but it's potency (while muffled to the point of no longer damaging to hearing) drowned out all other noise simply through the massive shock-waves in air-compression. Nor, could it be avoided, EVERYTHING was emanating the exact same resonance because EVERYTHING was shaken by the powerful chemical reaction.

The electro-static ionization plating suddenly altered polarity in order to counter the rapid fluctuations in inertia. It was fantastic at its job, if that job was making everyone space sick. Fortunately waking from cryo-freeze was not exactly something that allowed someone to down a quarter-pounder and a face-full of fries. The simple sugars of the cake and its airy content was already well past the duadinums of those who had eaten it, and impossible to expel in the way the gravity system insisted should happen.

Just as soon as it started, it was over with Tahlia mumbling something over the intercom. Echo didn't seem to make much sense of it, still clutching her chest and fighting back an acidic burp both of which seemed to come out of nowhere. Frantically she looked around, half expecting to see if the ceiling was going to fall on top of her. While the Montigawitzes had frequented the posh Starline Hilton with luxury and prices out of this world, and she had taken a number of Virgin Galactic flights for intercontinental travel, and she was no stranger to a spaceport... this was the first time she had encountered something designed for power instead of comfort. It would be like living your live driving luxury cars and suddenly sitting behind the wheel of an old gas guzzling muscle car that was designed to be as loud and macho as possible. At first she thought Tahlia was just being some sort of show-off or a knucklehead pushing the equipment to their limits. However it didn't seem to fit very well.

At first she started looking for seat-belts only to discover that there was an emergency seat in each crew quarter, in the hall, and just about every seat came with a 5 point harness. Of course, each of these were cleverly designed to avoid the whole "just in case you are going to be thrown around the interior of the ship" feel that was just a no-go for the feng sue. She hurried to the cockpit, or rather stopped abruptly not really knowing where it was. There seemed to be dozens of doors everywhere now that she looked. In fact, she wasn't entirely sure if this was a single floored craft. She really hadn't had the opportunity or curiosity to even check. In all actuality there could be a hundred more floors above and below her, and she could never know. The only view was through the one porthole and strangely enough it was not on the end of a tube that looked back on the ship.

She proceeded to the living quarters, then to the kitchen the whole while glancing around to see hatches and doors many of which could hold a room to another room or even an access ladder. However, her search seemed stupid when she walked right past it seeing a massive cockpit and a field of stars all around that was obvious and easy access. It held security doors and what could be some sort of escape pod outside of the area. There she entered, not entirely sure she wanted to make small talk as she entered to see for herself exactly what her team-mate was up to. As the classic introvert... she didn't really say anything other than a "what" so as to not scare the crap out of the highly trained soldier.

---

Yazmin sat in her room when the announcement over the intercom and Tahlia called everyone to action. She quickly made a few adjustments as she examined the newly-attached wire in her mechanical limb. She retested all of the motion limits on her arm, then slid her shirt on and standing. She stepped outside and looked both ways, but didn't see Benji. In the back of her mind she wondered where he'd gone. She really hoped she hadn't hurt his feelings.

Decidedly, she turned back and walked down the metal corridors. As she walked she wondered what the problem up front was. Tahlia had said that the ship had diverted its course. She briefly considered that the ship might have malfunctioned. If so, she made be able to excess it, via the main terminal and set it back on the previous command-line. If it worked like any other kind of navigation system, she could delete the prompt to divert course like it had, but she'd have to no where to send them back towards.

The possibility also crossed her mind that the diversion might have been planned by Cryonautics. Surely they didn't accidentally make a faulty system. What kind of company wouldn't account for this possibility?

As she arrived to the cockpit, she looked around for the main terminal. "Is there anything I can help with? Maybe it's a system problem?"

---

---

Tahlia kept scrolling through one of the screens next to the pilot's seat to confirm what was happening. The ship was definitely caught in something that was pulling it away from their planned course. What it was, how big it was, and how far away was unclear, but Tahlia held on to her slightly far-fetched suspicion. She supposed it wasn't exactly far-fetched. More just... hard to believe, regardless of how likely it seemed given the circumstances.

Tahlia turned around and leaned herself to one side of the chair as she heard someone entering the cockpit. Echo stood in the doorway, seemingly with a sense of caution. "Not gonna lie, we may be in a weird situation. I'll fill you in once the others show up, but for right now, I need you to get on that computer and check for any damage, mainly on the engines," she said, pointing to the monitor on the left side of the cockpit.

As she was finishing her sentence, Yazmin walked in, her arm seemingly repaired, or at least functional. "Glad to see you're not hurt," she started, examining the limb out of curiosity. "Now, if you would, I need you to get on the other computer and see if you can find something in front of the ship. Anything, I don't care what. It's still a good distance away, but we're closing on it pretty quickly," she said, gesturing to the computer on the right. "I'll tell you what's going on when Owen and Benji get here."

She turned back to the front to ensure the ship was still oriented towards the anomaly. She saw that it was, but she also noticed that the ship was beginning to decelerate. Evidently they were getting close to their new neighbors.

---

---

After changing, Owen found himself drawn to the infirmary. He wasn’t completely aware of his true intentions as his polished shoes clacked down the hallway and paused in front of the doorway. Was he looking for Benji in hopes of catching the doctor alone to give him a piece of his mind? Unlikely. He didn’t want to open up that can of worms now, knowing himself well enough that he’d start flinging accusations at the skittish doctor that would be more harmful for the man’s already fragile psyche. Tahlia, then? No, he didn’t even want to be in the same room as her. Not now, at least. Maybe he was hoping to find Yaz? After his talk with Echo, he was quickly becoming convinced that she might be the only other person on board that classified as whatever his definition of normal meant, if being normal was even possible. But what would they even talk about?

When the door slid open with a soft whoosh and a weight came off of Owen’s shoulders when he saw Rend, strapped down but breathing (thanks to the very kind of machines the man seemed to hate), he knew why he had come. He had wanted to make sure that the man was still alive, that in his absence Doc or Tahlia hadn’t done something horrible. Although, would it be horrible to silently end the old man’s life? After all, he had cheated his way onto the ship, he had acted irrationally, he had pulled the gun, he had intended to hurt or even kill Tahlia. What did he add to the crew except danger and uncertainty? What would he offer to a new world? What value did he—Owen shook his head. He didn’t have the right to assign value to a person; that was something Rend would do. He stood over Rend now, his arms folded over his chest as his eyes studied the catatonic man.

Something a leader would do, he thought with a thin smirk on his face, his mind drifting back to his conversation with Echo. Probably why this jerk pulled a gun. He knew right away how worthless it is to put any effort in this stupid charade.

“It’s going to come up sooner or later,” he said, looking the ventilator up and down. “Of what we should do with you, I mean. Obviously, we can’t just let bygones be bygones. We aren’t idiots. I like to think that we aren’t idiots. We could just lock you up somewhere. Give you three hots and a cot until you croak from old age. Although, knowing you, you’d probably live to be a hundred or something. The mean ones always do. We’d probably run out of food by then.”

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, his glasses bobbing up and down as he did so. “We could freeze you again.”

Could they? From his talks with Echo, it sounded like the freezing process was more dangerous than any of them had been told. Likewise, didn’t it require some kind of micro-bio-whatever pills to work? And assuming they even had those lying around (which he doubted), why shouldn’t they just let the computer run its course and the five of them, minus Rend, jump back in the ice lockers? Because then we’d still be killing you, even if it was just by negligence.

He looked at the ventilator again. How easy it would be to just unplug it. Wasn’t leadership doing the things that nobody else wanted to do, but that had to be done? He eyed the machine,not knowing what to look for but knowing that if he pulled and pushed enough things on it that eventually it’d stop working. Nobody would have to worry about these decisions. He stepped around the bed to get a closer look at the machine. Nobody would know. He reached out and placed his hand on top of it, only to pull away as if he had been burned. He could never do that. He’d know. That’s all that mattered.

“I should just learn to keep my mouth shut, he said, turning away from the old man.

He had made it to the doorway when Tahlia’s voice came to life over the intercom and informed them all of their possible end. He felt his heart sink into his stomach as he chuckled to himself, realizing that he had been right all along when he had half-joked about some kind of space junk smashing them into oblivion. So mankind would be doomed after all despite their efforts. Well, of course that’s how it would be. Of course. A random, pointless end to a random, pointless footnote in the annuals of life. Fitting that he’d die in a room with somebody he hated, on a ship with four other people who were still virtually strangers. You got a messed up sense of humor, big guy, he thought as he leaned against the wall, ready for some big-budget impact to completely obliterate him in a slow, fiery explosion over a score written in the minor key played.

None of that happened. A slight shift, a twist in his stomach, a pop in his ear, and then Tahlia’s voice came back over the intercom. Owen let go of a breath he hadn’t realized that he had been holding as a wave of relief overcame him. His first thought was that it had all been some cruel, sick joke by Tahlia, but he knew that was impossible. First of all, he had felt something—the bizarre discomfort wasn’t only something he had whipped up with his imagination. Secondly, he knew that Tahlia wasn’t the kind to play practical jokes. He jammed his finger on the button to the door and pushed out of it, almost running, as he made his way to the cockpit.

“Tahlia, what’s happening?” he demanded as he walked into the room. Yaz and Echo were there; Benji was not. He frowned. As bizarre of an idea that it was, he couldn't shake the feeling that whenever Benji wasn’t around things often went from bad to worse. “And where’s Doc?”

---

---

Seemingly out of nowhere, Tahlia heard a set of unknown footsteps enter the cockpit shortly after Owen made his entrance. She had just enough time to turn around and catch a glimpse of the... robot, thing before something that was actually fleshy (at least, relatively) yanked her hair and threw her out of the seat. She lost her balance and ended up on the grated floor, hitting her face pretty hard. "Oww... fuck." Her initial surprise and shock of being one of five people to make first contact was replaced with her training as she felt one of their captors subdue her and bind her arms behind her.

"This is what's happening, Owen!" she spat, not in anger at Owen, just in anger in general. Where the fuck did they come from? She turned around and looked out of the cockpit to see the stars and empty space make a transition into the interior of some sort of hangar. The clever bastards tricked them to catch them off guard. They had been captured before they even knew it.

The alien that had bound Tahlia forcefully picked her up and began marching her and the others out of the Artemis. "Do what they say, don't give them an excuse." She didn't dare say more lest she provoke the wrath of the creatures they were surrounded by. She did earn a piercing look from one of them, but no physical retribution, or even a verbal warning. She got a good look at the thing's face. It had a vaguely humanoid look to it, with obvious differences of course. Their bodies were very angular, with several sharp corners and tight curves around what she assumed to be their muscles. They seemed slightly taller than most people; maybe by a foot or so. It may have been intimidating were it not for a couple of things.

Firstly, the fact that they simply didn't just tase, or kill them all, and the mention of treason were signs of a structured government and diplomacy, both of which were relatively good signs. Or bad, depending on the type of government. Second, they weren't being treated particularly badly as of yet; a sign that there were some rules of engagement that they had for this sort of thing. All things that Tahlia wasn't unfamiliar with.

It occurred to Tahlia, as they marched through the various hallways, how well she was taking this, considering they had effectively been abducted by aliens. To be fair, it was likely the manner at which they were taken. It wasn't dissimilar from a regular cop arresting someone for burglary, or something. Even Tahlia had done her fair share of takedowns during training. It felt as though things would have pretty much went the same way if they were found and captured by a group of humans. She only hoped that by "treason" they hadn't inadvertently committed an act of war, or something.

The hallway opened up to what seemed to be a prison cell, which the women were promptly thrown into. It took a couple of minutes before Owen showed up, but no sign of Benji. Was he still on the ship, hiding or something? Maybe Owen had seen him. She was about to say something, but felt a pain when she opened her mouth. She felt her face and remembered the fall she took. There was a cut across her right cheek. It wasn't bleeding badly, but it still hurt. She failed to notice it before, but it wouldn't have been the first time. Nor the last, probably.

Regardless, Benji was still missing, and God only knew what they did with Rend. As far as Tahlia cared, they could keep him as a fucking pet or something. Regardless, they first needed to find out what happened to Benji, then they could worry about how they would get out of this mess.

---

---

"This is what's happening, Owen!"

Yeah. I can see that. Thanks.

However, truth be told, he almost didn’t believe it was happening, not until he felt himself bristle at the sight of Tahlia being slung from her chair, only to instantly back down and comply with the robot voice as a pair of freakishly blue eyes glared at him. Alien eyes. Actual alien eyes. Maybe he might’ve been a bit excited to have witnessed these Skullmen if they hadn’t been, apparently, arresting them for some form of treason. Instead, he was rightfully fearful and angry, yet also already becoming resinated. Of course they would, somehow, be the ones to discover aliens, and of course these aliens weren’t the fun, cute, eat Reese Piece’s kind of aliens.

Owen’s hands were twisted around his back and he felt one of the creatures slap a pair of handcuffs on him. It wasn’t the first time the man had been handcuffed in his life, and just like that other time it was also completely unjustified. Wrong place, wrong time. Maybe it would’ve been smarter to have never been frozen in the first place. No, nevermind, obviously it would’ve been smarter to have never been frozen in the first place. At least a hundred years ago he wouldn’t have been abducted by freaking aliens; with real cops he could eventually talk his way out of getting in trouble for something he didn’t do.

Hold up…

Maybe he could try talking to the bot? It was a pretty stupid idea, he’d be the first to admit, but it did speak English—which was rather odd when he considered it, although he was sure that Echo or Yaz would have some kind of reasoning for that. At the very least, he’d figure out what it was that they had done, shine a little light onto the situation that was, otherwise, looking rather dark at the moment. Yet everything seemed to align against him questioning the robot, for a moment of panic set into him as he was held back from the women, and by the time he had calmed his mind another situation had arisen as he finally figured out what had happened to Benji.

He felt his jaw drop the same time Doc did from the vent, decommissioning the bot with a stab from something ripped straight from a big budget sci-fi flick. Unlike those kind of films, however, the next minute was not filled with Benji space-ninjaing his way through the hallway, deflecting bullets and slicing aliens with his energy sword before finally freeing Owen, who would then grab some kind of laser rifle and the two set off to rescue a trio of distressed damsels, murder a whole hive of aliens, and quip back and forth the entire time. Instead, it was filled with shouts and screams as Benji dropped to the ground almost instantaneously, his body shaking like a sapling in a hurricane as Owen was whisked away to join the others.

Owen took a moment to try and recuperate himself as he sunk to the ground.

But then he decided to just forget it and to start spilling his guts out.

“Jesus Christ, I think they just killed the Doc,” he whispered between heavy breaths, wide-eyed. “H-h-he took out their robot, and one of those freaky Skullmen blasted him with something. I don’t know what it was, but he was just shaking and then I heard him screaming, and them screaming, and, and, and holy crap, man.” He shook his head, trying to get the sound out. “If he isn’t dead than I’d bet that he wishes he was. Oh man, oh man. What are we going to do? I mean, what can we even do?”

Surreal. That was the word for it. Right now the world seemed like a big practical joke, and the walls would open up to show a television crew on a hidden camera show getting a good laugh. Aliens weren’t real, Echo didn’t get arrested by authorities much less hulking alien creatures, people didn’t shoot each other or crush each other's windpipes, and Benji wasn’t some lightsaber wielding ninja, nor could he die. Let us not forget that it wasn’t in the nature of the world to end, people didn’t sleep 100 years even if they were somehow frozen. Heck, people didn't even live 100+ years. It was unbelievable, literally unbelievable. The failure of Echo’s suicide made her doubt the reality even more, she didn’t suffer any freezer burn much less frostbite.
Echo couldn’t help but sputter out a laugh at Owen’s freak out session. And then laugh... and laugh... and laugh. It would have been kind of creepy as though she were losing her mind, but it was an honest and genuine touch of humor that kind of made you wonder if you had missed something in the bleak situation. “Only now, after there is no point in resistance, does our cowardly lion of two years and a day find teeth to bear on entities that question our intentions! And naturally, it would have to be our doctor! Naturally. Doctor, heal thyself! What in could we possibly do to convince our captors of our complete ignorance and indifference toward them, now? Of course! And of course, now there are aliens! How coincidental that the ones who might have functioned as a solution to mankind’s failings only arise almost immediately after our downfall! We hold the irony of the fellow who starved in his bomb-shelter for lack of a can-opener! This is all so fantastically orchestrated for calamity, you might expect to find it on laugh-net!”

Echo shrugged, since her hands were still restrained and slumped back against the wall. She shook her head, her hair dislodged and obstructed her vision. “Not to mention our line-up of misfits that include The Godfather! Director McFarrell, I am going to track down your skeleton and sink it to the bottom of our latrine!”
At any rate, there really wasn’t anything to do until the alien police (if that is what they were) had finished searching the ship and contacting people with real power. It could be hours, even days. There really wasn’t anything more than wait, complain, argue, and wait some more.Let me guess, everyone is going to expect me to be the adult here and dig us out of this situation.

---

---

Cradled by the enclosed crevice of a crowded space, the remaining four realized that room to be their fated place of rest. Recalling that their last accounted time of sleep was soon interrupted by the warnings of their vigilant pilot, the effects of exhaustion prove not be shy but rather obvious with the occasional slipping of the eyelids and nods that grew according to the desire of a dream. They were tired. Even if continually flustered by the invasion, the physical body requested rest. Whether or not that request was one attended to, sounds could be heard beyond the confined walls. A language of some strange sort, one vehemently voiced in short spouts. But their laughter was a special thing, when it was a thing heard, it made these so-called, "Skull-men", men, it made them the ever so slightly human. Or at least, sentient and less animistic.

Yet whether or not sleep was a request fulfilled, time amounted into the grander scale upon the next moment which the crew would be in some form or way addressed by the extraterrestrials that lurked about. The next time that door was ever opened, was the instant one of the darkened creature hooked his grasp upon Tahlia's forearm. She could then distinctly recognize at least even from just pure touch and pressure that this was the same alien from the cockpit that had slung her body with incredible ease hours prior. He had the impression of an alpha among the others of his kind, distinctly he was by far the tallest with the most defined of a muscular stature, a chief perhaps.

Tahlia's guide was a tug out of the unfurnished room stationed as their cell, and pulled into the hallway. Circled by the brutes functioning as a sense of security, Tahlia felt something hard compressed against her stomach. Looking down she notices it to be of an oval shape, examining it a bit closer at its texture, it is then much more accurately discovered what this supposed object were to be. It was a loaf of bread, stale bread from the feel of it and of an odd shade of purple and blue- confirming its alien origins. But it would be best to speculate that they were in no plans to be poisoned, it would not make any sense. If the alien intruders wished for the humans dead, that would be a wish attained.

The alpha also placed another item into the palm of her hand, a leather flask poured with water. And with that he nodded, uttered a few words that clearly registered to Tahlia as foreign, but whatever he said, the rest surrounding voiced their amusement and glee in a roar of laughter. At least it lightened their mood and Tahlia was not so roughly handled once escorted back to the cell.

Returning, she bore in hand food and drink . She did not know when the next time they would be given their next meal, but it was up to her for now how to approach the situation. Or even how to reason through why they choose to give her the food and drink rather than any of the others.

---

---

---

Yazmin was completely in shock. Since the robot and the massive creatures had carried them aboard the ship, she hadn't made a noise. She hadn't screamed, nor protested. Even when Owen told them about Benji's fate, she just sank to the floor, laying her head against the wall. While a few tears streamed down her cheeks, she was doing her absolute best not to loose it. Who could blame her if she did break down, though.

Before she'd gone to sleep in the Cryotank, she had just been a computer programmer. Granted, possibly one of the best in the world, but still just a programmer. She had just barely become an adult, having only turned 21 barely two months before going under the cryosleep, and now she was going to die in some science-fiction space ship. She'd survived three years as a hostage of a terrorist group, and had even survived having part of her body torn off by an explosion. She'd been the first to survive the mechanical limb procedure. She'd survived all of that, and now she was going to die. It wasn't fair!

As Tahlia was whisked away by the massive creatures, Yazmin's sense of dread only increased. She felt more tears stream down her eyes. They'd killed Benji and now they were going to kill Tahlia. Even though she returned a few minutes later, the girl looked over at Owen, feeling the verge of composure threatening to leave her. "I'm only 21, Owen, I'm not ready to die." She said, simply because Owen was the closest one to her. Owen would definitely be able to see the fear in her eyes and the distress on her face.

Tahlia had been sitting quietly in the corner, thinking to herself about their options. Owen's small panic attack and Echo's... eccentric monologue following weren't exactly helpful, though at least Owen had some relevant information, even if it did undoubtedly worry everyone. Understandably, everyone was pretty on edge. "Try not to forget to breathe. The last thing we need to be doing right now is panicking. There's really not much we can do, given our situation, but our first priority needs to be to find Benji, whether he's dead or alive." she said, largely ignoring Echo's spiel. Better not to say anything at all than to be a bitch. "I sincerely hope you're wrong, Owen," she added.

Admittedly, on that point, things didn't look good for Benji. Either Owen was right and he got himself killed, or in the best case would be incapacitated and likely charged with something on top of what the crew had incurred upon itself. Hell, they may even use it as a reflection upon the crew as a whole. She only hoped that these enforcers had more restraint than some American policemen. Or, really, Americans at all. Even she was guilty of going off and doing incredibly stupid things.

After some time, a couple of the aliens entered the room and opened their cell. Tahlia didn't immediately recognize one of them, but it's attitude and style of manhandling as it picked her up gave it away as the same one that tore her from the pilot's seat when they were boarded. "Take it easy, I can walk myself," she quipped. She got a look from the thing before being lead into the hallway. She wondered if it even understood her without the help of the robot that Benji had destroyed. If he did actually destroy it. Hopefully there were others like it, or they would have a hard time making their case.

The behavior of this particular alien struck her as being that of a leader of sorts. The fact that it only took her indicated that it had pinned her in the same fashion, though Tahlia herself scoffed at the idea. Regardless, it stopped her in the hallway not far from the brig. She decided to look around a little bit, taking in the overall look of the ship. The architecture was, oddly enough, a lot like many science fiction movies pictured them. Rounded shapes with smooth surfaces, yet also functional. She wasn't quite sure, but the corridors seemed compartmentalized in such a way that if there were a hull breach it could be sealed off from the rest of the ship. Of course, that was pretty much standard fare, or at least Tahlia hoped it was. It would be incredibly stupid if it weren't.

The feeling of having something shoved into her gut brought her attention back to the aliens. She took the object and determined that it was some sort of bread or wheat product that was in a very stereotypical alien blueish purple color. She eyed it curiously, working through in her head whether it was actually edible. She hoped the aliens knew that this wouldn't kill them for whatever reason. She doubted they would intentionally poison them at this stage, but if they didn't share the same chemical tolerances, they could indeed end up having a very bad time ingesting this stuff.

The leader handed her something else. A container that was likely filled with water... or something. The thing said something that Tahlia naturally didn't understand, but the others around her must have found it humorous. "Just to be sure, can you even understand me?" She was promptly turned around and walked back to the cell, though the chief was quite a bit less rough this time around. He didn't seem to pay any attention to her, though it may have just been ignoring her on purpose. "Well, if you can, just know that we haven't done, nor will we do anything to harm you. We just want to be on our way." She couldn't tell if it noticed or understood, but hopefully it would help in some small way.

The cell opened and she was placed back inside. The door shut behind her, and she was left there with 2/3 of the original crew and hardly enough food and water to satiate one person, let alone four. She sighed and sat back down where she was before, setting the food and water down. She almost hoped someone would take it and make her thought process on what to do with it a little easier. She only just heard what Yazmin said. "You're not going to die. None of us are. We'd be dead if they wanted us dead," she said matter-of-factly. She only hoped she was right. There was something unsettling about the way the aliens had behaved when they handed her their meal.

Knowing that the food and water both came from unknown sources, Tahlia decided to be the first to try it, taking a small bite of the bread and only a swig of the water. The water seemed fine, but the bread was, honestly, just bizarre. Her face contorted at the taste of it. It wasn't particularly bad, but it was beyond strange. Not necessarily unhealthy, but not like anything she had tasted before. And the texture was vaguely bread-like, but extremely brittle. It felt stale, but it crumbled and disintegrated a lot easier than any normal loaf of stale bread would have. It practically turned into sawdust when she bit into it. Regardless of whom else took any of their rations Tahlia would soon find out if it wasn't healthy.