No Aliens Allowed

- Twenty-Seven -

Catelin hurtled towards Rosalie's ship. There was so much tension in the air. None of us talked to another as we hit bump after bump, snow splattering on the windshield.

Allen idly traced circles onto the back of my hand while stewed in my guilt, not able to look up and meet his eyes.

"Hurry, Catelin," I said quietly. Catelin hummed, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, and sped up.

"Calm down, Kali," Allen said, trying to placate me and I looked out the window again, trying to see if I could spot Rosalie's car.

"I can't," I said desperately. I ran through the plan in my head, all the moves I'd have to take and all the things I'd have to say to convince Catelin and most importantly Allen to let me carry through with it.

I swallowed the lump in my throat as Catelin pulled up to the abandoned mill. We all spilled out of the car. I shivered as the wind whipped through my coat. Allen balanced on his tiptoes, narrowing his eyes and scanning the area.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

"Shh," he said, but put his hand on the back of my neck and drew me close to him. After a moment, he pointed. "There," he said. "That's where her ship is."

I looked up to him in confusion. "What? How do you know?"

"Do you see the wavering in the air? Like, a slight distortion," Allen said, guiding my gaze. "It's where the cloaking device meets the air. That shimmer? That's the corner of her ship. It's a flaw we're still working on." 

"No. I don't see anything."

"Well, I do. Maybe I just know what to look for."

"What are we waiting for?" Catelin asked, striding forward. Allen nodded, and followed her. I hung back for a moment, dread filling my stomach. As soon as I ran after them, I would no longer know if I'd come out of this alive.

"Kali! You coming?" Allen shouted over his shoulder.

I took a deep, deep breath, squaring my shoulders. I'd already committed to this, and I wasn't backing down. "Of course," I replied, and ran after them, towards my fate.

****

There was no security in Rosalie's ship, probably because she was cocky as fuck and didn't expect anybody to break in.

We really were idiots.

Rosalie's ship was a lot smaller than Allen's, with a single cot pressed up against the wall and a much smaller control center and only one computer. But unlike Allen's ship, there was a bunch of fancy lab equipment tucked away in cabinets. Allen made a beeline for those, before stopping short.

"Shit," he said, scowling. "I have no idea how to use any of this stuff." He whacked himself on the head. "Stupid brain."

I recalled a little of what dream Allen had said, and took a seat in the captain's chair. I ran my hand along the smooth surface in front of me, only half-surprised when it lit up with a million different controls, all in the same language as the map. I was about to start tapping buttons when a voice spoke out.

Okay, that nearly gave me a heart attack.

"Language change detected," the computer voice said. "Changing to: American English." There was a small beep and all of a sudden I could read what was on the panel.

"Kali," Allen said, amazed. "How did you-"

"I just knew," I replied tersely, cutting him off. No need to go into details about my dream. I pressed a button labelled Adaptation Settings and a screen expanded in front of me, bringing up a bunch of statistics that made no sense to me.