Alpha Centauri

Thirty-One - Jaden

 It scares me out of bed and onto my feet. I grab my sweatshirt, slip into my sneakers, and rush into the hallway, where Nathan is emerging from his room, rubbing his tousled blonde hair.

"What the hell is going on?" I ask over the alarm.

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Nathan says.

The two of us hurry into the cockpit, where Raev is stooped over the controls. He's looking at a holographic screen, one that displays the ship's surroundings. A blinking figure is drifting across the screen, getting closer to the figure that represents our ship.

Raev turns to us. Though he's wearing softer pants like mine, he doesn't look like he's been asleep at all. I figure he's been going mad wondering what's going to happen like me, or maybe the story he told me is still haunting him. I want to say something to him, but now is clearly not the time.

I join him at the controls, pulling my sweatshirt back on.

"Nice pants," he grins.

"What is that?" I ask, pointing at the blinking object.

"I don't know. This ship's programming doesn't recognize it."

I look at the screen again and notice how big the foreign object is compared to ours. I watch as it closes the distance between us.

"Holy God," Nathan gasps.

Raev and I follow his gaze out the front of the ship.

A huge alien warship is quickly accelerating into view. It looks like it could swallow our ship. It's nowhere near as big as the Mikuris, but it's still not something you'd want to run into during battle. I can see a light on the front of the ship growing brighter. That can only mean one thing.

I lunge for the steering mechanism and switch the ship back to manual control.

"Jade—"

"They're about to fire at us! We have to get the hell out of here!"

Raev peels my hands off. "Yeah, I know, and you suck at steering, kid, so I'll handle this, 'kay?"

"Would you stop calling me kid?!"

Raev grips the lever with two hands and pulls up a command screen with the others. Before he can tap the launch icon, a huge beam erupts from the front of the alien ship. Our ship jerks and comes to a halt, sending the three of us tumbling forward. Raev pushes the thrust forward, but we stay suspended, frozen.

Before I can ask what the hell is happening, our ship starts to move, but not because of anything Raev is doing. Raev turns the lever three hundred sixty degrees, but our ship keeps moving steadily forward, straight for the alien ship.

"It's a tractor beam," Nathan observes. "They're pulling us in."

"Who is 'they', exactly?" Raev whimpers, trying to move us again.

"I guess we'll find out."

----

A huge panel on the front of the ship opens, allowing us in. Raev, Nathan, and I all stand nearly motionless in the cockpit, awaiting whatever could be reeling us in.

The panel on the ship slides shut behind us. Our ship settles down.

We're surrounded by darkness.

Suddenly two lights blink on. At first they just look small, but then several more blink of after them, lighting the length of the chamber we're in. It's not much, just a long, empty, metal chamber.

For a few moments, nothing happens, and I'm sure we're dead. Then two figures appear at the opposite end of the area. Raev and Nathan reach for the weapons concealed in their pockets. I inch between them, wishing I wasn't so defenseless.

I cringe as the hatch on the side of the ship opens with a hiss.

"Sorry if we scared you!" a cheerful voice calls.

"It's kind of hard to get a friendly message across with a giant menacing warship," the first voice's friend adds.  "Plus your communication system seemed to be out of commission, so we couldn't exactly explain ourselves."

"No shit," I mutter. I turn and look at our addressers. They're a guy and a girl who look three or four years older than me. They have tanned skin, large, curious brown eyes, and dirty blonde hair. The guy wears his hair long and in a messy pony tail, but the girl wears her hair even shorter than mine. They almost look familiar, as if they look like someone I know.

"Not to be rude or anything," I say. "But who the hell are you, and why did you just abduct us?"

"I like this one," ponytail guy says.

"Come on. Ma will tell you everything," the short-haired one says.

Of course, I don't trust these two, so I linger while Nathan and Raev go on ahead. Nathan grabs my arm and drags me along.

We hop out of the ship. Nathan and Raev are both still barefooted, but they don't seem to care. They're already grilling ponytail and military cut.

"So, who are you guys? And where did you get this kick-ass warship?" Nathan asks, his brown eyes taking in every inch of it.

"Oh, we manufactured it ourselves," ponytail replies. "The Roc Warbird. And you seriously don't remember us, Nathan?"

"Shut up, of course he doesn't," military cut snaps.

Nathan gives Raev and me a questionable look. I shrug.

We follow the blondes through the Roc in our pajamas in silence, obviously doubting our decision to go with them. I watch my distorted reflection follow me as we walk through the smooth hallways. Even distorted, I look like hell. The scars on my cheek stand out the most.

Finally, the two siblings—I've decided that's what they are—bring us to the huge cockpit of the ship. Three people—two men and a woman—man the controls.

"Ma, we've brought them," military cut says.

The only woman on the controls turns and takes us in. Her brown eyes fall on Nathan, and she jumps from her seat and bounds over to him, her blonde ponytail flying. She throws her arms around him.

Nathan tenses up, trying to say something.

The woman removes herself from Nathan but keeps her bony hands on his shoulders. The woman is small and skinny like me. Nathan almost has do look down at her.

"I'm really sorry, Miss," Nathan says, "but who are you?'

"Nathan, dear, don't you recognize me?" The blonde woman stares at Nathan, the hopeful smile fading from her aged face.

"I'm sorry, I don't..." Nathan shakes his head and shrugs.

The woman smiles again. "Nathan, surely a smart young man like you would recognize his own mother."