Second Contact [Alien Nation #2] (#Wattys2019)

11

Jules sat on the roof of Alderley Tower, a blanket draped loosely over her shoulders and a flask of thin potato soup warming her hands. There were other radio operators on the roof, but they were far enough away that she could feel like it was just her and the stars – and the gaping black void that dominated half the sky, rimmed with unnatural blue lights.

Twenty-four hours had passed since she had seen that footage of the Resistance scouts being taken stars knew where. She knew her mother had received it, so it was out of her hands now – or was it?

Her mission had to remain a secret. But she knew that the next time Grace sent out a patrol, she could be sending them to their deaths.

Someone had died because of her determination to complete her mission before. Could she shoulder that burden again?

Did she want to?

She looked down at her radio, silent all night. The scout groups were meant to broadcast an encoded message when and if they found something the Resistance should know about, like a food supply, a friendly group, a hideout for one of the doomsday cults that had sprung up since the invasion, anything. Had they just been unlucky? Or were they gone?

She heard a footstep behind her and she froze, cup of soup halfway to her mouth. She turned around slowly to find Grace towering over her with her arms folded, wearing cargo trousers and combat boots even at this hour, which made it all the more worrying that Jules had been so lost in thought that she hadn't heard her approach.

"Grace," said Jules, putting down her soup but making no effort to stand. Grace had made it perfectly clear that she didn't want to be treated like a real leader.

At first Grace said nothing, but simply stood there and let the silence stretch between them, her eyes dark, unfathomable depths. "Where did you learn to operate a ham radio?" she said finally, her voice icy.

Jules felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, and she knew it wasn't because of the chilled breeze. Careful, she told herself. "I used to work at a call centre," she said, taking care to inject just the right amount of boredom into her voice. "And I've always been pretty good at tech stuff. It wasn't hard to figure out."

Grace shifted slightly and Jules swallowed when the machete at her hip flashed in the moonlight. "We've got people from all sorts of backgrounds up here. None of them took to this as fast as you did." Grace crouched down so they were level, their noses only inches apart. "Either you're far too clever for my liking, or there's something you're not telling me."

"It's probably the first option."

Grace's frown deepened, her mouth a hard line. "Who do you work for?"

"You. Before that, Virgin Media," she said.

"Don't you dare play stupid with me. I know you were in that supply room without permission."

Jules' stomach dropped, and judging by the satisfied smirk that played at the corner of Grace Saraki's mouth, it showed. "You can't prove that," she said. What was the point in denial?

"You're right, I can't. But what I do know is that I heard a noise in the supply room when it was supposed to be empty. And the strangest thing was that a piece of scrap metal, that we'd thought was some kind of home-made drone but that none of us had been able to power up, was suddenly warm, as if it had been turned on. Then there was the breeze I felt at the same time, as if someone had walked past me, but obviously there was nobody there as no-one sneaks around in my supply rooms without my knowing about it. So either we have a technophile ghost, who only decided to start haunting us after you showed up, or someone is not who they say they are."

Jules took a slow, steadying breath. She felt the wind whistling from the empty space behind her. Such a long fall, and a hard shove was all it would take. Nobody else on that roof would even notice. Or care. If Grace thought Jules was a danger to her little band of rebels, there was no doubt in Jules' mind where she would end up.

But she didn't have to sit there and let Grace assume the worst.

"All right," she said, "I'll tell you what I can. But you'll have to promise you'll believe me, even if you have to go away and process what I'm telling you for a bit. And it has to stay between us."

Grace raised her eyebrows. "If you're working for the government, or what's left of it, spit it out."

Jules shook her head. "I don't work for any government you would know about. I'm from the Commonwealth of Orion. They've been watching the Earth for centuries."

She expected Grace to laugh at her, or roll her eyes, or call her insane. What she did not expect was for her to eye her up carefully, as if she was really considering the possibility that Jules was some kind of space tourist. "You don't look like an alien. That some kind of skin suit?"

Jules sighed. She really didn't want to have to explain her nation's entire history on a cold and windy rooftop in the middle of the night. "No, I'm human, but there aren't many of us. We're a galactic minority. The Commonwealth is keeping a population of humans ready for when – if – Earth agrees to join, to help the others integrate. They've been trying to make first contact, but I guess you hadn't heard about it yet."

"Right. This hyper-advanced, multi-species space country didn't think to warn us about that?" she said, jabbing a finger at the ship that loomed above them.

Jules held her hands up. "Grace, I swear we didn't know until they were already here. They came out of nowhere. My government are still trying to figure out what to do. We've started trying to talk to Terran leaders but it's hard, so many of them are missing since the first strike."

Grace leaned forward until Jules could feel her breath on her cheek. "How am I to know you aren't working with them? You could have been sent to infiltrate Resistance groups."

Jules swallowed, hyper-aware of how close to the edge of the building they were. "If you hurt me," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, "if you push me off this tower or kill me in my sleep or poison my food, you'll work out pretty quickly that my people don't just hover in the sky looking threatening. There's a whole alien nation at my back. We have lost people to these aliens too. They killed everyone on Kari, one of our colony worlds. Everyone, disappeared without a trace. If we don't do something, Earth is next. They've already started. That thing in your office? Yeah, it's one of our drones, and on it I found footage of humans being abducted by these things. I'm on your side, but you have to trust me."

Grace didn't move, but Jules thought she caught a shift in her expression. Her face was normally unreadable, but now Jules thought there was something like respect in there somewhere. And fear. "My patrols. One of them went missing a few weeks ago."

Jules swallowed. "I'm sorry."

"You know the only reason I don't think you're having some kind of psychotic break is the literal spaceship above our heads, right?"

Jules nodded. "I understand why you wouldn't want to trust me. Hopefully soon, we'll be able to prove you can."

Grace stepped away and Jules relaxed slightly. "Well, you'd better get off your asses, or whatever you lot have instead. These bastards already bombed us to shit. They're not going to wait forever before they make their next move, and they're waiting for something, I'd put money on it. I'll trust you for now, but don't think you're not dead the second I suspect I can't. Commonwealth of Orion be damned."

She turned on her heel and stalked off, leaving Jules alone with her thoughts.