Asleep (Completed)

Chapter Two

I yawned and stretched out my arms when I woke up. I had such a horrible nightmare. I remember losing Luke and crying my eyes out.
"Pilot? Wake up! It's time for role call!"
I groaned. I suddenly remembered that I was the pilot of a starship. I didn't have time to worry about my dreams right now, I had to get back to work.
I sat up on my bed and looked down at my pajamas. They were camouflage green. I took them off and looked for clothes in my closet. Rooms were pretty small on starships so my closet was too. I found some nice clothes to wear, a red shirt and blue jeans, and then brushed my hair out.
When I looked in the mirror I smiled. I was ginger with hazel eyes and I was actually decently tall. I also had pretty nice figure.
I put on my work hat and headed out. I walked to the small room with many controls and then looked out the wide glass screen at space. Stars twinkled and nearby planets reflected many bright colors. It was a magnificent sight and very beautiful but now I'm remembering all the other times I saw this type of view.
"Hey there Becky!" A strangely familiar voice spoke. I turned around to see Burt.
I almost lost it, how could he be alive.
"Burt?!"
He chuckled and nodded. "Yep, that's me."
I couldn't believe it, Burt was in my dream.
"Right, sorry I just forgot for a minute. Anyways, we're going to arrive on the surface of 640stn soon aren't we? Are you excited?"
Burt raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly.
"Well of course I am, we'll finally get to see this alien species. I heard they're a bit feisty but that's okay," he explained and I smiled.
He didn't seem to be bothered by a dream, it was only me I guess.
I nodded and pressed a few buttons on the control panel. The starship moved depending on what buttons I pressed, and surprisingly I knew what all the buttons meant. I guess that dream just seemed so realistic and now I'm questioning reality.
Burt then walked to the. On growl panel and started doing some engineering type things.
"So, Burt, you're a mechanic. What type?"
He looked up and have me a silly smile.
"Biomedical and spacecraft."
That was literally what he was in my dream, a biomedical engineer.
I nodded and sat down on an empty spot of the control panel and stared at him. He still looked quite the same, messed up and slightly curly dark hair. He also had some stubble and he was very handsome. His smile though, it lit up the room for sure. He was also quite muscular and tall. It as as if my mind had pictured the perfect man, but he was too perfect.
"Cool, I know some stuff about biomedical things. I just...know," I mumbled shyly and looked away. Would he really understand what I meant?
I still remember the dream very well and I remember all about computer codes and bionic limbs. It's weird actually, the dream gave me so much knowledge. Too bad I can't have more to learn from. Then again, it was a nightmare. My boyfriend died in it. Speaking of which, I don't recall if I'm single or not right now.
"Well, I bet you do," he chuckled loudly and, when he finished he contraption, left.
I looked back out at space and giggled a bit. I still had a crush on him either way.
I went back to work steering the ship and putting in programs. After a while, I heard a bell and remembered that it meant that it was lunch.
I walked to the lunchroom and everyone whizzed around. Surprisingly there were a lot of people, mostly tourists or vacationers. Starships are fairly common now and are very good for studying things up close so I'm not surprised. I saw Burt wave his hand and I waved back but when I got lunch I was invited to a different table.
"Pilot! What's your name again?"
I remember him, his name is Tim and he's the captain. He's a horrible boss with useless memory.
"Rebecca, sir."
He nodded and then I sat down. Most of the very important staff was there. The hotel manager, the sanitation expert, the navigator, and the food consultant. So many weird jobs, one great group.
"Seems like everyone is here!"
Then, suddenly, I remembered that someone was missing.
"What about the exhibition planner? Where's she?"
Everyone looked over and stared at me as if that girl never existed. After a minute a very shy looking girl sat down next to me. She had platinum blonde hair and the kindest silver eyes. She had such a lovely face and presence.
"Jo, right?"
The girl almost spit out her food in fright.
"What?" She whispered and I raised an eyebrow. The whole table was already ignoring us and talking about important things.
"Your name is Jo, am I right?"
The girl nodded and gave a concerned look. I just smiled and then cleared my throat. I really wanted to go on the planet and walk Round. Maybe Jo would take me on the expedition!
"Do they always ignore you and treat you like shit?" I asked and then chuckled a bit.
"Last year the group pranked me by throwing eggs at me..."
I frowned and sighed. "That's horrible."
"You were one of them!"
I suddenly remembered, and felt bad about it. I remembered how all of the staff was laughing as we littered her body with egg shells and yolks. She was crying and on the floor at the end. Some people even kicked her before leaving. How could I have done that? I would never!
"I totally forgot about that! I'm so sorry!"
I hugged her tightly and she just sat there.
Eventually I let go and she suggested going to a different table to chat. I agreed and we went to a table far away from everyone.
"Why a you treating me so nicely? I've gotten the apology thing a lot but...you're actually acting nice to me."
I thought about it for a while and then nudged her.
"We are a lot alike. Confused on why we are tortured. There's a lot wrong with my life I think. I'm also pretty lonely."
After a while she nodded and even smiled.
We talked about the exhibition she was doing on the new planet. I asked her what the Planet's official name will end up being. She explained that if there was intelligent life on it then it'll be called what the aliens call it but if not it'll be named after a character from some plays (that's how the other planets in this galaxy were named). She then proceeded to tell me about how she's worried. Apparently, the life on this planet is far from intelligent and she predicts that the aliens are savages. She thinks the aliens will kill us all but nobody will listen. This made me worry since I trusted her. She was a very good cosmologist and her ideas on aliens were very accurate from what I've seen. She hasn't been in space that much, she's apparently fresh from college by about a year. I've been out in space for a few years so whatever she wants to know I knew.
After lunch we dumped our trays, trash in one can and leftovers in the other can.
"Hey, maybe later I'll catch up to you. When we land I'll be sure to find you and we take the first steps together."
Jo nodded happily and walked away, probably back to her post.
I was about to walk back to my post at the control room but then Burt stopped me.
"Why were you talking to that girl? She's so lame, she literally reads science books for fun. I heard that she's a virgin."
I raised an eyebrow and gasped angrily.
"I read science books in my free time and I'm a virgin! At least I'm not a man slut like you!"
I pushed him away with great strength and he stumbled back.
I stormed away and when I got to the control room was the moment the starship went through the planet's atmosphere. I came in just in time to adjust the stabilizers so the ride was much smoother.
The hotel manager, a very nice but probably pretty old woman, walked in and handed me a piece of paper.
"Not to alarm you but there has been some people missing and we didn't want to frighten anyone. Now someone has been found; dead. The body was mutilated. I think we should leave while we have the chance."
I looked at the note and it was all true. There was even a picture which I cringed from.
"We're in the planet's orbit. We will have technical problems if we go off course. Let's just get this tour over with, okay?"
The hotel manager nodded slowly and walked off. The lady looked so scared from the formidable situation, I was too honestly.
After an hour or so we got close to landing and most of the electronics were shut off. The starship was still on course completely but communication to other humans were completely cut off. We were by ourselves and people were already dying. I ran to get on my space suit, the surface probably wasn't good enough for humans yet.
Before I could even get to the changing room, Jo stopped me and hugged me.
"It's horrible! I knew I was right! People are dying because these aliens are already on the ship!"
I raised an eyebrow and shook my head, hugging her back.
"They can't be, they'd have to fly for that."
Then she let go of the hug and gulped. She put a crumpled piece of paper into my hand and I opened it, reading the contents.
"Reptilians. These things are usually taller than humans and are very adapted to most any environment. They can live in moist, dry, humid, cold, and barren places. They require very little. Some species are known to actually grow wings or have really good jumping abilities. Either way, they're on the the ship and we are defenseless. We have some weapons but no one is willing to get me any weapons..." Her voice was so soft and she spoke very quickly.
I nodded and took in some deep breaths. This was a lot worse than my dream.
I gripped Jo's hand and I dragged her to the lower deck where they store weapons and protection. I demanded entrance and they allowed me to go in with Jo.
"What kills them?"
Jo thought for a while and then sighed.
"Honestly, not much that I know of. Regular guns don't work but I know fire works. Flares would scare them off and torching them would leave them dead," she spoke quickly and in a panicked way. She didn't deserve this, she was so innocent and had already been put through a lot.
"How many do you think there are on the ship?" I asked and put my hands in my pant pockets. I was pretty calm about this all and I was also very slow paced. I didn't want to rush into anything.
"It depends on how smart they are. They are pretty solitary creatures but if they're smart they'll go in pears. They usually never go in more than pears."
I was happy about this news. I walked up to the different weapons and handed a flare to Jo.
"How good are you with weapons?"
Jo looked away and sighed, shaking her head to signal that she had no idea. I sighed but I wouldn't want her to give up hope.
"It's okay, you'll learn by the time we're done here. In the mean time, recruit some important people and make sure to include Burt. I need to slap him."
She giggled a bit and nodded, walking away. I frowned heavily and felt a huge rock in my stomach as I saw some of inflicted cuts on her arm while her sleeve was rolled up. I didn't really understand it until now but I get it. She's so shy because everyone teases her for some reason. She probably feels really depressed and I can't help but feel guilty for that. I did throw eggs at her after all.
I collected everything that would work. I stuffed flares into a bag, collected some stick torches in a bigger bag, and I saved the three flame throwers that were in stock for extreme times. By that time, Jo had brought our crew.
The group consisted of Jo, Burt, the hotel manager, the navigator, the zoologist, and I. The hotel manager was the older lady from before but now she had a large ring of keys attached to her pants. The navigator was a young man about as old as Jo. His name started with an S but I can't remember. He looked like Jo too, actually. The zoologist was one of my friends that I talked to occasionally. His name was Ross and he was basically the opposite of Burt. He was a bit on the shorter side, gay, dirty blonde hair, smooth face, thin and frail, and he was very adorable. He was a great friend to have around, he was easy to relate to and boy gossip was very fun. I admit, our pack wasn't very good or anything but it would do.
I tossed everyone a few flares and a couple of torches. Jo, Burt, and I handled the flame throwers though. I don't resale trust the others which such dangerous weapons. Eventually, a loud beep was heard and then quiet alarms were heard.
Burt and I looked at each other with worry, we knew what that meant.
"What was that?" Asked the hotel manager. She seemed very frightened like the rest of us.
Burt cleared his throat and I sighed.
"That's the alarm for the air purification. The aliens cut off our air. I'd say, with everyone on board, we have about an hour."
"58 minutes to be exact. I did the math during liftoff."
I sighed greatly and nudged Burt.
Everyone started freaking out.
"Stop it everyone, you're wasting precious oxygen!" I barked and everyone grew quiet.
I smiled a bit at the silence and counted us out. There were six of us so we could slit up.
"Jo, Ross, and I will go to the upper decks to see if there's any way to get us out of the planets orbit at this point and the rest of you should go to the lower decks to see if you can turn the air purification back on."
Everyone seemed okay with my plan and we all headed out.
Ross and Jo followed behind me closely and were very cautious about the whole thing. We were very sneaky but not as sneaky as we could've been. Everyone whizzed by us, running for their lives, but we didn't see any aliens for a while.
Then, I heard a noise in the air ducts and told everyone to stay still and stay quiet. We all watched the air duct carefully as I exploded open.
A very tall, at least eight foot tall, lizard man jumped down and clicked its tongue a few times. It was a dark brown color which made it pretty hard to see but it was very easy to spot when it moved. It had a very long torso but it's arms and legs were a bit short. It wouldn't move fast, noted. I hissed a bit after clicking, a few gills were exposed while it did so, and then it walked away.
"Oh my god, did that really just happen?" I thought it was Jo that said that but it was Ross.
Jo looked mortified and she was shivering. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised. She's just a cosmologist. Ross should be the one comforting us, he knows all about animals.
"Ross, tell me you know what that is."
He thought for a while and then nodded.
"Sort of. I didn't learn much about them but I saw them once. These are standard humanoid reptilians. They adapt to any environment, including an oxygenless one."
He went on to explain how they have lungs that can store oxygen and obtain oxygen in many ways.
This was practically hopeless at this point, I was just fighting for Jo.
She doesn't deserve this after all she's been through.
I admit, I was too chill about this. While everything around us was placid we made our way up the stairs slowly. That's when it all changed.
I was in front and Ross was in the back with Jo in between. I was stupid to have that be our order since Jo and I had the flamethrowers. We got all the way up the stairs and to the more advanced control room. I checked everything out, making sure everything was in place and then seeing if there was room for improvement and making us leave this planet. I got pretty close to a breakthrough before there was a loud thud from behind us. I totally forgot to look out for the air vents and one of the reptilians stood in the doorway, blocking our way out. It looked at all of us and clicked its tongue on the roof of it's mouth a few times.
"Stay still..." Ross whispered and then it hissed and darted its head in the direction of him.
"English? Humans? How ironic." It said. It had a raspy and booming voice that shook my honest to the core. Honestly, I couldn't stand the alien knowing us.
Before I could throw a flare at it, Jo spoke up.
"What are you doing here? You are killing innocent people and trying to kill all of us, in fact. Why won't you leave us alone?"
It turned its head towards Jo and seemed to sniff her from a distance.
"You apes are not innocent. You have come to destroy us or turn us into lab specimens. I can't allow that."
Ross looked away, it was his job to study and also capture one of them.
The lizard man noticed Ross' expression and launched his tongue at the man. Ross shrieked in pain and fell to the ground, the lizard scurrying away.
"Go get him!" I shouted and Jo ran off as quick as a rabbit.
I ran to Ross and knelt down next to him. This was like my nightmare except I didn't love Ross or anything. He was a really great guy though and I felt so bad about him being the one to die first. I tried finding his pulse many times but nothing was there, no sign of life at all. I could still feel his warmth and the thought of it made me tear up. I couldn't stand it, I had to get revenge.
I sniffled and wiped the tears away from my face. I stood up and stomped out. I had a torch ready and my flamethrower oil was ready too. I found Jo after a few minutes. She was laying on the ground with a singe mark on her hand. It looked an awful lot like the one on Ross' neck from the tongue attack.
"Jo! Stay with me, girlie!"
Girlie? You just gave a girl a cute nickname, Becky, what the actual heck.
She groaned and looked up.
"I killed it and threw it off the ship but it got my hand. It hurts a lot but I think I'll be fine."
The young blonde tried standing but I chuckled and held her down.
"You're not going anywhere. Just rest here. Here's an extra flare to protect yourself. I'll go back to the control room to get the starship on a different route."
Jo took the flare and then passed out from exhaustion. I wasn't too sure she was going to make it but I had confidence in her.
I ran back to the room and by that time Ross' body was gone and most of the controls were torn up. It was a riot in there, wires sparked and made it very dangerous. I gulped and prepared my flamethrower.
"There's another one... Shit!" I whispered and studied the router first.
It was stuck on the same route and it was so badly damaged that there was not much I could do. I could try and reconnect the wires even though it probably wouldn't work at all.
I started going to work, connecting the red wires first since they were the most abundant. Then I did the yellow wires and finally the green ones and anything left over. It didn't fix much since everything was so badly damage. The lizard men must have retractable claws or something.
I stood up and tried laying around with some buttons. A few worked, the accelerator and brakes worked. I slammed on the brakes as hard as I could, at least we wouldn't get too close to the planet to crash or anything. Everything shook and swayed uneasily before actually coming to a hurt. Now everything was still where I was. The ship wasn't making engine noises or anything like that at all. It was completely still and very calm looking.
Then, I finally took a moment of silence for Ross. Being vicarious to the attack made me upset, I don't understand what the point of killing him was. Might as well let him suffocate. In fact, if I was an intelligent alien, I would just cut the power and air and then leave. I guess they only did that to make sure everyone would die if they missed someone. But why not kill me right off the bat? Why not Jo? I couldn't piece it together. Maybe it was just torture. That's also what I didn't understand. They were torturing us for almost torturing them. Seems kind of illogical to me but I'm not an alien. I don't understand what it must feel like for them.
I finished the moment of silence and found my way to Jo once more. She was still alive but still passed out. Then, I got a call from Burt. We still had phones that worked in the proximity of the starship.
"Jo are you okay? I hear that you managed to stop the ship from moving any further which is good."
"Ross is dead and Jo is injured and unconscious. They attack with their tongues and claws in cases you haven't noticed," I replied a bit sadly and angrily. I honestly couldn't understand anything at this point.
"Yeah the hotel manager is dead. She was mutilated by claws I'm assuming. We left her to watch the entrance to the air purification systems and she was completely mauled."
I sighed deeply and groaned. That probably means they didn't get much progress done.
"How's the air purification thing going?"
I heard a sigh of joy.
"I got it ready but I need you to come down here. The machine won't accept my low level of authority."
That was something I really didn't want to hear.
"Alright, just stay put and guard the system. When I come down there I expect that I'll just slip my card in and we'll be saved, okay?"
"Alright sure but hurry up, less than 30 minutes left!" He whispered and hung up.
I looked down at Jo and thought for a while. I couldn't just leave her like that. I didn't have to.
She quickly woke up and gasped for breath.
"Holy shit! My hand!" She shouted angrily and raised her hand in pain. I tried to calm her down but it wasn't much use.
She flailed around and cried a bit. I would too if I almost died and I still had a chance of dying.
"It's okay Jo I'm here. I'm not letting you die, not after what everyone put you through..." I muttered into her ear to calm her and she immediately froze. She covered her arms with her sleeves.
"I saw your cuts, now please come with me to the bottom level. We have come so far, we can't stop now."
She growled a bit but nodded in surrender, standing up slowly. She readied her weapons and so did I. We had two levels to pass by until we got to the bottom floor. We had to find our way out of this one and the main floor, then make it downstairs. Honestly, I don't think we'll make it but I can't give up. I'll die trying.
We start jogging around the level, each of us facing a different way and watching different areas. We had a plan this time, a good one. Every now and then we encountered the disgusting human gecko thing but we could scare it away with flares. It was supposedly the only one left on the ship so it shouldn't have been much of a problem.
We made it all the way to the main floor and got to the intersection of hotel and tourism.
"Can we rest here for a minute? I'm getting light headed..."
I wanted to reply with no but I couldn't, I needed a break as much as she did. I rested and held a lit torch in my hand to ward off the creature. Jo wasn't watching her area though and the lizard jumped her, grabbing her legs with its small hands. It pulled on her and she fell over onto her back immediately.
"This is over, you humans are practically dead either way. Good bye!" The creature roared loudly.
I screamed and tried chasing after Jo but I couldn't torch the creature without torching her. I followed her until the creature dragged her into the safety lock room and dead locked the door. It was the room where people walked out into space but they had no suits on or anything. They would both probably die, they would run out of oxygen quickly. The creature smirked and crushed the seal code pad for the outside door. In about five seconds the door would open and they would be sucked out into space.
I screamed loudly but she couldn't hear me.
"I'm so sorry!" I screamed and she could lip read. She smiled and nodded.
The door opened and the vacuum of space sucked her out. I could see her floating away for another five seconds before the door closed. She had a smile on her face and her skin lost its natural color. She looked strange and sort of sucked up. I continued screaming loudly and banging on the door. She didn't deserve that at all. She was such a good girl. I have to admit, I'm sure I'm straight but she was such an amazing woman. She amazed me and she was so brave and strong.
I cried at the door for at least five minutes. This was worse than Luke's death for sure. I would remember this all my life and I would hate it. It would haunt me. Not only did I egg her a year ago but I got her killed by a reptile.
When I couldn't cry anymore I started walking majestically down the hall to the staircase. No one was around anymore, no one very alive. A lot of people were dead or passed out. I walked to the stairs and skipped down, I could see Burt and the other guy.
Burt ran up to me and hugged me but I pushed him away and blocked him out. I was so delusional at the moment, I was about to suffocate but I kept strong. I strutted to the card scanner and pulled out my ID. I scanned my ID on the device and a small light turned green on the control panel. Before I could feel the air fill my lungs I fell over and landed in someone's arms. My eyes rolled back and I seemed to be passing out.
And then I woke up.