Chapter 7: Burning triangle

Aurora threw her hand up in front of her eyes, blinded by the light. Balthazar said something, but she couldn't hear him over the screaming coming from all around her. The walls pressed in on her. She couldn't see, couldn't hear, and, for one disorienting moment, she thought she'd fallen straight into hell.

Aurora shook her head and looked around. Pulsing walls surrounded her. She thought they might be in a small shuttle, and the screaming was the engines. She'd seen the spaceships through a telescope, and this looked much smaller than she expected. The glaring light came from somewhere on the ceiling. Aurora stumbled, and Balthazar held her upright. She didn't want to be here, didn't want the alien touching her. Didn't want to think what he could do to her with that strength.

Three more aliens stood facing the walls. No one turned to look at her or spoke, and the ship with its pulsing walls covered in colorful tattoos was downright eerie. Balthazar pulled her to a wall and pressed a button. A panel slid out. He pushed her firmly down onto the surprisingly warm surface. "Do not move, human Aurora." His voice scraped over her already frayed nerve ends.

Instead of taking another panel seat for himself, he went to the wall of the craft and stood facing it. At his back, there was a type of window, and it made more sense for him to face that than to stand in front of a blank wall. She couldn't see anything resembling a screen or a button on the wall in front of him. What did they all stare at? The way they didn't look at each other or talk was downright creepy.

The wall and the seat under her subtly shifted and molded to her body. She felt as if she was in a living lung. When she'd imagined what the inside of their spaceships looked like, this almost living, breathing, thing wasn't it.

She narrowed her eyes at the aliens. Not one of them even twitched. She couldn't see any buttons on the wall they faced or how they flew the small shuttle. The strange patterns on the wall reminded her of Balthazar's tattoos. He'd called himself a cyborg. Did that also mean half machine to the aliens? Could they be communicating telepathically? Or with some kind of interface, like computers.

It would give them an advantage over humans if the war they'd all been bracing for happened. Aurora tried to stand, but a kind of force field held her back. If they kept her immobilized like this when she was on their mother ship, how would she find their weaknesses? She had the strangest urge to throw off the force field, stand up, and sing the United Earth anthem.

If the president kept his promise, would Ter be freed into a world where humans were slaves to the cyborg?

The floor under her feet gradually turned into clear glass. Aurora forgot about cyborgs and telepathy. She stared like a mouse mesmerized by a snake, as the Earth receded, becoming smaller. Her feet cramped and her toes curled away from the growing drop between their ship and Earth. That whimper couldn't have come from her.

Beneath them Washington receded, the collapsed buildings and charred ground, where they'd bombed the city, flashing under them. Skyscrapers that had once stood tall now lay on the ground like fallen giants, the shuttle's shadow an eerie specter creeping over the devastation - over the demonstration of the aliens' fire power. For almost a year now, everyone had braced for a war that never came. Any missiles fired at the aliens exploded before they could reach the spaceships.

Would she ever set foot on her planet again? Aurora firmed her lips that wanted to tremble. Another glowing triangle appeared inside the craft. Aurora gripped the hard seat she sat in. She never liked heights and always considered flying a necessary evil. "What is that? Is it going to make us crash?"

No one answered her. The cyborgs didn't react, Balthazar stayed facing the wall.

The triangle brightened. She blinked. Three cyborgs walked in, loaded with luggage. She didn't know which amazed her more - that they brought her luggage or that they opened the dimensional door in mid-flight.

The president had said explosives were in her makeup. What would these cyborgs do to her if they went through her luggage and found it?

With the small craft now filled with seven aliens, it became stuffy, as if there wasn't enough air for them to breathe. The shuttle...if that was what this thing was...had walls wider at the bottom that tapered up to meet above their heads, big enough for the aliens to stand comfortably upright.

Balthazar turned and did an unmistakable, very humanlike double take at the many suitcases and one trunk the aliens brought with them. His head turned toward her with a sharp snap, and his gaze seared her. Aurora had the strong urge to deny the luggage was hers. Now, she realized why the soldiers had packed her belongings. How much explosive did they think she'd need? She clenched her hands together to stop herself from touching the hairpin he gave her. How was she supposed to catch this cross between Super Terminator and Alien 3000 unaware?

The luggage barely fit into the transport that shimmered and expanded, and any urge to laugh deserted her. She clenched her hands together until the knuckles turned white, and then she deliberately relaxed them, one finger at a time. Earth still depended on missile technology. How could they prevail against beings who had dimensional doorways?

Two years ago, the ships built to undertake missions to Mars and Jupiter had blown up while still in orbit around Earth. These cyborgs have managed to come God knows how many million miles to Earth.

All the cyborgs were dressed in the same black uniforms, but Aurora would never mistake any of the others for Balthazar. After one searing look at her, he turned so that he stood facing the wall again. Aurora shivered. Seeing the aliens standing so still, facing the wall rather than sitting at computer consoles, disturbed her. They had their backs to her, as if they disdained her as a threat.

She would've been fascinated by the walls becoming glass and periodically opaque, the tattoos moving around the walls, if she hadn't been staring up at Earth's greatest nightmare. She'd looked at the alien spaceships through the telescopes. Had known they were big. Knowing it and seeing it, were two different concepts. Seeing it stole her breath, her rational thought. The ship they approached was monstrous.

She could fill Anacostia River with the sweat coming out of her pores. Her soaked dress clung to her skin, immobilized her. They couldn't fight this...this monstrosity of advanced technology that was big enough to house thousands of Cyborgs. What kind of advanced weapons would the people who built such ships have? Why hadn't they used those weapons in the last year? What are they waiting for? She bit back hysterical giggles. More spaceships to arrive?

Exotic orange and blue symbols filled her vision. They decorated the underbelly of the massive ship. Symbols shimmered and moved, as if ants crawled all over the outer surface of the ship. She couldn't see where the ship ended. Her horizon consisted of a shimmering fluid hull. Through the telescope, they'd seen only one alien ship. Many had speculated that there could be more.

"We're lost," she whispered.

She jerked when Balthazar turned his head to stare at her. It could only have been for a few seconds, but she thought several minutes might have passed while they locked gazes. He turned back to face the wall.