Critical Path

Great, that’s all she needed—another instigator. “Where’s Denver?” she asked, trying to absolve the guilt of forgetting about him earlier.

“Fuck knows,” Gregor said. “But our friend here decided to start talking. We’ve got plans to make.”

* * *

A long, slow hour passed. Maria stood with her back against a tree, not wanting to be within the group right now, with Gregor staring at her at every possible opportunity. His leering grin made her skin crawl now that Layla had explained the truth about Gregor and he’d failed to convince her with regards to his position as an elder.

The farther she could be away from him, the better. Even more so when he was crowing about his achievements with the alien and the possible demise of Denver. The radio silenced bothered her greatly.

Even if Denver had gone off on his own, he wouldn’t stay in complete silence like this just for the sake of it. At the very least he would keep in touch with Layla. She’d tried the radio every few minutes since Gregor got back and received no answer.

“I’m telling you,” Gregor said, pointing a finger at Layla, “if we act now and stick to the plan, we’ll be able to take out key positions of the settlement. Meglain here would be perfect bait for this. They have a community now. These aliens aren’t just mindless resources, they have a free will and a desire for survival—we can use that to our advantage.”

Khan remained passive throughout Gregor’s frenzied plan-making and grand ideas of overwhelming a settlement. It was as if he was trying to convince himself it was doable, perhaps remembering his old days when he used to have power and influence.

But at this precise moment, Maria saw a sad old man trying to relive his youth at the expense of everyone else. Maybe Khan had a point about humanity? Being so new to the world outside of the harvester, Maria didn’t have the history like Layla to disprove his hypothesis.

It put her in a strange situation as she looked upon the others from both a metaphorical and literal outside position. Who were these people, really? Who were humans, and what did they stand for? She couldn’t imagine they were all like Gregor, or even all like Layla, for that matter.

From Mike to Denver to Charlie and Layla, everyone she had come across so far were so driven, so sure of themselves—until Khan. She questioned her role in all this. Was she really a part of this group? At times she felt she had more in common with the croatoans than the humans, despite her actual biological race.

Gregor stood up and kicked dirt onto the fire. “Right, everyone, get your gear ready, and check your weapons. We move out in five.”

Was that a smile she saw on Meglain’s face? It was hard to tell, but Maria was sure she saw the alien’s expression changed for a moment. It looked away into the woods before slowly raising its head to stare above.

Maria traced his gaze up.

She saw them before she heard them. And she heard them too late.

A group of five hover-bikes flew overhead. Gregor, Layla and Khan jumped up, but it was too late to do anything. The bikes descended like stones, moving agilely under the controls of a mixed group of human and croatoans. Within seconds, they were surrounded. Gregor struggled to reach his rifle propped up by a tree.

Two croatoans wearing rags and denims fired over his head with their triangular pistols. The rounds splintered the trunk, making Gregor freeze on the spot. He raised his hands and turned around with a sneer on his face.

“No one move,” a female human said. She held a long spearlike weapon. A metal prong on the end crackled with electricity. Eight others, mixed species, circled them, aiming their weapons. Two young men untied Meglain and checked him over. They said something to each other using words Maria didn’t understand.

“In the middle,” a croatoan behind her said, pressing a rifle barrel against her back.

Gregor and the others were encouraged into the middle of the circle until they were standing back to back.

“Well?” Gregor said to the woman with the crackling spear. “What now, eh? Gonna butcher us like you did the others?”

“No,” she said. “We’re taking you to speak with Aimee. You’ve kidnapped one of our kind. You’ve some explaining to do. Take them away,” she said.

“Wait,” Maria cried out. “We can explain. Let’s talk about this.”

The barrel pushed harder into her spine. The woman, a blonde with piercing green eyes and wearing a patched-up set of army fatigues, stepped to her. “You should have thought about that before you sent a spy. Say another word and you all die right here, right now.”

Maria pressed her lips together and tried to stop herself from shaking with fear.

“Tie ’em up and take ’em,” the blonde said. “Shoot ’em if they speak again.”

With that, the group reversed the roles on them. Maria and the others became the captured and shackled as they were led onto the hover-bikes, their legs cuffed to steel rods on the sides of the bikes and their hands tied down to small handlebars, pinning them in place.