Free Charged - Book One by L.M. Moore Page A

“I’m the
facilitator at this station. I had the next two sections cleared,
so you didn’t have to see twenty of us at once. I understand you
find us quite shocking.”
    It seemed unaffected by my movements or the gun. I
could see Aaron shaking his head at me in my peripheral vision, but
I wasn’t lowering the gun or taking my eyes off of the thing
standing in front of me.
    Twenty more. My heart raced and my mouth became
unbearably dry and I couldn’t swallow. I could feel myself trying
to move outside of consciousness. My mind started swimming and my
vision blurred. I shook my head, blinking my eyes, forcing them to
focus.
    “Jesus,” was all that came out of my mouth.
    “You’re a little earlier than expected,” it said, as
it stared at Aaron.
    This was too much, way too much. This was a bad dream
of the worst kind.
    Aaron started breathing again and gained a little
composure.
    “You were expecting us?” Aaron said, clearing his
throat.
    “Yes, of course. We are always notified any time
there’s a flight in this direction. We’re all relieved that no one
else got to you first,” it said, now smiling a smile that looked
completely frightening and absolutely unnatural.
    I felt my heart sink to my feet and my stomach fly up
to my throat and I was trembling. What followed this polite
exchange of words was a very bad moment of awkward silence. We just
stood there, staring at its glowing yellow eyes. It had no ears, no
nose that I could recognize. His hands looked like large spiders;
there were six or seven fingers on each one and what I thought was
an extra thumb. The pause was long, like a last stand right before
both parties started to open fire.
    I took a slow, deep breathe. We were here, this thing
was talking to us and I was not going to lose it. I tried not to
think of the horrible things that could happen and just focus on
the present. Aaron almost seemed to relax as my anxiety soared. Was
this what he was expecting? I continued to stare up at it; we both
did. Its skin was a semi-translucent gray. Its teeth looked almost
metallic. It had a thumb on both sides of its hand. Then it spoke
again.
    “First, let’s talk business… only because I have to.
The box you have is a device that sets off a series of locks and
basically starts a countdown for departure.”
    The key word here was departure . I then
realized that the whole room was humming softly. I could hear what
sounded like large metal doors shifting and locking into place
beyond the room we were in.
    “How many light years away do you want to be before
you hand me the box?”
    The humming sound increased and I could now feel a
small vibration coming up through my shoes. I believed it, but I
was frozen, petrified.
    “Light years…” Aaron mumbled in amazement. There was
fascination in his face as he stared at the creature.
    “Aaron, you won’t find this amusing when twelve other
ships, much larger than this one, embedded in your glaciers and
mountains, blow twenty percent of the Earth’s crust off when we
leave. The device makes sure we all leave together,” it said.
    The pleasantries were now over. It was walking
towards us with long swift strides. It was going to take the box
and possibly my arm with it. I didn’t want to shoot it; it was
unarmed. But if it touched me, I was going too.
    Aaron quickly grabbed the box out of my hand and
tossed it at the creature, which caught it with ease. It then
turned around and left. Aaron and I just stood there. We exchanged
a glance, but said nothing. After what seemed like forever, the
vibrations stopped. Then the humming stopped altogether and we
could hear the metal doors opening beyond the garden. A loud thud
sounded with each door and grew fainter and fainter. I counted
thirteen possible doors.
    “Put the gun away,” Aaron said. I looked at him in
disbelief that he was so calm. No one could be calm in this
situation. I lowered my arm, because there was nothing to aim at
for the moment, but I