Chapter Text
The lawn chair creaked under his weight when Alex fell into it. His bag felt like it was burning a hole in his side so he tossed it across from him and refused to look at the lightly glowing console piece he could see spilled out.
Alex had known something was wrong but no one wanted to answer their damn phone so he was forced to go find them.
And find them he did.
Alex sighed and laid his head in his hands and refused to cry, not here at Michael's stupid fucking Airstream with its sticky latch and too small bed.
He hadn't even seen them, the Pony was closed but he figured someone would be there to answer his questions, and someone was. Two someones.
He'd heard the song first floating through the window Maria always cracked when she was puttering around the kitchen. He had pulled the key out of the loose brick of the alleyway and walked inside. He wanted to be spitting mad, to march in with all his righteous fury, but the only thing he could bring himself to do was peak in and watch Michael pluck at the guitar in the melody they had played a decade before on the trundle bed in his back shed.
That more than anything felt like betrayal. Not that he had come to Maria before Alex, not that they were seated in the quiet isolation of the closed bar, not even the soft looks on both their faces, but that Michael thought to share that song with anyone but him.
The bar's back door closed quietly and the walk to his car was interrupted when he started crying and couldn't bring himself to stop.
Too much, was all he could think, just too much too soon.
He didn't remember much of the drive back, only that he ended up not at his cabin but Guerin's stupid fucking trailer with that stupid fucking alien shard of glass flickering lightly in the cab of his car.
He had wanted to give it back after their talk. Look how that turned out. So here he was, alone and with no one to blame but himself and maybe his fucking dad.
The glass fluttered like a heartbeat, the colors fading in and out as symbols drifted by on an invisible wind.
He stood abruptly, he wanted the damn thing gone and he wanted to be the one to put the piece back where it came from. It would piss off Michael that he didn't get to do it but that was part of the appeal.
He pulled a chain from the garage and hooked it to the tailgate of his Jeep and moved the Airstream out of the way. He yanked the glass from his bag and made his way down the ladder taking each ring carefully so as to keep his feet under him.
The bunker hadn't changed much, only a few things moved around, but the control module was still covered by a tarp in the corner. He pulled it off and watched the glass shimmer and shine.
He let the other pieces fall into place and slowly knit together before finally setting his peice into the hole left behind. Little strands of light tied them together, the symbols leaking from one piece to the next and Alex could appreciate the beauty in the design.
The spite that had been filling his stomach faded and he was left with only a quiet loneliness he was intimately familiar with.
His leg was getting a little tight and he knew his PT was going to be hell next week but moved to leave with his head held high. He had just reached the ladder when he heard a quiet humming. It sounded like the quiet beating of drums but from far away, a distant whine of something charging. He looked back at the module and then moved to lean over it, pressing an ear to the glass.
It was buzzing quietly, gaining speed. It sent a stone crashing into his stomach and he raced for the ladder, his prosthetic feeling inflamed where it rubbed at flesh. The last time he'd heard a noise like that he had watched an EMP take out an entire bank of servers and start a fire that took days to put out.
He had reached the first rung when the machine sent out a pulse of energy that screamed as it expanded and threw him forward like a shockwave.
Alex fell to the floor, vision blurring and head throbbing. His breathing was labored and it took all of his energy to turn on his side so when he vomited he wouldn't choke. God his fucking leg ached.
It was like he was floating in limbo, a warmth pressed to his cheek then a flash of pain in his sternum that felt as if someone had pressed their hand into his chest.
He slept.
And slept.
Alex startled awake when the crack of metal settling rang out. His body felt as if he was one entire bruise but nothing felt broken and his stomach wasn't flipping. He checked his head, hands, and teeth, cataloging each pain with a methodical precision as he went down the list. Once he finished he took the time to glance up.
The room was dim with the walls lined with gold filigree that shined in the low light. He saw what might have been a door, outlined in the same glass as the console. It pulsed happily while Alex felt his heart pounding painfully against his ribs, as if it might burst out of his chest. He had instinctively backed away from the unknown and ended pressed against the far wall; his fingers were pressed against smooth glass and were chilling the longer his body remained taut in panic.
He turned and felt his stomach fall.
The glass was an observation window and for as far as the eye could see was nothing but stars, not a planet in sight.
He was on a fucking spaceship.
Alex wanted to be strategic, to demand a type of parley to gather information and maybe gain some information he could use to defend himself. He wanted to tear off the new prosthetic he found connected to his leg but it connected to his skin with pearly white strands that moved with him for painless integration that only managed to piss him off more.
He always worked best when he was in a little pain and now he was denied that.
But the reality of the situation was that he was really and truly alone. The thought was more terrifying than anything his father could throw at him.
Alex pounded on the door, aware that if he was the one abducting a stranger that he would have them monitored.
He was right, because only minutes after he quieted down, the glass peeled away and a man walked in. He wore a wrapped dress with fabric tightened at his ankles by bright glass bangles. His shoulders and waist were capped with the same material and it made him shimmer in the low light. He wore a circlet in his hair pinned in place behind his curls. But Alex couldn't focus on anything, not the pointed spear he carried or the flanking guards, or even the open door that could have been his escape.
No, Alex was to focused on the man's face.
"Michael?"
The man raised an eyebrow and pressed a small disk to his throat.
"This is your language, yes?" He sounded stiff but also exactly like Michael. Alex felt off balance and could only bring himself to nod. The man smiled politely. "I am Rath. What may I call you?"
"Alex."
He needed to sit down but it felt as if his body was locked.
"How did you send the beacon?"
Alex takes a deep breath and breaks down his question word by word. Beacon, not just a console then. Send? He didn't mean to send anything.
"It was shattered in the crash, I only put the last piece in. Was it a distress call?" Alex asked. It made the most sense, why he was in-- shit he was in space. His life was becoming a Star Trek episode. "So are you--"
Alex groaned and rubbed his face in resignation. This was his life now.
"Aliens? Yes, we are." Rath smiled and it was less cordial and more friendly. "While you might not believe it, we are not in the practice of abducting your people no matter what your movies say."
"Shit, tell me you haven't seen Independence Day," Alex half-jokes in panic but from the rueful twist to Michael-Rath's face, it might not have been that far off. "Why did you take me?"
Rath became more solemn.
"It seems like you might be in need of a history lesson." Rath waved to the guards and they parted, Alex moving between them and out into the curved hallway. As they walked, Rath talked. "The crash you stumbled upon was the remains of a refugee shuttle. During the Battle of White Horn they were lost and our radar couldn't find their beacon location."
"Wait, White Horn? Why didn't the beacon transmit?" Alex had many more questions but he feared which side he had landed on and which of his questions might give away how much he knew. Alex was an Air Force man whether he liked it or not, and he knew when to interrogate and when to play dumb.
"White Horn, this galaxy. What do you call it?" Rath seemed honestly interested, moving in front of Alex to wave his hand in front of a large dent in the hallway wall. As it had in his cell, the glass peeled back. Doors only opened with alien powers, good to know.
"The Milky Way." Alex answered, scanning what had to be a sort of relay station. There were screens embedded in glass that showed schematics and what looked to be streams of dialogue between this ship and others. "The beacon was shattered on impact so it just stopped working then?"
"Much of our technology is based on our gifts, without anyone to repair it, it would become nothing but--" He went quiet as if thinking of the correct word. "--trash."
"So if you are in the middle of a war that makes refugees, why stop to pick me up?" Alex questioned and Rath smiled slyly, as if he had asked a particularly clever question.
A woman, at least he thought it might have been a woman, looked their way and spoke in perfect if accented English without the translator Rath was using.
"We are not fighting a civil war, we lost a civil war." She huffed and pushed her seat away from the small overhang which looked like a very smooth desk. She had short bobbed hair and had many pins in her outfit, an officer perhaps. Once she reached them, she tilted her head to the side and did a weird curtsey Alex thought might be their version of a salute. "I am Admiral Roe and you have met Commander Rath. We came for you because that ship was carrying the three Reborns."
"Our leaders," Rath explained with a pained expression and Alex could almost feel the pieces falling into place.
Only three pods were hidden during the crash. Only three when the data he'd found from the prison said there could have been hundreds of aliens on that ship. So many lives yet they chose to save those three.
"King Zan was hoping to retreat and build a resistance on Earth but we suspect his ship was sabotaged and it crashed. By the time the resistance could send help, there was no trace of the ship or our leaders."
"So imagine our surprise when the King's beacon lights up our sensors and we find you collapsed next to the thing like a kreva." Admiral Roe said then elaborated. "Like an idiot."
"You had drawings in your--" Rath didn't seem to know what to call it and none of his words seemed to translate. "Buried deep room?"
"Bunker?" Alex tried and Rath smiled and rodded, reaching out to brush his hand down Alex's arm.
"Do you know anything about the crash victims?"
Wasn't that a loaded question. Admiral Roe was watching him with eyes as sharp as glass, waiting for him to slip up. She had something tucked into her hip that looked suspiciously like a blade.
He could tell them about Max and Isobel and Michael but he also had no way to prove their story, because that could be all this is, an elaborate setup.
A few years into his deployment, Alex's CO had needed to knock some sense into one of the translators they were using. He'd watched as he spun a beautiful story about how wonderful America was and how if he just helped Alex's team to get the information he needed that all of the bounties of the country would be his for him and his family. The translator had nodded along and smiled when his CO had and then once the op had finished, he left him and his family in the desert surrounded on all sides by the people he had helped to take down.
Alex knew the power of a pretty story, he knew because his father told a lot of them and when his father decided the threat of violence wasn't enough, Alex got pretty good at spinning a story too.
Lies only really work when all the pieces are almost truths. Take note of what they know and what they don't. They didn't know who he was, or more importantly, who his father is. They don't know about the pod squad or Noah--
Noah.
"I met one, I think." The two perked up. "He went by the name Noah but he was crazy. He could mess with people's minds and started killing people because he said it made him stronger."
At least that's what Liz had told Kyle who told him. Use the story to get then to tell you more. Alex wanted to be mad that the voice whispering in his head sounded so much like his father but it was sound advice even from an asshole.
"A rare gift indeed. We can drain life energies in times of dire need but that is in direct violation of the Conchords. Where is this man, he must face justice." Rath seemed to stand taller, his staff glowed a little brighter from where it was strapped to his back.
Alex wasn't sure how to play this. On one hand he could maybe convince them to turn around and take him home, on the other, they might take his lying for high treason and kill him and that was all relying on the hope they didn't have someone like Isobel on board.
"He is dead," Alex settled on. "I don't know how though."
Roe turned to her commander and whispered in what must have been their language. It was guttural and harsh but still had familiar sounds, which confused Alex more. When Rath responded it was a gut punch.
That would have been what Michael sounded like, what he still might sound like if he used this technology to return to his planet with his people. And he wanted to ask, why did Rath have his face, but that would be the easiest give away that he knew more than he was letting on.
Rath had pulled something from his ear when he had started talking with Roe. It was curved and clear with a small bundle of metal at the center. There also happened to be identical ones on the relay station to his right.
No one else was in the room, maybe cleared for his impromptu interrogation, so he had an easy time leaning back on the desk and rubbing his leg when Roe looked at him distrustfully.
Alex put weight on his shoulders and looked out the nearest window with fear that was not as fake as he was wanting it to be. It also was a convenient position that faced his left side away from the two aliens and allowed him to stick the translator into his ear. Unlike the doors, it started without any powers, for which Alex was thankful.
It felt like a trickle of water into his brain, like when Michael would gently brush his hair from his eyes. A warmth and then the words started to make sense in his mind like he had known them the entire time.
"--you see is a pretty face! He said one lived and if one survived so could others!" Roe was spitting mad but Alex could tell that even without the translation tech. "We have to go back and look harder!"
"If one was driven crazy by the time left in those pods who's to say our leaders won't be as tyrannical as Kivar?" Rath challenged and looked Alex's way. He made sure to keep his eyes on the distant points of light millions of light years away.
"What about Mara?" Roe had barely gotten the words out when Rath had the point of his spear under her chin. Alex moved instinctively, tucking himself back in the corner. Rath didn't notice and Roe couldn't turn her head.
"Don't say her name."
"Your mother could be waiting for you and yet you sit here stewing in your own indecision." Roe went for the throat alright.
Mara was on Earth, Michael's mother who had died and now he was looking at what had to be her other son. Fuck, he had failed all of them.
Slipping the earpiece into the pocket of the borrowed pants, he turned to talk to the two who were, literally, at each other's throats.
"I'm not going back to Earth, am I?" Alex aimed for desponded and nailed it. Rath's face folded while Roe's hardened.
"Right now you are the only source of information on the crash. We can't let you go for fear you might tell someone and it might get our people killed."
Rath was absolutely correct in that assessment but he didn't know Alex had already gotten his people killed. Alex didn't even have to fake the feeling of loss he felt.
"I'm not the only one who knew about aliens. There was this guy, he knew about everything, even the glass." As his mother used to say, in for a penny, in for a pound. "Looking back, he could have known more. Maybe he was one of you?"
God, the hope on their faces was almost too much. Alex had almost entirely thrown out the idea of them being sent to kill Michael and the Evens from their inability to lie alone.
But he needed back-up and to get off this ship. He didn't want it to come to a fight but if it did, he wanted his side to be prepared. So he needed his phone, a computer, and his own fucking pants.