“We’re picking up a lot of alien activity in your sector? Do you have a visual?” The voice cracked through the communicator. It was an old communicator much like all our equipment. We weren’t the elite forces who were issued the state of the art equipment which had become more scarce since the invasion. We were just a group of misfit earthlings on a search mission and we knew that like the old out of date equipment that was issued to us, we were expendable.

“No, no visual” Commander Cristian spoke into his communicator. “do you read me?” he tapped on the communicator a few times. Commander Cristian was the youngest commander to graduate from the academy. He was many years younger than me, but I felt honored to serve under his command. “Do you read me, we have no visual” I could hear the faintest hint of frustration in his voice but he pushed away. He couldn’t let his feelings affect his command, not even when he was just in charge of two soldiers - an old, “aging fossil” who should be enjoying his retirement on an island somewhere smoking weed and painting pictures for the tourists and a young hard as nails barrio girl from Echo Park that would just as soon tear your head off than to look at you.

The voice came through again sounding like it belonged in an old flickering film “according to our readings they are all around you.”

“What do you mean all around us?” Sergeant Hernandez asked. “what is the rescue team’s estimated arrival time?”

The voice sounded grim and the words made my blood run cold, “Your rescue team has been recalled to base and we are ending radio contact” The man on the other end violated protocol and let his humanity show through as he added “…I’m so sorry…God be with you.”

Then the communicator went silent.

I could see a sadness in Sergeant Hernandez’s eyes because she knew as I did that we weren’t going to make it out of this one. It would take a miracle to save us now and I had given up on miracles a long time ago. As I looked at her I could see the sadness pass like a flash of light, no sooner had it appeared than it was replaced with a tough determination. It was a look that said we may be expendable and we may die tonight but we’re going to take as many of those things with us as we can.

The commander threw his communicator on the ground and smashed it underfoot. He looked up at us and simply said, “It looks like we’re on our own.”

We walked quietly through the narrow corridors that lead to what we believed was the hive of the Alien Queen herself. Many people had died bringing this information to headquarters we could only hope that those lives were not lost in vain. None of us spoke, we walked quietly watching the commander for signs as to our next move. We approached a fork in the hallway where it split into another dark hall to the right. Commander Cristian motioned for us to stop and keep our place while he held his laser gun up to make sure the path was safe. He turned the corner and my heart nearly exploded as he pointed his gun in either direction. The path was safe, or as safe as one could expect. We slowly made our way through the dark, the only light that shown was an eerie blue light that seemed to radiate from the ships walls themselves.

As we were walking I felt a thick, sticky fluid drop from above landing on my shoulder. “What the …” I said, touching it and feeling it between my fingers. The commander looked at it and then we all looked up at the same time, but we couldn’t see anything except darkness. Before anyone could tell her not to Sergeant Hernandez lit the flare from her safety bag. We were all blinded by the sudden flash of light. As our eyes adjusted to it, Sergeant Hernandez held the flash high over her head and then we saw it…saw them. There were hundreds of aliens on the ceiling above us. They appeared to be in some sort of hibernation, maybe sleeping until the ship arrived on earth for another attack.

Commander Cristian motioned for us to stay quiet and to keep moving forward. I turned to Sergeant Hernandez and that’s when I saw the alien standing behind her. I didn’t get a chance to shout out a warning. By the time my mind had registered what was happening Sergeant Hernandez had pushed her elbow into the aliens face and was punching it in the face like she was defending her home turf in some sort of gang fight back in Echo Park. She fell to the ground on top of the alien and continued to beat it until blue ooze started coming out of it’s eyes then she took her gun and placed it under the alien’s chin and fired. The alien’s head exploded in a red and blue mess across the floor of the ship.

The sleeping aliens woke and started to descend on us. I powered my energy sword and started swinging it over head. One of the advantages of being over a foot taller than my comrades was the fact that I could swing my sword over my head and not worry about hitting them by accident. Thick alien blood and body parts rained down on me. It was disgusting and the smell was so bad that I had to swallow my own vomit or lose concentration.

“you want a piece of me?” Commander Cristian yelled. “You want a piece of me? Then come and get it if you think you can.” He was fired his weapon hitting each alien that he aimed for in the head. He was a great shot and a great leader, why he was assigned to our misfit group I’ll never know - he must have pissed off someone high up in the chain of command.

Sergeant Hernandez was more wild with her shots, firing what almost seemed chaotic and random blasts, but she was going one on one with the commander, keeping up with his kill ratio one to one. I turned my back on her for a second and she was gone. It was as if things had gone into slow motion I turned and saw her flying through the air as a blast of alien goo hit her hard on the chest. She hit the wall and I could see that she had lost her breath. Her eyes closed for a second or two and I thought she was dead, but then she opened them and struggled against the sticky goo that held her to the wall, fighting like the fighter I had come to love.

“Get me out of here!” she yelled

“Cut her down!” Commander Cristian ordered but I was already way ahead of him. I ran to her swinging my energy sword at anything that moved, cutting aliens down all around me. I was running blinded with one thought. I had to cut her down before the other aliens got to her because in her current state she was helpless. In the time that we’ve been together I’ve come to love both the commander and the sergeant - we’re a team and nobody could break that up…we are a family.

I cut her down capturing her in my arms before she hit the ground, “are you okay princess?”

“Don’t ever call me princess again unless you want to eat one of these.” She balled up her fist and then laughed. We both laughed as we walked to where the commander was finishing off the last of the sleeping aliens. “Seriously though, don’t call me princess.”

“Okay your highness.” She gave me a dirty look

Commander Cristian pulled out a toneal detonator from his backpack and set the timer for 30 seconds. “It’s going go blow in 30 seconds take precautionary actions!”

We covered our ears and hit the ground as the toneal detonator exploded. The detonator had no real affect on humans except for it could cause a bad headache that lasts for three days or more if you hear it go off, but somehow the frequency would be too much for the aliens to take - their entire bodies would explode as the sound waves passed through them. The detonator went off and alien pieces fell down all around us.

We were all breathing heavily as we stood in front of the door that according to our information would lead us directly to the Alien Queen’s room. I think we were all a little hesitant to enter because we didn’t know what we would find and we didn’t have anymore toneal detonators.

We were all covered in Alien pieces and slime “I really hate alien goo” Commander Cristian said as he wiped some blue slime from his face. “Are you ready to face your worst nightmare?” He pointed toward the door to the Queen Alien’s chambers. The commander started to punch in the code we had been given in our briefing, “I have a bad feeling about this” he said as he punched in the last numbers. I looked at him and wondered why that phrase sounded so familiar.

As we entered the Queen Alien Mother’s room everything just went crazy - everyone was screaming. The high pitched screams of Commander Cristian and Sergeant Hernandez were matched by own We were yelling like little school girls and we didn’t care; our eyes had seen what no human eyes were meant to see…we were looking into the monstrous face of the Alien Queen herself. Her face was horrific. It was almost human except that it looked as if had melted into this horrible green mess. Her hair was flying out all over behind her head and white foam was coming out of her mouth. She yelled a yell that was so loud I could feel my ear drums explode and felt blood run out of my ears and down the side of my head … and then everything was quiet.

We looked at each other and then looked at the Alien Queen as she spit the foam out and then to our surprise she spoke:

“Put the laser guns away.”

“what did she say?” Commander Cristian asked no one in particular.

The Queen Alien answered, “I said put the laser guns away.”

“Not until we destroy you and your evil ways.” Commander Cristian was defiant. He was not going to let this moment slip away.

Sergeant Hernandez lifted her gun, “Yeah we’re going to destroy you, you poop head.”

“Put the guns away” the Queen Alien repeated as she washed her toothbrush under running water. “Cris, It’s late and you got school tomorrow.”

“But mom,” Commander Cristian cried, “we’re not finished yet.”

“Go lay down you can finish playing tomorrow.” the evil Queen Alien said. She looked at me, “You know better than to get them all excited before bed time.” She then turned to my nephew. “You shouldn’t be playing anything scary like hunting aliens before bed.”

“Mom,” my six year old nephew Cristian said, “aliens don’t exist and they never will.” He paused for a second as he thought about it and then added, “well, except in Mexico.”

My sister and I both tried not to laugh. We had seen a program about the effects of illegal aliens coming into the states the night before. I didn’t think my nephew was paying much attention to it, but I guess he caught some of it.

“all of you go to bed” my sister ordered.

“Ok” I said, “Just don’t think you won this battle ‘cause you didn‘t.” My sister rolled her eyes at me. “We’ll get you, you evil queen. Oh, we’ll get you and your little dog too,”

“get out and shut the bathroom door. I’m trying to get ready for bed.”

She shut the bathroom door and I looked at my nephew Cris, “I guess it’s time you go to bed.” My niece had already run off to lay down with her Hello Kitty stuffed doll.

“What was that stuff on her face?” My nephew asked.

“I think it was guacamole” I said, “It sure is freaky looking. If her friends only knew what she looked like at night. Maybe I should take a picture and post it on myspace.”

“I’ll kill you in your sleep if you do” came the Queen Alien’s voice from the other side of the bathroom door.