Hunter’s truck hopped and pitched along the beat-up dirt road, climbing up one of the forested hills that bordered the city. Outside, the world was dark and quiet. The urban lights had been left behind a while ago, and only our headlights sliced through the obscurity. Boots or Hearts by The Tragically Hip twanged out of the sound system—Hunter’s playlist.

My friends and I sat side-by-side on the bench seat. I was sandwiched between a humming Hunter and Onyx, who was so stiff she might have turned into her namesake. For once, their proximity barely registered with me. I was filled with manic energy—had been since we left the artificial lights behind, and the stars above became like a twinkling tapestry to be glimpsed at between the black pine trees.

Not a minute too soon, we reached the top of the hill. There, the forest opened into a broad clearing, a carpet of soft grass underneath a disc of pure, unpolluted night sky.

I almost crawled over Onyx in my haste to leap out of the truck. I stumbled out but recovered my balance and then took a deep, cool, cleansing breath. “Ahhh…” Staring up at the twinkling sky, I rose on my toes, extending like a flower seeking the sun. As if a mere few inches would make a difference in distances measured in light-years.

4.22 to Proxima Centauri, the closest star after Earth’s sun.

“You okay, dude?” Hunter’s voice broke me out of my trance. I blinked away tears, surprised, and hastily wiped them off.

“Yeah,” I swallowed thickly. “It’s… colder out here than I expected.”

I’d not finished speaking when a heavy jacket fell on my back. I gazed up owlishly at Hunter. My friend’s buff torso was now wrapped only in a blank white t-shirt, so tight over his firm muscles that it looked painted on. A blush erupted across my face. Not noticing, or blaming the cold, Hunter merely returned a smile and headed back to the truck to pull out our stargazing equipment.

I pulled the oversized jacket tighter around me. I was a little chilly, and the coat smelled strongly of Hunter—a faint whiff of sweat, aged whiskey, and a hint of cologne. My face warmed up some more, and it had nothing to do with the added layer of clothing.

Onyx stood by the truck door, black eyes fixated on me. I met her gaze, but oddly, she turned away. She seemed… troubled. I’d caught glimpses of it all throughout supper, twitches of frowns and furtive glances, tiny sighs, and head shakes. It was starting to worry me.

“Hey! Wow! The air is reeeally clear out here! Hey, big guy, you think we’ll see some little green men?!”

I nearly jumped out of my skin when Shivaya’s voice shattered the quiet night. I’d half-forgotten she was in the backseat of the truck—a last-minute impromptu addition to our outing.

Honestly, I felt ambivalent about her presence. On the one hand, her sudden interest in my interests was flattering, even when motivated in part, I guessed, by guilt. But, on the other hand, this whole thing—the nature, the stars, Onyx and Hunter—this was my space, my small nook of peace and safety, the last one I kept after returning everything else to her.

I wondered, sometimes. If not for me, Shivaya might have been the one to befriend Onyx, the neighbors’ quiet daughter. Would they be dating by now? Would she have met Hunter in high school? They could have bonded over beating up bullies together despite the age gap.

Was this more of her space that I’d stolen?

I blocked out Shivaya and Hunter’s chatter and looked back up at the sky.

Were the stars all that I ever had?

Distant lights. Mirages of the past. Glimpses across time, of things that had already become lies. Frauds, like me. They called out to me, but I could never reach them.

One of these faraway still fireflies suddenly blinked and flickered, moving across the sky. I frowned, fished out my phone, and peeked at the time. Odd. It was too early for the meteor shower to be starting… and besides, the light wasn’t moving correctly. A satellite, maybe.

No. That wasn’t it.

“A plane…?”

“Terry?” Onyx called out to me, but my sight was riveted to the burning light. It seemed to grow as it fell, growing and falling, growing and falling, growing while falling towards…

“Oh, shoot.”

My eyes shot wide just as I heard Onyx’s scream.

“TERRY!!” The next instant, she was by my side. She picked me up, threw me over her shoulder, and was already racing towards the truck before I’d fully processed what was happening. “Hunter! Start the engine! Shivaya, in the truck! NOW!!”

Maybe it was the fact Onyx never raised her voice, or that she’d used Hunter’s actual name for the first time ever. Or perhaps something else. But the big man did not even hesitate before following her orders. He even picked up and threw Shivaya onto the backseat, where Onyx roughly shoved me too before slamming the door shut.

I fell over Shivaya in a tangle of limbs, and I nearly suffocated in a valley of cleavage before rising up for air. Our gaze met. Her face was red, but her eyes were confused and not a little afraid.

My head snapped to the front. Onyx had jumped into the front seat, not bothering to buckle up. She was visibly tenser than I’d ever seen her. Meanwhile, Hunter had reversed out of the clearing and was driving recklessly down the path we’d just come up.

My slim hope that both my friends were in on some secret joke at my and Shivaya’s expense shattered when marshmallow-man Hunter very well snarled at Onyx.

“The fuck is going on?!”

“Shut up and drive, beast! It can’t be far behind!”

“What?! What isn’t far behind!?”

“I don’t know, that’s the issue! I would have received a forewarning of incoming friendlies. So the more distance we put between it and us, the better!”

The final nail in the joke’s coffin came when Hunter shot a wild look at my other friend. “What are you really, woman? I never asked because my Ma raised me better, but now… Why is someone after you?!”

Onyx shook her head and spoke through gritted teeth. “They’re not after me.”

“Then who–” Hunter abruptly cut off. His eyes widened like saucers, and he glanced over at me. I returned a look of absolute confusion. But Hunter’s gaze jerked back to the road ahead right away. “Shit. After this, I better get a fucking explanation, woman!”

“I owe your kind nothing, traitor.”

“The fuck is wrong with you?!” Hunter snapped.

“Terry…” A shaky whisper brought my attention back to Shivaya… making me realize I was still sprawled on top of her. I quickly crawled back onto the seat. “Big Bro, what’s going on?” my sister whispered fearfully. She’d never sounded or looked so vulnerable. “What are they saying?”

“What do you mea…” I started asking, but then a switch flipped in my brain. Suddenly, I noticed neither Hunter nor Onyx was speaking English—nor any language I recognized. And yet, I understood every word. Also, I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d heard something similar very recently.

Just as I remembered it, a deafening roar shook the truck.

A mass of burning metal shot overhead and crashed into the road ahead of us. Hunter swore and steered harshly to the side, sending the truck into a mad tailspin. The wheels left the ground, and the vehicle tumbled off the road. Something wrapped around me, holding me close–

CRASH

Top became bottom, then back and forth, switching over and over, losing me and throwing everyone around. I closed my eyes, praying for it to stop—until very soon, but also far too late, a tree brought the truck to a brutal halt.

Shook, I laid panting, my head spinning, trying to get my bearing. I hesitated to move, expecting pain—but none came. I felt fine, if a little sore and disoriented.

Then I opened my eyes, and the warmth drained from my face.

“Hey… Big Bro… you alright?” Shivaya smiled at me, but blood marred her white teeth and dribbled over her lips. More red dripped from her hairline. One of her hazel eyes was unfocused and going lazy. I could feel her arms holding onto me, shielding me. “Bro… I can’t feel my legs…”

“No.” My heart missed a beat. “Nononono…” I scampered off Shivaya, contorting in the confined space to look at her. The truck hadn’t crashed too far from the road, and the light from the burning meteorite(?) illuminated the inside.

I breathed out in relief after seeing all of Shivaya’s limbs still attached to her. However, both her legs were twisted at nasty angles. Broken bone had pierced through the skin of her left shin. Somehow, I managed to stop myself from puking.

I thanked adrenaline.

“Terry! Terry, you alright?!” Hunter came crawling under the upside-down front seats. Then he spotted Shivaya. “Oh shit!”

He looked somewhat banged up, but nothing visibly worse than a nasty gash on his cheek, which didn’t seem to bother him overmuch.

Again, I thanked adrenaline.

“Gaaah!” Something grabbed my ankle and dragged me out of the wreckage. I screamed and kicked back. My foot connected, but it felt like hitting rock. It hurt.

“Terry!” Suddenly, I was out on the humus. “Terry, stop it! It’s me!” A firm hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around roughly. Onyx’s intense eyes met mine, and I started to calm down—until I noticed her injuries. Cuts crisscrossed her face, skin peeled off, and lips busted. Fragments of glass were embedded into her forehead like she’d been thrown face-first through the windshield.

But something was wrong, and I couldn’t figure out what—until I did.

No blood.

Her face was slashed and torn, but not only did Onyx act fine, the gruesome wounds weren’t bleeding at all. Instead, the split skin revealed white metal that gleamed in the light of the burning wreck.

I gaped. “What…”

“No time to explain.” Onyx pulled me to my feet one-handedly, not seeming to exert any effort doing so. “I need to get you out of here.” Her voice was calm—too calm. She started pulling me away.

“Wait! We can’t!” I planted my feet down. “Shivaya, she’s hurt! I think she has a concussion. We can’t move her.”

My friend stared at me blankly. I met her gaze and shivered. Never had I seen her eyes so glacial, never directed at me at least. A beat of silence passed, and I saw the moment Onyx made her decision. The intensity of her gaze dulled, and what little expression she showed faded away.

My blood ran cold.

“No. Your safety is my sole priority, Terry.” Her voice came out disturbingly metronomic. Her dead, empty eyes scared the life out of me. “Everyone else is expendable.”

“Oh, heck no.” I don’t know what possessed me. I punched her.

I punched Onyx in the nose.

It felt like hitting a brick wall, not someone’s face. “Ow!” Her head barely moved, and my knuckles cracked painfully. I whined. But it worked. She let me go, maybe because she was stunned that I’d used violence at all.

I ran around the truck and dropped to the ground, looking in. “How is she?”

Squeezed under the back seats, Hunter looked back worriedly. “She’s breathing. But it’s bad. She needs medical attention ASAP,” he replied in English, then suddenly shifted language under his breath. “I hope that bitch has a good explanation, or I’ll fucking trample her.”

“Yeah, me too,” I found myself answering nervously in the same twittering tongue. I kept on rambling, “The explanation, I mean. Not the trampling. But we can ask her when Shivaya is safe. And I don’t think Onyx is the kind to panic for nothing, even if she’s acting kind of weird and–”

“Wowowow! Slow down, dude! Since when do you speak Galactic?” Hunter looked at me like I’d suddenly grown a second head. The expression had to be mirrored on my face.

I threw my arms up. “I don’t know! Why do you?!”

Further conversation was stymied by Onyx rounding the wrecked truck. Her dead eyes stared at me, then at the vehicle, then back at me. I stared back, jaw set, resolute. Finally, she sighed—a deep, exhausted sigh. She sounded pissed, but I’d take angry Onyx over Terminator Onyx any day.

Without a word, she put her feet on the roof of the overturned truck and grabbed the bottom of the shattered window without care for the jagged glass shards. Then she heaved, and with a screech of torn metal, most of the truck was ripped off its roof and folded like tinfoil, freeing enough space to get to Shivaya.

I gawked at Onyx. She had released the truck and was flexing her arms with a concerned frown, each movement accompanied by the sound of revving servos. Her right elbow bent in fits and starts, with occasional bursts of electric sparks. Her left arm was barely better.

Hunter, too, was staring, though he seemed more solemn than surprised.

“You’re an andro,” he said accusingly.

Onyx glared at him. “If you’ve got time to gape, beast, grab the human, and let’s get moving!” she snapped in Galactic, then held a finger to my nose. “This is non-negotiable.”

I stared at the rent left by the truck door into her hands. Glass and metal had sliced through her skin and also damaged the white metal beneath. Electric sparks crackled in the gaps, making her fingers twitch.

I nodded dumbly.

Behind Onyx, Hunter carefully picked up Shivaya’s limp body. I didn’t know if moving her was a good idea– No, I knew it wasn’t. But whatever had Onyx freaking out, it was starting to freak me out as well. I was glad to see my friend out of her scary Terminator mode—a comparison perhaps more pertinent than I’d first realized—but the relief was only marginal.

I could only hope that if my friend was some sort of alien robot, she also had access to some kind of alien medical tech. If Shivaya got seriously hurt because of me, I could never face Aponi and Gerald ever again.

Shrieks of bending metal shattered the moment.

We all turned towards the burning wreck. For the first time, I took a good look at it… and under the flames was an honest-to-God flying saucer! Straight out of a fifties motion picture.

BANG!!

A piece of the wreckage was blasted away, landing far down the road. One, two, three, four huge hands reached out of the hole to grab its white-hot edges and, with a metallic wail, started to rip apart the hull of the burning ship.

Then Onyx grabbed me and yanked me towards the woods.

“Run!”

. . . . .