Critical Path

Using his flashlight, Mike swept the tight confines. Blinky and the taller one, whom Mike had decided would be Grumpy on account of his surly shoulder shrugging, pressed against his legs as they struggled to fit.

Blue flashes lit up sections of the ship from somewhere further into the wreckage. A hum permeated the place and was joined by the smell of ozone and something earthy yet metallic.

“What is it?” Mike prompted, wondering why Blinky didn’t go through the hole in the dark. It looked like a doorway had collapsed and the floor of the level above sunk down to join this one, creating a triangular, narrow entry.

Blinky blinked.

Grumpy shrugged.

“Well?” Mike said, pushing forward to see what the fuss was. He twisted sideways and stepped through the confining space as Grumpy eased out of the way. Mike ducked down to Blinky’s level and looked through the small hole into a hallway beyond.

“Oh,” Mike said when he saw the problem.

The hallway must have stretched some five meters long and a couple wide. The roof had caved in at various sections. A group of six aliens, small, like Blinky and Grumpy, lay dead in a heap, the infrastructure having crushed and pierced them to death.

This was the source of the strange smell.

Their corpses were rotting, yet no flies buzzed.

Mike stepped back and placed his hand on Blinky’s shoulder.

In another time he would have shuddered with revulsion, but watching the small alien’s face twist into sadness and seeing the first lot of bodies inside only reminded Mike of what it felt like to lose a loved one.

He remembered seeing the bodies of those who worked on the Roanoke dig site, and later, upon returning to Manhattan, the office workers who had perished in the first raids when the EMPs and the ground force swept through North America, with their chemical and cold fusion bombs.

Despite everything, these small aliens, born long after the initial invasion, were no more to blame for what happened than modern-day Germans were for the Holocaust.

But it didn’t make it any easier.

Sure, he could sympathize. But even now, with Blinky’s obvious sadness, Mike still couldn’t fully trust them.

He still didn’t even think Hagellan was necessarily telling them the truth.

But if Charlie could get onto the ship, and if Mai completed her work on the bomb, then at least they would have some insurance.

Grumpy stepped up behind Blinky and lit up the hallway with his own flashlight. He made a grunting noise followed by a series of clicks and whistles. Blinky nodded and slipped forward, leaving Mike’s hand to drop by his side.

It seemed neither species were entirely comfortable with this setup.

Despite that, the two engineers continued to lead Mike through the wreckage.

As he squeezed and pushed himself through narrow corridors and crouched beneath broken crossbeams, Mike couldn’t but help focus on the details.

He wanted to stop and examine everything, but knew the clock was ticking.

Alien metals, new elements, technology that came from an ideology so different to humans, it all appealed to his sense of wonder and a desire to learn.

Just what secrets could he uncover if he had more time to analyze the pink-glowing lights within the crushed, transparent cabinet. Rings of these lights thrummed quietly up and down a tube, creating an effect that Mike couldn’t discern.

Could be a power supply; could be a processor of sorts, who knew?

The walls of the ship were made from a multilayered honeycomb of what looked like woven tungsten.

Through his journey into the center of the wreckage, heading for the central power unit where the parts Hagellan required were to be found, he saw more of this construction.

In places it had held firm, supporting a number of levels above. In other places it had collapsed into what he guessed were planned crumple zones, for the walls and ceilings had rarely crashed into areas of mechanical significance.

Given the number of bodies in the ship’s wreckage—much lower than he anticipated, it seemed the alien engineers had developed a ship that could withstand a lot of damage before it killed those inside—or at least those that were important.

“Hey, wait up,” Mike called.

They led him into a small dark room.

A sliver of a doorway, on its side to his left, indicated where they’d gone, but Mike stepped forward cautiously.

Each footstep made the structure creak and groan under his weight.

It shifted violently as he neared the doorway, forcing him to throw out his arms in front of him as the momentum pushed him forward. He struck the doorframe with his shoulder; the impact made him wince and suck in his breath. He collapsed to the floor, dropping his flashlight. It fell through a gap into a level below.

Smoke drifted up through a holed section, carrying the stench of burning oil of some kind. He coughed and reached to grip the doorframe of the narrow entry point and hauled himself to his feet.

The low roof collapsed behind him, pinning him to the wall.

“Help!” Mike called out, pressing his face through the half-meter-wide gap.