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alien bodies out of the tiny ship and deposited them on the floor of the hangar bay.
    Rick told three of the students, milling around, to bring Samantha Salazar to him and they went off to retrieve her.
    When she came into the bay, the look on her rubbery face was priceless. It was a look that only occurs when your entire reason for being is turned on its head.
    Rick laughed at her. “Are you still a Skeptic, dumbass?”
    She shook her head. If she wasn’t a robot, she would’ve cried, I just know it.
    Her belief that the alien threat was a hoax, perpetrated by those who wished to subdue the rest of us with fear, had led her to commit multiple murders. And now she saw the error of her ways, in full relief.
    She visibly wilted when the students led her away again.
    Rick said to me, “Tell the captain to get us the hell out of here. We don’t know if these Bleeders sent out a distress signal. We don’t want to be here when the cavalry arrives.”
    Peggy shook her head, deep in thought. “I don’t know Rick. These guys sure didn’t put up any resistance. It makes me wonder just how vicious these Bleeders really are.”
    “I know. But that dinky ship stood no chance against the Conquistador. It’s no surprise they ran or that they killed themselves when we caught them. Who knows what kind of armada they have at their disposal though. We just can’t risk it.”
    “You’re right. Let’s get these things into the medical bay and check them out.” Then she said to me, “Have the captain send down some tech guys to try and figure this ship out.”
    I left for the command room, my head spinning. My classmates stared after me like I was an alien myself.

Warp
     
    The captain activated the warp generator. I didn’t pay enough attention in class to know whether I should be worried by that or not but when he issued the order, several of my classmates started to whisper to each other, so maybe it’s not a proven technology, or maybe it’s just inherently dangerous. I don’t know and I don’t care. It’s a means to an end. We had to get the hell out of there.
    I hope that the tech guys make progress because if a beacon had been activated on the Bleeder ship, and it was still transmitting, there was no way to truly escape unless we kicked that ship out of the hangar. And there was no freaking way we were going to do that. That Enemy ship was a symbol of hope. It gave us a glimpse into the heart of our foe. And it might just give us a tactical advantage by the time the Enemy returned to wipe out humanity, as they promised to do.

Autopsy
     
    Instead of worrying about things I could do nothing about, I went below deck to the medical bay. I noticed Mrs. Salazar and her fellow saboteur had been locked up in an unused room. I had the urge to open the door and mock them as I passed, but I fought it.
    Four alien carcasses were splayed out like a macabre freak show. Peggy was watching as the doctor cut into one of them but Rick was pacing. This lack of action was clearly not pleasing to him.
    He said, “There were only four of them so they were lying about it being a colony ship. Four people does not constitute a colony.”
    “They probably lied because they were afraid of us,” Peggy said.
    Then Rick started to pace again, this time more furiously.
    I was barely in the medical bay five minutes before Mr. Humboldt came for me. “The captain has something to tell us. Come back to the command room whenever you’re done here.”
    Because I wasn’t even supposed to be there, I just shrugged and followed him back upstairs.
    As we passed the room that held Mrs. Salazar, Mr. Humboldt banged on the door rapidly to scare her. He looked back and winked at me with his almost human eye.
    I laughed and it was cathartic. I needed to laugh after everything that had happened so far.

Skeptics
     
    The captain had beads of sweat on his brow. I didn’t know him that well, but I knew that could only be a bad sign.
    He said, “I just