There she was: the Mothership. I was worried my transfer to it would be denied. After all, it wasn’t just any human who was allowed. You had to be the descendant of a family who’d shown unwavering loyalty to the Foreign to even qualify. Then, you had to work your way up the system. I’d been working there for 22 years, since I was 8 years old, and I still wasn’t any higher than sanitation. Basically, I spent my days cleaning alien bathrooms and spending time in their version of a septic tank.

If you thought humans could make some bad smells, then you’ve been lucky enough to never spend time in an alien bathroom. I often needed to wear a gas mask to avoid vomiting from the smell.

Despite the downfalls, there were lots of benefits. Mainly, you were treated with enough respect to avoid the physical punishment and malnutrition experienced by many. There was decent housing, good pay, and the ability to, at the very least, voice any concerns to the Foreign. While they rarely took a human’s side, it was nice not being whipped raw because you said something out of turn.

All this made those who worked on the Mothership tolerate the oppression. It wasn’t affecting them much, after all. In their minds, they and their families had put in effort to be here; if others didn’t, that wasn’t their problem.

I had heard my parents tell me the same sort of thing when I was a kid. I had believed it for a while, too. That was until the day I got lost outside the center of the city. That day, I’d seen horrific acts of brutality and torture used by aliens on humans. I still could see the massive pile of bodies, placed out in the center of the work area, a stark reminder of what happened to those who didn’t comply. All the bodies had the same haunting look: a face locked in a scream from indescribable pain received moments before their death.

This image never left my mind. It had inspired the actions I was taking today, ones to bring down the Foreign completely. I, along with others in the Resistance, had devised a way to strike at the core of their establishment. We had lined the interior of my work coat with a lead-based material made to stop any sensors from identifying the explosives underneath. The giant block of C4 lined a significant portion of the jacket, and I’d been worried I’d be caught. There wasn’t much to suspect from them, however, as they were the “loyal” subjects of the Foreign.

There it was, the bell for the end of our shift. Quickly, I snuck into the room with access to the sewage line, ripped out the lining, and lifted the hatch. The smell almost made it through my gas mask. The decision had been mine, to start the Revolution with a surprise attack on the Mothership. To avoid any casualties, we knew we needed to stage it at some point in time during the changing of shifts, when no humans were on board. The problem came with determining the target of our attack. Through extensive research, we had determined some of the sewage lines ran close to the reactor used as the main energy source for the mothership and fleet. We had determined which one to drop it in and put in as much explosive as possible, in case our calculations were wrong. We wanted it to look as if there had been an issue within the reactor, which was another reason we were using so many explosives.

I’d volunteered to carry out this mission, ready to do my part for the movement. I took a second to look behind me, making sure no one was there to see what I was doing, before starting the 5 minute timer and throwing the C4 in. I closed the hatch and walked out before making my way to the exit tunnel along with my coworkers.

I nodded my head at James and Miguel, who both nodded back in acknowledgment. Now, we just needed to get out and join our fellow Resistance brothers and sisters to start the Revolution. The workforce and I walked out of the tunnel, making our way down city streets.

An explosion rattled the ground and the buildings around us. I turned around, in awe at the mothership falling out of the sky: my masterpiece.