Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Science Fiction

For the second time that day, the ship lurches. Turbulence is a little ridiculous, considering that we’re in space. Isn’t it supposed to be a smooth ride? My stomach lurches along with it, but I ignore it.
		It’s almost time for our plan.
		I stare at the guard pacing outside of our cell. It’s what we consider “bedtime,” in which we’ve received the last seaweed bar of the day and the guards are getting bored with harassing us. Normally after the last feeding, they change our waste bucket and then head out.
		But tonight, things are off. Even though our waste bucket is nearly full, the ball head isn’t coming to get it. Chirping sounds keep coming over the intercom, and the guard in the room is more and more agitated as the minutes tick past.
		And the whole time, the ship keeps lurching.
		“What’s going on?” I whisper to Kara as we watch the single guard pace back and forth, distracted. “Where’s the other basketball head?”
		“I don’t know,” she admits, her hand pressing to her ear and the silvery device curled there. “Some of the words don’t translate over. Or they do, but I don’t know what they mean.” She shakes her head. “I think there’s something going on with the engine, though. They keep talking about detaching the cargo and offloading to a safe location.”
		The pit of my stomach curdles. “Um, we’re the cargo.”
		She grimaces. “I know. Apparently they’re going to miss a ship date if they do, though, so they’re trying to work around it.”
		“Lucky us,” I murmur, glancing at the one guard. Only one. Normally there are two. My body tenses with realization. If we take down the one guard…there will only be one to deal with later. Our odds are much better if we divide and conquer.
		And if we have his gun.
		“I think we should move ahead with our plan,” I say in a low voice as the guard begins to pace again.
		“I don’t know,” Kara says, chewing on her lip. But Lily nods at me.
		“We’re going for it,” I whisper to the others in the cage. The girls look uncomfortable, but they move aside to give me room. If I’m willing to be the sacrificial lamb, they’re willing to let me sacrifice myself.
		So I steel my courage, head to the cage bars, and stick my face between the slats of the prison. “Hey.”
		The guard doesn’t turn. He keeps pacing, his gaze flicking at the ceiling as if expecting more of those weird chirping orders to come down.
		I try again. “Hey. Over here.” When he doesn’t pay attention to me, I admit I’m surprised. Normally they take any excuse to punish us. I’ve seen another girl raped over the last week because she’d cried out in a nightmare. So I try a new tactic to get his attention.
		I hock a big was of spit at him.
		It lands on the back of his big bald head, and he stops in his pacing. His weird little fish-eyes get round as he turns to glare at me, then stalks across the storage bay toward our cage.
		“Good job, Gariel,” Lily breathes.
		I suck in a deep breath and nod. I don’t feel so good about it, but hey. I retreat to the back of the cage like we’ve planned—so he’ll have to come in after me—and when the other girls close ranks around me, I haul the shit bucket up into my arms.
		The idea we’ve come up with is that I’ll throw the crap on him to further distract him, and then the others will use that time to jump him. We’ll overwhelm him and take him down, then strip him of his gun. Not that we know how to shoot an alien weapon, but one step at a time. As long as he doesn’t have it, that’s half the battle.
		Of course, hefting the shit bucket into my arms shows just how heavy it is and just how weak and lethargic I am from the shitty rations they’re giving us. I stagger under the weight of it, wincing when some stops over the edge and onto my arm. Fuck it.
		He growls out something that sounds like a cuss-word in alien-ese and unlocks the cage.
		Unlike how we’ve planned, the other girls fall back, cringing, leaving me there with the waste bucket and a stupid expression on my face as he slams toward me.
		I throw it at him, just as he grabs for me, but it’s too heavy and ends up slopping on both of us. He grabs my arm, and I shriek in surprise as his fingers dig into the meat of my bicep. Not only is his pebbly skin ugly, it’s rough and tears at my skin like it’s sandpaper.
		He spits an epithet at me and drags me forward.
		“No,” Lily says, grabbing my other arm even as I twist in his grasp. Where was our big fucking attack plan? Why are the others all huddling like scared rabbits? I look to Kara, my other co-conspirator, but she has her head tilted, a funny expression on her face as she stares at the ceiling. Faint birdlike chirping comes from above.
		“Detachment commencing?” Kara asks, a confused look on her face.
		The entire floor shifts to the side, and we go flying.
		I slam across the room, my body soaring through the air. I land hard against the stasis lockers, and all the air leaves my lungs.
		The entire world tilts, topsy-turvy, and the hold is filled with screaming women. Splashes of something wet hit my arms, and the waste bucket flies past overhead. Then everything hangs in the air. The lights go out, leaving us in the darkness.
		A red light flickers on. Oh, that’s not good. Red lights are always emergency lights, aren’t they?
		I stare into the now-red room, watching as globules of waste soar past. In the background, someone tumbles in the air. We’ve lost gravity.
		What the hell?
		I try to focus my eyes as something dances past my head. Black, oblong, with a thick barrel.
		The gun.
		Holy cow. I push off of one of the lockers and swim through the air for it, just as gravity kicks in again. I slam to the ground on top of the gun.
		A few feet away, the guard slams down as well. All the while, that weird, birdlike chirping keeps going over the intercoms.
		I grab the gun and look for a trigger as the guard groans and shakes his head, trying to gather his thoughts. There’s no trigger. Well, fuck it. It’ll work just as well as a bludgeon. Grabbing it by the thick, heavy base, I raise it over my head and bring it down on the guard’s head.
		Crack.
		The guard flails.
		I don’t stop. I hit him again and again. Crack. Crack. Over and over, I slam the butt of the rifle into his head. He doesn’t move, but I don’t stop. I’m terrified he’ll somehow have a granite skull and will roll over and overpower me. So I just keep hitting him.
		Hands grab mine. “Gariel. Hey, Gariel, stop. I think he’s dead.” Lily’s voice cuts through the haze in my brain. “You can stop now.”
		I slow, staring blankly at her then down at the guard. Or what’s left of the guard. His head is nothing but a pile of meat atop his neck. 
		I stare. Then I throw up.
		“You did it,” Lily says, rubbing my back. “Holy shit. You did, Gariel! You’re a fucking Billy Badass!”
		I don’t feel so badass. I feel sick. I’ve just killed a man. Kind of a man. Sorta. Definitely a rapist.
		Still a living creature.
		Was. Was a living creature.
		My stomach roils uncomfortably again, and I go to wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, then stop. It smells like sewage. Ugh. I’m covered, too, and the cabin is splattered. “What the heck happened?”
		“I don’t know,” Lily says, helping me to my feet.
		I ache all over, my ribs feeling bruised from where I landed on the gun. I hold onto it, though. I don’t care if it’s covered in poop and brains and everything else, it’s mine now. 
		 A metallic sounding chirp blares over the loudspeaker, just as my ears pop hard. Lily clutches her ears at the same time as I do, and we look at each other in surprise.
		Kara comes running out of the cage. “Ladies! We’ve got bigger problems. The message overhead is now saying ‘Prepare for re-entry.’ I think that means we’re crashing!”
		Fuck. 
		We pitch again, and I tumble through the air, banging into the lockers. Something smacks my head, and everything goes black.