Chapter 9
Darcy forced herself to walk at a steady pace down the corridor.
The guard was still watching her retreating figure.
She could feel his eyes glaring at her, reflecting off the chrome walls like a haunted house of mirrors.
All she wanted to do was dart down the hallway, take the turn to get to the closet that held the trapped women, but she forced herself to remain patient.
Fuck, she hadn’t even considered the possibility that there would be a guard on site. What was she going to do about THAT?
Wait a second…
She backpedaled in the direction of the dorm she shared with A-rec. She had a plan. Was it a good plan? Probably not. But it WAS a plan.
As usual, around this time on the ship, there was no one in the halls, and for that she was thankful. These alien guys were pretty anal about their sleeping schedule. Or, well, their schedule for anything, really. She didn’t think they did anything without logging it into their planners. Nerds.
When she reached their room, she flinched as she opened the door in the wall.
It made the usual sound, and she waited for a moment before stepping inside.
A-rec was still asleep, thank God. The man (alien?) slept like a damned log.
Something she once thought was annoying, especially in the early days of her living on the ship, was now a blessing.
The closet. She knew what he kept in the closet.
She used her thumbprint to open the closet near the door.
There it sat, mounted on the wall like a trophy.
The stun gun.
She recalled the earlier conversation she had had with A-rec and how he explained that it was against his people’s rules to use lethal force on another. That didn’t mean they went without weapons, of course. They were fans of the taser and stun guns.
She carefully lifted the weapon off the wall mount…and nearly dropped it on her toes in the process. God damn, this thing was heavy! How the hell was she supposed to carry it all the way there?
A light bulb lit up in her head, and she reached up for the towels on the shelf above. It was almost impossible for her to reach, but somehow she managed to grab them by the tips of her fingers.
She struggled to fit the gun on the towel and breathed a sigh of relief when she was able to let go of the damn thing. It had to have been almost a hundred pounds on Earth. Actually, she was pretty proud of herself for being able to lift it at all.
She grabbed both ends of the towel to create a kind of makeshift baggie and pulled with all her might. This was certainly a lot easier than carrying it in her arms or over her shoulder.
She dragged the weapon across the floor as quickly as she could manage…which wasn’t very fast at all. Fuck.
But still, she wouldn’t give up.
When she finally rounded the hallway that would lead to the closed off area that held the transportation pods, she slowed down. She dropped her hold on the gun and tiptoed to the corner.
There was not one, but TWO guards on duty.
Okay, so the odds were certainly not in her favor.
Here goes nothing…
She turned and unwrapped the gun. She carefully hoisted it up into her arms, using her hip as leverage.
She paused for a moment and admired her distorted reflection in the chrome walls of the hallway.
If she squinted, she kind of looked like Ripley from the ALIEN franchise.
Except there was NO WAY she could carry this stun gun with one hand and a child on her hip. She shuddered at the thought.
She took a deep breath and then stepped out into the hallway.
“Hey,” one of the alien guys said. This one was green. “What are you doing here? And where did you get THAT?”
Darcy didn’t want to give them too much time to think. In fact, talking was probably a bad idea altogether. So she simply aimed and fired.
The first one, the one that spoke, dropped to the ground.
“HUMAN! What do you think you’re-”
The second one dropped so hard that the floor shook.
Fuck! Darcy dropped the stun gun at her feet. Okay, that was a lot easier than she had originally thought it would be. Was it bad that she decided to shoot first and ask questions later? Probably. But it was what it was.
She stepped over them and pressed her palm to the door. She was surprised when it opened. Were these guys so cocky or what? If they wanted to keep her out, they should have banned her handprint.
The door opened with a WHOOSH, and she stepped inside.
The room was dark. The only light came from the glowing red lights on the transportation pods and the strangely luminescent blue that illuminated the contents of the pods. The girls floated in their prison, eyes closed and mouth relaxed as if they were in a state of deep sleep.
Eight storage pods lined up against the walls of the space. It was like something you’d see in a horror movie back home. Darcy blinked a few times, hoping she’d wake up and this would all be some horrific nightmare.
Darcy hesitated. What exactly was her plan? Wake them up, tell them everything, and then just deal with the consequences later? She wasn’t worried about the consequences… She was worried about the women.
How would they react when she did this? They would be terrified, she knew. Would they scream and cry? Probably. Was she equipped to handle this all on her own? Maybe she should have thought this through a little more… She had no clothes or food for them. What the fuck was she thinking?
She looked into one of the pods. A beautiful red haired woman in her expensive looking silk pajamas floated in the fluid, blissfully unaware of what was happening in the world around her.
What was the alternative?
They’re left in transportation pods for god knows how long? OR they’re awakened to discover they’re on an alien spaceship? What was a little discomfort and shock to being able to CHOOSE where they wanted to be?
The alien baddies could pretend like it was all a difficult decision; return the humans to Earth and risk being stranded in space for a bit, running low on food…
or bring them back to their planet and just deal with it.
But it wasn’t the aliens’ CHOICE to make.
Sure, you could argue that they would be getting the short stick all around.
Being stuck in space until someone can arrive with fuel, while running low on food, did sound pretty serious…
Okay, super serious. But these guys… THEY WERE THE ONES WHO KIDNAPPED THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Okay, NO, maybe it wasn’t all of them, but it WAS their caption.
Being trapped in space for who knows how long seemed like good enough punishment to Darcy… Even if that meant she, too, would be trapped in space with them.
Fuck it. They could be uncomfortable for a while. At least then they’d have a say in what happened to them. They’d thank her later.
Darcy reached for the red button on the side of the pod and pressed down. She waited until it turned a glowing green before she let go.
A wailing filled the air. The pod was screaming at her as it began to thaw.
FUCK! Someone definitely heard that. She hadn’t expected this.
She took off around the room, pressing the buttons on the pods as she went.