by Reagan Woods
Using her canes to swing into the fast moving current of humanity, she picked up her pace. Flashing green lights highlighted an emergency path that she knew would end at this floor’s circular bank of escape craft. The mostly-powerless shuttles would hold twenty Earthers each.
These ball-like pods flowed through the ship via a tube system. As one launched, the next craft would drop down the chute and open for loading. The inner wall of the pods transferred the launch force into a steady spin, creating minimal gravity and keeping life-support systems operative.
“Hey!” Willa heard a shout from somewhere over her shoulder. “Excuse me! Didn’t you just come out of the Commander’s quarters?”
Sparing a quick glance over her right shoulder Willa saw a petite Caucasian girl jumping and dodging through the throng.
“I did. Why?”
“I’m your neighbor on the right,” the brown-haired pixie answered at an alarming decibel. “Name’s Holly.”
The Screamer, Willa thought. Now she had a face to go with the voice. “Hi, Holly. I’m Willa.”
“Estelle!” Holly bellowed at the top of her lungs at an equally small, very dark-skinned girl.
“Holly!” The other sprite, sporting a large, amazingly symmetrical Afro, elbowed her way through the crush to her friend’s side.
“Estelle! This is Willa, she’s our neighbor. Lives with Commander Tiron,” Holly shrieked, locking arms with Estelle, dragging her along with them.
“Helloooo, Willa,” Estelle’s voice boomed out of her tiny body as they tried to continue forward.
They had to be two of the prettiest people Willa had ever seen. But damn were they loud.
Something was wrong further down the line. It shouldn’t ever take more than ten minutes to evacuate the entire ship, yet they hadn’t even made it into the bay.
“We won’t be getting the award for fastest evacuation,” Holly shouted. “I wonder what’s going on up there?”
Using her superior height and upper-body strength, Willa pushed up on her canes, straining to see over the mass of bodies in front of her, “I can’t determine what the hold-up is.”
The flashing green emergency lights turned to red and the annoying buzz became a siren, signaling that the Trident expected in-coming fire. Bodies surged forward and women shrieked, pushing from behind to get to the relative safety of the buffered evacuation pods.
On the up-side, the line was moving forward in the murky red light. Unfortunately, Willa and her new friends were still quite a distance from the life pods when the ship began to take fire in earnest.
Chapter Nineteen
Estelle and Willa reached out and grabbed Holly as one, jerking the other girl next to them against the wall just as all hell broke loose. Women, unable to reach their pods, scattered; presumably running back to their cabins.
A deafening concussion sounded and the deck pitched and heaved, tossing everyone in the corridor around like juggling pins. Willa held tight to her canes, scared to lose them. She felt terrified and powerless as she tumbled about, slamming into other women and various hard surfaces.
As abruptly as the upheaval started, it came to a shuddering stop, sending everyone in the hall crashing to the spongy floor. Willa’s head cracked the wall hard on the way down and she blacked out.
When she came to, it was eerily quiet. The air she sucked into her lungs felt thick and boggy, and the blinking red light made everything seem surreal and floaty, as though she were underwater.
Slowly regaining her wits, she looked up to see a blurry Estelle looming over her. The woman’s mouth was moving and she shook Willa urgently, but her voice sounded muffled and garbled.
Willa blinked, feeling disoriented, trying to discern what Estelle wanted. When she tried to sit up, her head swam as her ears suddenly popped and began ringing. Moments later, noise came roaring through Willa’s head, making her feel as though it were splitting down the middle.
“I think you’ve got a concussion, Willa, but we need to get out of here,” Estelle shouted over the siren. “Holly! Up and at ‘em, girlfriend!” She barked orders like a woman accustomed to immediate obedience.
Helping Willa to her feet with a surprising strength, Estelle asked, “Can you walk? You don’t look too steady.”
“I’ll be fine,” Willa assured her, though privately she thought her balance was pretty iffy. Thankfully, she still had her canes.
“I’d kill for some ibuprofen.” Holly wiped at her eyes, getting slowly to her feet. Blood gleamed wetly in her hair and all down her neck beneath her long pony tail.
“Let’s move it,” Estelle commanded, marching them over and around the moaning, crying women on the floor.
“Shouldn’t we help them?” Willa wanted to know.
“Sweetie, we can barely help ourselves. The best we can do for this group is find help and bring it back,” Estelle said emotionlessly, never breaking stride.
When they reached the bay of emergency pods, they found several medics on the floor tending to the hysterically weeping women scattered about. Leading them around the outside of the circular bay, past the busiest of the healers, Estelle found an isolated medic who was sending his patient off, ostensibly cured.
“There are thirty more injured females in the hallway,” Estelle told him as the emergency settings went from blaring red warning back to green evacuation status. “And approximately another thirty ran for their cabins. If you have a master key, we can go clear them room by room and flag where you’re needed.”
Willa thought that was a little much. She didn’t want to go door-to-door, she wanted a pain reliever and to let the med corps do their jobs. And some blessed silence, please God.
Holly borrowed the medic’s gun-shaped emergency diagnostic scanner from his bag while Estelle talked to him. It was nice of Holly and Estelle to help him multi-task, but Willa was pretty sure he could talk and treat them at the same time.
Turning the beam on Willa, Holly quickly scanned her, and dug back into the medical bag. Coming up with two instafuse syringes, she quickly popped each against Willa’s neck.
“I think it would be safer for you females here,” the medic responded. “But it’s very brave of you to want to help.”
The cool pressure soothed after the initial pinch, and pain faded from Willa’s head, her focus sharpening. She watched Holly turn the scanner on herself. Quickly tapping the screen, Holly frowned.
She pointed the scanner at Willa once again. More thumb tapping and frowning followed.
“Mother fucker,” Holly whispered, drawing both the medic and Estelle’s attention.
“Hey! That’s not a toy.” The medic tried to grab the scanner from Holly, but she darted out of reach.
Moving faster than Willa could follow, Estelle kicked the distracted medic behind each knee. He buckled forward onto his knees, and caught himself with his hands just before he face planted. From somewhere, Estelle produced a set of CGA-issue pressure cuffs. She locked them on the huge Corian’s wrists and dragged him into a kneeling position, pinning his tree-trunk arms up next to his ears, her knee in his kidney.
“Calling out for help is a bad idea.” Holly removed the energy blaster from his belt and calmly deactivated the safety. She kept the business end pointed down, the threat implicit.
“Ummm. Guys?” Willa spoke into the tense atmosphere. “Maybe we should all take a beat to calm down.”
“Shut it, Willa,” Holly snapped. She turned her attention to the medic. “How do you pull up medical files?"
“Use that access pad.” He pointed with his chin to a thin, clear tablet with a stylus attached to it, making no attempt to break free.
Since she was the closest, Willa picked up the pad and walked it to Holly. The petite woman’s scalp still oozed blood, and the flashing green lights didn’t do anything to mask the crazed, slightly desperate, look in her eyes.
The medic cleared his throat. “Whose medical records would you like access to?”
“Mi
ne,” Holly growled.
∞ ∞ ∞
“When the field fails, be ready to uncloak and flank,” Tiron commanded his Stealth Fliers, his laser-like focus on the live feed of the battle.
Outside of the energy barrier they’d erected around this arm of the spiral galaxy, Vank’s crew on the Horizon took heavy bombardment from an unusually equipped Assault Ship. Darvan’s Victory also sustained quite a bit of damage from a Ventix Devastator, commonly known as a world-destroyer. Tiron had baited the three Assault Ships pursuing the Trident into a short, vicious battle, and had destroyed them.
Up to that point, they’d executed the CGA’s break-through contingency plans flawlessly. Now, he waited patiently for Vank’s attack on the remaining Assault Ship to play out. It would be Tiron’s fighters that flanked the remaining enemy ships, corralling them into position for the killing blow, but the time was not yet ripe.
It was imperative that they capture the enemy ships and investigate the provenance of their weaponry. Before Vank lost his communication capabilities, they’d received a data burst from the Horizon that detailed the Ventix armaments. Tiron was disturbed to learn that someone had fitted the enemy with plasma technology. Plasma tech was an exclusive development of the CGA…
“Sir, are you seeing this?” Kintkos, his Communications Specialist tried to draw Tiron’s attention back to Darvan’s battle with the Devastator just as Vank scored a kill-shot on the Assault Ship. Tiron was surprised to see the enemy ship break apart, debris catapulting into the Horizon’s cereshields, certainly damaging them.
“They’re too vulnerable out there now,” Tiron murmured.
“Sir?” Kintkos again urged him to turn his attention to the General’s skirmish.
On the large screen, the remaining Ventix world-destroyer generated a space fold and backed unhurriedly into the wormhole, abandoning its attempt to get past the Victory. Fold generators of that magnitude were available through one source and one source only in the known universe: the CORANOS Galactic Alliance. The need to capture the enemy ships increased and the likelihood of that happening vanished.
As he watched, Tiron’s blood ran cold. He knew Vank had attempted to calculate where the Ventix ship would exit the wormhole. Vank clearly planned to try to beat the Ventix into their galaxy and cut them off, but, with his damaged cereshields, it was a risky move.
Just as the Ventix fold began to close behind the behemoth warship, it sent a hyper accelerated parting shot at Vank’s warship. If going into a wormhole with damaged cereshields was inadvisable, then compounding the situation with a hyper accelerated push would be deadly. But it was too late to stop the Horizon, it had already generated its own wormhole and engaged its warp core. Vank and his crew were likely dead before the tunnel closed behind them.
Silence reigned on the bridge for a long moment, these warriors were well-trained and Tiron had no doubt that they would react to any threat swiftly. But right now, they felt the loss of their brother warriors as one. He and Vank had been through school and warrior training together. They’d risen apace through the warrior ranks and Vank had hand-picked most of Tiron’s own crew. His best friend since childhood was simply…gone.
Finally clearing his throat Tiron demanded, “Status report.”
There would be time for grieving later, when he could take comfort in his female’s arms. Right now, his warriors would default to their duties, every battle, great or small, provided opportunity to collect data, to learn and to grow stronger.
∞ ∞ ∞
Hours Later
It had been a brutal few hours of situation assessment and risk mitigation for General Darvan’s armada, and Tiron was exhausted. He needed to check in with his operations team to assess damage before he could even think about returning to Willa. It was going to be a long night.
“Soryan, status report,” Tiron requested via internal com as he began his rounds.
“Commander, I’m on Res Deck Eleven,” his Doranos Security Chief com’d back. “We have a situation that requires your attention.”
Tiron’s heart began to pound and he picked up his pace. Res Deck 11 was where his Willa should be, waiting safely in her escape pod. Soryan’s team would unseal her capsule and see her back to their quarters.
“On my way, Soryan,” Tiron said, ducking into the nearest lift.
Chapter Twenty
“Estelle, I cannot protect you if you don’t do as I say,” the Security Chief warned, his deep voice bouncing weirdly off the rounded walls of the pod bay.
“Soryan, my patience is at an end with your sexy ass. You need to find Merik for my girl, Holly, before she loses what’s left of her mind,” Estelle hollered from behind the medic, Locor’s, broad body. Holly had gone mute, but the traumatic events of the last hours hadn’t decreased the decibel at which Estelle communicated.
The pain meds had worn off, and Willa’s head ached. She stood, back pressed to the cold beige wall, wishing this were just bad dream. Right now, everyone looked like creepy characters from a nightmare. Or extras on the set of a sci-fi slasher flick.
Thankfully, the flashing green lights had stopped, but, in the glare of the overhead lights, the damage to the bay and its occupants was shocking. If they’d sustained this much damage here, in the most insulated portion of the ship, Willa didn’t even want to contemplate what Tiron and his warriors had endured. He had to be all right, this wasn’t his first battle.
Holly and Estelle still held Soryan and his security goons back. The air was thick with tension. Whatever Holly had seen in her medical scans had sent the sweet, pixie-faced female into an icy rage.
It was clear to both Estelle and Willa that Holly was close to losing her marbles. Presumably, Locor understood the cause of Holly’s anger because he’d been adamant that Soryan listen to their demands. Willa knew the CGA Warriors had a firm directive on hostage negotiation - they didn’t do it. Ever.
“Commander Tiron is on his way,” Soryan shouted back.
Relief coursed through Willa. Tiron would sort this mess out.
“Do not think that your disobedience will go unpunished, female.”
“I am very naughty,” Estelle agreed with Soryan, unperturbed. “I think you’ll have to spank me,” she added with a saucy purr.
“Willa?” Tiron’s familiar voice shouted. He’d joined the party clustered, out of blaster range, around the curve of the bay.
“Tiron! I’m okay.”
“Where is Merik?” Holly spoke up finally, her voice hoarse.
“His squadron was collecting debris and data for analysis,” Tiron’s reply was calm and confident. “He should be here momentarily.”
Holly didn’t say anything further, but Willa thought she seemed to relax.
“You going to be alright?” Estelle addressed Holly in a low voice.
“I’m not sure,” Holly answered back at a reasonable volume, proving that both women could indeed communicate quietly.
“Holly, what is the meaning of this?” A fierce-looking Corian in a black flight suit marched toward them.
“You tell me.” She pointed her weapon at the tall male’s mid-section and tossed him the data pad.
Merik studied Holly for several moments. She gestured impatiently to the data pad with the blaster.
“What is it?” Merik turned his confused gaze on Locor.
“It’s a record of her hormone stabilizer,” the medic said uneasily. “The one we gave the Earth females before we understood the cause of their irrational behavior.”
“Irrational,” Holly echoed furiously. “You were drugging me.”
“Ohhhh shit.” Estelle gave a low whistle. “That’s what this is about?”
“No,” Holly snapped, still giving Merik the hairy eyeball. “That’s not all. Now, I have government-issued birth control implanted in my arm and an alien baby growing in my womb. That is what this is all about,” she spat, angry gray eyes boring into Merik.
“Wait. What?” Estelle and Willa spoke a
t the same time.
“How were they able to neutralize the birth control?” Estelle wanted to know.
Willa was confused and a little nauseated by the unexpected revelation. She hadn’t taken any precautions at all against pregnancy. Truly, the thought had never crossed her mind, but she was going to remedy that soon. Tiron wasn’t even certain he would keep her. She did not want to raise a child on her own.
Merik dropped to his knees in front of Holly, wonder evident in his silvery eyes. “Is this true?”
“No, I just thought it would be fun to screw up your busy day,” she replied bitterly, stepping away when he reached for her.
Soryan was suddenly behind Holly. Compassion shone from his deep purple eyes. Without a word, he relieved Holly of her blaster. She didn’t resist him when he secured her arms at her back.
“There is no babe?” A look of pain crossed Merik’s face, making Willa very aware of how desperately he wanted one.
“She’s being sarcastic,” Estelle supplied, releasing Locor’s cuffs. “Sorry about all this.” She gave the medic a conciliatory pat on his beefy shoulder. “Ummm…before you take me to the brig, or wherever, you might want to scan me, too.”
Soryan shot her a steamy look across the small space. Willa felt a little envious of the easy affection between the small Earther and the tall, well-built Doranos.
“Willa’s pregnant, too,” Holly said quietly, looking at Willa directly for the first time since her freak out.
Willa’s vision swam and she put a hand to her head to steady herself.
Tiron moved into her line of sight. He looked so angry that her heart stuttered, skipping a beat. She felt the blood drain to her feet and she swayed. Gravity gave her a sharp tug, pulling her to the floor, and she knew no more.
∞ ∞ ∞
Willa felt as though she were swimming into consciousness through deep, murky water. That dream…it was so bizarre and disjointed. There had been pain and flashing lights, and those small, strong, incredibly loud women. When her subconscious decided to concoct nonsense, it really outdid itself.