“Dammit, no!”
Impact. The crush of steel on steel pierced her ears. Gravity pulled at her too, and at her Seraph. A second impact rattled her teeth, and she knew she’d dropped onto something very solid.
A glance out the other side of her cockpit revealed the Hope sitting on a huge expanse of flight deck, surrounded by machines she did not recognize, with a Seraph-sized hole leaking atmosphere in her side.
Stay put, she typed to Gordon, sending just as her systems crashed and the flyer’s power died. Janlin groaned, rotating a sore shoulder. Then she punched the dead controls with a curse.
Bracing her mind for just about anything, she glanced out again. The mist coming from the hole she’d made dissipated, and a different movement caught her eye. There, on the other side of the Hope, massive hangar doors ground shut. The darkness of space on the other side slowly disappeared.
Chapter Nine
JANLIN WATCHED HELPLESSLY, immobile in her crushed flyer. Adrenaline ebbed, and dull pain took its place. She flexed, confirmed nothing broken, but the control panel pinched her legs. She removed her helmet and wriggled free of her suit, wincing at the pain that heralded the bruising to come.
She crouched on the seat to peer into the massive bay. Should she try to get out and hide? But already she could see people entering the huge flight deck.
No, not people. Their heads were sunken between their shoulder blades, their bodies thick and broad, their skin a deep yellow shade.
Aliens.
Some rode machines while others marched on foot toward the Hope. A few were on their way to her. Janlin stared, unable to move, her brain unwilling to consider the consequences of what had happened.
As they closed the distance, Janlin assessed the creatures, reeling with the thought of first contact gone wrong. The aliens stood between six and seven feet tall, some even more, and despite twisted features, they had more similarities to human faces than differences. Two eyes, a nose of sorts, a mouth that obviously spoke. Hair. Two arms, two legs. A group approached her flyer, and they called back and forth, pointing and—could it be?—laughing.
A bang made her jump, and she twisted around to see one of the aliens perched on the flyer. He peered down at her with a scar-lined sneer, his lip curled to reveal teeth within. Close up, she realized their yellow skin was scaled, reptilian. Janlin wondered if she could simply stay in her flyer. It was sealed, strong, impervious even to their mighty fists or machines, right?
The alien called to someone below, and a machine arm came into view. It looked like a huge steel jackhammer, and Janlin hastily pushed the release to open her hatch.
The hiss of air made the alien flinch, and he grunted angry sounds in her direction. The jackhammer still hovered as she climbed up to stand on her seat. He stared back with hard eyes.
“Hi,” she said for lack of better ideas. “My name is Janlin.”
“Janlin Kavanagh,” came a voice from below. Janlin leaned over to see Fran walking up. “Still as useless as ever, aren’t you?”
Janlin bit down on her first reaction, though the second thought wasn’t much better. “To think I was glad to hear you were alive.”
“Well, I’m not glad to be alive. Soon you’re gonna wish you hit that wall a little harder.”
Janlin opened her mouth to demand an explanation, but Fran turned to the alien beside her and began to gurgle and grunt at him. The alien replied in kind. Janlin stared. Of course, Fran the linguist using her skills to make sure she came out on top. Just as she did when she slept around command to ensure her place on Mars. So, what the hell was she doing here?
A ladder of sorts appeared at her side, and Janlin scrambled down it to face Fran. For her part, Fran was listening closely to the orders she received, and before Janlin could speak Fran waved her to follow and took off at a run towards the Hope. It was either follow or remain with the hulking strangers that alternately leered and snarled at her. Janlin chased Fran, her boots thumping on the steel floor of an alien vessel.
Her crewmates streamed from the hatchway. Armed aliens escorted them. Stepper led the way, an alien weapon aimed at his head. Fran was headed straight for him.
Janlin pumped her legs harder to catch up with Fran, grabbed her arm, and spun her around.
“What’s going on? Are the others alive? Do you work for these brutes? Where’s my—”
Fran wrenched her arm away. “Shut up, Janlin! You have no idea what you’re dealing with.” The aliens closed a circle around them, herding the crew of the Hope together.
Gordon appeared and laid a hand on Janlin’s arm, but she shook him off and lunged at Fran with her fists bunched. Fran caught her flailing fists and yanked her forward, throwing Janlin off balance and onto her ass. Fran backed around, watching with a raised eyebrow as Janlin scrambled to her feet, shaking with rage.
“She’s a traitor,” Janlin cried. “She works with them, speaks their language. I saw her! How could you?” She threw the question at Fran.
Silence fell, and Janlin felt the bay floor tremble beneath them.
Fran crossed her arms. “I do this to protect what’s left of my crew,” she said. “You have no idea—”
A whine cut the air. Fran paled. Janlin felt the hair on her arms stand on end, and she swore softly. Following the sound, she saw bolts of electricity crackle around the end of the short stick one of the aliens held. A smell like a soldering iron made her nose twitch.
A gurgle came from the alien. Fran nodded and turned so she faced the crew gathered at the base of the ramp.
“Listen up, all of you,” she said, pitching her voice so all could hear. She pointed at the humming device. “I’ve danced with those a few times now. They work a lot like a taser, only worse. It’s better not to resist.”
Janlin choked. “You’re telling us to just give in?”
The whine rose to a higher pitch, and Fran glanced sideways at it. “We call ’em nerve whips. They hurt right down to the bone without ever leaving a scar. First, you’ll piss yourself, and then you get to lay in it for a while, since you won’t be able to move for a few hours, despite still being able to feel the excruciating pain.”
The crew stood silent. The aliens watched, some wearing green and black uniforms equipped with what could only be weapons at the waist, others in plain, if dirty, coveralls. The latter had abandoned all pretence of work and stood staring at the spectacle. Most had what Janlin could only interpret as a pleased expression. They were huge, and their lack of necks left their heads sunk down in a permanent shrug. A few here and there had a faint reddish slash along the side of their heads, below what seemed to be an ear, but most didn’t. Red tinge or not, they all looked mean. Even the ones without nerve whips didn’t look like good playmates.
“Those who require the whip too often become useless, unable to handle the physical work. They, and others, are taken away and never seen again.”
The tableau held for a long moment before grunts and gurgles forced Fran into motion again. “Just go with it,” she said, waving Stepper to follow her.
“You’re not really going to—”
“Janlin, shut up.” Stepper turned and followed Fran.
Janlin ground her teeth while they were herded through some sort of scanning machine. Stepper and many others were stripped of side arms, belt tools, pocketknives, and the like. Janlin turned so she faced Gordon.
“Cover me,” she said. She unclipped her nano-recorder from her chain and popped it into her mouth, tucking it under her tongue.
“Blimey, Janlin, did you just eat that?” Gordon asked.
Janlin shushed him as they went through their own processing, reminding her of a security clearance station at a launch site. Everyone wore ID tags on chains, SpaceOp’s version of the military’s dog tags, and the aliens were collecting all of them. Janlin handed hers over and walked through the scanner, barely breathing until she got through without an incident.
On the other side of the scanner ran a narrow pas
sageway. Fran directed them through and into a holding room. More aliens stood against each wall, all holding nerve whips, and there was only one way in or out. Soon they were all there, and Janlin angled over to where Fran sorted them into groups.
“What the hell, Fran?” she started. Someone grabbed her elbow hard, and she glanced back to find Stepper there. He squeezed again and gave her a warning look meant to shut her up, but she hadn’t asked about Rudigar yet.
“It’s good to see you alive, Fran,” Stepper said. Fran just shook her head.
“You’ll change your mind soon enough.” Her eyes shifted sideways to the waiting guards, and she moved along to group more people.
“Are there other survivors?”
Fran spun on him. “Stop following me. Here, Gordon, take care of these two, will ya?”
“Great to see you too, Fran,” Gordon said. He wore a strange grimace and flashed worried eyes.
“Right. Look, I’ll try to get you some intel later. Once we leave this room we aren’t supposed to talk. Let’s not push it right now.”
Janlin exchanged a glance with Stepper. Fran moved on with her sorting. “Fran!” Janlin called, wanting to ask that one all-important last question, but Fran hissed over her shoulder to stuff it before she got whipped.
Janlin turned back to her group. “No talking . . .” she began.
“Means no planning,” finished Gordon.
“We’ll find a way out of this,” Stepper said. His forehead furrowed as he watched Fran, and Janlin thought his assurance sounded empty.
“We should’ve fought harder,” Janlin said. She knew she sought a release for her anger and fear.
“No, don’t fight,” Stepper said. Janlin gave him an incredulous look. “Let them take us in so we can find out what happened to the Renegade and her crew.”
“Does the boss even know what you did to the ship yet?” Gordon asked. He elbowed her in his usual daredevil manner, but he also watched the sorting with careful consideration. “Maybe your call sign should be Crash.”
“Gordon!”
Stepper turned on both of them. “I am aware of what happened. Candice and Weston were both injured when you blew through the hull. They’d be dead if we’d been in open space.”
Janlin felt her stomach drop. “No! I told her—”
“Candice fell, hit her head. Weston was tending her. He knew nothing of your plans.” Stepper gave her a hard look. “I know you were trying to do the right thing, Janlin, but now you’ve got to play it Fran’s way. She knows what the hell is going on here, and we don’t.”
He turned away, leaving Janlin to reel under the weight of guilt. She had tried to take all the risk on herself . . . she never meant for anyone else to get hurt. Worse, it had been all for nothing.
Chapter Ten
FRAN STEPPED UP onto a riser and turned to face them. Janlin’s angry guilt faded under the desperation of their situation. She wouldn’t just sit on her duff while these aliens called the shots.
“Stay in your assigned groups unless told otherwise. Each group will be assigned work on one of three round-the-clock shifts. Once you’re done with your shift, return to your bunk. Anyone caught where they shouldn’t be gets whipped. Anyone who talks too much gets whipped. Anyone who annoys the wrong Imag gets whipped. It’s that bloody simple.”
A few words of protest started but Fran stared them down.
“Some things never change,” Gordon said to Stepper, but he just shook his head. Something had changed in Fran’s demeanour, and Janlin saw that Stepper watched with pity in his brown eyes. Janlin looked away, teeth clenched against the flop of her stomach. Crewmates injured, all of them captured by aliens, Fran running the show . . . it just couldn’t get any worse, could it? She held any thoughts of her father away from these musings, unwilling to even consider just how much worse it might get.
“You should be glad I’m here to pave the way for you,” Fran said. She looked straight at Janlin. “When we were taken, our only communication with them was by nerve whip.”
“What about—” Janlin started, but the Imag moved among them now, splitting them off from each other and herding them out the door. Janlin looked around, wondering how they were taken so easily, why no one was resisting. Stepper wore that determined look, though, the one telling her he must have some idea in mind. Reluctantly, she followed his lead. Maybe now they would be reunited with the Renegade survivors. Sick hope wound its way through her gut.
As quickly, doubt and worry replaced it. Her father would never have put up with capture and passive resistance. It wasn’t his style.
A blast of heat struck her as they moved further into the ship. The rumbling beneath them also intensified, forming now into regular noise. They walked along a corridor, the heat growing with each step, and the air tasted of hot iron. She could also smell unwashed bodies, sweat and fear and despair mingled in tight quarters.
Flashes of light came from ahead. Janlin craned her neck to see past others doing the same. In the huge area beyond the doorway, misshapen shadows moved against the brightness of white-hot molten steel flowing along blackened channels.
The image stayed on her retinas even as she tried to blink it away.
The heat, the noise, it all came from a huge cavern-like bay. Janlin knew some of the stations built by SpaceOp were large, but to have a working factory on board a space ship seemed a little over the top.
The shadows moving across the bright heat were misshapen because they were alien, she realized. In that moment the significance of what was happening finally sunk in, and it took every bit of courage she had to keep walking.
She worked the nano-recorder out from between her teeth and cheek and flipped it over to the other side. Built with amazing endurance, it should be fine. She would tuck it away somewhere more permanent once they stopped moving. What good it could do, she wasn’t sure, but it did offer some measure of comfort to know she’d snuck it in.
Distance muffled the heat and din as they moved deeper into the ship. She had a feeling the noise would always be there, round-the-clock, rising and falling in pitch, but always there.
They entered a long room with rows of stainless-steel slabs jutting from the walls and support struts. Everything was steel—the floor, the walls, the doors that slid into the wall.
Gordon’s eyes were round as he sidled up to Stepper. “I saw what could only be an electric arc furnace, and more than one blast furnace.” He leaned close, barely sub-vocalizing the words. They were jostled into the middle of the group as the guards crowded them from behind, and Stepper shook his head to quiet Gordon. Ahead, Fran seemed to be assigning people to something.
With a start, Janlin saw people lying on the steel slabs.
“They’re bunks?” she said, her voice too loud. Stepper and Gordon both glared at her before looking ahead to see for themselves.
“What’s it all for?” Stepper asked Gordon quietly. His voice had an edge of urgency. Soon they would not be in the middle of a crush of people, and it would become even harder to communicate.
“Refining iron ore or scrap metal into usable steel . . . only I didn’t see any coke or coke oven battery.”
Janlin turned from trying to see ahead to give him a funny look.
Gordon rolled his eyes. “Not that kind of coke. It’s a processed form of coal that is super strong and burns steadily. It produces the kind of heat required to get things to a molten stage. How they’re doing it without coal I don’t know.”
“Let me guess—you’ll be happy to work here,” Janlin said. She laid the scorn on heavy in her tone. She knew Gordon could take it.
Gordon looked bemused. “I mean I’m not sure what we’re in for here, but they’re refining iron ore into steel in space, for crying out loud. I want to know how.”
“And why. But not now,” Stepper said in an undertone. Most of the crew stood bunched together, whispering amongst themselves just as they did, and Stepper looked as if he was about to start calling
out orders. Janlin reached to forestall him, but the crowd thinned before them and Fran appeared, saving Stepper from the role of drill sergeant.
“What do you people think this is, kindergarten? Pick a bunk and get in it. It’s gonna take me a while to sort you all out.” She looked drawn out and old, not the confident woman that Janlin remembered.
Janlin nudged Gordon. “If we lay down head to head, we can talk,” she muttered. He nodded, and they moved down the row as Janlin scanned those already there, searching face after face. Some she recognized from Luna Base, and others she’d never seen before. Finally, not seeing her father anywhere, she was forced to take a bunk next to Gordon as Stepper snagged one across from them.
“Thank you,” Fran said as she marched up. “Maybe your example will get things moving. I have to keep reminding these idiots that a nerve-whipped slave is useless, although this influx of numbers has them pretty excited.”
“Excuse me?” Janlin said, not liking Fran’s tone. Janlin liked her prone stance even less as Fran stood over them. “Did you just call us slaves?”
Fran’s lip curled. “I sure did, honey,” she said. The sarcasm made Janlin tense.
“So, we’re expendable,” Stepper said heavily.
Fran grimaced. “It hasn’t been good,” she admitted.
“What about my dad?” Janlin asked. “Is he here?”
Fran shook her head. “Haven’t seen him in months. There are quite a few of us missing.”
“Missing? Or dead?” Stepper asked.
Fran shrugged. Her eyes flicked to the other end of the hall.
“How much talking is too much, Fran?” Gordon asked.
Fran sighed. “You never know with these idiots. They’re as likely to whip you for nothing at all, like big alien bullies really. The ones in uniform are the worst, mostly because they like to whip their own workers too.”
Fran moved on to sort out the last few stragglers.
“I’m sorry about your pa.” Gordon spoke softly, and Stepper nodded from across the way.
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