by Ruby Dixon
“Don’t look,” Liz whispers to me.
I look, though. Someone has to look. Someone has to see.
Sick at heart, I watch as the redhead bucks and tries to free herself. I watch as the first alien undoes the front of his uniform with a touch at the collar. I watch as his friend makes laughing comments as he mounts the gagged woman.
I watch, dry-eyed and full of hate as they laugh and get on top of her over and over again. It seems to go on forever. At some point she stops fighting and goes limp, and I hope she’s passed out. I hope she doesn’t remember any of this.
Liz squeezes my hand. “Kira says they have standing orders that they’re allowed to ‘discipline’ any misbehaving captives.”
I nod and finally look away as the aliens talk in their weird language and switch places once more. I’m guessing she’s good and “disciplined”’ by now. I want to scream, but loud noises aren’t allowed. I dig my nails into my palms and gaze down the row of pale faces in the pen with me, trying to figure out which one is Kira. A girl at the end with silky, flat brown hair is weeping with her hands pressed to her ears. It’s as if she can’t stand to hear what’s going on, but the redhead is silent. There’s only alien chatter.
That must be Kira. She’s the only one who can understand them, thanks to the device implanted in her ear. I scan the others. They’re in shock, eyes averted. One girl wears a look of horrified grief, and I wonder if she was a screamer, too. I decide I don’t want to know. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to drown out the world. Trying to exist in a quiet bubble where none of this is real. Where if I pinch my arm hard enough, everything will go away and I’ll wake up.
But when I close my eyes, I see the redhead’s face as she’s raped. I see the ball head’s face as he jokes and yammers away in his alien language as he rapes the girl. As if it’s no big deal, just another day at the office, typical water-cooler shit.
Liz is right. We’re nothing but cattle to these things. They’re going to sell us to someone else to rape, to eat, or both. Or something else more horrible that I can’t even imagine.
I’m not going to take my fate sitting down, though. I cross my arms tightly over my pajamas, draw my legs up, and study my surroundings. I look at each nook and cranny of the strange walls, trying to determine if there’s anything I can grab that can be used as a weapon.
Because I’m going to kill those pebbly, gross bastards if they ever try to touch me.
• • •
No one else comes on board the ship for the next week, so I’m starting to suspect we’re “full.” Which is good, considering that our tiny hold gets more and more crowded-feeling with every hour. Now with Dominique—the brutalized redhead—squeezed in with us, we feel like sardines.
Not that anyone is jumping up to complain.
Liz and I talk quietly during the night, when the guards leave us alone. We must be heading out to space now. Our ears have been popping repeatedly during the last few days, and we suspect we’ve begun traveling at a high speed.
And we don’t know what to do about it.
“We start with killing the guards,” I tell Liz and Kira for the second time tonight. “The little green men seem to have the basketball heads doing all the grunt work. I think if we get rid of the orange ones, maybe we can bully our way into demanding a return to Earth.”
“Tiny flaw in this plan, Georgie,” says Liz, ever the practical one. She gestures at the bars of the cage. “We’re on this side, and they’re on the other side. With guns.”
“We need to do something to prompt them to open the door.” Kira’s quiet voice cuts through the darkness. “I would say we could wait for another captive to show up, but . . .”
“Yeah,” I say thoughtfully, my gaze sliding over to where Dominique huddles in a corner, alone. She’s been a straight-up mess ever since they’d returned her to the cage. She’s quiet now, of course. She spends her waking hours with her fist stuffed against her mouth and biting down on it, tears streaming down her face. And she resists all attempts to befriend her or calm her down. It’s going to take time and patience, and because we’re all crammed into something the size of a closet, patience is running short at the moment.
I look back over at Kira and Liz’s grim faces, thinking hard. “What if we all pretend to be sick the next time they come to feed us?”
“That won’t be too hard,” Liz says. “Those seaweed bars are fucking nasty.”
But Kira shakes her head. “And what if they decide that since we’re all sick, they’ll just dump everyone into space? We’re extras, remember? As long as they have their quota in those pods, we’re expendable.” She gestures at the lockers on the opposite side of the room.
I can’t forget them. I don’t know if I’m jealous that they’re completely unaware of our situation or even more horrified at what they’re going to go through when they wake up. But she’s right. The pod people being safe and secure makes us superfluous, and I’m not willing to add “sabotage the pods” to the escape plan. Nor am I willing to leave them behind. We’ll simply have to factor them in. “Well then,” I say. “What if we scream?”
Kira swallows audibly. “That terrifies me.” She peers over my shoulder at Dominique and shudders.
“I don’t like it either,” I tell her. “But what are our options? One misbehaving person ensures that everyone else stays safe, right? So we get their attention, get them to open the doors . . .”
“And?” Liz prompts. “What? Get raped?”
“No.” I don’t even want to think about that. “We need a distraction of some kind. We can rush them when they open the doors. There are more of us than them.”
“But they have guns,” Kira points out.
“But if we all rush them—”
“Then the ones in front get shot,” Liz says. “I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want to die. And I don’t know that the others do, either. They’re not really fighters. None of us are.”
“But what choice do we have?” I protest. “We can be good little slaves and still get raped and still get sold off for God knows what. At least if we fight back, we have a chance.”
“No, you’re right.” Liz draws her knees up close to her chest, thinking. “So we make a distraction, have them open the doors, rush them, take the guns, and take control. We just need to make sure Kira’s protected through all of this.”
“Me?” Kira looks surprised. “Why?”
“Because you’re the one with the translator,” Liz says grimly. “We’re not going to be able to convince them to turn around and go back to Earth if you get shot and we can’t talk to them.”
She has a point. “I’ll be the distraction. It’s my plan.”
“You sure?”
God, no, I’m not sure. Every part of my body vibrates with terror at the thought of those pebbly-skinned creatures touching me. But what choice do I have? Sit back and do nothing? Roll over and let these creatures decide my fate? Screw that. “I’ll do it.”
As if agreeing with me, the ship lurches and dips, sending us all sprawling.
Not a single person screams, of course. We know better.
• • •
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 g
oing on?” I whisper to Kira 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,” Kira says, chewing on her lip. But Liz 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 wad 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, Georgie,” Liz 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 slops 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,” Liz 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 Kira, 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?” Kira 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. “Georgie. Hey, Georgie, stop. I think he’s dead.” Liz’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 face is nothing but a pile of meat atop his neck.
I stare. Then I throw up.
“You did it,” Liz says, rubbing my back. “Holy shit. You did it, Georgie! You’re a fucking Billy Badass!”
I don’t feel so badass. I feel sick. I’ve just killed a man. Kinda 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,” Liz 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. Liz clutches her ears at the same time as I do, and we look at each other in surprise.
Kira 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
• • •
“Hey.” A familiar voice sounds in my ear. “Hey, wake up. Are you okay, Georgie?”
I slowly come to and groan at the fierce stab of pain shooting through my forehead. Then, a moment later, the pain isn’t just in my head. Every part of my body aches, my wrist most of all. It throbs with an uncomfortable fire that seems to radiate all the way up to my elbow. I squint up at Liz as she hovered over me. “Ow.”
She grins back, displaying a fat lip and a growing bruise on one cheek. “You’re alive. That’s always a plus.” She sits back on her haunches and offers me a hand. “Can you sit up?”
With her help, I get to a seated position, wincing. Sitting up just makes everything hurt even more. “What happened?”
“We crash
ed,” she says. “Most of us got knocked out from being bounced around. There are a few broken bones, a few bloody noses, and two who didn’t make it.”
I stare at her in shock then scan the cabin. “Two people . . . died? Who?”
“In addition to the guard you took down, Krissy and Peg. Looks like broken necks.” She nods over at the far side of the room. “Poor kids.”
I swallow the knot of grief in my throat. I didn’t know them well, but I knew their terror and fear. I’m just glad I’m alive. I hug Liz, and she hugs me back, and for a moment, we’re just relieved to be breathing and mostly whole. Over her shoulder, I squint, noticing that the entire cargo bay seems to be slanted at an angle. The metallic floor is covered with debris, tilted, and icy cold. I get to my feet with her help, wobbling, and gaze around in shock.
Several of the girls cling together in a corner—Megan is hugging Dominique and trying to calm her, the latter choking back braying sobs. Other girls are still sprawled on the ground, unconscious, and I see two bodies piled in the corner next to the dead guard. Krissy’s dark hair tumbles over her face, obscuring her features. It’s for the best. I look away. Over off to the side, Kira’s trying to help another girl straighten an obviously broken leg. Kira’s own face is bruised and blood’s running down from her ear implant.
Everyone looks beaten up, bruised, and damaged. I gaze down at my own legs, but they seem to be okay. My wrist, however, is swollen and getting a little purplish, and my ribs feel like they’re on fire. “I think I broke this,” I say, holding my bad arm out. I gingerly rotate my wrist and nearly pass out at the shockwave of pain it sends through my body.
“Guess you won’t be clubbing any more aliens then,” Liz says cheerfully. “If it’s not broke, it’s sprained pretty bad. You should see my toes on my left foot. They look pretty awful, too. Like they tried to make a strategic retreat into my foot and failed.”
I glance over at her skeptically. “Then why are you in such a good mood?”