Page 43 of Chieftain (The Outlander Book Club… in Space! #1)

Daisy

It could be worse, although I'm not sure how.

Teachings from years of Sunday School banged about my brain. Be positive. Look on the bright side. Choose a joyful attitude. Always find the blessing at the moment.

Blessings. Right.

I was still alive. That was something.

I wasn't physically hurt, not yet, at least, and I still had all my facilities.

Well, as much facility as someone can have after they’re kidnapped by aliens.

It still didn't seem real, but the way the cold dampness of the ground on which I knelt seeped into my bones told me it was very much not a dream.

If I’d been in my old body, I’d probably be crying by now from the pain in my joints.

Doodle! I would miss my knee replacement surgery scheduled in July.

Not that it mattered anymore. The strange machine used by the first aliens I’d encountered—the ones that looked like hairless cats—told me the machine restored me to my most perfect body.

Aliens apparently didn't believe in mirrors, and the reflection from pieces of shiny metal I'd found was muddy at best. I could tell from how I felt and looked that the machine spat me out at roughly twenty-five years of age.

The cat-girl appeared disappointed. Even at my healthiest, I was probably ten to fifteen pounds heavier than I should be.

Honestly, I’d never been happier to be plain and chubby in my entire life. Especially when I heard cat-girl talking to some cat-boys about my friends.

My friends.

The best five women I’d ever known.

Please, dear God, let them be okay.

The Tuesday night Outlander Book Club members had been friends for at least twenty years—since the day I’d caught one of them hiding a copy of Outlander behind a hymnal during my husband’s Sunday morning service.

As the minister's wife, I'd acted properly outraged.

Still, it spurned friendships that saw me through the dark days of unsuccessful fertility treatments and the death of my Gavin.

Please, dear God, let me find them again.

I hadn’t seen the other women since the bright flash of light appeared over our campsite, but I heard the cat-girl talking about how the two most beautiful were sold to royalty.

That had to be Emmy and Willa. Even though both were in their early sixties, they remained breathtaking.

If the aliens ran them through that weird machine like me, there is no telling how gorgeous they came out.

That left Pearl, Agnes, and Clara unaccounted for—they could remain on the spaceship with the cat-people for all I knew.

The aliens immediately moved me to another ship after I came out of the young-again machine.

At least my buyers didn’t look like caps.

Both were inordinately tall aliens who looked human save for the pale gray skin, snow-white hair, and curling horns that appeared carved from pearl.

The aliens that took me weren't cruel. They weren't anything, really. Mostly, they ignored me save for leading me onto their spaceship. The room they locked me in was nice if I was being honest. The bed was comfortable, and the steam shower felt lovely once I figured out how to use it. The only time the door opened was to drop off gray pellets that looked like soggy packing peanuts and tasted like rice cakes. They gave me what I suspected was the alien version of water, although the flavor of the liquid was akin to weak, unsweetened lemonade. I ate every tasteless morsel. I’d need my strength, especially since the cat-girl told me I was being sold as a labor slave.

In the week it took to travel from the cat-people ship to my new home, there were times I almost convinced myself everything would be okay.

I might end up a maid or working in the kitchens.

Thanks to that machine, I was young and strong again.

I could handle physical labor. My husband, Gavin, and I have done enough mission trips.

I knew how to live rough. I planned to work hard, keep my head down and find a way to escape.

Of course, when the spaceship finally landed, all my hopes for a nice place to work went to hell in a handbasket.

We were definitely underground. A globe the size of a basketball hung from the ceiling, emitting a glow of pale lime-colored light.

The cave walls were an array of ochre, rust, and vermillion as if someone took a brush and haphazardly swiped waves of paint across them.

The ground consisted of compacted terra cotta-colored dirt and small stones that dug into the flesh of my knees and legs.

The air was thick with acidic must, like the inside of an old armoire filled with mothballs.

A rickety cot lay in one corner with what appeared to be a sink and toilet—alien versions of Earthly counterparts—occupying the far wall.

Good thing I wasn’t claustrophobic. Clara would lose her shit in a room like this.

Actually, I didn’t mind the small, dingy room.

There was something comforting about the space.

It gave me a sense of control and security, like I was in a cocoon, not exposed to the dangers of the outside alien world.

It helped me to calm down and focus my mind.

And pray.

I was the daughter and wife of ministers; a quick prayer was my go-to in any harried situation.

I wasn’t na?ve; I knew prayer wasn’t a fix-all—it wasn’t a guarantee that bad things wouldn’t happen.

I’d miscarried too many babies to believe otherwise.

But sitting in this damp, dark room deep inside some alien planet, murmuring the words, calmed me.

It kept my imagination from heading down a rabbit hole of horrors where I would never see my friends again.

I settled myself, trying not to feel the damp dirt underneath my legs as I repeated the mantra.

I would be okay.

I would escape.

I would find my friends again.

Hope was as necessary to me as breath. Hope that somehow I would find a way to escape.

Hope that I would find my friends. Hope that we would find our way back to Earth.

If my version of Earth was still there. According to sci-fi movies, hundreds of Earth years might have passed since that fateful hiking trip on the Appalachia approach trail.

Pearl was right. We should have gone to a day spa.

The heavy piece of metal that sufficed for a door slammed open, jerking me from the meditative state I managed to achieve.

The pearl-horned alien standing in the doorway was much bigger than the others of his kind, with a thick heavy scar carving the side of his face from temple to chin. His dark green eyes swept over me, giving a grunt that said in no uncertain terms I did not impress him.

“Come human.” His gruff voice ordered.

I clamored to my feet at once, amazed at the pain-free ease of movement. Maybe being run through that machine wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

He led me out of the room down a tunnel strung with pale green lights.

The damp, musty smell increased as we moved, scents of decay adding to the miasma.

I could tell we traveled downward, deeper into the planet, in a manner that reminded me of a winding staircase.

The alien veered right just before hitting a solid stone wall, pulling back a ratty leather sheath and motioning to the darkness beyond.

I didn’t mind enclosed spaces, but I hated the dark. Especially this kind of dark, so black I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. When the lights flashed it, the brightness momentarily blinded it.

“You work here, human.”

Once, when we were newly married, Gavin and I went on a mission trip to a small village in northern Thailand.

They had assigned me to work in the village kitchen—a small bamboo hut with a moldy water bucket and a rusty wok propped on a tower of misshapen stones.

That kitchen looked far more serviceable than what lay before me.

In the middle of the room sat a huge, iron hearth.

On it rested a black pot with its lid propped up on one side, something gray and nasty peeking out from inside.

Two metal tables stood against the far side of the room.

Dirty cookware and unwashed plates sporting moldy bits occupied one table.

I didn't recognize the contents of the many food containers—plastic bags, metallic cans, leaky boxes, bright foil packets, and glass jars piled haphazardly on one another.

The corner formed by the two outer walls held an oblong table empty except for the pools of congealed blood and the wickedly sharp cleaver discarded atop it.

“You cook for miners.” The alien grunted, pointing to the table holding the containers of food. He turned, motioning behind me to a pile of nasty clothes standing as tall as I was. “You wash for miners.”

“I take care of the miners,” I repeated, schooling my feature to keep from grimacing. I wanted him to think I would not be trouble. I wanted him to learn to ignore me. Escape would be easier that way.

The alien grunted and turned to leave.

“H—how many miners?” I said to his broad shoulders, watching them tense as though he found my voice grating. I was a minister’s wife; I knew how to feed a crowd.

The alien glanced at me over his shoulder, frowning. “Come.”

The alien’s pearl horns gleamed in the darkness, a beacon I followed as we traversed the tunnels.

Dampness clung to my skin, rivulets of water seeping down the rock walls around me.

Until now, the only sound I’d heard was the distant rumble of an engine.

Now I began hearing the rumbling scratch of rocks moving and a deep pinging noise of something sharp hitting something hard.

Up ahead, the lights grew brighter, and the shush and draw of dozens of breaths chimed together.

We stepped under a low archway, coming out on a small landing that overlooked a sea of movement. The alien beside me bellowed out a word that only translated if he actually said, flibbertigibbet.

All movement stopped. Even the raspy breath sounds ceased as my eyes fell on the scene below.

The aliens peering back at me through the darkness were all different shapes and sizes.

Some looked like bugs, some cats, one had a head like a dolphin, and there was one that I thought looked distinctly like a grizzly bear cub.

All these creatures had only one thing in common: one thing that made my mouth dry and my blood cold as I looked over the bruised and exhausted bodies.

They were all children.