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“ Y ou sure know how to show a girl a good time,” Rosalie drawls at me in a terrible fake American accent as we walk through the stinking service passage.

“I thought you should see how the other half live,” I toss back over my shoulder as we hurry through the conduit. “Your life of luxury was making you soft.”

Rosalie snorts a laugh.

Neither of us have had the opportunity to use a sonic shower in days. I know I smell like an armpit, and I’d apologize to Rosalie if she didn’t smell like one too. Not just any armpit either, an alien armpit, on this ship I thought it would be a good idea to board.

Like we had any other options.

“Don’t touch the wall if you can help it,” I say, my hand hovering a fraction above the wall to our left. I can feel the extreme cold against my skin. “I think it’s the outer hull.”

“Have we ever been in this part of HMS Stencherprise before?” Rosalie asks me.

“I don’t think so. This is a voyage of discovery.” I hurry on, my boots ringing against the metal below our feet.

The one thing which could have made things worse was if I’d been abducted in my jammies…like Rosalie. As it is, I was fully clothed. At least it meant I could give her my coat.

“Boldly going where no one else wants to go,” Rosalie grumbles.

She’s not wrong. We don’t want to be found by the rag-tag bunch of aliens who own this ship because I have my suspicions about their motives, given the number of interesting items in their hold. Rosalie thinks I’m getting space sick when I say I think they’re pirates.

But she doesn’t contradict me about the hiding from the crew part.

Ever since we both escaped from the cage we were being held in like animals, because Rosalie had the foresight to put a bit of fabric in between the elements of the locking mechanism when they threw in our food, we’ve been inseparable.

Rosalie trusts me, and I’m glad to have a friend.

“This way.” I turn a sharp left, following the rudimentary map I drew when we first boarded. “I think there should be some empty cabins or something this way.

“A cabin?” Rosalie squeaks from behind me. “You are really spoiling us.”

It’s my turn to laugh. Cabins usually mean we can get clean, sleep on a bed rather than the floor, and if we’re lucky, the food dispenser might work, although we try not to use them if we can.

The aliens know we’re here. They just haven’t caught us yet. If our luck holds, we’ll get to their next destination and get the hell off this shithole of a ship.

“Ugh, gross,” Rosalie grumbles, as she steps into a pile of goo dripping from the low ceiling above us, ducking and weaving around it. “Why did I think space would be clean ?”

“Common misconception. After all, where could all the dirt go?” I reply.

“Currently, it’s all over me. I’m covered in space dirt,” Rosalie replies. “And I was promised champagne and flowers.”

“Here we are.” The conduit comes to an abrupt end, where there is a grating.

I give it a sharp kick, the universal method of dealing with such things, and it pops free.

I gaze at the small hole I’m going to have to go through. It takes nearly everything I have not to vomit, but we need to keep moving and I’ve done this a dozen times now.

Claustrophobia is not fun in space.

Rosalie and I squirm out into a marginally less filthy passage.

“Here.” I point out the door next to us, marked only by some faint paint which might have once been decoration. “Do your magic.”

Rosalie is, by her own admission, a tech nerd, something which has come in handy so far. Especially where doors and cages are concerned.

She clutches her fingers together and stretches them out dramatically in front of her.

“Stand back for the master.”

I shake my head and don’t even try to hide my smile, leaving her to her work as I progress further down the passage to add to my map.

Mostly I’m plotting places we can hide, or potentially the aliens can’t get to us, like the conduits we mostly use to get around.

Either they can’t or don’t want to follow us, as so far we’ve evaded capture.

I don’t like to think what will happen if they do catch us. I haven’t mentioned to Rosalie the room I found which was hung with what looked like body parts and stank like death.

She doesn’t need to know.

“Any luck?” I ask her.

“Not yet,” Rosalie says with the now familiar tone in her voice which means she’s concentrating. “These aren’t like the other cabins I’ve hacked. I think they’re something else.”

“You can hack anything. You are awesome,” I call back to her.

I’m rewarded by another snort of laughter. After all, she’s from Sheffield and I’m from the Home Counties. Nothing has ever been awesome. Quite nice , perhaps, or even not so bad . But never awesome .

There’s another door at the end of the dimly lit passage. I approach it expecting absolutely nothing, but instead it slides open with a grinding sound. The light changes from greasy white to flashing blue, and a piercing klaxon has me covering my ears.

“What did you do?” Rosalie yells at me. I can hardly hear her.

“Nothing,” I mouth back. “We should get out of here.”

I put one foot out of the doorway, and I’m confronted by a black clad alien.

He’s huge, well over six foot in height and with tentacles which writhe at his back and over his head.

The helmet he wears obscures his face, but I suspect he doesn’t breathe air, given it has long tubes extending like whiskers from the front.

“Run!” I scream at Rosalie as it lunges for me.

I skip to one side as the claws rake past my shoulder, only catching the very ends of my long, dirty hair. I slide down the metal floor, turning onto my back as I see Rosalie darting back into the passage with the cabins. The alien advances on me, blocking my way to her. Her pretty face peers out.

“Go! Hide somewhere. I’ll find you, I promise,” I yell, hoping she can hear at least some of what I said as I scramble to my feet.

“No, Kerra, come back.” I hear her voice over the sound of the alarm. “I think these are es-ca- p-ds!”

Her words are cut up by the alarm ramping up another notch. Was she trying to say she found a way to escape?

Whether I triggered the alarm or not, this is as close an encounter with the crew on board as we’ve had, and I consider we’ve been lucky if this one is anything to go by. I’m being attacked by a giant shrimp and it’s less fun than I imagined.

I back up, waiting for the thing to make a move until I hit a bulkhead. It provides me with two possible exits, and without thinking, I race down the righthand one. Behind me, I hear the sound of pounding feet. As it’s bigger than me, I already know it’s gaining.

The passage opens up, and I risk a look behind me. The black humanoid shrimp is close, too close, the horrible clawed appendage reaching for me again.

But rather than catching me, he’s jerked away, his head coming off his body and the two parts spiraling through the air. I probably should have noticed the bulkhead before I ran into it, but a sudden dismemberment is going to be distracting at the best of times.

I hit the wall, hard, sending me sprawling. Beneath me, the metal of the floor vibrates. I push myself up onto my elbows, looking for an escape route.

There isn’t one.

There is only another dark figure, advancing on me as I contemplate my fate.

I know this isn’t going to end well for one of us. And I very much expect it’s going to be me.