Page 26

Nala

The hold they brought me to wasn’t lit, but a huge crack ran down one wall, high up, letting in some of the cold night air and a little light.

I thought the Krektar roughly escorting me would try to hurt me, or cop a feel, something.

But he seemed much more afraid of his boss, and the order to return immediately had him almost literally toss me through the door before hurrying off.

Not a word spoken, not a single moment to adjust, before the metal door shut with a reverberating bang at my heels.

I froze in place, willing my eyes to adjust to the meager light.

It was dark—so dark—and cold in here, too.

A pale moon must be out, though, because light reached down with thin fingers through that jagged crack.

A typical Long Hauler hold, big enough to contain at least a thousand stasis pods.

Was that how full they’d stuffed this place?

While my eyes fought to adjust, my ears did all the work.

I could hear shuffling, breathing, soft crying, and a few whispered voices in the distance.

I was not alone in here. Shuffling from nearby made me press my back against the door.

It felt like I had a giant bullseye painted on my chest, as if everyone were staring but I couldn’t see them.

My wrist throbbed, painfully reminding me that I was very vulnerable—injured, pregnant, alone.

Did I speak out? Ask for help? How many were in here?

Slowly, my eyes started to adjust, and I could begin to make out the stacked but empty stasis pods against one wall, and the rows of gently humming pods still working in the distance.

Then I saw the huddled shapes, lying on the floor, cuddled together in corners or against the pods—eyes glinting back hints of the light from the crack.

Dozens—no, maybe even a hundred. There were a lot of eyes.

I couldn’t keep standing there, pressed against the door for what remained of the night.

My sore body was too tired for that. I had to sit down, and I had to find allies.

Surely, I would find people who wanted to escape, willing to help?

But as I shuffled away from the door and got a good look at who was there, unease began to crawl up my spine.

Most, if not all, of them were men. And a lot of them looked very rough around the edges, tattooed, grimy, muscled, or with rotten teeth in one particular case.

These were the types of guys I’d known back in my neighborhood and feared would accost me on the way home.

And they weren’t all human either. I saw the gray sheen of Talac skin in one corner, three of them huddled together, whispering.

Gold gleamed between humans here and there, Terafin bright eyes looking back at me.

And even—much to my surprise—a Dragnell perched high on a stack of crates, furred snout tossed into the air as he sniffed.

With the faint moonlight filtering through the crack at his back, his similarities to an Earthen wolf were all the more obvious.

They should have been sleeping, and many were, but it felt like just as many were wide awake, and a disconcerting number of them were men.

I had only glimpsed one or two women huddled with a guy so far, and I was beginning to feel increasingly threatened.

Did they just happen to be huddled more closely together and in my path, or was I being circled, ranks closing in on me?

In the distance, barely touched by the light filtering in through the cracked hull, I realized more stasis pods still stood in towering stacks.

Pods lit with soft glows indicated that they had an occupant, and I froze as the implications hit me.

How many people were still asleep in here?

Too many, and this was only one of the four cargo bays a Long Hauler tended to be equipped with…

Someone got to their feet next to me, tall and broad-shouldered, and in the dark, they were barely more than a big, threatening shadow.

Then another rose, and they really did begin to close in around me.

“Who are you?” someone demanded, voice low and suspicious.

Another chimed in, then another. “Are you alone, little girl?” That voice cut through the rest—low, sinister, edged with the growling tones of his language.

The Dragnell leaned down from his stack of stasis pods, as if he were a king surveying his kingdom.

Golden eyes glinted at me from over his sharp, wolfish snout.

“No one,” I squeaked out. But I firmed my spine, and my next words were a bit firmer.

If I showed them how scared I was, they’d be all over me—that’s how bullies worked—and I was willing to bet these guys crowding around me were exactly that.

“I was wrongfully and very fakely executed by the UAR, just like all of you. They’re the ones that screwed us over, sold us out! ”

My words stirred something in the crowd.

Shouts went up; others shushed them, but those around me were whipped into a bit of a froth.

Not directed at me, but at the UAR, as each of them recounted the wrongs the Alpha Quadrant powers-that-be had done them.

I tried to slip between them, keep moving, while preventing my broken wrist from getting jostled.

I had to get out of sight—to hide—before they remembered they wanted to paw the new girl.

A hand gripped my good wrist just as I ducked around the corner of a stack of crates.

“Not so fast, you,” a male voice said. I twisted my wrist, the only recollection I had from a series of self-defense lessons I’d once taken in college.

It broke his grip, and I slipped away as fast as I could.

He wouldn’t have it, and I knew I was in real danger again.

It sucked, and unlike before, I was beginning to feel like anger was winning out over fear.

There was nowhere to run, but my eyes lit on a broken crate, blessedly wooden.

He was right behind me when I ducked and snatched up a piece with my good hand, and he didn’t expect me to turn around and take a swing.

It reverberated up my arm, made me moan when pain burst—sharp and bright—through my bad wrist, and wooden splinters dug into my fingers.

He only faltered a few steps, cursing loudly, and it drew the attention of the loudly arguing, enraged crowd we’d left behind. I saw far too many people moving around the crates and stasis pods, looking, staring. Eyes that glimmered when they caught the faint light; faces in shadows.

So many of them, big and intimidating. Where were the women Levant had filmed with his tablet? They had to be somewhere. Could I find safety in numbers with them? Or had they all been claimed and taken? Worse, did the Krektar have them?

A hand slipped around my body, slender wrist, long fingers, female.

A body followed, stepping between me and the angry, approaching guy.

I could see just enough of his face to note bushy brows, grime dug deep into the furrows across his forehead, and matted brown hair.

His eyes were obscured by darkness, giving him a demonic appearance.

The woman stepping between him and me was very brave, and because of that, she seemed tall, though she wasn’t much bigger than I was.

“Get lost, asshole,” she said firmly. “Only warning you once.” He kept going, and something high-pitched whizzed through the air.

I didn’t see anything, but suddenly, red blood dripped from a cut above the guy’s eyes, and he staggered backward with a curse.

I heard the whirring, high noise again, vaguely saw something whip through the air beside the woman.

“Anyone else?” she demanded. The crowd began to melt away, turning into the darkness, voices settling down.

It wasn’t until the last had turned the corner that my new friend turned around to greet me.

A lucky shaft of light struck her face as she did, and I noted freckles, pale hair, and a big black bruise darkening one eye.

Her lip was swollen too, cut down the middle, but the blood had dried into a protective crust. She was young—late twenties at the most, around my age—and her eyes were fierce and fearless, but softened kindly when they met mine.

“Hi, I’m Jolene. What’s your name?” she said, her voice not quite pitched into a whisper but low so the sound wouldn’t carry.

My eyes dropped to what she was holding in her hand: straps, a piece of what appeared to be leather tied to it.

Her other hand cradled several marble-sized rocks.

A sling—a very primitive sling—but a weapon all the same, and handmade by the looks of it.

Effective, too, it seemed. It had worked on the guy; the whole crowd had decided that sling was more trouble than it was worth.

“I’m Nala,” I said, and I grimaced wryly.

“I’d offer to shake your hand, but my wrist is broken.

” Jolene gave me a look of sympathy, then stepped closer, her arm coming up slowly—clearly so she wouldn’t spook me.

I didn’t move away, and she slung it around my shoulders and turned me.

I gasped in surprise when I realized a dozen more women had gathered behind me, and Jolene was not the only one holding a primitive sling and a pile of rocks.

No wonder the crowd had dispersed. I knew there would be strength in numbers, but I was really impressed by this clever mobilization and ploy to arm themselves.

I was willing to bet the Krektar wouldn’t even recognize these rock-throwing slings as weapons.

Jolene led me toward them, then through the first ranks and into the tiny corner of the hold they’d clearly claimed as theirs.

More women were there, some still curled up and sleeping, many also unarmed and frightened.

They had no blankets or food, so as Jolene urged me to sit against the wall, the others gathered back around us, huddling close for warmth.

“Do you know anything about where we are?” Jolene asked me as she tucked away her sling and pulled a pile of scraps from behind a crate.

She urged me to give her my broken wrist, and I hesitated only a moment before doing so.

It was already broken, and my wrist and fingers were beginning to look purple from bruising.

“I’m a registered nurse,” Jolene said, and as far as qualifiers went, that was probably the best one.

I talked to her softly, and to the women leaning in around us, just to keep myself distracted as she felt along my wrist and began to bandage it with a twig as a splint to stabilize it.

It hurt badly, but I wasn’t going to cry or make noise.

Not when they’d so bravely stood up for me a moment ago.

Not when I needed to stay strong so I’d survive, escape, and find Artek.

“This is the Zeta Quadrant,” I bit out. “We are years away from home. The UAR sold us out, but I haven’t figured out to whom yet.

This planet has a natural EM field; they must have flown too close, and it made them crash.

” I added, like Jolene had earlier, “I’m a cartographer.

” As if that explained why I knew so much about where we were. It might, to them.

“Local help we can count on?” one of the women to my left asked, an Asian woman with a bright lock of pink in her shiny black hair.

It stood out, even in the dark, almost glowing with light.

I shook my head, because even though there were locals with their spears, I knew they wouldn’t—and shouldn’t—try to attack the Krektar.

Their Shaman Council would warn them against action; Artek had explained that, though he’d agreed to think of other solutions.

I didn’t know if Artek was alive either, though I badly wanted to believe that he was.

I needed to believe it, even dared to say that, in my heart, I knew it to be true.

“There are Naga, but they’re primitive, spears and sticks.

Their females don’t like...rivals, so they’ll probably not even want to help,” I added, because Jolene was finishing up the knots and I was starting to feel nervous about what was next.

They seemed nice, helpful, but I also didn’t trust them not to talk to the Krektar if they were questioned.

The women nodded, most turning away as if that news came as no surprise to them.

Like they hadn’t held out hope for a rescue coming for them.

“Go sleep,” Jolene said. “They’ll put you to work tomorrow, broken wrist or not.

” It was good advice, and as the others all lay down to sleep, I did the same.

The cold metal floor sapped my warmth, but Jolene and the pink-haired lady bracketed me, keeping me warm.

Unlike them, I also had my thick leather and fur-lined coat.

The others all wore the same gray pants and shirt I’d woken up in myself.

Sleep was hard to come by, but it claimed me eventually.

My dreams were filled with my baby girl and my handsome, pearly-white Naga Shaman, taunting me with images of a future I wanted to grasp with both hands but felt slipping away from me with every passing moment.

When I did rise, a few short hours later, those dreams slipped away like smoke and left me sad and dejected, no different from the other downtrodden people around me.