So yeah, Helen needs to be bait. The male aliens lose their minds every time they see her.
As to my role, it depends. I'm not as young as the others. I'm thirty-three, and I'm pretty sure that Alice and Ruth are both mid-twenties. Helen is apparently a fully grown three, since we're counting the years that she's been out of the stasis tube (since Helen has no memories prior to that). Alice has blonde hair, Helen purple, and Ruth's hair is long and silky. Mine's kinky and coily, and even though I've been growing it out, it puffs around my head, wild and untamed. My skin is a rich shade of golden brown, which the aliens seem to find exciting, but I'm not as slender and busty as the others. I'm solid. More than solid. Whatever. I'm plus sized, and there's nobody out here in space o impress, so I don't care.
Normally I'd opt out of dressing up as a slave girl because I feel a little awkward standing next to the others (especially Helen) but Ruth's in a mood, and the last thing we need is her scowling at the aliens as they board. "Alice and I will greet them. Helen, you know your role, right?"
She nods, giving me a thumbs up. "I lay down in my stasis pod and pretend like I'm just waking up. And I look pretty and helpless."
"Bingo. Ruth, that means you're going to be in charge of doors. It looks like they're coming in from the right-hand side of us, so you'll need to get those doors. Can you handle that?"
"Yup." She pops the “p” sound at the end of the word and gets to her feet. "I'm on it."
I glance back at the window, and the incoming ship looks enormous. Bigger than a shark, I decide, upping it. Whale shark. That's worrisome. "Go ahead and change into your costume too, Ruth. Just in case we need backup."
"Ah, fuck me," Ruth grumbles, but she'll do it.
I take a deep, steadying breath, smile at them, and put my hands on my breasts. "Five minutes, ladies. Change clothes, fluff your tits, and get ready to wow some aliens."
8
ADIRON
Both Kaspar and I watch from the staging room as the hatch-to-hatch connection extends out to the Buoyant Star. I'm not entirely surprised to see it hook on to the other ship, though it does fill me with a creepy feeling. There's no green light to show we've been approved to board. There's no response from the other ship at all, actually. No shields, no response to our hailings, no nothing.
I look over at my brother as I ready my blaster. "Ghosts."
He snorts. "It's not ghosts, you idiot. Mathiras said his readouts show that she's venting carbon dioxide from time to time, so the life support systems are on and working. Someone's in there. If it was all ghosts they wouldn't need life support."
"You don't know that," I shoot back. "You've never met a ghost."
"Will you two shut the kef up?" Lord Straik snarls from behind us. "You're getting on my last nerve."
I make a face at the door and then lean over to Kaspar. "Ghosts," I whisper, just to have the last word.
He looks thoughtful, then crooks a finger, indicating I should come closer.
I do.
He licks his finger and shoves it in my ear.
With an outraged sound, I stumble away, glaring at him. "You monster."
"You left yourself open for it," he says with a shrug.
Damn it. I totally did.
"I'm about to shoot both of you in the back and declare to your brother that it was an accident," Lord Straik says from behind us. "How has he not killed the both of you yet?"
I grin. Kaspar does, too. We're always a little antsy when we're about to board an enemy ship. I mean, sure this one's full of ghosts, but that doesn't mean it's not the enemy. We don't know what's over there, so we'll treat it like the bad guys, and this is part of our ritual to pump ourselves up. We joke around, we're obnoxious, and we try not to take things too seriously.
I wonder for a moment if I'd be able to lick my finger and stick it in Straik's ear before he notices. Probably not.
The ship chimes a warning, indicating that the staging room is about to be sealed off from the main part of the ship. It's designed that way so if the ship-to-ship connection gets torn away by accident, the rest of the crew inside the vessel doesn't get killed. Usually, it's also a signal that shit's about to get real and to pay keffing attention. I glance at the ship-to-ship connection, but it hasn't been refused. The Buoyant Star connects with The Darkened Eye as if she has a crew on the other side, manning the controls.
"You think that's automated?" Kaspar asks, clearly on the same page as me.
"You know what I think."
"Right. Ghosts." He smirks and plays with his blaster, pulling it out of the holster at his hip. "Ten credits if you let me go first."
I snort. Ten credits won't even buy a pack of carcinogels. "Keep your credits. I don't want to go first anyhow." I mean, if there ARE ghosts…
"Shut up. Both of you." Lord Straik sounds like an angry parent. "Or I'll leave you both behind."
Kaspar steps in front of me and I grunt acknowledgment. Go first. See if I care.
The portal clicks, then chimes a confirmation as it locks on to the Buoyant Star. Air rushes into the expanding tunnel walkway between the two ships, and I feel a rush of adrenaline. For better or for worse, we're about to get to the end of this crazy chase. We've lost our ship—temporarily—and we've teamed up with the enemy, but it'll all be worth it if there's something good on the other side. I imagine enough riches to buy a planet…not that I want one. I'm not entirely sure what I'd buy if I grew obscenely wealthy. I like spending time with my brothers on our ship. I don't care about the credits. I just don't want to be alone with my thoughts.
There's a positive, chirpy little chime from our ship, indicating that it's now safe to move forward. I turn to look behind me, and Lord Straik is wearing his cloak and dark clothing, because of course he is. He's flanked by six of his a'ani retinue, all of them armed and in body armor. They're ready to take on whatever we find on the ship, most likely by force.
Straik nods at me.
I turn forward and nudge Kaspar. "Let's go in."
My excitement builds as my brother takes the lead with me a step behind him. As we cross through the tunnel, I look out the window and see the enormous hull of the ship. The Buoyant Star is a cargo ship, like many that take to the outer lanes of the known galaxy, and so most of her hull is cargo space. The ship's sleek on top, not much bigger than The Darkened Eye, but latched on behind her, connected with cables and pulleys and a few strategic walkways, is an enormous cargo hold. It reminds me a bit of an iceberg, with a small tip and the bulky, dangerous underside.
I lean close to Kaspar as I walk. "Look at the size of that cargo hull. What do you think they were shipping?"
"Dunno," Kaspar murmurs back. "Better hope for our sake it's not livestock."
I make a face at that thought. I can just imagine going all this way to hunt down some lofty treasure…and finding nothing but a hold full of long-dead meat-stock. That'd be some luck. "Maybe it's weapons," I whisper back to Kaspar. "Isn't that what Mathiras thought it might be?"