Page 8 of Alien God

“Sorry,” I mumbled, keeping the sarcastic bite out of my voice. I tucked my hammer under my armpit and rubbed my gloved hands together. “Just gotta warm up and get back into it.”

Major Corey clomped closer. I stumbled back against my tree, suddenly afraid he really was about to get physical with me. No one had gotten shot on this mission, but I’d seen other women get roughed up and put in the ship’s brig. And, of course, we’d all been drugged and violently taken from Earth in the first place. Abducted and taken to an alien planet. Isn’t it supposed to be aliens doing the abducting? Not your own fucking people!

My jaw worked, my heart pounding as Major Corey came to a stop before me. I stared at the American flag stitched onto his military parka. Our particular mission was largely run by the US military, but governments from all over the world were apparently in on this project. Hell, Suvi had been taken out of her bed in Finland, and I’d been snatched from Northern Ontario. Min-Ji had lived in Vancouver before this.

I could sense Min-Ji tensing up nearby. From the side, I saw her gripping her hammer harder, weighing it in her hands, as if figuring out if she could throw it hard and reliably enough to knock Major Corey out.

Don’t do it, I begged silently. The last thing I wanted was to see her in cuffs thrown into the brig. Just let him be an asshole and be done.

“Don’t like the cold, Hayes?” Major Corey sneered. “Maybe we send you to the sand planet next time.”

I shivered, and it wasn’t from the chill in the air. The higher-up military liked to keep a tight wrap on what was going on with other missions – other missions just like ours. Ships of abducted scientists being sent out all over the cosmos to try to find resources we could study to use on Earth. But we all knew what a threat about the sand planet meant. There had been enough whispers, enough snatches of gossip, to know that the ship to the sand planet had been destroyed by alien monsters the moment it had landed. The crew had all been killed, and the women had been taken prisoner by violent alien male hostiles. I didn’t know what had happened to them after that, but it was pretty easy to assume they’d been raped, maybe even murdered. It was a stark reminder of why the military only used female civilian scientists for these projects.

Honestly, getting shot is probably a better fate than that.

“I’m fine. It’s fine,” I said. I was speaking more to Min-Ji and her hammer than Major Corey, but it did the trick. He made an unconvinced noise, then trudged back to his spot to watch us like he’d done all morning.

“Alright everybody,” he snapped, hand resting on his gun. “No more stupid shit. Get back to fucking work.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Torrance

“Man, weather like this makes me want Korean food so bad,” Min-Ji moaned as she bent to retrieve a crystal shard she’d just sheered off her tree. “I’d kill for a bowl of my mom’s kimchi-jjigae right now.”

“That sounds good. What is it?” Suvi asked, aiming her hammer precisely and striking off an impressive hunk. Unlike my green tree, hers was a pale lavender colour. Min-Ji’s was pink. We’d been working tirelessly on our trees since Major Corey had snapped at us a couple of hours ago and had been largely silent until Min-Ji had just spoken.

“It’s amazing is what it is,” Min-Ji replied. She tossed her crystal into the bin we were all using. “Like a stew basically. With pork and spicy fermented cabbage. It’s so good on a cold day.”

“I’ll take a bowl,” Suvi replied wistfully. “Along with a cup of glögi. Spiced mulled wine,” she explained before we had to ask what the Finnish word meant.

I smiled behind my neck warmer. This was a game we often played to pass the time. The game didn’t have a name, or rules, but it was something we all instinctively gravitated towards. Talking about the things we missed, the best parts of our lives back home. Living on military rations on the ship meant that the game often revolved around food.

“Maybe I’m boring, but I just want a really good burger, you know?” I said.

Min-Ji groaned in agreement.

---