Page 59 of Relyn
The hallway on the left opened up into what looked like a guard station with lockers along one wall and food replicators on the other. There were three empty tables that could comfortably seat four.
“Designed for a maximum of twelve,” Denise muttered.
The hallway continued out the back of the room. They proceeded and at a point Nora guessed to be opposite the entrance, there was another room filled with computers and equipment. It too was empty.
“This is control,” Nora said aloud. “Do you know how to work any of these?”
Denise sat down at the com panel. “I’m afraid to touch anything. It could be security key coded, or I could lower the dome by accident and possibly alert the guards. And I don’t think they’d be happy to find us here.”
“Reconnaissance only, then. We can come back later,” Nora said.
They continued on, finding a long hallway of doors on the next corner. There were no signs of movement, but Nora didn’t want to be caught snooping. It would be much easier to get out a second time if their captors didn’t know about their first jaunt. At the end of the hallway was a door that took them into the final leg of the square that completed the compound.
“What the fuck,” Denise said under her breath.
Nora couldn’t be more in agreement. The last building was a half built state of the art medical facility, complete with multiple medbays. They made their way through the equipment, most of which was still in protective wrapping, and it seemed to Nora that there were a slightly more than average number of smaller bays. Either they were planning to serve a much shorter species of alien or…
“They’re expecting babies. Lots of them,” Nora said out loud.
“They’re gonna fucking breed us,” Denise said.
Nora and Denise looked at each other and silently agreed that it was time to go back and share that information with the rest of the women. They quickly retraced their steps, encountering no one and slipped back inside the inner compound, just in time to hear the muffled sound of a ship’s engine landing outside the dome.
Nora took a lounging seat and forced herself into some breathing exercises to calm her beating heart. The doors slid open and two of the black mud aliens carried in an unconscious human woman and parked her right inside on the ground. Noneof the other women seemed concerned. This was apparently a common occurrence.
A blonde woman appeared behind them. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she surveyed the room with such disdain that it was clear this was the one that they called The Bitch.
The two aliens retreated and the blonde turned to leave, but Nora wanted to know how much she actually knew about what was going on.
“So I hear you know Jane,” Nora called out. The woman snapped back around. Nora’s guess that she was related to the women on Etlon 2 was evidently correct.
“What do you know about Jane?” the woman asked.
Nora shrugged and got up to walk into her room. Let her stew a little. It didn’t take much time before the woman followed her right into her quarters.
She asked again, “Jane. How do you know Jane?”
Nora picked up her tablet and sat down on her bed. “I know her. And Meadow. And Humility.”
“What lies have they told you about me? Did they tell you I killed my husband? That they left me to rot in space? Did they tell you that they abandoned me?”
“Honestly, I have no idea who you are,” Nora said truthfully.
The woman sat down across from Nora. “That’s not surprising at all. The way they treated me? Just because I didn’t want to fuck that alien brute? And then, when he died in a tragic accident, they blamed me and shipped me off to space. Left me to fend for myself after the captain was murdered and if Alana hadn’t taken me under her wing, I would have been raped or worse!”
Nora watched her carefully as the woman turned on the tears at the drop of a hat. She’d had students like this before, manipulative and borderline sociopathic. At the very least shewas narcissistic, and having met the others, Nora expected that the claims of her killing her husband were probably true, especially when she was luring women into some sort of sex trafficking ring. But that was the last thing that she wanted this woman to think.
“I was shot and shipped to Etlon 2 without my permission. Then the Mahdfel had the nerve to declare that since I was sent with their technology, I was apparently their property now,” Nora said.
“Only until it’s convenient. Then they have no problem shipping you home,” the woman replied. “But I can’t go home. The shame of returning after associating with- with them!” The tears were coming on full force now.
“I didn’t though. I was kidnapped! My mother is probably frantic,” Nora said. If she had any doubt of the reality of the tears, it disappeared as quickly as the tears did. Never try to out drama a sociopath.
“You can’t go home,” The Bitch said. “You are going to be an exalted mother. Alana says all your names will be written in the anals of history. Forever.”
It took every ounce of her being not to go English teacher on her and explain the difference between being remembered forever and being an asshole.
“Annals or not, can I at least call my mom and tell her that I’m safe?”
