Page 66 of Relyn
“Oh. Okay. Thank you so much,” Nora said and severed the contact.
“Go back to the courtyard?” Denise said mockingly. “Are we stupid? Hopefully she doesn’t try to contact the Bitch or the guards to chew them out. That was quick thinking, telling her that. Hopefully she’ll walk right in and check to make sure everyone is accounted for.”
“Unless she tries to contact Patches and Boots and doesn’t get an answer,” Nora countered. “And I hope they are out so long that if there’s com equipment, they’re too far gone to use it.”
Nora wanted to try and contact Relyn again, but the risk was too great. They didn’t know enough about how to secure a channel to make absolutely sure that Alana wasn’t listening. For now, they just had to relay the update to the rest of the women and wait.
After an hour, the women checked in. They’d found three laser pistols and several women had picked up other blunt objects that would be useful as weapons. Penny, it turned out, found a treasure trove in the medical rooms.
“I was a nurse and I did a rotation on Shackleton,” she said as she handed out eight devices. “These are basically point and click syringes and I’ve filled them with enough sedative to knock out an elephant.”
“I do not know what an elephant is,” Pila said, causing the Earth ladies to giggle.
“Just about the biggest land mammal we have on our planet. It’s got a- never mind. It’ll take down anything. Just act all helpless and then smack it on their skin and push this button and wham,” Penny said, clapping her hands together to indicate an object falling down.
The syringes were distributed amongst the crowd and they all went to their spots to wait. It was a long three or four hours before the roar of the ship’s engines touched down outside the atmosphere dome. Nora, along with Denise and Pila, crouched down staring at the ship from the building closest to the pad. They waited. No one came out of the ship. They waited some more, nearly twenty minutes and still, nothing.
“Should we?” Denise asked, motioning to go.
“If she suspects a trap, then it’s best not to spring it,” Pila cautioned. She was right. They really only had one chance at it.
“But if she refuses to walk into it?” Nora asked.
“What’s she going to do? Kill us all and start over again with getting her baby makers?” Denise asked.
“It can’t be easy to grab all these women without drawing attention to themselves,” Nora said. They had drawn attention already. That’s why Bright and Relyn had both been hanging out with the pirates.
“I’ve got an idea!” Nora said. “Hand me that scarf,” she said to Pila, who had a gauzy scarf wrapped around her midsection. As long as she could hide her hair, Nora might pass as Charlette from a distance, especially if she sold her better than thou attitude. Charlette would have just been told by a guard that Alana expected her to pop out babies as well, and would be pissed enough to throw caution to the wind.
Nora wrapped the scarf around her hair and over her head. She put her hands on her hips, let out a huff, and stormed outto the ship. She didn’t even slow when the air grew thin, and she gasped for breath.
She pounded on the panel of the hatch, and surprisingly, the hatch ramp began to descend. And that’s when she realized that she hadn’t brought a weapon with her.
It was too late to go back and grab one, and any other women would set off alarms. Alana would definitely know she wasn’t Charlette a second or two after seeing her.
“Oh thank God you’re here!” Nora shouted as she ran up the ramp, ignoring her spinning head. The flush of cold oxygen from the ship was a relief as she looked around. There was a familiar crate in the center of the hull and Alana stood alone, poised to open it.
“Of course it would be you that got out,” Alana said. She didn’t seem too alarmed by her situation.
“Where are Dumpy and Slumpy?” Nora asked, referring to the other two guards that had flown off with Alana.
“Dumpy and- oh!” She gave a little laugh, as if she got the nickname.
“Men are so predictable. The moment I got my hands on the crate, they tried to change their split. What they never realized was that when I said this cargo is priceless, I meant that it couldn’t be sold,” Alana said, cracking the top lid.
Nora realized that she was talking about them in the past tense. She scanned the room for a weapon.
“So you killed them,” Nora said.
“I spaced them,” Alana confirmed. “We won’t need them anyway.” She lifted a canister out of the crate, and held it like a baby.
“You realize that you’ve been going about this the wrong way the whole time. There are plenty of women back on Earth that would jump at the chance to leave in exchange for surrogacy services.”
“You think the Mahdfel would let such a thing happen? It would take away females from their precious mate pool. Even if none of them were good matches, they are too full of themselves and their drive to fuck to even consider such a thing,” Alana said.
“Did you even ask?” Nora saw a goopy pool sliding out of the box. Alana was too busy messing with the canister to notice.
“My husband never asked me about anything. I was nothing but a place to put his mutated seed.”
