Page 23 of Alien Breed

Raz looks shocked. “You are a brutal, twisted little thing. You didn’t deserve the kindness I showed you.”

“Probably not. Get in the fucking airlock.”

He betrayed me, but of course he doesn’t see it that way. Guys like him never do. They think the women they lie to deserve to be lied to. They think their intelligence and lack of morality makes their actions not only justified, but even admirable.

As he realizes the game is over, he starts telling me what he really had in store for me.

“You’re going to be hanged, human. You’re going to get what you deserve. Creatures like you are the ones who deserve to be deleted.”

“Right. So it can’t exactly get worse for me, can it? I can do whatever I want to you. Get. In. The. Fucking. Airlock.”

He does as he is told. He’s got to be terrified, but he is wrestling with himself not to beg me for his life. He knows Sheriff is listening, and he doesn’t want to die a coward. Apparently dying a liar doesn’t bother him nearly so much.

“Here’s the thing, Raz. I’m going to open this airlock, and you’re going to be sucked out into space. There will be a split-second in which Sheriff can save your pointless hide by transporting you to his ship. That will slow him down long enough for me to make good my escape. Let’s hope Sheriff values your help, otherwise he’s probably going to shoot me into oblivion, and you’ll be turned inside out in about three seconds.”

“Reckless, cruel, foolish little human,” Raz says. He isn’t nearly as cheerful as he was before. That easygoing, suave demeanor has been completely erased. In its place is his true face. He is cunning. He is full of guile. And he is dangerous, or he would be if he wasn’t on the wrong side of the airlock door.

I kick the door shut and hit the purge lever.

The outer door swings open, and Raz is gone like a bug being sucked up a cosmic vacuum. I wonder if he’s been erased from existence or saved by his ally. I don’t particularly care either way.

I run for the controls and hit maximum speed, heading deeper into the violent storm of magnetic eddies. The ship is thrown around dangerously, but I want to go where I truly cannot be followed. Sheriff wants me dead, but he’s not going to put his own life on the line to achieve that. He’s a persistence hunter. He’ll follow. He’ll find me again eventually. But not today.

I’m alone again.

The ship is tossing about like an old-fashioned ship on ocean waves. It’s nauseating. It’s terrifying. That’s what freedom feels like. It feels scary and gross and it makes me wish I’d never chosen it, but it is also the only choice.

I ride that storm for days, letting the eddies of the interstellar currents decide my path. Pretty hard to be intercepted if you don’t know where you’re going. I feel violated by Raz. There was no part of his being he was not prepared to turn over in order to help Sheriff kill me. I wonder why. I wonder what Sheriff had on him. Guess I’ll never know.

5 AFTER THE STORM

By the time the storm spits me out, I am so many light years from where I started I may as well never have been there at all. I’m in a new region of uncharted space, using the sensors to try to locate some kind of outpost. I need to find some kind of social situation to restock food and just to see some aliens who aren’t actively trying to fuck or kill me.

I’ve had several days to search the shuttle from top to bottom. I find a human suit, which is the kind of suit the scythkin really seem to prefer. One of these days, I’ll learn what their fascination with humans is.

I decide to put the suit on. It’s a male suit, and I keep my foil on underneath it, which means I am basically wearing a sweaty insulated second skin. I look like an accountant, a lot like Atlas. Giggling to myself at the idea of running into him in this state, I can only imagine what he’d think. Would he find it funny? Did he have a discernible sense of humor?

SENTIENT LOCATION DISCOVERED

The ship’s computer gives me an update.

“Set coordinates!” I shout out. I don’t really care what the location is. I just have to get off this cramped shuttle. I need to stretch my legs, eat some local food, and generally experience life in the way it is meant to be experienced.

We are in orbit over a cracked gray and red planet. It looks like it has plenty of volcanic activity. Probably has plenty of stone skin inhabitants, life forms capable of resisting great amounts of heat. Good. That’s what I need now, some very resilient companionship.

I take the human suit off. It doesn’t really fit, and the last thing I need to do is make an appearance on a new planet as a droopy-eyed human monster. I want to look cute, or as close to cute as I can look these days.

I am really running out of decent clothing options. Tinfoil and frills are a weird combination. Once I get down to this sentient planet, I’ll see about getting myself something to wear. Something nice. Something that hugs my figure and accentuates my assets.

The ship handles the descent and landing, which is good because I am not trained in that sort of thing. I can man a weapons bank from time to time, and I can steer if there’s the vastness of space around me, but doing something like landing somewhere with precision? That’s not a skill I have spent much time developing.

There’s a heaviness as the ship lands, and a satisfying CLUNK as it settles into place. There’s not much to see from inside the ship. So much red dust has blown up over the sensors the place looks like a big desert haze. I have to hope it has a little more to it than that.

I prepare to disembark, feeling a certain sense of excitement even though nothing has worked out well for me in a long time. I guess I’m due a win. That has to be how the universe works. You throw one betrayer-lover out an airlock, and it opens a window, or something like that.

“Oh fuck me…” I groan to myself.

There’s a lot of death here. I smell it the second I step off the ship.

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