Page 8 of Rebel Fates

The space ship lands on a hard surface and jostles me fully awake.

My captors—and from what I have seen, it’s only the two beings—come to check on me to see if I’m still alive to sell.

I strategically position myself by the door of the cage. If I could grab the device that controls my collar, I’d have a chance. Fighting my way out, maybe I could find a law enforcement officer to return me to Earth. However, now I wonder if it’s a crime to steal humans.

What do I know?

Absolutely fucking nothing.

Faking unconsciousness, I plan to lure the creature into my cell and somehow lock him inside as I escape.

Furball grumbles when it sees me passed out by the door. Apparently, irritation sounds the same in space, too.

Furball pokes me with its foot. “Human!” It unlocks my cage and slowly opens the door. With a hard grasp of my face, it inspects me. I allow my head to flop around. Catching a glimpse of his gun trained on me, I now realize fighting to break free is a dumb idea.

I open my eyes enough for the alien to toss me out of his grasp.

It goes to close the door to my cage, but I casually put my toe in the way. Attempting to distract him, I beg for food and he tosses me a crumb. He walks out of the room, not realizing the door hasn’t clicked shut all the way.

I don’t dare breathe. Will he notice his mistake?

If I slip and let go of the door with my foot, will it snap shut?

Leaning forward cautiously, I tap the door open with a finger. It isn’t my imagination. The doorisopen.

I hear two sets of footsteps heading down the ship’s ramp.

I need to run. There’s probably only a few minutes until the furballs come back with potential buyers. I’m still naked and, while it’s not my preferred version of an escape uniform, what can I do? It’s not as though there is any material in my cell to wrap around my body. Gathering my courage, I swing the door open and step out slowly. No alarms, and my collar isn’t triggered by being outside of the cage. Good.

Tiptoeing out of the room, I stop to glance around. I have only heard two aliens on the ship, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more. I don’t see anyone or any-thing. Fortunately, the ramp access is only ten paces away from my containment area. Probably for easy access for the buyers and loading slaves in and out.

I hit a button, and the ramp descends. Peeking out the hatch, I see no one. The slaver’s ship is parked in an enormous hangar. When I glance out the expansive bay door, there’s a sea of stars and a planet or moon in the sky that I don’t recognize far off in the distance. Dammit. I figured I wasn’t in my solar system, but this only confirms my fears.

I’m nervous about running around naked in the mostly empty hangar. But it’s my only chance. However, after seeing the aliens bidding on Lynn, I worry anyone I come across will be indifferent to my slavery.

I see another ship on the next landing pad. Hurrying toward it, I pray to any god listening to let me make it out of this situation.

The ship docked next to the slaver’s is sleek and smooth like skin. From this angle, the ship looks much bigger than the one I was on. Perhaps I could stowaway with no one noticing.

I run toward what I hope is my ticket to freedom, but my escape route doesn’t have its ramp down.

Approaching the new ship, I feel a pull to come closer. Strange. Is this intuition? I don’t know.

I touch what looks like an interface and a hatch opens and a ramp comes down. Weird. Why would it open for me?

Suspicious of this turn of events, I glance around but see no one.

Just as I run up the ramp to see who’s letting me onboard, I hear voices entering the hangar behind me.

I scramble faster so whoever it is doesn’t catch sight of my escape.

Once inside the new ship, I see a huge storage room to my right and what looks like an armory to my left.

An arsenal of weapons? That doesn’t seem like a good sign about the ship’s owners. Soldiers? Pirates? Mercenaries?

I probably shouldn’t waste time picking out a weapon. They might just shoot me on-sight for having one.

The voices seem to be headed toward my new ship.

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