Page 12 of Devin
Val must have blacked out for a slight moment, because suddenly Spike was dragging her to her feet and loud klaxons were blaring around them.
“Lock down. We got about 60 seconds to get to our holes. Run!”
Val’s feet moved of their own accord, following the blue mass in front of her until it cut off to the other wing. Some orange blob gave her a shove and somehow through the haze, she found her bunk just as the doors swung shut. Val sunk down on the thinmattress and begged the pain in her head to stop and for the world to settle down from its spinning.
“Spicy!” a voice shouted from a cell down the row. It was Maryland.
“What?” Val managed to mutter. The sound of her own voice ached in her head.
“Thanks a lot. You’ve probably managed to kill me!” Maryland replied. Val wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic or not.
Val could hear the sound of Maryland weeping. Spike had mentioned something about lockdowns. They were rare, but they lasted for three days. Which meant that if Maryland wanted to eat, she’d have to scan her own code for Scooby Snacks. That meant a potential date with an alien monster missile, Maryland’s greatest nightmare.
None of this was Val’s fault. The woman had sucker punched her. Three days in lockdown wasn’t all that bad. It would give her time to come up with a solution to Ms. Tat Punch Face. On the flip side, it also meant that her letters had been making trouble for people outside who wanted their patsy nice and quiet. She’d already decided to stop writing letters a week ago, but apparently that hadn’t been soon enough to stop them from sending someone in. If the woman had just been interested in a civil conversation, Val could have mentioned that. Was Ms. Tat Punch Face done with her? Or did she have more sinister orders?
Val didn’t have much more time to ponder. She stuck her wrist under the food dispenser, hoping some food in her stomach would quell the queasy feeling that just wouldn’t go away. She probably had a concussion. The light glowed blue like normal, but then instead of green, it changed to purple. There were no alarm bells or other warnings, but her Scooby Snack was not released. Great. Now she had to wonder if she was stuck ina cell for three days with a malfunctioning food dispenser. She’d be the one starving instead of Maryland.
“My, my, my, that’s a pretty mangled face you got there,” Val heard.
Val sat up and regretted it. The world swirled around her as the bars of her cell slid open and the elderly matron stepped in. For all her bravery, she had a shock stick in her hand.
“Ironic, this,” the guard said. “You’ve got someone waiting for you. Now we doin’ this the hard way, or...?”
“The easy way. My vote is the easy way,” Val groaned, barely processing what the guard had just told her. ‘Someone’ could be one of Ms. Tat Punch Face’s friends or it could be an alien husband. She prayed it was the latter.
“Good. C’mon.”
Val managed to get to her feet, but the swirling in her head made her nearly puke her guts out. Once again, she found herself following a hazy blob down the corridor. The guard seemed to think the shortest route involved a stroll through the Blue wing.
“Spicy!” Val heard Spike’s voice called. “I know we didn’t turn you, but you give those alien balls hell!” The Blues let out a cheer that did nothing to help Val’s headache. She raised her hands triumphantly anyway. If she wasn’t mistaken, Val heard the guard chuckle.
They stopped in a small room where the guard eyed her up and then punched in a code. It ordered up a box. She opened it and threw some clothes at Val.
“Yours are evidence, but these should fit, more or less. Besides, your uni’s got blood on it. Can’t have the greenies thinking we’re savages now, can we?”
Val felt her way through the clothes. She was thankful she had her own underwear and bra on because these were slightly too big. There was a large gray sweater that hung low off the shoulder and a pair of stretchy jeans that Val would need to hoistregularly to keep in place. It was painful to get them on, but she was relieved she wouldn’t meet her new husband in a prison outfit.
“That’s good enough,” the guard said with a shrug. “ “Hop up.”
There was a large white circle mounted a few inches above the floor. Val stood in the center and before she could ask the guard about her other belongings, the universe swirled around her and she felt pulled in several directions at once.
Val fell down to her hands and knees. When she could breathe again, the humidity hit her like a wall. Wherever she was, it was a sticky, Floridian mess. She wouldn't last long in this sweater.
It was just a mass of green foliage that she saw. Val crawled forward and puked her guts out until she dry-heaved. Then, she managed to roll away from the platform until she passed out.
Chapter 7
Jane
"Ican totally go look by myself," Jane said as she climbed out of the back of the transport. Her husband, Zenik, had been trying hard not to hover, but the fact that he'd invited her to go along on his survey run meant he could hardly take his eyes off of her. It wasn't too inconvenient. After all, it was either sit around all day watching the jungle grow, or hang out with him. She could possibly convince him to make a pit stop and find a quiet spot to scare away wildlife with their screams of pleasure. Jane might be five months pregnant, but she wasn't dead.
Her plans were now ruined, however, when the sensor alarm had gone off at the transport platform. Since they weren't expecting any deliveries, and all the warriors had their mates delivered, there was cause to check it out. It was probably some lumbering animal that had stumbled across it and tripped the sensor. Alien tech might be awesome in the ability to transport things across great dimensional spaces, but it had the same trouble of being buggy at times. It could just be that an actual bug had crawled into the switch box. That had set off the alarms two weeks ago.
"And if it is a Suhlik incursion?" Zenik called out as he shut down the engine.
"I got my force rifle?" Jane headed down the path from the landing clearing to the transport pad. It was near time to spray the whole thing down with herbicide to keep the jungle from swallowing it back up. The pad was a good hundred miles from the settlement and nearly a thousand from the site of the new city. That kept the danger of a surprise attack down to a minimum. By the time the Suhlik could transport enough soldiers through the portal, the Mahdfel would be able to muster the troops and bring hell down upon them.
This was either a solo Suhlik or a bug. Jane's bet was on a bug.
