Page 7 of Fighting Gravity
“Lucky me,” I rolled my eyes.
Just then, I heard the familiar hiss of a hydraulic door sliding open and whipped my head to the left. The lights on the walls fluttered and then the barrier divided, allowing someone passage into the room. Another gek, only this one was a bit taller with even more muscle mass and yet it had a feminine face. It took me a bit, but I deduced it was a female by the way her hips flared a little more and she walked with a bit of a graceful sway. She had the same glare on her face like someone had wronged her. Especially when she looked at me.
The woman’s eyes darted between me and Norman and her already sour expression just grew more rigid. Then she marched toward us. Norm grabbed the scanner thing off the table and tossed it to her. She caught it with one hand and flipped it open, reading whatever was on it.
“Wow,” I said. “Sour Face, meet Norman.”
When the woman spoke in that growly language of theirs, I was not surprised to find that it didn’t sound any less harsh on a woman’s tongue. Well… what I thought was a woman’s tongue. I was 95% certain it was a woman.
Norm answered in his much deeper voice. One that carried right through me like the bass in a club. I stiffened, the tone crawling under my skin, down my spine, and into my stomach like I was standing on the damn speakers.
Both the gek glanced toward me like they could see me seizing up. I guess I wasn’t very subtle. Alien tones were… well… alien.
The two continued talking and I could tell, even without knowing the language, that the woman was a little peeved to have me there. It wasn’t hard to figure out that they were arguing, but as the conversation picked up, it was obvious Norm was in charge. He raised his voice once, saying a single word, and the woman pressed her lips together in frustrated silence. Then she hissed like an angry cat, flashing carnivorous teeth, and stomped out of what I gathered was an infirmary.
“Girlfriend not too pleased to see another woman in your room?” I said, almost laughing at my own joke.
He crossed the room, pressing his hand to one of the lights on the wall, which opened up a panel with all kinds of controls on it that I couldn’t understand. Then, out of one of those little laser lights, a plastic pouch of liquid manifested. He grabbed it and lifted the corner to his mouth, ripping it open before he held it out to me.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, suspicious.
He said nothing, so I reached out and took it, hoping it was just water. I was beyond parched. Lifting it to my nose, I smelled something subtle in the clear liquid and cocked a brow. Looking up at Norm, I saw him nod once like I was on the right track, so I decided to just go for it. Worse case, it would kill me and I could be done with the whole thing. So, I squeezed the opening with my chapped lips and sucked, bringing the liquid to my mouth. It was cold and refreshing, sliding down my throat like a smoothie. It was a little thicker than water but tasted like nothing. Before I knew it, I’d consumed the whole thing and drew back my head.
“Jesus,” I breathed. “Finally.” I tossed the empty pouch at Norm and sighed with relief. “Get rid of that, will you?”
The pouch bounced off his chest and flipped to the floor. He watched it, unamused, and then lifted his eyes toward me. Little sparks of gold flitted across the black like the sheen on a piece of polished metal.
Then he said something in that strange tone of his and little vibrations soared through me again. I gasped, shivering at the sensation.
“Knock that off,” I said, rapidly rubbing my hands over my goosebumpy arms. He spoke again and it made my skin tingle like there was an electrical current in the room. “I said stop.”
“Stop what?” he said.
“That sound!” I barked.
4: Rhone
I meant to snag all of the humans off that shuttle. Actually, I meant for everyone on the freighter to die, but when that shuttle ejected, I wasn’t opposed to a little chase.
Whoever was piloting the thing was good. They had so little to work with and still, they managed to avoid our warship for a while. It was amusing.
“Blow them apart,” Varon said.
“No,” I said, raising a hand and staring at the little shuttle speeding through floating debris. “Go after them.”
“Urok, you said—”
“I said go after them. Crex, how many are on board?”
“Three heat signatures, urok,” he said.
“Good. We’ll take them all.”
Veron shook her head. “Why?”
“Because these are humans. Humans and valerians are getting very comfortable with each other and I want to understand why.”
“We know why. They’re trading genetic research and syfer.”
