Page 52 of Consume
Holding my breath, I peered outside the door again.
Above the Saelises’ heads, nearly covered in leafy ferns, was what looked like an air vent. If I could make it inside there, I would likely be undetectable while I found my way around the ship. But how to get there?
I made the mistake of glancing behind me again. The little ripples were no more. Now they were bigger. Much bigger. Something black and sphere-like slowly lifted from the liquid about ten feet away from me.
Terror skipped my heartbeats and stalled my indecision. Large viney ferns hung just to the left of the open door. Good enough. One more second until another Saelis passed, and then I opened the door farther and slipped out. I wedged myself between the ferns and the wall, and the rustling, swaying leaves whispered all of my secrets to two more Saelises drawing near.
Dark blue orbs floating near the ceiling blackened their scales even more. White hair sprouted tall from their heads, almost as lengthy as their teeth and claws. Their extra set of arms almost dragged along the floor, almost as though they were useless, but every inch of them was made for killing. For two hundred years, they’d thought of nothing else except revenge on the human race. One had torn a man’s spine right out of him at the Ringer Station, seemingly without a thought. Humans had picked the wrong aliens to mess with to further their goal of speedier space travel.
But the Saelises didn’t glance my way or toward the slightly open sewer door. They were so tall that I was nowhere near eyelevel, so I hoped that helped. Once they’d gone, I peered through the large leaves to check the rest of the hallway. I leaned my arm out of the fern’s cover, the yellow suit’s color a blaring alarm, to shut the door. Then thought better of it. Whatever that creature in there had been might crawl out and take the attention off of me.
Another check of the hallway showed the coast was clear.
I charged out into the open across the hallway and threw myself behind the thick vines and ferns on the opposite wall. Then I began to climb the innermost vine I could find. It swung wildly under my weight, rippling the surrounding vines like a curtain, but they held. The vent was about ten feet up, the distance seeming to multiply the higher I went.
Clicks and whistles sounded from down below. I stilled but the vines kept swinging. My legs were wrapped around the vine I was clinging to, but my arms held most of my weight. They shook, my muscles straining. I couldn’t stay in this position for long.
More clicks. I risked a glance behind me through the leaves. Three Saelises had gathered around the open sewer door. One closed it. Well, shit.
They drifted off, but more came, up and down the hallway.
My arms screamed with the effort of holding on. Sweat drenched my face underneath the helmet. I blinked up through it toward the vent. Only a little more than three feet. Then, of course, I’d have to open it.
With my molars smashed together, I heaved myself upward with as slow, careful movements as I could muster. Finally, my head came level to the intricately-cut grating. I searched the vent’s corners for screws, but I didn’t see any, and even if I did, I didn’t have my ice pick.
My stomach sank to my knees. What if the vent wasn’t meant to be opened or it required Saelis strength to do so?
With a deep breath, I released one hand from the vine, poked my fingers through the grating’s loopy design, and pulled. Both my arms sang with pain.
But suddenly, the grating popped free. Its heavy weight ripped into my fingertips, and on reflex, I dropped it. Down, down it tumbled through the leaves, sure to make the loudest sound on impact in this ship’s history.
I lunged for the inside of the vent. Half my body had made it inside when the grating exploded onto the ground. I was sure my bright yellow legs poked out of the hole like two beacons. I pulled myself the rest of the way in and shot forward, dragging myself along by my elbows.
They’d seen me. Surely they had, and I maybe had seconds before they crammed themselves inside here with me. Franco had said the weapons were toward the front of the ship in the snout-like part. Hopefully I was close.
A screech sounded behind me. I scrambled along faster. The tunnel branched up ahead, left, right, and straight. Unless I stopped to fiddle with Moon’s Mind-I and find the ship’s map, I had no idea which direction to go. On instinct, I started straight ahead.
Wailing started at the back of my skull like a steady throb, growing louder. Not from behind me but inside my head. It shifted left, pulsing the side of my face so hard I imagined my scales were shifting. Left. Left, not straight. It had to be the Saelis female ghosts inside me urging me to go to left. I didn’t have any reason not to trust them. Unlike the males, they’d saved me more times than they’d hurt me, so I chose to do what the wails inside my head told me to.
Another screech sounded far behind me, accompanied by claws screaming against metal. I sped my pace. Ahead, the vent dipped lower on a slight decline, and at the bottom, I crawled over a grate that looked down into a small, red-lit room. The wails inside me turned sharp, not like warning screams but like urgent prodding. This was where I needed to be.
The sounds of movement through the vents grew louder.
I scrambled past the grating then squeezed myself back around, threaded my fingers through the metal design, and hefted. The muscles in my already exhausted arms shook violently as I lifted the grating to the side. There would be no way to cover it back up again. A dead giveaway of where I’d gone.
Below was a metallic table, but I didn’t give myself any more time to look beyond that. I positioned myself over the hole, and dropped.
My feet crashed against the table, vibrating the loud clang into my back teeth. I crouched, sweeping my gaze around the room. Locked inside a sort of steel cage along the wall in front of me, what looked like missiles stood upright, long, silver, and thin, their tops pointed and painted red. Rows and rows of them. The control panel on the missile cage beeped in time with a flashing display next to it. Almost like a countdown with numbers I couldn’t read. Otherwise, the room was empty.
The ceiling shook with a sound like thunder. Claws scrambled for purchase overhead.
I leaped off the table toward the control panel and pried it loose with my claws. Gray wires pulsed and coiled together underneath it like a writhing colony of worms.
A black flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. A great crash onto the table. The Saelis from the vent was here.
I plunged my hand into the wires and yanked. Before they had snapped all the way free, I was already whirling toward the door.
The table tipped behind me. Claws snatched at my helmet as I shoved out the door. I slammed it shut with one hand, the other fumbling the wires into my yellow suit. The door flew open, but I shoved my weight against it, knocking the control panel I still held to the floor. With both hands bracing the door shut, I kicked the control panel underneath it to wedge it closed.
