The bulky pig snuffled and shifted to look down at me. “Eh? Oh. The trash. It goes to the bins and then out to compost near the Grel colony quarters. Get back to work.”
“Yep. Sure. No problem.”
I sidled back over to the trash chute and looked over my shoulder for Hassa. I couldn’t see her through the crowd. And if I couldn’t see her, then she couldn’t see me. I rubbed my hands together and gripped the edges of the chute, sticking my head inside to get a look down the tube. There was the unmistakable stench of refuse coming from the depths. Gazing down the pitch black hole had me second guessing myself, my heart in my throat. I had no freaking idea how deep it was or if it was a straight shot or not. I could very well break my neck hitting the bottom.
Ah shit. Here goes nothing. I lifted one leg over the edge and then the other, until I was sitting on the edge with my feet dangling in the darkness of the abyss below.
“I’ve lost my damn mind,” I said, swallowing hard. I willed my helmet up and then I pushed off and fell.
eight
Callie
Darknessswallowedme.
The air rushed past me in a fetid wash that I could smell even inside the helmet and I slid down so fast there was no hope of stopping myself. I wanted to scream, but my throat was so tight no sound could come out as I rocketed down the tube. It was slick and wet from all the trash and my armor was like a sled against the metal of the tube, making a hell of a racket on the way down. My heart thundered in my chest. I held out my hands trying to slow my descent but it was too slick. I could only fall and hope I didn’t die at the end.
A scream finally broke free and didn’t stop until I saw light below me. I braced my hands and feet hard against the edges of the tube. Sparks flew as the metal of my boots and gauntlets skidded against metal, but I didn’t slow even a little bit.
I hit hard, smashing into a semi solid pile of garbage at the bottom with a bone rattling thud. All the air in my lungs was forced out of me and I rolled ass over end down a pile of rottingfood to land in a heap at the bottom where I finally came to a stop against a hollow blue wall, my body slamming against it with enough force to rattle the fillings in my teeth.
Laying motionless, I listened to the rapid beating of my heart until my lungs stopped hurting enough to let me breathe in something deeper than a gasp. I felt like I’d been run over by a truck, but a mental check proved nothing was broken. Sitting up with a groan, I held my helmeted head with a gauntlet and looked down at myself, fuming when I saw all the filth covering my armor. I couldn’t even see the gold under all the sticky brown sludge covering me.
Muttering curses I rolled to my feet, my body screaming in protest the whole way up.
“Nailed it,” I muttered, looking around me. I was in a giant blue garbage bin the size of a semi trailer. The walls were at least twelve feet high, but luckily there was a ladder in one of the corners for convenience. I limped over to it, my right knee protesting the whole way. Must have banged it at some point on the way down or on impact. I shook out my hands before grabbing the first rung and hauling my filthy, aching ass up and over the wall and down the other side, landing with a groan.
This was dying with me. No one was ever going to know how I escaped the pirate station. Not Jack. Not Patty. Not Aga. Not my mother. No. One. I was taking this shit to the grave with me.
I was in a darkened room filled with other trash bins. Trash periodically made the journey down long silver tubes descending from a black metal ceiling at least fifty feet above me and into the bins. Huge rover-like vehicles were hitched to some of the bins and others were parked along the wall on the other side of the room. There looked to be a breakroom over by the parked rovers, the building jutting out from the main walls like a large guard station with tall windows to view into the garbage room. Itwas dark and empty, and next to the break room was a door with orange glyphs over it.
My translator didn’t know this language, but I recognized an exit when I saw one. I pulled up my big girl panties and started jogging. It hurt. I gritted my teeth against the pain and the indignity of being covered in garbage. Skidding to a painful stop before the exit door, I waited impatiently while it groaned open, folding in on itself. Light shone into the garbage storage room, and I stepped out into it with a deep breath.
I blinked hard against the light, my eyes watering. It took several precious seconds to remember to darken my visor. I sighed with relief as the light was filtered to a manageable level. The Rijiteran helmet was faceless to the outsider looking in, but to the one wearing it, it was like wearing a wide diver's mask, the ones that you could talk in.
I was blessedly outside. The station’s artificial pink clouds a welcome sight, the dull roar of the city sounds a familiar comfort, but what made my heart kick back into gear and excited jitters explode in my gut was the sight of docked ships in the distance. They were docked in rising levels, floating above me and connected to a tall metal patchwork building. I was at least four levels too low, but the building was only a mile away if I could find a straight shot to it.
I scanned the area and my excitement dimmed a little when it became apparent that no pathway in Erral was a straight shot. The pathways and stairs connecting the buildings and roads together in this petal of the station looked like someone had tossed a can of sticks over the city and wherever they landed was where they stayed. I growled at the unfairness of it all. Another challenge was that the station wasn’t empty. It was a veritable hive of activity. There were aliens everywhere, over every inch, on every walkway and level. Talking and shopping and going about their day to day lives. In my armor I would stick outlike a sore thumb, not to mention I had no idea what kind of surveillance Rathal had, but I imagined it was thorough.
I needed a disguise. Luckily for me there were clothes lines literally everywhere. Clothes hung over the railings of walkways and staircases in a waterfall of color. Easy pickings. The garbage storage building was on the lowest level. I’d stepped out into a kind of loading dock area for the rovers. A road led up a step incline into an alleyway where yellow household garbage crates awaited pickup.
I squared my shoulders and started jogging up the road and down the alley, ducking by crates when someone walked directly over me. I made it to the end of the alley undiscovered and started up a spiral staircase to the next level one story above. As soon as I walked out onto the walkway I snatched up the first article of clothing I could find and pulled it over my filthy armor. It was a dress, three sizes too big and with too many arm holes and canary yellow. It pooled at my feet in ripples of gauzy fabric. Grumbling, I quickly tied the extra sleeves behind me, ripped at the skirts until the length wouldn’t hinder me and jerked another piece of clothing off the railing and pulled it over my head. It was a brown and black poncho thing with a floppy hood that reminded me of a wizard's hat, which draped over the dress to my knees.
Score.
I pulled the hood up just in time to avoid an alien coming down the walkway from in front of me. I ducked my head and pulled the side of the hood over the lower half of my helmeted face and scurried in a shuffling manner past the alien who didn’t even spare me a glance of curiosity.
Double score.
I was quickly overtaken by the alien crowd. I did my best to move with the flow, ducking up one stairwell or ladder as the opportunity presented itself. It was like walking in downtownNew York during New Years. Damn near impossible. I couldn’t be sure, but I suspected that it took me close to two hours to make it to the docking station. My feet now hurt worse than my knee and my head pounded in a steady pulse that matched the rhythm of the city.
I stumbled my way up the final set of stairs onto the platform that led to the open courtyard of the docking station entry building and looked up in relief at having made it. The relief died a sudden and violent death when Rathal exited the building and strutted his bizarrely dressed ass across the courtyard. He was smiling and shaking his finger at me, his eyes merrily laughing at me.
Shock gave way to anger and then anger bled into exhausted acceptance, all within the span of ten seconds. I sighed and pulled the hood of the poncho back, shuddering as I retracted my helmet. I knew it was clean when it sunk into my skin, but knowing and believing were to different things.
I tilted my head back to look up at Rathal as he came to a stop in front of me, both of his hands coming to rest on his hips like a disappointed father.
“Eat shit and die,” I told him without bite, my voice flat.
