I returned to the bridge first and looked out the view screen. Morpheus rested his hand on my shoulder.
>
>
>
I bit my tongue. Our telepathic connection had been silent. I couldn’t sense her. She was either too far away or dead. I didn’t believe she was dead, but perhaps I didn’twantto believe it.
“We will finish this,” Morpheus assured me.
“We will stop the confederates from infiltrating the planet.”
“Listen to Tiss. I’m going to question the prisoners,” I ordered.
“Good luck.”
I teleported to the brig. The prisoners eyed me with contempt.
“Will any of you agree to answer my questions?” I asked.
They stared back at me from behind their forcefield, oddly and improperly indignant.
Suit yourself,I thought. I closed my eyes and tuned into their minds.
THIRTEEN
JESS
I couldn’t flythe spaceship that I stole and my impulsive decision to stab my nurse with her own instrument and flee was starting to seem particularly foolish. When I saw the moon from the view screen, and then earth, I began to relax. I could just land in Alaska. How hard could it be? Right?
That was when the red flashing lights started.
I’d managed to wrestle the ship this far, but I couldn’t stay up in the air when those lights went off. I was beyond unconscious throughout. The ship ran out of oxygen and at first I slipped into a deep sleep where I dreamed of my two children and held their hands and made them promise me that they’d forgive me for leaving us here and then I closed my eyes, slipping into a dark sleep.
I woke up, a rush of oxygen filling my lungs. Where was I? I couldn’t have awakened on the moon where there was no breathable air. I had to be somewhere else. But it was too dark for me to find out. I tried to stand. I wore no shoes. The ground was cold. My hair had come unbraided and sat in tangled mats against my head. My stomach protruded and I realized that I was indoors somewhere.
A tiny voice hissed.
“Jessssssssssssss.”
I screamed.
A pair of eyes flickered open in the pitch black. A creature. A humanoid.
“Jessssss.”
I screamed and yelled, “Stand back!”
“Human, Jesssssss.”
“WHO ARE YOU?”
“We are the creaturessssss on the dark sssssssside of the moon…”
The eyes staring back at me were blue.
“Can I get a light on in here?”
