“Yes.”
“The transport is on a path to collide with a moon.”
Aletta gasped.
“How much time do we have?” Gark frowned.
“Twelve minutes.”
“Arik?” He hadn’t lowered his wrist comm.
The mechanic answered the comm. “Yes, boss.”
“Change of plans. Can you slow the transport down?”
“No. I think they’ve—Lady’s tits! There’s a bomb! If we change course or speed, it’ll blow.” A series of curses came over the comm.
“Leave it. We need to get as many as we can onto The Lady, and get out of here before this ship blows.”
He hit the button again, and this time the door opened with a squeal of unoiled rollers.
The room beyond was in darkness, but she knew this was the one. Aletta’s eyes streamed as the smell of too many humans packed into too small a space hit her.
She was vaguely aware of footsteps behind her and a strong arm around her middle, stopping her from entering the fetid space.
“Computer, lights to half,” Gark ordered, stepping into the cargo hold.
There were exclamations and screams from the depths of the room.
“Fuck off, you alien bastards!”
“No, no, no, no.”
And sobbing.
Aletta took a deep breath to steel herself, gagging on the putrid air. She blinked to allow her eyes to adjust to the dim light.
“Eleven minutes.”
She wanted to smash that happy-sounding AI voice into pieces.
“Dylan?” she called out.
The hold was crammed full of cages, barely bigger in size than a double bed. The first ones were empty, doors hanging open, the floor strewn with discarded clothes. A bucket in one corner had been kicked over, spilling its contents. By the smell, the bucket had been a toilet.
Aletta dragged her eyes away, a hand held to her stomach.
At the far end of the hold, there were three cages still locked. Aletta rushed forward, heedless of what awaited her. It didn’t matter as long as she found Dylan. She just wanted her sister to be ok.
And if she wasn’t?
Well, then she’d help her back on her feet.
“Dylan?”
A hand stuck through the bars of the last cage. “Letty? Oh god, Letty!”
Tears streaming down her face, Aletta rushed forward and reached through the bars to embrace her sister. Dylan’s formerly tidy, long blond hair was a mess of dirty, knotted locks. One eye was purple and swollen shut, and her lip was split. Dylan smiled, a bead of blood spilling down her chin as her lip split open again.
