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“I don’t have that, not yet.”

“You want it. Admit it. You’re into Loka. Why fight it?”

Chewing on the side of her finger, Heather realized there would never be a perfect time to find love. She could wait years to get her dream space pad. In the meantime, Loka would find somebody else. He wouldn’t want her if she kept him waiting for too long.

She would not let him go, not now he was here. She wanted Loka, and she would fight to get back to him.

Shoving her way to the front of the cell, Heather took a deep breath and turned to face everybody. “Listen up. These aliens can’t hold us captive.”

“They’re doing a great job so far,” someone at the back of the cell said.

“Because we’re letting them. We need to fight back.”

“How?” Heather recognized Cybil from the dining hall. “Everything we’ve tried has failed. Now they have the cyborgs in control of the station. We’ve got nothing.”

“We have these.” Heather raised her fists. “And there are a lot of us.”

“Have you ever tried punching a cyborg?” Ellen Danvers, a tiny brunette with a pixie cut who worked in the docking bay, pushed her way to the front. “They break bones. You cannot fight against them. That’s sort of the point of having security cyborgs on the station. No one beats a cyborg.”

“We have to try,” Heather said. “The aliens who have captured us are going to eat us. It’s the Banti. I think they’re working with the Vincole.”

“How do you know that?” Ellen asked.

“Long story. I found some code. It was in our database. The Vincole want to discredit our work, and the Banti get to take the spoils.”

“You could be onto something,” Kate said. “We figured out part of that code that’s infecting this place. It had a Vincole vibe. They’ve tried an attack on the station before, but we’ve always been able to stop them.”

“All of this is your fault?” Ellen glared at Heather. “The Vincole want your business. I can’t say I blame them. Every alien race wants humans to breed with. My Single Alien is known for being a bit slow.”

Ivy shoved into Ellen, sending her sprawling to the ground. “Sorry. I didn’t see you there.” She stalked to Heather’s side and nodded at her.

“We work damn hard,” Heather said. “We don’t have enough women and too many aliens.”

Holly Lipinski, a plump blonde from catering stepped forward. “You said the Banti want the spoils. That’s us?”

“That’s right.”

“What are they going to do with us?” Holly glanced around. “No one likes the Banti.”

“They want to breed with us, just like all those horny alien bastards out there,” Ellen said.

“They don’t want to breed with us.” Heather looked around the cell. “They want to auction us, most likely to other Banti. They want to eat us.”

Startled gasps filled the cell. Someone at the back threw up.

“How do you know that?” Ellen demanded, her cheeks now pale.

“Because she’s bloody brilliant.” Ivy grabbed Heather’s hand. “She figured out the problem with the code. She realized what the issue was.”

“And yet here we are in a cell. Heather didn’t exactly stop the problem,” Ellen said.

“If Heather hadn’t picked up on what was going on, we’d most likely already be served up as the main course to these aliens.” Ivy’s grip on Heather’s hand was so hard her bones ached. “If any of you bitches have a problem with Heather, you come see me.”

Several of the women muttered under their breaths. They all knew not to cross Poison Ivy.

Heather smiled gratefully at Ivy. “What Ivy means is that we know what we’re asking is dangerous. We can take on the cyborgs. If we get enough people holding their arms and legs, we can disable them. Then we get out of here.”

“And go where?”