"Baston!" Cherie yelled.

He jerked awake from a dream. He'd been running from the worms in the maze and they were gaining on him. The sharp teeth had just been bearing down on his arm when his eyes shot open.

He sat up straight with a cold sweat on his body. Had he imagined her screaming? Looking around the dark room, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

"Baston, Sca! Help!" She was yelling for sure and close by.

Falling out of bed, he took off running towards where he thought she might be. The house was empty as far as he could tell. How long had he been asleep?

"Cherie! What’s wrong?” He yelled in the dark, trying to listen for where the noise was coming from. His chest tightened as he didn’t hear anything. Was he too late? Running through towards the back, he had to throw all his weight against the door. They’d locked her in, or they’d locked other people out. His chest tightened with panic. Finally, the door gave and the wood splintered as he made his way inside the room.

He stumbled over a chair that had been blocking the door, and found two men holding her down. The woman who had led her into the room was trying to put some liquid in her mouth. Cherie was struggling and had one of her legs free, kicking the woman hard in the stomach. It didn’t seem to deter her.

Baston moved forward and one of the men stepped away and hit him in the throat. Choking, he lashed out with both fists, angry that he’d let the guy get the best of him. He landed a punch right in the middle of the guy’s face.

"What are you doing to her?" Baston got free of the guy, only to have him kick his legs out from under him. His head hit the ground painfully, only making him angrier. He jumped back up to his feet, circling the guy as he did the same, the two moving around each other like boxers in a ring. Baston landed another good punch and took one to the chin.

Sca ran into the room with a yell and shot the guy still holding onto Cherie in the leg. He cried out and fell away from her. Sca shot again, aiming at the woman but missed and she shrieked, climbing under the bed. Cherie grabbed her by the hair and pulled her out, stomping on her stomach with rage.

"I took Han’s gun, but he’s gone to get the rest of them. We need to go." Sca took hold of the guy holding Baston down, and he grabbed some sheets to tie him up.

Cherie walked over and kicked him. "You bastard." The woman she’d just finished with lay groaning on the floor.

"Come on, we have to go!" Sca urged, dragging her from the room as Baston finished tying the other guy they'd shot to the woman, and both of them to the bed.

They plowed through the front door and headed around the back as men shouted for them to stop. A shot was fired and hit a house close to Baston’s head. He heard Sca firing back.

Baston didn’t feel rested, but the adrenaline pumping through him got him moving. His injuries screamed at him to slow down. The short time they had to rest combined with the stillness had caused the cuts and scrapes to really make themselves known.

They moved fast past the houses. There would be no fuel for the ship. Who knew if they'd even find it if they came back when they were completely healed to take it from them? The running away was getting old. They all ran, pumping their arms and legs. There was quite a distance between them and the men. They ran straight into another forest and prepared to fight the trees. The men stopped at the entrance to the woods and yelled at each other.

None of their pursuers wanted to go in, so they stopped and caught their breath. One of the trees slapped Baston in the back, but it seemed a lazy effort. Maybe the trees had to sleep too. They made their way through the forest and didn’t speak.

Baston was full of defeat and anger. They should have been able to take those men. Having a woman with them had really put them at a disadvantage, but as he looked at her, he knew he wanted her there. Her skin was flushed, her clothes were dirty, and her hair was matted to her face with sweat. She was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and he knew they would do anything to keep her safe.

“What were they doing to you, Cherie?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.

She shook her head as if she didn’t want to tell them. “The liquid was from that plant, the lust plant or whatever. They wanted me to be in the mood. The men wanted to take turns, um...” Her voice trailed off.

“Oh God,” Sca said, moving towards her and putting an arm around her.

“They wanted a baby from me. I guess they would have taken me and killed you. It wasn’t clear, but they didn’t hide their plans while they were trying to drug me.” Tears slid down her face and Baston moved to wipe them away.

“We will never let anything happen to you.” He bent and kissed her. Rage filled his body and he couldn’t believe those men would have the audacity. “I’ll kill all of them.”

She leaned her head against his chest as Sca rubbed her back. “I’ll help kill all of them,” he said.

“No, you saved me. It’s okay. Let’s just keep going.”

Baston agreed they should keep going, but there was no way to know what they were in for.

“We should try to sleep,” Sca said, looking up at the trees.

“We’ll have to find a cave or make a shelter,” Baston said. “I have a feeling that when these trees are fully awoken, they won’t just be giving us love pats.”

They ended up walking for the rest of the night. They weren’t able to find shelter or a cave, so by the time they finally saw the end of the trees, they were exhausted. Baston was glad they would be out before the daylight hit so the trees wouldn’t fight them again.

He didn’t think he had the strength to go through another fight with the trees. When they made their way out of them, he could see houses in the distance. The ghost town. He’d almost forgotten Han had told them about it. They could possibly find a way to live there until they could figure out how to get back to their ship.

They made their way towards the ghost town and found it fenced in. The grass on the other side of the fence looked as though it had just been manicured. There were flowers growing in rows in front of the houses. It was like the people living there had just left. Was it possible they were still there and the bastards with Han had been mistaken?

Cherie didn’t seem to share his thoughts as she took off running for the houses. There was a large open field she was leaping through, but it gave Baston bad feeling. Nothing they’d done so far had been easy.

“They might have running water!” she shouted as she went.

“And food!” Sca added as he took off after her.

“Wait! They could also have people with weapons!” Baston yelled after them, but he was too late. They were already almost to the houses, and all he could do was follow.

Cherie had made it halfway across the open field when Baston spotted something in the grass.

“Stop, Sca! Cherie, stop!” He yelled and waved his arm.

To his surprise, they stopped. Perhaps almost losing their lives several times had given them a more cautious nature.

“What is it?” Cherie stopped and turned, shielding her eyes from the suns to see him.

He slowly walked up to Cherie and drew his knife, kneeling down on the ground. He caught the rope she’d almost ran across and watched as the ground gave way in front of her. There was a deep hole; deep enough to cause at least one broken limb if someone fell into it.

In the bottom of the hole, in water just deep enough to submerge it, was a giant moon cricket. It was a little bigger than Cherie, and raised its fat head above the water when it saw them.

“How has that thing grown like that?” Cherie asked with disgust.

“Whoever set this thing up as a trap, must have rigged some way to feed it blood. I told you they could get big.”

“It would have eaten me. Just one more step...” Cherie looked up at Baston with wide eyes. He felt an overwhelming urge to protect her from everything.

“It’s okay, we'll find the rest of them,” Baston said. “We just have to be careful.”

“What are they protecting themselves from? What if they’re still here?” Sca asked. Now his eyes were wide.

“They aren’t still here. They set this up to protect them from the enemy, or what I’m leaning towards is this was part of the military trials, and this is where they lived. It’s why it’s a ghost town.”

Cherie nodded as she stepped backward, and yelped as something lifted her up into the air. A large net had enclosed her, and she was hanging above their heads.

Baston couldn’t see what the net was attached to. To his amazement, she just seemed to be hanging in the air, floating there. She flailed her arms about, taken by surprise.

“What the hell?” Sca said to himself as he walked beneath Cherie, looking up at her.

“Some kind of technology that’s invisible,” Baston said. “Invisible trees, maybe?” He walked all the way around, being careful not to trigger another one.

“You guys can have this conversation after you get me down!” Cherie cried, kicking so the net swung back and forth.” Baston cut her down with his knife, and then set about trying to find the different booby traps. Not a single one was the same, and they were all equally intricate.

By the time they made it to the houses, he’d found five more. He was certain there were more around them that they just hadn’t stumbled upon.

They made their way into the first house they came to. The home was three stories and there were still sleeping bags all over the floor. Baston wasn’t sure whether they’d just abandoned them after the war was over, or whether they had had to evacuate quickly.

They found rations in the cupboards and helped themselves to some food and water. It wasn’t gourmet, but they were so hungry that it didn’t matter. It was a relief to be able to sit down without having to worry that something was coming for them.