Juanita kept glancing over her shoulder, hoping Tooth would return.

She, Angela, and Tala were still doing their best to keep their backs to the bars and ignore the lustful gazes of the guards, Baldie and the one that had replaced Tooth. The new one and Baldie were having a contemplative discussion in their language. They did a lot of pointing at the women and making squeezing gestures while grinning and snickering like twelve-year-old boys.

“How are we going to escape?” Angela asked.

“If this is a spaceship, I’m not sure escaping is going to be that helpful,” Juanita said, her mind once again drifting back to the idea that they seemed to be in motion, but that this wasn’t likely a truck, boat, or train.

“It’s not a spaceship,” Angela said. “Come on, Juanita. This isn’t one of your comic books.”

“They’re graphic novels, thank you very much, and how else would you explain this place?”

“It’s got to be some whack-job’s underground bunker somewhere.”

“The floor—the deck—is reverberating.” Earlier, Juanita had thought that might be due to a generator, but there had been subtle shifts that reminded her of flying. Accelerating and decelerating. Changing altitude. Her ears had popped a few times right after she woke up, though that had stopped now. Occasionally, she had also felt lighter, almost as if she could lift off the ground. An artificial gravity system working to keep gravity consistent?

“That could be from anything,” Angela said. “Maybe they built their bunker under train tracks or the freeway.”

Juanita didn’t think so, but since she didn’t yet have evidence to support her hypothesis, she wouldn’t continue to insist. If it was a spaceship, would escaping be a good idea? It wasn’t as if they would be able to get off. Still, if it was a large ship, like the Enterprise, was it possible they could hide somewhere? Even if they could just find Tooth, maybe that would be worth trying. From the confident, fearless way he’d carried himself, Juanita suspected he was fairly high up in the chain of command here. He wouldn’t be in charge, not if he was down here on guard duty, but might he be the head security officer or some equivalent?

“If this was a spaceship,” Tala said slowly, “why would humans be flying it? How would anyone on Earth have gotten a working spaceship without the press finding out?”

“I don’t know.” Juanita was surprised Tala was speculating about spaceships. She would have expected her to object to the idea even more than Angela, but maybe she was just bringing it up to work through the logic. “Unless they’re not from Earth.”

“How would humans have ended up somewhere else?” Tala was watching the men with a scrutinizing gaze, as if she might detect some sign that they weren’t human underneath their homo sapiens exteriors.

“I don’t know,” Juanita repeated, wishing she could posit an actual hypothesis. “In Star Trek, there were tons of humans throughout the galaxy—”

“I thought those were Klingons and Romans,” Angela said.

“Klingons and Romulans. And all right, there were tons of species similar to humans, similar enough that they could breed with humans.” Juanita shuddered at the thought that they might be taken off somewhere to be used for breeding purposes. Aliens were always doing that in those science fiction romance novels. As if that was even possible, producing offspring with some alien that shared less DNA with a human being than a banana did.

“And that was explained, how?” Tala asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Juanita thought about pointing out how Spock-like the gesture was, but doubted Tala would get the reference. “In a Next Generation episode, they introduced the idea of an ancient race that seeded lots of planets with the same genetic material so that over billions of years, similar humans and animals and plants developed on different worlds.”

“Over billions of years? No way would we be similar to anything else after that much time.”

“Are you always this much of a buzzkill, Doctor?” Juanita asked.

Several other women were listening to the conversation. A group of the students that knew each other had banded together and hunkered on one side of the cell, and other new acquaintances were sharing contemplative discussions, but most people sounded even more lost than Juanita felt.

“Only when extreme illogic is being put forth.”

“Well, then there’s the Stargate theory,” Juanita said.

“You do know all these television shows only created human-like aliens because using human actors was a lot cheaper than making things that could have looked like believable aliens, right?”

“Of course I know that.” Juanita frowned at Tala, not appreciating that she was shooting everything down, even if her arguments were logical. Brainstorming would be more helpful than slamming every idea right now. “I’m just using common frames of reference to share ideas.”

“Common?”

Juanita pointed at Angela. “She’s seen these shows.”

“Some of them,” Angela admitted, though she flushed, as if it was embarrassing to admit a love for science fiction. “I’m sure there is no such thing as real aliens, and that we’re in some kind of windowless underground bunker.”

“The Fermi Paradox doesn’t rule out the possibility of aliens,” Juanita said, throwing out the term because she wanted their doctor to think she had half a brain and wasn’t just a fangirl. “It actually suggests that it’s odd that we haven’t seen signs of them before now.”

“And that is what?” Tala asked, again quirking that eyebrow. So Spock.

“The physicist Enrico Fermi pointed out the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence thus far of extraterrestrial societies and the high probabilities, as established by the Drake equation, that extraterrestrial societies should not only exist, given the scads and scads of suns and planets in our galaxy, but that they should have space travel and have reached out to us by now.”

“Scads?”

“That might not have been the exact number used in the formula, but it’s definitely weird that—”

A soft clank sounded.

Juanita tensed and turned in time to catch the new guard nodding and smiling at Baldie while holding a variation of the crossbow-like weapon Tooth had carried. This one had double barrels, which he pointed toward the women. Baldie had lowered his own big weapon on a strap and was opening the gate to the cell.

A few whispers that involved the word “escape” floated through the cell.

Juanita should have also been thinking about escape, but the hungry way Baldie looked straight at her ensured that nothing but fear surged into her brain. Was he singling her out again? Why her? Was it the blue tips she’d given her hair for Comic-Con this year? Who would have known that would be so alluring?

“Stay behind us, Juanita,” Tala said, rising to her feet and stepping between her and the gate.

Angela hesitated, but then also stood up.

Juanita jumped to her feet too. She didn’t want the others to risk themselves for her. But could she step forward and present herself to ensure that Baldie didn’t snatch one of them instead? She remembered the utter terror she had felt when he had grabbed her and pressed himself against her.

Several other women rose, more than a few eyeing Baldie, the guard with the weapon, and the open gate.

The man with the weapon fired through the bars, and everyone jumped back. What looked like two blue laser beams shot out of the bow weapon and burrowed into the floor plating, leaving a four-inch-wide smoking hole. He smiled, then lifted his weapon, pointing it straight at Tala.

Juanita stared at the hole in the floor and what burning away the bronze had revealed. Conduits and pipes ran underneath, bound together with some kind of green gunk that reminded her of the Silly Putty she’d played with as a kid. Whatever it was, it didn’t look like a typical building material. She was growing more and more certain that they weren’t in some bunker under a freeway.

Baldie grabbed Angela and shoved her to the side. It was clear all he wanted was to get at Juanita, but Tala surprised them all by spinning and slamming a side kick into the man’s hip. He stumbled away a couple of steps, though he wasn’t hurled across the room the way he would have been in the movies. Too bad. He recovered quickly and lunged for Tala with murder in his eyes.

“No,” Juanita blurted, startling herself by jumping in between them.

She hadn’t wanted to be brave, and she sure as hell didn’t want to be mauled by this sicko, but she couldn’t let him hurt Tala. Or worse.

Baldie stopped short, just shy of knocking her over. The rage disappeared from his eyes as they lit up with delight. He clamped his hand onto her wrist before she could think about jumping away, and he hauled her toward the gate.

The guard in the hall said something in a protesting voice. Was he objecting to Juanita being taken? If so, why had he so clearly been facilitating her retrieval?

When Baldie grunted a querulous sound, the man pointed with his weapon, the tip aiming at Tala again. For a horrified second, Juanita thought he planned to kill her, but he repeated something, and Baldie took a step back and reached for Tala.

No, the guard didn’t want to kill her. He wanted a woman for himself. Tala.

But Tala objected. She jumped back and launched a straight kick toward Baldie’s balls.

He was ready this time and lifted a knee, deflecting the blow with his thigh. His buddy fired into the cell again, the blue energy blast nearly parting Tala’s hair.

She threw herself to the floor, rolling to come up farther from Baldie, but he had other plans. He lunged toward her, dragging Juanita behind him.

She drew her free arm back and made a fist. She had never punched anyone in her life, but she wasn’t about to let these two men do whatever they wanted to them. She threw her weight back, trying to slow him down. When he whirled, looking like he meant to heft her over his shoulder, she punched him in the cheek.

Pain blasted across her knuckles, and she immediately regretted the move. The flash of surprise in his eyes was the only thing that made it worth it. Unfortunately, he didn’t appear hurt badly, and he didn’t let her go.

Baldie reached for Tala again, but froze when something shook the floor. An earthquake?

The lights went out, plunging them into darkness.

Juanita twisted her wrist and pulled back, hoping to catch him by surprise. He let her go, barking some question to his buddy.

Having expected more of a battle, Juanita stumbled backward. She’d almost caught her balance when she tripped over someone and fell on her butt.

“Now’s our chance,” Tala blurted.

In the complete darkness, Juanita couldn’t see her or Angela, or any of the other women, but hoped they were all making for the gate.

Juanita rose to a crouch and patted in the direction she thought it was. She bumped into people. The darkness was disorienting. The sound of the men shouting at each other was the only thing guiding her. She thought Baldie had run out into the corridor.

She quickened her pace, certain he would lock them all in again. Her knuckle clunked against one of the bars, and she winced. That hand already smarted after that foolish punch. Still, she guided herself along, and her heart soared when she found the opening. He hadn’t shut the gate yet.

She ran into someone else as she tried to slip out, and swore to herself. If that was Baldie, he would knock her on her butt—and back into the cell. But whoever she’d bumped didn’t do anything. Was it one of the other women? Juanita slipped through the gate.

A distant boom sounded, and the floor quaked again. Juanita had no idea what was going on, but she groped her way down a corridor. She didn’t know where she was going, but anywhere away from Baldie would be good.

A clang sounded, followed by a thunk. The gate shutting and locking.

Feminine shouts of dismay came from inside the cell. Had anyone except for her made it out?

An angry voice yelled. That was Baldie.

Juanita hurried until she bumped into a wall. She patted her way along it, realizing she was at a corner, and kept going. The next thing she came to was a bumpy metal wall. Or was that a door? She felt her way along rivets and brushed against something that felt like a latch.

She pushed down, and it turned with a creak. She winced at the noise, but another earthquake rocked the floor. Or were they being hit by something? Notions of spaceships returned to her mind. Could this be some kind of space battle? But who would be firing at this ship? It wasn’t as if the International Space Station had photon torpedoes.

Something to consider later. Once she was hidden somewhere that those creeps wouldn’t find her. She prayed Angela and Tala had made it out of the cell, too, and that she could reunite with them once the lights came back on.

She pulled on the latch and felt the weight of a heavy door pulling open.

Someone bumped into her back, and she bit her mouth to keep from yelping in surprise as she imagined Baldie grabbing her from behind again.

“Juanita?” came an uncertain whisper.

“Tala,” she whispered back, turning and gripping her.

“I thought it might be you, but I wasn’t sure.”

“There’s a door here. Let’s get out of here.”

Shouts came from back around the corner.

“No argument here,” Tala whispered.

Juanita tugged open the heavy door. It felt more like a hatch on some old Russian submarine rather than a regular door, and it groaned as it opened.

The corridor outside wasn’t quite as dark, and Juanita hurried out, hoping they would be able to see the way to someplace safe. But what came into view made her halt and gape.

A window—no, a porthole—was set into the wall in front of them. The hull. Through the porthole, a massive planet was in view, its surface lit by the sun, highlighting a pale yellow and orange surface. And rings. Shimmering grays and pinks.

“Saturn,” Juanita breathed.

“I… I…” Tala gripped her shoulder, her face stunned in the faint light coming in through the porthole.

“This is amazing. I wish I had my phone so I could record it and show it to everyone on my YouTube channel.” She’d started “How to Be a Geek Girl” back in college, in an attempt to build a platform to sell her best-selling science fiction novels. Once she actually had some best-selling novels. Or even a published novel. Her followers there would eat up live video of Saturn from this close up.

“It must be fake,” Tala said, recovering her voice.

Juanita reached out and ticked what appeared to be glass or plastic. “I don’t think so.”

Footsteps thundered off to the right and around a corner. They were coming from the wrong direction to belong to Angela, and they were far too heavy anyway.

Juanita grabbed Tala and led her down the corridor toward the left, reluctantly leaving the porthole behind. Hopefully, whoever was coming had been called to assist with the jailbreak and would turn toward the cells instead of following in this direction.

Juanita and Tala would have to find a hiding place and hope to find Angela later.

She tried to ignore the thought that followed: And then what?