3

- Sophia -

“I'm good,” I say hurriedly and show the gun to the other girls up here. Their eyes widen.

“That should probably do the trick,” Caroline says. “Unless these guys are bulletproof. Or too small to hit. I mean, these ceilings are ridiculously low.”

I hold the gun awkwardly out from me. “Aurora? You're Italian, you have some experience with guns, right?”

“Hey, not every Italian family is in the mafia,” she hisses. “Mine are bakers, mostly.”

Caroline and Emilia both look the other way when I try to hand off the gun to them.

I sigh. “Fine. I'll go first.”

Two doors are locked. The third slides aside when I get close to it. Beyond is space, and for a moment I think I'll die. But there's still air here, and I notice I'm looking either through a huge windshield or at a projection on a giant wall. I see millions of stars against the black infinity of space.

And I see our kidnappers.

They're small, gray aliens with huge heads and spindly little arms. They're sitting in little chairs that appear to grow up from the floor like mushrooms and they have enormous black eyes with no irises or pupils that I can see. They have two long, bony fingers on each hand.

There's only four of them. And they're all looking at me.

I point the gun at the closest one, hoping they know what it is. “Yeah. So this ship is turning around and going back to Earth.” I try to put some command and confidence into my voice, but I sound more like Minnie Mouse than anything else.

They just stare and don't move.

I look behind me. The other girls are bravely staying on the other side of the door, looking in with huge, curious eyes. “Guys, come in here. It's the control room.”

I look at the aliens again. They appear frozen. They're not even blinking. “I said, turn this thing around right now!”

They don't react. I hope I don't have to fire the gun to get my point across. I have a feeling actually shooting inside a spaceship may not be the best idea. And I don't like loud noises myself.

I can feel the other girls behind me now. Then one of the aliens moves his finger a fraction and I freeze. As in, I can't move. At all. 

I try to turn around to check on the other girls, but I can't. I'm frozen with my arm and gun pointing straight forward, and I notice that even if I could move my index finger enough to pull the trigger, I wouldn't hit any of the aliens.

The freeze starts to hurt. I don't know if it's because of the awkward position or if the aliens are punishing me for this hijacking attempt.

A wave of intense pain shoots from my feet to my head and back again. Shit. Definitely being punished. I can hear myself groan. That's all the control I have over my body, and that groan was pretty involuntary.

The pain travels up and down me two more times, and then it's over. I would scream in pain if I could, but I can't even draw breath. Am I even breathing?

No. I'm not. And now the pain in my chest is not artificial torture, but due to my lungs being desperate for air.

I fight mentally to gain control of my body, and I definitely panic, but I'm paralyzed. Tunnel vision starts setting in, and the last thing I see before I pass out is the star in the middle of the huge viewscreen in the control room. I can see planets in orbit around it, looking like little stars themselves. The star is yellow and reminds me of she Sun, and the blue point of light in the perfect center of the viewscreen

reminds me of the Earth.

Did they turn the ship around after all?

- - -

When I come to again, the girls are kneeling around me. Some are weeping quietly, others are talking in very serious tones. The almost light atmosphere from before is gone.

It's the cargo room, of course. I glance over at the round hatch. It's closed again.

Heidi follows my gaze. “Yeah, that's well and truly locked now. It won't budge.”

I suddenly remember that I wanted to breathe and gasp mightily a couple of times.

“There, there,” Emilia says and pats my back. “You're not paralyzed anymore.”

I take some deep breaths, luxuriating in being able to do so despite the stench in the room. “Where are the others?”

The girls exchange glances. “We're fine. We were beamed down here again at the same time you were. You got it worse than us. But ...”

I can see it's something bad they're not telling me. “What? Let me hear it now, don't make me go and dread it.”

“It's Alesya,” Aurora says mildly. “They beamed her out of here, then beamed her right back. And she ...” She gestures to the other side of the room. There is someone on the floor there. Yes, that could be Alesya, the Russian girl. But she has something over her face, and everyone is keeping their distance.

“Shit,” I say and lay my head back down as I understand what's happened. “They killed her.”

Caroline crosses her arms over her chest and shudders. “She was dead when she was beamed back. It can only have been a couple of seconds. She didn't suffer.”

“Punishment for rebellion,” I wheeze, although I really want to scream. “She was right. But she didn't deserve that. She was not the bitch here. Shit, I'm sorry.”

I'm still light-headed from the lack of oxygen, but I feel new tears pressing in my eyes and my throat is closing up again. A stone has settled in the pit of my stomach.

“No one deserved that,” Heidi says. “We all did our best to escape. We didn't know what would happen. And you're totally brave. You did the right thing. We just couldn't know.”

This time I let some tears flow without choking it all back right away. I may be the happy-go-lucky one, but I'm still only human. That hijacking attempt was my idea. It was insanely stupid. And now Alesya is dead because of it.

“So what do we do-” Aurora starts, but then there's a loud bang and a hard jolt and the whole room begins shaking. From the outside, there's a droning noise that soon becomes a roar so loud that we have to shout to talk.

“I think we're falling down through the air!” Caroline yells into my ear. “We must be landing!”

“If so, it's a pretty uncontrolled landing!” Aurora screams.

And she's right – we all have to scramble to hold onto the floor because the whole room shakes so bad. Then we're all pressed to the floor as it hits thicker air and decelerates very hard.

“I think they dumped us,” Caroline shouts. “Now we're falling through the atmosphere of a planet. Do you think it might be Earth?”

I just shrug. I suppose it could be. But I have a strong feeling it's not.

We fall for probably less than two minutes, but it seems much longer. Finally it feels like we're slowly drifting to the ground, and then there's a hard jolt and a bang and then we're down.

We all sit in silence for a while, just waiting for something else to happen.

“I guess we landed,” Heidi says. “And I think we can get out if we want.”

She points to a part of the wall where there have suddenly appeared a pulsating circle of yellow light. “Who wants to be first?”

I slowly get to my feet on knees that shake. I notice I still have the gun.

And I feel guilty as hell about Alesya. I recruited her to the translator lab group. I selfishly kept everyone working in the lab when I really should have sent them home hours before the aliens came. And if I'd planned that hijacking a little better, and maybe waited this out instead of jumping into action the first chance I got, she might still be alive. I should probably just face that I'm not the cheerful optimist of the group like I wanted to; I'm the bitch. “I'll go.”

Heidi puts a hand on my knee. “Don't feel like you have to do this, Sophia. One of the other ones can go this time.”

I give her a smile I hope is at least a little wry, but I suspect it's only a hopeless grimace. “Hey, I have the gun. Want to fight me for it?”

I get to the door and push a button beside it. It gives easily and then the door slides and rolls aside to reveal whatever's outside.

Hot air hits my face. The stench of rotting vegetation is very strong. Everything is green. The sky is blue.

I half-turn my head. “You know, guys, this actually could be Earth. Looks like a jungle.”

Then I stiffen. There's movement among the leaves. I lean out and peer closer.

Two big leaves part and then I'm suddenly looking into an eye from very close. It's a big eye. And beyond it ...

“Shit!” I yelp, then stumble backwards and fall on my butt on the metal floor, then I bounce up again to slap the button to close the door. It clangs shut.

I turn around, my heart beating like crazy in my ears.

All the women are staring at me.

I swallow. This has just gone from bad to worse. “On second thought, I don't think this is Earth. Because I think I just saw ...” I shake my head. No, it can't be. But it was.

“What?!” Caroline yells.

I take a deep breath. “A dinosaur.”