It was an unknown alien ship, developed by an unknown alien species, but the layout and functionality of the vessel was, so far, not terribly unlike anything Lyra had seen before. The passageway curved, and then branched. To the left, a door. To the right, a ladder. Lyra tilted her head to the right, and the others followed.
On most ships, the bridge was on the uppermost deck, often slightly forward of center. It allowed the greatest field of visibility, even if visual navigation was a rare, mostly-obsolete method. Once upon a time, it been an important function, and with no particular reason to change, the bridge continued to be situated on the upper deck.
Lyra could only hope that this alien culture had developed their transport along a similar function. For all she knew, they kept their controls deep in the interior of the ship. Or maybe there were no controls at all. Maybe the ship was piloted by an automated program, whose manual overrides Lyra would have no hope of breaking into.
Stop panicking, she told herself firmly. Navigating the ship was still a distant obstacle. They first had to clear the ship of their captors. And while the others may have to sacrifice themselves to keep those captors distracted, it was of utmost importance that Lyra didn’t fall to the alien venom. Her expertise was everybody else’s only hope for escape.
Lyra sucked against her teeth, pulling the mouthguard more tightly flush. She pressed her lips together into a thin, hard line.
With an innate sense of orientation on a ship, Lyra led the way onward and upward. The ship was oddly quiet. There was no sign of their abductors, no sound of ordinary ship life.
At the third ascent, their luck ran out. Lyra stood above the hatch, helping the last woman up from the ladder, when a patrol of two of the aliens appeared at the end of the passageway. Monstrously tall, as gray and hard as iron, the sight of them inspired instant panic.
The aliens shouted in their growling language, surging down the passage towards the women.
Lyra reached for a weapon she didn’t have—the electrolaser pistol she strapped to her hip during surface contact. She swore as her hand brushed against smooth, unarmed flight suit.
Spinning away, she shoved at the cluster of women, urging them onward like an impatient collie.
“Get in the front!” Hadiza grabbed at Lyra, pulling her to the fore. “You’re the only one who can fly this thing.”
The aliens were on top of them almost instantly.
The other woman swarmed Lyra, forming a barrier. Two of them—a researcher from Lyra’s ship, and a crew member from Hadiza’s—leapt onto the alien males, clinging and grasping.
It went against every one of Lyra’s principles to let others fight for her—to abandon comrades.
Hadiza gave Lyra’s arm a violent jerk. “Hey. Soldier,” she snapped. “Remember the mission.”
Lyra straightened. “Run,” she barked at the others. Her mouthguard flew out, and there was no time to recover it. “Run!”
They sprinted down the passage. Lyra chanced a look over her shoulder. The women had succeeded in subduing the aliens—but they’d lost themselves to the venom. Lyra’s heart turned into a rock. She tore her gaze away.
The passage came to a T. Lyra cut to the left, towards another hatch. She reached to unseal it, but Hadiza shouldered in front of her. For someone so small, she was surprisingly strong.
“Let me,” Hadiza said, her tone brooking no argument. Lyra recognized sense when she saw it. She let Hadiza open the hatch.
The hatch opened to reveal another patrol. This time there were four of the massive, hard-bodied aliens. Lyra instinctively reached for Hadiza, pulling her back.
“Fall back!” Lyra barked. “Seal the hatch!”
“No!” Hadiza cried, struggling out of Lyra’s grasp. “We need to move forward. Come on!”
The other women hesitated. They were too frightened to run into the danger, and too rattled to gather their wits and run away. Instead, they stood like sheep, wide-eyed and helpless, looking from Hadiza to Lyra.
The hesitation cost them less than a second, but it was more time than they had. The aliens surged through the opening.
Face to the face with the enemy, the other women reacted like the cornered animals they were. They surged against the massive bodies, climbing them like cats on a tree.
Hadiza shoved at Lyra, pushing her beyond the occupied aliens and through the open hatch.
They emerged in a short passageway. The movement of air signaled a large, open space to Lyra’s senses. Only two other women came through with them—Inri, a researcher from Lyra’s crew, and Aislin, a mech engineer from Hadiza’s crew. All the others had been envenomated along the way.
“Let’s go,” Lyra said gruffly, fighting the urge to turn back and drag each and every envenomated woman through the ship.
They could only turn left. The short passage opened into a large flight deck. A row of four silver shuttles docked along a locking track. The hangar door stood open to a planetary surface.
A wide jetway led from the hangar door down to the ground. Outside, it was night, but the light of flight deck flooded out, illuminating a dense forest of twisting, multicolored trees over uneven, boulder-strewn ground.
“Shuttles!” Aislin hissed. “Could you pilot a shuttle?”
Lyra stared bleakly at them. This whole operation had gone completely to shit. The majority of the women were still captive, with no hope of freeing them. The majority of the aliens were unaccounted for, spread out across the ship. There was no way to remove them from the ship.
There never had been, Lyra realized with a grim resolve. They’d been fooling themselves—clinging to an absurd plan because what other choice did they have?
There was only one choice now. She could save four people. If she could figure out how to fly one of the shuttles.
“We’re taking a shuttle,” Lyra said tonelessly. “The one nearest the hangar door.”
“What about the other women?” Hadiza asked.
Lyra began walking towards the shuttle. “We can’t do anything for them. Their best hope is if we get away. We can contact the ADF. They’ll have the manpower and resources to mount a proper rescue.”
Hadiza hurried to keep up with Lyra’s long-legged stride. “This isn’t the plan! We’re supposed to get to the bridge!”
“The plan has changed due to circumstances.” Lyra reached the shuttle. It was surprisingly small. It would only comfortably house one of the aliens at a time. Four human women would find it uncomfortably close.
She reached for the hatch, but Hadiza’s hand closed on her wrist, stopping her.
“We can’t just leave them! They sacrificed themselves so that we’d all—”
Lyra rounded on her. “Do you think I want to? This is the only option.” She ripped her hand free. “Get in the shuttle.”
Inri and Aislin stood at a slight distance, watching the exchange fretfully.
Hadiza scoffed. “You may have signed your discharge papers, but you’re still a soldier, aren’t you?”
“I’m what I have to be,” Lyra said tiredly. “We don’t have time for this.”
Inri let out a small squeak. Lyra rounded on her crewmate, prepared to physically force each and every woman onto the shuttle.
But instead of an objecting Inri, she found herself face to face with one of the aliens. His keen yellow eyes were fixed on her, his fangs revealed in a predatory grin. Lyra staggered away from him, backing against the shuttle.