Gnaw ignored them, attacking as many of them as he could. They had defenseless bodies that were easy to kill—but the Elth were smart. Whatever gas they’d tossed into the shuttle had not only been an inhalant, it had done something to his skin. It was slowly weakening him, making him drowsy.
They deployed more canisters into the large shuttle bay, white smoke billowing from the devices. He tried to avoid it, killing more of the Elth. They couldn’t move fast enough to escape him as he took them out one by one…
The smoke was spreading swiftly, and Gnaw glanced around, trying to find an exit. He needed to get out of the bay, find a way to wash his skin if he stood any chance of fighting against whatever chemical they were using.
There was a door near him, and he ran for it. It didn’t auto-open. He ran so fast, he slid into the metal barrier—hard. It stunned him but he rose, using his claws to tear at the panel. The metal gave way under his sharp tips and sparks flew. The door began to open, and he dropped to all fours.
On the other side wasn’t fresh air, though, or freedom.
The opening was filled with more white smoke.
Trying not to breath, he rushed forward. There was nowhere else to go.
“Deploy gas on all levels!” one of the Elth squealed.
Gnaw ran but the smoke blinded him. His lungs burned, and he slammed into a wall he couldn’t see. The smoke grew too thick and the drowsiness increased. His skin itched badly. But he kept moving, kept looking for an escape.
Until his front paws gave out on him, and he went down. Darkness filled his mind.
They’d caught him.
* * * * *
The scary aliens stared back at Darla through the glass wall that separated them.
She’d woken up in the room with her sister and nine other women from the shuttle, but there was no sign of Gnaw or any of the men. She had no idea if they were dead or just being held somewhere else.
“What do you think they want?” Becky whispered.
Darla wished she had an answer for her baby sister. “The fleet will come for us,” she whispered back.
“They grabbed us right in front of the fleet! How could this happen?”
“I don’t know,” she said, keeping her sister behind her.
“You’re going to pay for this, you freaks!” It was the loudmouth blonde from the shuttle. She walked up to the glass wall and made obscene gestures at their captors. “The fleet will hunt your ugly squid asses down and we’ll have a fish fry! Calamari, asshole. Look that up!”
Darla inwardly winced. She remembered the woman’s name from their transport. “Maybe you shouldn’t agitate them, Barbara,” she whispered.
The blonde snarled at her. “Fuck off, animal lover.”
Darla clamped her lips together as Barbara turned her anger back to the glass wall and the aliens standing on the other side.
Their upper bodies reminded Darla of a ghost. They looked as if someone had thrown a fleshy sheet of white over their elongated, blob-like upper halves, with thick tentacles holding them up from below. They each had ten of them. Where their faces should have been were only three round, dark eyes, and a harsh slit for a mouth centered about five inches beneath them.
“The fleet is coming for us,” Barbara yelled. “They will fry your asses. You fucked with the wrong shuttle!”
“Why is she trying to anger them? It’s just going to make things worse, right?”
“Yes,” Darla whispered back to her sister. “I hope they can’t understand her.”
“What do you think they want?”
“I don’t know, Becky. Just keep calm.”
“What if they want to eat us?” Her sister pressed closer. “Are those Ke’ters?”
“No. Ke’ters are reptilian. Those are…” Darla didn’t have any idea. “Not reptiles.”
“Fish people who can breathe air…or maybe not air, since we don’t know what’s on the other side of that glass wall. It’s solid. I don’t see any holes in it, do you?”
“No but it looks like air on the other side.” Darla was glad her sister wasn’t totally panicking. “The fleet will be looking for us. We just need to remain calm and give them time. I’m pretty sure their shuttles have trackers.”
Barbara kept screaming at the aliens, making threats. It was causing Darla’s headache to worsen. She’d woken with it, probably from the gas that had knocked them out.
Despite that, she felt grateful. Her sister was with her, they were still dressed, and since the aliens didn’t wear clothes, it was readily apparent they were either female, or they just didn’t have dangling bits in the groin area. She hoped that meant they hadn’t been taken to become sex slaves. Rumors of people frequently kidnapped and sold for that purpose had reached her planet often.
Part of the wall opened, and three aliens came in. They each held a round metal device in one lifted tentacle.
Barbara rushed at them, looking ready to attack.
A blue streak shot out of one of the devises and hit her in the chest, sending her flying backward. She hit the floor hard and gasped.
Everyone else in the room immediately tried to put distance between themselves and the aliens.
“We are Elth,” one of them stated in a whiny, high-pitched voice. “You will do as told. We own you.”
Barbara sat up, rubbing her chest. “Fuck you! No one owns us.” She stayed down, though, and didn’t try to attack them again.
“We do,” the Elth stated.
“What do you want from us?” asked a woman with short dark hair. “Are you going to sell us or something?”
Each Elth peered at her with their unnerving trio of eyes. “We need test subjects.”
A chill ran down Darla’s spine. “Shat.”
Becky clutched at her tighter and a soft whimper escaped from her sister.
“Fuck you,” Barbara hissed. “You’re not going to do anything but return us to the fleet, if you’re smart. That’s the only way you’ll live. No one fucks with United Earth!”
The Elth stared at her for long seconds before they glanced around. One of them lifted a second tentacle, pointing it at Barbara. “Her first. She’s loud and rude. The male will probably kill her. He’s very enraged. I’ll enjoy watching it.”
“You will breed with the Veslor,” another of the Elth ordered.
Darla jerked her head in the direction of Barbara, still on the floor, to see her reaction to that news.
Barbara shook her head. “No fucking way!”
“You will,” the Elth stated calmly. “We need his young. All of you females will breed with the Veslor to give us many young to train.”
Darla felt sick. “To train for what?”
The Elth all looked at her. She instantly regretted asking. They gave her the creeps.
“To kill for us,” one of them answered. “Veslors are skilled at killing. He killed many of our race before capture. We recently learned Veslors have bred with Earth females.”
Another one spoke. “We’ve run analysis. A mixture of your species should make excellent trainable killing creatures. Humans will follow orders after training, where Veslors won’t. The combination will be a perfect solution to find the right balance.”