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I really need to find her. Sure, I want to apologize for the miscommunication that kept us from that date, but I also want to know her and her world better. One night together is not enough.
“So, now what?” Arn says, shaking me from my thoughts.
I blink. “Huh?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the rescue, but how are we going to get off the planet?”
Danel sighs. “I don’t know what you heard about everything outside of maximum-security, but the mission went to shit. We lost half our team, all our comms, and all our weapons. Honestly, I wasn’t sure we’d get this far.”
“Well, we’d better come up with a plan before we reach the garbage depot.” Arn says. “I don’t want to escape only to immediately be captured again. Getting taken the first time is enough of an embarrassment.”
“How did you get captured the first time?” Brigid asks, eliciting a warning growl from Arn. Unfazed, she shrugs. “We have at least twenty minutes until we reach the depot and I’m curious. Might as well kill time while we wait.”
Danel and I don’t say anything, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious. The mission brief was about where he was and how to free him. It said nothing about what got him there in the first place. We don’t need to know about that, but it doesn’t stop us from being curious.
Arn sighs. “Whatever. It’s nothing classified anyway. I was on leave in Glimner, just gambling and letting off steam, you know? Well, I picked the wrong woman to sleep with. Turns out that she was a honeypot for a Vakutan spy network I tangled with in the past. They decided they wanted to take me hostage and hold me for ransom. We drink, she slips something in mine, and things get fuzzy for a while. Next thing I know, I wake up in a Vakutan prison cell. Like I said, it’s embarrassing.”
“Could be worse,” Danel says. “I know a guy who got his kidney stolen by a hooker on Glimner.”
Arn chuckles. “I’d rather be down a kidney than face my superiors when I brief them on what happened.”
“If it makes you feel better, I blew off my first special forces exam for a girl,” I say.
“What on Kalei made you do that?” He sounds almost offended by my apparent failure of work ethic.
“She’s my fated mate. I ran into her in the woods and had to help her find her way back to civilization. As soon as I get back, I’m going to find her and tell her what we are to each other.”
Brigid pats my arm. “Maybe don’t open with the fact that you’re literal soulmates. Humans don’t really have that, so you might scare her off.”
I roll my eyes. “Obviously, I won’t do that. I’m not an idiot.”
“I beg to differ,” Danel says, earning a punch to the arm.
“Says the guy who thinks he can pull chicks with the worst pickup lines known to any sapient species.”
We all quiet down as the vehicle slows to a stop. Apparently, we’ve arrived at the waste disposal depot. And we still don’t have a plan. Well, time to improvise, I guess.
We hear indistinct voices outside and the beep of the truck reversing. The backdoors open straight into the mouth of hell.
The incineration pit smells of burning metals and synth materials. The ground around us shakes, and the sound ofhydraulics fills the air as the bed of the truck tilts, sending some trash tumbling into the inferno.
“Is it just me or is the back wall getting closer?” Brigid shouts over the din.
She’s right. The back wallis inching closer, pushing the garbage with it.
“Fuck. Okay, Brigid, grab on,” I say, scooping her up and setting her on my back. We run to the edge of the truck and jump, grabbing onto the roof, and pulling ourselves on top.
“Get low,” Danel hisses, pressing facedown on the hot roof. We all follow suit, lying flat until the bed begins to lower. As the vehicle pulls away, we jump to the ground and slip behind some barrels of waste to catch our breath and take stock of the place.
“Okay, step one. We find their communication room,” Arn says. “I doubt that regular comms would have enough reach, but the stuff in there should have a wide enough range to send a message to someone in low orbit.”
It seems like a solid enough plan, but glancing around, I realize that this place is like an industrial maze. “There has to be a map or directory around here.”
Danel scans the walls before pointing. “There.” It’s on the opposite side and right in the open. The moment we go to look, we’ll be caught. Judging by the expressions on his and Arn’s faces, they realize this too.
“I’ll look,” Brigid says. “People never pay attention to humans.” With that, she gets to her feet and shuffles to the directory with her back bent and eyes downcast. Years of acting as unobtrusive as possible render her practically invisible to those passing her by. She’s just a janitor, nothing more.
As she comes back to us, her back straightens and she returns to her usual brisk gait. “It’s in the second-floor offices. Take the elevator to our right and then make a left turn.”
