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“Which resulted in this being his last job. Karma?”
“I’m picking you up now, Miya.” Before she could process the thoughtful heads-up, he had her in his arms once more.
Then he began running toward the base. At full speed.
What had gotten into him to resume running now, of all times? She just hoped she wouldn’t lose whatever she had left in her stomach during this award-winning sprint. He had her pressed against him to lessen the jostling, but still.
Miya tried to focus on the solidness of his chest and the way his muscles flexed against her naked skin. That would also help keep her thoughts away from the worry about what came next.
Would Therak be welcomed by the colonists with open arms or perceived as a threat? And in the latter case, whose side was Miya going to take?
15
The Heebie-Jeebies
There Miya was, wondering if she would have to choose between her own kind and the enigmatic assassin who had saved her life more than once. Bracing herself for the stares of tens of colonists at her scandalous clothing and at Therak’s lack of any clothing whatsoever… And it turned out to have been for nothing.
They made it to the very center of the settlement but were yet to see a single person. The place was as eerily quiet as the desert they had traversed.
Miya hadn’t expected a huge welcome party, but this? The base might as well be abandoned.
Hells, what if itwasabandoned? What if the colonists had had an emergency – something that happened often when settling on a new, barely explored planet – and had taken off on the ships she and Therak were counting on?
No, no, she had to stay positive – like never. It was probably lunch time and everyone was gathered in the dining area within the station. Yes, that had to be it.
Then again, shouldn’t there be at least one person left on guard duty outside?
“What is it?” she whispered when Therak stopped amid the semicircular space formed by the residential buildings. The station was up ahead, no more than 30 steps away. “You smell something fishy?”
He didn’t reply, but Miya felt the tension in his body against hers while he took in the base and sniffed the air in all directions.
Galaxies, she had wanted to find this place so badly, and now it was giving her the heebie-jeebies. “Maybe we should go inside the station? It’s basically the heart of a colonists’ base. We’ll surely find someone there.”
“Yes.” He gently lowered her to the ground, eyes still scanning the windowless metal buildings around them.
Miya walked as close to him as possible all the way to the station’s entrance. She would have clung to him like a toddler if that wouldn’t impede his movements. Don’t judge. What was a girl to do when she had watched too many retro horror movies, she had lost her trusted wrench and had lace on instead of body armor?
The first thing Miya did when the reinforced door slid to the side, was pinch her nose. “Ugh, someone has forgotten to shower.” She was used to the recycled air aboard spaceships, but this corridor they had just entered gave a whole new meaning to the word ‘stale’.
Come to think of it, she couldn’t hear the ventilation system working. Either it was one of the modern, ultra silent ones or it wasn’t operational at all.
Marvelous. Things around here just kept getting better and better.
As they walked further into the station, the silence was broken only by the sound of the doors hissing open. At least the air became less stale the closer to the building’s center they got.
That was where they were headed, Therak silently following her example to ignore the doors to their left and right. If there was a dining area or a common space for all colonists, Miya expected it to be at the very heart of the station.
As yet another big door slid open before them, fresh air hit Miya in the face. She would have wondered why, were she not too busy staring at the circular-shaped hall before her.
This was where the colonists ate and socialized, all right. There were eating tables and benches, food and drink replicators, lounges for relaxing in good company, big monitors for watching whatever was available in this planetary system… But not a single soul in sight.
Even more disturbingly, almost everything in here looked trashed. Tables and benches were overturned, replicators were smashed, monitors lay broken, lounges gaped, torn. The domed ceiling high above, made of reinforced glass strong enough to withstand the elements, had a freaking big hole in it. No wonder there was fresh air and direct sunlight in here: it was as if a meteorite had crashed through the dome or something.
But there were no pieces of a space rock scattered across the dining area. What there was instead was blood.
Lots and lots of blood.
Puddles of it on the floor, splashes on the walls, rivulets on the cracked monitors… Simply everywhere. There were also lots of scorch marks from blaster shots.
