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Black left without further comment, and I watched the door close behind him before I let a pang of emotion wash over me. It was an emotion I didn't recognize, or maybe several, mingling together: one emotion for Alena.
And one for Black, who I sensed, but could not prove, was acting against me somehow.
CHAPTER12
Alena
I acted without thinking much. I would never be sure what I thought I was going to do, or why I felt brave enough to do it after everything I'd just witnessed. But some rift had developed among all these men, and I had a feeling of foreboding. Maybe it made me act out of an instinct for self-preservation.
I stood up, walked across the room, and pulled out a flight suit from a compartment that I had explored one day when I was left in my room for a rest day.
It was too big, but that worked to my advantage for now: it was easy to pull on.
I approached the door and stared at it. I was afraid both that it would, and would not, open.
Behind this thought, I was running through the crude map of the ship I'd constructed during my time here. I knew more than I thought I did: I knew how to get back to the pods from our ship, where they were stored. I knew how to get to the kitchen, the room with the bath, the quarters of each crew member.
I pushed on the console to open the door, holding the freezing cold breath of fear in my lungs.
It opened.
I wavered a little, the cool air of the corridors blowing toward me. I tried to force myself tothink:what was I doing? Where did I think I was going?
I hadn't stepped out of the room yet. I could still turn back, wait for Black to return. Whatever was happening among these men was not my business, and I didn't really have any desire toescape.
I leaned my head out into the corridor. Looked both ways: all clear. No footsteps echoing in the corridors, which they did, especially with these men. It almost seemed as if the ship was not designed for them at all.
I stared at the lettering in front of me. For maybe the first time, it reached my consciousness:this was not English.The script was not even close; it was language from the Solymus-Hybrid system, but it was only then that, as stupid as it sounds, I put two and two together:that didn't make any sense, if this was their ship.
A lot of other details percolated into my consciousness just then: the twenty-four hour clock the crew used, the way the doors were all too small for their stature, the way they carried guns around.
A sinking feeling gripped me as my mind swirled around these details, piecing them together:
This was not reallytheirship.
And if it wasn't their ship, then what did that mean?
Thousands of banal details began to surface in my mind, and they now seemed menacing.
If this wasn't their ship, were they even Solymus-Hybrid Space Force?
I heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Heavy, moving fast, practically slamming into the grated floor. Coming from the left - the only direction I had ever gone in from here.
I looked right. It led to a t-intersection in about three meters. Shadows crept toward the intersection from both directions; I had commented on it once to Black and he had made a joke... what was it? "That's where we keep all the bodies."
It didn't seem like a joke, suddenly.
All of these thoughts, and fears, grabbed me by the throat, and I ceased thinking.
A big no-no in ATDC, but my time here on this ship had certainly taught me one thing: people have intense feelings if they don't get their sex hormones blocked. Apparently, irrational fear and irrational actions came with that package.
I turned to the right, gave it no more thought except to think, once again, that this was a terrible idea.
But my fears seemed so real, and those were far more terrifying than not having a plan. I had to find out if my suspicions were correct.
And if they were?
It was too late. I was already walking as quickly as I could without making noise, toward the darkened corridors.
