Darla locked eyes with Heydar as they grabbed her by each arm and dragged her away, wondering what would become of her. What might become of him.

She didn’t get much of a look around at her surroundings as they bundled her across the compound with no regard for her scrambling feet trying to keep up. In no time they arrived at their destination.

“Hey, watch it!” she blurted as they roughly shoved her into a spartan metal bunkhouse of sorts.

The guards threw her clothing in after her and stepped back to close the door behind themselves as they left.

“Wait! What am I supposed to do here? Where are you going?” She rushed the door, but the guard shoved her back, sending her hard onto her ass.

He gazed down on her, sizing her up with an amused grin. “You will begin work tomorrow. That is what you are supposed to do. This is your one chance to gather your strength. I suggest you utilize this time to yourself. You’ll need it.”

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Darla had spent the entire afternoon alone in the locked bunkhouse. It was unsettling, but at least it had afforded her time to rest, as the guard had suggested, as well as affording her an opportunity to look around and plot and plan. If she could find a weak point, maybe she could escape.

There would be no such luck.

The metal walls were battered and bent, but they were still sound. Whatever scrap they had fashioned this prisoner housing out of, it was more than strong enough to hold her. Even Heydar would be hard pressed to find a weak spot to exploit.

There were a few portal windows allowing natural light in as well as cross ventilation, but they were small enough that a person couldn’t possibly fit through them, so that option was nixed straightaway.

She was stuck there.

Exploring the building, she saw that a series of simple bunk beds had been erected, thin cushions the only thing between their occupants and the hard surface beneath. There was also what was apparently a toilet.

Raised metal foot pads were clear enough on either side of a moveable metal disc. Darla lifted it and discovered it was a lid mounted to an inset rim that went about a foot underground. Beneath that was a pit that was deeper than she could see, but one whiff told her all she needed to know about it.

She quickly sealed it up, grateful for the breeze passing through the small windows airing out the chamber.

A further search revealed a grating on the ground, and above it a water spigot flush mounted to the wall about waist high. It took a few tries to figure out the alien operating mechanism, but she got it soon enough. Darla stuck her face under the stream and drank deep, savoring every drop. She didn’t know if it was fresh, but she was so parched she didn’t care, and if the new runes were doing their job, she should be able to drink slightly stagnant water with no ill effects.

Sated, she shut off the water flow. For all she knew it could be a limited supply and there would be no sense in letting it run, though she could use the several buckets lining the wall to catch it. The containers were rather grimy though, and even with the runes protecting her digestive tract, the thought of drinking out of them was anything but appealing.

With a resigned sigh she flopped down on the nearest bunk and pondered this new twist of fate.

“What the hell am I supposed to do now?” she wondered.

It wasn’t until sunset that she would get anything resembling an answer.

The door to the structure clanged as it was unfastened from the outside and a dirty gaggle of females representing a wide variety of alien species shuffled in. Once inside, the door closed and locked behind them.

Without hesitation they all began shedding their clothes with the exhausted movements of those who had just spent a day hard at labor. Darla marveled at the collection of tattoos and runes adorning their diverse bodies. So many different races, all different builds, colors, and morphologies, but Heydar had been right, everyone in this galaxy bore the runes in one way or another.

A few of them collected the buckets and filled them up while the others gathered around. Small towels appeared from somewhere and were dipped in the water, the women washing the day’s grime from their skin as best they could.

They were all so caught up in their relief that no one noticed Darla sitting quietly. But Darla noticed them, and in particular one woman. A woman she recognized. A woman from the Raxxian ship. A human.

She was a little bit shorter than Darla, with smooth caramel skin and shoulder-length curly hair. She had been a bit heavier when they’d met, but she had become leaner during her brief stay with their captors. Hard labor had clearly taken its toll.

“Hey!” she called out. “You were on the ship. Shalia, right? I’m Darla.”

The woman looked up at her, only mildly surprised to hear another human speaking in the room. In all likelihood she was just too tired to react.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, then turned her attention back to scrubbing the dirt from her aching limbs.

“What do you mean?”

“The new one. Yeah, I remember you.”

Darla rose to her feet and crossed the room. “How did you get here? What happened?”

“What do you mean, what happened? We fucking crashed on this God forsaken planet. That’s what happened.”

“You made it down in one piece, obviously.”

“Obviously. We hit hard, though. The ship busted open and there was a small fire, but the important thing was we were free. At least, we were for about three hours before these assholes came and grabbed us.”

“Were there others?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Do you know where they are? We’ve been trying to find other survivors.”

“No idea. People took off running when we hit the ground. The ones who were able to, anyway. Amazing what motivation can do to numb pain.”

“They ran but were hurt?”

“Listen, the Raxxians who were in our section of the ship when it crashed were dazed, but that wouldn’t last for long. So a bunch just ran. The guards came to quick enough and chased after them. They left one behind to watch over us, but then we jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire when this whole new set of asshole aliens came along.”

“What did the Raxxians do?”

“The one guarding us died almost immediately. We heard shots in the distance so there must have been a fight. So far as I can tell, the Raxxians were outnumbered and outgunned so they retreated. The rest of us were taken prisoner and marched here.”

“Where are the others now?”

“A couple of men were killed when they tried to overpower one of the guards. Idiots. The rest of us wound up here. They stripped us and separated us. I was put here, along with Garalla, Fetza, and Nivonk,” she said, gesturing to three of the alien women. “They were on the ship with us too.”

The three looked up from their bathing and nodded an exhausted greeting, then continued their bath.

“They wound up in the same compartment as me during the chaos right before we crashed. What happened to the others, I don’t know.” Shalia sized up Darla with a curious look. “You’re clean.”

“Relatively speaking.”

“What happened to you?”

“A native tribe took me in. They’re good people. They provided shelter and food without hesitation. They live a pretty off-grid life, though. No tech to speak of.”

Shalia nodded, sizing up their group’s newest member for a second time since her abduction by the Raxxians.

“You have ink now,” she noted. “Doesn’t even look like it’s peeling.”

“Oh, yeah. That. The pigments they use here are from some kind of special plants that are connected to the power from the sun. It’s like what the Raxxians put behind all of our ears on the ship, but much stronger.”