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CHERRY
The “next stage” lasted three days and consisted of medical exams, vaccinations, and updates to our inner-ear translators. Mercifully (and rather humiliatingly) Tasha noticed after the second day that I was still wearing the same grubby factory uniform and arranged for me to receive a couple of plain but comfortable outfits of leggings, tops, underthings, and pyjamas.
“You’ll be provided with more clothing to bring to the planet,” she told all three of us. “The environment there can be quite hostile. It gets cold at night even during summer. You’ll need jackets, hats, sunglasses, and sturdy boots.”
At least I had the boots part covered.
After all the medical stuff got cleared, we received our Zabrian landing papers. Shockingly, the documents weren’t digital, but on a shiny, silver sort of paper.
“Don’t lose these,” Tasha told us sternly, pointing a slender finger at the intricate symbol stamped at the bottom. “That’s the Zabrian Imperial Seal. The indentation is inlaid with a case-sensitive energy signature that cannot be forged.”
“What’s this other thing?” I asked, noticing a far less impressive-looking white card behind the silver Zabrian document.
“Oh, I printed those off,” Tasha said as all three of us examined our cards. “Those are the names of your future husbands.”
I inhaled shakily, running my eyes over the letters. I couldn’t read Zabrian, which was the first line of text at the top. But it had been re-written in letters I could understand directly below.
“Silar,” I said, an odd sort of numbness spreading outward through my chest.
“Not sill. It’s like sigh,” Tasha corrected. “SIGH-lahr. Magnolia, you’ve got Oaken. Darcy, yours is Fallon.”
Magnolia looked pleased, nodding and gazing down at her card. Darcy shoved hers in behind her silver paper without looking at it again.
After receiving our papers and being released for the day, I refused Magnolia’s invitation to join her and Darcy for dinner the way I’d done every night so far. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to hang out with them – I did. I was beyond curious to know why they were shipping themselves off to marry an alien they’d never met.
But I just couldn’t stand letting my guard down. I didn’t want to be chatting and laughing with them out in the open at some cafeteria while Magnus’ men might be trawling the station for me. The Zabrian Empire had given me a small stipend while here, and I spent almost all of it on food I got delivered directly to my sleeping quarters.
Before returning there, I completed my nightly security ritual. The ritual that had replaced the lock, deadbolt, and chair system back home.
I went down to the shuttle bay to watch the docking announcements.
So far, I hadn’t seen any other shuttles from Terratribe I listed as arriving.
Until now.
My blood went icy, then suddenly sped up in my veins. A small Terratribe I vessel flashed as an incoming arrival across the screen. I tried not to panic, telling myself it could be any old innocent ship coming to dock.
But would any vessel besides that of a crime lord’s goons be named Black Hole Bitch?
Yeah. I didn’t think so.
Fighting panic, I stumbled away from the docking arrivals and departures screen as if it had burned me, even though it was well overhead, bleating out its messages near the towering metal beams of the ceiling. I moved as if in a dream – or nightmare – through throngs of new arrivals to the station, letting the noise of the human and alien crowds swallow me in a comforting swarm that I hoped could keep me hidden. My heart beat so loud I almost worried it could be heard above everything else.
Furtively, I scurried towards one of the lift orbs, scooting inside and directing it to the floor that held my sleeping quarters. As it zoomed upwards through the cylindrical core of the station, restaurants and shops and trading posts flashing past, I tried to quell my fear and make a plan. I was suddenly reminded of being in another lift, clutching at a bloodied pan, trying to make plans then, too.
Nothing has fucking changed. New place, same problems.
But this lift was faster than the one back home which meant there was less time to think, plus there was no colourful advertisement inside to give me sudden inspiration on what the hell I should do. After getting off the lift, I let myself into my quarters, locking the door behind me.
But I didn’t feel any better. No, now I just felt trapped. And if Magnus’ men had any contacts among the staff of the station (which they probably did) then it wouldn’t be long before they knew exactly which room was mine.
OK, Cherry. You can’t stay here.
What, then? Go to Tasha and tell her everything?
No. That could put her in danger. And with all my baggage, she might decide I was too much risk to the Zabrian outpost planet and cut me out of the program. I could go to Elora Station security, but that still ran the risk of Tasha finding out about my situation and branding me too dangerous and stupid a human to be allowed to marry a Zabrian.
Like a brainless factory machine, my body moved without my mind telling it to.
