Page 26 of Stripped By the Alien

The answer should have been obvious from the beginning. The female has spent her entire time aboard the Beast observing, evaluating, and searching for opportunities. She studies everything she encounters. She learns.

I should have recognized where that curiosity would eventually lead.

A pair of workers flatten themselves against the corridor wall as I race past. One nearly drops a container of supplies before recovering.

"Did you see the female?" I bark.

The worker points immediately down a side passage.

I change direction without slowing. Ahead, the corridor divides again, and a membrane closes in the distance. My stomach tightens.

She cannot possibly understand where she's going, and that makes every step she takes more dangerous than the last.

8

- Nora -

“Get ready to run,” Lucius says while he makes all kinds of weird moves and sounds. “I’ll distract them and you try to get away. There must be some smaller craft on this ship. Likely that way.” He swoops up and down into a specific direction, as if pointing.

The little drone is doing an admirable job of causing chaos. He darts through the air, flashes lights, and produces noises that sound increasingly ridiculous.

The giant locust watches him. The lobster stares with obvious fascination. Neither of them is paying much attention to me.

That feels like the sort of situation that rarely lasts. I take a careful step backward. Nobody reacts. A second step carries me closer to the corridor beyond the chamber. Lucius continues his performance without missing a beat.

The opening remains clear. I glance toward the drone one last time.

"You're either a genius or a disaster," I mutter under my breath. Then I slip through the membrane.

The opening closes behind me with a wet sound that makes me wince. I stop immediately and listen. My pulse pounds in my ears while I wait for shouting, pursuit, or the arrival of an angry alien warlord.

Nothing happens. The silence lasts long enough that I begin to believe I've actually gotten away.

A smile creeps onto my face despite everything. After the crash, the capture, the living spaceship, the trophies, and the increasingly confusing giant locust, I finally feel as though I'm doing something for myself instead of reacting to whatever happens next.

The corridor stretches ahead through walls of living tissue. Soft pulses travel beneath translucent layers, and the floor gives faintly beneath my feet. Walking through this living spaceship feels wrong. Human ships hum and vibrate and creak. This thing breathes.

Now that the locust isn't standing beside me, taking all my attention like an unchained tiger, I can pay attention to details. Openings appear and disappear farther down the corridor. Strange creatures carry supplies through the passages. Somewhere in the distance something large produces a deep bellow that echoes through the living structure. I decide there is absolutely no reason to investigate that sound.

The passage divides ahead. I slow near the junction and study both routes. Neither looks more welcoming than the other. Neither contains signs, maps, or anything resembling common sense. But I swear I can see huge muscle fibers.

"Excellent," I whisper. "A maze made of meat." I choose the left passage and continue walking.

Several seconds later a wet sealing sound echoes behind me. The noise is familiar enough that I stop and think through it before turning around. Membranes close all the time aboard the Beast. I've seen dozens of them open and shut during the last hours.

Still, something about the timing bothers me. I turn back toward the junction. The passage I came through is gone.

A smooth living wall fills the space where the opening had been only moments earlier. I stare at it for several seconds, waiting for the membrane to reopen. It doesn't.

The smile fades from my face. Then another opening appears farther ahead. The membrane peels apart, revealing a continuation of the corridor beyond. For a moment I simply stand there looking from the sealed wall behind me to the newly opened route ahead.

A cold feeling settles into my stomach. "I'm starting to think this ship doesn’t like me."

And I don't like the look of the new passage. Maybe it's because it appeared the moment the previous route vanished. Maybe it's because every survival instinct I possess is warning me that a living spaceship probably shouldn't be trusted. Either way, I find myself staring at the opening while my mind works through possibilities.

Then I glance back at the smooth wall behind me. Nothing moves. Nothing opens. The route that brought me here is gone.

"Fine," I tell the ship. "I'll play along."