The Defiant
Chapter Thirty Eight

\I woke up groggy and out-of-sorts. My eyelids were heavy, and felt sticky, like they’d been painted with honey while I slept. I stirred slightly, noting aches and pains all over my body as I did so. A headache roared to life behind my eyes.

“Wake up. Wake up!” a voice hissed at me. It sounded like Seven’s. How’d she get in my room?

I lifted my weighty eyelids and looked around, wincing at the light, dim though it was. Wait—this wasn’t my room. I shifted my head. Those were crates. Why was I in the cargo bay? What was going on?

I tried to push myself up to a seated position, but my wrists were secured behind my back, tied tightly with what felt like the same nylon rope we’d used to hold Eight when we first met her, and I couldn’t move.

Panicking now, I squirmed like a worm until I could sit. My legs were stretched out in front of me, also tied. I was indeed in the cargo bay, near the wall of crates, facing the door, and I couldn’t see anyone else.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“One, is that you?”

I turned around (a difficult task without use of one’s hands) and saw Seven, sitting in the middle of the cargo bay, wrists and ankles bound, a blindfold over her eyes. Around her on the floor, I saw the unconscious bodies of Two, Three, and Six.

“Yeah, it’s me.” I scooted slowly toward her, pushing myself with my bound legs.

“Where are we?”

“Hold on. I’ll take your blindfold off.” I grabbed the back of her blindfold with my teeth and yanked it down, off her eyes, noticing as I did so that I also had a blindfold hanging around my neck. It must have slipped off my eyes.

“The cargo bay? Why are we here? Who tied us up?”

“I don’t know. But look around you. See Eight or Five?” I gestured at Two, Three, and Six, still lying bound on the floor.

“No… Oh my god, do you think they took the ship?”

“There’s no other explanation,” I said grimly. “Although Four’s gone too. I thought she was on our side.”

“Maybe they needed her to work the engines,” Seven pointed out.

“Yeah, maybe. Do you think you could untie my hands?”

“I’ll try. Let me look at the knot first.”

I turned so my back was facing her.

“I think I can do it, but it’ll be hard with my hands behind my back—Oh wait!” I heard scuffling, and turned around. Seven had worked her arms down her back, and pulled her legs through so her hands were bound in front of her. I tried to do the same, but couldn’t get my wrists past my hips, and soon gave up.

“Here, let me try to untie you—” she said. I turned back around, and she went to work on my wrist restraints.

“How are we going to get out of here? They must have locked it from the outside,” I said, surveying our prison as she yanked on the ropes.

“Can’t you just order the door to open? You’re the captain, it should respond to your voice patterns.”

“Good idea. Computer, open cargo bay door.” The computer beeped, but didn’t respond. I tried again, to no avail.

“It won’t work,” I realized with a groan.

“Why?”

“Eight and I are identical. Our pitches are a bit different, but we’ve got the same vocal patterns, so it would be easy for her to imitate my voice and give verbal command authority to Five or Four so we can’t get out. Eight’s smart,” I said regretfully.

Seven released the last knot with a little ha of triumph. I shook my hands free in relief and rubbed the circulation back into them before turning to untie Seven.

“If we can’t get the door open, how are we supposed to get out?”

“I don’t know.” I pulled her hands free, then pulled the blindfold off and reached down to untie my ankles. Seven did the same, and soon we were both free.

“This is all my fault. I should have known Eight would try something,” I said, grinding the heels of my hands into my eyes.

“It’s not your fault. None of us could have predicted...this.” Seven gestured around. “I can’t believe Five’s going along with it.”

“I can. He’s head-over-heels for her, and she can make him believe she’s right.”

“Manipulative bitch,” Seven muttered. I looked over at her in surprise. I’d never heard her swear. “Should we untie the others?”

“Yeah, probably. They’ll be less freaked when they wake up. I’m going to check the crates for a knife or something that’ll make it go faster.”

Unfortunately, Eight and Five had cleaned the cargo bay of anything that might be used against them. Disappointed, I helped Seven untie the others, and soon we were all free. Not that it did any good.

Six was the next to wake up. I was sure whatever drug Eight and Five had used on us hadn’t worked as well on someone of his size. Thankfully, they hadn’t taken away the vest-like device that allowed him to speak, and we answered his questions as best as we could.

Six went over to the crates.

“Don’t bother. There are no knives or anything,” I told him.

“We need something to defend ourselves with.” He pried a board loose from the top of a crate. It made a squealing noise as it pulled free, bringing a sharp nail with it. Six put the board on the floor and ripped out another.

“We can use these to get out. They’ll have to come get us eventually, and we can knock them out,” Six said, hefting a board in his huge hand.

“Is that really necessary?” Seven asked.

“I’d like to avoid it if possible, but if it’s the only way to regain control of the ship, we have to do. We can’t turn the passenger over to the Aerzhu.”

Three sat up with a start. She took her surroundings in and immediately demanded answers from us. I was reminded rather forcibly of the day we’d all met, less than two months ago but what felt like a year. Waking up at different times, in an unexpected place, no memory of how we’d gotten there. At least this time we weren’t surrounded by strangers.

Two woke up shortly, and we waited around, trying to plan, even though there wasn’t much to plan.

“What if we drilled through the wall?” Two suggested after half an hour of similarly ridiculous solutions.

“First of all, we have no drill. Second, they would figure us out before we’d made a dent in the wall,” I sighed exhaustedly.

“What if we—” he began again.

“Two, stop talking,” Three said, not unkindly.

“Move away from the door and leave the boards on the floor. Put your hands on your heads and stand along the back wall,” Eight’s voiced echoed into the cargo bay. I wondered why she hadn’t just commed us, then realized my comm was gone.

None of us moved, just looked at each other, debating whether to do what she said or not.

“Do what I said if you want food and water for the rest of our trip to Earth. And don’t even think about rushing the door. Five has a gun, and he will shoot.” Through the speaker, we heard the unmistakable sound of a barrel sliding back.

We stood up and moved toward the back wall, hands on our heads.

The door slid open, and it took all of my self control not to rush forward and strangle both of them. They each carried a platter full of bowls and a pitcher of water.

“How did you get a gun, Five?” I asked.

“Stole it from the armory yesterday,” he said casually, jeering at me. “What, did you really think I would bother trying to change your mind? We don’t need you. I just needed the gun.” He twirled it showily and tucked it into his belt.

“Enjoy your meal,” Eight cackled, and they left the bay, door sliding shut behind them. Leaving us trapped inside.