Root CGD: Earth Day 589 in captivity, 12:01 PM
CinT Ark Loc: Exhibit Housing
Garrett didn’t seem surprised by the news that I might be pregnant; guess he’d been with enough women in the exhibit to have a sense for it. After I’d stumbled to get that out, he was quick to wrap me in his arms, kiss me, and assure me everything was going to be alright.

What did I do with that caring and understanding he showed to me? Cried… Blubbering, stupid, uncontrollable, and ugly crying—that’s what I gave him in return. I even tried apologizing during the first fits of breaking down after having told him, but he wasn’t having any of it.

“Cam… Cam… Easy, alright, this is… Look at me,” he held me at arm’s length, trying to line our eyes up when all I wanted was to have my face buried in his chest. “I’m happy for us… We’ll get through this; we’ll figure out what we need to, and it’s all going to work out. Trust me…”

I wanted to trust him; I wanted to accept that he wasn’t concerned about having a child with me. I wanted him to want to be with me beyond this zoo-prison we were confined in…

A tap on my bedroom entryway had me opening my eyes and seeing Zenia.

“You alright?” she asked.

I’d been trying to quell my stomach for the past hour or so after having broken the news to Garrett, and I was pretty sure she’d been sent by him to check up on me.

“Yeah, better,” I replied.

“Care if I sit with you?”

“Please, come sit. Are you alright?” I asked, sitting up in bed, because she had an uneasy look on her face.

“Yeah, just really tired.”

“Here, lay back… Might as well get comfortable,” I coaxed, holding up the bedding as she took my suggestion to heart. “What’s going on out there?”

“Bomb makers arguing with each other and failed attempts by the rest of the guys to get up to the platform area around the perimeter.”

“Is Garrett with the climbing party?”

“Yeah, should have seen Beck standing on his shoulders and still being a good two meters from where they need to be,” she said, smiling as if it were a comical effort and not a serious one.

“I haven’t heard anything from our hosts, no clicking…”

“Me neither, and that’s a little odd, I think. I worry they’ll show up eventually, see all the activity going on in here, and act.”

“We don’t want them in here, I can promise you that,” I said, probably sounding worried. “At least we’ve got power, so whatever environmental systems are running this place are still functioning. Water is still flowing, last I checked.”

She nodded and then laid a forearm over her eyes.

“The food supply, that’s a problem… Oh, and the smell of the decaying garbage doesn’t help my stomach,” I added.

“Vesal and Liam are going to try to detonate a smaller version of his device in a few hours. I’m a bit worried about that,” Zen commented.

“I’m not sure something like that’s going to have the energy to do anything to the store's port opening. Something bio in nature, maybe, but that metal door, I think that’s a stretch to think it’ll do anything meaningful.”

“I heard them talking about that; not sure there’s much agreeing going on between those two. I’m purposely staying out of it to tell you the truth.”

We lay there quietly for a few minutes before I asked, “You ever think about getting out of here and what you’d do?”

“I do… We got so little to do in here, it’s hard not to think about getting out of here. It’s been over three CGD years for me; I really couldn’t blame my husband if he decided to move on. I can’t imagine him waiting; I’m not sure I would,” she said somberly. “So if we do get out, I’m not sure what I’d do or where I’d go.”

“Liam?”

“He’s not who I want to be with… I think he’ll be happy to get back to the corps and that military way of life with the Planetary Guild.”

“Garrett’s talked about us, well… Not breaking up what we’ve got going on here. I just don’t know how realistic that is.”

“How do you feel about that idea?”

“If you’d asked me that last week, I’d say I was on the fence, but if I’m pregnant…”

“You are… I’m fairly certain of it, Cam,” she said, removing her forearm to look at me to emphasize the point after interrupting me.

“Okay, well that kind of changes things, I think.”

“If we got out of here right now, like conveyed to some ship and taken to a Guild medical facility, you’d have choices as to what to do about the baby growing inside of you.”

“Like what?”

“Aborting the baby is one option. They could do a stasis birthing transfer of the baby from your body to finish its full gestation in a machine, but that’s a bit complex and incredibly expensive. Or you could decide somewhere along the way that Garrett is a viable option for you and the baby…”

“My life was a whole lot less complex before being brought here,” I complained.

“Yeah, life is like that,” she chuckled.

“I had a ship, a life; I was all over the damn galaxy, had responsibilities to my crew and business partners… I can’t say those things mean as much to me right now as they did before. Is that normal?”

“You’re normal, just the version of it that fit your life back then has changed because you’ve changed. You know I haven’t heard you complain about going back to the way you were in a while. You might want to focus on why that is or who’s changed your way of thinking…”

Root CGD: Earth Day 589 in captivity, 7:23 PM
CinT Ark Loc: Exhibit Housing
The explosive device was successfully triggered after three failed attempts. It was loud, made a mess of the area around the stores port, and did nothing but leave a charred mark on the port's door. The crate Liam and Vesal had used as part of holding the device in place had shot five meters from the port and landed across the courtyard.

Ringing in everyone’s ears was the worst of the damage done, and thankfully Vesal had come up with a way to make the strike patch not fire off instantly, like nanosecond instantly, so that Liam still had all his fingers—though arguably he had suffered major hearing loss because of the explosion and being so close to the detonation point. I’d argue it was a wasted effort, but they were positive they could adjust and concentrate the blast energy to come up with a better result in the morning.

I’d do a better job of blocking the noise the next time they thought to try and blow the port to shit.

Interestingly enough, still no ‘clicking’ or any indication our hosts were monitoring us. That was a good thing, though Liam and Vesal had a secondary device ready to set off if we’d gotten any host activity in the Exhibit Housing. Of course whomever set it off would likely have died in the process. In my book, this explosives mandate was a reckless endeavor that was bound to get someone hurt or worse, killed…

“Could you stand some company?”

I’d been standing in the shower for a while now, my fingers and toes showing their waterlogged wrinkles. I looked up and held out my hand to give him my answer.

“You feeling better?” Garrett asked as he wrapped his arms around me.

“A little, not as ‘puke’ focused as earlier. I ate some of that root, the starchy one, and it helped calm my stomach for now.”

“Good… I’m really happy to hear that.”

“Is the brain trust still working on the next explosive device?”

“They are… It gives them something to do, maybe some hope.”

“I think it’s pointless; not enough energy can be created from whatever scraps of food they’re playing with,” I complained.

“Their latest tactic is combining some of Turpin’s brew into the mix. Vesal thinks it’ll add the kick needed, and there was a piece of crate that broke off in the last one they set off, so they’re trying to incorporate that in a way to pierce the door. May work, may not.”

I reached behind me and got my hands on Garrett’s ass before saying, “Please keep away from that bomb stuff for me…”

“I’m not value added in the least, so no worries there. Beck, Turpin, and I created something to use for climbing, so we’ll see if we can get up on that platform above us tomorrow.”

I turned to face him. “Don’t be the one to lead that effort, please.”

He was watching me, had a whimsical look on his face, and that smile that did things to my insides.

“You sound worried…”

“I don’t like that it’s been quiet in here for a couple of days and our hosts are likely to return at some point; they have to, I would think. I don’t want you in their path or anywhere near them when that happens,” I whined.

“We can’t stay in here, Cam; the food will run out, and we need to make our own opportunities to get beyond this caged existence,” he said, hugging me, and then kissing me softly.

The kiss escalated to soft caresses of my breasts, a hand between our bodies, between my legs, and the fingering of my… I stiffened and moaned into his mouth as our tongues relayed those things neither of us could say out loud to one another; his finger became two, and my insides were melting… FUCK! That feels…

I was being turned slowly away from our embrace, his hands guiding mine to the wall of the shower, my legs being coaxed a half step wider, and… Ah! Oh, aaah! He was inside of me with so little effort, both hands holding my hips steady, a slow gliding out and back in my wet…

My mind a blur of sensations I could barely begin to process the pleasures, sparks firing, huffed heavy sighs, shivering muscles, and his grinding inside of… A gentle thumping of his hips into my ass after a slow retreat, a hand firmly on my left breast, his breath on my neck…

This was his favorite way to take me, in the shower together, slow, no hurry, whispering in my ear how good I made him feel… FUCK! He knew what he was doing to me, what he was bringing alive within me, my wanting this, him, all of…

Root CGD: Earth Day 593 in captivity, 3:55 PM
CinT Ark Loc: Exhibit Housing Complex
Three days ago the men had breached the area where the walls of the Exhibit Housing met the domed ceiling. They’d done so with a rope made from a bed sheet and were able to finally get up and through the area we’d seen glitches in the displayed imagery on the domed sky. Getting the rope to hold—that had taken some time to perfect, but eventually Liam had been able to climb up the wall and crawl through to the platform.

He’d quickly set up one of the explosive devices he and Vesal had made and then assisted getting the rest of the men up and out of our sight from the floor of the exhibit. It was the longest, most stress-filled hour I’d ever endured waiting for them to come back and hoping they didn’t run into any of our hosts.

“Place is empty,” Garrett said to the group of us women waiting below.

“Any exits?” Vesal had called back to him.

“Couple potential exits, yes. We’re looking at some kind of control room; going to see if we can figure anything out. Anyone feel like having a look around?” he asked.

I did, and half climbed and was half pulled up and onto the platform by Garrett and Turpin. Syn and Vesal were also pulled up, with Zenia not feeling up to making the climb. The guys gave us the grand tour around the complex, explaining to us that the marks they’d made at each corridor we’d come to and how they pointed back to the rope we could use to climb back into the exhibit if we encountered our hosts.

“That’s our fallback position,” Liam had coached. “We rally in my house and prepare to hold them off with a couple of explosive devices. They’ll think twice about charging in…”

Thankfully, there was no ‘fallback’ that first day. I thought, but didn’t mention that since they could convey the women out of here, any ‘last stand’ we tried making in Liam’s house would be pointless. I wasn’t a military genius, and I didn’t want to lead anyway, so I kept my mouth shut. I wondered if I was the only one to have considered that.

On day two of our exploration, Garrett, with some help from Beck, had figured out how to shut down the exhibit's ceiling imagery along with the landscape projected on the walls. That breakthrough led to accidentally triggering the opening of not only the doors to the holding pens connected to the exhibit but also the stores port and a doorway big enough that something as large as a hover-lift for moving shipping crates could be driven into the exhibit. The other side of that large doorway appeared to be a loading dock area, with blast doors big enough for a midsized shuttle to be parked inside.

Would have been nice if there was a shuttle we’d all agreed.

Of course now we no longer had to climb to get out of the exhibit. I was thankful for that because I had struggled to climb up the rope that first time out of the exhibit, relying on Garrett and Turpin to help hoist me up and out pretty much. It made me feel a little helpless, but I chalked it up to all the changes I’d gone through.

Today revealed a few new discoveries, all due to Garrett and Beck not giving up on hacking into a couple of different control panels and changing the modulation of a specific set of colored light pulsing wires.

The first new room discovery appeared medical in nature. Zenia and I were given the task to see what we could figure out by Liam. Annoying to be ordered around, but now that we had plenty to explore, Liam had ramped up his ‘I’m in command’ mode and was giving out lots of orders to the rest of us.

“I’ve never seen instruments like these,” Zenia whispered. “This could be a probe, or maybe,” she turned the item around in her hand, looking for how to power it on. “A precision scalpel of some type… See this lens? Could be similar to a micro-dermis-laser blade tip used in surgeries; it’d easily cut bone.”

We’d both been operating like that, speaking softly our curiosity with what we’d been finding, all while trying to not make any noises while moving freely around the complex in pairs. Everyone worked in pairs—per Liam’s orders. And, of course, we were constantly looking over our shoulders for danger – at least I was. Every noise I heard made me skittish, and I kept hoping we’d get some warning if our hosts decided to return.

Clicking, or as I’d heard in the stores port—angry teeth grinding.

“You think we can weaponize anything?”

“Doubtful, at least anything that might have range since they have limbs that can reach out from their bodies by a couple of meters—that’s what you said you saw, right?” she asked.

“At least two meters, I’m sure at least that far. Whether it could pick someone up like they had Jessie from that extreme range is questionable. But that host had impaled me with ease from that distance,” I replied, watching her look at instruments and then moving on to opening various small boxes on a back wall of the room.

She looked from the one bed-like table in the center of the room, up to what looked like lighting, and then around the room before asking, “They didn’t convey us directly into this room; that happened elsewhere, and we were brought in here for whatever it was they do to us.”

“I think you’re right; nothing looks like a Particle Conveyor for transporting in this room,” I confirmed.

“Could have been a portable unit, but I doubt that,” she added.

“I haven’t seen anything like that yet, something that might be a portable conveyor, in any of the rooms we’ve been in. There are a few rooms we haven’t been able to get into yet, so maybe that’s where they ported us to from the exhibit and wheeled us in here.”

“Maybe… Small things like that don’t add up, though—the lack of thought or inefficiency. They’re technologically advanced, certainly, but not to the degree I’d have expected.”

I heard a soft tapping behind me and turned around slowly, happy to find Garrett and Beck standing there.

“Hey, didn’t want to startle you two… We got access to another of the rooms we hadn’t been in yet,” he said, smiling.

“What did you find?” Zenia asked.

“Enough grain to keep us fed for at least a month, longer if we ration,” he replied.

“Anything else?” I asked.

He was slow to answer and had a concerned look on his face.

“Got two probable blast shield windows open… It looks like this complex is nestled in some rocky canyon of some sort.”

“Can we see?” I asked excitedly.

“This way, ladies,” Beck said with some cheer in his voice than the concern Garrett seemed to have about it.

At the two, two-meter-square windows that were next to a large port doorway, we got our first glimpse of the planet we were on. As Garrett had said, it appeared we were in some kind of rocky canyon, but there was more. Winds and dust were swirling constantly out there, and everything looked brown, dead, and lifeless. There were no signs of vegetation or water or…

“What the fuck!” Zenia said, jumping back from the window as I screamed and recoiled at seeing a large creature of some kind stroll by the windows, not even bothering to look inside.

It was six, maybe seven, meters in length, with matted hair, muscular limbs equipped with deadly-looking claws, and a mouth containing multiple rows of scraggly teeth.

I looked at Garrett annoyed and complained, “Might have been nice to get a warning!”

“They don’t come around often; sorry about that. I should have mentioned it. Of the ones I’ve seen, that’s a small one,” Garrett added.

We could hear people running down the hallway to our right, Liam and Turpin.

“Everyone alright?” Liam asked.

“Yeah, the girls just got a look at one of our friends outside,” Garrett said, nodding towards the window.

“Okay, good… Yeah, we’re not alone out there; in here we’re relatively safe for the time being. I don’t want anyone venturing outside the complex,” he said, turning to go back to whatever he’d been doing before hearing me scream.

I shook my head in agreement. “I can live with that directive…”

Root CGD: Earth Day 593 in captivity, 9:20 PM
CinT Ark Loc: Exhibit Housing Complex
“How are you feeling?”

“I feel better when I’ve got something bland in my stomach,” I replied, snuggling into a more spoon-like position with Garrett. “A little mind blown at the idea I’m actually about thirty CGD days pregnant, according to Zenia, if I’m being honest. I thought we’d done a good job of keeping that from happening while making it appear we were playing along with our host's wishes.”

Garrett moved his hand over my belly, and I could sense… The hand was his, but I was seeing someone else’s hand. I could see a small V-shaped scar on it, dark hair on the forearm, my head turning towards the face lying behind me, the dark brown mustache… My taking Garrett’s hand, like I’d taken the man’s from that vision, pulling it to my lips to kiss it. It had been weeks since I’d had a vision, a remembrance, like this. This man was caressing my belly like Garrett had, like he knew I was with child, happy to be lying there with me.

I heard the words being spoken from behind me in my head, ‘I love you…’ and shuddered.

“What?” I asked Garrett.

“I didn’t say anything… You alright?” he asked softly.

“I’m… I don’t know, it’s… It’s nothing,” I stammered.

“So if it’s nothing, tell me…”

“I can’t explain it; I have these…”

“Memories?” he asked.

I spun in his arms to look at him questioningly.

“How did you know that?”

“It’s a thing most of the guys in here have or put up with,” he replied as a matter of fact.

“Wait, all the guys have this? Like what? What are you seeing?” I asked, but I’m sure it sounded like I was complaining he wasn’t answering my questions fast enough or I was desperate for some insight.

“Not every guy, like Liam, hasn’t had them, but Beck, Turpin, and Mike—I think Jessie mentioned it, same with a few others who’ve come and gone…”

“What? Really? What is it you’re seeing?”

“Pre-coupling, in the holding pen, I saw you, sort of…”

“What do you mean ‘sort of’?”

“I saw you that first time in the pen as you were today, not… Well, not pre-transplant.”

“No, no, no… How is that even possible? That can’t be…”

“I don’t know, but I saw you, saw us together, and just as you are now, right here in my arms. I saw you…”

I was studying his face, waiting for the words ‘Just kidding’ to be spoken, but it wasn’t coming as he just stared back at me waiting for me to speak.

“How is it I’m seeing…,” I stopped speaking because he scrunched his brow as if to get me to think that question out a little more. It clicked, “But, I’m not really male any longer…”

“You are though, biologically speaking at some level…”

I set my head on his chest, not wanting to look at him, embarrassed yet again for how messed up my reality was, not just to me, but for him to probably. How long ago was I really myself and not this version? Years maybe?

I felt his lips on my forehead, “So, you saw us together?”

Fuck! No, whoever this guy was, it wasn’t you, damn it! I wished it was, but it wasn’t.

“Cam?” he whispered.

“I don’t think so…”

“Oh, okay, that’s interesting. Any idea who the guy is?”

“I’m not sure… I’ve seen his brown hair and mustache, and he’s got a decent build I guess.”

“And you’ve been intimate with him or saw that happening?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” I complained not wanting to say anymore or admit that out loud. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him the guy had said he loved me just a few seconds ago.

“Nothing else?”

“I never saw his face,” I whispered.

“Short, tall, long hair, big feet?” he said with a chuckle.

“Really, big feet? Like your solar pontoons,” I giggled uncomfortably. “None of that, at least that I can recall…”

“Guess I’ve got some competition,” he replied hugging me a little tighter.

“Get out of here! You’re not some prize to be won,” I stated.

“Not a prize?” he said with mock indignation.

“Okay, okay, you’re a prize and I’m lucky to have you,” I said while hugging him tighter again.

“Better…”

I didn’t like this vision crap or false memory stuff – it was confusing and if I were to believe what Garrett had said about seeing me, the future configured me in his visions; I didn’t want to think that someone was going to come along and replace him. I had feelings for Garrett, I just wasn’t sure I could speak about that to him right now.

Why couldn’t you have had brown hair and a scar on your hand?

Root CGD: Earth Day 600 in captivity, 11:48 AM
CinT Ark Loc: Exhibit Housing Complex
Four days ago we were able to breach one of the three remaining areas of the complex we hadn’t been able to access. We’d celebrated the victory, but had crashed hard after Zenia realized the small tubular devices contained in racks within a cabinet were the liquefied remains of those people who’d been held captive in this zoo. Her hypothesis came to fruition after examining the tubes and mistakenly sliding one of them over an interface within one of the table tops produced holographic details about the deceased member from the exhibit.

The holograms displayed full sized versions of the person, with the ability to get a look within their bodies down to the molecular level Zenia thought. She wasn’t sure about many of the controls for the device, but was able to poke around enough to zoom in and out. This room was a lab she declared, I didn’t need convincing after the demo of the tubes via the table top. It bothered us all that we couldn’t decipher or understanding any of the alien text or clicking audio that accompanied the holograms.

Seeing a few of the people we knew, torn at everyone’s hearts. We all had ties to each of those persons now encased in these tubes and it confirmed they’d either been killed by our host or die during child birth or some other means. In my current state of being pregnant and with hormones raging out of control I had cried myself to the point of becoming physically ill and Garrett had ended up carrying me back to the Exhibit Housing and our bed. I hadn’t thought this place could bring me any lower or crush what little of my spirit remained, but it had.

I remained in our house, in bed for the most part, and for a full day. I did not want to eat or wanting to talk with anyone or be touched, and for the first time in my life I’d seriously consider doing harm to myself to end this nightmare I found myself trapped in. I felt as though I wasn’t going to make it out of here at this rate without hope. Hope no one else from within our group of eight would end up in one of those little tubes.

“You need to eat, at a minimum drink something,” Zenia said carefully after waking me. “Feelings of disillusionment or even detachment are not good right now for you or the baby in these first couple months. Granted we’re talking a small little seed within you, but it needs all of your bodies efforts to help it grow, and not just through sustenance.”

“I don’t think I can do this…”

“Of course you can, that’s what mothers do and believe me you’re going to be a bitch of a mother to deal with when that child is born and someone tries to fuck with it,” she said in a tone that said she was being serious and done taking my attitude at the moment.

“I… I’m not cut out for this Zenia… I’m not a mom or woman or have the first clue of what I’m doing with…,” I stopped speaking as the tears welled in my eyes.

“Do this for me, for you and the baby, hold onto one thing at a time. Start with Garrett and your baby, you family. Then imagine your life after the baby is born and we’re out of here. They will get you through this, I promise. You can’t sit there and tell me you don’t love the man,” she said sitting on the edge of the bed and rubbing my shoulder gently.

I lost it and she was holding me tight while I let everything flow out from me, not caring what that meant to anyone who happened to hear me crying.

Forty minutes later Zenia had me up, dressed, hair combed, and walking the myriad of corridors and hallways within the exhibits complex. She purposely routed us around the lab, and we ended up in what was being called a control room. This room had recently breached by Vesal and Garrett, and when we walked in on them they were arguing about some block of circuitry, but stopped when they saw us.

“Hey, good to see you up and about,” Garrett said and came over to hug me.

“Zen’s doing… I needed a moment, but I’m good now,” I said in his ear so that only he could hear me. “I’m really sorry…”

He whispered back, “Don’t worry about it, I’m happy to see my girl.”

“What are we trying to figure out?” I asked Vesal after we’d stopped hugging and I needed something to distract me from getting emotional about what he’d just said about me being his girl.

“I think the marking on this set of circuits correlated to the one room we haven’t been able to get into,” she replied.

“I think I’ve seen these same markings at the blast doors, the one you saw that creature walk by,” Garrett said, ushering me over to the actual panel they were both talking about to get a closer look.

“You’ve got wires splayed, is the idea to electrically polarize them to trigger the door you think they belong too?”

“Yup, it’s how we’ve gotten into several rooms thus far,” Garrett replied looking over at Vesal.

“Yes, that’s the plan, but we’ve done that at each of the doors panels, and our blast door and the one room we haven’t gotten into don’t have individual panels by those doors. That makes me believe security protocols are place for those doors and means they’re controlled from here,” Vesal explained.

“Can I see the room and blast door again?”

“Absolutely, the more input the better,” Vesal said, leading me out of the control room.

I looked behind me and noticed Zenia talking to Garrett. I hoped she wasn’t saying anything to him that might worry him any more about me.

Root CGD: Earth Day 600 in captivity, 12:31 PM
CinT Ark Loc: Exhibit Housing Complex
“I don’t think these wires are related to the blast door, I think there’s an override panel or control mechanism someplace for that door. I’m with Vesal, this could be how we get into that last room,” I said to the gathered group of seven of us.

“We can quickly close it off if it’s the blast door, right?” Liam asked.

“Yes, we’ve perfected that operation with all the others we’ve opened,” Garrett and Beck sang out in unison.

Discussion followed for a few minutes, but Liam was ready to make a ruling.

“Turpin and I will set up devices on both sides of the blast door, so if this does control them and we can’t get it closed in time, we’ve got something to dissuade those creatures out there from walking on in. The new strike-patch we’ve come up with has about a five second delay, so we’ll be ready for that. Let us get in place, set up, and we’ll signal we’re ready,” Liam directed.

Eight minutes later we could hear Liam shouting they were ready, Vesal crossed the wires, and the door to the last room within the complex was opening before us. Thankfully the big blast door remained shut and we were still shut off from the barren world and dangers outside those doors.

At the door we’d gotten open we gathered and watched as Liam happily went around touching everything like an excited little kid after joining us from a few corridors over where the blast door was.

“This changes everything, I mean seriously,” he’d said holding a thin puck like disc in his hand.

We watched him point it down a corridor, press something on its side, and watched a small white ray of energy shoot out and nearly vaporized a meters tall metal box Liam had set up ten meters from us. The room contained a cache of four small disc weapons, possibly a weapon similar to a pulsed plasma rifle or more likely the same energy shot from it as the disc, and a dozen hand sized ball devices both Liam and Vesal had said were some form of explosive device they couldn’t begin to guess what their energy output or a blast radius might be.

If our hosts came back or we made an attempt to escape this place, they would learn quickly we had bite.

While Liam my have been dancing around because of the weaponry, I was feeling better about the room containing a Particle Conveyor in the other half of it. This is how our hosts moved us in and out of the Exhibit Housing. If we controlled that – other than from a ship outside this place or a portable unit they drug in here with them - we weren’t going anywhere without our consent.

This was hope, we now had tools we could use to strengthen the possibility we could escape this place. I felt a lot better than I had an hour ago and put a hand over my stomach. I’m not sure why, but doing that calmed me, gave me a moment of peace. When I looked around the room I caught a look from Zenia about having placed my hand on my stomach, along with her little smile…

Root CGD: Earth Day 619 in captivity, 8:31 PM
CinT Ark Loc: Exhibit Housing Complex
The past three weeks we’d settled into a routine that included guard shifts in the control room and at the blast doors. Two couples were on shift at a time for twelve hours. The two not on shifts got to rest / sleep / eat and generally be bored. It wasn’t militant like duty unless Liam made it that way – which he did most times since Garrett and I were paired with him and Zenia for a twelve hour shift. I think even Zenia got annoyed with his trying to parade us around like his precious Planetary Guild Corps commander might.

Weapons were issued to each of the men, along with one of the four explosive devices. When I’d asked what we women got to join in the fight I was made to feel as though we’d only be capable of throwing harsh words at our hosts. Garrett saw the annoyance and was good about letting me at least carry the explosive device around and a knife he’d fashioned from some metal and tools.

I’d told him I wasn’t going down without a fight.

“This?”

“Yeah, if this cluster is dish connected, then that should be the input capture lines,” I replied.

“How’d you come up with that? I don’t… Okay, wait maybe I see it now, damn! How’d we miss that,” Garrett said after nudging me because I had my ‘I know what I’m looking at’ face on.

“My ship, old as she may be has a system that looks a lot like how this is wired, that’s how.”

We were on our guard duty shift in the armory room and during the switch between Vesal / Beck and us we’d talked about this blank panel on a wall near the Particle Conveyor possibly being a sat-link communications hub. That guess got us the ‘assignment’ of figuring out how to make it work and get us communicating with the outside world any way we can. Okay, so we hadn’t been ‘assigned’ it was more ‘ordered’ by General Liam.

Luckily we’d figured out how to make the panel to do more than sit there and blink at us. We’d tweaked several cabling combinations and could get it to randomly blink various patterns – which we thought might be signal location designators. We also got to hear a familiar sound coming from the panel – lots and lots of clicking. That made my heart sink the first time we’d gotten the panel to produce sound. At least the noise wasn’t that angry teeth grinding.

“Got that blade?” I asked.

I watched Garrett look for the tiny blade I’d used to cut into and reroute the optic signals on a couple wires, getting up, looking beside me, and saying, “No, it’s not here… Is it in the panel someplace?”

I felt around inside the panel, cranked my neck oddly left and right to see within the panel. No blade, it was gone. I slid out from under the panel casing and as I stood saw the blade where I was sure I’d set it. I looked at Garrett, he saw it, and began complaining he hadn’t missed it and claiming it might have been under me.

I looked around uneasy, “Something isn’t right…”

I walked over to the explosive device and picked it up, that made Garrett pull the disc from his pocket and give me a questioning look as he pointed it towards the panel we’d just been fiddling with.

“Someone conveyed that blade away and then back,” I whispered, nodding to where the blade was just a moment ago and we were seeing it was now gone again.

“Fuck,” he growled and began moving towards the door to the control room, ushering me that direction behind him with his arm. He was aiming the disc in the general area of the panel and whispered, “Let’s fall back to the blast doors with Liam and Zenia, we can figure out warning the others or falling back to the houses.”

We didn’t have any communication ability with the others, so falling back to Liam and Zenia, and then back to the housing area was probably a good idea, but something wasn’t right. If someone was conveying that blade back and forth – did they really mean us harm? I put a hand on Garrett’s shoulder.

“You go get Liam and Zenia, bring them here,” I said softly.

“What? No, that’s not happening,” he complained louder than I’d hoped.

“If they’d meant us harm, we’d have been pulled out of here or our weapons would have been taken. Something is off here… I’ll stay outside the door, you go get them now.”

There was reluctance on his part, but he left me at the control room entrance, running in the direction of Liam and Zenia’s position. No sooner had he left than the blade was gone, then put back. I’ve seen this before, I’ve done…

Movement inside the room to the left and a body was being conveyed into the room! I had gripped the explosive device in my hand tighter, finger over the button we believed could be used to set the device off. A woman appeared, the face familiar, I... I know her!

“Captain?” the woman asked questioning whether she recognized a fragment of the person standing across the room from her.

::: --- :::

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Rachel M. Moore