Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 16945 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16945 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
. . . and immediately topple over.
“Must weigh fifty pounds,” I mutter. “Gotta be something pip-squeak-size around here.”
I try a sledge-hammer, a sword that’s taller than I am, and something that looks like clawed gloves, except the gloves are the size of baseball mitts. I’m more likely to injure myself with this stuff than anything. As I contemplate how I can defend myself, one of the bots that cleans the ship putters past, moving down the hall. I follow it. A long arm reaches out and begins to swipe across the glass, squeegeeing it clean.
I break the squeegee off, ignoring the shrill alerts that the bot makes, and practice flicking my new weapon. It’s flexible and long and reminds me a bit of a cross between a whip and a fencing blade. Will it protect me against whatever is loose on this ship?
No. But it beats nothing.
There’s another crash nearby and the pinging alert of a system going offline. This time, the sounds are much, much closer, and my skin prickles.
Down the hall. Has to be.
My whip-sword raised in the air, I advance toward the enemy.
Chapter Three
Project va’DorV8.3
Blood.
The scent of it makes my senses come alive. I can smell it nearby, along with the astringent tang of the cleanser residue that the bots use all over this station. I’ve torn apart the lab, looking for more packets of stored blood, but every compartment is empty. I’ve drunk all of the contents within a day, just to rid myself of the violent blood hunger that was clouding my thoughts.
It’s gone now, but so is all of my food.
There has to be something left behind, though. I shatter glass doors and crush metal framework, all to get to the vials inside, and I’m relieved when I find one last, half-full bag of blood, encased in supple plastic.
I don’t even bother ripping a hole in the bag. I just shove the entire thing into my mouth and chew. The cold blood bursts against my fangs, filling me with relief and revulsion at the same time. Delicious, but somehow wrong tasting. Doesn’t matter.
The urge to feed is sated for now, the fog in my mind lifted. I collapse on the floor with exhaustion, my hand on my brow.
Movement makes my ears prick with awareness.
Something is walking down one of the nearby halls. The sounds they make are quiet but noticeable to senses as finely tuned as mine. I sit up, listening as light footfalls echo, moving toward my location.
And I smell more blood, but this time it’s the blood of a living creature, not the sterile bagged blood.
It smells delightful. It makes my mouth water even though I just ate. I spit out the empty plastic bag, drained of its contents, and get to my feet.
The door opens, and light from the hall floods in. I move to the side automatically to avoid the light and put a hand up to shield my eyes. There’s a creature in the doorway, and I squint at it in surprise. It’s like nothing I’ve seen before. It’s short, with bright-orangish-red hair that lies in waves around its hornless head. The skin of it is unpleasantly pale, like the underbelly of an animal. It wears a yellow shift that goes to its knees, and its legs are bare.
It smells female. I’ve never seen a female before, but the learning implants embedded in my brain fill in the blanks for me. Female. Adult. Appealing.
And full of fresh blood.
She waves a thin, wobbling length of metal in the air like a weapon, staring into the darkness. Once she’s confident she’s not going to be pounced on, she moves, shuffling to the side, and puts her back to the wall. Too late, I realize she’s tapping on the light fixture to activate it.
Pain floods my eyes. My skin lights up as if it’s on fire, and I let out a roar of agony. “Turn the lights off!”
“Shit! Sorry!” the female’s voice squeaks out, and she quickly hits the panel to kill the lights. She speaks in a foreign tongue, but the translator makes her words understandable. After a moment, she speaks in the mesakkah Homeworld tongue, though her words are halting and less comfortable. “I didn’t realize someone was here.”
Her words are apologetic and do a lot to ease my anger. I crouch lightly on the floor, wiping at my watering eyes. “Leave it off,” I say gruffly. “It hurts my eyes.”
There’s a pause. “Oh. Okay. Sure. Is . . . that why they left you behind?”
“Left me?” I get to my feet, and my skin burns wherever the light hit it. There’s a setting in the lab for dim lighting that won’t burn me, but I don’t know what it is, and it’s clear this stranger doesn’t, either.
“Yeah, I think they all hightailed it out of here to avoid the monster.” Her voice drops to a whisper, and she glances around the darkness, her weapon in hand. “Have you seen it?”