Ice Planet Barbarians (Ice Planet Barbarians, #1)(6)

I hock a big wad of spit at him.

It lands on the back of his big bald head, and he stops in his pacing. His weird little fish-eyes get round as he turns to glare at me, then stalks across the storage bay toward our cage.

“Good job, Georgie,” Liz breathes.

I suck in a deep breath and nod. I don’t feel so good about it, but hey. I retreat to the back of the cage like we’ve planned—so he’ll have to come in after me—and when the other girls close ranks around me, I haul the shit bucket up into my arms.

The idea we’ve come up with is that I’ll throw the crap on him to further distract him, and then the others will use that time to jump him. We’ll overwhelm him and take him down, then strip him of his gun. Not that we know how to shoot an alien weapon, but one step at a time. As long as he doesn’t have it, that’s half the battle.

Of course, hefting the shit bucket into my arms shows just how heavy it is and just how weak and lethargic I am from the shitty rations they’re giving us. I stagger under the weight of it, wincing when some slops over the edge and onto my arm. Fuck it.

He growls out something that sounds like a cuss-word in alien-ese and unlocks the cage.

Unlike how we’ve planned, the other girls fall back, cringing, leaving me there with the waste bucket and a stupid expression on my face as he slams toward me.

I throw it at him just as he grabs for me, but it’s too heavy and ends up slopping on both of us. He grabs my arm, and I shriek in surprise as his fingers dig into the meat of my bicep. Not only is his pebbly skin ugly, it’s rough and tears at my skin like it’s sandpaper.

He spits an epithet at me and drags me forward.

“No,” Liz says, grabbing my other arm even as I twist in his grasp. Where was our big fucking attack plan? Why are the others all huddling like scared rabbits? I look to Kira, my other co-conspirator, but she has her head tilted, a funny expression on her face as she stares at the ceiling. Faint birdlike chirping comes from above.

“Detachment commencing?” Kira asks, a confused look on her face.

The entire floor shifts to the side, and we go flying.

I slam across the room, my body soaring through the air. I land hard against the stasis lockers, and all the air leaves my lungs.

The entire world tilts, topsy-turvy, and the hold is filled with screaming women. Splashes of something wet hit my arms, and the waste bucket flies past overhead. Then everything hangs in the air. The lights go out, leaving us in the darkness.

A red light flickers on. Oh, that’s not good. Red lights are always emergency lights, aren’t they?

I stare into the now-red room, watching as globules of waste soar past. In the background, someone tumbles in the air. We’ve lost gravity.

What the hell?

I try to focus my eyes as something dances past my head. Black, oblong, with a thick barrel.

The gun.

Holy cow. I push off of one of the lockers and swim through the air for it, just as gravity kicks in again. I slam to the ground on top of the gun.

A few feet away, the guard slams down as well. All the while, that weird, birdlike chirping keeps going over the intercoms.

I grab the gun and look for a trigger as the guard groans and shakes his head, trying to gather his thoughts. There’s no trigger. Well, fuck it. It’ll work just as well as a bludgeon. Grabbing it by the thick, heavy base, I raise it over my head and bring it down on the guard’s head.

CRACK.

The guard flails.

I don’t stop. I hit him again and again. Crack. Crack. Over and over, I slam the butt of the rifle into his head. He doesn’t move, but I don’t stop. I’m terrified he’ll somehow have a granite skull and will roll over and overpower me. So I just keep hitting him.

Hands grab mine. “Georgie. Hey, Georgie, stop. I think he’s dead.” Liz’s voice cuts through the haze in my brain. “You can stop now.”

I slow, staring blankly at her then down at the guard. Or what’s left of the guard. His face is nothing but a pile of meat atop his neck.

I stare. Then I throw up.

“You did it,” Liz says, rubbing my back. “Holy shit. You did it, Georgie! You’re a fucking Billy Badass!”

I don’t feel so badass. I feel sick. I’ve just killed a man. Kinda a man. Sorta. Definitely a rapist.

Still a living creature.

Was. Was a living creature.

My stomach roils uncomfortably again, and I go to wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, then stop. It smells like sewage. Ugh. I’m covered, too, and the cabin is splattered. “What the heck happened?”

“I don’t know,” Liz says, helping me to my feet.

I ache all over, my ribs feeling bruised from where I landed on the gun. I hold onto it, though. I don’t care if it’s covered in poop and brains and everything else, it’s mine now.

A metallic sounding chirp blares over the loudspeaker, just as my ears pop hard. Liz clutches her ears at the same time as I do, and we look at each other in surprise.

Kira comes running out of the cage. “Ladies! We’ve got bigger problems. The message overhead is now saying ‘Prepare for re-entry.’ I think that means we’re crashing!”

Fuck.

We pitch again, and I tumble through the air, banging into the lockers. Something smacks my head, and everything goes black



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