Alice is my can-do girl. Even though she's small in stature, she's up for anything and everything. She jokingly refers to herself as my sidekick, the Robin to my Batman. Her two blonde topknots atop her head make her look younger than she is, but she's got a pretty face and an elfin build that the aliens seem to like. I think they're attracted to her diminutive stature.
Ruth, on the other hand…Ruth is beautiful, but she's also quick to declare that she hates aliens. And space. And lying. And…whatever else she can think of. With her long black hair and pale skin, she reminds me of an old-school goth. She's the crankiest of our small group, but she's smart and good with her hands. She's also tall, with long legs, and if our aliens are the frog guys, they won't like that she's tall and intimidating. First impressions are so important for our plan to work.
And Helen is…well, she's Helen. She came out of her stasis tube fully grown and absolutely new to the world. She's a fully adult woman, but everything is new to her. Literally everything. She's innocent as hell and it terrifies me to put her into any sort of dangerous situation but…she's perfect bait. Helen is some sort of strange species that's utterly, completely breathtakingly beautiful. She's mostly human-looking, but she's got bright red skin and long, silky lavender hair. Her catlike eyes have the longest lashes I've ever seen and they're an equally stunning shade of purple. Her figure is perfect, and her mouth is full and pouty. She's even got pretty iridescent fins on the backs of her arms and legs, and a bit of webbing between her fingers. I don't know what she is, but she's so overwhelmingly beautiful that we started calling her Helen after Helen of Troy.
So yeah, Helen needs to be bait. The male aliens lose their minds every time they see her.
As to my role, it depends. I'm not as young as the others. I'm thirty-three, and I'm pretty sure that Alice and Ruth are both mid-twenties. Helen is apparently a fully grown three, since we're counting the years that she's been out of the stasis tube (since Helen has no memories prior to that). Alice has blonde hair, Helen purple, and Ruth's hair is long and silky. Mine's kinky and coily, and even though I've been growing it out, it puffs around my head, wild and untamed. My skin is a rich shade of golden brown, which the aliens seem to find exciting, but I'm not as slender and busty as the others. I'm solid. More than solid. Whatever. I'm plus sized, and there's nobody out here in space o impress, so I don't care.
Normally I'd opt out of dressing up as a slave girl because I feel a little awkward standing next to the others (especially Helen) but Ruth's in a mood, and the last thing we need is her scowling at the aliens as they board. "Alice and I will greet them. Helen, you know your role, right?"
She nods, giving me a thumbs up. "I lay down in my stasis pod and pretend like I'm just waking up. And I look pretty and helpless."
"Bingo. Ruth, that means you're going to be in charge of doors. It looks like they're coming in from the right-hand side of us, so you'll need to get those doors. Can you handle that?"
"Yup." She pops the “p” sound at the end of the word and gets to her feet. "I'm on it."
I glance back at the window, and the incoming ship looks enormous. Bigger than a shark, I decide, upping it. Whale shark. That's worrisome. "Go ahead and change into your costume too, Ruth. Just in case we need backup."
"Ah, fuck me," Ruth grumbles, but she'll do it.
I take a deep, steadying breath, smile at them, and put my hands on my breasts. "Five minutes, ladies. Change clothes, fluff your tits, and get ready to wow some aliens."
8
ADIRON
Both Kaspar and I watch from the staging room as the hatch-to-hatch connection extends out to the Buoyant Star. I'm not entirely surprised to see it hook on to the other ship, though it does fill me with a creepy feeling. There's no green light to show we've been approved to board. There's no response from the other ship at all, actually. No shields, no response to our hailings, no nothing.
I look over at my brother as I ready my blaster. "Ghosts."
He snorts. "It's not ghosts, you idiot. Mathiras said his readouts show that she's venting carbon dioxide from time to time, so the life support systems are on and working. Someone's in there. If it was all ghosts they wouldn't need life support."
"You don't know that," I shoot back. "You've never met a ghost."