“I’m not fucking around,” I scream as several other girls race to help us. “I’ll smash you to pieces you annoying fucking can opener!”
“I am a robot,” Tin Tom says in his crackly voice. “I cannot be threatened with physical violence.”
“Let’s see about that,” I say, opening a panel and grabbing a handful of his colorful wires.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he screams in panic.
“Open it!” I say with my best no-fucking-around voice. “Or I start yanking and you’ll wake up in a garbage pit.”
Tin Tom blinks his lights and the door appears in the wall. Rolanda hits a button and it slides open.
“Fuck you, Tin Tom,” I say, pushing him over as I follow the women out the door.
He crackles something about not being authorized to enter the hallway but we just keep on going. It’s dark in the circular hallway with only the weird purple electricity running over the ceiling lighting things up.
Rolanda is in front of me and Mandy is behind me, squeezing my shoulder and making me into a prisoner sandwich. “What’s the plan?” I ask Rolanda. She has to have a plan. Right?
She turns back with a clenched jaw. “Murder everything in sight.”
I gulp. I was going to go with finding an escape pod but murdering everything in sight can work too. If only I knew how to murder someone…
“What did she say the plan was?” Mandy asks from behind me.
I glance at her from over my shoulder. “Just stay out of Rolanda’s way. That’s our plan.”
Rolanda stops in front of a door and I bump into her. God, her back muscles are pure rock. She turns around, already breathing hard with a fierce look in her eyes. “Do either of you have any fight training?” she whispers with one eye on the door.
I swallow hard. My throat is so tight. “I took a Tae Bo class once,” I say as I shyly raise my hand.
“Just one class?” she asks, holding my gaze.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “I stopped because I had to take two buses to get there.”
Rolanda is just staring blankly at me, looking like she’s at a loss for words. “Seriously?” she asks, not looking too impressed.
“What?” I ask with a defensive shrug. “It was two buses.”
She just shakes her head and places her palm over the button. “Wait!” Mandy whispers in a panic. “Are you sure about this?”
Rolanda shakes her head with a fierce look that makes me feel so weak in comparison. “No, I’m not sure,” she hisses. “But if I’m going out, I’m going out fighting.”
Well, that makes one of us because if I’m going out, I’m going out screaming while crouched in the fetal position. Hey, it’s how I came into this world and it’s how I’m going out. Don’t judge.
“Get ready, girls,” Rolanda says, turning back to the door.
“I’m not ready, I’m not ready,” Mandy says over and over again with her eyes closed.
Rolanda doesn’t listen, or doesn’t care. She slaps the big red button and the doors slide open.
three
I take one look inside of the alien cockpit and step back, bumping into Mandy. There’s no way I’m going in there. The plan was to go in there swinging but I’ve never been good at sticking to plans and I’ve definitely never been good at swinging.
“What the fuck?” Mandy screeches in my ear as she looks over my shoulder inside. There are three praying mantis-like things at the controls. They’re all smaller than Rsordan but look just as gross.
Rolanda is not intimidated. She’s just pissed.
She lunges in swinging her meaty fists, cracking their clicking jaws and disgusting green heads. They have beady little black eyes that are blinking at least ten times a second. At least they do until Rolanda hits them.
They don’t even have time to fight back. Fuck, she’s fast. After a quick fury of fists and a storm of kicks the three aliens are unconscious in their seats slumped over onto the controls.
“Shit,” I say, looking at the gross bodies. “I was just about to come in and help.”
Rolanda shakes out her hand as she grabs one of the aliens and pulls him off the seat. “Right,” she says, slipping into the chair.
It’s only then that I look out the windshield. Holy shit! It’s like I’m on the set of Star Trek, only there’s no green screen. This is the real deal.
There are stars everywhere and even though we’re among them they’re still only the size of small dots in the sky.
“Look at that,” Mandy says, pointing off to the right. We’re passing a huge planet that’s mostly brown and green with a little bit of blue. “Is that Pluto?”
Rolanda shakes her head as she takes in a deep breath. “We’re a long way from Pluto.”
“Can you get us back?” Mandy asks.
Rolanda turns her head with a look of disbelief on her face. “Yeah, just give me a second. I’ve flown this model of UFO millions of times.”
Mandy’s shoulders drop as she takes a breath of relief.
“She’s kidding, Mandy,” I whisper.
Rolanda punches the unconscious alien that’s slumped on the controls next to her in the head. “Fuck!” she yells as it slides off the chair and onto the floor, even more unconscious than before. “Get me the robot.”