my body, I slipped out of the room and into the tunnel, then made a turn to the gardens, the way Vrateus had showed me that morning.
From there, I travelled via the conveyor belt inside the garbage tunnel.
My plan was simple. Stay out of sight, learn what had happened, figure out how to help Vrateus if he needed help.
Keeping my hand on the wall, I felt the loose panel that covered the opening into the corridor not far from my old room. Getting off the conveyer belt, my hands and feet pushed into the walls of the tunnel, I crawled up, then peeked out into the corridor.
No one was here. From what Vrateus had told me, Crux and the crew would either still be celebrating, or recovering after last night’s party. Either way, most of them would congregate around the mess hall and the kitchen where the food and the wine were.
Getting back down on the conveyor belt, I kept going in the direction of the waste sorting room.
My destination shouldn’t be far now.
I got ready to stop if necessary, listening for any noise up ahead.
Instead, a rattling sound came from behind me.
Was it some large debris going down the tunnel?
It sounded big and heavy enough to push me out into the waste processing room. I had no way of knowing if anyone was out there, and I would get no chance to stop myself before falling out.
I braced my arms and feet into the walls. Maybe, I could at least try to slow down my tumbling out of the tunnel by stopping the debris with my shoulders?
The next moment, the thing behind me rushed down with a sound of a rumbling log. It painfully hit my shoulder, narrowly missing my head, then wedged between the wall and my body.
My stomach lurched with terror when I realized what it was.
A full-grown vasai centipede!
It hissed, thrashing violently against me. Its jaws clanked somewhere just above my head.
I shoved at its chitin-covered body as its many legs scraped at my bodysuit. Horror and disgust exploded in my chest. I couldn’t scream. My throat closed in terror, choking me.
Tumbling together with the centipede, my limbs tangled with its countless legs, we both flew out of the garbage shoot, landing in a pile of trash below.
The vasai seemed really pissed. Sinking its mandibles into my shoulder, it shook its flat head like a fighting dog. It seemed determined to let go only with a piece of my flesh in its mouth.
Rolling down the garbage pile with the nightmarish insect, I frantically patted my side in search of the gun holster. As soon as my fingers brushed by the smooth handle, I yanked the gun out and fired.
I had no time to aim properly. The laser ray grazed the creature’s side, not harming it much but enraging it even more. Kicking me with all its legs, it shoved me to my back, knocking the gun out of my hand.
Two brick-brown hands suddenly gripped the centipede’s head, twisting it out of its body. A stream of milky-white goo gushed out of the wound, foul and steaming.
My stomach roiled. Then, a fresh wave of terror chilled my spine at the sight of my “rescuer”. The burly dimo lifted the severed head of the centipede to his mouth, sucking on the dangling tissue and torn vessels.
“God, it’s so gross,” I groaned, scrambling for my gun.
He tossed the vasai head aside, kicking the gun out of my reach.
“Huh!” A kreer peeked at me over the dimo’s shoulder. “Crux’s female is here.”
Both aliens appeared to be fresh out of a fight. One of the kreer’s arms hung motionless. The dimo’s side was covered in blood, his or the kreer’s, it was hard to tell.
Two more dimos were lying by the wall, either death or passed out.
“Go, get Crux,” the dimo ordered.
“Why me?” the kreer whined, his bloodshot eyes fixed on me. “You’ll have all the fun with her while I’m gone.”
“Go,” the dimo roared. “Tell him we found her. Crux may let you have her after he’s done, for bringing him the good news.”
“But you’ll have her now—”
“Go, I said!” The dimo shoved the kreer toward the exit, so hard, the male nearly lost its balance. Spurred into action, the kreer jumped to all his feet and ran to the short hallway that led to the vasai farm and the main corridor.
At the same moment, the dimo lunged for me.
Scurrying around him on all fours, I leaped to my feet