Ginny

GINNY

M y boss is selling off our supplies. He is selling out his own kind to the Habosu. What they are doing with all our food and fuel, I can't imagine, but if we don't have it, then the chances are, people will die.

I stay on the floor behind Kevin's desk, stunned, for a good few seconds after he manages to get the Habosu out of his office before I make a run for it.

By the time I get back to my tiny quarters and shut the door, my heart is hammering and my breathing ragged.

What am I going to do? Who do I tell? Will they even believe me?

Multiple questions race through my head as I attempt to get a grip on my emotions. I can't let a slimy shit like Kevin get away with what he's doing, but I'm going to need more evidence than just an overheard conversation.

It's almost impossible to take a census on a ship as crowded as Britannia . It has double the number of people on board, almost eighty million, after the Albion went down. Humans are easy pickings because if they're orphans, like me, no one will notice they're missing.

Ice closes around my stomach as the door to my room bursts open. Kevin stands in the doorway, holding up my cleaning bag.

Bollocks.

"You," he spits, white foam at the corners of his mouth. "It had to be you, didn't it?"

"And it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that you're the one selling all our supplies to the fucking Habosu. Like we've got enough to go around." I rage back at him.

Kevin kicks my door shut with a clang and advances on me. I grab the piece of piping I've kept next to my bed from the very first night on board and heft it from hand to hand. It means nothing, especially if Kevin is desperate, and he is between me and escape.

"You need to disappear," he growls.

"Yeah? Like all the food and weapons you've been selling to the Habosu?" I poke the pipe at him. "I don't think so."

"Fuck!" He bares his teeth. "I fucking hate you, Gina. You know that, don't you?"

"You're not exactly on my Christmas card list either, Kevin ," I snarl back.

"Problem is, if you go missing, someone will notice, and it will be reported." His shoulders slump.

I'm slightly taken aback.

"They will?" I query.

"A missing mud lark? If you've got sucked into the filters, management will want to know," he says, defeat in his voice.

Then he raises his head and there is a smile I dislike intensely plastered over his face.

"But if there is an accident…"

"Fuck you, Kevin. Take one more step, and I will wrap this around your head."

"Here." He shoves a tablet computer at me.

"What the fuck is this?"

"You need to disappear. This is how you can do it," he says. "Even if I do nothing, the Habosu will come looking and you don't want to cross them."

I glare at him. "This is your problem, not mine."

"You heard what you heard, so it's your problem too," Kevin says, proffering the tablet once again.

I snatch it from his hand and give it the briefest of glances.

"A ticket to the Starlight Lottery? Are you shitting me?" I bark out a laugh.

Every human female on board knows about the Starlight Lottery. It's a scheme only open to women, which is clearly as dodgy as hell, even if it does promise a new life somewhere away from the grind of the Britannia , or anywhere else.

You're supposed to get a new job on an alien planet, if you're lucky enough to be chosen. Although given the recent amount of advertising, it seems like winners are coming thick and fast.

But it has to say everything about how most of us feel about the lottery that even my job as a mud lark hasn't enticed me to enter it.

"You can disappear and get a new life," Kevin says with a sneer, looking me up and down. "A new job too. Seems like a win to me."

"Then you apply." I shove the tablet back at him. "Anyway, what makes you think I'll be ‘lucky' and win?"

"It's not about luck," He sneers and leans in until his chest is touching my weapon. "And it's not a choice, Gina. It's being probed by aliens, or it's being found in a puddle of your own blood."

"Fuck you," I spit at him.

"I've made you an appointment, to see if you've ‘won.'" He leans back and looks at his wrist comm. "You've got ten minutes to get to it."

I take a step towards him. He puts his hands up and moves away. The look on his face tells me all I need to know.

He isn't kidding, not in the slightest. I don't have any choice. And it is possible, if I get away from here, I might be able to raise the alarm somehow. I toss the pipe onto my bed.

"Fine."

"You'll go?" he queries.

"Like I have a choice?" I grab a bag and start shoving my meager belongings into it.

Kevin watches me silently until I shoulder my not bulging duffle and square up to him.

"You're really going to do it?" he asks.

"Oh, fuck you, Kevin." I push past him. "I'm doing it because I don't want to end up as a slave to a disgusting Habosu, not because of you."

He lets me go, and I stomp out into the corridor without a backwards glance. After the swiftest shower in the universe, my heart descends to my boots as I make my way up a couple of levels.

The Starlight Lottery office is in one of the smaller, swankier town squares which form the leisure areas of Britannia. It's quieter now, given it's around 8pm at night and most people are at home enjoying their tea.

Other than hapless mud larks anyway.

A neon pink "open" sign shines brightly against the dull, stained metal of the ship. My feet drag as I walk towards it.

This is not what I wanted. Being a mud lark wasn't glamorous but who knows what sort of job I'll be offered in the lottery.

"Well, hello there!" A very heavily made-up woman greets me as I enter. Her name badge says she is "Sandi," and she is "here to help."

"Er, hi. I'm here because I have a ticket to the Starlight Lottery." I hover by the door.

"Then you're in the right place," she says with enthusiasm and a high wattage smile.

"I need to leave Britannia tonight," I add.

The smile falters for a second, then it's back brighter than ever.

"We have a draw in a few minutes." She gestures to a plump seat in front of her desk. "Sit, I'll take a few details and we can get started."