The Meeting
A faint shake wake you up from your dreamless slumber. The first sense to return, before you can even open your eyes, is the cold metal wrapped around your neck, pressing uncomfortably against your skin. As you open your eyes, you can see the dim, metallic cell that you are trapped in. The light on the ceiling is dead, and the three walls are bare. The last wall of the tiny room reminds you of your predicament, as a series of metal bars and a locked door prevents you from leaving physically. You vaguely remember why you are imprisoned here – not that it matters much. The collar locked on your neck makes it abundantly clear that your captors would rather kill you than to have you escape from the brig, and the situation is not going to improve once the ship arrives at its destination.
You turn towards the outside world beyond the bars – at least the collar is not tight enough to keep you from doing that or breathing, even if the ever-present coldness is unsettling at best. At the opposite side of the narrow corridor is another cell identical to the one you are in, and you can see it is also occupied. At first glance she appears to be a short, young woman, but once you focus your eyes on her, the long tail and rodent-like ears protruding from her rear and head respectively makes her non-human status clear. She does not look happy with her predicament either, but rather than spending her time sleeping, she is jiggling her collar carefully – perhaps to avoid triggering its deadly mechanism. She seems to be holding something between her fingers, but the dim light and distance makes it hard to discern the details.
It is pointless, though. Even if she somehow manages to remove the collar, the bars and bulkhead door at the end of the corridor will keep her confined, not to mention any guards that are stationed beyond the brig. But well, it is her time to waste, and it is not like there are any other amenities here. With that, you turn your attention back to the ceiling and close your eyes again, hoping to fall asleep once more.
Your plan is interrupted by a sudden twist, throwing your body violently against the metal wall. It is quickly followed by a series of powerful shakes echoing through the hull of the ship, intertwined by the faint sound of metal snapping against each other and some other noises that you cannot discern – or do not want to. It is not like there would be storms in the depths of outer space. The next thing to intrude upon your rest is even more alarming, though, as the gentle force keeping you in your bed dissipate with another echo of explosion, and the resulting shake pushes you off your bed, making your body slowly float up in the cold air. Something must have gone horribly wrong for even the artificial gravity to die.
You try your best to turn around under the microgravity, your hand barely touching the slippery wall to turn yourself towards the gate – which is unfortunately still shut. Of course they would put the safety of the ship above prisoners like you, and you highly doubt you would have a seat in the escape pods in the worst case scenario.
The other inmate is obviously aware of the situation too, but she is not bothered by it, instead her tail propels her to the locked door and her limbs hold onto the bars while she is chewing on something. Did she save some snacks from the last meal? Regardless, her action reminds you that it is too early to give up. You push yourself towards the outside and land on the bars with your face. The bars are slightly further away from the corridor, preventing you from seeing very far down the long corridor. As expected, the place is completely deserted – no other unfortunate souls are kept here except you two, and any guards around are probably busy dealing with whatever is going on outside. The bars are unyielding as ever, but it does not hurt to try.
You try to call out to anyone here, but the only answer comes from the rodent-like inmate. “shut up,” she is glaring at you and she does not seem pleased. More importantly is that the collar around her neck looks odd – neither the indicator light nor the warning light is on. Has it always been turned off? Or did she –
She spit out the gum-like thing she has been chewing into her hands, and after toying with it a bit, she reaches out through the bars and shove it into the keyhole, leaving two wires leading back into her hands.
“You think they’re gonna give us anything more than some new holes? Yeah no,” her fingers separate the wires and press the bare ends against her collar. A subdued sharp crack spills from the keyhole alongside burned metal as a small fireball emerges from it. She throws the cables away as the narrow end of her tail slides into the darkened keyhole, and with a few jiggles she manages to push the prison door open!
She moves herself to you before you could say anything. Her hand holds onto one of the bars, and the other hand reaches for your collar. Her surprising strength effectively forces you against the bars. Even with the smell of the explosion, her pink hair has a nice scent to it.
“Wanna get outta here? I can help you if you agree to help me,” you can feel her fingertips caressing the edge of the collar and your skin, just like what she was doing beforehand. She is definitely escaping from here, and it is a surprise that she is offering to take you with her, even with the strings attached. Still, she does not look armed apart from the explosive gums, and even with the cover of the dim light you are not sure if you two can outrun the armed guards, let alone escaping from this ship to somewhere inhabited.
“You can stay here if you want, but things are pretty bad and they’re not gonna get better,” her words cut into your thoughts. She is right in both cases. You try to nod but the collar and her hands force you to whisper your answer instead.
“Good, now stay still,” even though it is a literal life-or-death situation, being that close to her as she holds her breath and touches your neck still feels odd – but not in a bad way. You do not know where to put your hands, as her body is right in front of you, and you do not think touching her is a good idea. You end up leaving your limbs spread against the bars as she continues poking your collar. Soon enough, you hear a quiet beep from it, and she let go of you with a smile.
“Here, it’s done. Now stay back while I deal with the lock,” what does she mean “done”? You can still feel your collar wrapping around your neck, immovable as always. You can still see the indicator light reflecting off your hand.
“It won’t trigger even if you leave the brig or if they push the button,” can she not get rid of it? Or at least turn it off like she did to hers! “I wanna make sure you won’t have stupid ideas the moment I let you out,” her innocuous smile turns to a scheming grin as she chews her gum a few times before spitting it out. She pushes the wires into it again before moving onto the locks on your door. You crawl your way to the other end of the bars away from the door to keep confronting her.
“You know, like making a run yourself…” your complaints do not reach her, though, as she casually press the other ends of the wires against her disabled collar. Another explosion and a few touches from her tail later, the lock of your door opens as well. Failing to hold onto her before she leaps back, you leave your cell and try to get closer to her, now without anything between you two.
“… or even overpowering me and having it your way,” her tail pulls herself away from you, her grin smug as always. “Don’t worry, I’ll get rid of it once we’re at somewhere safe. I promise.”
You do not really trust her. Everything she has done so far is suspicious. If not for everything else, you think she might even be a plant, baiting you to escape just so they can get rid of you by the book.
Then again, does it matter? She has the means to escape from her cell and collar. She even has the means to screw with your collar from the look of it. You doubt you have any choice, and her expression shows that she knows that full well too.
“There are many ways the collar can get triggered. Let me illuminate two,” explains her as she holds onto your hand properly this time. Her tail compresses like a spring, before it and her crooked legs push you and her towards the end of the corridor with a powerful bounce. “It goes off if you’re too far away from me, or if my collar can’t detect my vitals anymore.”
“You know what that means, right?” That she gets a free bodyguard. That you might as well protect her with your life, now that both of you are bound in such a way. You can only hope she will keep her words once – if both of you manage to reach safety.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” she giggles at your response and extends her gloved hand to you. Just before you can shake her hand, though, she suddenly spins herself aside so that your hand lands in her open palm instead.
“Good boy,” she grins mischievously.
She is lucky that she is controlling your collar with that invisible leash.
The Brig
Floating through the long corridor confirms that you two are the only people here. None of the other cells are occupied, and fortunately for you, there are no guards patrolling the place either. Perhaps whatever disrupted your sleep earlier requires their full attention, and they underestimate your – her, rather – ability to escape from the brig.
You soon reach the end of the corridor, her hands cushioning the landing before her legs and tail land on the doorway as well. It is closed shut as expected, but the lack of any lights on the panel shows that power to it has been cut as well. In fact, it looks like the panel has been burned out – by a short circuit or something, judging by the black marks and the smell of it.
The walls besides the door leave little room for hiding – you have no doubts this is an intentional design to deny you cover in case the guards are waiting on the other side with guns drawn. It is way too late for you to rethink your decision, though, as the female’s voice calls to you.
“See if you can push the door open. The electromagnetic lock should be down,” all the while she rests herself against the toasted panel, her fingertips tapping on the dead monitor screen. Apparently satisfied that it is completely destroyed, her other hand pick out another piece of gum with a sleight of hand.
Fine. It is not like she would outlive you for much longer if there is indeed an ambush. You bury your fingers into the handle and press your boots against the side wall. You take a deep breath of the stale air and focus your strength on the task at hand. Without any power or even gravity holding it in place, the door soon dislodges from its position and slides into the wall.
The first thing to greet you from beyond the doorway is not a hail of bullets, but a deep blue beret floating lifelessly before your eyes. The hallway that you once passed through when you get thrown in the brig is still there, but its almost blinding white light is nowhere to be seen. The dim emergency light from the corridor barely illuminate the golden badge on the beret drifting in the darkness, let alone the metal walls that form the majority of the interior of this ship.
You soon see the owner of the beret. The young man’s body is floating in the middle of the room just like his hat, and it is clear that he is in no condition to fight – if anything, the sporadic convulsion of his spread limbs are the only thing showing he is not dead yet. The smell of the room is somehow worse than the brig itself. Did someone bleed and vomit here? You cannot see the source through the darkness. Instead, you see something much more valuable – a long gun drifting from its disabled owner. You instinctively pull yourself into the hallway and reach for the gun, catching it as you drift until you land on the opposite side of the room.
The large lens at the end of the barrel, and the curved scope merging with the barrel makes it clear that it is a laser weapon. Powered by its magazine, the display on the scope has not died with the rest of the room, but it seems to be glitched. Maybe it hit something when the guard got incapacitated? Did he get shocked by the short circuit? No matter what, having a weapon in your hand gives you a modicum of comfort –
“Wait.”
Not again.
“Gimme the gun,” you do not feel like calling her bluff, so you toss the laser rifle at her direction. She moves past the guard and catches it with ease. The girl immediately gives it a sniff, before pressing the ejection button on the side and pull the battery pack from the socket. As the magazine floats besides her, she turns the rifle and looks into the socket, sniffing it like an animal for a moment before coming to her conclusion. “Something fried.”
“The battery’s still charged, so with that you probably got a gun-shaped bomb here. You can have it,” she throws it back to you. You hesitate for a moment before catching the unloaded laser rifle once again. Despite the faint light, you can indeed see minute burn marks on its otherwise smooth surface. Of course you have to hold the bomb even when it is defused. “It’s a useful deterrent either way.”
“Let’s see if he has any goodies…” the tail coils around the guard’s limb and the two bodies approach each other. You do not think she cares about you witnessing her stripping his uniform and searching for anything useful on him… then again, the level of courtesy is probably neutral if the guard is still functional. What happened to him anyway?
“Ope, I can use this~” she unbuckles his belt with glee and grabs his short baton. It is apparently collapsible, as all it takes is a swift swing from her to extend it to weapon length. She also picks up what appears to be an orange-tinted goggles. The rest of the search seems fruitless, though, as she casually let his other belongings floating into the cold, dark air. Soon enough, the unfortunate guard is down to his underwear, and you can see parts of his skin covered in some kind of burns or bruises. It is a gnarly sight that makes you want to avert your gaze. You cannot help but ask her if you two can be on your way.
“Actually… think you’re about his size?”
Your instinctive response leaks out to her.
“What? It doesn’t have to fit perfectly. Good enough for a casual glance’s all we need,” she gathers up his uniform and her tail catches the beret. You think a bit of his blood is on the inside of the clothes. Worse, you cannot find any changing room or even a closet in the hall.
“Oh, I don’t mind it. I’ll focus on standing guard in case anyone’s looking for him,” she is definitely teasing you. The cold metal pressing against your neck reminds you of your position, and the most you can do is grumble a bit before drifting into a corner barely out of her sight before you starts getting changed. This cubicle used to be the guard’s station, but the computer mounted on the desk has also been fried like the gun… or the guard himself. Your curiosity gets the better of you, and you ask the strange woman about it. Her attitude makes her either the most unfazeable person in this system – or she knows more than you do.
“Guess you never got attacked on board. Lucky you,” she is standing right behind the corner. You can see her tail and one leg coiling around the trash can bolted to the floor. With the baton in her hand, anyone stumbling into the room will likely be in a rude awakening.
“Our kind likes to use particle cannons against targets that aren’t shielded. Well, or not shielded enough in this case,” her kind? It is hard to concentrate your mind against the sticky feeling now rubbing against your skin. Shower is probably out of the question for now.
“Obviously you don’t wanna get hit by, say, a weapon-grade electron beam, but when they hit something like a sheet of metal,” she knocks on the interior of the ship, creating a clear clang against the metal wall, “some of them turn into a different kind of radiation flooding the other side of the metal. It usually just makes the ship free real estate ripe for taking, but sometimes it fries electronics too. Isn’t it cool?”
You doubt the guard or the rest of the crew share the same feeling. Still, better invisible holes on them than very visible holes on you. That said, you do not think it is something precise enough to specifically spare you two.
“Yeah no, it’s just luck that we weren’t the one seeing the blue,” you hear her lightly tapping something metallic with her baton. “This ship is a… Duende-class. Cute little ship. Whoever made the shot’s probably aiming for the main generator but didn’t lead the target enough.”
Her reply raises more questions than answers.
“You done?” she does not seem interested in answering your question. You hastily button the uniform and lock the belt around you. You do not need a mirror to tell the uniform does not fit your body very well. At least the blue uniform itself is not half bad, but you can do without the small cape. You try to ignore the unsettling sensation crawling beneath the clothes and put on the beret. The size difference means it should stay on for now.
“Ooh, it’s not that bad. Here, it goes with the uniform,” you cannot tell if she is being sarcastic or not, but you do feel her gaze scanning your body. Then, she tosses you the goggles. The color makes it even harder to see, but it is not like you can see much in the darkness either way. That fact does not seem to bother her, though.
“Now you don’t have to worry about reflected beams!” she proclaims and at the same time implies that you will likely be closer to the line of fire in case some of the crew is still in fighting shape. Speaking of which…
“Him? He’s already dead,” the citrine eyes glance at the floating, partially undressed body. His breathing is shallow and somewhat chaotic. You can hear a bit of liquid too. “His body just hasn’t caught on yet.”
“Fine, fine, if that suits you,” it is almost as if she is a kid being told to do her chores. Despite the ever-present reminder of her power over you, though, she nonetheless pushes herself from the door to the body and clings onto him. You turn away from them and carefully crawls to the door. With the protective goggles, you can barely see anything in the pitch-black corridor – not that abandoning her is an option either way.
You hear a crack, followed by the dull sound of something being kicked. Then, you feel the cold touch of the rodent-like girl from a pat on your back. “Let’s go.”
The body is out of your sight now. You hope it will be out of your mind soon.
The Encounter
It is not your first time traversing these metal corridors, but without artificial gravity or any lighting apart from the occasional dim glow from emergency lights makes this place an alien labyrinth. Even when you peek out from the colored goggles, you can barely see anything apart from the tailed woman moving before you, your hand holding onto her tail and your eyes trailing on places you would rather not tell her. Her tail is hairless and somewhat rough but not scaly, kind of like a rat tail. The long tail narrows from its base until it tapers off at the end, which appears dexterous enough to “hold” your hand. You start feeling a modicum of warmth from it as the air slowly but steadily cool down around you. At least it should take a long time for the temperature to drop below freezing.
The stiffness in the air melts into you, a combination of the deactivated life support system and the swelling uncertainty for… everything, really. Are there anyone else alive still on board? Crew? “Her kind”? Rescue from elsewhere? Anywhere? Would they be hostile to you? What about her? The gun you are holding is apparently useless as a weapon, and you have enough troubles staying upright in microgravity as is, let alone trying to fight. You have to rely entirely on the rather suspicious woman that is currently holding your leash, and you have doubts on how much she values your survival and well being beyond letting you not rot in the brig.
The silhouette leading you lands on the wall once more, creating a muted thud as her hands slow down her movement. As her palms press lightly against the metal wall, her tail also stiffen to slow down your body before you could bump into her. Her fingertip taps against the wall a few times with regular interval, while her head presses her ears – both human and rodent-like – against it, as if she is trying to listen to something beyond your senses. As the faint, battery-powered light overlooking this corner spills onto you two, you get a slightly better glimpse on her face. It looks almost the same as regular humans and, despite the circumstances, she looks reasonably nice to your eyes. Her cheeks look freckled, admittedly fitting her rough demeanor – and your colored filter turn her eye white into the same tone as her iris, giving her a similarly fitting, terrible gaze as she turns to you.
“I hear some machines running in the distance,” she tells you what she ostensibly divines from her touch, “seems not the entire ship’s down.”
“Their lights might still work if we’re unlucky. Their weapons might still work if we’re really unlucky. Stay sharp,” she warns and bends her legs once more. It looks as if she is wearing some kind of invisible high heels. It does not weaken her jump, though, and you soon find yourself propelled towards the end of the corridor behind her. As you drift deeper into the unknown, your ears begin picking up something through the hallway as well – faint, distorted echoes snarling in the darkness before you. It is cold and inorganic at first, perhaps something from swirling motors, discharging batteries, and maybe even the clanging noise of metal doors opening and shutting against their frames. But then, something among the subdued cacophony catches your attention. It is dulled, it has no rhythm. It is something sticky. It is something… alive, for a lack of better words. You wonder if the tightening hold from her tail means she also pick that up, or if you are just desperate for a more human connection.
“Stop,” her tail tugs on you to let you pay attention to her whispers. Her hands catch the shallow grooves decorating the walls to kill her speed. The tail escapes your grasp, and your inertia causes your body to land on her, though her hold is more than enough to keep her in position just behind the junction. “And shut up.”
Her gloves rub her cheek before she pokes a bit of her head out from the corner. It soon become apparent that she has spotted something… or more likely, someone despite the pitch darkness surrounding you two. “What a mess… at least there’s only one. No headgear… warm eyes too,” her fingertips slide beneath her eyes, crossing her face slowly. Once she finishes her muttering, she retracts back into the cover and turns her gaze to you.
“You hide here. I’ll deal with it,” that confirms your speculation. But what if whoever she saw tries to kill you? What about your collar? She is the one that forces you to stay close to her to begin with!
“I won’t go too far. Just start screaming or whatever if you’re in trouble,” with that, she pushes herself to the opposite corridor, and her silhouette melts into the darkness, leaving you behind in the corner.
As her voice and breathing sound dissipates in the stale air, you start to feel solitude creep up to you, and you begin to have doubts of her claims. The metal pressing against your neck feels suffocating. You know it will kill you if she strays too far. Your body struggles to breathe. You grasp for air even if you try to be quiet. Are you her distraction to sneak past whoever she saw? Against your better judgment, your shaking hand holds onto the wall and pull yourself out from the cover.
The voice in the darkness becomes a bit clearer, drawing your attention to it. It sounds somewhat high-pitched, perhaps it is from a female? She seems to be calling for something, with her words sometimes interrupted by gagging noises. Your mind immediately begins conjuring the image of the rodent girl strangling a girl from behind, but your reasons soon dispute that – if that is the case, it would just be a continuous gagging noise followed by silence. She does not screw around.
Maybe it is a better idea to wait until that happen, but then… “Help…” it is difficult to ignore the pitiful cry between her coughs and retches, even if it could have been a trap. Your hands clutch against the corner and move your body into the dim light carefully. Even after you take off your goggles, the figure is little more than a silhouette at the other end of the corridor, seemingly stumbling left and right without noticing your existence. Your gut feeling tell you you will probably regret it, but you raise your voice to call to her. This finally catches her attention, and the figure pulls herself along the wall towards your direction, gradually making herself visible before your eyes.
Like the guard before, she is wearing a blue military uniform, giving her otherwise petite physique an air of formality and authority… or at least, it would have been if not for her state. It is immediately clear to you that she is not feeling well: her dishevel black hair is barely covered by her tilted beret, dark stains around her reddened lips mirror the gagging noises you hear earlier, and one of her aqua eyes appear to have trouble focusing onto you despite her best effort.
“Finally… someone… help…” she sounds exhausted. Her weak body bumps into you, causing both of you to fly backward until you land on the wall. After smearing a bit of her fluid onto your chest, she looks up to your head, and you are once again reminded of the collar around your neck – which she obviously also see. Her head pauses for a moment before continuing to look up to you. The hands clinging onto you feel stiff, but you do not feel any hostility more than caution. Maybe the situation is desperate enough to convince her to overlook your escape.
You ask if she is alright. It is more to comfort her than anything. As she tries to speak, you can see the paralysis affect more than just her eye, slurring her words more than her panic already has. You can barely make out some words about evasion, bright flash, and blackout. She seems to be convinced that she has eaten something bad last meal. “I knew the pizza tasted weird… I threw up most of it… and the cramps are hitting before they should… argh,” you are not sure what to tell her. You doubt you are allowed to recruit new members to the escape, especially given her apparent position. At least she does not seem to mind –
But then, the face buried into the uniform begin sniffing. You feel her warmth staining the clothes. She turns her working eye towards one of your buttons.
It does not match. It is hastily stitched back by hand.
“This uniform… this smell…” her voice shivers, and the fingerless gloves hold onto you firmly. The lithe body tugs up towards you. You are taken aback by the expression on the non-paralyzed part of her face, and the dirty cry dripping from her mouth. “It was his…”
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM!?”
You panic. Your hands overpower her and push her flailing body back, but the corridor conspires against you. You can barely put any distance between you two before she lands on the floor. She struggles to keep her balance, but she does not care. She leaps up to you, one hand reaching for you and the other hand pressing against the belt around her abdomen.
Your body do not try to dodge. You instead grit your teeth and close your eyes. Perhaps a part of you finds her reaction justified.
But her warmth merely glances against your chin before it is pulled away. Instead, her choking noise fills the metal-scented air alongside weakening thuds.
You catch your breath and slowly open your eyes in fear. The uniformed girl is forced back onto the floor by two legs and a tail coiling around her torso. The rodent girl’s face loom behind her as one of her arms wrap around her neck, leading to the other arm pushing against the back of her head. Her teeth let go of her lips and you hear the now-familiar whisper once again.
“One, two, three, four…” with your accomplice’s counting, the hands slapping against her arm becomes slower and weaker. By the time she reaches “ten”, the agitated body has already gone limp. The officer looks as if she is in a shallow, uneasy sleep. No longer feeling any resistance, the arms appear to loosen slightly as the amber eyes turn towards you.
“For crying out loud… you’re lucky you distracted her enough for me,” her tail let go of her body and push the two closer to you. The unconscious girl is now within your reach. You can see she is still breathing through the hold, if only barely. The rodent girl quickly reaffirms her lack of mercy with her next words, “see her pocketknife? I’ll hold her in place. You do it.”
What? Against a defenseless girl? That is too much! Even if the order is from your current captor to your previous one! Worse, your yell causes the shut eyelids to slide open briefly, before the tightening choke hold put her back to sleep once more. Her hand still tries to reach towards you.
“How many times do I have to explain it to you?” she does not care for your call for mercy, “she’s already dead. Her body just hasn’t caught on yet.”
Your wavering eyes cannot focus on the tool on her belt, let alone taking and using it. Nausea surges up from your stomach until it reaches the metal choker. You know she has some ways to threaten your life with it unless you do her bidding. But still –
“That knife would’ve gone between your ribs had I been a bit slower,” her voice breaks your train of thought. Her tail turns her body to toss the officer aside. Without skipping a beat, the rodent girl slams herself against you. You feel her cold fingers snake around your collar and then the back of your head. Unlike the officer, she is remarkably strong, easily clamping your head and throat against her touch. You try to push her aside and breathe to no avail, and the cold darkness around you seem to start creeping in closer and closer. A deafening silence pours into your ear, scrambling your dimming senses.
“But maybe I should…”
You fall into a dreamless sleep.
A respite from all these.
The Mess
The coldness overwhelming your existence gradually solidifies around you, giving you form as life returns to your body. Memories emerge from darkness once again, reminding you of everything that has happened since your last sleep. The attack against the ship while you were imprisoned on it, the strange rodent-like woman that became your new captor, the guard that had died but did not know it yet… and the female crew member whose haunting face still makes you wince. Despite the sinking feeling, you still have hopes that it is all just a bad dream, a nightmare that will melt away the moment your senses return to you.
“Oh, you’re finally awake.”
Damn it.
Her voice reaffirms that the floating feeling is not just because your body is still slumbering. As much as you miss your ignorant bliss, you open your eyes to see how reality has worsened since she strangled you. “And here I was starting to worry I turned you into a vegetable,” she is the first thing you see after the blinding light has subsided. The surroundings are illuminated unlike the dark cells and corridors before. More importantly, you can see the rodent-like girl moving towards you. At alarming speed.
You are still not sure what to make of her, but her rapid approach makes you instinctively guard yourself with your limbs. Before you could brace against her, though, you once again feel the touch of her rough tail snaking between your legs, tugging your weightless body towards her. Her hands and legs quickly follow, and her strong arms pry your defense open with ease, leaving nothing but a few inches between her freckled face and yours. You see no hostility on her expression… or any emotions, for that matter. Not even a giddy smug. She is serious.
A loud thud against your back wakes you up fully, immediately followed by her light body slamming against you. Her long, slightly bent legs pin yours against the wall. The extended baton in her hand presses against your neck. You feel the metallic touch of your collar once more. Her tail has slipped away from your body and your occupied sight, perhaps helping her pin you down despite a lack of gravity around.
“Now, lemme make one thing crystal clear to you,” she raises her finger and poke the tip of your nose rudely. It feels as if the icy touch seeps into your body and flows through your vein. “If you go against my words and pull stupid stunts like that again…”
“You. Will. Die. And no, that’s not because I can turn your neck into a bloody stump if I wanna,” her fingers pinch your nose, forcing you to breathe with your mouth, “it would be because something – or someone – in this sinking ship’s gonna get you.”
“If you wanna die that much, you can just tell me and I’ll throw you out at the next air lock. Less painful that way,” her expression gradually softens, and her cold fingers let go of you. She pulls back slightly and retracts the baton back to a more compact form before sliding it onto her newfound belt. The officer belt does not fit her plain prisoner garment, which has since gained stains of indigo and red.
“Now, if you don’t have a death wish, we should get back to work,” her tail tugs her away from you and she drifts backward, allowing you to see the surroundings more clearly. It seems to be a mess hall of some sorts, with rows of tables and benches bolted to the ground giving you a sense of direction. Not that it matters without artificial gravity. Unlike the dark cells and corridors, this room is mostly illuminated despite its size. Most of the lights are still functional, with some of them dead or dying with sporadic blinks. Even though you and her are the only two beings around, the floating trays of food and drinks show that this place was being used when the attack occurred. Some of the surfaces are splattered – some with food, and some with something else.
Like many other space ships, the walls are devoid of windows. Instead of structural weaknesses, several large screens are installed on the walls, broadcasting what is happening outside the battered hull of the ship. Most of the view is filled with nothing but the boundless, starry void with a light blue touch, but every now and then, you can see brief flashes, explosions that quickly evaporates into nothingness. Any surviving wreckage from their victims are indistinguishable from the debris, and within a blink of an eye, the stars melting into darkness.
The battle is still ongoing. You know the tiny specks of fireballs can easily engulf this entire room. All it takes is a stray round landing on the other side of the hull.
Your legs start shaking. Your mind cannot help but imagine. Even if you do not get turned into a blob of hot plasma, a gaping hole is more than enough to toss your helpless body into the void. You know holding your breath will blow up your lungs. You know you will pass out soon from a lack of air, but your last moments will be exceedingly painful. The mere thought of that is enough to suffocate you. Then, the faint scent from one of the splatters steer your thought elsewhere. You remember the convulsing body of the guard, fried by a weapon he could not know or even feel. “You’re already dead. Your body just hasn’t caught on yet,” her words ring in your ears.
But then you remember the face of the girl. She was reaching for something on her belt, right? If she actually had a knife or some kind of weapon, you feel she might actually kill you. You are not sure if that is a better way to go, but she is nowhere to be seen for now. That makes you raise your voice and ask the rodent-like woman the obvious question.
“Huh? Her?” she lifts her face from the gadget she is disassembling and uses her tail to turn to you. You are pretty sure she did not have that belt of multi-tool before, or that mundane belts have a slot for a collapsible baton. “Oh right, that girl.”
“I chased her away with my baton… what? You think I’d put her down?” she raises an eyebrow to your expression, “hmm, maybe I should’ve, but it’s hard enough to drive her away while dragging your body around.”
“And… here we go,” with one last screw removed, the strange lady let her grin return to her face. She let go of the screwdriver and her fingertip flicks open the electric box, and a simple yank is all it takes for her to detach the box from the long cable. Her hands prove dexterous when she coils up the cable with her arms, treating it like a smooth, if somewhat rigid rope. Then, you see her amber eyes glancing at you once more, and the uneasy feeling inside your stomach swells once more. Is the rope meant for you?
“What’s with that expression?” you feel a hint of impatience in her tone. Even though you are not exactly head over heels for her, you have no doubts that the strange woman knows more about whatever is going on than you, and she is probably your best chance of escaping from this place alive – the fact that you are allowed to wake up from that sleep is a small comfort that she does not want you dead, if only for now. She might not need you to be free for that, though. Her eyes narrow as they lay on your face. You feel her gaze is penetrating your eyes, piercing through the window to examine your soul directly. Despite her rodent-like appearance, your instinct makes you feel like you are the prey here, frozen before her without any means to resist.
But then, she breaks the tension with her chuckle. The chuckle soon turns to laughter. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t let her turn you into a pin cushion while you’re still useful,” you are not sure if she genuinely misinterprets your emotions, of if she is just toying around with a thinly-veiled threat, like a cat with her soon-to-be food. Still, you think your neck is safe for now. As you lift your hand to touch your somewhat free neck, though, the stirring in your stomach turns into a grumble, provoking another giggle from her.
“Hehe~ I guess the ambush did start right before we’re supposed to get food. Not that we’re missing much anyway,” she looks left and right, and her tail slithers beneath one of the benches. With a simple coil and push, her body swims through some floating plates to grab a bottle of drink. She gives it a shake for her ear to pick up the sloughing within, before turning and tossing it at your direction. It flies slow enough for you to catch, although its inertia let a few pastel purple spheres escape from the straw. Once she picks up another bottle and an odd-looking pizza, her tail tugs her back to you, stopping just before she crashes into you once more, but not before you instinctively wince again.
“Let’s hope you’re a quick eater,” she takes a few sniffs at the half-eaten pizza. Her expression tells you everything you need to know to not eat it. She then hands it to you. “I got what I came for already. We should leave once we got our fill.”
Why? You cannot help but point out the place is empty.
“Exactly,” she turns her eyes sideways and glances over the messy, but unpopulated place. “They were here, but not anymore.”
“And you aren’t exactly agile when you’re busy vomiting your guts out,” now the splatters make sense to you, which helps kill any appetite that has escaped the pizza. “That means someone moved them away. Probably their comrades. Due to the dead, you know.”
You are still troubled by how she treat them as already dead, but at the same time, you cannot refute her logic either.
“Anyway. Skol!”
Yes, you could use a nice can of beer – wait, what?
“Oh. That’s how we toasts,” she shakes her drink. The droplets from the straw looks brown-ish.
“C’mon, give it a try. Maybe you’ll enjoy it more than you think,” you are not convinced, but after everything, you might as well give it a try. The plastic bottles do not make a sound against each other. You take a sip from the straw, trying not to think too hard about its previous owner. The drink has a creamy taste and a sweet, nutty scent, enough to make your throat remember its thirst. You down the rest of the bottle as best as you can to dispel that feeling.
But you cannot help but think.
The Hitch
“Welc-e -ack, Correction- Offi-r V- ” the synthesized voice of the door stutters when she smacks the card against the reader, but fortunately, the system is still functional enough to recognize your stolen identity and unlock the door for you. She drifts through the doorway, away from the flickering lights and into the dim corridors beyond, and you follow suit. Before that, though, you cannot help but glances at the half-dead control panel built into the door frame. Between the card reader and the retinal scanner was a small screen, displaying the same face as the one printed on the key card, one that bears only a passing resemblance to the officer from whom she stole the card. Without the panicked voice and the tarnished face, the girl would look quite pretty, even if you are not sure she is old enough to be an officer of any kind. Your gaze drifts away from the screen or the card she is sliding into her belt. You try your best to purge her from your mind, so that you are no longer reminded of the fate many on this ship have, or will suffer – at least, until you and her are finally away from harm.
“Here it is,” the rodent-like girl calls to you after swinging herself around another corner. The dim light prevents you from seeing very well, but you can tell that one side of this wide corridor has a slightly darker hue. It also has a more industrial aesthetics, as the door embedded into the wall is not the usual sliding doors you two have passed through many times, but a bulky, somewhat circular hatch with only a small window surrounded by a web of mechanisms. Unlike the rest of the ship you have swum through so far, you can tell this part of the ship is supposed to function without gravity. Embedded handles decorate the panels lining the walls, and the small conveyor belt mounted on the wall would have allowed people to move around by holding onto it have it been functional. Empty seats dot the walls as well, their seat belts floating lifelessly in the stale air like some kind of strange sea plants – it seems no one around has used them to brace for the impact that is now becoming a distant memory despite… you are not sure how long the whole ordeal has been, only that it feels much longer than it is.
Your hands reach out to the dark wall to make your landing more comfortable. By the time you turn around towards your captor, she has already crawled her way to the hatch. Her hand and tail holds onto fixed handles on and near the door, while the other hand quickly turns the crack on the door. With a thankfully brief metallic screech, the mechanism embellishing the hatch begins to turn at her command, releasing the various bolts and dogs that hold the door in place. Once she disengages the locks, she holds tight onto the handle and pulls herself away from the hatch. Yet, even though you know she is stronger than she looks, the hatch does not yield one bit, and the smug smile on her face begins to sour. Once her following attempts prove similarly futile, she pulls herself back to the door and starts examining it. You also climb your way to her to see if you can help.
“I guess it would’ve been too easy,” her gloved finger taps on one of the instruments mounted on the hatch, and you turn your attention from her to it. It is a pair of pressure gauges – analog is old-fashioned, but reliable, especially given what has been happening so far. Both still looks functional, with one maintaining a stable reading, while the other’s needle twitches slightly below the former. You do not like the implication.
You peek through the window nearby, and see the almost lightless corridor on the other side. It was dead like the rest of the ship, with only occasional debris and junk drifting by at an unnatural speed. The hatch on the other side was open, its reinforced hinges shrieking against the invisible wind knocking against the heavy door. “You know what’s going on?” she asks and you answer positively. She seems genuinely surprised of your awareness, about which you are not sure how to think. More importantly, though, the pressure difference means two things to you – first, there is some kind of leak on the other side, and second, you two will have to fight against the air pressure to get through the hatch. Even with the small pressure difference, it would still be more than what the two of you could fight against. You slam against the dark wall next to you, and the muted thud shows that even if you still have that gun-shaped bomb and the permission to use it, it would likely kill you before it destroys the structure.
The feeling of being trapped swells within you once more. The electricity and thus life support system in this area might fail any second. A deadly bolt might reduce you to your base components. Other survivors might decide to take you with them. And the girl… if she is still alive, you doubt giving the sweat-tainted uniform clinging onto your body will sate her anger. You are not sure what have come to you, but it feels like the constant coldness wrapped around your neck is beginning to seep into your mind, and even the rodent-like captor of yours is starting to become preferable to being trapped here alone and without a way out. Your racing heart leads you to turn around towards her, and you can see her short body drifting towards the opposite side of the wall. She reaches for for the cables anchored to her stolen belt and unfurls it. The tip of her tail coils around a seat next to her, and her hands begin threading between the insulated wires.
You cannot find a monitored camera or mirror to see your own expression, but you are sure it is drastically different from hers. The prospect of being trapped here by the very stale air keeping you alive barely changes her almost carefree smile. The amber eyes only turn to you briefly to acknowledge your stare before returning to the ropes on her hands. She even begins to hum a strange tune as she transforms the cable into something braid-like. You are not sure what she is doing, but you have a gut feeling that she will tell you what to do soon enough. Indeed, once she wraps part of the rope around one of the pipes that form the chair, her tail holds onto the knots and her limbs push herself back to you, turning mid-air in the process. You prepare yourself for whatever choirs she wants you to-
“Move aside.”
Huh? Still, you clumsily pull yourself sideways to let her land onto the sealed hatch. Her expression does not change, and her attention remains on the rope that is now coiling around part of the mechanism near the edge of the door. She must have seen your confusion, though, as she opens her mouth once more.
“Not familiar with ropes, eh?” you shake your head despite her not looking at you. She reaffirms your suspicion that she can see you anyway, perhaps between brief glances.
“You should learn them in the future. They’re useful in many ways,” she licks her lips as a loop forms on the knot next to the anchoring point, “like when electronics and hydraulics fail, which they love to do when you need them the most.”
“Hmm? Teach you? Maybe once we’re outta here and you get back to wherever you came from,” she glides back to the main knot and begins tying them once more. You fail to follow her nimble fingers and the kink quickly move beyond your comprehension. Somehow you do not remember asking her. “You know, usually people have to pay for a service like this.”
“Alright, get the belts from the seat,” her hands check the strength of the knot once more while her hairless tail gestures to the seat next to the hitch. You turn and tug against the seat belts until the end of the belts pull you towards the wall. Just as you turn once against, your vision is once again obscured by her approach. Her sudden proximity – and the resurfacing memory of her choking you – caused your body to winch instinctively. She does not pay attention to it, though, as she rotates and let her back land on you, sandwiching you between the light body and the heavy wall. Her hand moves down and unbuckles her belt, letting it drift close nearby.
“Strap in tight. Make sure I’m not pressing against your rib cage,” your hands guide the belts in front of her body. You try your best to not let your hands touch anything you are not supposed to. Thankfully, the seat belts have more than enough length to bind both of you against the wall, and the buckle locks into place against her stomach. Then, your hands feel the touch of her gloves. Her brisk fingers slide across the back of your hands to the buckle and take control of it. As she tightens the seat belts, her body sinks into you more, and your head is forced to tilt away from the pink hair. The pleasant scent is more distracting than ever. “Can you breathe… never mind, I can feel your sniffing.”
You protest to her accusation – even if she is not technically wrong. It is not like you have any other choice in this stifling place! “I’m joking. You’ll know I’m serious when I crush some naughty hands,” at the very least, she does not seem to mind that. If anything, you feel she enjoys teasing you even in such a life-and-death scenario.
“But before that, I need all your strength. Here, grab it,” her tail pushes the other end of the rope into your hands. Another knot forms a convenient handle for you to hold onto and pull against. You look over her shoulder, and you can see the rope has coiled around her palms. Your eyes follow the rope, and its function starts becoming clear to you. Even if you are not sure how it works, you can still tell your strength should pass through the complex knots and reach the hatch somehow.
“On my count, pull on the rope as hard as you can,” your other hand wraps around her waist to reach the rope. You are not sure you can use all your strength without testing her latest threat. You think you will be more useful if you switch place with her – but then your body will probably crush her. You would also keep her from using her full strength, and you are now pretty certain that she is stronger than you despite her smaller physique.
“Three,” her count pulls you away from your thought.
“Two,” you take a deep breath to ready your body.
“One,” you can only trust her judgment.
“Zero!” every single muscle of your hands strain against the rope. Even she is biting against her lips as her hands shake from the amount of strength she is channeling through them to the rope. The knots screech against the stress put onto them. You can feel the smooth surface of the rope digging into your flesh. The hatch refuses to yield. The very air conspires against you.
“Pull harder!” her yell squeezes every ounce of strength from your body. You take another deep breath. You can feel the warm pain seeping into your body. You know your life might as well depends on it. You even regret not shoving that nasty pizza down your throat to regain your strength. Your mind pleads to whatever deities out there to lend you strength.
You are not sure if any of them actually answered, but your hands feel the rope finally begin to move. Your eyes turn aside despite the sweats stimulating them. Your mind did not trick you! A small gap begins to form around the hatch. The stiff air begins to flow into the crack. Your aching hands continue to tug against the cable, hoping that the air weakens faster than your arms. “Just a little bit more! C’mon!” crackling sounds snake through the air into your ears. You can only hope the cable is strong enough.
“Hold!” your hands stiffen as she ordered. You see her tail sneak up to the floating belt and slaps it towards the gap. The leather is thin enough to slide into it, but the metal buckle is not.
“Let go… now!” even without her words, your hands will be giving up soon anyway. Both of you release your grips at the same time. Her hands slide away from the rope just in time for it to snap away. Without your strength, the hatch slams back immediately. It almost crushes the buckle under its weight, but the metal manages to hold on, and the breeze continues to escape from the corridor. Eventually, the artificial wind dies down, leaving the room silent once again except the heavy panting from you two. The hatch admits defeat and drift open slightly, the air around no longer pushing against it.
“Good job…” she catches her breath once again. Her compliment catches you off-guard. With your mind no longer burdened by the task, your senses can feel her presence once again. For the first time, you can feel the warmth of her body snaking to you through the clothes. Her heartbeat is faster than you expected. Her sweating has made her scent stronger, but it does not have the usual repulsive odor. You cannot help but wonder if it has something to do with her kind… whatever that is.
“You done?” her question drags you back to reality. You quickly help her unbuckle the stressed seat belt, and her petite body drifts away once more. Now, all it takes is a simple push for the hatch to open wide. Without it, the twisted buckle effectively falls apart, its metal bits flowing into the corridor on the other side. Her tail manages to catch the rest of the belt before it escapes, though, and soon it is wrapped around her soft waist and held in place with a pin.
“Catch your breath,” the amber eyes look at you, “you’ll need it later.”
The Drift
You are greeted by a gentle breeze once you emerge from the hatch. This part of the ship has run out of power – even the emergency lights have extinguished, plunging the entire area in complete darkness except the faint leak of light from behind you. As much as you enjoy the flow of fresh air, its presence in this situation makes you nervous. You know for sure that cycling the air is a luxury this ship can no longer afford, so this breath of fresh air means only one thing.
The air is leaking out.
You take a deep breath of the vanishing air. The fact that you can still breathe is a small comfort. Your eyes dart around, but even without the orange goggles, the darkness still obscures most of the corridor beyond the small cone of light cast upon the both of you. Even if your reason urges you to find an emergency space suit or at least a breathing mask, the stirring in your stomach prevents you from letting go of the hatch and following the wind into the pitch darkness. With no other options, you turn to your captor, the captive who seems to be always prepared.
Like you, her hands anchors the light body to the hatch on this side, the constant wind keeping it from slamming against either of you. Despite her closed eyes, she seems to be staring into the darkness where the air vanishes into the void. Her body turns slightly as she lifts her tail, and she parts her lips to give its tip a lick. After a brief pause, the amber eyes open once more and turn to meet your gaze. You want to old your breath in anticipation, but your body continues to breathe, knowing that even the life-giving air is no longer a given. Her silent judgment out of nowhere only makes the goose bumps worse. Finally, she parts her lips once more.
“Calm down. The fact that you’re still breathing means wherever the air comes from still got a lotta oxygen to spare,” it did not exactly comfort you, but at least now you can make a conscious choice to slow down your breath. The world around stops its spinning slowly.
“Seems they busted a heat pipe or something down wind,” her eyes gesture to the darkness while her tail holds her in place. The flow of wind keeps you from feeling any heat from there. “Looks pretty cool… probably not hot enough to melt through the hull by its own. Probably a stray physical round. Or the malfunctions caused something to blow up.”
“The air feels slow enough. Even with your breathing mix, the hole should be large enough for both of us,” the implication of her words make you feel queasy enough to not question the strange wording itself.
“Turn around,” it is obvious that she is not actually asking – her hands are already reaching out around your waist before you can respond. You could see marks of wear and tear on the cable in her hands, marred by the tremendous strength put through it to open the hatch. The warmth of her breath mixes with the cold touch of the collar around your neck, but it seems she barely needs to look in order to tie the rope around your waist. A simple knot keeps it from strangling you, and the end of the rope is tied to the hatch. You recognize that knot – it is the same knot she used to anchor the rope to the hatch moments ago. You remember seeing her undoing it with a simple yank despite how much force it had endured.
For a brief moment, you are unsure if she is going to abandon you here as she no longer needs your additional strength. However, that thought soon perishes as her hands wrap the other end of the rope around her waist as well, effectively connecting her to you and the immovable hatch. “I’ll scout ahead. Keep your hand on the rope. If you feel me yanking the rope left and right, pull me back as fast as you can; if you feel me tugging it twice, undo the knot and follow me,” you do not feel the usual cheerfulness from her words. You wonder if the situation has finally started to get to the carefree rodent girl. Is she even actually related to rodents to begin with? But more importantly, what about the collar that threatens your life if she is too far away?
“Oh, right! Don’t worry about it, the range should be longer than the rope,” easy for her to say! Still, you know you will not be able to convince her otherwise, and if the worst comes to the worst, you can still try to pull her back to a safe distance. With what you assume to be a goodbye in her language, the girl’s limbs and tail hold onto the wall and push, sending her into the darkness. She quickly slips out of your sight, with the drifting, knotted rope being the only thing her existence leaves in this secluded space.
The wind continues to blow by your side, loosening the stolen hat from your head until you tuck it back. This is not the first time you have felt it, but the unnatural sensation still unsettles you. Normally, all it takes is the shutting of an airlock or two for the breeze to stop, and the air to replenish back to normal level. If that still does not stop the air from flowing, it means something is going wrong – maybe the leak is too wide-spread to be contained quickly… or you are on the wrong side of the air lock.
Even with the air flowing, there is no tension in the rope dancing in the dark corridor. You do not remember the cable being this long. Surely by now she would have reached its limit, right? Against your better judgment, the troubling thoughts creep up to you once more. She has taught you not to trust anyone still on board but her, but with her lingering warmth scattered to the wind, the darkness around you feels closer and closer. You cannot shake the feeling that something is lurking beneath the veil, and your legs instinctively recoil back towards you – even if there is not a single source of light on your torso either.
You raise your voice and calls out to her, or anyone who would listen. You know this is not the best idea, and the response might come in the form of a laser bolt through your body. Or maybe it has already happened? You can feel a sticky feeling seeping through your underwear and clinging onto your skin. Worse yet, there is no answer from her. The rope might look straighter now, but it is still limp. You begin to sweat, and your breathing is disturbed.
This is when you hear your breathing out of sync with your breath.
You hold your breath and listen to it. It sounds deep, heavy, mechanical. You are sure it is not something the rodent-like girl can produce. You try to turn around and find its origin, but the whispering wind forbids you from discerning its direction – and of course, you cannot even see the edge of your reach. The feeling of being watched tells you that the reverse is not true. Is it watching you in the darkness, ready to pounce the moment you let your guard down? You turn to look at the void where the air flows from and see nothing. What if it is from the other side? She would have dealt with it already… or maybe it has already claimed her? What is on the other end of this cable now?
Your hands reach for the cord coiled around your waist. The smear on your uniform has left a red mark on its sheath. You tug it up and down, left and right, but to no avail. Even with the extra space, the loop is too tight to be pushed off your body. You turn around to find the knot binding you, but you cannot undo it either. Not without getting at least one end of the rope. Your eyes dart to the other loop anchoring you at the hatch. One pull and it should come off. And then you can untie yourself. Keep you away from death.
You grab onto the stub and pull on it. The loop on the other end retracts without resistance. Your memory does not fail you! You will be free the moment the loop slips through the knot and make it disappear! Yet, your memory does not stop boiling inside your skull. You remember the order you are given, and the rope around your waist is still untugged. You gulp, and the cold touch around your neck reminds you of her. Can you trust her? Even though you have to keep reminding her that what she do can kill you, because of what she put on you no less! A loud bang rings in your ear, and the turbulent thoughts compel you to yank the rope. Just as expected, the hitch deforms from the force immediately, and the coil is fully undone with another pluck from the other side. You are no longer bound to the hatch!
But it does not feel good, or right. Despite the cold, mumbling wind, your body still remembers the warmth from her despite her cold touch. You feel your heart racing and your panting without rhythm. You should not have done that, not before she tells you to. You look at the end of the rope in your hands, but despite all the images whirring inside your mind, you cannot recall how she tied the knot. Maybe you were not paying attention to her enough? Maybe you should have paid more attention to her. Still, you wrap the cable around the bar on the hatch quickly and hold onto it. It is about as strong as your grasp, but maybe this extra bit of help is enough for you to hold on. You are not sure if the stress is getting to you or not, but you feel the wind blowing stronger than you remembered. Your other hand holds onto the swinging hatch as well.
The tight grip suppresses your shaking hands, and you slowly starts to calm down. Now, you are pretty sure the breeze around you has turned into a stronger gale, a squall that seemingly comes out of nowhere. It is not strong enough to dislodge you with or without the knots, but your mind cannot begin to fathom what has led to this change even if the depth of your mind already knows the answer one way or another. You feel a bit of tension around your waist, but you cannot tell if her tug has weakened, or if the strengthened gust manage to pull onto whatever is on the other end now.
You yell into the void once again. You put yourself as far into the windy tunnel as your hands allow. Surely she would have noticed it by now, and the echoes of your voice ensures someone will hear you. With that thought in your head, you shut your mouth and listen to any response. Just like your panic, the low rumbling noise has ceased. Maybe it was just your-
Click.
Pzzzt-
BOOM!
A deafening thunderclap floods your ears at the same time a blinding green flash floods your eyes. Your eyelids rush to protect your eyes, and the green flash melts into pitch black, yet at the same time painted with bright orange that spreads the pain across your skull. The sharp pain from the overwhelming senses take control of your body. You wince instinctively, even though your hands struggle to hold on. The wind holds onto you despite your scream, and you feel yourself plunged into darkness, unable to see or hear the changing surroundings. The pain from your head soon subsides, and the faint, blurry shapes shooting past the darkness are cold comfort for your body tumbling in the wind. Your limbs flail against the swirling world, but you fail to hold onto anything. The chaotic squall continues to push you, turn your body around like a spindle as you feel your warmth leaking out from your lungs. You try to hold your breath, but your lungs fight against you. Nausea overwhelms you, forcing you to open your wheezing mouth and close your aching eyes.
But then, something managed to pierce your ringing ears and catch your attention. It is a familiar voice, almost inaudible, but it is enough to make you open your eyelids again – not that you expect to see anything. Yet, as the amber darkness recedes to reveal a different shade of darkness, a pair of dots retain their color. For a brief moment, your mind convinces you that they are but marks left – perhaps permanently – in your vision, but as the gale carries you away from them, an indecipherable shout cut through your ears and thoughts.
Your hand reaches for the voice, but it has escaped from your reach. The cold wave weakens, and you begin to feel a strange warmth snaking towards you from behind. You try to take in the newfound glow, but you can no longer control your shaking body. Even the stinging dread starts to become distant, and the sudden pull only serves to make you feel yourself separating from your limp body as the warmth slips away from your back.
You can no longer feel the wind, and even the strange noises no longer registers. The only things you feel are a firm hold around you, and a smear of wetness around your lower face. A gush of warm wind pours into your body, and you feel your mind being pulled back into the tortured body. As your lungs are wakened up, you try to gasp once more… only for your breath to be blocked by a strong, cold hand, sealing your lips and nose completely. Your instinct tries to fight against the hold, but you are denied any movement by the four limbs wrapping around your torso and head from behind. As your senses slowly return, your shaky mind begin to make sense of the situation – and your tingling body struggles against the hold. You need your air!
“No, you don’t,” the palm presses tighter against your face, and her other hand holds against your chest as well. You cannot feel a single breath of air leaking through her fingers. You expect to suffocate again… yet, with every passing moment, your body regains more of its strength, and you no longer feel the urge to scramble for air. “You had too much.”
Slowly but surely, the fingers on your nose relent, and you are allowed to breathe once more. You can still see nothing – whether due to a lack of light or the blinding flash that almost killed you, but the air has become stale once more. You can smell the moisture from both of you, and the subdued breathing down your neck also carries her scent to you.
“Stay absolutely quiet. Do not move,” her breathing and whispers snake into your ear. You feel a strange tingle, one that differs from the one plaguing you moments ago. You feel the heart racing – not just your own, but also the one pressing against your back. Without anything else in your world, your rhythm gradually melts into hers. Even though you could count your heartbeats and your breaths, your mind cannot feel the flow of time anymore. It is as if the very air has frozen around you two.
Without your vision, you feel your other senses more acutely, even the ringing in your ears slowly dissipates into nothingness, the silence broken only by a rhythmic breathing – or rather, three breaths synchronizing with each other. With two of them intertwining with each other, the remaining, distant one only became harder to ignore. Your ears try to ignore the bated breath caressing your neck and listen to the low, rumbling noise from afar. It is a modulated breath, once done by machine… and it is becoming louder and louder, almost enough to drown the surging cacophony inside you, held at bay by your gritted teeth and her hand.
The noise continues to grow, to the point that you can hear the faint sound of teeth grinding against each other behind your ear. The hug from behind tightens around you, giving you only enough space for a shallow breath. Your senses are filling up the darkness left by your still-recovering eyes. You feel an indescribable ache crawling beneath your scalp. Your lungs demand more air, but your captor responds with a stronger hold.
Then, it stops getting louder.
The thing with the respirator has stopped – but where?
Right next to you?
You can do nothing but wait for whatever may come.
The Fright
Even without your vision returning, you can still feel the darkness encroaching your senses. Your eyes twitch despite your best effort. You dare not lift a finger, even in places where her strangling hold cannot reach. The chorus of breaths are the only thing showing the air around you has not frozen solid – if anything, your desire to suppress your breath only makes even the very act of breathing difficult. Her racing heartbeat and sluggish breathing shows you are not alone in your struggle against the screaming bottling up inside you.
You know any bit of noise you make might be your last. But even your survival instinct cannot hold yourself together forever.
The modulated breathing from whoever is next to you has overwhelmed your senses, to the point of subsuming your own breathing. For every uneasy breath you take, you feel the frozen hand holding against your chest, and an indescribable blend of scents – from both human and otherwise – dripping into your lung, agitating your heart to let out your dread. Has it already found you? Is it looking at you? Will it kill you? Or torment you as long as it wishes before finally pulling the trigger?
Despite the swelling voices, you manage to hold against the growing impulse, in no small parts because of her strong embrace – and not just because her palm is sealing your lips tighter than the airlock, and her arm keeping you from breathing deeply. The two fingertips that no longer hold your nose jerk lightly, steering any stale sweat away from your still-useless eyes. Perhaps it is to avoid your sweat from stinging your eyes? With the aching pain subsiding, the last thing you need is another source of irritation.
After what feels like an eternity, the respirator finally fades, if only slightly. Whatever it is, it cannot see you or her huddling like a pair of cornered rats and pulls back without making any additional noise – that, or however it plans to end you, it is something that demands some distance. Your eyelids slide over your eyes, painting the darkness with a faint amber glow. Even your gulp sounds thunderous… but at least it is not drowned out by a thunderclap and a green flash. Instead…
“Hold on a little longer,” her whisper snakes into your ear once more. The deafening silence has made your ears more sensitive to even the quietest whimper and the faintest blow of air. The arm laid across your torso loosens a little bit, allowing you slightly more air to clear your mind for her following instructions.
“I’ll take your hat,” not that it is yours to begin with, “gotta try something. Don’t say anything.”
“It’ll be loud. Close your eyes and bite your lips,” the steady hand slowly unseals your lips, but the invisible pressure is more than enough to keep you from using your mouth. You feel your sweat from her touch as your teeth holds onto your lips for whatever that is to come. The beret is already barely clinging onto your hair, so you cannot feel the gentle touch that removes it from your drenched scalp. Following another breath, you slide your hand behind until it lands on something soft and warm. You are too afraid of making any noise, so you would rather take the chance and rely on a seemingly meaningless squeeze to respond to her.
Fortunately, she seems to be understanding in more than one way. Her other hand clutches tight once again, and you feel her body tenses up. Then, your ears pick up an almost inaudible whiz while your body feel a slight tug away from it. You do not need eyesight to understand what is going to happen, and you channel all your strength to your shut eyelids and teeth. It will happen any m-
Click.
Pzzzt-
BOOM!
The fading orange is replaced by a swift green flash – bright, but not painfully so. The thunderclap, however, is even more overwhelming this time. Your teeth digs into your lips, forming a wall against your attempt to convert the pain into scream. You can feel droplets of warm, sweaty fluid seeping into your mouth. A muted gasp escapes your lips, perfectly in sync with a gagged whimper from behind. At the very least, you do not feel the worst sensation from it – the searing pain that would no doubt have already punctured through your body and torn your flesh asunder.
You are not the target.
The other hand returns to your collarbone, no longer holding the hat – you spare a brief moment, a silent prayer to the beret. Her crooked legs clamp against your lower torso, and a concise jolt bathes both of you in a calming breeze away from the blast. With the leak no longer present, you can tell both of you are drifting in the stale air very slowly, not unlike any loose junk you have encountered since the beginning. You still dare not to move a muscle without her permission.
By the time the ringing in your ears has ceased, the mechanical breathing can no longer be heard. Instead, the breathing behind your neck becomes slightly louder and less suppressed. Between the gentle blows against your goosebumped neck, her words emerge from the background noises as your hearing returns to relative normalcy. “Still alive?” as much as you miss her whispers, the mere idea of both of you surviving the dreadful encounter is enough to release your bleeding lips from your restraints, and you answer her question with a chuckle.
“Good,” you think you hear her smile. She moves her hand away from you, and a slight push let the two of you spin slowly in the air. The intention behind that move is soon revealed as you hear a faint thud, a whiff from a closing door landing on its frame. You hope it is not loud enough to be heard by anyone but you two. Then, she pulls her lower limbs away from you. Her hands grab your clothes and pull slightly, turning you for half a circle before you are stopped once more. The breath that has been grazing your neck is now whisking against your face directly. Even if her face is still concealed by blurry darkness, you are sure hers is very close to yours. Even with the abating threat, your blood cannot stop gushing in your veins. Her fingertips dance from your torso to your neck, skipping past your collar – you have almost forgotten it – and sliding across your face. Your breathing becomes shallow and chaotic.
Your back lands on a metallic wall, and her torso lands on your front. The cold touches make you realize your sweat has completely soaked the uniform. The fingertips trace the contours of her face, going their separate ways before flanking your closed eyelids. You feel a surprisingly gentle press around your eye socket, and the pitch black amber recedes into a blurry gray. Your eyes no longer hurt, and can even feel her breath touching its watery shell. She tells you to roll your eyes, and you comply. You are at least comforted by the fact that the shadows in your vision moves in accord to your eyes, and the blurry shapes also gradually becomes better-defined. You are still completely helpless, but at least you can tell apart her head, and the pair of amber eyes staring right into your eyes.
“Good news: your eyes didn’t get burned!” she proclaims. You doubt she is qualified to diagnose you, but at this point you do not really care. Part of you fear that she is not above abandoning a blind person for her own survival or even convenience. “You just need some rest for them to recover.”
“Lucky you. Seeing laser blasts without eye protection usually leaves you blind. Permanently,” you do not remember seeing any stolen goggles after the previous encounter, either on yourself or on her. Moreover, being blinded by reflection is not the biggest concern in your mind. Unable to see anything until now, you ask the presumably seeing rodent-like girl what just happened.
“Can’tcha tell? We were attacked,” her face continues to loom over you. As if she is reading your mind, she answers your next question before you could voice it, “it’s in a vac suit, too. Doesn’t look too bulky or insulated… it’s probably unpressurized.”
“It’s not part of a boarding party, else we would’ve been dead,” she muses, “guess some of the emergency suits on board are still functional.”
“How much can you see now? Can you move on your own?” one of her hands depart from your face, and soon the black blurs are exorcised by a white flash. You wince instinctively, your eyes forbidden from closing by her fingertips. The light soon disappears, worsening your sight for the moment. Even though you do you want her to know how helpless you are, you doubt you can deceive her in any meaningful manner.
“Yeah no, it’ll take a while for your eyes to recover from that. Should’ve kept the goggles on, eh?” you cannot disagree with her. After a brief pause, your eyesight recover enough to see her moving her hands onto her face.
“How’s your eyesight? Before that blast, I mean,” you wait for a moment for the punchline that never comes. As she hears your answer, she holds her hands hold around the amber eye. Then, she blinks… and the amber escape her eye. Your own blink confirms that this is not an illusion caused by your eye injury or panic. It is apparently intentional on her part, though, as the amber rests casually at the tip of her finger. After examining it with the hazel eye, the finger moves towards her arm, and the faint amber glow disappears from your sight. “Hmm… should be close enough. Hope you don’t have dry eyes or silver allergy.”
What does she mean by that?
Her hands once again reach for you – one caressing the contours of your eye socket, and the other once leading the amber circle towards you. As her shadow looms to occupy your sight completely, her warm breath bathes your face once more, her scent causing you to feel tense and bothered. She is getting close to you… perhaps a bit too close. Her fingertip enters your sight once more, and with it brings the orange tint. Your instinct pleads to blink, but her other hand ensures that will not happen. Her legs once again coil around your torso, giving you no escape as you feel your eyeball being touched. Her finger obscures most of the eye, with the lighter edge around the black spot being covered in amber.
“Stop moving! Keep looking at my face!” she commands, and with your startled heart, you barely manage to suppress your instinct and stare right into her remaining amber eye. Her touch does not feel like flesh – it is cold and wet, and it stings a bit. It is also oddly soft, as you feel something smooth sticking to your eyeball. She presses it gently, and with a deep breath she slowly retracts her finger, allowing you to see the world in a newfound tint.
“Alright. Close that eye,” her wish is your command. Even with the uncomfortable feeling, your eyelid can still feel something in the way, but its flat and smooth surface soon allows you to close your eye. You cannot help but feel conscious about it, especially when it turns your world monochrome. However, once you open your eyes once again, even your limited vision can feel something odd is going on. You alternate your blinks a few times to confirm, and sure enough, the world blanketed by amber feels… better-defined. You can still barely tell things apart, but at least the blurs are not as ever-present.
“Looking good? Looking good,” the heterochromic girl marvels her work as her hand moves back to her face. Just like before, she moves her fingers around the amber eye, and with another blink, the hazel beneath the amber is revealed once more. The free hand rests on your face once more, this time forcing your other eye to open, and the orange circle is upon your eye once more. You are not sure if your mind is simply trying to comfort you, but your thought is interrupted as the cold sticky sensation spread across your eye once more. Once you are allowed to blink again, your entire world is completely stained in amber, the clearer silhouette almost offset by the dimmed palette.
She once again asks for your feeling. Even though it will take some time to get used to, and bits of doubt still lingers deep inside your heart, the fact that they were originally in her eyes before moving onto yours comforts you – it shows they are at least not something immediately crippling. “Huh, it actually worked,” you cannot tell if she is using your tortured eyes for experiment, or if she is just teasing you. If only you could see her face and be assured by a teasing grin.
“That should keep your tender eyes from getting grilled again,” she continues, “since it probably won’t be the last time we meet it.”
The rational part of your mind expected it – after all, you can only assume she had merely distracted it, and with the all-encompassing darkness, even this space ship is feeling increasingly small and cramped. But the other part of your mind wishes not to believe it. It has burned the blinding green flash in your eyes, if only non-physically so far, and the deafening thunderclap interrupts your thought. Meanwhile, the closest thing you had here as a weapon is a broken gun that might well explode if you ever use it, and it is not even here anymore! The fact that you have not seen its form does not make you any less comfortable about the idea of the rodent girl trying to fight a deadly laser with a baton.
“Oh, don’t you worry. Thanks to your hat’s sacrifice, I got a nice glimpse at it and the heat it’s packing,” you wonder if she means it figuratively, “I like our odds if we can get the drop on it.”
“It doesn’t have sharp senses, and it can’t see our body heat,” the hazel-eyed girl rubs her chin as she ponders, “I think it’s relying on some kinda motion sensor to find its targets. You can avoid tripping it if you move slow enough… or just stay still.”
“Guess it didn’t have the time to do the hokey pokey,” the what? You feel like you are missing something important. Even if you cannot see them well, you can nonetheless feel her eyes upon your face, no doubt seeing your worried expression.
“That gun relies on quenching, so it’s for vacuum use, but not important enough to run on Morinium,” she elaborates, and even if it is not exactly your concerns, the fact that she bothers to explain it to you implies she deems it important enough for you to know. “Low rate of fire and low power… troubling, but at least you have a decent chance of not being turned into minced meat.”
“Even if you’re mostly blind, we should be able to deal with it if I get the drop on it,” you still feel you are being left in the dark – in more than one way – but her words nonetheless comfort you somewhat. Her hand moves down to her belt, and she pulls out something rectangular from it. You move your hand down as well, and you can feel the rope coiled around your waist losing its tension.
“I just need you as a bait.”
Wait, what?
The Fight
Your heart continues to race, your sweating palms clutching tight against the corner of the wall on one side, and a piece of trash on the other. It is a plastic bottle – you try to find lures that are not reflective, even if you know it makes no difference – and the content has long been emptied, way before you are thrust into this waking nightmare. You can feel your parched throat, to the point that you would not hesitate to empty the bottle regardless of its previous owner. You shake the bottle, and not a drop of liquid could be heard. On one hand, you feel it is your rotten luck teasing you, but on the other hand, it also means it would not make any noise when you throw it into the line of fire.
You try your best to suppress your breath, even if your lungs are still determined to fight against you. Anchoring yourself against the wall, you raised your other hand and concentrate all your strength in the other arm. You bite your lips and throw the empty bottle as hard as you can, and your other hand push you away from it the moment it escapes your grasp. Even though you can barely see your limbs in the amber darkness, you still shut your eyelids as fast and as hard as you can, bracing yourself for the immediate i-
Click.
Pzzzt-
BOOM! You are now way more familiar with this deadly triple meter than you want to. Even with the protection of your eyelids and the amber contact lenses, you can still feel the world lighting up slightly. However, it is nothing compared to the deafening bang erupting before you. Amplified by echoes and mitigated by nothing, the screeching death throe of the lure pierces into your skull and reminds you of the pain it could cause. At the same time, it is also a sign for you to open your eyes, as the threat from the blinding blast has already subsided.
Darkness has already consumed the empty bottle, and your nose soon picks up the smell of burned plastic. This repulsive scent and perhaps some black dust is probably all that remains of the object that was in your hand mere moments ago, and whatever did that is going after your direction now.
All according to plan.
You flail your hands at the closest wall, your fingertips catching onto its grooves and allowing you to propel yourself faster away from… whatever it is. The fading lights from whatever emergency systems that are still barely alive are nowhere bright enough to let you see anything, let alone when your vision is blanketed by a veil of amber, sometimes interrupted by bright flashes from its weapon. You would probably have to be within reaching distance to see the true form of your enemy – which is the last place you want to be at, both because of the deadly laser it is wielding, and… the fact that it is shrouded in darkness invokes a primal fear within you.
Your heart urges you to move quicker and quicker, and your hands pull your drenched body behind another corner. You can smell and taste your sweat as you press your hands against your mouth and nose, trying your hardest to snuff out any noise your wheezing might make. It feels as if something is banging from the inside of your ear drums, almost as loud as the laser blasts.
It did not hear you, right? It definitely heard you.
Even with the pounding thuds, you can still hear the cacophony from it. The sound of vapor leaking out from its weapon as gas quenches its radiators; the sound of respirator forcing air in and out of its body, the sound of some kind of cold booster letting it navigate through the lack of gravity around you. You think you can even hear a faint, quick beeping noise, backed by something sloughing… maybe your mind is playing tricks on you, using all your fears to fill in the void that is your foe.
The respirator grows louder and louder, and so is the cries bottling up inside your lungs. You push your hands against any hard surfaces around, in an attempt to quell the shaking that has overwhelmed most of your body. Your brain cannot help but imagine what would happen if that thing catches you. Perhaps its senses are sharper than you thought; perhaps something on or in you makes a sound it could hear, or perhaps it just bumps into you in the pitch darkness… what can you do? You are unarmed, and you do not know if you can summon the strength to overpower whatever it is. A single hit from its laser is more than enough to tear a hole through your flesh. Even if it does not kill you immediately, the pain and bleeding will definitely knock you out of action. That is assuming it does not have any other weapons that can kill you, like a slab of meat on a chopping board.
The only thing on you that could cause damage is the collar still locked around your neck, and its cold metallic sensation suffocates you. You do not know if the crew still have control over it, but you are absolutely certain someone has – she is the one who sent you out as a bait, after all. Even if she said she will always be nearby, you have yet to run into her despite you running around without any plan. Is she still around? What if the collar starts beeping and attracts its attention? Its explosion would kill you even if your pursuer does not.
What if that is the plan all along? To kill the enemy and get rid of a half-blind burden at the same time?
The shouting beneath your scalp has drowned out the rhythm of the respirator, and your suppressed lungs feel like it needs one as well. You shut your eyes once more to dispel the voices inside your head, plunging your senses back to nothingness. It seems, for better or worse, your pursuer has not found you just yet. The sound of respirator slowly melts away, and your mind manages to wrestle some control of your body away from your surging dread.
The worst thing about not being turned into grilled meat is that you have to do that all over again. With any luck, it will not find you the next time you run for your life either. And then, you can repeat it once again. Rinse and repeat until… what? She did not tell you her plan – said she did not want you to accidentally expose her existence, said she will strike when the moment is right.
She is just using you to distract it, isn’t she?
She never intend you to actually survive as a bait.
You are already dead; your body just hasn’t caught on yet.
You drown out the voices. Not because you have any reasons to convince your paranoia, but because the hope of her saving you is the only thing keeping you away from certain death. Still…
With no time to waste, you pull yourself through another corner. Through the dim orange lights, you could barely make out vague shapes of items floating lifelessly in the air. You can only assume the life support system here died before its artificial gravity did, and there were no leaks that pulled everything out into the void or the breach. More pickings for you.
You crawl under a large piece of junk and start looking for the next bait. Something easy to grab and throw would be ideal. Something quiet too, so that you would only trip the motion sensor and not whatever its hearing relies upon. With any luck, you might even find something useful for yourself, maybe some bars of snacks that the crew never got to enjoy. The dim light, further limited by the amber haze, forces you to sieve through the objects one by one, holding them and pulling them close just to tell what it is. You make a mental note to never make fun of people with poor eyesight ever again.
The cold, somewhat thick metal block turns out to be a handheld digital device, and you cannot help but feel disappointed. Even though you feel yourself starved of the digital world, you know this one would not save you. Your suspicion is confirmed when your finger sinks into the power button, and the only response it has is a faint sparkling noise and the repulsive smell of some kind of chemical. Even though its thickness hints at it being ruggerized, by now you have learned that almost any handheld electronics have been fried by the deadly shot that also killed most of the crew – even if some of them have not realized yet.
For a brief moment, you hope your pursuer would join them sooner rather than later. Your guilty conscience would find that idea objectionable, but at the same time, it has been trying to kill you… even if you are technically an escapee. Then again, so are everyone else on board of this dead ship. You try not to think about who the rescuers would be – perhaps that has yet to be decided if the combat you saw through the screen before is of any indication. If they share the same side as the crew, you might as well bite the laser bullet now to make it quick and hopefully painless; it they share the same side as the attacker… would they care who you are before finishing what they started? Even if you are not wearing a stolen uniform, they might just decide to not leave any witnesses.
Your mind returns to her despite your best effort. She remains tight-lipped about herself or even the situation, and you are never in a position to ask her anything she does not feel like disclosing to you. Yet, even with the constant reminder of her power over you pressing against your neck, you cannot help but feel she is your only hope out of this mass grave alive – assuming you are not just an organic tool she finds useful. How does she think of you, anyway? Does it even matter?
Your train of thought is broken by a slight touch against your shoulder, one so sudden that you almost let out a scream. You manage to bite your lips at the last second, keeping your scared cry from escaping into the light breeze. This is not the first time you bump into random objects floating around… but those are usually not that soft. Or shape vaguely limb-like. Or warm.
Is that it?
Whoever that hand is from is not talking. You do not feel any force from it either. With no other option, you hold your breath and slowly turn your face towards its source.
The reason is immediately made clear, way more so than you have hoped for. It is – or was - a person. Someone wearing the same kind of uniform as you are, just with a different color. Even though everything you see is in some shades of orange, you can still tell that uniform has a much darker shade. Regardless of your best attempt to calm your nerves and avoid thinking about it, the face-like structure looming right before your face cannot be ignored. You cannot interpret what that exactly is, but it is something sticky that now covers almost the entirety of the face. You really hope he – or she, you can no longer tell for sure – was drinking a chunky smoothie when the killing blow was struck. It has a repugnant smell too, way too sour and putrid… how long have you been here? Has it been that long?
You drag your eyes away from it, but your attention still lingers long enough to see no visible holes. The body has not been shot – yet. That means its death is not caused by a wound outside. Your body reminds you of the guard, the one where you got the uniform… and the sticky mess it left on it clings onto your body. You fight against your instinct to throw up. That will definitely attract attention, and without gravity, you know anything that comes out of you will stick to the closest surface, such as your mouth and nose. The body might have something valuable on it, but you absolutely do not want to touch it. In fact, you want it to go as far away from you as possible. Before your mind could stop them, your legs kick it away.
Then, it responds.
Audibly.
Your mind refuses to register it.
In fact, it tries to drown it out with your own scream.
The only thing in your frantic mind is to get it away from you. Your legs frail against its direction – your eyes try its best to not look towards it.
It is no longer within your reach. You think – or rather – you hope it is moving to where you were, instead of where you are now…
… where your pursuer was at.
You barely have enough time to shut your eyes before another blinding flash and deafening thunderclap washes away your dread with a different kind of fear.
Your tortured ears are getting used to the loud noise. As the echoes melt away into the darkening world, you could hear the faint noise of something sizzling. However, it is soon drowned out by the sound of respirator, obscuring a cacophony of strange noises that you do not have the luxury to decipher. Your breath syncs up to the respirator, breathing as slowly and as slightly as it mandates. With your body frozen in fear, you can only slowly open your eyelids and see your impending fate.
The body is no longer in front of you… or rather, that body is not. In its stead, another humanoid shape is floating at the corner not too far from you. The amber veil spares you the details, but you can still tell it is somewhat stout, and the crooked and angled silhouette resembles that of a space suit. You do not think it is looking at you, instead its attention seems to be locked onto the body before it. You do not remember it being there before, narrowing it down to the one you just kicked, into its line of fire.
It has become your latest bait.
But you are floating in the middle of the corridor instead of behind some corners, crawling away towards another bait.
She is nowhere to be seen.
You stay still.
Absolutely still.
You do not know if its motion sensor is directional. Any movement from your body might catch its attention. It might turn you into that body. Despite the distance, you feel you can smell it – its putrid smell must have become more intense, and now mixed with that of overcooked meat.
You try your best to swallow whatever is stuck in your throat. The hunger and thirst that has plagued you has been expunged.
Yet, it still turns towards your direction. You do not remember making any noise or movement through the overwhelming fear.
Any moment, another bolt of light might go through you and end everything. Everything inside your mind rushes and stirs within your skull.
You have no choice but to gamble with your existence. You recall the only name you know here, and squeeze it out through your throat and lips. You sound pathetic.
It definitely hears your noise. It pauses for what feels like an eternity. Then, with a whimpering noise, the stout body drifts towards you, leaving behind a pair of shadows. Its arm raises at your direction.
You clear your throat and repeat that once more. The pursuer is almost within your reach. You might be able to hold onto it. But you do not know what to do.
It does not matter, though, for the decision has already been made for you.
“Stay back!”
Another shadow emerges from its back. First, it is something rectangular. Then, it draws a long handle from its knots. The small arm barely reveals itself before the impromptu weapon falls down, right onto the side of the hemisphere that forms the head of the pursuer, now turned prey.
The brief noise of metal pins bent by the powerful strike is almost immediately drowned out by a crackling electric discharge and a muffled shriek through something glass-like. The force pushes the suited silhouette down, and the tailed silhouette up, until both of them land on the opposite side of the corridor walls.
A myriad of emotions force your eyes to stay wide open, witnessing the scene as electric sparks dance bright like stars, piercing through the darkness and unveiling the struggling space suit. Panels and medical instruments clumsily strapped onto it lights up randomly as their death throes before being silenced forever. With a grunted noise and a twist of the makeshift ax against the space suit, sparks leak into the bubble-like face shield. This brief light is enough for you to see what is inside the suit.
And enough for you to expel it from your mind.
Perhaps fortunately for everyone, your mind does not have to reject it for long. The light inside the glass bubble brightens quickly, consuming everything within with a loud, inhuman noise until the creaking noise is replaced by a loud snap of something cracking under pressure. It is nowhere as loud as laser blasts, but it still compels you to block your eyes and close your eyes, the bright flash leaving a searing mark in the orange-tinted darkness.
You do not want to deal with it anymore. Your eyelids clamp tight against your eyeballs, yet the contact lenses intruding your senses keep you anchored to this waking nightmare. You cling onto the fainting hope that once you expunge everything from your senses, you can finally open your eyes once more and find yourself in the comfort of your own quarters.
You eventually open your eyes.
You are still trapped here.
For the third time a body floats before your eyes. This time, the petite body has a rodent-like tail. You can hear her panting, and every now and then, amber stars speck on the charred battery pack bound to the tip of the baton. You could see something dim drifting lifelessly behind her, but your brain decides against acknowledging it. With the respirator no longer echoing across the corridor, she adjusts her breath and opens her mouth.
“Are you hurt?”
It is enough for your tense muscles to let go.
For the first time, you feel relaxed.
You feel safe.
The Interlude
After being in the dark for so long, even the mundane lights of corridors and rooms feel blinding. As you slowly ply your eyelids open, you can see through the amber lenses that this room is lined with rows of lockers flanking a series of benches in the middle. Bolted to the ground and the walls, they are expected to stay still even without artificial gravity. A shame the same could not be said of its contents, many of which are not secured behind locks and are now floating in the stale air near where the air vents are. Maybe their original owners were in the middle of changing when the attack began? Fortunately, you do not see any bodies or even blood in the vicinity.
The rodent-like girl has already glanced across the room, and her tail latches onto the bench to anchor her body before one of the open lockers. While you have to grab the floating items one by one to examine them individually, her nimble hands are effectively emptying and relocking the entire cabinet, making the air space slightly less hazardous. You feel clumsy and slow by comparison, with or without the monochrome vision. At least with the mostly stable lighting, you can sometimes catch stray objects from of the corner of your eye and reach for them before they escape your grasp or land on your head.
“Hey, catch,” at least she gives you a warning this time. You catch what appears to be a half-opened energy bar, and takes a big bite of it the moment you make sure nothing strange is on it. After… however long it has been, even the plain sweet and bitter taste of synthetic food feels like a delicacy to you. Another catch – this time without a warning – gives you a half-empty bottle of water to drown the flat taste lingering in your mouth. As you have your fill, the rodent-like girl continues to rummage through the few lockers that are not locked. It is hard to tell what does she find, but you can see her reaching for her belt, opening and closing the various pouches attached to it. You can hear the faint shuffling of something sliding from one corner of her belt.
For a while, the room is filled with nothing apart from the faint noise of her digging in people’s belongings and pocketing whatever she deems useful. You think you could even see her eating something quickly. You wonder if you could help, but your limited vision hinders your speed, not to mention the lingering dizziness from the earlier encounter. You find your memory blurry in spite of its recent nature – either you are in even worse state than you feel, or your brain has decided to spare you of things you would rather not witness. Still, without other noises drowning out your thoughts, your mind could not help but fill the void with whisper, one that sows doubt in everything, from her nature to your eventual fate, and even the doubts themselves.
How much trust should you put in her?
As much as you need to survive.
She has shown she is willing to kill people.
To save you.
Were you actually in danger? It didn’t seem hostile.
It was mercy killing. You’ve seen what’s inside that suit.
What stops her from “mercy killing” you?
You just have to stay useful to her.
Remember to bend down too when she orders you to “be useful”.
Would you refuse? Not that you have a choice.
“Hey,” her sudden call purges the voices echoing inside your head, and you look up to see her staring right into your eyes. The doubts seeded by the voices still plague your primal self, and you feel your body frozen under her sharp gaze. She, on the other hand, just looks confused. “Are you alright? You’re making alotta faces.”
You do not know what to tell her. You do not want her to know how vulnerable you feel towards her, but you doubt you can deceive her either. Is it really a good idea to make her doubt you as well? After stuttering before her increasingly suspicious eyes, you decide to burp out the first question that comes to mind.
“My name?” the sudden question catches her off-guard. Then, she begins laughing. What is so funny about wanting to know more about her? Does she not want you to trust her?
“Ope, Sorry about that. It’s kinda silly when you think about it,” her tail opens another locker behind her, and her body slowly turns in the air as she floats towards it. She does not react to the symbol on the locker – maybe she does not know its meaning, or she does not care. “I guess it’s harder to show your thoughts in your language.”
“But I’ll entertain you regardless! You may call me Narim,” even though you do not know anything about whatever her native tongue is, somehow her smug face and tone makes you think this is not her real name, but something she wants you to say to entertain her instead. Still, it is not like you have a better alternative. You repeat her “name” and sure enough, she cannot stop her chuckling as she digs through its content. Undeterred, you tell her your actual name even if she did not ask for it – maybe attaching a name to you inside her mind would make her more trusting.
“No, yeah, you people are really attached to your names, eh?” as expected, she does not seem to care. Figures. At least she is no longer focused on giggling at her “name” now that she finds something in the locker. It appears that its last user was in a hurry, hastily shoving a uniform into the locker without properly hanging or securing it inside. Even with her five limbs, you have to step in and catch the small escaping cape for her. The amber tint makes it hard to discern the details, but the odd sensation and the subtle smell shows that it was soiled… perhaps its previous owner was exposed to radiation like the rest of the crew you have seen so far.
“We just name kids after whatever the mother saw, heard, or smelled when they gave birth,” she glances over the slightly crumbled uniform in her hands. It seems to be quite small for a human, but it is about the right size as her. It helps that the uniform does not come with pants – only long socks – that would get in the way of her long tail. She rejects the polluted pelerine with just a sniff, and then begins changing into that despite your presence. Even though you know she has sharp senses, your words fall to her deaf ears as well. Ultimately, you decide to turn your gaze aside before she could show anything compromising. You could still feel a gaze from her direction, though, almost as if she is checking if you are peeking… then she should not be undressing in the open in the first place!
Eventually, she let you know she is ready, and you can finally turn your sight back to her. The petite uniform is a surprising fit for the most part, even the beret seems to stay on her head better, if at an angle to accommodate her twitching rodent ears. Her belt is still the broken one from before, though. The fact that this uniform is made for a human body also means the stockings are a poor fit to her crooked legs, and the elastic bands are straining against her thick thighs. You think she could use some garter belts to keep them from slipping… before you force yourself to stop thinking about something like that. You are not sure if she could feel your stare, but she let out a small giggle nonetheless.
After shoving her violet-stained prisoner clothes into the locker, her tail pushes her towards the door at the other end of the room. She pulls out the stolen card and unlock the powered door with a single tap. “Welcome back, Correctional Offic-” the automated response is drown out by a grinding sound as the door struggles to slide open. A gush of wind invites you to the other side of the doorway, although it is nowhere as strong as the dreadful one back in the dark corridor. The wind soon disappear, and you are slow enough to brace yourself against the railing at the other side of the walkway.
The space you are launched into is a large one, perhaps the largest on the ship, interrupted only by several criss-crossing walkways connecting the doors to the ground. This place has seen better days, even if artificial gravity rarely extends to this place to begin with. Pellets no longer secured by straps or electromagnets float lifelessly in the air alongside loose crates, and scattered tools and gears litter the place without their caretakers or owners around. The worst part, though, is that despite everything, this hanger space is effectively empty – you see neither shuttles nor fighters, and even the alcoves where pressurized suits should be at have already been emptied.
You hold on the handrail and peek further out, hoping that you can find something better than an oxygen canister… and it seems the only vehicle that has not been taken is a humble space pod. If you remember correctly – and if the systems have not been fried by the attack – it should have cold propulsion and a modest life support system for one. Not enough to get you to safety, but enough to get you to other parts of the ship from the outside.
This will have to do.
You turn to her and tell her about your discovery and suggestion. She raises her eyebrows and her tail coils around the handrail. This allows her to dangle away from the walkway and get a glimpse of the space pod. While you think she is also happy to see that they are not completely stranded, she appears to be pondering about something at the same time. With a gesture, you nod and follow her as she pushes herself towards the pod, catching one of its arms and landing gently on the metallic surface of the hanger.
“I’ll see if this thing’s still working. You try to find…” she peeks into the pod through the transparent window to see the singular seat inside, “… an airtight crate?”
You are not sure what to make of the implication. Part of you wonder if you should find a crate that is big enough for her, but not big enough for you, but then you fear she would just see how flexible you are. With her urging, you push those thought aside and propel yourself towards the loading area, where a number of crates are floating near their station. It helps that most of them are too small for either of you, and most of the remaining ones appear locked. Gradually accustomed to the amber world, you sieve through the crates until you stumble upon a large one that is not locked. Even though you can smell the burn from the dead display screen, the physical lock should still be enough to keep everything inside the box from leaking out.
You hold onto the dial at the front of the box and turns it. You can hear the metallic hook inside sliding away, and the lid slowly relents from its frame. Soon, the edge of the hook disengages from the lock mechanism, and the freed lid slowly drifts open from the flexible seal around the edge as a bit of the air rush out – seems the life support system here is no longer replenishing lost air. You do no have the luxury to loiter around for too long. With that, you peek into the container, both to see its actual size and to clear out whatever is inside the…
Huh.
The dim light makes it difficult to see, but you can tell the crate is filled with rows of some kind of filled jars. You think they are reddish in color – either from the transparent bubble itself or the liquid filling up the inside. You can tell something solid is floating inside, and is wired to the base of the container, but you are unable to get a closer look at them. Despite that, a creeping sensation bubbling from deep inside you urges you not to look too deep into it – the frame where these things are mounted is built into the box, and you doubt you can clear out enough of them for it to hide a full body anyway.
“Hey, I get the egg working!” her sudden call invades your thought, “you done there? Found anything?”
You close the lid of the container and lock it once more. After answering negatively to her, you use the crate to propel yourself back to her, sending it further away from your mind.
The Flight
The seat you are pushed into is reasonably comfortable, all things considered. It is cushioned enough to absorb minute shock even if the texture could be smoother, and you have some degree of wiggle room thanks to the fact that the seat is designed with a space suit in mind. Once you are seated, she draws near and helps buckle you up. The harness is more than enough to keep your body from flying around once the vehicle starts moving, but the rough and well-worn texture of the straps irritates you through the uniform covering your body. “Want it tighter?” she asks as her spare hand taps against one of the keyboards on the side, and several of the display screens littering the cockpit light up. The grin on her face when you say no, and the fact that she tightens the belts anyway reaffirms your guess regarding her name. Still, you dismiss the stray thoughts and try to focus on the task at hand.
The control system of a space pod is somewhat different from what you are used to, but is still similar enough to give you a modicum of confidence. You quickly rest your dominant hand on the rotation-translation control – the flight stick – is positioned on top of a box protruding between your legs, and you start feeling thankful towards the harness that will keep you from plunging forward whenever the vehicle moves backward. The thrust control is… nowhere to be seen.
Damn it.
Your eyes dart around, and soon you find what passes as movement control for this humble worker pod. At the tip of the control stick sits a small thumbstick, with a ring built in for your thumb to turn – and especially pull – it with ease. The limited range of the stick means it probably does not give you very fine control over the movement of the pod… or its thrusters are too weak to justify finer control system. At the very least, the symmetrical nature of the control system does not look too bad, and the thumb ring means this space pod can move, however slowly, in three-dimensional space without needing to turn beforehand.
“System boot-up sequence complete. Now-” your other hand moves instinctively towards the keyboard by your side and taps on the well-worn key designated for automatic control. As the hardened plastic clicks against your fingertip, you can hear the faint, yet high-pitched whirring sound of flywheel coming from behind your head. Immediately, the space pod begins tipping forward, its light design making it surprisingly agile. As expected, the view from behind her floating body spins upward, aligning your floor with that of the hanger… and then beyond it without any sign of slowing down.
It is at this moment that you know you screwed up.
Your finger, still clinging on the keyboard, slams the button immediately, and the flywheel grinds to a screeching halt. Your hand clutches the control rod tightly and pulls back as far as it will go, commanding the flywheel to spin in the opposite direction. Still, the lingering momentum is more than enough to turn the floor before your eyes, just before the rodent-like girl’s body obscures your entire vision. With a heavy slam, her body crashes into you, sandwiching you between the rough seat and her soft torso. The warm touch and scent occupy your senses briefly, before the reaction force from the impact and the realigning pod sends her body flying back. Even with her tail, she still lands on the front canopy with a loud thud, followed by a slightly less loud cry. That must have hurt.
Without automatic control, it takes a few more jerks back and forth against the stick to stabilize the pod. By the time your world finally stops spinning, you look up and see a displeased Narim staring at you, her arms crossed and, judging by her pouting face, so is her. With your body strapped in place, you can only turn your gaze away from her glare and apologize. If nothing else, calling her by her “name” makes the corner of her tight lips twist slightly upward. You can already feel the embarrassment when she inevitably tells you what that word actually means.
“Step one: go through the checklist before touching anything else,” she gives your stomach a light kick, spreading the sticky feeling of the uniform across your abdomen. Her tail has anchored her to one of the mechanical arms enveloping the cockpit, and she soon moves towards you once again. This time, she pauses herself right before you, her lower body blocking you off from the keyboard. Retreating from her, your hand swings back and attempts to hold onto the glove-like control system by your side, but another glare from her freezes your movement completely.
“Back on my ship you’d get astrodomed for that,” she pitches your cheek and tugs your face. You instinctively apologize once again, your brain barely processing anything she is saying. You ask if she would like to be the one on the pilot seat instead, but she shakes her head. Her finger points you towards her rear, and the thick tail protruding from beneath the skirted uniform. You do not need her words to realize that her kind – whatever that is – would need a specialized seat to accommodate for their physique, something that this ship definitely does not have.
“Anyway… seems the control system’s toasted on this pod,” her hand turns one of the monitors towards her, the hazel eyes scanning the lines of letters and numbers, “maybe that’s why it was left behind.”
“Yeah no, unless you know how to recalibrate the control system, we’re stuck with manual,” she concludes, and you curse beneath your breath. Her rodent-like ears twitch in response, and you soon feel her hands resting on your shoulders. For a brief moment, your body braces for whatever punishment it might receive, but the only other thing you feel is her tail coiling around the control stick between your legs, its thin tip resting on your thumb at its tip. “At least the other systems still look functional enough.”
“Manual’s good enough for us. It’s not like we’re docking a shuttle or anything,” we are not? Regardless, with her body locked right before you, you can feel her tail tightening slightly against your hand, and its tip begins to tug your thumb against the thumbstick. You can hear a faint whiff of gas leaking, and the space pod starts lifting itself off from the floor. Like you expected, the cold gas propulsion does not give any significant acceleration, and the limited propellant tank also means its speed will stay painfully slow. Still, it is better than getting slammed around every time you adjust its speed and direction.
With her guidance, the rest of the journey towards the airlock is rather uneventful. Both the front and top canopies are closed shut, ensuring that none of the precious air is going to leak out once the egg is thrown into the void. She also spends some time completing what appears to be a checklist in her mind, turning on and monitoring subsystems of the space pod one by one. Unlike most things you have encountered so far, this vehicle appears to be mostly functional apart from its automatic controller. Soon enough, the pod moves into one of the large alcove-like maintenance airlocks, and the tip of her tail glides across the tip of the stick, stopping the vehicle in place. The door behind you seals the light from the hanger away, and the world is basked in… probably red – you still cannot tell. A blare signals that the air is beginning to drain from this tiny space, a process that can take a while as the life support system recovers as much of the finite air as possible. As the noise of leaking air blends into the background, the silence gradually becomes louder as well.
“So… you’re a pilot or something?” you try to break the silence, even though you are not really expecting a straight answer from her. After all, she has been rather tight-lipped about herself ever since you two met. But still, she seems knowledgeable and experienced when it comes to piloting, which narrows things down considerably even if she is also proficient with other skills.
“No, not really,” she shakes her head in response. You are surprised both because she is giving a straightforward answer about herself, and that she is not a pilot by occupation despite her knowing more about piloting than simply activating autopilot. Maybe she is some kind of mechanic? Do engineers know how to fight nowadays?
“Our pilots don’t really pilot vehicles that way. Still useful to learn,” another blare interrupts the question you have in mind. The measurements displayed on the screen by her side show that the egg is effectively floating in a vacuum, and the fact that you are not breathing it means the pod should keep both of you alive on the other side of the hull.
“Airlock opening. Stay safe,” the synthetic voice of the automated system says, and the door before you parts way, revealing the void surrounding the ship. Your dimmed vision obscures most of the stars, turning the outside world into pitch darkness.
“Thanks,” she responds to the automated system by typing something on the keyboard, and the monitor soon informs you that the transponder – both automatic and manual – has been disabled. At the same time, the tip of her tail tugs your thumb again, signaling you to move forward into the void. You do not doubt what she is doing, but you nonetheless ask her about it.
“This egg’s defenseless enough as is. We don’t need to give them something easy to lock on,” she explains while her fingers continue to dance on the keyboard. Defenseless against who?
“We’re not alone here. Remember that laser gun? The one that almost blinded you?” her fingers briefly leap away from the keyboard to pinch your nose. It makes you sound funny.
“It’s a pilot’s sidearm. Its internal battery’s charged by plugging it somewhere in a pilot’s cockpit,” her words make you look around the claustrophobic cockpit – as much as her pinching hand allows. Even with the only source of light being the multiple monitors around you, you can still see enough to tell that no such socket exist here.
“No, it’s not from this egg,” she tugs your nose. She seems to find your altered voice funny.
“Even they’re not going to give any random maintenance worker a deadly firearm. It’s probably from a fighter or a shuttle,” but you do not remember seeing either -
“Exactly. Wherever it got the gun from left the hanger afterwards. That means someone else’s piloting it,” her tail pulls your hand gently, turning the space pod aside. The view outside does not seem to change significantly. Now that the light from the abandoned hanger has disappeared behind the airlock completely, the void has seemingly consumed everything beyond this tiny world for two.
“We’ll just pretend to be a warm piece of debris drifting alongside the ship in case anyone’s looking. Given the ship’s state, we should be able to sneak all the way to the front and get in through an airlock. Then… hey, are you feeling alright? You’re awfully quiet… I’m almost starting to miss your squirming,”she interrupts her explanation with a dry chuckle, bringing your wandering mind back to the conversation. You tell her that this place is too cramped for you to talk back.
“Heh, stop whining. It’s downright comfy compared to astrodomes,” an astro-what? You vaguely remember her mentioning something similar.
“You know, the bubble window room usually attached to astrogation. It’s there so that even if all the instruments have failed, you can still work out where the ship’s at with… with… what’s that thing called in your language?” she stumbles with her words a few times, before supplementing them with her free hand. She lifts a finger and starts drawing a triangle before your face repeatedly. You have no idea what she is talking about.
“It, um, it’s a tool that lets you measure stars. With a map and enough points, you can work out your exact location,” your eyes widen. As primitive as it sounds, the fact that it is apparently part of whatever ship she is from still amazes you. You ask if it actually works… only to be answered by a giggle.
“Yeah no, it works, but if the ship’s too busted to locate itself, it’s too busted to do anything with it anyway,” you cannot help but feel a bit disappointed, but it still sounds quite interesting. You have an urge to learn how that works if you manage to survive this escape. You wonder if she can teach you.
“The astrodome’s mostly there to isolate troublesome people. You know, you make a mess, you get assigned to astrodome duty,” even without knowing anything about her kind, you can nonetheless tell that she was, maybe still is, a regular for such a treatment. “It’s like scrubbing decks and hull, except you can’t turn off your brain. You have to take measurements that the computers have already taken much more accurately.”
“Meanwhile this egg gets a cushy seat and its own life support. You can probably even bring your own entertainment while the computer handles the actual work,” you point out that at the very least, people do not have to share an astrodome with someone else.
“Oh, you sweet unweaned child…” an indecipherable grim emerges on her face. She refuses to elaborate on whatever she means by that. With the conversation sinking into the silence, her hand holds onto you tight and she pulls herself closer towards you. You feel her nimble tail winding around the control rod, rubbing its tip subtly as you feel her breath upon your face. You can feel the faint thrust pushing the pod sideways, and her body soon follows suit as much as the tiny cockpit allows. Before your eyes, a blanket of faint red light emerges from the darkness beyond, its glow depositing into the vague contours of this small compartment.
This is not the first time you have seen a liquid droplet radiator – glowing-hot liquid raining down from one side to the other, dispersing the heat into the void in the process. Yet, you remember the droplets being much dimmer… and much less impressive. Here, instead, you can see the red rain clearly through the amber tint, its shape bent by magnetism back to the collector like a brilliant shower. You cannot help but wonder if the damage you saw inside the ship has anything to do with the difference, or if the perilous journey has made you more aware of seemingly mundane things.
Maybe having a companion witnessing it with you at such a close distance matters as well.
The space pod continues to drift, a safe distance away from the searing hot droplets sapping away the remaining heat from the corpse of a ship. Despite the additional lighting from the angled radiators, you cannot see the damage done to the space ship – in fact, its silvery shell looks almost pristine apart from a few small holes on the side. Without the hindrance of air, any smoke leaking from these wounds is long gone, leaving behind only dark sunbursts marking the location of small explosions… ones that probably originated from within the ship, if the blossomed metallic thorns around the holes are of any indication. Just like what she said, the weapon killing this ship is one that leaves most of the structure intact. It is only due to your own experience that you can tell the inside of the ship has been turned into a graveyard.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she suddenly comments as her face is illuminated by the red rain and blue screenlight. Your thoughts have distracted you enough that you are no longer sure what she is referring to, forcing you to nod in agreement. Without the need for another thrust for now, the cockpit falls still once more. The quiet humming of the machines around you has faded into the stale air, leaving only her presence in your senses. Perhaps because this space pod is designed to keep only a single person alive, the thin layer of air between you and her is barely moving, trapping her comforting warmth and scent inside the seat. Without the cold touch, the feeling of your skin becomes less and less distinct, and you start to feel a bit drowsy. You wonder if you are straining the life support system too much. You cannot see the monitor due to her body being in the way, but at least she is also looking at it. Surely she would tell you if something dangerous is going to happen.
In a strange way, this is the safest you have felt since you got thrown in the brig. Your mind barely cares to register the dangers you are still in. For this brief moment, that death trap of a ship does not matter. Here, your world consist of just this tiny, cramped cockpit. Just you and her, watching over you.
This sense of comfort lures you to rest. You feel your eyelids getting heavier, and the shade before you blurrier. Soon, the amber world melts into darkness, and you let your mind dissolve in her presence.
The Descent
You do not remember how long you have been in your shallow slumber. The thickening air dulls the flow of time, its warming touch persuading you to melt in your seat. However, as much as you wish otherwise, the creeping sense of dread continues to linger at the bottom of your heart, and the accumulating odor inside the cramped cockpit eventually causes your heart to spread the discomfort across your body, tearing your body and mind away from the blissful rest. At least, the dizziness and pain from the previous encounter has mostly subsided.
After smell, the next sense to return is your touch. Your body is still strapped to the cushioned pilot seat, now moistened thanks to the not-so-cold sweat you have soaked the stolen uniform in. Even though you could not discern your own scent, you cannot help but feel that you are contributing to the worsening air quality inside the space pod. Your hand is also no longer holding onto the control stick, probably letting go soon after you had fallen asleep. As your hearing begins to return, you can hear a faint noise of something shuffling, like cloths rubbing against each other. Every now and then, you can feel a brief touch against random parts of your body. You can only deduce that she is still around, and unlike you, she is already awake and is doing something.
Even though you probably should wake up fully and help with whatever she is doing, another part of you conspire with your body to keep up the facade. Perhaps you could learn more about her and her plan if she thinks you are still asleep. Even if it does not work, at the very least your body can take just a bit more of rest after everything that has happened. With that, you try your best to adjust your breathing and relax your limbs, suppressing any signs of your consciousness.
“Cheki… p’il hylkilkal…”
You realize that your plan would only work if you know what she is saying, which only happens when she is talking to you. Still, your curiosity convinces you not to wake up. Even though you know nothing about her strange language, you wonder if you can feel if she acts differently when you are not around, so to speak. After more noises of soft things grinding against each other, you hear the sound of clothes and belt being tightened, followed by her fingers typing on the keyboard. She seems to be quite proficient in her task, as her fingertips rain upon the keys like a heavy shower. The on-board computer rings in response to her input, turning her rhythm into a chorus.
“Uh? Neng… klok’han nomag~” she sounds pleased at the result, and her fingers fall into silence, leaving the computer to whisper its ongoing work. “Kiskumyl chwoyo.”
Whatever she made the computer do is beyond its league, as the hardware behind the chair continues to hum for a bit before it finally quiets down. Upon hearing what is probably the sound of completion, you can hear her fingers tapping on the hardened keyboard once more. What follows is another sequence of notification sounds, some of which you can recognize from your brief experience with this space pod. It seems she has turned on the transponder at some point, as you can pick up the sound of it being turned off again. You can also hear the faint wheeze of cold gas escaping from the thrusters, gently adjusting the position of the pod while the computer attempts to lock onto… something. A high-pitched beep signals that it eventually succeeds in spite of the faulty autopilot. Or has she also fixed that?
Once the pod has stabilized, she moves away from the keyboard once more. Even though you hear nothing from her, the subtle flow of air before you hints at her approaching you. Did she find out? You try your best to maintain your breath, so as to not raise any suspicion when she is no doubt observing you. Then, you can feel a slight touch against your uniform. The hairless, somewhat hard tail slides across your torso, until it stops right beneath your belt. With a bit of shuffle, the tip of the tail slips into your pocket briefly and then pulls away once again.
Before you could process what just happened, her cold hand pitches your nose, forcing you to open both your mouth and eyes. The first thing you see is, of course, her face looming over you, complete with a smug grin as she turns your head left and right. The warming air must have affected her too, as you can feel her sweat dripping onto your nose and face. It feels a bit sticky. Behind her, a static view of the silvery hull confirms that she has locked the vehicle in place right before the familiar contour of an airlock. Given its size, you can tell this is made for the space pod.
“Good morning~ had a nice sleep, your highness?” she asks without letting your nose go. She seems to enjoy hearing your distorted voice as you ask her how long you have been asleep.
“Dunno, didn’t keep track,” she shrugs and her tail angles back and forth. You doubt she would forget to do something like that, but you also know better than to argue with her. Still, it probably has not been long enough to be concerning, as you do not feel hungry or thirsty just yet.
“So, ready to earn your share of oxygen?” her other hand moves towards your mouth and makes a clamping gesture. She is merciful enough to not actually seal your lips, though, and you answers in the only way you are allowed to. Your obedience pleases her, and your nose is released as she pulls herself to the side, giving you as much view as the tiny cockpit allows.
“I found a manual airlock. It should let us get inside,” her hand gestures to the door right outside the canopy, while her tail moves to coil on the control stick once again, this time without your hand getting in the way. Still, even with her basically squeezing herself into the seat, you still need to force yourself towards the other side of the pilot seat to have a decent view at the airlock outside. The display projected on the canopy window highlights the handles embedded into the door – one is for the air valves, and the other one is for the actual hatch.
“I’ll hold your position. That should make the manipulators easier to handle,” she tries to adjust her position to let you reach the glove-like controller behind her. With her tail locked around the rod before you, you manage to slide both of your hands into the gloves to the side. Once all your fingers have fitted into the heavy gloves, you turn your hands slowly and clutch your fists. On the other side of the window, the two mechanical arms turn accordingly, their clamps snapping shut as expected.
The limited reach of the arm is still enough for you to hold onto the handles, stopping the minute movement of the pod due to your action – it seems the autopilot is still disabled. You twist your arm slowly, feeling the resistance from the mechanical gauntlet keeping it aligned with the manipulator as it opens the air valves. Even without hearing the air escaping, you can still feel the air from the other side pushing slightly against the space pod, its moisture condensing in the unforgiving vacuum outside.
It takes a while until the slowing air flow shows the other side is approaching vacuum, and the pressure against the airlock falls enough for the other handle to turn. With another twist, the rumbling of cogs and dogs seeps through the clamp and into the cockpit, until the handle reaches the other end. Her tail tightens around the control rod and rubs its tip, persuading the pod to push and turn the airlock door open inside.
The dark void outside is gradually consumed by the darkened hull, replacing it with an equally dark interior. Your eyes glance over the myriad of switches and keyboards for additional lighting, but you ultimately decides against that – you have a feeling anyone still alive her will not welcome your uninvited intrusion. At least, a close encounter with the frame of the door is enough to trigger a high-pitched beep, informing you that the proximity sensor is active.
Once your extended arm shuts and seals the airlock door once again, she guides the pod deeper into the bowel of the ship. Faint lights from the monitors leak through the canopy, illuminating almost nothing outside your small world. The display on the canopy window occasionally locks onto something beyond the veil, but it is rarely able to identify said things, serving little more than fueling your paranoia.
Whether it is because of your limited vision, or if the life support system of the space pod is on its last legs, you can feel the air getting heavier and heavier. Even though her scent is still pleasant, you cannot help but notice it getting more and more overwhelming, and focusing your mind on the task is becoming harder and harder as a result. You hope once you get to the other side of this long shaft, you can stumble into somewhere pressurized with breathable air so that you can push open the canopy and take a deep breath.
Another lock on another unknown object causes you to almost choke on your breath. It is fortunate that she is the one controlling the movement of the pod, or your jerking reaction might well bump it into the wall. Her hazel eyes dart between you and whatever on the other side, and she starts giggling for some reason.
“Hold up the arms and get ready to catch it,” the tip of her tail push the thumbstick forward, and your fingers spread the gloves open. The clamps have just enough time to part way before the object in the darkness emerges before the window. Fortunately, it is neither hostile or something macabre – at least you think so. Instead, it appears to be a collection of scraps, pipes, and jugs, haphazardly screwed into each other like a piece of abstract art. Even if some of the seals look rather sturdy, you still clutches your hands slowly and carefully, lest the powered arms crush whatever this is.
“I see someone here has been a naughty boy~” she remarks, but you do not see anyone else around.
“Oh, you don’t know what that is? You’re missing out some fun!” she continues to move the pod steadily down the long shaft, but it is apparent that her interest is on the strange device at hand.
“It’s a vacuum still. Someone’s probably using the airlock to make strong booze,” you remember hearing someone making cheap alcohol with ration, but this is the first time you see their tools.
“Lemme see… that’s the condenser… I think we might get some nice rocket juice if we’re lucky!” she proclaims with glee as she points at one of the containers. Of course, after all the things you have seen her done, this specialty of hers is probably the least surprising.
“We’ll grab the booze later,” you nod to her instruction. You feel that you deserve a nice cup of drink after everything is over. For now, you continue to hold onto the drifting still while she guides the pod further into darkness.
It does not take long for you to reach the other end of the shaft, where another airlock door stands. Just like before, the screen recognizes the two handles and display them as such on the canopy. Temporarily letting go of the loot, you steer the arms around the floating still to clamp on the door and release the air valves. The fact that it has enough air to push the still towards the canopy shows that the other side still has a decent amount of air… although it also means it will take a while for the airlock to be pressurized once again. With both your arms occupied, you resort to asking her if she can wipe the accumulating sweat off your face before it could suffocate you. Surprisingly, she responds by simply wiping the sweat off your face with her sleeves instead of teasing or messing with you.
“Just hold on for a bit. We can let some fresh air in once we make sure we get some fresh air outside,” that might be because she is also sweating, perhaps even more so. The uniform has already clung onto her body completely, turning its uniform tint into lighter and darker patches. You divert your gaze from her body to try not thinking about what she is wearing beneath the stolen uniform. You wonder if her scent is something unique to her or is something shared by her kind… Focus! You berate yourself and twist your arm against the airlock handle, but the resistance shows that the pressure has yet to be equalized, and the space pod is not strong enough to overcome that by brute force.
“Hush, I hate heat and smell more than you, so you aren’t allowed to complain until I do, stinky human,” she must have noticed your expression, and she pouts while typing something on the keyboard. The side monitor she is using shows lines of scripts and commands that you are not familiar with. You know, however, when whatever she is going is completed, as she taps the last key loudly and dramatically, compelling the computer to murmur for a moment before it falls to silence once more.
It takes another wipe from her sleeve until the pressure has balanced enough for the lock to be disengaged. Turning your arm as hard as the gauntlet allows, the mechanical arm overpowers the interlocking system, and you can hear metal clanking against each other until the handle reaches the other end. Still, it takes a bit more time before the air pushing the pod is stronger than the pressure against the hatch, and it falls back and turn aside for your entry.
The other side of the airlock is a familiar sight – a wide corridor, its darkened walls lined with rows of chairs and seat belts in disarray, flanked by multiple doors leading to other areas of the ship. As the dim light leaking from the cockpit pours into the darkness, you can see the numbered codes, although you still do not know how to read them. Fortunately, the on-board computer does, and once it locks on the closest code, the canopy display informs you that you are next to the habitation module near the front of the ship.
More importantly, though, is that the monitor shows the rough measurement of the air outside. Apart from the slightly low oxygen level, the air is still comfortably breathable according to the computer. You cannot help but let out a big sigh of relief, drawing an odd stare from her. Still, it is enough to signal her your want, and with a sigh of her own, she pushes herself upward and opens the dock canopy above you first. Immediately, you can feel the stale, hot air gushing out from the cockpit, bringing in cold, relatively fresh air within. By the time she opens the front canopy, breathing has become much more comfortable once more.
Now that you are no longer in a hurry, you slide your sweaty hands out from the glove-shaped controllers to wipe your face once again. Narim, meanwhile, let go of the stick before you and drifts into the corridor. “Take your time, I’m gonna check something while you catch your breath,” she climbs to the side and disappears behind the shell of the space pod. You have no desire to return to work just yet, so you simply lean into the soaked seat while your lungs replace her scent with that of the ship. You can hear some faint metal clanking and grinding from beyond your sight, alongside some strange tapping. She is probably retrieving the alcohol from the vacuum still by the airlock. You wonder if the vacuum will make the booze chill and drinkable.
“Here, don’t drink it all in one go,” she soon returns to your view, tossing a plugged jar into your hand. You hold onto it and swings it gently, feeling the liquid inside slipping away from the mouth before unplugging it. As its content mixes with the air, you can smell the strong scent of alcohol… and not much else. Still, at least it does not have rancid or bitter smell. Taking the risk of getting set on fire, you take a small sip of it.
You immediately regret it. Whatever subtle taste it might have is overwhelmed by the burning taste of alcohol, quickly draining your saliva and searing your throat. You have barely enough time to move the bottle away before you cough violently, trying to purge the liquid fire long after it has melted inside your body. This, naturally, draws her laughter echoing down the corridor. In fact, she has to hold onto the pod just to slap its shell in glee. You can feel your cheek burning, both because of the strong liquor and the embarrassment. “Oh, my, you should’ve seen your face! Lemme check if the cockpit monitor’s still kicking…”
You plug the jug and throw it at her way in protest. Naturally, she catches it without any issue, and you are pretty sure she wants to rub it in your face, because she then unplugs the bottle and takes a large gulp from it while the hazel eyes glance at you triumphantly. The mouth eventually escapes from her lips, and she let out a satisfied pant. You frail your arms at her general direction to keep her from accessing the cockpit computers.
“Just kidding~ still, quite a lightweight, eh?” she keeps her distance and crosses her arms before her stomach, the grin on her face wide as ever. You can only admit defeat. You then ask if her ship is filled with heavy drinkers.
“Of course! It’s one of the good things in life after all!” she proclaims proudly, and you confirms that she has a ship.
“You still wanna train up even if you don’t like alcohol, though,” she plugs the bottle and throws it back to you, “or else you don’t know how well you can hold your drink.”
“It’s fun to see people choke or get drunk with just a sip, but less fun if you have to rely on them to not die,” she leaps up towards the top canopy, peeking down on you as her gloved hand holds her cheek. “On our ship, people who show up drunk will get locked inside their room… or outside the airlock.”
“Hey, press yours here,” her hand leaves her freckled cheek and gestures to the side of her collar. Despite its potential lethality, you have almost forgotten the metal collar strapped around your neck. Now that you do, though, the metal drenched in your swear feels rather uncomfortable. Thanks Narim! Still, you follow her instruction and move your fingertip to roughly the same position. You can indeed feel the faint shape of a button. With a cautious gulp, you press the button.
A small electric current snakes by your neck, its sharp prick catching you by surprise and you let out a whimper, seemingly to her amusement. However, you also hear the echo of your cry… twice. One from the tiny cockpit, and one from her.
“I see it’s working for my little sleuth here~” the giggling girl presses her own button as well. Either she does not get shocked by the collar, or she is already used to it.
“They put that in the collars to eavesdrop and… address their captives,” her voice reaches your ears twice, first through the air and then through the collar. It seems you can still hear her even when she is talking beneath her breath. “Since they’re too baked for that, I did some tinkering and make this thing useful to us.”
“We can keep contact while I scout ahead,” she closes the canopy once again. Now that the cockpit has more fresh air and one fewer person to support, you are no longer sweating from the heat and her scent. The canopy display, now returned before your eyes, locks onto her as she drifts towards the door, but as expected, the system cannot discern her nature.
At the edge of your vision, she stops herself before a door and slides it open. There are no light from the other side, and you can see her recoiling from… something instinctively, her arm covering the lower half of her face. Still, it is not enough to drive her away, and she lowers her hand as she drifts into the door. Despite the urge to follow her, you ultimately decide to stay put and wait for her. Through the air-filled corridor, you can hear faint, muted echoes seeping between the metallic walls. Knocks, cracks, and thuds, perhaps, but you cannot see anything in sight – not even the canopy display finds anything new.
While she is presumably busy, your attention turns to your pocket. With your senses no longer troubled by the heat, you can feel something in the pocket pressing gently against your thigh. It feels small and somewhat cylindrical, and its hard shell feels metallic. You keep your dominant hand near the control stick just in case, and slips the other hand into the pocket to retrieve it. It appears to be some kind of lipstick with a depolished, silvery shell adorned with smooth curves and flowery patterns. It is oddly fancy for cosmetics, and she does not strike you as the kind who spend a lot of effort on makeup. That said, when you take off the cap, the color of the well-used stick does resemble her moistened, reddish-pink lips.
No doubt she put that in your uniform while you pretended to be sleeping… but why?
Before you could contemplate longer, she emerges from the other side of the door frame once again, and her presence makes you cap and pocket her lipstick in a rush. She wipes her cheeks clean while her tail taps on the panel, closing the door behind her. It is clear that wherever your next destination, you will not get there through that door. Taking a deep breath, she swims back to you while her hand reaches for her neck.
“Let’s keep going down the shaft. Stay in your egg for now,” she holds onto one of the mechanical arms. You do as you are told and holds onto the control stick. As your thumb glides forward at the tip, the pod starts sailing forward as well. Even with more light shining upon the darkened wall and door, you cannot see anything strange that might have caused her reaction.
But then, an alarm blares at you from within the cockpit. The piercing mechanical shriek forces you to let go of the rod and wince instinctively, leaving the pod to drift forward by its inertia. Your body tense up once again and your eyes dart around the screens to look for any warning. You quickly notice the blinking, presumably red text shown on the canopy window – excessive carbon monoxide.
You are aware of the implication, and your head twists towards Narim. You can barely feel the shock when you press your collar to call for her. Yet, she does not look shocked, nor does she show any signs of being poisoned. If anything, your shout alerts her more than the poisonous cloud of air gathered outside the door.
“You don’t need to shout. I can hear you just fine,” she listens to you reading the warning anyway.
“You’re worried about me? Aw~” she grins through the canopy window. It is oddly comforting. “You don’t have to~ Our kind aren’t really affected by that. Not gonna lie, sometimes I forget how fragile you humans can be.”
“C’mon, let’s go. We’re getting close,” she ends the conversation with another gesture, and your thumb pushes forward once more, leaving the shut door behind you. She is right, there is no point in dwelling on it anymore. You take another sip from the alcohol, quenching your throat with its fire.
The Trouble
You continue your journey to the bowels of the hull for a while, guided only by the fickle system of the worker pod and the rodent-like girl attached to its side. With you being the sole burden of the life support system, the hot, steamy air permeating the cockpit has since dissipated, returning you to a less distracting dry, cool environment… but now you start to miss the warmth. You thought about replacing it with the throat-burning liquor in the jar, but its lack of taste beyond alcohol only made you feel lonely. The fact that you already feel a bit dizzy from the few sips also convinced you not to drink from it again.
“Seems this is as far as the pod can go,” Narim remarks as you reach the end of this long, dark corridor, where a simple door blocks your way. While it is not locked or otherwise obstructed by anything, the narrow door frame means it will be difficult to push the pod through. Worse still, whatever is on the other side might prove too narrow for it to move, and neither of you want to lose the only somewhat space-faring vehicle. As she leaps to the door and begins prying it open, you stop the pod one more time and unbuckle yourself from the seat. A gush of cold air fills behind your back as you drift to the front canopy and unlock it, letting the stale air outside mix with that of the cockpit.
The door manages to stall her long enough for you to join in the effort, and that is more than enough to get the door to slide into the wall, leaving a panting Narim wiping her sweating face with the drenched sleeve. Despite her performance so far, she seems to be straining herself somewhat. Maybe her kind does not have a good endurance? You know better than to bring it up to her, though, so you simply watch by until she recovers enough to lead the way once more.
The other side of the door is another long corridor, one that is designed for human use given the scattered rows of seats bolted to the walls. Perhaps because it is located closer to the core of the ship, emergency lighting is still active here, illuminating the hallway with its dim, probably red light. The air here is still stale, though, reminding your body that the life support system is completely down. The chilling touch of death has not reached you yet, but its cold caress is enough to give you goosebumps. You know you are living on borrowed time here… but you trust her enough to follow her doing whatever she is planning to do here.
Her crooked legs move to propel her forward again, but a careless slip causes her to tumble for a moment before her tail could reorient herself once again. You ask if she is alright. “Tolhurt…” she murmurs to herself before noticing your call. She shakes her blushing face and waves you away.
“Hush, you see nothing. You should keep a bit of distance now that you aren’t completely blind,” she does not seem to like addressing her slip-up. Maybe she thinks it would give you too much power over her? Still, you comply with her words and hold onto the wall, stopping yourself while she continues to swim forward. Even with the lighting, the monochrome vision still makes it difficult to tell the details on her or her surroundings. It seems the corridor is leading to a larger shaft, probably one of those tunnels that line the spine of the ship. With most of the hallways blocked by debris, damage, or… other things, this is probably the best way to access the rest of the ship.
“Let’s see… the control deck should be that way,” her hand presses against her neck, and you can hear her whispers from your collar confirming your thought. “It should be a good place for us to-”
“-wait,” her tone suddenly dropped, turning the word into a command that freezes your limbs. Your eyes lock on her form floating in the middle of the large corridor. Her fingers move against her collar, before letting go of it as she stays still in the frozen air. “Stay quiet. Don’t move.”
“I got spotted,” your heart sinks at her words. Your mind recalls the being that once pursued you and her. If it is anywhere as powerful as it, there is little hope that you can win without the element of surprise. You instinctively hold your breath, your hearing sharpening in an attempt to pick up its noise beyond the corner of the walls. However, you could not hear anything like the heavy breathing from the medical suit. Another deep breath dislodges your hand from its shiver, and you try to reach for the collar to respond to her.
“I said stay quiet!” she mutters beneath her breath, freezing your hand once again. It is only her hurried order that makes you realize whatever you say would be broadcasted from her collar, exposing both of you in potentially deadly danger.
“Listen carefully. I’ll keep it distracted as long as I can,” she lowers her hand, and she looks left and right in a somewhat stiff manner, as if she is pretending to be relaxed. Yet, her words continued to leak into her collar and from yours despite her not holding the button – maybe she jammed it. Her tone is also anything but relaxed. “You go back to the pod and leave ASAP. Make a run to the battlefield. Once you’re there-”
“Freeze!” a yell from beyond the corner, slightly distorted through a speaker, interrupts her instructions, and she quickly holds her breath.
“Cheki… go!” her order ends prematurely, and then she turns towards the source of the voice, acting surprised. You can see her eyes darting between you and it, urging you to leave. As much as you do not wish to follow her command, you know you have no choice in that matter. With cold air flowing down your shivering throat, your hand clutch at the wall, and a violent push sends you back to the other end of the corridor. You turn yourself away from her, hoping it would numb whatever is going to transpire – the fact that you know you will hear anything going down around her does not help one bit.
“So, what do we have here?” the other voice seeps out from the collar once again. It sounds a bit masculine, although it is difficult to tell through the poor quality of the speaker. “I know you… you’re the dirty rat we threw in the brig!”
“I prefer being a ferret. Or perhaps weasel~” she answers in an almost whimsical tone, although you can hear the faint shaking of her neck against the collar. You can pick up a faint wheeze from afar as you approach the door. Fortunately, the egg is still parked at the other side of the door frame, and you have no trouble crawling through the canopy. “How about you? Is the tin can comfortable?”
“No… you did something to them, didn’t you?” the voice sounds aggravated, “I knew we should’ve disposed of you as soon as you stop being useful.”
“Oh~ it’s just a bit of a prank. You should be angry at your system engineers for their poor security!” she giggles as you close the canopy, shutting the outside world away, “then again, that’s the only reason why you can still move in that suit, right? It was not on the grid, was it?”
“What about I send you to them?” the voice yells, and you hear a loud thud followed by a pained moan. Your shaking hands clasp the control rod tight, and the display on the monitors shows that the pod is ready to move. However… your hands refuse to move. You know she is more than capable of keeping the enemy preoccupied long enough for you to escape, but not enough to keep herself alive from what you could discern from the incorporeal voice.
You cannot leave her behind.
Your thumb thrust forward, shoving the egg against the door frame. Your hand slips into the gauntlet, and you try your best to pry against the door to push yourself through the door. Warnings blare at you as the shell grinds and cracks against the pressure of the thrusters and the mechanical arm.
You do not care.
“Hah… the strike really messed you up, didn’t it?” she is still alive, but the panting and gasping makes you dread how long will that last. “I’ve traded worse blows with bare hands. Is that the best the crew has to offer?”
“Yes, because everyone else’s dead! Thanks to you!” her taunt is too effective for her own good, and your mind can barely focus on your task when the repeated thuds and cries invade your thoughts. You grit your teeth and force the pod through the door frame. The stress is enough to scratch the shell, and the damaged front canopy begins drifting away from its seal. You divert your attention barely long enough to tell which of the thrusters are damaged. Your hand twists against your rod, turning the pod to let the few functional thrusters point at the outside world. Your thumb pushes as far as the system allows.
“Oh, I’m honored~ hehe, why don’t you tell me how you know everyone else’s dead?” she sniffs. Or is it a sniffle? Both of you knows what will happen once she finishes her sentence. You can only pray you are fast enough. The blinking screen on the canopy locks onto something emerging from the darkness.
“The blood on that nice blue suit… you made sure they don’t suffer long, eh? How nice of y-”
Her words are overwhelmed by an inhuman screech. You hear her scream, and then…
The sound of something hard being crushed with extreme force.
Your reddened vision can see a towering humanoid before your eyes. Its metal-clad leg grinding against the floor. You can see her vague silhouette there.
You lose it.
You cry out her name as loud as you can. Your enemy barely have enough time to turn to you before you slam the pod against it. A powered armor in blue painting and red paints.
Your hand hold the control stick as hard as you can, and your other hand in the gauntlet does the only thing it can.
The mechanical arm swings towards the armored figure. It raises its steeled hand against your attack. You force your fist to open just in time to catch its in the clamp. You hold its trapped arm with all your might, but it is not enough to crush it, to do to it what it did to her.
You push the thrusters to their limit, but it does not budge. Its other hand reach for the canopy and pulls it away.
You grit your teeth as the light from its face shield floods the cockpit.
You failed.
“…!”
But then, you hear her voice. Your mind cannot process what she says. Your eyes dart left and right. You see the jar of liquor floating before your eyes.
You pull your hand from the gauntlet and hold onto the rocket juice.
You know what to do even without her guide. You unplug the bottle and whips it across the cockpit. The clear liquid from within draws a silvery arc before the looming light, before landing on the cold metal.
“… leave!”
Her voice hugs your neck again. You let go of the control stick and slides into the other gauntlet. The other mechanical arm swings into the nearby wall, holding onto whatever you can grasp. Before its hand could reach you, you leap from the sweat-drenched seat and towards the top canopy. Or rather, where it was before you forced your way in.
The first thing you see upon your escape is… her. Her left arm is holding her stomach, and her right arm is… missing. Only loose wires and twisted metal remains at the stump. Her tail is holding a short length of the scrapped metal, sparks dancing on the flaying artificial skin.
You hold onto her tight. Her arm pushes you into her soaked embrace, and then her tail whips the enemy.
Sparks from the destroyed arm bounce on the soaked armor. The faint lights melt into the glow from the face shield, before reemerging as a brilliant glow, spreading along the liquor and consuming the angled silhouette of the enemy. You can almost feel the heat from the surging flame before she flies away with you, the searing heat replaced by her floral-scent warmth.
You ply your mouth open to call her name once again, only to be stopped by her.
“You idiot,” her voice echoes inside your ears, “I told you to escape! And you just ruined your pod…”
You tell her your real thought, your feeling towards her. You would do the same again if you have to… but now that the raging emotions inside you has begun to subside, you cannot help but concede that she is right. You whisper your apology to her.
She does not answer you. Instead, her lower body tenses up, and you are stopped in your track, before being quickly pushed aside into a dark corner. Her remaining arm departs from your sweating and shaking body temporarily, and you hear the noise of something being opened behind you. Then, with a tug from her tail, both of you are shrouded in darkness as she slams the closet’s cover shut.
“… I never told you to apologize,” you feel a wet peck against the tip of your nose, and a familiar, if weak giggle.
The Plan
“Here… this should work for you,” with a bit of her handiwork, a light struggles to come to life. Its dim glow gradually flooded the crowded closet, illuminating both of you sheltered here from the outside threat. You know full well that your little party trick will not kill someone protected by powered armor, and the enemy is no doubt searching for you, aiming to finish what it has started.
Worse, as the flickering light reveals, you can see her form once again – and witness the extent of injuries done to her petite body. The most obvious damage is her right arm, which is all but destroyed by the crushing leg of the powered armor. However, instead of flesh and blood, you can see her arm made of steel and synthetic skin instead, sparking wires protruding from the shredded sleeve. You would think she is actually a robot, a gynoid of sort… if not for the puddle of violet liquid gradually smearing the blue uniform. The scent of metal in the air proves that she is not merely leaking some kind of lubricant or fuel from her stomach.
“Are you done staring?” her words interrupt your thought, and your eyes are drawn back to her face. Despite looking weaker than ever and with a few bruises tarnishing her face, her annoyed expression remains the same. She does not seem to care much about her injuries, instead her remaining hand reaches for the belt barely hanging onto her torso. You look left and right to see if there is anything that could help her, but the closet has barely anything apart from broom and other cleaning tools.
“Stop making a fuss… you know we’d both be screwed if it hears you, right?” she murmurs and her fingers slip into the pocket. She procures a small bottle and delivers it towards her mouth. With a simple flick of her thumb, the cap detaches from the container, allowing her to shake it and send the last few pills into her mouth. She swallows the unknown medicine, before tossing the emptied bottle aside with a displeased expression. “Tolhurt…”
“You know, I would’ve slapped you if not for all the noises it’ll make. Maybe I still should,” her hand moves onto her stomach, pressing it gently as if to assess her own state. “I explicitly told you to leave with the pod.”
You try to answer her but none of the words manage to escape your parched mouth. Now that the rush has faded, all that remains is your racing heart and a lack of words. Logically, what you did is an exceedingly stupid move that might have already killed you. Emotionally…
“… well, what’s done’s done,” the hazel eyes glance over your face, and she simply let out a sigh. Her tail waves against the floor, and her bloodied body lands on you. Even with one fewer limb, she still latches onto you tightly, her eyes looking up from before your neck. You can feel her blood-soaked uniform pressing against you, and her drenched hand gliding across your skin. Her fingertip answers your gulp with a light tap.
“Jeez, you really don’t have a plan, do you?” she saw right through you. The tip of her tail reaches for the stump of her ruined prosthetic and yank out something. You can feel her fingers occasionally touching your neck, as if they are tinkering… it is only at this point that you remember the collar around your neck is more than just a communicator. You instinctively burp out your thought, causing her to giggle.
“Hehe… I might’ve forgotten to tell you it’s no longer primed,” you ponder about the ethics of punching an injured woman, although her body has basically stopped you from moving at all. With a simple click, your skin beneath the collar finally enjoys the touch of warm air once again. Her other limbs release you from her bind, and you can see her fingers retracting back to their position, concealing the metals and wires beneath. It is clear that more parts of her is mechanical than she lets on – even if the soft touch of her warm skin feels distinctively human-like.
“I’ll be borrowing this. I might need to turn a limb or two into a stump,” she examines the unlocked collar while her tail fetches something for her mouth. She chews on it casually, her face distorted by a mixture of pain and distaste. “Ugh, rechewing’s the worse…”
Even though she has dropped the topic, seeing her doing all the work by herself while hurt only makes the guilt creep up from the bottom of your heart. What finally breaks your silence is your apology to her, causing her eyes to glance towards you. “What?”
“Oh, that… at least you’re not too stupid to realize your mistakes,” she spits out the gum onto the back of the collar, and her thumb starts smearing it against its inside. “Focus on surviving for now. You can worry about your insubordination later.”
“Time for plan B. Search your pocket,” her tail gestures towards your pants, at the pocket where she first put her lipstick. Your hand slides into the other pocket instead, taking out the lipstick that you hastily shoved into that pocket a while ago. You think this is the first time she is caught off-guard by you, and the confused expression soon turns into a wide grin.
“Klok’han nomag. Now, open it,” you have no time to dwell on the implication of her words. Your fingers move to remove the silvery cap, revealing the pinkish lipstick within. Either because of the additional light or your eyes finally getting used to the contact lenses, you can see its color indeed matches her lips. Her blood loss must have paled her skin, since you do not remember her lips being that vibrant and eye-catching.
“No, not that way… unless you wanna taste me. This way,” the tapered tail touches your hand, guiding your fingers to the bottom of the stick. With a bit of force, you find out that the bottom cap can be screwed out to reveal what appears to be a mundane computer port. Is it some kind of storage medium?
“Hehe… this thing really pissed them off. Too bad the anger didn’t help them find it. Buncha brutes had no ideas how makeup works,” she is unusually talkative… not that you do not appreciate it. “Control deck’s the last place to die, and it should have the highest clearance. You should be able to spread the payload to it from there.”
“Now, lemme make one thing crystal clear to you,” her familiar phrase draws your attention, and her tail taps on your nose lightly, “I got no plan C, and probably neither do you. That means if you fail again…”
“We. Will. Die.” her eyes lock into yours, only relenting once she is sure you understand it from the bottom of your heart. However, you do not feel the same hostility from her as before. “The shaft should lead you right to the control deck. If it’s busted, try to find the astrogation or comm deck. They should be nearby.”
“I’ll distract the enemy as long as I can…” she pockets the unlocked collar, before turning her head back to meet your gaze. You can feel her reading your thoughts. “Don’t worry. It’ll take more than that to kill me…”
“Besides… I still have a score to settle,” she glances at the stump attached to her right shoulder, and the grin on her face twists into that of a predator as she licks her lips. Even though it is but a decoy, the lipstick itself seems to be quite good.
“Plug it in the panel in front of the most luxurious chair. The payload will do the rest,” her tail leaves your face and deliver a broom to her side. Her hand tries to straighten the sticky uniform, but all it does is spreading the violet smear wider. “Ugh… afterwards, just try to hide. I’ll find you once it’s safe.”
“We don’t have much time… I’ll go first,” her hand holds onto the broom, and her body drifts to the door of the closet, her ears pressing against its cold metal to listen to the faint noises echoing from the other side. “You count to 10… make it 20, and then go the other way.”
Part of you wish you can help her, an injured girl trying to fight against a half-functional powered armor with nothing but broom and boom! Yet, you cannot help but trust her as she hides her usual smug beneath an uncharacteristically serious expression. You have a feeling that despite everything, she is trusting you to do what she asked of you… and you do not want to betray that trust.
You will do what she says.
“… now!” she mutters, and her tail pushes the door aside silently. Her petite body drifts into the darkness beyond. Her hand and tail holds onto the broom and twists it aside, causing her body to turn aside. Her crooked legs retract before a sudden push sends her flying into the darkness, to where the enemy is.
A myriad of thoughts and emotions conspire to flood your mind, but you allow yourself to think of only one thing.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
You hear some kind of crash echoing from her direction. A dulled thud. A clang. Some muffled words.
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19…
20.
You pull yourself out of the closet, leaving her lingering warmth behind. Your hand holds onto the opened door, turning yourself away from her. You dig into whatever grooves on the walls to propel yourself into the other end of the dimmed corridor.
You hope your prayers can reach the Heavenly Realm.
The End
You feel your mind blurring, most strings of your thoughts being washed away by the burning blood pumping away through your veins. The only thing you allow yourself to think about is reaching the end of the long hallway. Just like what she has entrusted you to do. The noises of struggling has ceased – you are not sure if that is because you have crawled far away enough, or if the fighting has stopped. You try your best to not be concerned by the possibility of the outcome, if only to not be troubled by the possibility of her losing. However, just like a fault in the system, the mere thought of her is enough to disrupt your train of thought. Your body continue to climb forward as fast as you can, but its action is increasingly detached from your racing mind.
With your neck freed from the explosive collar, a primal part of your mind whispers inside your head. You no longer have to do her biddings on pain of death. You have no idea what is stored inside that decoy lipstick – she never bothered to tell you. Even if you trust her to save both of you, even the rational part of your mind agree that the odds of her surviving the encounter with the powered armor are pretty bad. And what happen aferwards? The less fickle lights at the end of the corridor confirms that the control deck retains more of its function than most of the ship. Surely it knows that too, and it would go there as well. If she cannot beat it, then you certainly cannot either. Maybe it would be better if you hide somewhere nearby and hope whoever coming after her can deal with your problem…
But an even more primal part of your mind interjects. It is a deeply-buried part, undisturbed by trivial things like reasons or self-preservation. It is an indescribable, raw emotion flowing through your searing blood.
And it tells you to keep going.
It does not matter what her plan is. The only thing that matters is that she has entrusted you with everything, maybe even including her own life. And you would rather die trying than to give up.
“W-” your clutched fist slams against the panel next to the door, shutting it up. This is enough for the door control to relent, and the door slides into the wall, revealing what is concealed behind.
It is the control deck of the ship. The bridge, as most people would call it. Compared to the cramped cells of the brig, the narrow corridors spread beneath the hull, or the once-crowded mess hall and hanger, it is a much more spacious and comfortable place, meant for the highest-ranking individuals here. Its role as the brain of this doomed ship also allows it to afford extra redundancy. The lights continue to shine brightly here, its presumably white, aseptic tint almost enough to provide a sense of normalcy despite all the pain and suffering you have witnessed so far. Beneath the arched ceiling, you can see rows of large monitors, many of which are still functional, but showing little more than the vast darkness of space. Either the cameras are not pointing at the right direction, or the combat you saw a while ago had already concluded. Who won?
The serenity fades as you pull your gaze further downward. Beneath the screens, the walls before you are covered with rows of computer terminals and devices, but the chairs before them are all empty – or rather, emptied, if the unknown stains splattered across some of the consoles are of any indication. The off-color tint reminds you of the smears on the powered armor. Perhaps it was doing its work here before encountering you two.
The door closes behind you, and you move forward in the stagnant air. You look around, but you cannot see any other exits that are easily accessible. On one hand, it means you only have to watch the door behind you to avoid getting any nasty surprises; on the other hand, it means anyone at the door will be able to trap you here with ease. You do not see any place useful for hiding either.
You swallow the doubts building up inside you and continue moving forward, to a small island of consoles and panels isolated from the walls. In front of you, a tainted seat is elevated from the stained floor, turned aside and facing towards you. It is flanked by several smaller monitors and input system on rotating arms, not unlike the seat in the worker pod. However, it is noticeably more luxurious and well-padded than the other seats here – just like what she said.
You drift to the lofty seat and land on it, stopping your movement quickly as you pull yourself from the cushion. Whatever warmth that once occupied this place is long gone, but you can still feel the faint contours of the body embedded here, and its smell squeezed into the surrounding air. Even without seeing it, you can still tell the fate of its previous owner. Your shaking hand reaches for the terminal, pulling yourself from the chair and towards it. Compared to the seat, the terminal itself is fairly mundane, utilitarian like most other control systems you have seen so far. Above the keyboard, you can see a familiar device port, designed to interface with a myriad of devices… including the storage device hidden in the lipstick.
You take the lipstick from your pocket and reaches for its bottom. Now that you know where to look, removing the cap to reveal the interface hidden inside is actually quite straight forward. Maybe someone who use actual lipsticks on a regular basis could spot it by themselves?
“Stop!” a sudden shout, distorted by electronics, halts the ports mere inches before they meet. You instinctively look behind at the source of the cry.
You had hoped that it would be from her, but no, it was the one in the powered armor, one that was clearly too big for the petite girl. You cannot tell if the scratches and smears scattered across the blue, metallic surface were there the last time. What is certainly new, though, is the severed arm it is crushing in its hand.
It is hers. And it is not her right arm. The bloodless stump at the end reveals the same mixture of metal and plastic that showed her right arm to be prosthesis, but it is a cold comfort to you.
“I remember you… you were the one we threw in the brig!” it bends its legs, as if it is ready to pounce at you at any moment. You do not know how fast the powered armor can jump, but the fact that it opts for conversation instead makes you think it is not as fast as the shaking hand holding the lipstick.
“Don’t do it! This fight… you aren’t part of it!” even the minute movement of your hand is enough to prompt it to shout again. Whatever she has prepared for them in the lipstick, it is something that it cannot risk connecting to the ship despite its current state. “Look! The fight’s over! Stop now and I’ll let you go unharmed!”
Does it even matter anymore? The sight of it waving her other severed arm inundate you with doubts. Even with the steady lights from the ceiling and the consoles, this ship is as dead as most of its crew, and whatever within the “payload” is not going to revive anyone.
… how did it know about your role here? Unless…
You ask it the only question that matters.
It pauses for a brief moment, the blue visor still locked on your hand. Then, it waves her hand in response. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“I crushed that rat’s throat. Snapped her neck like a twig.”
“But not bef-” your mind cannot hear anything following that. You feel a deafening ringing filling your ears. You feel nauseous. All the raging thoughts inside your stomach conspire to spill out. The amber-tinted vision turns into a bloody red, just like all the stains on its body. You feel the only strength left inside you is the trembling hand clutching her parting gift.
Does it even matter anymore? It’s not going to revive anyone.
“-ook, don’t die senselessly. Just give up and I’ll let y-” its yell pierces through your turbulent thoughts, splitting you in half. One half of you – the half that you always have with you – yearns to take its offer. To escape from this sinking ship, back to your old life.
But the other half shouts the intrusive thought down. It yearns for something else.
Revenge.
The most worthless of causes. It is the only thing that matters to you now.
You glare at the blue armor tainted by dull red smears. The fire burning inside you demands you to make it suffer.
… red?
Everything clicks in your mind now. The storm inside your mind merges into a uniform squall.
You stab her lipstick into the console. Its panicked scream soothes the fire burning inside you. It does not matter that mere seconds later its powerful punch smacks you and her lipstick away from the console and into the stale air. It does not matter that it hurts like hell. It does not even matter whether it manages to crush your organs in your abdomen or not.
You land on one of the large screens. The dark space shown on them is no more. They flicker and struggle in vain, before lines of codes spew from screen to screen, washing what remains of the ship’s system and replacing them with just a simple symbol.
✨
Beneath the artificial stars, the powered armor is obviously panicking, a sight that pleases you. Instead of leaping up towards you to finish what it has started, the enemy is completely fixated on the console mounted on the captain’s seat. Its gauntlets grab the monitor, shaking it as if it is trying to yank the program out of the system. It is futile, of course, and the lights around you begin to brighten, bathing the control deck in an almost blinding glow.
And then, everything plunges into absolute darkness. No lights, no stars, not even the blue glow of the monitors. The surprised gasp from the powered armor confirms that you are not the only one caught off-guard by it. Perhaps that powered armor did not have night vision?
“Bastard! Show your face!” the distorted scream of the enemy echoes between the dark walls. You can hear the clanking noises of metal slamming against other metals. You decide against answering its cry, denying it any means of locating you. You continue to stare in the darkness, seeing nothing in this confined world. Even though you did not make yourself known to it, it might still reach your position… but by now, you know that panicking over nothing is only an expressway to death.
You can only trust her.
The stiff air remains frozen, stirred only by your suppressed breathing and the echoes of its footsteps. Is it searching for you? Or something else? Can it truly not see anything in the darkness, or is it getting used to its cover? The churning sensation inside your stomach only makes the pain worse. It must have broken something inside you… and without stimuli, you start to wonder how long you can maintain your consciousness.
But then, your ears pick up something. It is not your slowed breathing or heartbeat, nor the heavy footsteps of the powered armor. It is something rhythmic like them, but monotone and stable… like a buzzer from a machine.
It definitely catches the attention of the enemy, as the stirring steps become more chaotic. You can almost see its metallic limbs flailing around, trying to find its source as the beeping becomes louder and quicker.
You brace yourself.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion pierces through your ears, the pitch darkness temporarily dispelled by a bright ball of fire before you. For a split second, you can see the armored figure not too far from you, its silhouette illuminated by the bright light erupting behind it. The powerful force is enough to spread its limbs outward, disrupting the still air with its shock. For a brief moment, you think you can hear its scream, but it is muffled by the dead speaker, and overwritten by the echoes bouncing between the metallic walls. You move your hands from your face to cover your ears, replacing the cacophony with ringing inside your skull. But even through that, your mind cannot help but pick up something. A very familiar voice.
“Murito…”
Click.
Pzzzt-
“… opso!”
BOOM!
A bright flash engulfs your vision, burning the amber tint into your eyes as the veil is stripped away. A narrow beam of light erupts through the doorway, striking straight and true against the smoking back of the powered armor. It must have been blindingly bright, as the afterimage of the attack lingers inside your eyes long after darkness has concealed everything once again.
As the light fades away from your eyes, the world falls back into nothingness once more. You can no longer hear the metallic footsteps – the reason of which is clear to you. Now, only your weakening breathing and heartbeat remains. You contemplate about moving, but without anything to hold onto, all it would accomplish is mixing the warmth with coldness.
Maybe you should take a rest. That should stop the aching.
You take a deep breath, filling your lung with warm air as your breathing slows down… and you hear your breathing detaching from its noise.
Light gradually returns around you, and from the fading darkness a silhouette emerges. One with no arms but three legs, the middle one coiling around a smoking tool.
“Hey, wake up!” she calls you. By your name.
You smile just as your eyelids become too heavy.
You think you will have a good dream.