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There’s a moment where I mentally say goodbye, and then another moment where I somehow survive. There’s got to be a forcefield or some solid skin on the other side of that blade stopping a vacuum from being created, because the wall is peeling back now, and if there was space on the other side of it, I would be part of it.
I appear to be in the process of being abducted. I don’t know who has the tech to clamp onto a scythkin vessel and rip it open like a cheaply wrapped gift, but I know whoever it is is someone I don’t want to meet. Then again, now I think about it, whoever is on the other side of that blade probably has ill-intentions. It’s not a numahn device that I’m aware of. If it was them, they’d be blaring sirens and flashing lights and generally making a big to-do out of it all. Numahns act like they’re the law enforcement of the universe. They love badges and official procedures. They don’t board your ship through the side of it.
This is barbaric. This is brutal. These are the actions of someone who doesn’t give a damn about the law or the outcome of their actions, aside from getting what they want.
The door flies open and Atlas is there, bristling with full scythkin aggression. I watch, open mouthed as he dashes forward into the breach created in the wall by the rotating blade and starts doing god only knows what on the other side.
In that moment, I flee.
“Find the fucking escape shuttle,” I curse to myself. “Find it now before either of these two find you.”
I run for my life through the mid-century modern maze, and then into the reality of the rest of the ship. You’d think finding the shuttles once would mean it would be easier to find them again, but there’s something about fleeing panicked that makes my brain go blank. I find all sorts of things. I find the bridge. I find the galley. I find what has to be Atlas’s bedroom. But I don’t find an escape pod.
The whole time I am searching, I can hear the most awful sounds reverberating through the ship’s hull. It is a terrible grating, tearing sound that makes me fear for my life, and for Atlas’s life. Sure, he’s a creepy, bladed, somewhat insectoid creature with a hard carapace and a penchant for ancient human lifestyles, but he doesn’t deserve to be sawed in half. Probably.
Finally I find the shuttle bay and the shuttle. I give thanks to all and any gods and climb into the little vessel. It’s a scythkin patroller. It’s fast. And it’s going to ensure that anybody who sees me on their radar gives me a wide fucking berth, because nobody wants to make first contact with an alien vessel most often used for scouting new worlds to ravage.
I hit the controls and watch as the dash hums with a hundred little lights. Relief runs through me. I’m going to be okay. I might even be more than okay, with any luck.
The shuttle starts to hover, and a moment later the doors of the shuttle bay open automatically. I slam the stick forward and relish the acceleration as I slingshot my way out of the bay and deep into space.
Coming about, I finally see what was attacking Atlas's ship. It’s another ship. That’s not a surprise. What is a surprise is the fact that it is painted gray and bright red and bears a very large E on the side of it.
“E for Emrys,” I mutter to myself. “Thank fuck I got out when I did.”
It occurs to me that the scythkin shuttle has weapons. Kind of a lot of them. Emrys’ vessel has made itself immune to damage by getting so close to the scythkin vessel that there’s no room for any kind of attack, but I’m not limited by that.
I decide to take a few shots at Emrys’ vessel, just for the fun of it. I like the idea of him hating it very, very much.
It’s not hard to use the weapons system. The red trigger on the underside of the flight stick is pretty self-explanatory. As soon as I depress it even slightly, a red square shows up on the HUD overlay that is being projected over the front windscreen.
I aim for the E.
Pew! Pew! Hot red charges arc through space. There’s a lot of it to cover, so it takes half a minute or so for them to detonate against the hull of the hostile ship. I let out a cheer as I see the damage that is done, scuffing up Emrys’ perfectly painted E. That’s going to really annoy him. I doubt that I have enough weaponry to seriously harm his ship, but I sure have enough to be annoying.
I hit him a handful more times before a channel opens up on the comms. I don’t know how to stop that from happening, so I am stuck with Emrys’ voice filling the space. He hisses with his customary rage, which I find funny. He sounds the same right now as he probably would if someone messed up his order for fries. The guy is permanently at a hundred. I don’t think he’d know zero if he fell over it. He has to be the most wound-up dude I’ve ever encountered.
“Desist, small vessel!”
“I could, but I won’t. Should, maybe, but… shorn’t.”
The sentence doesn’t really make sense. It doesn’t really have to. It just has to annoy him, and it does that most successfully.
“HUMAN!” Emrys snarls the word over the open channel, and I can only imagine how his entire face must be contorting with rage as he recognizes my voice. “What are you doing? Does the beast not have you contained?”
“Does it look like he does?”
“What do you think you are doing, Sandy!?” Atlas’ voice comes over the channel in swift order. I wonder if I interrupted them fighting one another to the death over who owns me. That must have been quite the struggle. I imagine Emrys is terribly injured.
“I’m escaping, because I don’t want to be a mindless pawn in your simulation any more than I want to be a political pawn in Emrys’ evil civilization. I’m a free human, and I intend to stay that way.”
“I am going to hunt you down, human female. And I am going to make you regret your impudence!” Emrys’ voice returns to the fray.
I get the mental image of Emrys having pushed Atlas away from the mic, and probably regretting it because of how sharp the scythkin is. I have no doubt that the bridge of his ship is a complete bloodbath. He’s going to have to rest up for a good long while and feed well in order to regain his strength.
“You do that just as soon as you stop being cock-locked together with the scythkin vessel, idiot,” I laugh. I know there’s some small chance I might run into one of them again. After all, I still have the fucking nano-trackers inside me. That’s my next mission — to untag myself.
“Sandy, I want you back on this ship this instant!” Atlas is back, and he is not happy.
