The big black ships had come all at once. The pirate patrol orbiting Duval got out a warning message before they were destroyed, so the ground crews had about two minutes to man the big surface guns. But fighting a ground assault was the last thing they were prepared for. All efforts had been about escape. Most of the big guns had been taken down and put on the large transport with all of their supplies. The big Fed merchant carrier that was going to take them all away was still on the deck, but Katy last saw it engulfed in flames. Two men, one named Park, who wasn’t even a pilot, had tried to get the big ship airborne, and at least have a chance to jump out and hide, but the BG had come too quick, and there were too many. Most of the smaller pirate ships had all been blown away by the big ion cannons on the BG cruisers, the surface guns reduced to large, black craters in the orange clay.
Suddenly, the door swung open and Marco landed like a bag of potatoes on the concrete floor, blood on his shirt and all over his face. He lay motionless, a pool of red bubbles forming on the ground under his bloody, drooling mouth. He was breathing. Katy crawled over to him and started to cry. Marco tried to speak but nothing came out except red.
The one-armed synth girl stood in the doorway clutching an old pair of pliers, blood dripping down from the end. It was the one named Silana that Merthon had captured. She pointed the bloody pliers at Katy. “This one is next.”
Two black hover bots grabbed Katy by either arm and raised her up. Merthon jumped between the bots and the synth. But the hover bots forced him out of the way, picked Katy up and carried her into the room, her feet dragging on the floor. They dropped her and she sat up and looked around: two bots, the Silana, a BG warrior and Merthon. She could hear the terrible sound of the big, black mechs moving around topside. Each step shook the walls. She’d seen them cut down the old and sick with their energy blades. The others had been rounded up and driven into a transport like cattle. Ion cannon blasts tore through the upper levels rattling the lights above, but the blasts grew less and less, and Katy imagined the few remaining pirate ships up top were either dead or running.
The warrior grabbed Katy in his metal claws and held her up so high her feet dangled off the ground. Her head bumped the ceiling and she wondered if this is how it would end. She could see Merthon from the corner of her eye on his knees. “Where is Vargas?” the BG warrior screamed in his terrible high-pitched electric voice.
She spit on his shiny round head. It dripped down into the red eye slit and the worm inside began to shriek. He grabbed her by the neck and pushed her up until her head broke through the lightweight ceiling tiles and for a split second she could see the dark crawlspace above the room. This is it, she thought. Now he’s going to kill me. I don’t want them to pull out my teeth. Just kill me, or give me a gun and let me fight. But not like this.
He pulled her back down and she struggled to get her feet under her, but then he snatched her up again and she heard a little pop and wondered if her neck was broken. She realized no air was moving through. She wanted a breath of air but the fight was leaving her and her body began to feel heavy and dull.
“Where is Vargas!” the big machine screamed at her again, but his voice barely penetrated the dense fog surrounding her, dulling the sound, dulling the pain. She could see the shiny black head shaking as it yelled, and it was almost as if she wasn’t there anymore. She tried to spit at it again but couldn’t. Her head felt thick and heavy and a darkness on the edge of her vision began to creep in. And then she couldn’t feel anything at all, her legs were there but it was like she was floating.
A tiny part of her knew the big, black mech had her in its alacyte fingers and was squeezing the life out of her, but she was leaving, the darkness had swallowed her but she felt strangely warm and safe. She could feel sunlight on her face and grass under her fingers and her father’s voice called to her, “Katerina, Katerina, come home.” And she ran to the sound.
There was a flash across her vision and another distant voice. She wanted the new voice to go away. She wanted to stay under the soft green grass with the blue sky above and white clouds drifting by. But the other voice got louder and suddenly her face felt cold again and there was a pain growing in her neck and she felt herself falling down, back down, into the pain from before and this wasn’t the place she wanted to be. And then she heard a name: Jolo. They kept repeating it. Yes, Jolo, she thought. I’ve got to go back for Jolo.
She sucked in a deep breath and screamed, her neck was on fire and her whole body convulsed. And she could hear a desperate voice talking fast. It was the Vellosian, Merthon. He was telling a story.
