They’d battered her and stripped her and tortured her. They would have easily found the knife if she’d kept it on her. But as much as they threatened to torture Lopez, they never even touched him. They needed him alive if they were going to kill him, and the legionnaire couldn’t have survived time with the man who’d tortured her. The man with the beady, mean eyes.
And they’d already searched Lopez when they first brought him in. No need to search him again.
She listened for a long time and didn’t hear much of anything. Like some calm before the storm. In fact, she heard so much of nothing that it got creepy. Just like in the hour before they took Beers. Who never came back.
The hour of the slaughter.
She moved the knife to her palm. Then clenched it into a fist.
That’s a bold move, Amanda Panda.
I know, she practically whispered to herself. It was a gamble. Every time they’d moved them, she’d made fists to fight. They’d never paid any mind to that, instead focusing on her wrists and getting the ener-chains around those. Who cares what’s in her hands? We’ve already searched her, right?
Just like they’d already searched Lopez.
Assumptions are a breeding ground for loopholes.
Dad? Or some Reaper instructor. Someone had given her that bit.
Hard to say. And not important now.
When she heard the first ground strikes of the HK-PP, a sound she’d heard before as a marine, she knew something was up. Not just far off, but close at hand. Her guards on the other side of the door were freaked out. She could hear them nervously talking inside the dirty old suite.
“Think it’s headed for us?”
“I ain’t gettin’ paid enough to face off against one of those things. Whatcha think we’re gonna use… blasters? Slogans about equal treatment for alien races, like them stupid kids?”
That got a graveyard laugh out of the crew watching over her and Lopez. She could tell they’d moved to the windows to get a glimpse of the mighty battle machine coming toward them.
“Thing is huge!” someone said.
“It’s gotta be twenty blocks away and already it’s a monster!”
“Tell Loth I’m out.”
“You tell him!”
But they stayed. And she heard the transmission that came in next.
“Loth says we’re moving the prisoners,” the voice said over comm. “Stand by to get ’em ready.”
She got herself ready. As ready as she could. Felt the knife and knew it was all she had.
She heard the main gun of the mauler fire. Heard some section of a distant building explode. Alarms went off down the block beyond the high windows of the old apartment tower.
She heard them gathering outside the pantry door. Gathering to storm the room and take them to a new loc. She knew for a fact she and Lopez wouldn’t survive what someone would one day call “crime scene number two.” Wherever they were being taken to. That was crime scene number two. They’d do the executions there. And quick.
Which meant she had to do this right. If not, this pantry would become crime scene number two. These men would kill her before they’d let her kill them. Prisoners and propaganda streams be damned.
She laid down next to Lopez who was gurgling out ragged breaths. He needed professional medical treatment soon. And that was probably why they’d make their kill holovid sooner rather than later. Lopez wasn’t going to last much longer. She knew it. They knew it.
She lay down and palmed the knife.
It was all she had, she reminded herself.
They stormed the room and took her first. No tranqs this time, which was a blessing. Maybe the someone she’d prayed to was listening. Maybe that was all she’d get. Maybe that was all she needed.
She threw up a quick thought of a prayer. While you’re handing out miracles, Oba, or whoever you are, I could use a blaster.
Nothing.
Okay then, she told herself. Just the knife.
Prayers get answered. Just not always the answer you want, Manda. Her dad.
Okay.
But she’d take this one. This one miracle of not being drugged when they came in to take her to her death.
Ener-chains on. They focused on her wrists and not her fists. Not opening her hands. Not seeing the knife she hid there. Because it wasn’t supposed to be there and so they didn’t look for it. As they started dragging her through the pantry door, the leather sack went over her head.
She felt the knife.
She concentrated on it.
In a galaxy of unknowns… it was known. And a kind of compass by which she might cross the gulf of the next few minutes.
Knowing they might be her last.
They readied Lopez and began moving both prisoners out of the dingy suite. Through enclosed areas and out of this place. Down long and silent hallways. All of them chattering in their operator speak like they knew exactly what they were doing. Certain in their certainty. But she could hear them stutter every time the mighty planet-pounder struck the city streets. And that made her happy. Because maybe…
“Tha’s marines,” muttered Lopez ahead of her. “Comin’ to get us, y’all… kelhorns. Kill every last one of you…”
Then he faded off and he and Amanda were dragged down the stairs in some dark well they’d been pulled into.
She needed a moment. Something.
Remember, she said to the galaxy. Remember when I prayed…
She heard distant blaster fire. Small and tiny. Several floors away. Frenetic and deadly.
Like to have a blaster of my own right now, she thought to herself. Reminded the galaxy.
If wishes were fishes, beggars would ride, Manda.
Grandma. Daddy’s mama.
There was a boom.
An explosion? Or was that just the building shaking from another one of the planet-pounder’s thunder strikes?
The building’s fire alarms erupted through the dark of her leather hood. The men started shouting. They didn’t know what was going on.
If she had to guess, there were six of them. Six of them around her and Lopez. Six that needed to die for them to live.
She stumbled. Someone let go of
