It wouldn’t work. The pressure rendered her hands nerveless. She could not hang upside down and transfer the medallion from foot to hand. She couldn’t leave one foot on the ground and still reach her hands.
Standing on her other foot, she raised her leg and pointed it at Kyle. Straining at the limit of her strength, she flexed at the waist and brought her foot to his face.
He smiled at her, absurd in these terrible circumstances, but it made her heart light and feathery. Bending his head to her foot, he took the medallion in his mouth, his breath hot on her sole, his lips soft and wet.
She put her foot down, and they leaned toward each other, straining against their bonds to share their first kiss.
Their lips could not reach. But he pushed his tongue the last few centimeters, and she took the medallion from him, savoring the taste of his mouth on it.
Standing straight again, she flexed her wrists, bringing the blood back into her fingers. Paradoxically calmed by the galvanizing physical contact with Kyle, she took aim and tried again.
Her fingers wrapped around the medallion, snatching it from the air.
No tears this time. She was done with tears.
Flicking the knife alive, she sheared through the chain without effort. Her arms fell, weak from exhaustion and weighted by the loop of metal. She caught herself before the metal clanked on the floor. Or before the knife, still extended, wounded her.
She didn’t have room for any more mistakes.
Kneeling to the ground, holding her hands at floor level and twisting them around, she still could not reach the tape. At least she could cut the chain lower down, opening the loop so the metal links could slide quietly into a pile.
Standing, she stepped over to Kyle. Before she cut him free there was one thing that was more important, one thing that was more necessary than saving their lives or the entire galaxy. One thing that had already waited too long.
She kissed him, their lips finally meeting, the heat of their bodies shared, their tongues touching without restraint.
Afterward he stared at her, amazed.
Carefully she reached above his head, extending the blade again. She would have to operate by sight alone, since the knife gave no feedback. Touch would not tell her the difference between tape and flesh.
He stood perfectly still, trusting her. Even after she moved the knife away, his hands did not move. They stayed, locked in place, until she stepped back and nodded.
Released, they flew into action. Kyle knelt over the guard, rifling under his clothes, until he found the sensor patch. It was held on by staples instead of tape. As painful as it must have been going in, taking it out would be twice as bad. Not that Prudence cared about that. Now that Kyle knew where the sensor was, he could safely begin stripping the guard. He got no further than tugging on the trousers before the guard moaned in pain and voided his bowels.
Kyle stood up in defeat. “If we move him, he’ll die.” Prudence didn’t care about that, either, in the long run. But for the next few minutes it was important.
Lying in his own filth, gurgling, the guard wasn’t intimidating anymore, merely pathetic. Prudence looked down and allowed herself to pity him. This would be her last memory of the man, and she chose pity over hate.
Kyle was already planning the next move. “Sooner or later, the other guy is going to get worried. He should call for backup, but that means admitting he broke protocol in the first place. So instead, he’ll open the door to see what’s taking so long. Try not to kill him, Pru. You can cripple him, but try not to kill him.” While he spoke, he cut the tape from her hands with a knife from the crippled guard’s boot.
He hugged her and kissed her ear. She wanted to melt into his arms and stay there, forever. Instead, she stood against the wall, on one side of the door. Kyle took his post on the other, the knife reversed in his hand so he could club with the hilt. And they waited.
Long, long minutes, but so much easier to bear. The memory of Kyle’s embrace clothed her, resting on her bare skin like armor.
The door whined.
“Fucking fuck, Holbing, what the fuck are you…” Jobson’s voice trailed off into silence as the empty room came into view. Like the idiot he was, he leaned forward to get a better view, his head coming through the doorway.
“Hey,” Kyle said.
Jobson turned to look at Kyle. Realizing it wasn’t Holbing, he pointed his splattergun at him. Finally realizing the naked man was not a danger, he whipped his head around, just in time for Prudence to reach up and touch his face.
She slid the knife in between his eyes. Just a few centimeters and out again, straight and neat, like she had seen the operation done on old medical vids.
Jobson stood there, staring at her.
“Give me that,” Kyle said gently, taking the gun from him. “And that,” unbuckling the man’s utility belt with its little pockets of ammunition and key cards. “That’s a good boy,” he said, unclipping Jobson’s microphone from his shirt pocket. Methodically he stripped the man down to his underclothes, claiming his trousers and boots for himself. “Now just sit down here and be quiet for a while, okay?” Kyle guided the passive guard into the room, and pushed him to the floor. Jobson, his brain no longer fully functional, stared in amazement at the dull metal floor.
Touchingly, Kyle draped the guard’s shirt around her, where it hung like a badly fitting mini-dress. Prudence shrugged her arms into it and fastened three buttons. It was romantic, or would have been, if it had been his shirt. And less sweat-stained.
Kyle had already stepped out of the cell and swept the control room with his gaze and the barrel of the splattergun. Prudence followed him, unconcerned. The room was obviously empty. If it weren’t, they would have already died in a hail of gunfire.
Kyle found a leather jacket hanging off a chair. He put it on, but had to zipper it closed to hide his bare chest. Wearing a jacket inside a spaceship looked ridiculous. She almost gave him the shirt back, but she didn’t. Not that she cared; but she did not want to expose what he had chosen to keep private.
He fumbled at his new belt, made a selection, and touched a key to the cell door. It whined shut.
“Their shift has to end soon.” She let his voice wash over her, grateful that it spared her the effort of trying to speak. “Otherwise they would have spent longer talking themselves into trouble. I can kill the next shift as they come in, but after that, I don’t have any more plans.”
She walked to the main door.
“No,” Kyle said, shaking his head. “The guards suck, but the ship designers don’t. That door won’t open from the inside. Only from the outside. Those idiots were as much imprisoned in here as we were.”
How could he be so sure? She looked at him in wonder.
Grinning, he guessed her question. “I recognized the brand name on the cell key. The brig locks were made on Altair. I’ll give them that much: Dejae knows quality when he sees it.”
So it was up to her expertise now. Pacing around the room, she tried to guess how the ship would be laid out. She picked a corner of the room, out of direct sight from the main door. Opening the knife again, she cut a hole in the floor itself.
The plating dropped a dozen centimeters, clanking on the grav-plating underneath. Carefully she cut through that, trying to avoid any wires or data feeds.
When she pulled the knife away, Kyle hauled the junk out of the hole. Reaching in, he grabbed the bottom layer of mesh by the steel spine that ran along it.
Carefully she cut around his hands, releasing the ceiling mesh from the deck below them. He pulled it out of the way, glanced down briefly, readied his splattergun, and stepped through the hole.
Watching him fall out of sight was wrenching. The soft thud from below was reassuring only because it was not accompanied by gunfire. She had to force herself to wait three seconds before following him.
She couldn’t hang from the edges and let herself down gracefully, because they would be too sharp. She had to step into freefall.
