Prelude

         "The life of the dead one (literally uaki Wsr,

         'one Wsr' or 'one dead person')

         (untranslatable verb) with great endurance

         without end; when (garbled) it does

         end its journey in broad Am Duat

         and may then come down into whatever

         time and place (it chooses)."
 

         Book of the Two Skies, with commentary, published in 7440.

One

      The platform sat like a stone at the bottom of a stagnant puddle- not alone, but conspicuously lost. The stars that dotted the space around it weren't much company. The Meh was Wars-surplus, crudely repaired in places, badly painted in atmospheric-quality paint that was scorched and scarred by the numerous impacts of interstellar dust and bad welds. The spires of machinery and equipment that dangled 'below' its' bulk were scavenged and mismatched and displayed very little of the tracing, glowing discharges that well-tuned and maintained equipment would, but their flashing and sparking had been bright enough to alert others to the platforms' presence.
 

      The ship that was slowly bringing itself to bear on the station was much like the platform itself: also Wars surplus, badly painted. But where the Meh showed disrepair and haphazard maintenance, the ship was well kept; with reflective, angled armor on its' bow and a trailing energy sink that randomly discharged bright flashes of sudden blue light--a well-maintained IES-Beam engine sat at the heart of this ship-- but they were effectively hidden from sight by the bulbous, armor plated bow of the narrow ship. Barely projecting from behind the armor, long weapon muzzles ranged in. They aligned themselves with the lonely little Meh like dirty, behind-the-back glares at an enemy.

      Just over the trailing energy sinks, encased in thick armor, two wide lamps flickered into life, blinking in patterns at an unseen observer. Their message was clear, their purpose sinister, as the ship homed in on it's prey.

 
 *

      The lights in the compartment were flickering as the two boys ran along the causeway from the habitation platform, back towards the main body of the Meh, their panic easily mistaken for youthful exuberance. The children raced ahead in one of the few areas of the Meh that offered the unrestricted freedom of foot speed: an explosion of youth. Pressing through the thickened chaotic crowd around the heq'akit without loosing much speed, the children pushed and shoved through the men and women, burst through the masses and disappeared into an arched doorway.

      Neferut normally wouldn't have the time to look on this. Her harp was held in position, she'd already tuned in time with the other performers and people were eagerly waiting for the performance to begin. But she'd been on pins and needles lately, and the racing children only aroused a mild panic that cut through the normal elation of performance. Suddenly hyper-aware, the noise and jostling of the crowded heq'akit somehow seemed wrong- oddly off. A subsonic component to the noise that didn't belong permitted the air and she noticed it. She'd always been aware of sound and it had led Neferut to be the gifted musician that she was.

      She stood, still with a pacifying smile on her face, looking out over the heads of the crowd, down the long causeway to the habitation platform and didn't see anyone. Hema placed his hand on her shoulder, a look of concern: her latest conquest, a step up from Senma'a (he'd only been a minor heir, his one set of rooms was a dead end here-- Hema was buying a ship soon, he'd be a path to eventual fortune). His concerned look was a mask for his possessiveness, not love, and the girl would only return a similar lack of real concern- he was her means, while she was his trophy. Looking back, seeing him and the rest of the musicians ready to begin the performance, she smiled in appeasement at them and nodded to Hema, and turned back down to sit and begin the song.

      As Neferut sat, though, she saw someone down that long causeway- someone falling, a red stain, wounds. Arresting her motion, she watched one, then three others-- local guards-- run at a full step around that corner, still too far away to be heard. Behind them, someone clad in a suit designed for extra-atmospheric work stepped out from the corner and took aim- a new-looking, deadly accurate weapon. One of the fleeing guards dropped, then another, who fell into the third with a desperate clutching motion as he died. The running man had a rictus of panic on his face, kicking his dying compatriot in the face to dislodge that fallen guard even as he was shot down himself- the bolt piercing through his side far enough to vanish from sight, the man's face an unholy grimace as he died. 

      Someone yelled, but Neferut's mind was already shouting that it was too late. By the time the throng started screaming she was already up and moving, shoving surprised musicians and crowd alike as she bolted down an opposing passage. Neferut registered the screams of those behind her as she ran, but only on a detached level: all that mattered was running.

      Her harp banged against pipes, pylons and other obstacles as she fled in a panic, not knowing or caring what she ran from as she ran headlong into someone: grey extra-vehicular armor, obscuring face-mask, grim weapon: They both fell on the hard deck-plates, but Neferut was up first, scrambling like some kind of scurrying animal over the body of the man that she'd run into. Low voice, barely heard command as he grabbed her ankle with a rough glove, but she kicked back hard directly at his masked face until the hand released her and she was off, the broken heel of her sandal slapping the ground off-time with her footfalls.

      Just then the floor underfoot heaved like a dropped plate, throwing Neferut off her feet against a vibrating wall. The sound was so loud that it actually shook the air and made everything blurry for a second while Neferut fought to her feet. She had been shocked out of her panic, and stood, wide-eyed and sweating in the center of the corridor, looking both ways. She saw the armored figure that had tried to capture her struggling to his feet within ten cubits- she could have sworn that he'd be farther back- so she turned again and stepped forward to run. But suddenly there was a barely-perceptible noise, and her ears popped: hull must be breached, she thought in a cold understanding as her hair began to wisp behind her head. 

      A door opened inward, and two armored figures stepped through. One pointed his broad, top-heavy looking weapon directly at her head and screamed something through his face-mask, something that Neferut could not understand, but sounded grammatical enough to give her pause. She planted her foot to run, but the broken heel of her sandal slipped out from under her and she twisted and fell. She was caught in the armor-plated arms of the person who'd tried to grab her only seconds ago. The trooper in front of her lowered his weapon as his companion stepped forward while opening some kind of satchel and removed a hosed contraption. The trooper holding Neferut stepped on her ankle to keep her down and wrapped her arms behind her back.  

      The encased face-plate of the figure reflected her own face as he approached Neferut, her hair whipping wildly around her face in the rapidly decompressing air. "Take this and live," the trooper said in a strangely accented, feminine voice. Neferut could see that it was an atmospheric mask: it would supply an atmosphere for a short duration, enough to keep her alive. "Refuse and stay here," the female trooper said bluntly, seeming to shrug, as the one behind Neferut stepped off her ankle and let her arms go free. 

      Her ears popping, hair blowing wildly, Neferut swallowed with a visible gulp, looked around the narrow corridor. Behind the female trooper a line of captives walked forward, wearing atmospheric masks and escorted by well-armed troopers in identical grey armor. Rough plated hands shoved her face into the mask and tightly cinched the straps behind her head before she could protest and pushed her into the shambling line of captives. None of them looked up at her. Most had visible wounds, and all showed signs of conflict. Neferut ventured glances around at the carnage as she was roughly shoved down the corridor, barely registering the bodies and damage, detatched. Hema's body laid where she'd last seen him, his chest peppered with small metal bolts, his lower jaw smashed open in a toothy grin of death. Neferut had seen death before and this was nothing new, but she felt nothing for the man: perhaps a kind of disappointment, but no loss.  

      Guards throughout the bleeding, shuffling crowd pushed the throng down to their knees in a grotesque caricature of the previous assembly, shouting obscenities and using force. Neferut quickly kneeled, bleeding knees not hurting, but her terror told her to comply: a sickening twisting in her stomach the only physical sensation that she felt. A tall woman, her face hidden behind an atmospheric mask, was walking throughout the throng. She was followed by a lean man with long, sandy-blonde hair and a rippling scar along his bristly jaw. The pair was followed by a score of the armored troopers, their grey armor coated in grime and blood As they approached her she could hear their discussion: half-recognizable words put together strangely; long, curiously inflected sentences, guttural plosives. They stopped in front of one captive and exchanged a quick series of words, The man looked strong, none worse for wear after the limited battle. Suddenly the scarred man reached out and ripped the mask off the captives' face, calmly handing it to an attending guard. The captive exhaled loudly in the thin air, eyes bulging suddenly as his hands went to his throat. Neferut had never seen a man suffocate before and it did not look like she expected it to. She nearly retched, with only the thought of her vomit choking her in the mask keeping it down as the evaluating pair stood before her, shattering her detachment. 

      The scarred man had an appraising look in his eyes as they ran up and down Neferuts' body. She had long been the object of desire for many men and had long used it to her advantage, but the look the man held was like a black splotch across a star. He partially grinned behind his mask, just barely, a curious, shadowy grin, and made a mark on a clipboard that he carried. The tall woman made what sounded like a sarcastic remark to him and he winked at Neferut, looking back as the pair continued across the deck-plates of what was left of the assembly hall. She was roughly pulled to her feet and bound at the wrists, with a short length of chain clamped between her knees and pushed forward into a group of captives- survivors did not seem like an appropriate term- and led down the causeway that lead to the dock. 

      Signs of the battle were everywhere, and Neferut took it in, panic returning: a pile of bodies, hardly looking dead, with bolts protruding from them in bloodless profusion; a dead child, it's neck and head wedged into a door-frame at an angle that indicated that it had snapped; one lone wounded trooper, his helmet removed and hanging tiredly beside him, leaning against a wall and nursing a mighty slash to his face, shoulder and arm. He glanced up at her as she passed: he could have been anyone. His clean-shaven head and face did not look remarkable at all. He didn't look bad, or evil, just tired and hurt, and Neferut stared so hard that the captives behind her pushed her forward, guards screaming. The wounded trooper followed Neferut with his eyes, and she his until the captives rounded a corner into the dock. 

      The huge ship that stood open before them was too large to fit into the dock and had forced itself in, with bits of superstructure and equipment piled on it's armored bow, which was split open like articulated, opposing doors. The mighty armor plates of the bow were scratched, burned, dented, blistered and more than four cubits thick, and a gangly, almost comically-narrow gangway descended from a secondary deck onto the floor of the dock. A single-file line of captives was ascending, to be met by a large contingent of troopers at the top: all leveled weapons. Neferut was roughly shoved to the gangplank and climbed the steep stairs with some difficulty due to her chained knees. At the top, one guard removed her atmospheric mask- she took a deep breath as he did so and held it- while another inspected her, presumably for injuries and checked off items on a list. Another one reached forward with a metal bracelet; it's rough condition and smoothed edges making it obvious that it had been used many times before as the trooper clamped it on her upper arm and adjusted it in a single, obviously practiced motion.  

      Finally Neferut was lead off and thrown into a crowded cell full of other women much like her: young and relatively uninjured. The door was shut behind her and air suddenly flooded the cell, bringing it back to a normal atmospheric pressure. None of the other women in the cell looked at her as Neferut found a spot by a wall and sat, pulled herself into a compact ball shuddered.
 

      Small, forward-facing engines on the huge ship silently came to life, throwing dull blue beams against the Meh as the ship slowly extracted itself from what was left of the docking bay. Attendant vessels sat around it, slowly rotating into formation as the ship completed it's disengagement. The guns of the small fleet ranged in on the Meh, responding to flashing visual signals from the larger main ship, which vaguely resembled a beached whale or a short club. First one fired, then another, and then all of the ships issued for the a brief cannonade against the Meh. It began to collapse into itself in a ball of explosions, but the gravity suddenly failed and bits of the station started to come off, trailing away in small bits of briefly-detonating fury as one by one the ships reoriented themselves and blinked from view.

Two
 

      The old man was coming home- if the planet he was approaching could of ever been called home. He'd certainly never felt comfortable there, mentally or physically. Although he had been stocky and well-muscled in his youth, it hadn't been maintained. Sustenance farming on a world large enough to have almost half again normal gravity did not contribute to the comfort of strong bodies, ironically favoring the weaker who required less nutrition, less upkeep. The now elderly man had come across the opportunity to leave and travel into space near his fortieth year and now rarely returned. This time it was only due to a family obligation, a commitment made to what was once a child. 

      His lonely little Pod Hauler made its way through the planetary system near the star Seta, decelerating out of light-speed near the ringed gas giant that was the eleventh planet in the system and orbited it once. He used its gravity to slingshot the little ship-- little being a relative term, the pod hauler was many, many times the size of a human-- toward the fifth planet in the system, the planet of home. 

      Even this far out the gravity is painful, he thought as his little 'Hauler shot past an attendant moon and toward the inner part of the system, the acceleration pressing him uncomfortably down into his padded pilot's seat. It will only get worse from here. He chewed on a few analgesic leaves, a crutch when he was required to leave his ship in recent years, a bad habit when he was not.

      This Meh came into view: Several levels of platforms, radiating 'above' a central spire that dangled 'below' the bulk of the installation, scintillating energies playing about the extended forks of the massive energy sinks at the bottom. He paid no attention to the veritable fleet of ships around it. A shielding arm expanded centrally from the Meh, opening a dark rectangular hole in the glimmering radiation shields of the platform. The hole was almost black when compared with the flashes of color and light that danced and percolated about the exterior of the shields. The 'Hauler coasted through, maneuvering jets briefly firing to correct attitude and course, the old pilot responding to the traffic control lights that gave docking arm coordination and support.

      Once docked at the platform, he could see that it was the middle of the artificial night- a brief period when the internal lighting was cut by three-fourths and business was traditionally halted. This period was kept as synchronized as possible with that of great urban Ma'at, the capital planet far away from this Twelfth-Nome, planetary Meh. By averaging the time from ships hailing from that area against the Meh's onboard clock a rough correspondence of time could be produced. However, with no direct communication except by messenger or document, and shipboard clocks subject to time dilation as they exceeded light speed (though that effect was greatly reduced by the power of the IES-Beam engine and could somewhat be mathematically compensated for) the synchronization was mostly just an approximation. But that token observation was one that was enforced by law: the Meh was orbiting the day side of the planet yet it was night here.

      Still think it's a bad way to do business, thought the aged owner of the little 'Hauler as he exited onto the docking arm, enshrouded in the shadows of the much more massive ships surrounding his. I'm going to be stuck here for hours until it's night down there and get no sleep at all before my visit. Unhappily he padded foreword on worn, soft-soled shoes, toward the customs platform where he could at least get a cup of beer or Renpit or something to eat at grossly inflated prices. His legs started creaking about halfway along the docking arm and he gloomed, damn gravity, been in transit too long, but there would be nothing that the aged man could do about that- he'd picked his ship for it's low gravity profile and how that would positively impact his health and comfort versus the arthritic legs and bad back. Years of planet-bound toil on a world with one and four tenths standard gravities had bequeathed those maladies to him before he'd managed to find an excuse to escape his legal and religious obligation to his community and leave for the stars. 

      He began to grow acutely uncomfortable at the end of the arm. Never fails, gravity, to give someone diarrhea after a week in it's lack, he reflected with great disgust, pausing momentarily at the end of the docking arm with one foot on the unyielding metal plates of the customs platform and the other on the more flexible extended arm. Sighing, he made a decision: At least the gravity will help it come back out again, he resigned and shambled off toward the heq'akit of the customs platform.

      As soon as he stepped off onto the platform, with creaking knees and shambling gait, two Sau'ii en Ma'at-- their characteristically faceted, indigo, black-striped armored suits dull in the low light of the platform completely encasing their bodies-- stopped him to check his papers. Another appeared--almost materialized-- to inspect his ship. He was forced to wait uncomfortably while the more senior of the pair verbally interrogated him in it's monotone, droning voice: 

      "You have business on this platform." The wrinkled man winced. The troopers' grating voice almost sounded synthesized. 

      "No, I'm stopping in route, on to the planet below." He gritted his teeth. Don't they have anything better to do? Like sleep? 

      The officer took it's time before the next question. "You are bound for the capital, or are you to another destination. None is listed, this may be an offense." Sibilance there, no inflection.

      The old man could see ghostly green characters scrolling down the inside of the faceplate of the Sau'ii en Ma'at as he/she/it checked his papers. "I'm bound for the fourth continent, the town of Meri Tha'a," he got out, could of been to the restroom by now. 

      "Your ship does not contain contraband nor illegal weaponry nor typical livestock nor plant life forms or any other non-classifiable living organism nor non-native, non-irradiated potable water nor soil samples nor active biological compounds nor uncleared air samples to the best of your knowledge."

      He gritted his teeth, his forehead wrinkling: "None at all. I went through sterilization last week at RSS 4 and have not been down since then." Embarrassed, he shifted weight from one creaking leg to another, spared a longing glance at the heq'akit while the officer simply stood there, his junior also not moving but apparently looking off in a completely unrelated direction. They kept him there for another long minute, as somewhere off in the distance a great piece of machinery activated with a low, dull whacking noise, adding it's throbbing to the barely-perceptible feeling of the deck plates.

      A new line of glyphs scrolled up, replaced the data on the faceplate of the Sau'ii en Ma'at: the man could hardly read common lettering and had no knowledge of the older style text in use for official work at all, but still squinted at the words, his fate being written there: "You are hereby cleared for docking by executive order Six hundred and thirty eight thousand four hundred and ninety seven 'C' on docking arm Sixty-Six at Customs Platform Level Two for the duration of four days of standard inspection, sterilization…." the officer droned on but the old man had already shambled off after receiving his clearance. The two armored officers still stood there, the senior of the two reciting clearances and regulations, but he was off to the restroom, the sounds of another docking arm extending behind him. 

      He gathered all of his dignity and posture and strode into the heq'akit with confidence, sauntering over toward the public restrooms of the entertainment district, a feature of ports nearly everywhere. He abandoned this attitude, however, when he noticed that the place seemed empty, with only a cleaning crew about and they were facing the other way. Audibly groaning, he clutched his abdomen and walked as fast as his arthritic knees would take him into the restroom. Abandoning all poise as he entered the chamber, he rushed into a private booth, depositing the appropriate coinage to do so, and sat as quickly as he could lower his yellowed, billowing trousers and rearrange his equipment-studded belt. 

      Relieved, he cleaned himself-- the indignities of age and gravity, he thought with disdain-- and stood within the small chamber. Taking this quiet moment to reflect, he suddenly realized that the questioning that he was given-- an interrogation almost-- was most unusual for this area of space. They get by on sustenance farming here, not imports of food. Not even normal customs is that strict on imported wildlife. 

      Depositing those thoughts for later and reaching for the gleaming ceramic door handle, he paused, caught akimbo as another person noisily entered the restroom and seemed to circle the area quickly. The old man stepped back from the door and onto the low platform behind it, quite embarrassed to be the source of the unpleasant aroma within. Must be that cleaning patrol, he thought, with any luck they'll take a break to allow the smell to dissipate and me to leave with just a little self-respect, he glowered at the latrine behind him. It passively had no response.

      The aged man heard whomever was about in the bathroom sniff several times, his face turning red with embarrassment, and then the sound of the chamber next to him being opened by key echoed through the nearly-empty restroom. "Ugh," a voice hissed, and in a jangling cloud of noise the cleaning crew-person turned and rapidly left the area.

      The old man sighed, relieved, and his hand rose to the door handle and started to open it. Just then the sound of clanking equipment and low voices entered the restroom area and he paused- torn with embarrassment on weather or not to leave, then he backed into the stall and quietly shut the cracked-open door. He caught bits of the conversation, perhaps three men: 

      The first several exchanges were too garbled by echoes in the restroom area, but then, "it's here," was clearly understood.

      Some rattling noises, a 'squawk': low, gravely voice, strong accent. "It's ready then? Distinctive enough to attract attention, but not a freak?" The old man suddenly smelled something, something that reminded him of home, the old world, farming, but he couldn't quite place it… His stomach began to move again, however, and the elderly man felt strongly inspired to revisit the latrine. 

      Some low conversation, grumbling, then, "the placement must be perfect…" whispers, then, "much to be had in way of profit here, the reselling of…" and it was lost again as one of the men moved about with a slapping of feet. 

      The man in the stall bit his lip as he felt another attack of diarrhea coming on-- damn gravity!-- and mentally begged the men to leave.

      "You're sure that it'll be enough? What's the yield?" The low, gravely voice again. 

      The old man passed gas, quietly, gritting his teeth, but the group outside didn't seem to notice. One apparently was at the communal trench, the sound of liquid splattering into the ceramic-lined ditch as the not-so-gravely-voiced man harshly whispered, "quit that!"  

      The old man was sweating feverishly by now, clenching his legs together and begging the gods to let the crowd leave! "It'll kill about three fourths of them," continued the higher-voiced man, the sound of equipment rattling about. The stench was incredible in the nose of the aged man, doing nothing to improve his chances of retaining bowel control until these men left. He was not thinking of this, however, his blood running cold as he heard that chilling statistic. Kill? Kill who?

      "With most dead they'll have no choice but to buy."

      The gravely-voiced one: "We've the opportunity tomorrow. Deliver the active agent then, and we'll come back in about three weeks thereafter to initiate the negotiations." The old man was afraid, something about this conversation sounded totally wrong. What are they planning? Got to inform the Sau'ii en Ma'at, he thought as the sounds of the small group told him that they were turning to leave. Just got to hold it for a second… His legs clenched as tightly as possible, his knuckles white with stress as he gripped the railings as tightly as his hands could, forehead beaded with sweat: he passed gas, damn gravity, then again. With the pressure in his abdomen released he felt much better, but the sounds of the men leaving stopped.  

      "I thought that you said that this room was empty," the low voice sarcastically whispered. "Go check again."

      Soft footfalls. Swishing robes. The old man, petrified with fear, could only listen as someone reentered the restroom area, walking slowly, followed closely by another. The latrine chamber beside his opened suddenly and then closed, stopped before it could bang shut. He knew which one would open next, damning himself for not bringing a knife, damning himself for leaving the Pod Hauler, damning the gravity, the restroom, the Sau'ii en Ma'at, everything… 

      His door banged open. A tall, lean man, cruelly scarred, with another man in blue coveralls and a very straight wig leering behind him. "Hello, old man," sneered the one with the coveralls, a very non friendly grin spreading across his face. "I'm afraid that you've heard too much…" 

      Panicking, the aged man tried initiative: he threw a blow as hard as he could at the tall man, satisfied to feel a connection with his jaw. Surprised, the scarred man's head flew back into that of the man with the coveralls, both momentarily paused by the old one's unanticipated attack. What opportunity the elder had, however, he squandered: sinking to his knees, clutching his now broken and useless hand-- damn arthritis!-- his mouth opened to the beginning of a scream, tearing face turning upwards, directly into the path of an oncoming, swiftly moving kick.

      The scarred man stood back after delivering his kick and rubbed his jaw, spat blood disgustedly, while the man in the coveralls drew a small knife and stepped into the lavatory stall. Gritting his teeth, the scarred man spat again, a trail of blood and saliva dribbling down his chin through conspicuous stubble, dripping onto the yellowing trousers encasing the spastically trembling legs of the old man that were soon still.

Three

 

      Hot, dry sand- he couldn’t open his eyes because of the sand.

 

      His ears were ringing and he didn’t know where he was- the ground was shaking violently as he tried to remember what just happened. He tried to spit the sand out, but as soon as he opened his mouth, more poured in. I can’t move! he shouted internally as sudden fear replaced the confused haze, panic building as the dark world seemed to shake itself apart.

      The ground lurched again and there were hands around him- hands pulling him up and out of something, brushing the sand from his eyes, but as soon as he opened them his eyes were full of the grit, and he staggered, falling out of those arms to his knees. It was the sound of a man shouting at him in that strange language that many spoke here– French, he thought– and shaking his arm that made him blink the debris from his eyes and take in the surroundings: the man with the holes in his cheeks shouted something at him again, gesticulating wildly. His eyes were wide like pain and he was screaming again.

      “What? What?” He could only repeat in his broken American, which he spoke much more fluently than that guttural French spoken on this planet, which was not at all.

      Switching to American, the man screamed, “You go with us, you wish to live. There will be no survival here!” The man’s name came back to him– René, he thought– and slowly he looked around the small guest room that Jean had chosen for her final act of treachery (“Not my first nor my last,” she had said to him, still clutching the transmitter, with it’s needle-trapped thumb switch in her hand. “Through my actions, millions are about to die. It’s only fitting that I join them.”).

      He ignored René and the nervous pulling at his arm, ignored the constant thundering of explosions around them and looked down at Jean’s body, slumped in the corner, partially buried by debris from the collapsed ceiling of her tomb. The woman had closed her own eyes just before the end came to her, and fortunately (for him,) her body hadn’t convulsed or done anything else revolting as the poison had worked it’s quick magic. Jean’s spectacles had slipped down her short nose and rested there like she was merely waiting, composed as she was, almost studiously. The transmitter had fallen from her hand, however, and the slick black drop that was her blood on the shiny metal was the only hint to the casual viewer that the woman was dead.

      The whole world convulsed again and Jean was gone- buried under an avalanche of the upper stories of the underground compound that he suddenly knew that he had to get out of. “Merde!” René screamed as he turned, but the ceiling fell on him too and he was just gone.

      The force of the collapsing debris pushed him out through the open doorframe, into the chaos that was once the organized people of the planet of Hooks as they ran, scattered and died. The stained glass-like dome of the colossal hall in the center of the base had shattered and was raining spear-like shards onto the assembly area below. Many of the parked vehicles, civic spaces and bodies below were pincushioned like children’s toys ran through with toothpicks. The man jumped the railing, down one story to the floor and ran across the grounds towards the shaft-like opening where he knew that René had his escape vessel, slipping on a detached hand and almost falling into a forest of palm-thick, leg-long fragments of the former city dome before making it through the cacophony of explosions and screams to the small ship.

      Struggling with the incomprehensible controls, he somehow remembered the combination of keypad strokes that opened the hatch and activated the small craft. It had a pre-programmed orbital insertion and after that it would be up to him: he swatted the controls and hit buttons in the way that he had been shown, but he knew he was relying on luck and was as surprised as anyone could be when the small ship suddenly moved on it’s pinion blocks and shot up the shaft at a speed that properly bypassed the word ‘acceleration.’ It rocketed past the explosions on the surface and in the air as the people of the planet of Hooks tried, and failed, to defend their homes.

      He could look out the thick windows as the small ship attained orbit- somehow inserted in the midst of the Sho’res ships but as yet un-noticed by them. The surface bombardment principles they used appeared to consist of accelerating hundred-meter long, arm thick bars of something at their ground-based opponents and letting the laws of physics work their magic.

      The man, strapped into the flight seat, now became aware of the blood pouring down his left arm and onto the deck. He was getting somewhat light-headed, but hadn’t considered a cause until his arm had slipped on the side of the chair: he looked absently at the claret stream flowing unabated, and closed his eyes to sleep.

* * *

      The man slowly opened his eyes, some unknown period later. The air in the ship was cold and most of the cabin lights were off. Frost was beginning to obfuscate the thick windows that provided a forward view, but there wasn’t much for him to see from where he was strapped in. The cabin was quiet, and a part of him knew that this wasn’t how it was supposed to be – where’s Jean? Shouldn’t she know what to do here? - but a more distant part of his mind knew that Jean wasn’t around to correct this situation.

      In his haze, he didn’t remember that he was strapped into a pilot’s console. He made an effort to raise himself from the seat but the harness held him down. He incoherently tried again to stand, but felt a tug against his left arm – not the seat’s straps, but a gloved hand. Trying to look back, he lost his balance and slipped in the seat, and lost consciousness again.

KFL by Allen P Gresham is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.