Spacer’s never stayed stunned very long by anyone’s standards, and Naero revived faster than most. Her mind started working before her body could respond.
Tarim checked her over when they dumped her back into their holding cell. He felt her pulse and looked for any injuries.
This one is not a jerk…not an enemy. You think of him as a friend, a fellow prisoner. We should not eliminate him?
No. Don’t harm any of my friends. Don’t eliminate anyone without my permission.
Our defense is primary. I will not always be able to comply.
Then Tarim knelt over her, praying quietly until she awoke fully and started to move. He and Gallan had put on their coveralls at some point.
Gallan was pretending to be asleep again.
“You’re...you’re alive?” Tarim said. “Thank God Almighty. When those meks threw you back in, I th-thought maybe you were dead.”
Naero shook her head. “It’ll take more than that.”
Except for thirst, hunger, and a stun headache, she felt like a million creds.
“You had this goofy smile on your face.”
She half-smiled again. “Yeah. Just like that.”
Lexicon. What is goofy?
“I’m okay,” she said “They bring us any food? Lix?”
Tarim shook his head and tried to smile. “They haven’t brought anything yet. It’s just like rationing onboard the mining transports.”
“Great.” She could smell her friends.
Hell. She could smell herself.
Lexicon. What is stink?
They all needed to get clean. She guessed there were no mist showers on this pleasure cruise either. “Maybe I shouldn’t have pissed off old nubs so much.”
Is a nub an extremely minuscule, ineffective, and impotent penis?
Bingo, Om.
Gallan suddenly sat up suddenly, smiling. “What’d you do now, N?”
Tarim jumped. “God bless it! Don’t do that. I never know if you people are sleeping or awake. You guy’s are so damn creepy.”
Gallan laughed and clapped Tarim on the shoulder. “That’s the idea.”
Lexicon. Accessing creepy.
Briefly, quietly, Naero summarized what happened with Kattryll.
Gallan laughed until he couldn’t stay upright.
Tarim paled and looked very worried.
He sat down, hugged his scrawny legs close to himself, and buried his face in his knees, shaking his head.
“Th-they’re gonna k-k-kill us for sure. Help me, Jesus. I’m worth less than nothing to these vile monsters. This is worse than the mines. At least there you had some chance at staying alive if they didn’t single you out for something.”
“Live with it,” Naero told him. “Unless we can find a way to get out of here, it’s gonna happen, just as soon as they think we’re of no further use to them.”
Gallan reached over and shook the lander’s arm. “Spacers have a saying: See the truth of things for what they are and move under your own power.”
“These bastards are our enemies,” Naero said. “Look at what they did to you and your family–your people.”
“Rain. Mom and Dad. Everyone I knew,” Tarim said, hugging his knees and looking over his elbows, his eyes burning.
His face flushed scarlet; he clenched his bony fists. “Damn these evil fiends to hell.”
What is a fiend? Is it like a jerk, only incrementally worse? What and where is this hell?
Hell’s a bad place to be, Om. Like the place we’re in right now.
Very well. Then we should escape and get out of hell. Slang. Get the hell out of here.
Exactly. I’m working on it. We need a plan, and we need an opportunity. But it looks pretty bad right now.
“Don’t give them the satisfaction of showing fear,” Gallan said to Tarim. “Piss in their faces and laugh. How many times can they kill you?”
Lexicon: pissing is urination, correct? I cannot piss.
Tarim shuddered, his mouth tight. He leaned his head back onto his folded arms, sniffed, swallowed hard, and was silent for a time.
Naero stood up again and stretched, unfurling her wings behind her back and–
She gaped. Neither Gallan or Tarim made any notice of her new creased, bat-like wings.
Great. On top of everything else, another hallucination.
Om, are you causing this? Are these hallucinations your doing?
Continuing attempts to activate defensive protocols ineffective. Attempts to interface with our mind and form activate your imagination in unusual ways. We are both doing this. You are wishing you could escape our current hell. You wish you could fly away. The delusion of wings is a manifestation of your desires. I cannot control them or what form they take.
Tarim finally looked up, his face impassive. “Okay, so what’s the plan then? How are we going to get out of here?”
Naero shrugged and lay back, staring up at the ceiling, folding her imaginary wings under her. “I have no idea. Better get some sleep for now.”
Tarim gaped and threw up his hands. “Sleep? They’re going to torture and kill us tomorrow and you want me to sleep?”
Gallan stretched out again and sighed. “Not much else we can do. We still have a few hours before morning. Have to keep our strength up.”
Tarim’s mouth still hung open. Naero reached up and pushed it closed.
“They’ll make a mistake,” she whispered to him. “Just be ready to move when they do. Follow our lead. If nothing else, do as much damage to them as you can before you go down. I wish I had something better to offer you, but that’s about it.”
Tarim nodded, still looking somewhat wide-eyed and pale. “Just like the mines,” he said. “There isn’t a way out, no matter how bad you want one.” He went back to praying, something about committing his soul into someone’s hands.
Before she drifted off to sleep, Naero reached over, and gently patted him on the back.
He was crying and shaking so hard he could barely control himself. Poor kid. He’d been through a lot, and was about to go through even more.