two spindly arms to race across a lineup of keyboards. It had a face, sort of, with eyes on long stalks and a strange mouth with a baleen-like substance for straining substances out of the air. Ullyards loved humans; they fed off of microbes, and humans maintained a host of them.
The Ullyard turned both eyestalks in Syrah’s direction. It’s voice slurred in a heavy accent. “You are being Syrah?”
“Never heard of her.” She even smiled.
“Blonde hair, blue eyes. Covered in diamond dust, you broke the window. You are to be detained for the Lord Kozlov.” Ullyards were also famed for having no sense of humor.
She concentrated and pulled, and felt the strange sensation of metal yielding to her wrist. She could hear the metal tear even as the security bot said, "Any escape attempt will be met with deadly force."
The tremors came again, and Syrah's triumph melted into a puddle of disappointment as her opportunity of freedom closed around her. Her eyes fluttered up in her head, and she slid bonelessly to the ground.
She came to her senses to a much different scene. The Ullyard was dead, its corpse already beginning to break down in the way of their kind. The arresting robot's arms were ripped off, followed by someone punching into its thick metal carapace and ripping out vital wiring. Syrah blinked and looked around, looking confused. She remembered ruining the robot's hand, but this? Could she have done all of this?
Pura ran in and paused as her eyes scanned the alien corpse. Her dark eyes widened when she noticed the broken robot.
“No time for long explanations,” She ushered the girl back out the way she’d come. “We’ve got to go!”
“Your hair.” Pura stared at Syrah. “Your eyes..”
Syrah looked down and caught a glance of her hair against her shoulder. It was stark white, rather than her own familiar blonde. It was a mystery for another day. Right now she had to live for that other day. "It's not important."
They walked out of the nest of girders, and found themselves back in the hallways.
"Hey, look!" Pura pointed out a service hall. "That's so small, I bet the bots won't fit!"
She quickly lowered her arm and fell into step with the petite girl. “Does this lead to the ships?”
"I don't know." Pura shrugged. "It sounded echoey and rumbly though."
The service hall joined to another, and suddenly they were amid a bustling throng of people. Syrah grew concerned when she saw how many people they'd run across. Each of them seemed content to ignore the pair despite their looks. Couriers and slaves swung wide to avoid them, but didn't spare them more than a cursory glance. Pura pulled Syrah forward through the crowd, undaunted. They hurried down the hallway to a service elevator. There were many floors listed on the panel on the wall, but the docking bay was not one of them.
“What do we do?” Pura looked up to Syrah, confident that she would come up with something.
“We don’t give up.” Without thinking, Syrah put her hand flat on the console. She closed her eyes and concentrated. For a moment, she could feel the workings of the elevator, the myriad of wires that led from floor to floor. Then she punched through the sturdy plastic cover. Sparks flew and wires spilled out like guts. Muttering to herself, Syrah selected two wires and wound the disconnected copper ends together. Power whirred as the elevator came online.
"Didn't that hurt?" Pura asked.
Absently Syrah scratched at her fist. The flesh was pink, as though she had healed up from a multitude of cuts. "No, it didn't."
"How'd you get so strong?" Pura asked.
"I ate my vitamins." Syrah didn't want to get into the real story at all, but even if she was willing to tell Pura everything, in a service hallway where the walls had ears was not the place to do it.
Gingerly she reached out and hugged Pura, who looked lost and alone. The girl clung to her tightly. “Let’s get to a ship. Once we get off planet, I can tell you.”
The movement stopped, and the door opened. Syrah looked out cautiously, but no one waited for them. No one seemed aware that this elevator existed. The shine of a security bot caught her eye, and she frowned. She found a handkerchief in one of the pockets of her tactical vest, and tied it over her hair. It would do for a first glance only, but better than nothing. She wished she still had her goggles from the hovercraft but those were lost to the crash.
The docking bay was enormous, with high ceilings for accommodating space-faring ships. Many of the ships were tiny little things, shuttles to go to the void ships that couldn’t survive atmospheric pressure. There were also larger vessels, which would be capable of going atmo-to-void but wouldn’t take them out of a solar system. Syrah looked at her options and sighed.
Lingering wasn't part of the plan. There weren't a lot of people out and about, which was unusual for a docking bay. Syrah assumed that security required the captains to stay where they were, or else had shut them away on other floors. Ship captains never liked to be told what to do, and were probably biding their time. Still, Syrah doubted any of them would be of any help. She was sure she had to find an empty craft and steal it. She started walking towards a likely prospect with a sense of purpose. Pura followed, quickening her pace. A knot of three security bots surrounded a red-faced individual, who quoted some obscure law that suggested he was among the privileged few who didn't have to wait for lockdown to be over to leave. He made a great distraction.
He would have been a great distraction, at least, if they could have kept across the room. In order to get where Syrah wanted to go, however, they would walk directly past Captain Proselytize.
"You can’t keep me grounded! I’ve already gotten permission to fly out of here!” The red-faced man shouted.
The security bot replied without inflection, “No one is authorized to fly until the criminal is apprehended.”
The man unleashed such invective Syrah felt a desire to cover Pura's ears. He was still going while she tried to keep walking. Pura gaped at him. If he hadn’t been ranting he could have been handsome; thick dark hair, bright blue eyes, rugged features. Syrah stifled a groan. His eyes flicked from the robots to the motion behind it, and noticed them. As if on cue, two of the bots turned their attention from him to them. The bots broke ranks and approached Syrah and Pura, leaving the ranting man with only one bot to listen to his plight.
"Halt in the name of Spaceport Authority." The bots closed the distance quickly. One reached for her, and she grabbed it by the arm without thinking. She twisted. Metal bent like soft clay, wires snapping beneath the sheathing. The arm hung limp, but the bot was undaunted.
"Pura, run!" Syrah shouted, trying to close with the slightly less cavalier robot.
Pura turned, and then ran between the two bots.
The ranting pilot had quieted when he saw Syrah nearly pull off the security robot's arm. The third bot reacted to its programming, considering Syrah the higher threat, and pulled away to aid his fellow bots. When the bot turned its back on him, the pilot pulled out a small black box from his pocket and pushed a button. The bot froze in place.
Syrah still had her own concerns about security. A bot lunged for her, and she grabbed its head and pulled it free of its mooring. She used it to smash into the body of the thing, and stopped when the wires fell out in a sparking mess. The second bot tried to reach a call box, but the pilot stepped forward and hit his button again, stopping it in its tracks.
The pilot put his black box away, looking smug. Pura ran over to Syrah, listening as the alarms sounded.
“Effective.” Admiration laced his tone. "I'm guessing that you're the ones they're after."
"The girl's my hostage." Syrah said. "She didn't do anything."
"Hostages run away from captors, not toward." He shrugged. "Not that I care. It seems like you could use a ride.”
"What kind of pilot offers a ride to a couple of fugitives?" Syrah eyed him distrustfully.
“A smuggler." He put out his hand. "Name's Barran."
Syrah looked at his hand until
he put it away.
"Look, you’re going to have to find someone to take you out to the black, now aren’t you?” Barran looked up.
There were security bots pouring in on the mezzanine level, backed up by humans with heavy guns. "I don't see you getting any better offers."
Syrah growled. “Fine. Let’s go, flyboy.”
“That’s where you come in.” He pointed to the docking clamps engaged on his shuttle. “I don’t have an override, but if you can do that “He pointed at the downed bots, “to those, we’ll be out of here in no time.”
It was almost a relief, in a way. Understanding his motivation would help her to stay a step ahead of him. She didn't want Pura to go without her, but he was right. Better offers weren't exactly pouring in. “Pura, go with Barran. Keep an eye on him, I’ll be right there.”
Zinging bolts of light shot past the group. Barran and Pura ran to the shuttle, while Syrah ran towards the docking clamps. The first one loomed; a thick metal band she had no right to expect to move. The security bot was one thing, with hollow tubes filled with wires. This was titanium reinforced steel. She wrapped her hands around the clamp, and steadied herself. Then she grabbed a hold of the heavy, cold clamp. The shriek of metal drowned out the alarms. More bolts of light shot out, but Syrah had the shuttle between her and most of the incoming fire. She was at the fourth clamp when they scored a hit on her. The pain blinded her, but she used her anger to