Taking a few moments to compose himself, Nec dialed up the SU ship.

“Governor Nec Tede calling for Captain-Mayor Brooks,” he said.

A moment later, the Captain appeared.

“Governor.  Have you any word about my missing people?”

So they hadn’t gotten back yet, just as Rem had said.  “We’ve found some sign of them, Captain.  They’ve wandered deep into the asteroid – we have a lot of areas that are drilled but not yet occupied.”

The Captain’s face tightened.  “Even so, it’s been almost twenty-four hours, Governor.  I refuse to believe that your people are this incapable.”

Anger spiked in him, but the Governor tried to keep his words soothing.  “As I said, it’s a big asteroid.  We believe in the individual’s rights here, Captain – if people want to mine on their own, so long as they have the permits they can do it.  We haven’t even mapped it all out.”  Some of his anger squeezed out.  “But I have to ask – what were your people doing wandering so far?  We have warnings posted all over the place about the dangers of getting lost.”

Brooks hesitated – just a moment – but Nec caught it.  “I’m not sure.  But yesterday, for a time we detected a second homing signal that matched that of our craft – coming from within the colony.  It could have been used to lure my people away from the ship.”

“I didn’t hear anything about that,” Nec said, feeling thrown on the defensive again.  “But if it did happen, then it must have been an accident.  People got excited about your arrival – probably just trying to emulate the outsider.”  He grimaced.  “It’s one of the downsides of being isolated – people start to think everything foreign is better.”

“I’d like a full investigation into that,” Brooks said.  “I should think you would, too.  If it’s one of the enemies from the other colonies you’ve spoken of, this would be a chance to find them.”

“Ah, that’s a good point,” Nec replied.  “You’ve got yourself a good head there, Captain-Mayor.”

Brooks didn’t seem to even take in the compliment.  “Meanwhile, Governor, I’d like to continue our discussion about Apollonia Nor.  I’d like to see a full report of your evidence against her.”

“Oh.”  Nec took a moment to consider.  He hadn’t really formalized anything about the woman into a report; it wasn’t the sort of detail he generally bothered to track.

“I’ve been considering that, Captain-Mayor.  I’ve decided that, if you’re willing to take her off the colony, I’ll drop the charges.”  Rem had said to get the Captain to let his guard down, hadn’t he?

“That’s very generous of you,” Brooks replied.  “But you seemed convinced she had murdered your former head of security.  Why just drop the charges?”

“Captain-Mayor, you wanted her.  I want her gone – it’s no matter to me if it’s warm or cold.  Will you take her?”

“Yes,” Brooks replied.  “But I’d still like to know what evidence you have of her killing your former security chief.”

“Ah, just motive and her . . . gifts, as you like to call them.  She and the old chief never got along.  Violently so.”

“That’s it?” Brooks asked.

“Yes,” Nec hissed, his patience straining.  “Besides, I want to show you I’m willing to work with you, Captain.  Have you considered my requests?”

“Yes,” Brooks replied.  But he did not elaborate.  “If you do this Governor, I’ll consider it an act of good faith and it will reflect well upon you.  This, and having my people returned unharmed.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Nec said, giving his best smile.  “I’ll do everything in my power, you have my word.”

Brooks didn’t smile back as he ended the call.

< Ep 2 Part 29 | Ep 2 Part 31 >

Pirra heard shouts, but she couldn’t make out the one voice.  There was something strange about it, but she couldn’t tell what.  It just sounded off.

Then the screams started.

And the shooting came right after.  There were no controlled bursts, just full-auto.

The screams were short, agonized.  She heard crashes and impacts so loud that she could hear the bones breaking.

An object came flying through the gap and she threw herself back, letting out a sound that was half scream and half battle cry.

It was a human body, tumbling like a ragdoll.

It was flying like it had been shot from a cannon, hitting the wall with a sickening sound that was at once a splat and the shattering of bone.

The body rebounded, its momentum so great that it flew back out.  She could peer carefully out at it, where it had slid to a stop, four meters back into the other room.  The man was dead, there could be no doubt.  The force had mangled the body so much it was barely recognizable as a human.

She had seen bodies fly like that before, in industrial accidents, when vehicles or heavy machinery went awry.  But it was never less shocking to see, and she could not account for what could have done it.  Had there even been industrial equipment out there?

Footsteps approached, and Pirra tried to heft the rifle against whatever was now coming after them.

Kell leaned between the pipes.  The Ambassador’s face was perfectly calm, but there was no hiding the blood that was splattered across it.  Red blood.  Human blood.

“We must return to the ship,” it said.  Looking down to Cenz, Kell leaned over and took the being, moving the Coral like he weighed nothing.

Pirra couldn’t make words, but nodded.  Kell left, pulling Cenz with him.

Pirra stepped out and saw the carnage, what was left of the dozen men that had been out here.  Her eyes were drawn to the Ambassador.

There was a smile on its face.

“What the fuck are you telling me?” Nec Tede screamed at the image of his security chief.

Hoc Rem did not even blink.  “The security team I dispatched to check on the first team are all dead, Governor.”

“You said that the Coral was out of its suit, badly wounded, and probably dying.  Are you telling me that two xenos, one of them dying, killed a dozen men?!”

“We see some signs of a firefight, but that’s not what killed the men,” Rem replied evenly.

“Then what did?”  A fear stabbed into his chest, making it tighten painfully.  His head felt like it was swimming.

“We’re not sure, but it appears that blunt trauma and cervical fractures were responsible for their deaths.”

“What?” the Governor demanded.  The words weren’t too big for him, but in his current state he couldn’t parse that out.

“Crushed or broken necks,” Rem clarified.  Something in his words sounded tired, as if he was explaining this to a child.  “The squad leader was nearly decapitated – that is, his head was almost removed.”

Nec Tede felt ready to explode on the man.  How dare he?

But the man continued before Nec could get his thoughts in order.

“I understand this is alarming news, Governor, but do not be concerned.  I have a plan that will solve these issues.  This scene is fresh, and I don’t believe they have reached their ship yet.  I need you to contact the Captain-Mayor and keep him and his people calm.  Get them to lower their guard – promise whatever you have to.  We don’t need long.”

Nec’s eyes narrowed.  “What’s your plan?”

“It’s better if you don’t know, Governor.”  Rem’s expression did not change, but the way he tilted his head back made it seem mocking.

With a great effort, fueled by his own fear, Nec nodded.  “I’ll keep them busy.”

Rem cut the line.

Nec Tede slammed his fist onto the console.  Once, then again and again.

Everything was going out of his control.  When he’d first hired Hoc Rem, the man had seemed perfect – not only good with a gun and administration, but he’d known people all over the outer colonies, including his shadowy contacts.  He had brokered the deal for the cloning equipment and only cared about money, which meant his motives were at least clear.  But now the man had his own agenda, it was obvious.  And he was hiding things – always a bad sign.

But what could he do?  He was in up to his neck.  Even if he’d never gotten into this crazy cloning plan, he’d still just be the leader of a dying colony, with no hope of a future.  Any day, he knew, Ban and his cutthroats in Old Vitriol could come in here and take over, and bring his head back to his cousin.  His own blood, his own ancestry tracing back to the fucking idiot prophet that had brought them to this fucking shitty system, had marked him for life.

And now they’d involved these SU officers.  If they died, if word got back, that would be it.  No more external trade – at best.  The possibility that they’d come in with more ships than he had people and just arrest him and send him off to some penal colony was also possible.  And there, he thought, it’d be even easier for Ban to kill him.

If they did that – in a moment of clarity, he realized he had no idea what they did with prisoners.  He’d never been outside of the system, and everything he knew about the SU presented them as naive, soft, but possessing overwhelming ships and people when they were angry.  It was how they’d beaten the Aeena, beaten the Latarren, sheer numbers.

None of the serials ever showed what they did with their prisoners, though.  For all he knew they ground them up into nutrient paste for their algae vats.

A dull throbbing pain burned in his hand, and he realized he’d probably fractured a bone with his rampage.

He had to calm down.  There were still ways to salvage this.  And right now, he had no choice but to trust Hoc Rem.

< Ep 2 Part 28 | Ep 2 Part 30 >

“Put your weapon down and step out slowly – hands up.”

She wouldn’t do that.  If she was lucky, these men might be recruits, and she could scare them off.

They’d have her in their sights and would be able to gun her down if she peeked.  She needed an advantage.

Taking the sensor she’d been using, she set her system to overload every piece in it at once.  It was far too much heat for the device to run them all, and there was a component in the sensors she knew from experience would produce quite an uncomfortably bright flash when it overheated.

She chucked it out the gap.  Shots came in return, confirming her suspicions.  But none of the bullets hit the tiny sensor, and a moment later-

BANG.  It burst, and while it wasn’t the best cover, she leaned out and squeezed the trigger on her rifle.

A burst of rounds fired out, not hitting them, but hitting close enough to send some ducking.  Others, she saw, had recoiled – the bright flash had been worse through their scopes, enough to stun them-

But then she realized just how many there were.

She ducked back just as return fire came, flinching as round after round hit the piping behind her.  But the metal was thick, and only fools used rounds that could punch through things on a ship or station.

At least a dozen, she figured.  Only about four times as many as she’d first thought.

“Shit,” she said.

“Pirra,” Cenz flashed.

“Just stay down!” she signalled, waving him down and hoping he’d not try to go out.  Not try to do something stupidly brave again.

“Pirra, I just want to say how sorry I am.”  He was still going.

She tried to wave him down again.  This was not the moment for him to be feeling bad for getting injured.  She had to figure out something, and quickly.

“I know you threw your singing stone away,” he said.

That caught her off-guard.  “Wait, what?”

“I’m sorry, I looked up more after we spoke on the ship.  I didn’t know how bad it was for your people.  What it meant for you to have them – how hard it was.”

Their translators always did an incredible job of sharing the feeling behind words, reading inflections and tones and context to try and impart the most accurate portrayal of what a being was saying.  She didn’t know how Cenz’s kind even displayed emotion like sadness. In his current state it was hard for him to even talk, and yet he was trying so hard to impart the emotion to his words.

She’d never heard his voice more full of sorrow.

“It’s all gone,” he continued.  “Almost all of your people killed, your language and culture eradicated . . . and you had to throw it away.”

Pirra didn’t know what to say.  She didn’t know how she could possibly let herself delve into the emotions that moved him so much now.  Even at the best of times they were something she was scared to consider.

But it meant enough to him to bring up when he was, in all likelihood, dying.

Kneeling, she reached out a hand and touched the mechanical hand at the end of his arm.

The fingers closed around her hand gently.

“I’ll get us out of this,” she told him softly.  Her voice cracked all the same.

Now she just had to figure out how-

“Hey, who are you?” she heard a human shout.  Someone else was out there.

Six guns pointed to Kell, while another six kept their sights trained on the doorway.

“Identify yourself, immediately!” a man barked.  Half a dozen other voices were screaming orders.

Kell ignored them all.

“I am Ambassador Kell from the Sapient Union.”

Kell’s voice did not sound as it normally did.  A slip of something strange, inhuman, came into the tones.

And the men facing the Ambassador caught it.  To a man, those present felt fear enter their hearts.  Something in them was triggered by what the being before them had just let slip.

Its voice, the kind of voice that it would have used in ages past to cry out as it hunted life like theirs.  From the simplest bacteria to humanity itself, Shoggoths had preyed upon them.  Instinct existed in all such life to fear their sound.

One man, the oldest, spoke.  His voice trembled, but he did a good job of keeping his strength.

“I don’t care who you are, get out of here!”

But he made no move to force the issue.

“Am I to take it, then, that you will try to keep me from taking my compatriots out of here?” Kell asked.  The voice was simple, quiet.  But more of the truth of what it was slipped into its voice.

Part of Kell wanted them to listen.

But they didn’t.

“These are my prisoners!  Get out of here before I shoot!” the man yelled.  He was nearly to the breaking point, his hands shaking.  At any moment he’d let off a shot on accident.

Kell smiled.

“Good.”

< Ep 2 Part 27 | Ep 2 Part 29 >

Pirra jammed her sensor around the corner and staggered after it as it told her that the path was clear.

Her breathing was ragged, her muscles burned with pain, and she almost lost control of their movement.  But she pressed on.

Had they not been in zero-g, she could never have moved Cenz.  The large rocky parts of his body probably weighed hundreds of kilograms alone.

The guard had not shot her, and she found herself wishing he had.  At least she could have stopped her own bleeding – assuming she’d survived.

But the man had shot Cenz instead.

Her return shot had taken him in the armpit – he’d turned and presented it too much.  Why he’d even done it she couldn’t know, but he’d spat blood at her as he’d been dying.

“Fucking xenos,” he’d said.  Tears had been in his eyes.

His death was senseless, pointless, and Cenz might follow soon.

She’d taken him through a series of narrow, winding tunnels, barely large enough for her to fit them both through.  It had been exhausting, but with the information she’d gotten from the guard’s system, she’d found that it significantly shortened their path back to the ship.

The effort, though, had not just been exhausting, but she was pretty sure she’d strained a few muscles – not to mention the injuries from when he’d crashed into her.  All her own fault, she’d been trying to keep him from crashing into a bulkhead, but she’d never had to transport a victim who was made of stone.

“Cenz, you awake?” she asked loudly, hoping to get any response.

Since the guard’s bullet had ripped through his side, the Coral had been unresponsive.  The water trapped in his inner suit was gone, and she could tell that his body was drying out quickly.

The rough rock had a huge gap in its side, a whole chunk blasted away.

Angry red filaments penetrated out of it, but had quickly curled up back into the rock.  Other than that, it only looked like rock; paler inside than out, but that was all.

Was he alive or dead?  She didn’t know, and the datasets she had on her system didn’t tell her any more.  Anatomical and medical knowledge about his people was minimal in her system’s libraries.

But she wouldn’t abandon him, not if she could help it.  She thought he was still alive, but in some kind of comatose state.

If he regained consciousness, he might order her to leave without him.  And it would be wise, but she did not think there any chance he’d get help in time, then.

“Pirra.”

A series of flashes in the corner of her eye were caught by her system.

“Cenz!” she said.  He couldn’t understand it, but he’d at least hear the sound.  His kind weren’t deaf, they just didn’t use verbal communication.

His polyps were limpy coming out of their holes; when he’d taken the hit they’d all retreated in so deeply to his rocky shell that they were invisble.

His lights flashed again.  “You should leave me,” he said.  Her system translated it in a very neutral voice, but his words came slower than normal, and that worried her.

“I’m not,” she said, reaching a new corner and shoving the sensor around.  Stopping both of their weight with her legs was hard, but she managed it.

No one down here.  She’d tried to pick one of the shortest paths she could, but still keep in some randomness.  After those three guards failed to report back in, she expected more squads to get dispatched – their dirty secret had been uncovered.

“I need to get into water,” Cenz flashed.  “I stayed inside as long as I could, but the air ran out.  I don’t have that long.”

“Don’t worry, we’re going to make it,” she said, dragging him around the corner.  “We’re not that far.”

Without a translation unit he wouldn’t understand, but perhaps he’d get the feeling.  She just hoped he would try to hold on.

But his polyps looked bad.  They could not stay upright and flopped over limply.  Was it from weakness, or from being out of water?

There was an opening here, just a hole in the wall half-filled with heavy piping.  Peering out, she saw nothing and began to pull Cenz out.

Maybe she should look for a water tap.  It surely wouldn’t be sufficient, but maybe it’d buy him some more time-

She noticed the shooter just before he fired, and jerked herself back.

His shot would have taken her head off if she’d not seen it and moved.

“Down!” she yelled, shoving Cenz back behind the pipes.

“We’ve got your other routes cut off,” a male human called.  “Surrender, now.”

She unslung the rifle.  She wasn’t about to give up – there might still be a way out.  Peering down the hall, she couldn’t tell if anyone was down there.  If they had been, then they’d have them surrounded with no cover at all.

“You are in violation of intergalactic law,” she called back.  “Summon my parent ship immediately – we have an injured being here.”

“You don’t get to make demands,” the man yelled.  “Come out immediately or we’ll not be taking you alive.”

The last shot had been aimed to kill her, so she didn’t figure there was any truth in his offer of clemency.

Sounds came from the hall behind them, and she realized that the talking had just been a distraction – if they came around that corner they’d be without any cover at all.

She slammed the butt of her rifle into a control panel.  Every panel like this contained a glass tube that would break in a depressurization event – a simple and foolproof way to make sure pressure seal doors would activate even if most other systems failed.

The door slammed shut quickly, shaking the floor.

It would take them awhile to force the door open or convince the system that there had been no depressurization.  At least in this kind of place, she figured it would.

Unfortunately, she realized too late that it triggered the door down the hall as well.

They were trapped.

< Ep 2 Part 26 | Ep 2 Part 28 >

Nec Tede looked shocked.  “Two of your people are missing?” he echoed.

“That is correct.  One of them is my chief science officer, Cenz – the alien in my entourage when we met.”  Brooks studied the man’s face, but he appeared genuinely surprised.

“And the other?” the Governor asked.

“Lieutenant Pirra, a Dessei,” Brooks replied.

“Another xeno, huh?  They do seem to stick together, don’t they?”

Brooks scowled.  “Surely you can find them with your colony’s sensory system.”

The man laughed.  “Oh, Captain, I’m afraid out here we don’t have the kinds of resources you have in the Sapient Union.  We can’t afford a full internal sensor system – at least, not yet.”

Brooks crossed his arms.  “Their disappearance seems remarkably suspicious, Governor.  I expect them to return unharmed.”

“I promise you that my people would never harm them,” the man replied.  “But I will dispatch some teams to find them, just in case.”

“Thank you.  Tell me Governor, do you think anyone else in the colony might be a danger to them?”

“I trust my people, Captain, but I can’t make guarantees.  Don’t forget that I have enemies in this system, and there are traders from both colonies here.  We can’t rule out such . . . outside interference trying to damage relationships between us by targeting your people.”

“You never mentioned this danger,” Brooks noted.  “I should have been informed if you thought this was a serious risk.”

“I didn’t think it was serious – only that we can’t rule it out.  I do have to add, though, Captain, that if your people have caused trouble then they will have to face justice.”

“Justice like what you wish to do to Apollonia Nor?” Brooks asked.

“Captain, that is an internal matter, and I advise you to stay out of it,” the Governor replied.  “We are not members of your Union yet.”

Brooks leaned closer to the screen.  “If you wish for membership, there are standards of behaviour expected of you.  Not to mention standards if you wish to remain in friendly trade relations.”

The Governor did not seem phased by that.  “I hope your people return soon, Captain.”

The call was ended.

Brooks turned to see that Urle was waiting.

“I sent your message, Captain,” he said.

“Was there any response?”

“Yes,” Urle replied.  “3,627 new civilians have transferred aboard the Craton, as of twenty-two minutes ago.”

Logus looked between the two men in confusion.  He felt certain that that number was not correct; he could not recall the precise number, but he did know that they were facing a net loss of civilian population; after the events with the Leviathan, over two thousand were leaving.

Brooks turned to him.  “What do you make of the Governor, Doctor?”

“I firmly believe he’s lying,” Logus replied.  Concern furrowed his brow and he shook his head.  “He’s playing some kind of game, I fear.  Something foolish.”

“The man’s been playing these insane colonial politics so long that he can’t think outside of them,” Urle noted.  “If he hurts our people, does he think there will be no repercussions?”

Brooks frowned and considered a moment.  “The man is either completely insane, or there’s something important we’re missing.”

“I vote that he is suffering from a severe psychosis from his unhealthy environment.  The state of his colony is abysmal; this place is dying,” Logus replied.  “No one one could be ignorant of that, and yet he deludes himself.”

“He’s legitimately desperate,” Urle said.  “If things get much worse here, then there’s a real chance that one of the other two colonies might step in – and his people might welcome it.”

Brooks was silent again, his gaze distant.

“We need time,” he noted.  “Time to find our people, and time to convince the Governor to let Nor leave with us.  Time to find out what’s going on.”

“Time gives him more chance to enact more plots,” Urle said sourly.

“Yes – if he feels pressured,” Brooks replied.  “Which means that we need to make him think he’s going to get what he wants.”

“We just can’t lie,” Logus replied with a frown.  “If we make promises, we’re obliged to keep them.”

“I wouldn’t lie,” Brooks said.  “But time ultimately will play to our side.”

Urle nodded, and Logus frowned.  “Is that the significance of your question and the answer, Captain?”

A smile crossed Brooks’s face.  “Commander Urle sent the message to a specific transmitter on the Craton that we use as a way to signal there’s trouble.  Her response is not about people, but how many hours and minutes until she can arrive.”

Logus let out a laugh.  “So the Governor gets excited thinking you might be willing to play his game and you call for the cavalry.”

“Yes.  But she’s 36 hours out, which is a long time for our people and Apollonia Nor.”

“Too long,” Urle noted.  “Captain, permission to send out our drones in a search-and-rescue mode.”

“Granted,” Brooks said.

“Aren’t they part of the ship’s security system?” Logus asked.

Concern creased Brooks’s face.  “Yes.  We’ll be more vulnerable until they return.  But our people are out there and we want them back.”

Urle sat up suddenly, alarm clear on what was visible of his face.  “Sir, did you give Ambassador Kell permission to leave the ship?”

Brooks snapped his gaze to Urle, his face tightening.  “I certainly did not.  He shouldn’t even be able to get out the doors.”

“I just ran a scan, Captain, and he’s not on the ship.”

< Ep 2 Part 24 | Ep 2 Part 26 >

“What was that?” one of the searchers said immediately.

She jumped towards the ceiling.

“It’s a distraction – they went high!” she heard the shout over the comm, and knew they’d been spotted.  It had been a dim hope to remain fully unobserved, their sensors would have spotted them.  But she’d hoped for a few seconds.

“Cenz, you head for the exit, I’ll distract them,” she said.

“Negative,” came his reply.

She realized he hadn’t jumped when she had; he had remained down below.

It made some sense; they had angles that would put the guards at a disadvantage, but that didn’t make their weapons any more effective.

Then she saw him run out at the nearest soldier.

She couldn’t see them aim and fire from her cover, but the shots slashed through the Coral’s suit like it was made of paper.  They pierced a cloning tank, leaving clean holes that the liquid inside spilled out through.

Cenz went out of sight, but shots continued to ring.

Pirra was in shock.  Had the Coral just sacrificed itself for her?  Had it been expecting her to cover it?

Before she could even overcome her shock, she heard a scream through the comm.

“It’s got me!”

“It won’t go down!” another cried.  The shots stopped, and she dared to put her sensor over the cover, risking her hand rather than her head.

Cenz’s suit had gaping holes ripped in it, and most of the water had poured out.  But through that she could see part of the powered skeleton of the suit still intact.

There was nothing else in it.  None of the rocky body she had only ever caught glimpses of.

And It had one of the soldiers pinned to the wall.

As the other two rushed it, she saw something scuttle by below.  Chunks of rock held together with thick pink strands, covered in things that looked like wilted flowers.  A pale, clearish plastic suit covered most of it, giving just a glimpse of the rock and polyps beneath.  It didn’t walk like a human, but crawled with a sprawling gate, like a bizarre spider.

They were flashing patterns, and she was shocked as her system provided an audible translation.

“Run, Pirra!”

She kicked off the ceiling and grabbed a bar on the side of a piece of equipment to swing herself around and give her the momentum to head towards the door.  Letting go, she began to sail through the air.

“Behind!” the voice came over the comm signal.

She saw the two begin to turn, their rifles raising.  She couldn’t hurt them back, but she didn’t want to die without at least making a last act of defiance.  She raised her own sidearm.

Cenz lunged for one of them.  The man was caught off-guard, and the Coral smashed into him.

The other soldier tried to snap his aim to Cenz, but when the being became mixed up with his comrade, he began to lift his rifle back towards Pirra.

She couldn’t take him out of the fight, but she could neutralize his weapon.

Her sidearm barked once, twice, three times.  The first two shots hit the man’s armor, bouncing off and doing no harm.  But the third hit his rifle itself.  Gouging into the side, it deflected off the barrel.  But the soldier bit out a curse and dropped the weapon, shoving it away as the chamber flashed and it mis-fired.

The man stumbled back, and Pirra hit the floor hard on her shoulder as her path from the ceiling finally brought her to the floor.  Pain jolted through her, but she didn’t drop her sidearm and shoved off towards the soldiers.

Cenz was still embroiled with the man, his strange body seeming like it was a match even for the larger human who surely had enhanced muscles.

The man’s hand was grabbing for something sheathed on his side; a glint of light revealed the knife.

Pirra didn’t know if it could harm the rock that consisted of most of Cenz’s body, but if he stabbed one of the polyps, a part of Cenz would die.

Catching a grip bar on a cloning tank with her hand and breaking her momentum with her legs, she swung her sidearm up to the man’s neck.

“Drop it!” she yelled over an open frequency.

The man’s helmet tilted towards her, but he didn’t drop it.  No, he pulled it back for a thrust-

She pulled the trigger.

Maybe the man was certain his armor would protect him, but at point-blank range, with the muzzle against the thin armor of his neck, it didn’t.

The round tore through, but couldn’t pierce the other side.  Blowback splattered her hand, and the man went still.

Cenz let go of him, and Pirra raised her handgun to the man she’d disarmed.  He had been fumbling for his own sidearm, his composure finally broken – but now he froze.

They were only a couple meters apart, and she didn’t think her sidearm could pierce his armor at even this range.  But the man clearly did not want to risk it.

The last one had finally stopped struggling, still pinned by Cenz’s suit.

Cenz rose, flashing to her.

“Thank you.  Good work.”

Pirra nodded.  Hopefully he’d understand that, but he was without his own system.

She waved to the door for him to go.

“Let’s go.”

She’d taken her eyes off the surrendered man, and saw a hint of movement; the man was going for his pistol again.

“No!” she said.

He got it clear of his holster and fired at the same time she pulled the trigger.

< Ep 2 Part 23 | Ep 2 Part 25 >