There was fire all around her, lights blazed red if they lit at all, and her uncle's voice whispered disasters into her ears:
"Cockpit enclosure cracking, hull breach imminent, thrust lines offline. Weapon Lost. Mine Lost. Countermeasure Lost. Enemy Targets Spotted. Heat levels reaching critical."
Suddenly, the fire was gone, and the world leaped. Lurched. Staggered, and bounced. She noticed a pink tint to her viewport, and then the fire was back.
"Reentry solution too steep"
The panels were starting to glow, and she was dizzy. She struggled to wrap her hands, afraid to touch the freezing rocks.
"Planetary Hard Deck Approaching"
As the ship tumbled, her limbs ragdolled, and she collapsed, earning herself a bludgeon across the neck.
She was falling, falling down a dark tunnel, lit from above and reflecting streams of light....the bottom arrived and she coughed, blood spilling from cracked lips.
She struggled to draw breath, short, sharp stabs of ice, rushing down her throat. Her lips cracked, and sores ran...she stumbled, barely getting the right in front of the left. She wasn't holding the chain, it was holding her. Frost and blood mingled on the steel, and she couldn't have pulled her hand off if she tried...she couldn't even remember her hand...Later, they had to climb, using the chain. Bits of skin stuck to it, and froze. They each peeled and bled, dripping onto whoever was below. Sometimes, they pissed. Liquid was a hazard. Water, urine, blood, either you'd slip in it, fouling the whole chain, or you'd freeze to it, and have to be shoveled out. If not for liquids, you could close your eyes, sleep on the move. We were half dead anyway, stumbling along, gasping air with too much nitrogen. They'd feed us when we got there. If you miss a meal, you freeze to death. Have to eat, have to keep going..I need calories..calories are heat.
Uniformed men, red and gold, pulled my ship apart. BPA, come to pull me out. Good old bobbies, whisking me onto the and whisking me away...Nurse men taped me up, stuck needles in my arms. Never took me off the gurney... Lights passed over me, and then masked men stood around, haloed by great lamps...they counted to me, and I wondered, Whereareallthewomen?
"Slant eyed dog eating..."
the bottom of a bucket..
BREATH!
the bottom of a bucket...
BREATH!
the bottom of a bucket....
GASP!
the bottom of a bucket.....
Sputter...beg.
"please...please...i..please..."
Spiders. Spider Spider Spider Spider Spider Spider....
SPIDER!
Screams....are they mine? Am I screaming?
"F*** you."
Don't Sleep!
Don't Sleep!
What Am I thinking?
well? DON'T SLEEP.
The bottom of a bucket.
Food. Tazer. Food. Tazer. Food...SPIDER.
Rats.
Alone. Curl, rock. Back and forth. Forward, back, Side. Breath. 1 2 3. one two three Breath one two. shouldn't sleep. What Am I thinking?
The York Hides behind the planet. Its short by 187 men, and three fighter squadrons. LD-14 has only two patrols a day. Sometimes, I still wet the bed. Bretonia only has three worlds.
Kusari ships are faster. We have a Kusari ship.
Stuart buys freeport whores...Privateers use native guides...
2377894.
8178658.
The queen's bunker is under Bedlam...
They always come in the night. In the night with hoods and bags, noise and light. They didn't let you see, they yelled at you in Kusari...Screams..just senseless screams. You'd fallen asleep on the cold metal floor, curled like a fetus...and you woke suddenly, gasping, damp, dripping. The light was so bright, you didn't know where the blows would come from. They pulled you up, and kicked your knees out...lashed you...and you couldn't see. You'd pull your arms up, settle like you'd been taught, but they were faster..and you couldn't see. Then the bag came on, and they dragged you. You were wearing nothing but a sack, and it tears a bit more...
The engine roars and you curl up in the back, wishing it would end.
Wishing you could end.
Oh. Finally. The most delicious thing I've ever tasted. Its warm, too. White rice, pounded into gruel, with vitamin supplements, stirred into a watery soup. I tremble, just a bit. Struggle, really, to not spill a drop. Its cold down here, so cold. Just hold the bowl. Hold it, bend over it, breathe the steam and shovel spoons into my mouth, past cracked lips...hold a hand against my jaw as I chew, forcing driblets back in, where it might mix a bit with blood. Don't sit down. Don't ever sit down. The ground is too cold. It will steal the warmth, the wonderful warmth, all tied up in slop and steam and hope. Breakfast is hope. If I've had breakfast..I might..I might....
A simple piece of film, flexible and dark. I started by sketching a message, but now only scratch off days. Days. Twenty days gone by, and more left. Sooner or later, I'll not put any more marks down:
My name is Samantha Windsor. I am a captain in the Queen's Navy, and a prisoner of the Kusari empire. I told them everything. I don't know where I am, They have us mining something radioactive here. People are dying.
After a while, people die. They stumble, and the chain stops. They get cut off, and tossed onto a skiff. I'd not known where they got taken, before. Now I knew. I lay choking, coughing up blood and bile. Too often, there wasn't a nurse, and I stained my sheets. I'm not doing well, anymore. I can hardly breathe, but its warm...and humid. I'm fed, on occasion, and they make me comfortable. I don't think I'll survive, and I don't think I care. I think...I'm going to ruin them. I'm going to ruin them.
I thought it was a coffin, they put me in. I tried to talk. Tried disparately to say I was alive, but couldn't move. I wanted to live. For the first time, the first time in...The first time ever. I wanted to live. Not for vengence, or shame, or pride, but because I was afraid. Terrified. I was terrified of death. From the first time I'd seen it, splashed across my cockpit, blood and bones and fear...I'm afraid of death. Death is my weapon, it is my strength and my fury...but if it touches me...if it ever touches me...I cannot bear it.
I cower.
They picked me up, by the sheets underneath me. No one would touch me, or had, ever. I've never been touched. Never been kissed. I don't want to die. I don't want them to close this box..slide the lid over and shut out the light...hear the clamps slide close in the darkness...then bounce, bounce...tossed around, walls hit me, from one side and then the other. The walls are closing in, sealing me up. I'm going to die, I must be dead.
This must be hell.
