Beyond the Rim

That night, Rock stood on one side of the door, me on the other. He pressed the emergency button on the side, and in a few minutes, a guard stepped through.

Rock punched the guard in the jaw, and he staggered to his knees. Before he could recover, Rock slammed his face into the floor, and he lay still.

Rock took the man’s stun-glove and his uniform. He pulled the uniform on and tugged the glove over his hand. Everything hinged on the fact that they didn’t have an EmergencyGard system, or that it wasn’t working correctly, and that they weren’t watching at the moment. Our objective was no less than the queen: Ranior. With her as a hostage, it was a good bet we’d get safe passage.

They would know soon, even if they weren’t watching at the moment. We’d have to hurry.

Rock stepped into the hall. We strode to the elevator. If we met someone, he could say he was taking me somewhere.

“Too bad that guard didn’t have a gun,” he said. “We’ll have to find one that does.”

We stopped on Floor 4, the guards’ barracks. Most were in bed for the night, while a few patrolled the halls. There were no slaves on base besides us at the moment, Rock had said, but I didn’t ask how he knew this.

The elevator door opened to a long hall. Two guards paced toward us.

Rock motioned for me to take the one on the right. I dashed through the door and ran for the guard.

The guard raised his gun. I dove to the floor. Twisting to the side, I just managed to grab the guard’s boot, pulling him down.

He was on top of me in a second. His knee dug into my side, and he punched me across the jaw. I kicked upwards. The guard gasped and fell back; I slammed a blind punch in the rough direction of his head, just grazing his ear. Then I hit him in the nose as hard as I could.

Something cracked. I lunged for his gun; he struck me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me. Blood dripping from his face, the guard aimed his gun down at me.

“Lieutenant, we have a problem,” he said into his com.

“Don’t move,” said Rock, behind him, aiming a gun at the guard’s head. The man glared at Rock but let him take his pistol. “Here,” said Rock. He handed me the gun, its black metal like cold flesh beneath my fingers. I’d barely even handled a gun before, except when I’d done some target practice with Rock a few times. This one, I remembered, was called a TM334, or a Killsting.

“Where is Ranior’s room?” said Rock.

“They’ll be here any second now,” said the guard.

“In that second, you’ll be either alive, or dead. Your choice.” Rock shoved the gun into the man’s cheek, pressing against his broken nose.

The man gasped in pain. “Room one-seventeen.”

“Thank you.” Rock grabbed the man’s arm, and he slumped to the ground with the prick of the stun-glove.

We raced for the elevator. Doors were opening now, guards stepping out.

The door of the elevator slid shut. I took a deep breath. Rock’s eyes gleamed; he was in his element, despite the fresh bruise across his cheek. Pain burned across my face but it was the triumphant pain of a fight, not the defeated pain of torture and humiliation.

“Ready?” said Rock. I raised my gun, mentally running over how to use it.

The elevator door opened onto Floor One.

Three guards were waiting for us. A bolt of light zinged from Rock’s gun as he dived to the side. The door began to close on me; I jumped forward and rolled to the ground, shooting blindly.

A moment later, three guards lay on the floor; we were none the worse for wear. I wasn’t sure if I’d been any help, or if Rock had taken them all down.

“Room one-seventeen,” Rock said, pointing toward a door down the hall.

The door, of course, was locked. In sync, we shot the side of the door. An alarm sounded; the door slid upwards, screeching to a stop in the middle.

We ducked underneath it, and there, in bed in an elegant silk robe, sat Ranior.

Rock and I aimed our guns at her.

“Hi, guys,” she said, stretching sleepily. “What are you doing in here?”

Rock stepped toward her. “I’m not as sorry for this as I should be,” he said. “But we need you as a hostage if we’re—”

In a flash of light, Rock crumpled to the ground.

“You guys gave us a good show. No one’s gotten this far before, though we did make it a little easier on you than we could have. But, as always, we hold the trump card.”

She snapped her fingers. The last thing I saw before the blackness was her enigmatic smile.