by HR Ringer
“Didn’t find any… none of his gear either,” came Traynor’s reply. “Let’s get back into the maintenance tunnel. I’ll set his shield and ME generators to explode soon as we’re out of sight.”
Sam opened the hatch and took a quick look in both directions. Passageway empty, hatches still closed and locked. “Come on,” she hissed. Grabbing Griff’s left arm, she helped Xiùlán guide his nearly weightless form back to the storage room. They were nearly safe inside when Xiùlán heard noises from behind.
She turned around to look as Sam pulled Griff inside; a shadowy figure, cloaked! Thinking, ‘Shénme tā mā de shì shénme?’ [什麼他媽的是什麼？– What the fuck is that?] Xiùlán grabbed the shadowy extended right arm and pushed down and to her left, but not nearly fast enough or far enough – she heard the explosive discharge and felt the specially designed round tear through her armor and travel straight into her thigh. The impact of a tiny grain of metal moving at ultrasonic speed shattered her thigh bone, causing her to scream in shock and pain as she collapsed to the deck and curled into a fetal position.
Almost before she finished falling she heard an impact and the grunt of someone’s wind getting knocked out of them as they fell heavily to the deck beyond, followed by the sickening crunch of someone’s skull slamming into the deck plates hard and rapidly in succession… once… twice… three times. She felt Sam grab her shoulders, try to gently turn her.
“Dammit Xiùlán! How bad?” She heard her name through the rushing sound of her heart in her ears. “Xiùlán!” She couldn’t open her eyes. There was only searing pain.
“Líkāi wǒ, sà mǐ!” [離開我，薩米！– Leave me, Sammy!] she hissed between clenched teeth. “Hǎidào húndàn… zǐdàn… dǎ suìle wǒ de zuǒ tuǐ sà mǐ! [海盜混蛋… 子彈… 打碎了我的左腿薩米！– Pirate bastard… bullets… broke my left leg Sammy!] Thinking was difficult… she was still in China, right? There was no way in hell she had left her home only to have this much pain inflicted on her! Now someone was shouting at her. Sammy? Why was she shouting?
“…Xiùlán! You have to focus, please, Xiulan! I can’t understand you! Galactic! I need you to speak in Galactic!”
Yuán roused herself, attempted to answer her lover. “The pain! Put… a bullet… in… my head, Sammy, please! My leg’s busted! Getting sick… must… have… been… polon… polonium coated.”
Her memory of the next few minutes was hazy. She remembered Sam fiddling with her collar, then saying something about ‘bloody hell’, a piece of leather between her teeth… she screamed through the leather she was biting down on; there was pain, searing, burning pain. Her thigh was on fire as the shattered ends of the bone ground together. She just wanted it to stop. She tried to speak… could only sob in agony. She thought, ‘Wèishéme nǐ bù bǎ zǐdàn zài wǒ de tóushàng? Sà mǐ, qǐng! Wǒ zhǐshì xiǎng sǐ!’[為什麼你不把子彈在我的頭上？ 薩米，請！我只是想死！– Why do you not put a bullet in my head? Sami, please! I just want to die!]
The pain began to subside. She was dimly aware of something, what?… cutting, ripping?… her pants leg, at her hip, at her crotch. Her leg felt… exposed… cold. Someone was talking… Sammy again? What was she saying? Just before she blacked out, she thought she heard, “Fight, Xiùlán… not… going… to let you die! You… not ready… meet… ancestors!” She was tired, so fucking tired. ‘Zǔzōng! Qǐng dài wǒ!’[祖宗！請帶我！– Fathers! please take me!] she implored in her mind. She felt a hand behind her head, a voice whispering in her ear, “Here Luv, have a bit of water.” She took a sip, then another… tasted good. “Xièxie,” [謝謝 – Thank you!] she gasped. She felt cool lips on her cheek… a kiss. She was slipping away… into darkness… into sweet oblivion. She had to rest… needed to sleep…
* * *
Samantha heard the explosive discharge of a sidearm immediately followed by a scream of pain from her lover. Pushing Griff further into the storage area, she engaged her shield and went back out. Xiùlán was on the deck in a fetal position, clutching her left leg and crying in agony as a shadowy figure stood over her, savoring the moment. Sam launched herself at the figure, tackling him and repeatedly bashing the back of his head on the metal deck as she dug her thumbs into his eyes. Once he was motionless, she looked around wildly and determined the assailant was alone. Patting him down, she found the control and deactivated the cloak as she cursed him, “Goddamned sonova mutherfuckin bitch!” Leaving him wearing Griff’s stolen shield generator for the moment, she checked the unconscious batarian over, finding most of the rest of Griff’s equipment, including his omni-tool. Relieving the unconscious pirate of the stolen equipment and his M-3, she moved back to Xiùlán.
Sam was feeling a growing sense of utter helplessness, which she shoved into the back of her mind. “Dammit Xiùlán! How bad?” No answer – her eyes were firmly shut, face drawn tight in pain. “Xiùlán!”
Hearing nothing but Mandarin from her lover, she cried, “Galactic, Xiùlán!” Nearly in tears, Sam was trying desperately to stay calm. “You have to focus, please, Xiùlán” she pleaded. “I can’t understand you! Galactic! I need you to speak in Galactic!”
When Xiùlán managed to say she was getting sick from a possible polonium coated round, Sam attempted to calm down. ‘Okay, first things first…’ Traynor pulled her backpack off in order to dig a field kit from the bottom; pulling out a medi-gel container, she injected the entire dose in and around the entry wound. Shouldering her backpack, she then activated Xiùlán’s ME generator and dialed her mass as low as it would go.
“Hold on, Luv… This is going to hurt worse than all bloody ‘ell, but I’ve got to get us out of sight. Hold your leg as best you can so I’m not making things worse. Here, bite down on this!” Sam gave her a piece of the leather binding she’d cut off Griff in the torture chamber. Grabbing Xiùlán’s heavy jacket by the shoulder seams on either side of her neck, she asked, “Ready?”
Xiùlán bit down on the leather strip and nodded her head once; Sam pulled, eliciting a gut wrenching wail from Xiùlán. Sam didn’t stop pulling until she had Xiùlán around the corner in the storeroom; removing the shattered ceramic armor plate, then cutting away the pants leg and under-armor from her leg made things look even worse. Thinking ‘Shit! Shit! Shit! This is not good!’ Sam tore open another medi-gel pack and applied the contents to slow the profuse bleeding. ‘Gotta find some way to splint that leg. Have to try to extract the poison bits of that bullet.’
The pain killer from the additional application of medi-gel worked its magic almost immediately, even though Xiùlán was still moaning and probably going into shock. Sam felt sure Yuán would die without medical help, but her main focus right now had to be getting them off this station. “Fight, Xiùlán. I am not going to let you die! You are not ready to meet your ancestors, do you understand me?!” Sam grabbed a water ration and ripped off the top with her teeth as she tenderly lifted Xiùlán’s head. “Here Luv, have a bit of water.”
Xiùlán took a sip, then another. “Xièxie,” she gasped.
Sam gently kissed her on the cheek. “I love you, Xiùlán. Fight!” Xiùlán’s eyes fluttered closed as she passed out.
Sam grabbed an emergency blanket pack, unfolded it and covered her wounded friend, then went back out in the passage, clamped the ME generator on the batarian’s shirt, lifted him and shoved him into the interrogation room. Here she hacked the local network, wiping the entire record of Griff’s involuntary visit, then pocketed the OSD’s. A final visual sweep turned up no more equipment; leaving, she closed and sealed the hatch, then ran back to the storage compartment.
Looking at all the containers stacked on the shelves, she discovered one labeled ‘bantukoj’ – towels, and another down below labeled ‘kloro lesivo’ – bleach. Grabbing both containers, she took the contents of each into the passage, where she hurriedly cleaned the blood spatter… Xiùlán’s blood… from the deck and walls. She could hear noises at the far end of
the passage – somebody was attempting to open that hatch.
Inspecting the grey metal deck, she felt it would stand up to a cursory inspection. A closer inspection would most likely reveal the blood stains she could not completely remove or had missed. She returned to the interrogation room and tossed the towels on the metal table, then returned the empty bleach bottle to its container and replaced it on the shelf. She went back to Xiùlán, who was mercifully still unconscious. Sam knew she couldn’t leave her like that… She needed help, fast.
Checking on Buchanan, she was surprised to see he had regained consciousness. “Traynor! What happened? Where are we?”
Sam gave him a brief rundown on their situation. He looked at Xiùlán, unconscious on the deck.
“Dammit Traynor, why’d you two bother? Why risk your lives to come back for me?”
“We couldn’t leave you in their custody to answer all their questions,” she calmly replied. “You were in pretty bad shape, and I expect you’re still in a lot of pain, but I would really prefer saving the analgesics for Yuán.” Noticing his surreptitious attempt to scratch or massage between his legs, she added, “I wouldn’t do that, Griff. We weren’t able to remove all the batarian installed hardware. You have a bare wire wrapped around your… endowment. It’s burned into your skin, enough so it didn’t seem prudent for us to attempt to remove it. Circulation appeared to still be okay, but I’ll take another look when we’re somewhere that’s not here. Need to apply medi-gel to your torso as well. They really worked your ass over!”
Buchanan considered her assessment for a few moments. “Batarians never could play nice. And C-Pat has sold their souls to the pirates? So, what’s the plan for getting us out of this hell hole?”
“Now you’re awake, you’re going to help me get Xiùlán down a level, then we find a spot to bunker down for the wait. You can watch over her while I hack into the comm buoys from deck four. We have to stay out of sight until transport arrives. I’ll need to find some way to immobilize her leg, or we won’t be able to move her at all.” Looking at Griff’s hands, she observed, “Hands look better than when you were on that hook. How they feeling?”
“Better now all my weight ain’t hanging from my wrists… got most of the feeling back, anyway,” he replied. Nodding his head in Xiùlán’s direction, he asked, “She really that bad?”
“You didn’t see her, Griff. Nearly ripped my heart out! Which reminds me…” She got up, placed her backpack next to Griff and removed her heavy grey duster. Pulling the M-3, she said, “Artifact is in that backpack, Griff… it’s what we came for. I just hope it’s worth all this fuckin’ pain.”
“What are you going to do, Traynor?”
“What I need to do… what I have to do… to keep us alive,” came the grim response.
* * *
Chapter 25: Retribution For Xiùlán
But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality – Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
* * *
Inamorata – A woman with whom one is in love; a female lover (Italian)
n’Tuj raugh – Hell (Batarian)
* * *
Traynor reentered the interrogation room and crouched beside the injured pirate. Grabbing the bloody towels from his chest, she carefully folded one into a small square six layers thick. Discovering another strip of leather on a shelf, she unclipped and removed his upper body armor plates, then sliced his overshirt up the middle and removed it… This caused her to wrinkle her nose at the smell as she got close enough to bind his wrists together. ‘Don’t these fuckers ever bathe?’ Holding her breath at the pungent odor, she next stood him up with assistance from an ME generator attached to the waistband of his pants. Climbing onto a nearby table in order to lift his arms above his head, she managed to flip the leather binding over the hook recently occupied by Griff. Powering down the ME generator, she noted with satisfaction the pirate’s toes were barely touching the deck. Samantha thought about stripping the rest of his clothes as she bound his legs together with a set of shackles. Deciding she didn’t have the time to spare or the desire to see any more of the bastard’s anatomy, she attached Griff’s ME generator to the shackles and set it to maximum weight. Prodding him with the barrel of the M-3, she hissed through gritted teeth, “Hey… Pirate scum. Wake up,” as she removed and pocketed Griff’s shield generator.
The batarian, still groggy from having his head bashed against the deck, groaned as he blinked two uninjured eyes. As he focused on her, he spoke with all the loathing he could muster, “Fuck you, human.” Leering at her chest, he added, “Give me a bit more time to rest… I’ll do you… You might even enjoy it… I know I will!”
Samantha instantly recalled her female classmates laughing and taunting her as they held her down in order to allow a man to violate her in college. They all helped to strip her of her clothes, gleefully told her she’d finally get to enjoy having ‘real’ sex with a man. She had nearly forgotten the pain… the humiliation.
Pointing to her face with two fingers in a ‘V’ as she shoved those memories aside, she replied quietly in a voice edged in steel. “My eyes are up here, shit for brains, and of all the cross-species relationship possibilities available in this bloody galaxy, fucking a goddamned batarian is at the very bottom of my list, right below screwing a vorcha. Your life as you know it is finished, asshole… over and done. I’m about to set you on the path to meet the scumbag bottom feeders you call ancestors.”
The malevolence in his eyes slowly began turning to fear as Traynor continued to speak in a calm, soothing voice. “You crippled my lover.” Sam tilted her head to the right and stared unblinking, something she knew made her look homicidally crazy. “Surprised? I have a female lover… nothing surprising about that. Now, you may think, and I use that term loosely, that just because I am a human and a female, that I don’t have any balls. You probably believe we’re all just brainless slabs of meat, good only for batarians to fuck. Your only correct assumption would be my total lack of balls. What I do have is a vagina! So-o-o-o much tougher than balls, tougher even than a krogan quad, pal.” To prove her point, she kicked him hard in the crotch, causing him to holler in pain as he attempted to bring his legs up. The ME generator exerted more than enough pull to keep his feet planted on the deck, and the attempt sent excruciating pain through his arms and shoulders.
Cupping a hand to her ear, she asked, “What’s that you say? Not so ready to fuck me now?” She kicked him again, making sure the entire top of her boot connected with her target. His futile attempt to bring his legs up to ease the excruciating pain was again met with failure as the ME generator continued to exert its dominance over his abdominal and leg muscles.
“I’m tired of listening to your whining.” So saying, she used a sawing motion to force the unfolded towel past his pointed teeth as she continued, “Here’s a bloody rag for you to bite down on. The blood is from my lover… I hope you enjoy the taste.”
“Every batarian I’ve ever encountered seems to think human females are weak, that we can’t fight, that we aren’t natural born killers.” Sam continued to speak in a soft, soothing voice. “You ever hear of Torfan? Of course you have. Humans kicked your ignorant asses off that miserable rock… the few that weren’t butchered, anyway. And now, I’ve got some new information for you.”
She pulled the butterfly knife from the sheath strapped to her left calf; holding the polished blade a few centimeters in front of her face, she drew within a hand’s-breadth of his face as she hissed past the blade, “This woman is a killer. You displayed really poor judgment in coming here.” Traynor slowly brought her head level. “Then you made the worst mistake of your miserable life. You put a polonium coated hammerhead round in my lover’s leg, and for that, I intend to make you suffer more than any of your kind has ever suffered.”
Traynor placed the tip of her
blade against the center of his chest and pressed ever so lightly, drawing a dot of blood. The pirate’s eyes were riveted to her gloved hand, her fingers curled tightly around the grip, as she dragged the tip of the blade lightly down to his right side, leaving a pencil-thick line of blood in its wake, until stopping with the tip poised just above his hipbone, flat of the blade parallel to the floor, sharpened edge facing rearward.
‘Come on, Traynor… What are you waiting for? He shot Xiùlán! Even now she may be dying. Shove the fucking knife into his side! Gut the bastard! Do it! DO IT! NOW!…’
Without changing her facial expression, she sighed heavily, then slowly pulled her arm and hand away from his side. ‘Can’t do it… Xiùlán didn’t train me to be a fucking butcher… I’m better than ‘im!’
Bringing her lower leg up, she slid the knife back into its sheath, then turned and walked a slow circle in front of him. “I was going to open you up… see just how much pain you could stand. I told you I’m a killer, and that is a fact I’ll prove to you shortly, but I’m not a criminal. I intended to torture you, maybe even slice your nuts off and feed them to you.” Traynor stepped back in front of him, drawing within a few centimeters of his face once again. “For now, you need to know my lover’s name… Yuán Xiùlán… and I’m telling you this because you need to know the name of the person you maimed. She’s the reason you are in your current predicament, and she’s the reason I’m going to deliver your payback.”
With that, she swiftly placed the thickest portion of the folded towel over the muzzle of the M-3, pushed it hard against the middle of his left thigh and pulled the trigger. The muffled discharge from the heavy pistol was almost instantly overwhelmed by his screams of pain, surprisingly loud for being forced past the gag in his mouth.