Thoryn #2
We dove behind the bed.
This was just another pit. Different walls. Same rules.
The thin mattress started smoking immediately as energy bolts punched through it. The metal frame might deflect a few shots, but not many.
“This was your terrible plan?” I asked, checking the rifle’s charge. Three quarters. Better than nothing.
“No, this is improvisation.” Maris popped up, fired twice, and dropped back down as return fire turned the air above her head into superheated plasma. “The terrible plan comes next.”
Someone threw a flash-bang into the room.
Amateur hour. I grabbed it and pitched it back out the door. It detonated in the corridor with a satisfying bang and chorus of curses. Who throws a grenade without cooking it first? These weren’t elites. They were standard infantry pretending.
But they had numbers. And we had a smoking mattress and whatever ammunition we’d grabbed from the fallen.
More soldiers pushed into the room. I fired the stolen rifle until it clicked empty, then reversed it and used it as a club. Effective enough at close range. A soldier went down with a cracked helmet. Another caught the stock in the ribs, folded over wheezing.
Eight years of captivity had included a lot of combat training. Not voluntary. The Consortium scientists had wanted to test “combat efficiency under extreme stress.” They’d put me in fighting pits, had me face multiple opponents, tested how long I could fight while being electrocuted.
All of which meant I knew exactly how to fight Consortium soldiers.
The next one through the door tried to shock-baton me. I let him get close, then grabbed his wrist and redirected the baton into his partner’s neck. Both went down twitching. I kept the baton. Always good to have options.
Maris had somehow gotten behind them. I didn’t see how—one moment she was beside me, the next she was in the corridor.
She moved through them like water, never where they expected, always where they weren’t looking.
Her blaster cracked repeatedly. Center mass, headshots.
She was fighting to end this, not to wound.
“You’re making a mess,” I called out, breaking a soldier’s arm in three places when he tried to grab me.
“I’m not the one using a club!” She shot the soldier I’d just broken, ending the threat, then pistol-whipped another who got too close.
More soldiers poured in. Where were they all coming from? Had Vashil brought an entire platoon?
My side wound tore open. I felt it go—a sharp, tearing sensation followed by warmth spreading across my ribs. Fresh blood soaked through the bandage, through my shirt. Pain spiked from six to eight. Still manageable, but I was leaving bloody handprints on everything I touched.
Two soldiers rushed me simultaneously. Coordinated attack—one high, one low. I caught the high one’s rifle thrust, redirected it into the low one’s helmet. The crack was satisfying. But the high one recovered fast, slammed the rifle butt into my wounded shoulder.
Pain went from eight to eleven.
Not the ‘twenty’ of the bond-war. That was soul-pain. This was just raw damage.
White spots danced in my vision.
I still broke his leg.
“Thoryn!” Maris’s warning came a second too late.
The shock baton caught me in the ribs. Not a glancing blow—full contact, maximum charge. Electricity coursed through me, every muscle seizing. I went down hard, knees cracking against the metal floor. The familiar sensation of neural disruption brought back memories. Very specific memories.
Day 847 of captivity: “Subject shows unusual resistance to electrical torture. Increase voltage.”
Day 1,263: “Neural pathways adapting to electrical stimulus. Fascinating.”
Day 2,466: “Subject barely responds to maximum charge. Recommend alternative approaches.”
Which meant I’d built up a tolerance.
I rolled, caught the soldier’s ankle, and pulled. He went down face-first. I got his baton and returned the favor, holding it against his neck until he stopped moving. Not dead. Probably. I wasn’t checking.
When I stood, the room spun. Blood loss was becoming a factor.
“Behind you!” Maris shouted.
I turned, swinging the baton in a wide arc. Connected with something soft. Someone screamed. I swung again, hit armor this time. My scales were trying to shift, the damaged ones locking and releasing in waves of pain that made thinking difficult.
A rifle butt caught me in the stomach. I doubled over, couldn’t breathe. Another hit across my back dropped me to one knee.
Through the chaos, I saw Maris backed into the corner by the refresher. Three soldiers had her pinned, rifles aimed at her head. She still had her blaster, but the math was clear. She might get one before the other two killed her.
Vashil stood in the doorway, looking satisfied. Not a hair out of place. She’d let her hired help do all the work.
“Enough,” Vashil said. “You’re done.”
I still had the shock baton. One throw might take out the soldier with the best angle on Maris. But the other two would shoot her before I could reach them. And I could barely stand. The room kept tilting.
“Thoryn,” Maris said. Her voice was steady, but I felt her fear. Not for herself. For me. I was swaying on my feet, blood pooling under me. “Don’t.”
I felt her processing. Angles, distances, reaction times. Every scenario ended with at least one of us dead.
I dropped the baton. It clattered on the floor, the sound somehow louder than all the preceding violence.
“Good boy,” Vashil said. I wanted to tear her throat out for that. “Now, here’s what happens next. You’re both coming with us. The Consortium has big plans for you. Especially you, Thoryn. They’re very curious about how you broke your conditioning. They want to study it. In detail.”
Study in detail.
My scales tried to shift again, damaged ones sending spikes of agony through my nervous system. Old trauma response. My body remembering what those words meant. The careful notation. The clinical observations. The “let’s see what happens if we try this.”
“The Raptor is coming,” Maris said. Defiant to the end.
“No, they’re not.” Vashil pulled out a datapad with a flourish.
“See, I sent them a message. From your ship’s comm unit, back on The Quarry.
The one you so helpfully left logged in.
I told them you’d found another route and were running dark.
That you’d meet them at the backup rendezvous in three days.
They wished you luck and jumped out two hours ago.
They’re your crew. They trust your ship’s personal codes. They had no reason to question it.”
I felt something in Maris crack. Just a hairline fracture. Hope dying by degrees.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m really not.” Vashil turned the datapad so we could see.
There it was—sent from our comm, received, acknowledged.
Serak’s authentication code confirming receipt.
“Your crew thinks you’re safe. They won’t even start worrying for another three days.
By then, you’ll be in a Consortium lab, and I’ll be setting up my new operation on a station they’re giving me. Everyone wins. Except you, obviously.”
More soldiers entered. Fresh ones, no injuries. They’d held back reserves. I counted six more, plus the three still aiming at Maris, plus Vashil, plus however many were outside.
We were alone. Outgunned. Outmaneuvered. Bleeding.
Completely fucked.
“Cuff them,” Vashil ordered. “The special restraints for him. The ones rated for augmented strength. And dose him with something for the blood loss. Can’t have him dying before delivery.”
A soldier approached with a med-injector. I thought about fighting. One last surge, take as many with me as possible. But Maris caught my eye, gave the tiniest shake of her head.
Not yet, that look said. Not yet.
The injector hit my neck. Cold spread through my veins—coagulants, probably some stimulants to keep me conscious. The bleeding slowed. The room steadied slightly.
They cuffed me with restraints that hummed with their own power source. Electromagnetic locks. I’d seen these before. Day 1,744. They’d needed three guards to hold me down while they figured out the right settings.
“Move,” Vashil ordered. “We have a schedule to keep. The Consortium doesn’t like delays.”
They marched us out of the room. The corridor was a disaster—blood on the walls, injured soldiers being treated by medics, the Rigelian couple’s door hanging off its hinges. We’d fought harder than they’d expected.
Small comfort.
As they herded us toward the docking bay, past more soldiers, past scared Haven residents pressing themselves against walls, I caught Maris’s eye. She gave me the tiniest nod.
We weren’t done yet.
But we were very, very close.
The docking bay was full of Consortium ships. Not just Maris’s stolen vessel. Three military transports, enough to carry a full company. Vashil hadn’t just brought backup. She’d brought an army.
All for us.