2. Egara

The moment I heard that klaxon go off, my immediate thought was, "It's finally happened."

A riot.

I heard the rushed elevated and excited tone of the inmates who never made that noise unless it was a special occasion—often when they were being served their favorite meal.

I had to climb off the delicious morsel I had lying naked under me and go check if my suspicions were correct. It was hard to leave such a beauty but I couldn't miss out on this opportunity if it was what I thought it was.

A damn riot!

And if it was…

I would only get one shot to exploit it.

I edged into the long hallway. The prisoners ran to and fro like ants after their nest had been upended. They scurried for somewhere safe where they wouldn't get squashed or destroyed.

And they would get squashed or destroyed. Either by fellow inmates or the guards that would come barreling through.

What surprised me was they didn't have a look of fear on their faces. They were excited and looking forward to causing havoc and mayhem.

One inmate shit on the floor and used it to paint his masterpiece on the wall.

Another prisoner danced a funky jig in the center of the crossroad that filtered into adjacent halls. I wasn't sure what the purpose of it was, though it seemed to please him no end.

I came across the first unconscious and battered body on the floor and peeled down the hallway leading right, back toward the canteen.

Another pair of prisoners confronted a lone inmate, who had either crossed them in the past or belonged to the wrong gang. Or both. I could have believed either reason.

When I heard the shock rifle blasts, I knew for certain this wasn't a regular Tuesday afternoon affair caused by a lack of toilet paper.

This was a full-scale riot.

This was serious and it was deep.

And I couldn't have been more excited.

The guards would come down on the offenders like a ton of bricks. A good thing I had no intention of being anywhere near them when it happened.

A shiver of excitement danced along my spine.

The time had come…

Finally!

I turned around to head back down the hallway to my cell and came face to face with a pair of miscreants called the Afzit twins.

Some criminals were locked away in here because of poor circumstances or bad luck. Not so with the Afzit twins.

They enjoyed what they did and you could bet your bottom credit if you were their intended target it wasn't going to be something you would walk away from. Not with all your limbs in their correct place anyway.

The elder Afzit picked the pocket of the first fallen prisoner I came across earlier and plucked something from his pocket. The younger Afzit looked over at me as if I might grass on them to the guards.

I had a nasty habit of never backing down and it had occasionally—okay, often—gotten me in trouble over the years. I would never usually back down in front of scum like the Afzit twins but I was in a rush and, with any luck, after today, I wouldn't have to set my eye on their grotesque appearance again.

I raised my hands and was about to say, "I didn't see anything," but the twins were known for picking up on meanings that had never been there in the first place. So, I said nothing, lowered my eyes, and edged around them to head back to my cell.

"Where do you think you're going?" Afzit the younger said.

"Yeah, where do you think you're going?" Afzit the elder said, wiping an arm under his snotty nose.

To think a beauty the likes of Agatha could have ended up in the possession of disgusting assholes like this… It boggled the mind.

A good thing they weren't allowed to fight in pairs in the pit. That was the only time they were truly dangerous.

Like now.

"Nowhere," I said.

I raised my eyes to peer between them. That was where the danger existed. The small spaces where their blades could flash from at a moment's notice.

"You look like you're heading off to tell the guards about what you saw," Afzit the younger said. "Don't he, Afzit?"

"Yeah. He does a bit."

They were half my size but what they lacked in stature and strength they made up for in speed, cruelty, and pure viciousness.

Afzit the younger made to sneak behind me but I blocked him. The elder took the opportunity to do the same on my other side.

I raised my metal pole.

"I wouldn't if I were you," I said.

"Wouldn't what?" Afzit the elder said, at my side now.

If he got swept any further behind me, they could attack me from both sides. Then my job at self-defense would be infinitely harder.

Once they were done with me, they would go to my cell and…

I didn't want to think about what might happen to the little human lady waiting there, trapped alone.

I stepped back until I came to the crossroad that led to the hall where my cell was located. I couldn't let them follow me back. I couldn't let them corner me. I'd end up trapped in my room with no way to escape.

"I don't have time for this," I growled.

I calmed myself with breathing exercises, knowing I was less likely to get out of this situation if I gave in to my desire to smash these creeps into bloody, pulpy oblivion.

"He looks nervous," Afzit the elder said. "Don't you agree, Afzit?"

"I do, Afzit."

"Look guys, I don't want any trouble," I said.

"I think it's a little too late for that, don't you?" Afzit the younger said.

He removed the shiv from his pocket and spun it in the air, moving so fast it was a blur.

Slow and dimwitted they might be but their bodies operated on another plane. They were lightning fast.

I reached into my pocket and dug out a handful of credits. They were part of the winnings I got for the earlier fight. They would usually need to last me until my next victorious fight for necessary luxuries but I needed to survive that long first.

"We're not interested in your money!" Afzit the elder said.

Afzit the younger pulled up short.

"We're not?" he said quizzically. "Then why are we doing this?"

"It's to lower his defenses, you half-wit!" Afzit the elder snapped.

"Oh."

His ugly fat lips curled into an atrocious snarl. Drool seeped from the scarred corner of his mouth.

Over his shoulder, the dancer continued to perform his merry jig to no audience.

"Hey!" I said to the dancer. "Here's a tip!"

I tossed the coins to the floor. The more adventurous ones rolled, making their escape.

"Well, thank ye!" the dancer said, dropping to the floor to hastily gather up the coins.

The twin's eyes bulged at the sight of their quarry being scooped up by the mad dancer.

I took the opportunity firmly by both hands.

I swung my length of bed iron around and found Afzit the younger's gleaming dome. Then I spun around and, knowing the second brother would expect the same to happen to him, I angled the pole down and struck the back of his knee and swept his leg out from under him. I moved with the momentum and brought the pole around.

I thought his head would have lowered due to taking out his knee but that hadn't turned out to be the case.

Instead, I found his arm. It absorbed the entire blow and knocked him off balance. He hissed through his teeth and pulled his knife arm back.

I blocked it with the pole, then snapped the end of the bludgeon to one side, smacking his cheek. With him dazed, I raised the pole high over my head. Doing so left me open to attack but it would also be the final blow I needed to send him sprawling to the floor.

It worked. The twin struck the floor hard, his blade escaping his hand and skittering across the concrete.

I turned to face the other brother but he was still out cold.

I backed away from the scene, leaving the brothers unconscious.

I hope they stay that way.

I ran to my cell. It opened automatically and I stepped inside. I almost leaped out of my skin at Agatha's scream.

"W-What's going on?" she said.

"It's a riot," I said. "It's a riot and the entire prison has gone to hell."

I didn't stop moving. I dropped to my knees in front of my bed and reached for the plastic box underneath. I pulled it out and, relieved to find nothing had happened to my beloved device, scooped it up in one hand and moved for the door.

I grabbed the bloodied iron pole in my other hand and made to leave.

Then I caught Agatha's eye.

The poor thing was terrified. I pushed her from my mind and made to step outside.

I had a much better chance if I went alone. No one to slow me down. No one to get in the way.

But I hesitated.

What would happen to Agatha if I left her here? There was no doubt in my mind.

She would be fucked to within an inch of her life—and that was if she was lucky.

She wasn't my responsibility. She was a Prize and a fate not much better than the aforementioned awaited her at the end of her long servitude in this place.

And yet, I still didn't step through that doorway.

There was something special about her, wasn't there?

The reason I'd chosen her before, the reason I chose any of the Prizes in the past, was due entirely for the accessories they wore. I needed them for the device I clutched in my hand.

Now it was complete. I needed an opportunity to use it and I had it in the form of the riot taking place right now.

The window would not be open forever.

Who knew when I would get a chance like this again?

Try never, the cynical voice in the back of my mind said. Leave her here. She's a grown woman. She can take care of herself.

But I couldn't do that.

I couldn't leave her because after I chose her—no matter the reason—she was now my responsibility. She wouldn't have been in my room otherwise. She would be in someone else's or at the Prize Pool.

Would her fate be any better in those places? I didn't know.

I doubted it.

Not that it mattered. She was here.

And she was a historian. I couldn't let anything happen to her.

In my mind, I made a slight alteration to the course I needed to take. It wouldn't take more than a handful of minutes to return her to the Prize Pool. Then she would be their problem, not mine.

I shifted the bloodied pole from my hand and into the other holding the device. I extended my free hand to her.

"Come with me," I said. "I'll return you to the Prize Pool."

The look of apprehension and fear on her face was palpable. She didn't look convinced.

She peered at my extended hand and then up into my face. She never flinched like the others at my appearance. That surprised me about her from the start.

Her courage.

Not everyone could look a Vulcarian in the eye and not flinch.

Yes, she was special all right. I wouldn't see her harmed.

She took me by the hand and let me pull her to her feet.

"Stay close," I said. "Your costume might confuse some of the inmates, but unfortunately, not all of them are blind."

The hallways grew worsethe deeper we moved into the prison. More foot traffic, more inmates, more guards coming under attack.

It wouldn't be long before the warden sent reinforcements to lock our prison down.

In fact, I was counting on it.

I didn't glance back to check on Agatha until we reached a section where the view was clear on every side and I could risk taking my eyes off the hallways around us for a moment.

Most of the violence was happening between gangs. Turf wars. Many inmates were caught between the competing rivals through no fault of their own.

The journey to the Prize Pool was not a short distance. It meant traversing the open corridors that reminded me more of a rat run than anything else. Other prisoners ran for cover from one hallway to the next. They might have been in a warzone.

I peered around the corner to ascertain what caused them to suddenly bolt in the opposite direction. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. The prisoners acted like sheep. When one bolted, they all did.

I took us down another hallway and was immediately accosted by a flock of harried prisoners carrying homemade weapons. They waved them threateningly over their heads.

I backed up and pressed Agatha to the wall behind me, my body acting as her shield.

I was relieved when the prisoners turned their attention on escaping and not attacking. They buffeted me as they rushed past. They knocked me off balance and cajoled me until I lost my footing, almost getting swept along the manmade river.

I shoved them back but they had already dislodged Agatha from the wall. Her face was screwed up in a mask of fear.

I rushed to meet her. I grabbed her by the arm and thrust her into the thin crevice of the doorway of a prison cell. I turned to face her and braced the wall with my elbows and straightened my back, forming a bridge over Agatha's body so she wouldn't be swept aside by the rising tide of angry prisoners.

Agatha stared at the prisoners as they rushed past us. They were not gentle as they shoved and elbowed me in an attempt to pass the obstruction I was in their eyes. They almost knocked me off balance a dozen times but I grit my teeth and focused on keeping my feet.

If I should fall, there would be no chance for me to get up again. I would be crushed beneath their marching boots and there would be no hope.

Agatha wore a mask of utter terror.

"I shouldn't have left your room," she muttered. "I never should have left your room."

"Hey," I said, grunting as I took another sharp elbow to my back. "Look at me."

She did. The harsh battering I received faded to nothing as I peered into her deep-set and loving eyes.

She looked up at me, the same way she had earlier that night when we made love. She never took her eyes from mine. Likely she didn't want to lose the connection we shared either. With me hunched over her, her lips were less than an inch from mine.

We were locked away inside this cocoon of safety together and the rest of the world might not have existed at all.

She placed a hand on my cheek and closed her eyes. I did too. Suddenly, I was transported to a distant place where we were no longer in the midst of a crushing crowd of frightened and panicked prisoners on a cold and distant alien moon.

We were back in my cell. It was just the two of us and I could do what I wanted with her. And she could do the same with me. Once more, we could ascend that incredible rise to the promised land on the other side. It was a long trek but one we could make if we worked together.

She raised her mouth to mine and pressed them gently but firmly to my lips. She gently sucked my bottom lip, taking it between her own and massaging it with her tongue. Her body was warm and inviting beneath me, and pressed against her so close, she must have felt the bulge in my pants.

I had no idea how long it took for the rampaging mob to pass, but eventually they did, and once they had, I was too firmly locked on her lips to notice.

Agatha leaned back and checked over my shoulder. The prisoners were no longer there and she smiled up at me.

"I think they're gone," she said.

"Are they?" I said.

She was right, of course. I no longer felt their buffeting elbows and sharp knees that threatened to sweep my legs out from under me.

I straightened up and pulled back, feeling a little at a loss for having to lose this moment with Agatha. The backs of the massing crowd were just down the hall from us, still marching away.

I took Agatha by the hand and turned toward the hallway the mob had vacated.

Bodies lay strewn about the place like discarded food packets. They were crushed underfoot, demolished and turned to mush.

Agatha didn't flinch at the sight of them. I guess she'd seen a pulverized body or two during her time at the prison.

We moved down the hall and found no sign of what had terrified the prisoners. For a moment, I thought it might be the warden's newly arrived guards but there was no sign of them or anything that might have caused the impromptu stampede.

"Well, well, well," a deep-throated voice said over my shoulder. "What have we got here?"

I recognized the voice immediately and spun around, releasing Agatha's hand and taking up my bedpost cudgel. Before I could bring it around, one of the Afzit twins placed the point of his blade up under my chin.

He had a large bulge from where I'd struck him over the head earlier. He had other cuts to his face and unless he came in contact with another prisoner earlier, it was my handiwork and labeled him as the elder twin.

"You don't have to do this," I said.

"Oh, but we do," Afzit the elder growled under his breath. "Nobody issues a beat down of the Afzit twins without paying for it."

I was keenly aware there was only one brother. Where was the other one? Had I hit him over the head so hard that it took him out of commission?

I hoped so.

Agatha screamed and when I turned, I found the other twin wrapping his arms around her waist and tugging her away from me.

"Agatha!" I yelled, turning to confront Afzit the younger.

The blade stiffened beneath my chin and made a small incision there, causing the blood to run down my neck.

"We'll have none of that," Afzit the elder said. Then he spoke to his brother. "What have we got there?"

Afzit the younger pulled Agatha's hood back, revealing the smooth cheeks of her face and her gorgeous blazing eyes.

"Looks like we've got ourselves a Prize!" the younger Afzit twin said.

"Is this true?" Afzit the elder said, fixing me with a dangerous glare. "Have you been holding out on us?"

Afzit the younger grabbed at Agatha's breasts through the thick material of the shirt she was wearing.

"And boy, she's a beaut!" he said.

"And where might you be taking her?" Afzit the elder said.

My hands weren't far from the blade at my throat. If I was quick, could I take him out? I glanced across at Agatha, who struggled against Afzit the younger's wandering hands. He lifted up her shirt and cupped a naked breast and lowered his mouth to suck on her nipple.

I might take out one brother but it would leave Agatha in danger.

I turned to Afzit the elder, his black eyes drilling into me.

"I was taking her to the Klika gang leader, Thillak," I said.

The elder blinked, taken aback. Afzit the younger's mouth paused and came no closer to Agatha's nipple.

"Thillak?" Afzit the younger said, sharing a look with his elder brother. "Why would you be taking a fine specimen such as this to the likes of him?"

"I owe a debt," I said calmly. "This is my way to repay him. I found her wandering the halls, lost, and decided to make the most of the opportunity."

Afzit the younger released Agatha's breast and wrapped his hand around her throat instead. Even he wouldn't want to anger Thillak if she really was his property.

"But he doesn't know you're coming with her, does he," Afzit the elder grinned. "You owe us a debt for the attack you made on us earlier. And you can take what little of her is left to Thillak once we're done with her."

"Thillak won't be pleased with a damaged product," I said, overriding the nasty taste of bile bubbling at the back of my throat at my own words.

She wasn't a product. She had been early in the evening but after I claimed her and made love to her for the first time, we'd become so much more.

"We'll take you both to our cell," Afzit the elder said. "We'll have our way with her, you'll watch, and then you can take her away."

"Fair enough," I said.

I couldn't bring myself to look at Agatha. She would have a beaten and broken look on her face that I could do this to her.

"Your cell is this way, right?" I said, turning to point, knowing the cell was in the other direction.

"No, it's this way—"

As I turned one way and Afzit the elder turned the other, his blade left my throat an inch. I snapped my hands around his arm and twisted it. I wanted to break it so it was unusable, but the damn creature moved with the movement, jumped, spinning end over end, and threw out a leg.

It struck me across the head but it didn't knock me down.

The reactive movement of my head was less than Afzit the elder expected. He lost his balance and fell to the ground.

I slammed my foot on his chest and, my hands still wrapped about his wrist, twisted his arm.

There was the satisfying crunch as I ripped it from its socket but it wouldn't be enough to disable the creature. Such injuries were common in the pit. It wouldn't take him long to heal from it.

A snapped bone on the other hand…

I brought his arm down over my knee. A sharp snap tore a scream from the elder's throat.

I leaned forward and buried a fist in his face. It wasn't enough to knock him unconscious but the resulting slap against the hard floor was. His entire body went limp.

His knife fell from his grip and I caught it, lowering it to his throat.

I looked up at Afzit the younger who had his own blade at Agatha's throat. She struggled but it was no use.

"Let my brother go," he hissed.

"Let her go first," I said calmly.

"How do I know you'll keep your word?"

"I think we both know I'm the more honorable of us."

The younger twin hissed through his fang-like teeth and growled. He was crazy enough to slit Agatha's throat and run at me with the blade. The twins were known to do a lot worse.

Agatha ended the stalemate with a hard stamp of her foot on the twin's boot, twisted, and separated herself from him.

It was only a moment of distraction but it was enough for her to rush to my side.

"Good work," I said.

Afzit the younger took a step toward us.

I cut a small slit in the elder brother's throat to match the one he gave me. It was enough for the younger brother to stay his hand.

"Drop the shiv," I said.

"You said you would let him go if I let her go," he said.

"You didn't let her go. She let herself go. Drop the shiv or I'll murder your brother with his own blade. Drop it."

The twin ground his teeth and placed it on the ground. I didn't remove my eyes from him until he stood up again. If I thought that was the only blade he had on him, I was a fool. He could easily hurl a blade at our backs as we fled.

"Lie down," I said. "Face down. Hands on the back of your head."

The twin just glared at me, then slowly got down and did as I told him.

"Hand me the bedpost," I said to Agatha, not taking my eyes from the other prostrate brother.

Agatha did. Now I had a shiv in one hand and an effective cudgel in the other.

"Stand over there," I told her.

It was far away enough from both brothers in case either one was preparing to attack.

I stepped forward and struck the second brother across the back of the head, the unseen blow knocking him out cold. His body went limp, knocked unconscious for the second time from the same weapon.

I drew the cudgel back high and, with five or six hard blows, smashed his skull open like a ripe qualli. I slit the neck of the elder brother. His blood seeped from his neck and pooled over the floor.

Agatha stood aghast.

"I-I thought you were going to let them go?" she said.

"And risk them coming after us again? I don't think so. I gave them a second chance. They won't get a third."

I tucked the twins' shivs in the band of my pants.

"Trust me, the prison is a better place now."

Not that that was saying much.

I took Agatha by the hand and was surprised with how little friction she put up.

We drewup to the pit where three, maybe four, figures lay sprawled faced down in the sand. A terrible fight had taken place down there and for a moment, I wished I had been there to witness it.

I could have placed a bet and earned a few credits. I'd always been pretty good at spotting the stronger fighter, although I was certain sometimes the fighters threw their fights. I guess there were cheats in every enterprise so it wasn't surprising.

We were drawing closer to the Prize Pool at the end of the hall. Something was going on inside the science lab. I tore my eyes away from it as it wasn't my escape route.

We crept further down the hall to the Prize Pool. I heard loud footsteps approaching from an adjacent hallway and paused.

I held out an arm and blocked Agatha's approach. An angry mob of a dozen prisoners or so descended upon the Prize Pool. They were held at bay by fighters I recognized as those belonging to Thillak of Klika.

Odd, I thought, that they should be sending reinforcements here when there was so much call for them elsewhere. After all, Klika was the most powerful gang in the prison and they could really clean up if they used all the forces at their disposal. Instead, they were defending the Prize Pool from attacks.

But one thing was for sure.

There was no way we were getting in through this entrance.

I was aware there were other entrances, so I took us around this obstruction and checked each of the others, gnashing my teeth at the time this was taking me.

I discovered all the entrances were under attack and equally defended by other members of the Klika gang.

Damn me for trying to be noble!

I turned on Agatha.

"Do you know of any other ways into the Prize Pool?"

"No. Just the ones you've seen."

I growled and stamped my foot.

"Is there anywhere you would feel safe other than the Prize Pool?"

"Are you kidding? I'm not sure I would even be safe in there!"

As hard as the prisoners were fighting to get at the girls in the Prize Pool, none had yet breached their defenses, and unless I missed my guess, they weren't going to.

"We're going to have to get you somewhere safe before I get out of here," I said.

"Get out?" Agatha said. "How are you going to get out?"

Damn me for a fool!

I never meant to let her into my little plan to escape.

"It doesn't matter how," I snapped.

"Even if you get out there, you'll never survive! Everyone knows that."

"Some survive."

Agatha looked me over, her eyes scanning my triumphant smile and confident manner.

"You could survive out there? How?"

"Because we're not all from wet planets with enough water to drown in. Some of us are from planets not much different to this one."

Agatha must have seen I was being serious.

"Take me with you," she said.

"It's going to be risky and I don't want you slowing me down."

"I won't slow you down."

"Yes, you will."

She grabbed me by the lapels of my shirt—at least, she would have if she could reach—and jammed her face in mine.

"No, I won't," she growled.

I marveled at her gumption.

And why couldn't she come with me? So long as she kept up and didn't slow me down, there was no need to leave her behind to be brutally raped. Not that dying beneath a baking hot sun would be much better if it came to it.

"Fine, I'll take you," I said. "But no whining. If you slow me down, I'm leaving you behind. Understood?"

She nodded but didn't say a word.

"And you have to do everything I say when I say it," I added.

"Quit talking and get us out of here!" Agatha said.

I led us down a corridor adjacent to the one we'd been heading down. We had to fight against a flood of prisoners moving in the opposite direction but we never had to engage in open combat.

All these months, I had been working on the guards in an attempt to bribe them into letting me outside. I tried subtlety, I tried manipulating third parties, tried bribing them directly. Each time, I failed.

And the bribery case almost got me sent to the isolation cells where the real criminals were kept. I managed to convince them I was joking and got off the hook.

The guards were incorruptible—quite a revelation at the time. I had never met a being I couldn't corrupt before. It was almost like these guys were machines.

I worked with some of the other prisoners with certain skills that might allow me to get outside the walls. I only gave them enough information to carry out their part of my plan.

Unfortunately, they always twigged what I was attempting.

"So, this is for an escape, right?" they would say.

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I would deny their insinuation but it never worked. They refused to do the work unless they were part of my team. "That's my price," they said. "Take it or leave it."

I agreed to their terms and before I knew it, I had an entire escape team working on my plan. The part that always got their attention was my announcement of a shuttlecraft waiting outside the prison for me that my gang dropped off the moment I got slammed in here.

I was supposed to creep out, reach it, blast off, and I would be free and clear. I knew exactly where the shuttlecraft was and never shared the location with anyone.

The only difficulty was in getting out of the prison. Now the riot kicked off and made my original plan irrelevant.

Now it was onto Plan B.

"Okay, we're here," I said to Agatha.

I placed my back to the wall that looked out on an open stretch of space with a huge pair of doors on the opposite wall.

"What is this?" Agatha said.

"The entrance hangar."

"But what are we doing here?"

"We're getting out of here."

"Where?"

"Through the door."

Agatha peered around the corner at the huge door again.

"That door?" she said incredulously.

"That's right."

"But… It's the main entrance to the prison!"

"Is that why it's so big?" I said, sarcasm dripping from every word.

"There will be a ton of guards arriving here any minute! How are we supposed to slip past them?"

"Will you chill out? Everything will be fine."

She was already getting under my skin. Did I really want to have her on this trip? There was no telling how long it might take to reach the shuttlecraft.

It was because this was the very last place they expected an inmate to escape from that I felt confident it would work.

I raised the device I'd made and ran an eye over it. I fiddled with some of the cylinders on the side.

By the light of the Creator, I hoped this worked.

If it didn't, I'd be doomed to spend the rest of my days in solitary, and there was no worse fate than that, perhaps anywhere in the galaxy.

The orange lights on either side of the giant door flashed. A moment later, they slid open. Half a dozen large shuttlecraft drifted inside and sat down in perfect rows inside the hangar.

The doors remained open.

The shuttlecraft hatch doors opened and hundreds of guards marched from each craft.

Wow. The warden really wasn't messing around. He'd sent far more than I expected. Either the riots were worse than I thought or the warden was angry the prisoners had rioted.

If he wanted sedate prisoners, he never should have included the strongest and most powerful fighters in the galaxy.

The orange lights flashed once more and the doors began to slide shut.

The guards were still exiting the shuttlecraft. There were so many it was taking some time to unload them all.

We stood to one side of the huge shuttlecraft. If we hurried, we might slip past them without them noticing us.

"We can't go now!" Agatha squeaked in my ear. "They'll see us!"

"Not if we hurry."

I had one chance to make it work, and this was it. If I didn't go now, I would have no chance of getting out of here. I would have to turn and run back to my cell and dream about being free.

But the attempt would come at a terrible cost if I failed and got caught.

I would be sent to the bowels of the prison and never emerge again. I would never get to spend time with Agatha and she would be forced to service the other prisoners—and that was if she was lucky!

"If they catch you," I said, taking her hand in mine. "Tell them I forced you to come with me. There's no need for you to be punished if you can avoid it."

She opened her mouth to speak, then cast an eye at me, and shut it.

I took a deep breath and watched as the doors continued to slowly close. I could make out the lines of electricity than ran the width and height of the doorway.

I adjusted my device slightly, taking care to peer at the security system to set the cylinders as accurately as possible.

This was it.

The last of the guards exited the shuttlecraft, carrying their shock rifles in their arms. If just one spotted us, if just one managed to successfully hit us…

It would all be over.

The doors were almost shut.

If I was going to do this, it had to be now.

For the second time since the riot kicked off, I hesitated.

I could return to my room right now and enjoy Agatha until the guards got the prison under control and came for her.

Did I really want to risk that?

It was tougher than I thought it would be.

But I had to give it a try.

Time with Agatha was one day. Through that door, the rest of my life waited.

Out there, I would be vulnerable.

Easy to see if anyone turned around.

Easy to shoot if they aimed.

Easy for my entire life to go up in flames if I tripped and fell.

Easy for someone to have lied and my device not to work as promised.

So many problems.

Everything had to go perfectly for me to escape.

But it wasn't the first time I had the odds stacked against me and lived to tell the tale.

I was a pirate. We functioned on probabilities.

Still, this was one bet I would not take.

And neither would anyone else if they had a single ounce of common sense.

I nodded and sprinted into the open arms of the hangar.

I guess I didn't have an ounce.

My strides werelong and ate up space as if my life depended on it which, unsurprisingly, it did.

I timed my breathing to coincide with my legs' long strides. I didn't stop, didn't turn to look back over my shoulder, didn't dare to even consider one of the guards had spotted me.

I ran as fast as my legs could carry me and right now, right then, that seemed enough for me to focus on.

I threw my arms back and used them to drive my legs even longer. I intended on obliterating a few speed records while I was making my break from the prison.

In one hand I clutched my device, holding it to one side like a shield, and in a strange way, that was what it was.

In my other hand was Agatha's hand. She didn't collapse or struggle to keep up. She was right there at my side every step of the way.

I didn't check to see if I accidentally tugged her arm out of its socket. I didn't check to see if she had lost her breath. These things were in my thoughts but I couldn't be concerned with them right now.

She either kept up or she got left behind.

There was no middle ground.

My boots were monstrously loud on the floor. I wished they were silent the way they were in my mind.

The sound bounced and echoed off the back wall, toward the front of the room.

In my mind's eye, I imagined the guards turning to see what was making all that racket.

Still, as much as my senses were telling me to look, I didn't.

I daren't.

It could knock me off my stride, could make me see things that weren't there.

I couldn't take the risk.

And I kept on running.

How Agatha was keeping up with me, I had no idea, but she was.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we reached the closing door.

They were less than two yards apart now.

I had left it a little too late but hopefully, my device would still work.

I skidded to a halt and dropped Agatha's hand.

I moved my device forward slowly, adjusting it again as the cajoling of the run had knocked it off-center.

I lined the cylinders up with the streaks of electricity, matching the grid pattern they created across the open door.

Once I was done with each side, I let out a breath and pressed the device into the latticework.

It hummed and crackled with power.

It sounded very dangerous—even to me.

I shoved Agatha behind me as a bolt of electricity splintered off the device and struck me.

It fried my shoulder in an instant and made my flesh burn.

I didn't ease my grip on the device and shoved it further into place.

One by one, the shards of electricity lined up with the device's cylinders.

Yes! It worked!

The device sparked, hurling another yellow bolt of electricity.

This one missed me and struck the rear thrusters of the shuttlecraft behind me.

"Is that it?" Agatha said between rasping breaths. "Now what?"

"I'll show you now what," I said.

I reached for the little lever and slid it across.

As it did, it opened up a small open doorway in the security field.

Was it safe? Would a random bolt of electricity strike me the moment I stepped through it? I didn't know.

"Hey!" a guard bellowed. "Hey, you! Hold it right there!"

I planned on doing many things, but holding it right here wasn't one of them.

I emptied my mind of all thought as I hopped through the tiny doorway and…

Emerged on the other side.

The air contained the same dusty dry "red" as it had inside the hangar but the air I breathed now was cleaner somehow, fresher.

The air only a recently-free man could savor because he was so used to living on the fetid stench of recycled air that'd passed through a thousand other lungs before reaching his.

But I was alone and Agatha wasn't with me.

The doors were shutting one inch at a time and any moment, with less than a foot to go, they were going to crush my little device into oblivion and the doorway would no longer exist.

"Agatha?" I said.

She stood on the other side, the device forming a frame around her like a still photograph.

Even the expression on her face was frozen like a photo. It depicted a pained expression lacking certainty.

The only moving elements of the photo were the guards running toward her—toward the both of us—and the shrinking time she had to hop through that doorway before it was too late.

She had frozen, unable to move even a muscle.

I'd had months to decide what I would do once I met this situation. I had made up my mind a long time ago. And I still had a few last-minute concerns.

But that didn't alter the fact I would jump through it.

She'd been thrust into this position for less than an hour and, although she no doubt had dreamed of escaping this hell, she probably never thought escape was possible, least of all that it would happen right here and now.

I didn't know why she hesitated.

She had no more to lose than I did.

They wouldn't confine her to solitary the way they would with me.

She had the opposite problem.

They would sell her to a pleasure house where she would be worked to death, first with the finest clients, then the middle-class ones, then the working class, and then finally to the lowest of the low.

And that was if she or one of her clients hadn't already taken her life from her.

That was the future awaiting her if she kept on staring and didn't even try to escape.

That was the future awaiting her if she stayed in this prison that she belonged in even less than I did.

She needed a helping hand.

Less than three inches remained before the door would crush the device and the window would shut forever.

I didn't know why I cared so much that she should be on this side of the door than on that one, but right then, it seemed like the most important thing in the world.

I did something crazy.

I reached through the temporary doorway for her hand.

She peered at my red skin.

It seemed to form a crack in her hesitant mind.

"Come with me," I said softly. "What do you have to lose?"

It was what she needed to hear.

She looked into my eyes and there, shimmering on the surface like on the pool of a rich and powerful fountain of life, I witnessed the same thing I had seen the night before when she peered at me through those long lashes from her pale and beautiful face, that undefeatable resistance that would never back down, would never surrender.

The strength I saw in her the moment I looked at her—the first real time I looked at her and not her broach—but really looked into her eyes and saw who she was.

She reached out a hand. It was small and dainty but I would never mistake the strength contained within this small lady.

Zaaaap!

The guards opened fire and the bolts struck the doors on either side of us.

Agatha leaped back to avoid the worst of the attack, further from my reach.

The door had less than an inch to cover.

I bolted forward and grabbed Agatha by the arm and yanked her through the gap and into my arms.

The door crushed the device, obliterating it.

The guards opened fire and their bolts struck the security grid but did not pass through.

On the other side of the latticework, I saw the face of a guard.

He was dressed like the others but he was bigger, stronger, a more formidable force.

I couldn't make out his eyes but through the visor, I sensed him staring at me.

His armor was dented and damaged from countless fights and matched the scars I had crisscrossing my body.

I knew without a shadow of a doubt I would be seeing more of that figure, and for some reason that drew a cold shudder from me.

The doors shut the final few inches, wiping him from view, but very much not from my mind.

I shifted my focus to Agatha, who remained clutched close to my body and looked up at me.

I had risked my life reaching through that doorway to snatch her.

I had never risked my life for anybody before.

Nobody.

Why did Agatha have such a profound effect on me?

And why was I so afraid of it?

"Come on," I said. "They'll open the doors as soon as they can and begin searching for us. The further we can get from them, the better."