CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
BROKEN

I was in shock. Complete, utter, and absolute shock. I stared at Le'Kruune's lifeless body, the double-edged dagger sticking straight up out of his back. Dark purple blood was pouring out of the wound, and Mother's hands were stained with it. She had driven the primitive steel weapon all the way down to the hilt, and was still panting from the effort. She was shaking a little, but not nearly as much as I was. The maniacal look in her eye was still in place, but it softened when she glanced up at me. I had almost forgotten to breathe.

"Oh, Mom!" I cried, stepping cautiously around the corpse and flinging my arms around her. The towel had fallen off her head, and I buried my face into her damp hair and sobbed loudly. Slowly and heavily, she lifted up her own arms to return the hug. She patted my back, and said nothing. I continued to weep, drenching her with my tears. There were no words to express the flood of emotions that washed over me then. I was happy and horrified all at once. Nothing could be said to convey how I felt about what she had done. Not a single word except…

"Thank you," I whispered, "for EVERYTHING. I love you, Mom."

She took my face in her hands and kissed me tenderly on the lips. "I love you, too," she whispered back, "more than infinity, and longer than eternity."

A few minutes passed in silence. We held onto each other the whole time, as if afraid to let go. When I finally thought to ask her where she had gotten the knife, she merely shrugged and said that she'd managed to slip it off one of Le'Kruune's petty officers by seducing him. Horrified, I asked if she had had to kill him, too, but she said no. She had only had to 'rough him up a little,' and that was it. I tried to picture how she must have left him… probably no better off than the first two guards she had encountered aboard this ship. This ship…

With a terrible wrenching of my heart, I realized the dilemma we were in. Here we were, in Le'Kruune's private suite, at the very center of the Kaizaxx ship, surrounded by heavily armed military troops and security personnel. There was absolutely no way we could make it to the docking bay without getting caught, and even if, by some miracle, we DID make it, it would be impossible for us to leave in Mother's cruiser. Le'Kruune had ordered the ignition system to be disabled, in the event that we tried to escape. Mother sensed my fear, and tried to reassure me.

"Don't worry, honey. I'll find someway to get us out of here. I promise. I'll see you safely out of this hellhole, or die trying."

"Oh, Mom, no!" I sobbed. "You c-can't die! You WON'T! I won't let you! If YOU die, I'll die with you."

"NO, Wendy," she said severely, "you have too much to live for, and I can't live without you. If anything should happen to you, I won't hesitate to turn a ray gun on myself."

"Oh, God, Mom, PLEASE don't say that!" I whined. "Please… you've already suffered enough because of me. Don't KILL yourself over me, too!"

Mother looked mad all of a sudden. She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me slightly. "DAMMIT, WENDY, STOP BLAMING YOURSELF! THE ONLY THING I'VE EVER TRULY SUFFERED FROM IS LOVING YOU! AND I WOULD NEVER TRADE THAT LOVE FOR ANYTHING!!! NOTHING, I REPEAT, NOTHING CAN EVER EASE MY SUFFERING, AND IF YOU THINK FOR ONE SECOND THAT I'M GOING TO LOSE YOU, THEN YOU'VE NEVER BEEN MORE MISTAKEN!!!"

She let go of me then, panting. I felt a fresh wave of tears coming on, and suddenly I grew weak in the knees. I sank to the floor, letting my eye wander over to Le'Kruune. I caught a glimpse of something strange and did a double-take. His right arm, the one that had held the plasma cannon, appeared to have moved. No. It couldn't have… but I could have sworn that it had been in an entirely different position only moments before. It had been straight, and he had been lying on it. Now it was bent at the elbow and pulled up against his side. No, that couldn't be right. He was dead… he had to be! Mother followed my eye and gasped. She, too, had noticed the difference. It was confirmed… I wasn't seeing things. That arm HAD moved! My heart leapt up into my throat. Mother took hold of my arm and tugged on it urgently. When I looked back at her, she jerked her head frantically in the direction of the bedroom. Petrified, I climbed to my feet and allowed her to lead me away. She was looking around frantically… most likely for some kind of weapon. I wondered why she didn't grab the plasma cannon, but looking back at it I saw that it lay far too close to its owner to even try. He was probably daring us to do so, just so he could seize it in a split second and then blow both our heads off.

Mother spotted a bronze statuette of a nude Kaizaxx woman and ran for it. I heard scuffling behind us and glanced back over my shoulder. My heart stopped at the sight of Le'Kruune rising up off the floor, his obsidian eyes blazing with hatred. He contorted his muscular arm behind his back and seized hold of the dagger, pulling it out. He didn't even wince. He took one look at it and cast it aside. He saw his cannon, and picked it up. I was so scared just then that I was unable to move. Mother had managed to grab the statuette off its pedestal, and was already back at my side. She held it up in front of her like a club, although she was shaking furiously. Le'Kruune bounded across the room, landing right in front of us. His teeth were bared in the most lethal-looking snarl I had yet seen. He jabbed the cannon hard into Mother's chest, nearly knocking her over backward. Terrified, she dropped her weapon, then threw her hands up in surrender.

"NOOO!!!" I screamed, flinging my arms around her and putting my back to the cannon. I buried my face in her heaving chest and sobbed: "Kill my mother and you'll have to kill me, too!"

Le'Kruune lowered his weapon and began to laugh. And laugh. He kept on laughing, louder and more maniacal, until I thought he would burst open at the seams.

"KILL you?!!" he repeated, sounding incredulous. "Now why in HELL would I do that?" I turned and looked up at him, disbelieving. "No. It was never my intention to kill either one of you. Not even after that admirable second attempt on my OWN life just now. It certainly tries my patience, but KILL you?! Absolutely not!!!" He bent over until his face was level with ours and added in a blood-curdling growl: "Killing you would be too easy."

Before I knew what was happening, Le'Kruune wrenched me away from Mom and tossed me aside like a dirty rag. I skidded several feet across the carpet and winced at the burn it gave me. I rolled over and looked back just in time to see him raise his hand, and then bring it back down across my mother's face. I watched in horror as she flew sideways from that hit and landed painfully on the floor. I tried to scream, but suddenly I was gagging on air. Mother lay motionless on her side, an empty look in her eye as she stared unblinking at me. She was still conscious, I knew, but undoubtedly she was afraid to move for fear of getting hit again. She covered the side of her face that had been struck and curled up into a fetal position. Le'Kruune was poised above her, obviously waiting for her to react. I would have reacted myself if I hadn't been sick to my stomach from all the collected physical and emotional pain we had endured aboard this ship. It so overwhelmed me that I was unable even to yell out as Le'Kruune picked my mother up off the floor and cradled her to his chest. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! For a moment, he actually looked like he cared about her! I was even more surprised that Mom wasn't trying to escape. She had always been so strong…so brave…

Now, as Le'Kruune held her in his arms, it appeared to me that he had finally managed to achieve the impossible, and broken her.

He walked over to where I was lying, carrying my mother with him. He towered over me as he stared me down, daring me with his eyes to try and rescue her from his grasp. She squirmed slightly, turning her head just enough to look down at me. The expression on her face was the strangest I'd ever seen. It stabbed me in the heart when I realized what it was: my mother was… gone. The woman lying limp in those massive arms was no longer the same person. Just a hollow shell bearing my mother's name and appearance. My heart withered and died.

"Momma…" I whispered, reaching a hand up toward her. "Momma, no…" She gave no reaction. All I saw, all I felt in her was emptiness. She was broken. Le'Kruune had broken her. I collapsed on the carpet and cried. Suddenly, and without warning, Mother gave a high-pitched shriek and kicked him in the face. He roared as she jumped out of his arms and grabbed me up off the floor. I had never been more relieved in my life. Mother was okay. She was still her own amazing self. As we ran toward the door, I laughed. I should have realized that her spirit would be impossible to break. She hit something on the panel and the door slid up and open. We ran out laughing past the stunned sentries. Both hesitated before bolting after us, clearly afraid to use their weapons and get in trouble with Le'Kruune for hurting us. We looked back over our shoulders at them, and saw Le'Kruune standing furiously in the doorway, yelling at them to run faster before he aided them on with a couple of plasma blasts.

I continued to laugh, even as I looked ahead of me again and collided with another guard. About the same moment, Mom collided with a second guard. The two Rapturians had been waiting for us, just out of sight at the end of the corridor. Mom wasted no time. She brought a knee up into her captor's groin, and he sank to the floor with a pitiful moan. I tried the same with my own captor, but he blocked me and pinned my arms behind my back. I felt him apply the cuffs and I cursed. Mother turned to him with a murderous gleam in her eye, and for a moment, he looked terrified. She threw herself on him shrieking, and knocked him down. They wrestled for several seconds before the other two guards finally caught up, cannons raised. Six more guards appeared out of nowhere and surrounded us. Mother glanced up at them. That split second of distraction was just enough to allow her opponent to reverse positions with her. He rolled them both until he was on top, disrobing her in the process. He got up quickly as Le'Kruune stormed up behind us. He was huffing and puffing, but he quickly regained composure as he surveyed the awful scene before him.

Mother lay naked on the floor, her robe laying just a few feet away. Her chest was heaving as she panted, and all the guards were staring at her. Even with their commanding officer present, they did not bother to conceal their excitement. I looked away, my face hot with my mother's shame. Le'Kruune smiled down at her and said, "escort these two to back to D7. I will send for the female later, once I patch up the little nick she gave me." His wicked grin as he said this made me shudder. How in HELL had he survived?!! I just couldn't understand it. Right then, it didn't matter. Two guards anxiously stepped forward and took hold of Mom, pulling her roughly to her feet. While they cuffed her, a third guard came forward and picked up her robe. Le'Kruune leaned toward him and held out his hand. The guard hesitated, then handed the garment over to him. He did not offer it back to Mother. Instead, he seemed satisfied with the idea of letting the guards parade her naked body down the corridor for all of his men to see. And indeed, eight of the ten guards flanked us closely as they escorted us back to our cell, all of them shoving each other in turn in order to get a good look at her. The other two guards, the ones who stood sentry outside Le'Kruune's suite, were thoroughly disgruntled about having to return to their post.

I was burning with fury as we walked back to our cell. Whistles, howls, catcalls, and other animal noises rang out all around us in my mother's favor. I started to cry again, then decided against it. Better not make things worse, I told myself. Le'Kruune's men were a bunch of typical lewd, crude construction worker types whose closest thing to a love life lay somewhere in the pages of a porno mag, and whose definition of manliness sat firmly below the belt. To shed tears in front of them would be a costly mistake. We were thrown, none too gentle, into our cell, the guards all laughing us. Some of them managed to get in a few vulgar remarks just before the door came down and cut them off. They had removed our handcuffs, and our wrists were sore. Mom sat down on the bed and tried to rub some feeling back into her hands. She didn't bother to cover herself, even though there was a blanket and bed sheet right beneath her. Not that those would do much good. Too hard to keep wrapped up in. I couldn't stand to see her like that, even though she hadn't appeared embarrassed for a second. Not even when we had passed by one of the main control rooms, where about three dozen more officers and guards, all men, called out to her. She had just stared straight ahead of her, a look of determination on her face, and did not respond. Still, I couldn't allow her any more shame.

I pulled off my own shirt and handed it to her. "Here, Mom," I said, not looking directly at her. I could sense her amusement at the fact that I was more embarrassed than she was.

"But - what'll YOU wear?" she asked, hesitating to take it from me.

"Nothing," I replied. "I don't need to. Go ahead and take it. You need it a lot more than I do."

"Thanks," she said sweetly, and put it on. When I looked at her, I blushed. Being a man's shirt, it didn't fit her quite as well as it did me. It was made from a very elastic, form-fitting material, and because of this, it fit very snugly around her chest. I imagined she would still be receiving lewd comments and catcalls later on. Suddenly that was the least of my worries, for just then I remembered what Le'Kruune had said about 'sending for the female' later, and I shuddered to think what he might have in mind for Mother when he did.