Almost done. Enjoy.
Chapter Thirteen: Salus
The two figures stood at the edge of the ugly scrape of land that terminated at the fallen Inuit Science Vessel Kran, listening to the quiet hissing of wind from such a high vantage point. Once Happy had identified the star chariot for Baran, she had closed her lips and had been silent for the better part of a longer space of time than the Nali felt comfortable with. They had been away from the Harobed villagers long enough already.
"The others will be wondering where you've gone," he said.
When Happy didn't answer Baran put his hand on her shoulder and shook her gently. "You have to come with me now."
To his alarm, she pulled forwards and began uncertainly working her way down the slope. "Where are you going?" he asked, mildly panicked. "What do you think you can do?"
"I see two bodies down there," she replied stonily.
Baran reached out and snagged her arm, holding her in place with two of his hands. "You can't do anything for them," he said, forcing her to look into his eyes. "Your responsibility is with the Nali now."
Happy looked over her shoulder at the crumpled human figures in the dirt below. They had to have been alive until just recently; their forms were whole and the blood that stained the ground around them still looked fresh. "I've got to see, Baran. Those are my crewmembers—my people. Besides, they might have something useful we can use."
"Then I'm coming with you."
Happy gently removed her arm from the Nali's grasp. "I'll just be a second, Baran. Besides, you should go back and reassure the others that I'm still alive."
Baran paused. "I'll go back and tell them but then I'm coming to get you. In fact, wait until I tell them and then you can go down."
The Terran relented. "I'll wait. Be quick, though."
Baran disappeared behind the rocks; a few minutes later he returned, with Diaba and another wiry-looking Nali whose name Happy did not know.
"This is Niori," Baran said, answering her unspoken question. "We're going to help you get down the slope. We'll wait for you afterwards."
The four figures made their laborious way down the steep face of the Trench; Baran was practically carrying Happy on his back. When they reached the bottom, the three Nali remained in a tight group while Happy limped over to the two human corpses she had spotted from above. There was the sound of dripping all around her; it had started to rain.
They were both on their backs, arms and legs akimbo, savage bloody holes in their armor where their stomachs were supposed to be. One male, one female; if their faces had been less mangled she would have looked to see if she could recognize either of them. The names that were stitched onto their uniforms—Onatop and Mottobanov—didn't ring any bells in her head. She was, after all, only acquainted with the American division aboard the Kran. The male figure clutched a weapon in his hand; Happy, reaching down and prying it loose from his stiff fingers, recognized it as a razorjack. A Skaarj piece of equipment. She cast a fearful glance around and noticed a rock jutting out of the wet dirt a couple of paces in front of her. If she could manage to climb to the top, she would be able to see from one end of the Trench to the other. Scanning the area for danger didn't seem to be such a bad idea.
"Wait here," she told Baran. "I have a feeling we're being watched."
The Nali watched in uncomfortable silence as Happy climbed to the top of the stacked rock on all fours, the razorjack tucked under her arm and her false hand scraping for purchase on the hard granite. When she finally reached the top, she sat down heavily and squinted down the Trench towards the Kran, trying to see if there were any sentries coming towards them. The space in front of her was empty, save for a few Gasbags that were floating idly around the searchlights; if the group kept away from the direct lights then the floating two-armed monsters wouldn't be a problem. She sighed, remembering her nights on the ship after the Kran's hard fall. There had been a wave of Titans that had somehow found it amusing to pummel the hull of the ISV ship for hours after the sun went down. From the looks of things, the Titans had moved on; the dented hull was rusting in spots, but had not been broken into.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a strange throbbing in the air. Quickly, she turned her head to look at Baran and the others; they were staring at the sky above them. Baran was holding the flak cannon at the ready. A chorus of heads appeared above the lip of the ledge above them; the rest of the Nali group had come to see what was taking so long.
The Terran's eyes widened as a dark form swooped out of the sky behind the Nali; the clouds flashed orange from the exhaust of the Skaarj scoutship that dropped like a rock and sliced through the rain towards Happy. It made a slow circular descent into the Trench and hovered above the open space behind her, so that Happy and the rock she was standing on separated the Nali from the skimmer. She was thankful for that much, at least.
She heard Baran shout something and come running towards her, but she quickly waved him off. "Put it away!" she hissed at him, pointing to the flak cannon. "If they see it, they'll kill you! Save your ammunition and don't let them see you!"
There was a heavy thump behind her and she swallowed heavily, a worm of terror knotting itself around her chest. She sat on her calves and clutched the razorjack, looking over her shoulder and down at the figure who had just jumped out of the skimmer, landing as gracefully as a swan in the quickly dampening dirt. The Skaarj stood up slowly, his forest green scales gleaming with a hundred different colors, his lion eyes blazing. A taloned hand came forward and gestured towards her. "Happy."
Happy dropped her eyes to the infected skin of her arm. "General."
So Norianna had lost, then. She hadn't managed to kill Shas, and here he was, come to finish the job like a triumphant warlord, his tail twitching, his deep-set eyes shining with the victory that was already playing out in his head. He thought he already won. He had already taken Norianna's life, it seemed, and he had hunted Happy down and was going to finish her off here, in front of all those she was fighting to save.
Happy was suddenly very, very angry.
Norianna had entrusted her with a task—Baran had entrusted his entire village to her care—and now everything she was currently fighting for was in jeopardy. All because of the Skaarj monster standing in front of her. She couldn't let him get away with this. He might have headed her off here but she was not going to let him have his way. Not while she had breath in her body. She had to fight, for the sake of the Nali. Even though she might die here, she had to make a stand.
She got a better grip on the razorjack and planted her bare feet firmly on the slick rock she was standing on. The rain beat down from the heavens and swam down her face as she prepared to face High General Shas-ulhara.
Shas took one step towards the Terran, his foot sinking considerably in the mud. What did she think she was doing? He could smell death on her already and yet she was standing against him—more like wobbling, he corrected himself, looking at the pale, shaking figure perched on the rock. It wouldn't take more than a decent gust of wind to knock her over and yet she was actually threatening his life. He took another step and released his Razik blades, keeping his eyes locked on the girl's. Her whole body quailed with fear but she held her ground. The rain had plastered her hair to her head and the wind was violently whipping her cloak out behind her, almost dragging her backwards. She reached up with her false hand and fumblingly undid the clasp; the heavy cloth was spun away by the gusting storm.
"No more of your tyranny here, Shas." Happy brought the razorjack up and lined it up with the general's neck. "This is where I draw the line."
Shas tilted his head at her words, slowly calculating how close he would need to get to her in order to bring her down with a full-body tackle. The mud was so thick that his ability to jump would be severely hindered. He hummed softly to his human adversary, gesturing with one hand to the breathless group of Nali on the ridge; with his other hand he drew a slow line across his own throat. Happy looked from him to them and back again.
"You don't get it, do you?" She drew herself up on the rock, adjusting her footing as the rain sheeted into her from all sides. "I said no more!"
Even Shas was surprised at her shout. No—not her shout; he was surprised by the flash of lightning that pierced the sky above them, illuminating the trench with harsh brightness and punctuating her sentence with a following bellow of thunder. There hadn't been a lightning storm on Na Pali for years; this one was a chance freak of nature. He hunched his shoulders and took another step forwards. Happy responded by discharging a shot from the razorjack that embedded itself in the squelching mud at Shas' feet.
"If you take one more step forwards I won't aim for your legs," Happy warned, knowing that she had made her point even though Shas couldn't understand her speech. "I won't let you kill them. I am their Messiah and I won't let them fall victim to your violence and bloodlust. You shall not conquer them!"
Shas tore his eyes away from the sinking razorjack disk and snarled, raising his arm and firing an electrical beam straight into his Terran opponent. It struck her in the shoulder, sparking out in the rain. To the Skaarj's dismay, Happy merely flinched; a second later she returned fire of her own, catching her tormenter in the stomach and causing him to fall back several paces. The rain washed his blood away almost immediately. The look in his acid green eyes was nearly caustic.
She had him—but not for long. Still training the weapon on Shas' neck with her trembling arms, she turned her head as far as she dared and lowered her eyes to catch Baran's gaze. "Go!" she shouted. "I can't hold him much longer! You must live!"
Baran held out his arms in protest, the flak cannon looking ridiculously huge in his hands. "You are their Messiah! They will not follow me!"
"Tell them it is my wish." Happy chanced a quick glance back at Shas to make sure he wasn't trying anything funny. "I can't let them see me die. You have to go, Baran. All of you. Right now."
Baran glanced at Diaba and Niori. "She's telling us to go."
"Without her?" Diaba breathed. "Nonsense. I am staying with my Messiah."
Beside her, Niori shifted. Baran noticed that he had a heavy cloth bundle draped over one of his arms; he realized that it was Happy's cloak. He must have fetched it from wherever the wind had tossed it. "This will not turn out well either way, Diaba. If this is an order from the Messiah then we had better do as she says."
The female Nali glared at Baran. "You didn't like her from the beginning, Baran. You could be lying to us. She's probably telling us to help her."
"Does she look like she wants us to stay?" Baran snarled, pointing at Happy's stiff form on the rock, gleaming wet in the glow of the floodlights surrounding the Kran. Another web of lightning wove itself across the sky behind her; she took this moment to spin around and point at the ridge where the rest of the group was hiding.
"Baran! You're not going to get another chance! GO!"
Baran shouldered the flak canon and grabbed Diaba's arm, disregarding her attempts to escape his grasp. Niori pinioned her other arms and they all three of them dashed up the slope, fighting the slopping mud that oozed down the side of the trench. Baran heard a snarl and a cry behind him, but he refused to look back. Instead he got a better grip on the firearm in his hand and more forcefully dragged Diaba back above the ridge to the trench. Never mind that he would rather have been carrying someone else to safety. But she had told him to go. And he did.
Happy was right. There was a little bit of a god in everyone. And he had just left his god to the mercy of a skydemon.
No matter what happened to them afterwards, Happy had proven her worth. She had led them this far to salvation.
The sounds that Baran had heard were due to the fact that Happy had slipped off of the rock that she was standing on; the force of her turning had thrown her off balance and she was now on all fours in the mud beside the jutting stone. After a moment of struggling against the mud that was sucking at her skin, she gave up and knelt there, panting heavily, staring up at Shas and the skimmer that loomed above them both like a giant metal bat. The general raised his ropy arm and flashed a signal to the skimmer with his hand; the craft began a slow descent towards the ground. When it settled, its engines humming, two Skaarj hopped out of its open side doors. Grief tore at Happy's throat but she would not let them see her cry, even though she had just failed miserably at leading the Nali to the Sunspire. They hadn't even gotten halfway there and Shas had struck her hopes down again. She couldn't chance a glance behind her to see if the Nali were there, but that was no matter. Shas was talking to the Skaarj next to him. He would send them after Baran and the others. Wolves after a flock of sheep.
I have to try, she thought, struggling to stand. I still have some ammunition left. Maybe if I aim correctly—
General Shas watched amusedly as his pet wobbled on her stick-thin legs and raised the razorjack once more to eye level. "Which one of us will you aim for?" he purred, holding out his mottled green arms and gesturing to his pilot and his lieutenant. "Would you like us to stand in a line to help you out?"
He was talking to her, the words needling in her ears. She clenched her body against the harsh, wet push of the wind and placed her fingers against the trigger.
The lieutenant was the first to move. He swaggered forwards, his upper body slightly bend, his right arm pulled tight against his body. He was moving in for a punch, then; Happy realized this and began to trot backwards, tripping over her own feet in the mud. Her false arm was not cooperating with her; she couldn't support the razorjack against it as well as she thought she could.
She let out a gagging choke as Shas' lieutenant grabbed her by the throat and the waist and hoisted her above his head. Muscles bunching, the Skaarj hurled her back towards Shas and the pilot, growling in soft mirth as her body crumpled in the mud at Shas' feet.
"Pursue the Nali," Shas said good-naturedly as he nudged Happy with his taloned foot. "I don't think the Terran is going anywhere soon."
Happy said nothing. She had landed on her side and was facing the side of the Trench that the Nali were so precariously perched upon. She dimly saw their nervous shapes shifting against the outline of the low, searchlight-bright clouds above them. Baran was there, and Diaba, too. They hadn't listened to her. They weren't going to leave.
She wanted to be angry with them.
She wanted to scream for help.
A bar of lightning split the sky behind the Nali, and suddenly Happy's eyes flashed from their statue-tall forms to something…someone, else, standing on the ridge a few paces from where the Harobed citizens were. The figure was much shorter than the Nali and was bare to the waist, were the remains of a grayish uniform clung to its legs. It supported a rifle against its shoulder with its hands.
A Terran. A human. Norianna?
Her revelation was punctuated by the startling report of the rifle being fired.
In front of her, the Skaarj lieutenant took a staggering step forwards and fell face first into the mud, the remains of what had once been his head splattering to the ground. Shas barked in shock. Happy wasted no time and flipped onto her back, flinging up the razorjack and firing at the first figure she saw. The spinning disk caught the pilot underneath the chin and chewed through the Skaarj's head at an angle, halfway decapitating the alien and sending him spinning off to the side, shaking in the throes of death.
General Shas snarled and fired a pair of electrical bolts into his Terran plaything, causing her to cry out and drop the razorjack. He grabbed it off of the ground and brought the weapon heavily down towards her body; he meant to crack her head open with it. Instead, Happy scrambled away and found refuge underneath the watchful scope of the Terran figure making its way slowly down the slope of the Trench and towards them. Shas lowered his arm and settled for crushing the razorjack in his hand. A furious growl rumbled in his throat, and he followed Happy's slowly retreating form. Happy watched him carefully, walking slowly backwards, trying not to laugh.
"You can't kill them by yourself," she said. "My Nali are going to live and you can't stop them."
The human figure was now on the floor of the Trench, walking easily despite the sinkhole that the rain had turned the ground into. As she approached, Happy's uneasy lope was forced to an unsteady stop. Whoever it was, this person was not Norianna. First of all, her uniform was all but shredded, and it was a different color than what Norianna had last worn. Her naked skin glowed white in the places it was not stained livid with blood. Scars raked from the woman's head all the way down to her torso, and a veritable armory of weapons clung to her hips. She stopped when she was nearly a breath away from Happy, and suddenly Happy had the overwhelming urge to back up, despite being faced with one of her own kind, who had just saved her ass from certain death.
The woman's face was exquisitely molded, and her hair certainly must have been beautiful once, even though currently it was only a dark halo of peach-fuzz on her head, but her most striking and fearsome features were her eyes. Large and dark, they were framed with elegant lashes that were clumped together with the rain, but there was an empty gleam in deep in her pupils that sent a chill down Happy's spine. Even though the woman's gaze was directed towards Shas, Happy could feel the woman staring at her. She looked back at Shas; he wasn't making any moves either.
The General was trying to force himself to think rationally despite the wrath radiating like a furnace in his head. These Terran idiots had actually forced him into a corner. His first instinct was to go after the Nali, but this new Terran wasn't going to let him go anywhere, and even if, by some miracle, he managed to reach the Harobed citizens and herd them down into the Trench, they wouldn't all fit in the skimmer. His only other choice was to leave. The question was, would he leave with Happy or not? His stomach turned at the thought of letting Happy go, but the armed Terran's sights were still leveled at him, and the look on her face told him she was struggling to hold back her fire.
Suddenly, the woman shouldered the sniper rifle and pulled out a small pistol; the action drew Happy's attention to a tattoo etched on the upper part of the woman's arm. The number 849. Now she recognized the uniform she was wearing. A prisoner, then? No wonder she looks so ruthless. But we're all prisoners on this planet—why should I be frightened of her?
"Happy?"
She whirled around. The call, weak as it was, reached her ears like a birdsong. Behind her, she could see the still form of the skimmer, hovering on autopilot mere inches above the ground. And kneeling in the gaping side-door, her hair hanging in waves over her bruised face, was a very cold, a very sore, and a very confused Norianna. For a moment Happy could only stare in slack-jawed awe. Then her face broke out in a smile that rivaled the luminosity of the searchlights.
"You're alive!"
Norianna, one hand cupping the side of her head, gave her a thumbs-up. "Barely," she croaked. "What happened?"
She wanted to tell Norianna everything that had happened—how she had led the Nali this far, how she had made friends with Baran, how she had finally, finally stood up to Shas, how she had killed her first Skaarj, and that perhaps they were going to make it now that this strange prisoner had come out of the blue and saved her. She took one limping step towards her cellmate—
—and was yanked backwards by a rough grip on her soaking hair. She yowled; her good hand flew to her head to slap the offending grasp away, but as soon as her fingers brushed against scales, a brick settled in her stomach. She went limp as a rag doll as Shas swung her body in front of his and snarled something at the human standing in front of them. Happy, squinting through sudden tears, saw the woman's raised arm lower just a fraction. Her other hand went to her hip and she drew forth a rectangular piece of machinery that Happy recognized as a universal translator. After reading the message, the woman cocked her head and let her arm drop to her side.
"Coward." Her voice was a razor in the rain, and her face alit with the furious fire that burned in her eyes. Even so, Shas began to back up, holding his Razik blades against Happy's throat, keeping the weak Terran between his body and the Enforcer. The woman started to follow them, but an angry growl from the general stopped her in her tracks.
"It's okay," Happy called to her when she saw the woman's Enforcer come up. She didn't want to risk getting shot by one of her own kind. "They're safe—that's all I wanted." She pointed behind her to the Nali on the ridge. "Believe me, Shas can't hurt me more than he already has."
The prisoner's face twisted in a sort of anguished grimace, but she dropped her arm and watched as Shas backed into the skimmer, throwing Happy into Norianna and quickly maneuvering the controls to lift the skimmer off of the ground. The vehicle swung wildly and picked up speed; Happy had to hold onto the open door of the skimmer for dear life to avoid falling out of its open sides. Shas swung the skimmer around when he crested the Trench's side and bore down on the trembling group of Nali. At the last second he swerved to avoid them; they were so close that Happy could've reached out and grabbed Baran's hand. Instead, she leaned as far out of the door as she dared and, meeting Baran's eyes, shouted, "Thank you for everything! Please live! For us!"
The skimmer bucked under her and they lifted higher into the air. The last glimpse she got of the strange Terran was a white speck of her skin against the black mud in the Trench. With a sigh, she settled back into the comforting embrace of Norianna's arms. She closed her eyes as her heartbeat slowed in her chest. She didn't need to ask where they were going. She already knew.
Baran watched the black scoutship disappear into the low clouds, Happy's words ringing in his head, the sound of her voice already a memory. A low, throbbing ache settled in his chest. She was gone. The Messiah—no, Happy—was gone. The group of soaking Nali huddled around him, staring at him with wide-eyed fear.
Niori touched his shoulder and held out Happy's cloak. After a moment, Baran took it and fastened the fabric at his own throat. The flak cannon and the translator hung heavily in his hands.
"What now?" Niori asked quietly. Baran looked at the villagers.
"She told us to live," he said. "So we will live. Let us go, then. To the Sunspire."
The group of Nali slowly descended the ridge, away from the Trench. Baran, the last to leave, stared into the muddy scar of land at the pale figure making its way slowly towards the ISV-Kran. He called to her, but his voice was caught and carried away by the wind.
It was just as well. The only Terran he wanted to travel with would be dead before nightfall.
***
On the way back to their cage, Norianna told her as much as she could remember—that she had managed to take out six or seven Skaarj with the shock rifle before she had been knocked out. She didn't know why they had kept her alive, but Happy, listening, could already tell that they were in for a nasty surprise.
Currently, they were standing in a barren holding chamber somewhere in the middle floors of the Arena. Happy couldn't stand the look that Shas was giving her. It was like he was sizing her up to be eaten. His eyes flickered from one Terran to another, the talons of one of his hands tapping against the bicep of his arm. The silence in the room was deafening, save for the occasional hiss from one of the Skaarj on the upper floors, coupled with low moans from prisoners in the underground cells. A Nali rabbit whinnied somewhere outside.
"I think we're going to die." Happy barely exhaled her quiet revelation.
Norianna cleared her throat and opened her mouth as if to say something. Shas' head jerked in her direction and he stepped closer to her, the lines of his body tense and quivering. Happy panicked and shoved her cellmate aside, practically leaping forwards, holding her arms out defensively.
"No!" She looked fearfully up at her captor, fighting against the urge to fall on her face and beg for mercy. "Don't hurt her; she didn't know what she was doing; I convinced her to do it!"
She may as well have been reciting the alphabet, for all Shas understood, or cared. His reaction, as she expected, was to raise his arm and backhand her directly across the face, sending her reeling onto her knees, half a room away. Temporarily stunned by the blow, her reflexive move was to attempt to get up, but she felt herself being pinned to the ground, a sensation followed by intense, blinding pain. Shas was stepping on the joint that connected her elbow to the false limb that they had given her. She dry heaved as the pain twisted a knife into her gut. His foot lifted and came down again, effectively squashing the mechanism, sending some of the spokes bouncing away into the darkness as the springs that held them in place were destroyed. The ball-and-socket wrist joint was completely flattened; the 'arm' was now nothing more than scrap metal.
"Get off of her!"
Norianna's voice, followed by a feral snarl; all Happy knew was that the pressure on her arm was released and there was the sound of a vicious scuffle in the small antechamber. She managed to raise her head off of the floor and saw, to her surprise, that Norianna was standing behind Shas, and that Shas was down on one knee, facing away from her. The Terran's hand was driving a thin metal wire deep into the back of Shas' neck. One of the spokes…?
"How…?"
Shas seemed paralyzed to the spot. Norianna forced the wire in deeper and grinned lopsidedly at Happy. "Something I learned from my little friend Attila, back before all this started. Seems that Skaarj don't do too hot when their heads are attacked—and the neck is even more vulnerable. They flail around all the time because their armor isn't that strong. Remember, there's only one place you need to worry about when you're fighting a Skaarj—and if this fucker knows what's good for him he'll stay where he is, and we won't need to worry about his silly little butterknives." To punctuate this sentence, she worked the metal spoke in deeper. "This gives you time to get your silly ass out of here. You know where the doors are in this place. I think you could make it out of here without any of the other guards knowing what's going on—it's not like they'll be looking for you, anyway."
Happy struggled to a standing position. "What about you?" she asked cautiously. She had a feeling that she didn't want to hear the answer.
"Oh, me?" Norianna shrugged, flexing her hand, trying to keep her grip on the blood-slippery metal. It was a miracle that she had even struck in the right place to begin with. "I'll stay here until I'm pretty sure you've been gone for a while. I'll be right behind you."
Happy wanted to strangle her. "That's what you said last time," she said. "I'm not going anywhere without you."
Norianna shot her a look that was almost angry. "Of course you are," she said. "You can't just give up and die here. You saw what we managed to pull off at Harobed. If you can get out, and maybe get to another village and spread the word—well, who knows what will happen."
The other girl remained silent. Norianna sighed, exasperated. "Look, I know it seems bad now. But just look at how much faith the Nali had in us. They really believed that you were their Messiah. You! And with an entire village protecting you, hiding you…I bet you could wait this whole thing out and make it offworld when a rescue ship comes."
"The ISV-Kran has been buried in that trench for over half a year," Happy said stubbornly. There isn't going to be any rescue ship."
"But you don't know that," Norianna protested. "And that Nali—Baran—you could go to the Sunspire and find him. He'll take you in. He'll protect you."
Footsteps in the hallway. A sentry was coming. Norianna's eyes instantly filled with panic. "Go!" she whispered harshly.
"Not without you." Happy rushed forwards and wrapped her arms around Norianna's waist, falling to her knees. "I won't leave the Dark Arena by myself."
Norianna tried to twist her body away from Happy's embrace, worming an arm between them and attempting to peel the other girl away. "Get off of me," she said harshly. "I'm doing this for you. Do you think I want to die like this? I'd much rather run away and leave you to fend for yourself, but that doesn't do much for the whole 'hero' persona I have going on. Get out of here before I change my mind. I'm tired of looking at you anyway."
The only reply she received was a tightening of the grasp around her waist. She resisted the urge to knock her cellmate away. "You're such an idiot!" she snapped; Happy looked up and saw she was trying to keep her chin from crumpling. "You bitch and moan about everything when all I try to do is help you! You know that to stay here is death—why don't you get the fuck out already! You're losing your chance and throwing everything that we've worked for to waste!"
"The only thing we've worked for is the hope of survival, and I gave that up when I saw that you hadn't managed to kill Shas. You've killed us, Norianna."
Norianna said nothing.
"And yet," Happy continued, "somehow I'm not scared. I'm not dying alone any more. You saved me from that fate the minute we met. I'm so thankful to you."
"You're already halfway in the grave," Norianna said flatly. "If we don't get the Skaarj version of the electric chair for what we've done, you're condemning me to the same fate that you're so scared of."
Happy met her eyes. "Do I look that bad?"
Norianna wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand and didn't say anything for a few quiet moments. "If you'd have left when I told you…you could've given yourself a few weeks...a month, perhaps, of being outside, in the fresh air, with those damn adorable rabbits."
"I'm tired of running," Happy said. "I'm tired and I'm dying. I don't care about rabbits."
Norianna sniffed. "Before we die, I at least need to know your real name."
Happy closed her eyes and concentrated. She had been called something else, long ago; when the word came into her memory, she sighed. "My name is Mary. First class maintenance engineer Deck-2 Mary Malone." The word felt ancient and lonely on her tongue. Mary Malone did not exist any longer. She had breathed her last when Shas had first laid claim to her.
Norianna smiled. And perhaps she forgot herself for a quick, fatal moment—perhaps she resigned herself to her fate as Happy had done—for she released her grip on the metal spoke in Shas' neck and wrapped her arms around her cellmate.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered in her ear, as Shas' hulking form rose up like a tower behind her, practically shaking with rage. "I don't know what's going to happen to us, and I'm so sorry."
Happy was about to reply when the doors behind her burst open and a pair of Skaarj sentries rushed into the room. They wasted no time in separating the two Terrans; Shas reached down and grabbed his pet's neck, just above her metal collar, lifting her into the air and out of Norianna's embrace, while the other two guards grabbed Norianna by the arms and legs and hoisted her effortlessly into the air.
"No!" I haven't said goodbye to her yet. "Let her go!"
The fatally ill Terran surged against Shas' grip on her neck and shoulder, choking as his clawed fingers clamped tighter around her throat. Her vision blurred at the edged with tears and lack of oxygen as her cellmate's form was dragged away. Norianna managed to turn her head halfway over her shoulder and give a sympathetic smile before she disappeared completely.
Happy tried to wrench her neck out of Shas' hand, reaching out with both arms to the dark corridor down which Norianna had been ushered, screaming the other Terran's name until her throat was raw and all that was escaping her cracked lips were short, anguished yelps. She knew exactly where that hallway led to, and Norianna—poor, hopeful, stupid Norianna was oblivious to it all. She didn't realize that all the dark passageways in the facility led to death.
She suddenly felt woozy. Her sudden outburst had drained her of any energy she might have had, and her bony legs crumpled underneath her. Shas relaxed his fingers, and she fell heavily to the damp concrete floor, trying not to gag on the smell of mold as she gasped for air. What she wouldn't give to be back outside, in the cold, under the open sky, with the taste of rain and wind and freedom on her tongue. She had secretly wished that she would die in Harobed, just so she wouldn't have to come back here again. But wishes on Na Pali lasted only as long as hope, and despite what Norianna had said, days or weeks or years ago, Happy just didn't have the heart to hope any more. She had saved her Nali. She didn't have the strength to save herself.
The prisoner felt an impatient tug on the chain that was attached to the collar around her neck, followed by a clicking growl from the Skaarj lord that loomed above her. She understood his wordless command, but she didn't have the strength to comply. Instead, she allowed him to drag her body at the end of her leash, scraping along the ground behind him as he ascended the platform that would spit them both out onto the circular spectator's platform that looked down onto the gladiatorial circle and the iron tree.
The Titan was being summoned.