The City Who Fought

She pursed her lips and tacked a new line to the wall at the opening of the connecting corridor, at what she estimated as head-height for a Kolnari.

Then she ducked under it by a wide margin, tip-toed back toward the first line. She stopped well short of it and listened.

Come on, you gruntfudders, she thought. Fardling move. They should be amazed that it was taking the first patrol so long to respond. She went to stand by the sabotaged panel and listened, hearing only the pounding of her own heart, which felt as if it wanted to tear free of her thin chest. Then at last, her quick ears caught the sound of movement. She counted to five and began to retreat toward the second line. She entered the corridor just as she heard a shouted "Halt!" in Kolnari.

Perfect, she thought, all they saw was the coverall! They hadn't said halt, scumvermin, either.

A couple of shots were fired; light weapons, needles spanging off metal. The squad leader barked an order for cease fire and pursuit. Feet tapped the mesh covering of the corridor, in the distinctive long strides of the pirates.

Screams rang down the corridor, clanging and echoing in the close space. Joat leaned forward from where she crouched and looked out around the corner. There was a malicious grin on her face, but it died at what she saw. Two of the Kolnari soldiers lay on the floor in a small pond of blood, hanging over the ultrastrong invisible wire that had sawn through their legs and opened them up from navel to backbone like a butterflied shrimp. As she watched, a body fell to the ground in two pieces, and there was so much, so much blood and guts and all the colors, and a pink-purple lung…

One Kolnari trooper reached toward her severed legs and cut her hand in half to the wrist. Two fingers flopped uselessly as she clutched her arm and screamed and screamed, not in pain or fear but sheer terror of the invisible something that had killed her.

"Oh, multi grudly," Joat whispered to herself. The sound of the words against what she saw was so out of place that she felt hysterical giggles bubbling up. Something warned her that that sort of giggling would be very difficult to stop once it started, so she backed away. Her eyes were huge saucers in her thin pale face.

At the other end of Joat's corridor was one of Simeon's hidden elevators. She tossed the wire spool out into the corridor before she entered it. Behind her there were shouts: the next enemy squad. From the ringing sounds, they tested to find the wires with the barrels of their weapons. There was a double thud as one unwary Kolnari turned too fast into the corridor and decapitated himself on the final trap.

Moving briskly, Joat exited the elevator three levels up and entered an access corridor meant for electrical repairs. She transferred to one of the small ventilation shafts and dragged herself quickly and efficiently to a larger open area where an array of the shafts met. She was safe here: it was one of her bases, with a pallet and some ration boxes as well as tools pilfered from Engineering, if you could call it pilfering when they handed them to you willingly. They were calling Joat the "Spirit of SSS-900-C," or Simeon's Gremlin.

Then she was violently sick to her stomach. Servos arrived, clicking and cheeping to themselves, and cleaned up the mess.

Joat lay down, cradling her face on her arms, and wept bitterly. Long wracking sobs, like nothing she could remember.

"Joat… honey, have you been hurt?" Simeon's voice was soft and warm, like a vaguely remembered something that once held her.

She lifted a face flushed with weeping, but her lips were white.

"I'm not as tough as I thought," she said through her sobs. "I didn't think… Shit, no! I've gotta heart like a rock. That's me, Joat the killer! Did you hear me snancing Seld for a wuss?" A cough racked her, and she wiped her eyes on the back of her hands. "He'll hate me! I hate myself! It was so-" And she threw herself down and bit the mattress. An eerie crooning wail echoed through the corridor.

"Shhh, it's all right, it's all right."

"I wanna go home!"

"Joat. Joat, honey. I'm with you. You are home. You'll always have a home with me. I don't hate you, Joat. You're not bad, honey. But sometimes things get through to the good part of you that doesn't like the tough part of you, and that's what just happened."

The servos rolled forward and tucked a blanket around her. Simeon began to croon, directing it at her ears where she hugged the blanket about her head and only tufts of hair escaped.

"I want Channa."

I can't hold her, Simeon thought. But I can sing…