Page 11 of Mutant Mine

I can’t see anything in the dark, but I can feel movement around me. Hard shoulders bump into mine. Prisoners are spilling out of their cells into the corridor.

There are a few bursts of bright light, shouts of pain, and the chaos of bodies falling. It can only be Gregory, firing his stun-gun.

“GET BACK!” he yells. “ALL OF YOU, STAY BACK!”

Then there’s a crunching sound, and Gregory gives a horrible, yelping cry — then nothing. Voices are laughing, whooping with giddy victory.

He’s dead. He’sdead.I’m going to die here too, I’m going to die…

More men are flowing out of their cells, and it’s becoming a crushing crowd. Not knowing what else to do, I move with them, aware that there’s no way I can fight. My own stun-gun is a dead weight at my side. I get jostled, knocked, almost fall to my knees — no! I can’t fall, or I’ll never get up.

A voice says hungrily: “Where’s the other guard? He must be here somewhere.”

Then someone grabs me by the scruff of my jumpsuit and yanks me backwards.

I draw in a breath to scream, but the wind is knocked out of me when my back is slammed against a wall. A huge hand clamps down over my mouth, and my attacker’s body crowds in against mine, covering me completely. I can feel his towering height and solid muscle, and the fierce heat of him. That brown sugar and woodsmoke smell. I already know who it is before his lips brush against my ear and he whispers, hot and close:

“Be silent, girl.”

There’s more disorientating movement in the darkness. Roth is still, and holds me still with him — still and quiet. Every inch of him is pressed against me.

My eyes widen when I feel it: an unmistakable, hard pressure against my belly. Roth shifts his hips backwards subtly, but it’s too late. I felt it. His hand is still firm over my mouth, but my nose is free, allowing me to suck in small, panicky breaths.

“Forget it,” says the voice that had wanted to find me. “Let’s get out of here — there’ll be plenty of guards to deal with.”

Footsteps and voices move away.

This small corridor has emptied out now. There’s noise coming from beyond; far away noise, clanging and screaming. It’s not just this deck, then. The whole ship’s power must have gone down. All the electronic locks have opened. The freed prisoners will now far outnumber the crew. They’re probably all dying in the dark.

These thoughts strike me as if from a great distance. I find that I can’t be too concerned by them. I’m overloaded by the more immediate issue: Roth knows I’m a woman. His bodyknows it, too. And he’s got me up against the wall.

Nope, says a calm stranger inside me.Not happening. Not today.

From the same great distance, I observe myself forcing a knee up and hitting Roth where it hurts.

He reels backwards with a groan, letting go of me — just for a moment, but long enough for me to fling myself away and sprint as hard as I can up the corridor.

I’m running blindly in the dark, with my hands out ahead of me. I crash into the wall and cry out in pain, but soon I’m back up on my feet and running again.

Out… Up the hallway… There are bodies in my way, men who yell in outrage as they feel me burst into the crowd, but I push through them hard, without stopping.

A horrifying snarl comes from behind me.

Finding the opposite wall of the hallway, I feel one door, two… Into the crew room… Across the room, stumbling into the metal table where we sit and drink bad coffee on our shift breaks… Feeling the wall in the back left corner, frantically now, knowing that he could be anywhere behind me in the suffocating dark….

At last, I find the maintenance hatch low on the wall, and undo the four corner screws as fast as I can with shaky fingers.

I dive inside.

8

Roth

“THE FORCEfields are down!”

It may truly be happening, then. I had wondered if it would. Not quite dared to hope, but wondered.

When I last saw my brothers, they swore that they would return for me some day. That my sacrifice would not be forgotten. I would have my freedom and be united with them again.

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