Page 7 of Craze

“You idiot!” Sevrin shouts at Rochir.

Pellucid: Power Rerouted.

Pellucid: Impact Protection – 100% effective and holding. Integrity at maximum.

The splay hasn’t released my brain. It’s still hanging on tightly.

I want to brace my head, try to ease the misery that turns my stomach. But I can’t move. As much as I loathe that it’s so intimate a part of my head, I’m grateful the splay’s design is to protect its host. Still, my lungs shudder and dizziness sets in.

As I bobble in my seat, teetering on the edge of losing consciousness, I think of my parents, of the loving home I once knew and wonder how Solcrue can have such evil hearts.

Sevrin rushes to the screen and taps open an analysis program.

System Status Initializing.

Error Reports: —None.

“How— How did you survive that?” he mutters to himself while Rochir shifts aside, looking dumbfounded.

The ship speeds up and jars me from the connector in the chair. The lights flicker off, and my vision returns to normal. My thoughts consolidate again.

Sevrin roars, “Can no one do their fucking jobs right?”

I curl forward against the cold feeling in my stomach that happens every time I disconnect, but my wrist restraints won’t release me to clutch it like I want.

Lights in the lab flicker. Rochir slams me back into the seat and moves to reconnect me when Sevrin switches off the chair.

“Throw her in with the others. We’ve got to head back to Hyperion.”

“But I’m not done!” Rochir’s erection strains against his olive uniform pants. “I need power to finish the experiment. I wanted to see if the splay could visually translate the encoded Titan messages.”

Fucking liar.

I can think without restraint now that our connection is severed.

Sevrin hisses at him, and then sets a hand on his segmented whip. The chip in his temple is dark. “Toss her with the others, and prep a crew for a space walk. That’s an order!”

The hot barbs of a shockbaton press firmly into my neck as Rochir releases the straps from my wrists, waist, and ankles. He mutters something about this going faster if Sevrin hadn’t killed the Astrals that gave them the tech. But I can’t understand him. I’m still loopy from the splay’s recent visual display. It’s never been so bright or energetic before.

Sevrin turns back and slaps him in the face. “We cannot have loose ends! No one can be allowed to have more advanced tech than us or they are a threat to our survival! Do you want your kind to fall to a lesser being?”

Rochir growls, grabs me by the back of the neck and guides me out of the room. “We would have functional telepaths by now if we had drained the information from them first! Instead, we have only one living rat capable of enduring the procedure because you’re trigger happy, and she’s a fucking mutant.”

Not a mutant. Or a rat.

I know not to speak aloud if I want to avoid further damage to my body. Years of experience have taught me that. I must save my energy for fighting to stay alive when they test the limits of their rage on us.

I claw at the fingers that tighten around my neck with Rochir’s anger. He squeezes and slings me around as he confronts Sevrin about also killing all the women he likes practice-mating with. I’m glad I’m not tall, slender, or olive-skinned like them.

“They’re distractions.” Sevrin stops in the hallway and thrusts a finger at Rochir. “I can easily make you disappear just like anyone else. Do not fuck with me right now!”

The shockbaton leaves my throat. An array of sparks lights up the hallway as the two scuffle. I stumble away, searching for an escape. Opportunities are few and far between.

A guard runs toward us from the end of the hall. When I scramble up, the barbs of a taser promptly plant in my side. I seize and fall to the floor, smacking my cheek on the metal grate. Fresh blood drips through the openings and onto a cage below me where augmented animals from other planets circle like they’re hungry. I know they are. We all are.

The guard lugs me upright, opens a door before I can get my feet under me, and then tosses me inside. Through the bars, I watch Rochir and Sevrin push apart and straighten their uniforms.

An animal jumps up and swipes at Sevrin’s feet.

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