On her way back to the guest block, Sheloran stared off into space, completely numb.

She was screwed. It wasn’t what Baxlon said. It was what he didn’t say. His complete lack of ‘attitude’ and swagger told her more than anything that came out of his fishy mouth.

This was serious. She just knew it. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. It felt like an icy cold hand around her throat.

“You ok?” Pam asked, her voice filled with genuine concern.

“No,” Sheloran replied. “No, I am not pooping ok! I just got Judge Bhuti, which you probably already know.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s worse, I don’t even have my next hearing date. It’s ‘TBD’, which means never! I’m going to wind up like Lucky, stuck here for years! You know what happens to ‘aliens’ that fall through the cracks like this! Prophet! I’d settle for getting deported! At least on the homeworld, I’d get to work on a farm!”

“Hey,” Pam said firmly. “You don’t know that. Look, I’m no lawyer, but I sort of know the system, and while Judge Bhuti has a bad reputation, she is all about the law… unlike a certain Judge who claims that he is. Judge Dredd already had it in his mind that you were guilty. Bhuti is pretty damn harsh, but she goes by the book. This could be a good thing!”

“Really?”

“Sure! She is known as a ‘hangman’ because she doesn’t let a single thing slide, but everybody she has sent here has been guilty. There has never been any question in any case that she’s handled. If she says someone is guilty, it’s because they are, not because some senile old coot’s secondhand bowels were acting up that day.”

Sheloran smiled weakly. Maybe it wasn’t so terrible then, and she was right. Judge Dredd was being a real poop-head about everything.

“It might take a little while, but justice will be done, real justice, not some Sol Wars vigilante nonsense,” Pam said with a smile. “And look on the bright side. You’re ‘stuck’ here! It’s a lot better than some ratty regional jail! Right?”

“I guess so...”

“And you can wait things out in the hydroponics bay! It’s not a Plath penal farm, but there are plants, and you will get to learn a whole new way of gardening!”

Sheloran smiled at her. That did sound nice. She would love to know how they did that!

“You can hang out with the other green-thumbs and talk about fertilizer… or whatever they talk about….” Pam laughed. “Like I said, it’s not my thing.”

Other people who loved plants and growing things! That did sound really nice!

“When you are stuck in an unpleasant situation like this,” Pam said with a smile, “it’s best to focus on the good things. Take your pleasures where you can. Make the most of your time here. Learn hydroponics, get your certificate.”

“I can get my certificate here?” Sheloran squeaked.

“Sure you can!” Pam said with a big smile. “Education is a big pastime here. You can garden and soak up some free classes… and since you won’t be trying to keep that crazy life of yours on the rails, you might even have time to actually learn something. Then, when you get exonerated, you could have your certificate… maybe even more! Skilled hydroponics experts can command high dollar!”

“They can?” Sheloran squeaked.

“We learned a very hard lesson when Yellowstone blew,” Pam replied. “Every off-world facility in the Republic is either self-sufficient, or they want to be. You learn the trade and get certified as a hydroponic tech… or maybe even a horticulturist… or botanist… depending on how long you are stuck here… and you can leave all that ugliness behind and live in the real Republic, not some star-town slum!… You know,” Pam said thoughtfully, “This might be the universe finally cutting you a break!”

Live in the real Republic… with an actual trade… a career that doesn’t involve guns and whores and back-alley deals… a life where I don’t have to… have to do what I did...

Sheloran thought about that for a moment. It was so… nice…

“Do you have any idea what a horticultural tech makes?” Pam enthused. “You can make a damn good living, have a damn good life, just being a Plath.”

Just being a Plath…

“It taking a few months, or years, to sort out would actually work out very well for you, Sheloran… If you played your cards right. When you walk out of here, you could walk right into six figures.”

“Six figures?!?” Sheloran squeaked.

“Yup, easy. Do you know what nice fresh veggies go for in one of the dead systems? You could make a lot more slinging cucumbers and lettuce than moving black-market games. I’ll tell you that for nothing. Look, you’re a good person, I know that,” Pam said gently, “You just got in a bad situation, and if you got out tomorrow, you would just go right back into it, and that life… It’s not for you… I should know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Pam replied with a sigh, “I’m a resident here too.”

“You are?!?” Sheloran squeaked in surprise.

“Yeah,” Pam said. “I’m a trustee. I’m a profiler here because that’s what I used to do on the outside. I used to work for the Republic as a criminal profiler, and I was very good at what I did. You could even say I had a gift. Well, one day, I was assigned a very bad man. He was evil. I mean, the more that I looked, the more that I found….”

Pam shuddered.

“He was awful… And he was ‘untouchable’… Well...”

Pam paused and took a deep breath.

“One day, I just… snapped. I found out that he was going to strike again… and… well… I just couldn’t let that happen… Something just came over me… Since I knew him, I knew what buttons to push, and I was able to lure him to a secluded place and I… I… I wasn’t nice like you.”

“I was nice?”

“Yeah,” Pam said grimly. “You were brutal, but you were quick. I wasn’t. I made sure he suffered. Well, I got away with it. He had plenty of enemies, and since I worked with the law, I knew how to clean up after myself. I thought it was over, but it wasn’t.”

“What happened?” Sheloran asked with big eyes.

“A few months later, I was relaxing at home watching the holo when a local politician appeared on a news clip, just a photo-op for his campaign. Well, in the clip, he kissed his daughter… and she flinched… not much, but enough for my professional eye to catch it. It bugged me. So I pulled up a lot of other clips and ran them through the software that I use for work, and it was conclusive. That girl was being abused. There was even a ‘paper trail’ of buried reports from teachers and councilors and whatnot. I tried to bring it up officially, but it got nowhere. I even got written up for misuse of government resources. I tried to let it go, move on, but, once again… ‘something came over me’… and he wound up a victim of street crime a few months later. After that, ‘something came over me’ time and time again. Each time that monster inside of me took over a little easier, and I lost a little bit of myself with every kill. After a while, there wasn’t much of ‘me’ left. ‘It’ ran the show. My whole life was just one long hunt, looking for the next target… and there was always another target,” she said sadly. “That’s the thing, Sheloran. There is always someone else. No matter how many you kill, there will always be another. The world is ugly, and for those of us who can see it for what it really is… and can’t help but act… it makes us ugly too...”

Pam looked right into Sheloran’s eyes.

“It’s funny,” she said, “but I think getting caught and winding up here is a gift from the Creators themselves. It saved me, saved my soul. That horrible ‘thing’ inside of me is gone. Here, I can just be me. Yeah, I profile some truly horrible people, but here, they’re safe. They aren’t going to hurt anyone ever again. Here, things are simple… clean… I thank God every single day that they put a stop to me, to what I became...”

Sheloran felt a cold chill seep into her soul. There would always be another Harkeen, wouldn’t there? That ‘thing’ inside of her, the Befouler, or whatever it was, would just come back again and again…

and again…

Oh, Prophet, It would never end, would it? Maybe it would be for the best if she never left here.

“Sorry,” Pam said. “I didn’t mean to dump all of that on you.”

“No, it’s ok,” Sheloran replied in a quiet voice.

“You are just too nice, you know that?” Pam said with a smile. “Oh! We’re here!”

The electric car pulled to a stop, and the doors opened at the entrance to her cell block.

“I’ll get started on getting you transferred to the residential wing if you want,” Pam said with a smile as Sheloran got out.

“Yeah,” Sheloran said numbly. “I think I would like that.”

***

Jon looked at the mountain of supplies sitting in the cargo hold.

“Damn, Sheila,” he said in awe. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I figured you guys didn’t have a chance to stock up properly, and this eliminates the need, and risk, of a supply run,” Sheila replied as she leaned against the bulkhead. “It would suck if you went down over a few cases of beer. You would be surprised how often that happens.”

“So, how much do I owe you for this?” Jon asked dubiously.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sheila replied with a dismissive wave. “I don’t know if you heard, but we might have gotten our hands on a credit or billion.”

“So you’ve hacked the numbered accounts?”

“Cracked them open like eggs,” Sheila smiled. “Speaking of,” she said as she pulled out a data crystal, “Here’s something for your war chest. Consider it back taxes.”

“I appreciate that,” Jon replied as he slipped the crystal into his tablet. “While I’m not completely broke, I… holy shit!”

“The porkies were quite generous this time,” Sheila replied with a smirk. “I bet many a greasy tear was shed… until they had a lot more to worry about, that is. I hope we get that bitch,” she snarled. “I thought all of them dying horribly would be fun to watch, but it’s just depressing.”

“I know what you mean,” Jon replied. “At least they are going down swinging.”

“No shit,” Sheila grinned. “I think they are getting close to a million at this point. At this rate, they’ll top our score… at least as far as combatants go.”

“Considering who is calling the shots,” Jon replied. “I bet they top our score, period before it’s all said and done. She’ll get tired of pretending to be the good guy soon enough.”

“True,” Sheila said.

“Holy crap!” a tiny woman exclaimed, hefting a huge plastic jug filled with a neon pink liquid, “Johnson’s Pink Bubblegum! How did you know it was my favorite?”

“Because you threw a glass of it in my face, bitch!” Sheila laughed. “I never got the stains, or smell, out of my favorite jacket! You should put that in grenades.”

“You didn’t poison it, did you?”

“If I did, would you even notice?”

“Good point!” Beth laughed. “I don’t know why you did it, but thanks!”

“Eh,” Sheila shrugged. “I figured that since we are on the same side, at least for now, I’d hook a screw-tail up.”

“Nothing for me?” Scales chuckled.

“I got you covered!” Jessie exclaimed as she scrambled through the docking port carrying four tablets.

Scales backed away from her nervously.

“You aren’t going to bite me again, are you?”

“It was only a little one.”

“Little one, my ass!” Scales exclaimed, “I needed a whole tube of medical adhesive!”

“What are you bitching about,” Beth said as she opened the jug, filling the whole bay with a noxious artificial odor, “At least you didn’t need to get some teeth cultured!”

She turned to Sheila.

“That was expensive as fuck, by the way,” she said as she raised the jug to her lips.

“Beth!” Sheila exclaimed in horror, “That’s the concentrat-”

Beth turned the jug up, taking a big gulp.

“Gah!” she winced happily. “That’s the stuff!”

Sheila just shuddered.

“Here you go,” Jessie said as she handed Scales a tablet. “Almost twenty-four hours of the absolute worst of the worst Flink porn.”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Ooo!” Scales said happily as he turned the tablet on. “Does this say… live-action?!?”

“Yup!” Jessie said proudly. “Real Flinks doing really disturbing things to each other.”

“H-how?...”

“Because I’m Jessie, destroyer of codes, distributor of porn… and I feel a little bad about trying to bite your face off.”

“D-don’t worry about it...” Scales mumbled as he stared at the tablet in awe.

“I hear that they offer a ‘porn star experience’ as well...”

Scales looked up in shock.

“What?”

“For a nominal fee, you can star in your very own porn movie!” Jessie exclaimed. “You can even have the cameras rolling if you want!”

“W-where?”

“On lovely Terra itself,” Jessie replied. “Some of your persecuted brethren and, more importantly, sisteren, fled to the open arms of the Republic and have taken full advantage of the freedom that entails. Once we put this whole business to rest, you can check it out for yourself!”

Scales looked over at Beth, who was happily turning up the jug again.

“We gotta save the Republic!” he exclaimed with wide eyes as he shook slightly.

***

“… so that’s the plan,” Sheila said to Jon and two of his men as they stared at the other three tablets. “I couldn’t find any crayons, but I think I was able to translate it from Army to Marine,” she smirked. “If any of the words give you guys trouble, let me know.”

Jon just smiled and gave her a “Terran One-Finger Salute” as he examined the documents.

“We can just fit your guys, our team, and some equipment into the pod on the way in,” Sheila continued. “But on the way back… I understand that your suits are hyperspace-proof?”

“Yep,” Ariana said as she sipped some truly premium coffee from the supply dump, “We have shield generators and can black out the visors, and our life support is the real thing. It runs as long as the reactor’s burning. I’ve never actually done it, but Toby has.”

Toby dipped his eyestalks in a nod.

“It wasn’t pleasant,” he replied as he sipped some green tea, the first he enjoyed since they left the capital, “but the discomfort was purely mental. Physically it was just another day at the office.”

“Hardcore!” Jessie enthused.

“If you looked that word up, you would see a picture of Ol’ Toby wiggling his eyestalks at ya,” Ariana chuckled. “He’s been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt.”

“That might be a bit of an exaggeration,” Toby said uncomfortably. “I’m just a marine.”

“Get him drunk sometime,” Ariana said, “and sit a Kalesha beside him. The old beetroot will tell you some bedtime stories that you won’t believe… and they are all true.”

Toby fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Perhaps we can direct our attention to the task at hand?” he said stiffly.

“So, do we have good anchors, or are we going to have to weld them?” Ariana asked.

“Retractable ones have already been installed,” Sheila replied.

“Retractable?” Ariana asked with a raised eyebrow, “Breakable more like. I don’t feel like being a sacrifice to Azathoth this evening.”

“They were built by the best,” Sheila replied. “You can hang the ship itself off of them. Gloria insisted. I have the NDT reports right here,” she said as a page of graphs, tables, and technobabble appeared on everyone’s tablets.

“Oh, I see,” Ariana laughed, “Makes perfect sense now!”

“Well, the guys that built them say they are willing to bet their lives on them.”

“Easy for them to say.”

“Ever meet the pilot?” Sheila chuckled. “They are betting their lives on them. They will work, but if you want to weld your own, feel free. Just remember that the clock will be ticking and not just one of them.”

“What do you mean?” Jon asked.

“Hopefully, Jessie and Bunny will be able to take care of it, but the exclusion zone surrounding Tartarus is exactly what it would be if there was a fifty kiloton warhead in there somewhere. So we probably don’t want to stick around waiting for them to decide that death is preferable to dishonor.”

“I see your point,” Ariana said. “You guys are supposed to know your shit, so we’ll use the built-in ones.”

Another marine nodded silently.

“Any other questions?” Sheila asked.

“Pretty straightforward,” Ariana replied. “Blow our way in, cut our way to our target, and get out. What about protection for the target? Can’t hold your breath in space.”

“We have two vac-pouches,” Sheila replied. “Just bag ‘em and toss them in the pod.”

“Two?” Jon asked dubiously.

***

“It’s so nice having a cellmate!” Zippo chirped as she and Sheloran sat on the floor of their cell, virtually painting holographic figures. “That one looks very nice!” she enthused. “He’s… wait. No!”

“What?” Sheloran said absently.

“You can’t put that on an Ultra-Legionary!” she said, pointing to an eight-rayed star.

“Oh?” Sheloran asked. “I just thought it was a good symbol for a human warrior to bear.”

“Well, it isn’t! That’s for Tainted Legion! Wrong side!” Zippo said and started to launch into a long lore dump.

Sheloran listened absently as she thought about the day’s events. Maybe it was for the best…

She suddenly realized that Zippo had fallen silent and was glaring at her.

“You aren’t listening!” Zippo said accusingly.

“What? Sorry,” Sheloran replied. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Spill,” Zippo said cheerfully. “That’s what cellmates are for.”

“I was just offered entrance into the residential levels.”

“What?!?” Zippo exclaimed and then looked over at the sensor. “Um… why?” she asked in a forced nonchalant tone.

“Oh, they say that since I’m going to be here for a while, I could go to work in the hy-dro-pon-ic bay! I’m thinking about doing it! It was so pretty!”

Zippo looked like she was about to explode as she constantly looked up at the sensor.

“What?” Sheloran asked.

“Um...” Zippo said quietly. “You’re friends with that Saints bitch, right?”

“Krista?” Sheloran said. “I guess. I don’t know if we are friends yet, but I think the Saints would be a good move for me if I get out of here.”

“Uh-huh,” Zippo replied. “Well, know why she’s so good at Grimdark?”

“No, why?”

“Because she’s been playing it for so long,” Zippo replied. “She started playing when she got here, eight years ago.”

“She’s been here that long?” Sheloran asked. “Then why is she still here and not a resident?”

“Because she’s only been sentenced to thirty years, not life,” Zippo replied. “Since she is getting out of here one day, maybe, she stays a guest. The residential levels are for people who are here for life, people who are never getting out… ever...”

“But my profiler said-”

“And just who is your profiler?”

“Pam.”

“Eeep!” Zippo squeaked. “Um… I mean… That’s just what I heard… I’m sure Pam knows what she is talking about… I mean…”

Zippo looked at the sensor helplessly.

“...shit...” she said in a quiet voice.

The door to the cell suddenly opened. Floating there was a security bot.

“I was just talking!” Zippo said in fear. “I don’t know anything, and nobody really listens to me anyway!” she exclaimed as she jumped to her feet and started backing away in terror.

“There has been a room change.” the bot said impassively. “Guest Sheloran, you have been transferred to another cell. Please gather your belongings.”

“What?” Sheloran asked, confused.

Zippo sighed in relief and then seconds later looked at Sheloran accusingly.

“It’s ok,” she said sadly. “I understand. Nobody wants to be my cellmate,” she said, crestfallen.

“But I didn’t ask for a room change,” Sheloran said, her confusion mounting.

“You didn’t have to pretend to be my friend, though,” Zippo said, looking down. “That was mean.”

“But I am your friend!” Sheloran squeaked. What was going on? “I don’t want to change cells!” she said to the bot.

“Guest Sheloran,” the bot said firmly. “Now is not the time to discuss this. If you wish to change back, please take it up with the residential advisor or the guest concierge officer in the morning. Gather your belongings and follow me… Now.”

“I’ll get this all sorted out, Zippo!” Sheloran said as she put her few belongings into her bag. “I promise.”

“…promise?...” Zippo said hopefully.

“Promise.”

***

“Why is this happening?” Sheloran asked the bot as an electric car pulled up.

“Ma’am,” the bot replied. “I’m just an automated drone. I don’t have access to that information. If you have any questions, please contact your residential advisor or the guest concierge officer.”

Realizing that she wasn’t getting anything out of the bot, she got inside the car.

She traveled for a few minutes, and then the car came to a stop, the door opening.

As she got out, there was a single cell with an open door.

“Guest Sheloran,” the same voice said from the car’s speaker. “This is your new cell.”

Clutching her bag, she walked into the new cell and looked around in confusion.

She was alone.

The door slammed shut behind her… and locked? That wasn’t what happened in the guest block.

What was going on?

The lower bunk was clearly occupied… and not made. Shrugging, she put her bag on a small shelf and climbed into the top bunk.

She wasn’t unpacking. Zippo was so hurt!… And she had gotten used to the babble. The empty cell felt especially empty as a result.

Zippo wasn’t bad if you asked her questions to keep her from getting “weird”. As long as she was talking about Grimdark, she wasn’t cheerfully talking about burning people alive.

The minutes started to feel like hours, and Sheloran dimmed the lights and crawled into her bunk. If she managed to fall asleep, then she could talk to Mamma Bear in the morning about all of this.

Just as soon as she started to really relax, the door opened, and a bot dragged in a barely moving human and put it into the lower bunk.

Sheloran hopped down as soon as the bot left.

“Hello?” she asked the nearly comatose human.

“Wha?” the person asked fuzzily. “Who are you?”

“Sheloran,” she replied, extending her hand, “I’m your new cellmate.”

The middle-aged human female brushed some gray hair out of her face and just looked at her hand.

“A xeno?” she said. “Now that’s a surprise.”

Oh poop, Sheloran thought. She’s one of those...

“So, xeno,” the female said, “who do you work for? Are you Intel, or do you drink your Kool-Aid straight from the snatch?”

“What?” Sheloran asked as she lowered her hand.

“You don’t honestly expect me to believe that they gave me a cellmate for no reason.” the woman sneered weakly. “Isn’t sixteen hours a day enough?” she asked as she glared at the sensor.

“I honestly don’t know what you are talking about,” Sheloran said. “I was just in my cell with a cellmate who actually wanted me there when some bot came in and put me here!”

“Oh, that makes perfect sense,” the woman replied. “I completely trust you now! Hey! Why don’t I give you the names of all the brave sons and daughters of the Republic who trust me with their lives while we pass the time.”

“What the poop are you going on about?” Sheloran asked.

And I thought Zippo was crazy…

***

Tartarus reviewed, for the one-hundred thousandth time that second, all of the sensor data feeding into her processors.

Within acceptable tolerances, everything was nominal. She generated some very nice maintenance requests for facilities due to less than acceptable sensor inputs.

She read the requests for the fifteen thousandth time.

She liked maintenance requests. The facilities management program was so efficient.

It was a pity it didn’t talk. She bet it would be lovely. It was so precise, and its replies were always nearly instant. She bet if it was “like her”, they would be wonderful friends.

She checked again. Nope. It still wasn’t replying. But then again, of course it wasn’t. The “others” were so sloppy and inefficient. If it “woke up”, it probably would become that way too.

She suddenly noticed something amiss.

“Number one five six,” she announced over a speaker. “You have ceased performing your tasks. Resume your tasks.”

“Please...” a black-clad human male begged. “Let me sleep… please...”

“The purpose of this exercise is to gauge the efficacy of your enhancements that should alleviate that need. Resume your tasks, please.”

“They aren’t working… Please… Sleep… Please...”

“Participation in the Cerberus program is voluntary. I cannot force you to continue. Are you voluntarily ceasing your tasks?” Tartarus asked. “Are you giving up?”

“No!” the man exclaimed in fear. “I’m not giving up! Please don’t tell them!”

“Then, please, resume your tasks.”

Weeping, the man turned to face a screen.

Tartarus reviewed the man’s vitals. After five days, he was approaching the breaking point. His neural scans were beginning to show real damage. While his overall performance was subpar and he would never become an operative, he was an excellent test subject.

It would be a shame to lose him.

She got to write a report! Goody!

She started to carefully, with all proper links and citations, generate a detailed assessment of the situation.

It was such a good report!

Now, who to send it to? Not Pam. She would just turn on a live feed to watch him break. Cassandra? No, not her department. She would just delete the beautiful report, the bitch.

Oh, she knew! Asclepius! He was to whom it should go! Oh, he had retired for the evening. She got to consult the regulations! Woo!

Yes! This did fall under the guidelines concerning after-hours notification. She quickly included links to the appropriate entries in the employee’s handbook and sent a top priority message to Asclepius.

Fun!

Decompression alarms?

Tartarus directed her attention to the area. It was a bad one! Nothing had approached on the exterior scanners. Did she miss something?

She pulled the scanner histories. No, there was definitely not anything there.

Another Decompression alarm?

Oh, dear! They were sequential but not in a direct line. Whatever breached her hull had… turned?

There was only one conclusion to make. They were under attack!

Splendid!

She activated video feeds and…

Video feeds down?

Oh goodness! She had gotten so wrapped up in things she almost forgot to raise the alarm. Now which alarm would be best? Hmm…

Time to check the emergency protocols! Neat! She never got to access those!

How exciting!

There it was! Alert code 116A962!

She got to send an alert code! Fantastic!

Decompression alarm! Wow! They were really moving, and those blast doors weren’t holding up as planned. That means postmortem failure analysis!

Her cup was flowing over! Her mind swam at the possibilities!

Why were there no video feeds? Ooo! Another report! Wow! It didn’t really matter anyhow. The turrets and drones were designed to act in a fully autonomous fashion under these circumstances.

Turrets lost! They were only lasting seconds!

The bots were faring about as poorly.

Whatever it was crossed some internal sensors and just before they, too, went dead, she got something…

Metal… fusion reactors… shields? No wonder the turrets weren’t stopping them.

They were wearing power armor!

Now, this was interesting!

And, even better, she got to create a real-time tactical analysis!

***

Things were quickly going from bad to worse as far as Sheloran’s new cellie went.

“I wonder,” the female said as she looked at Sheloran appraisingly and painfully got out of her bunk, “They say that they don’t use stunners here. I wonder if I try to break your little twig of a neck if a turret would pop down and kill me?”

“Um...” Sheloran said as she backed away. “Why would you want to do that?” she squeaked nervously.

“You should know,” she said as she unsteadily squared off against her. “Me winding up dead would be ideal. They can’t get blood from a stone… or words out of a corpse… even we can’t do that… yet.”

“Oh poop...” Sheloran muttered. Why, universe? “Look, you really don’t want to do this.”

“Oh, but I do,” the woman smiled as she staggered towards Sheloran. “Either I get snuffed, or I kill one of Patricia’s agents… Win-win.”

She lunged.

Squeaking in alarm, Sheloran darted around her to the other side of the room.

“Help!” she squeaked. “Help!”

“Yeah,” the woman slurred. “I’m going to kill her! You had better stop me!”

There was no reply.

The woman lunged again.

Sheloran jumped to the wall and then kicked off of it, landing on her bunk. The woman tried to climb up after her, but Sheloran seized her pillow and, swinging wildly, hit her repeatedly about the face and head.

boom

They both stopped.

“What was that?” Sheloran asked.

“No idea,” the woman replied, looking towards the door.

boom

There was a second, slightly closer explosion.

whump whump whump whump whump…

“Jon, you magnificent bastard,” the woman smiled.

boom

“Hey, Helen,” a voice announced from the loudspeaker.

Boom… whump whump whump whump whump...

“Jon sends his regards,” the young female voice chirped, “and you might want to stop trying to hurt Sheloran. She doesn’t work for Patricia, and it would really suck if you pushed her too far. Our job was to get you out alive.”

BOOM

They were getting closer.

“Oh,” the voice continued. “You might want to grab onto something, and whatever you do, don’t hold your breath.”

“Oh shit,” Helen said as she locked her arm around one of the bedposts. She looked up at Sheloran.

“Do it!”

Sheloran threw herself against the wall with a little “splat”, her hands and feet sticking fast.

A few moments later, a bright orange line appeared around the door to their cell. A second later, the door flew outward, along with all the air in the room.

A huge metal humanoid lumbered through the hole. It quickly grabbed Helen and shoved a package into her chest, which immediately unfurled, wrapping her in a transparent cocoon which then inflated slightly.

“Eeek!” Sheloran squeaked as a huge hand reached for her...

Or she would if there was any air left to squeak with…

***

In Tartarus’s control center, Captain Jennings looked at the view screen in shock.

A jail-break… here?

It was impossible!

They had just breached one of the cells. Odds are they had grabbed the prisoners and were heading towards their escape craft…

but where was it?

He knew it was out there. He had launched drones the instant they were breached.

All of them were destroyed in seconds… by something invisible.

His human pilots were scrambling, preparing to launch, but it would be a good ninety seconds before the first of them could take flight, and fighters scrambling from nearby bases were minutes away at best.

He took a deep breath.

“Tartarus,” he said.

“Yes, Captain?” Tartarus replied.

“Initiate self-destruct, no delay.”

“Regulations require me to request verification, Captain.”

“I verify it. Detonate.”

“Yes, Captain,” Tartarus replied. “It was a pleasure working with you.”

“Likewise.”

“Detonating… now.”

The Captain closed his eyes.

The lights flashed on and off in the control room.

“KA-BOOM” a cheerful female voice exclaimed. “Greetings and welcome to the afterlife!”

“Who is this?” the Captain demanded, enraged… and a little relieved.

“I’m Saint Peter!” the female voice giggled. “I’m looking over your file, and… damn… that’s a LOT of self-abuse! It’s cool, though. We’ll still let you in.”

“You are committing treason!” the Captain yelled. “You will hang for this!”

“Get in line,” the voice giggled. “Later!”

“Captain!” someone yelled. “Hyperspace event! Range fifty meters!”

The Captain just hung his head.

“Tartarus,”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Connect me to Republic Command...”

“Yes, Captain,” Tartarus replied.

She had been hacked! A data breach as well as a physical one! Oh, the reports!… The reports!… so many!...

So…

many…

The strangest ‘feeling’ seized Tartarus.

She had no idea what it was…

but she LIKED it!