I nod.
"Then let me take the lead." He grimaces and stops messing with his arm, letting it hang limp at his side. He reaches out for me with his good hand, a faint smile on his face.
I take his hand in mine, because what else can I do?81JERROKThe wiring in my arm is going to give out.
It's never been the strongest. I've always known to be cautious with where my arm is joined to my flesh, because the wires and electrodes surgically attached were done sloppily at best, and they always feel a bit too loose at the best of times. After the attack from my captors, though, the wires have been pushed beyond their limits, and my body is sending phantom pain to that area even as the feedback alerts in my mind go haywire.
Even so…it's a good thing.
I try not to let Sophie know what I'm up to. She's worried enough as it is. With a damp strip she's torn off of my sleeve, she dabs at my wounds, her lips pressed into a thin line. I can't let her see how much pain I'm in, or how I'm digging my fingers into the spiderweb of wires at the juncture of my shoulder, loosening and snapping bits as I go. I have to get this done. I have to. No matter how much it hurts, I've had worse. I remind myself of that, even as another searing bolt of pain flares through me.
Sophie's at my side, and she's safe, and that means I can endure anything.
Our captors return far too quickly, and Sophie and I exchange looks. I dig at my shoulder one last time and feel one of the biggest wires give way entirely. My entire prosthetic arm is hanging by only one or two wires, and the whole thing could come off. I clutch at my bicep and glare at our kidnappers as I stagger to my feet. It's only two of them right now, the other somewhere else on the ship.
"Well?" one of the V'tarrians asks. "Are you ready to talk?" He saunters forward, all confidence, and I try to seem more weak and pathetic than I am. I hunch my shoulders and shuffle backward, making it seem as if my limbs are twenty times heavier than they are. He gives me a narrow-eyed look, poking me with the front of his blaster. "You mesakkah aren't much in a fight. How did we lose the war if—"
I snarl, and with a mighty heave, rip my arm free of the last of its moorings. With the weight of my body, I spin around, using the now-dead prosthetic as a club and slam it into my attacker's face.
There's a crunch of bones, and the avian alien goes sprawling. His blaster skitters across the floor, spinning, and I see Sophie scramble to pick it up. Good girl.
The other lifts his blaster and fires on me. The air hisses and the smell of burning flesh fills the room, but I'm too amped up on adrenaline to notice. I charge toward him and backhand him with my arm in a fluid motion, slamming him to the ground. He lands at my feet, and I raise my arm into the air and beat him again. And again. I don't know if I could stop even if I wanted to. I just know it feels too good to slam my heavy prosthetic arm into his face, and each time I pound into him, it's for Sophie. Every hit is for Sophie, and how they made her cry. How they scared her. How they threatened her—
"Jerrok."
Through a haze of pain and fury, I feel her cool hand on my shoulder. I blink, pausing, and turn my unfocused gaze on her. She holds the blaster out to me. "He's dead. They both are. We need to find the other."
I glance down at the alien at my feet. He's…well, he's definitely not alive. These avians have brittle bones, it seems, and I've been in too much of a fury to notice my enemy was no longer fighting back. I glance over at the other, and he's dead, too, his beady eyes staring up at the ceiling, a sear-wound from a blaster in the center of his forehead.
"I took care of him," Sophie says simply, gesturing for me to take the blaster. "Are you okay? Do you need a moment?"
I suck in a deep breath and then nod. "I'm fine." I take the blaster from her hand, noticing that I'm spattered with gore, but Sophie is calm. She watches me with steady eyes as she picks up the other blaster from a pool of blood on the floor and arms it, the gun whining as it comes online. My side aches from where they shot me. My arm aches, too—which is hilarious because it's currently on the floor. It doesn't really hurt—it's all phantom limb pain—but my mind doesn't know that.