M. Planck - The Kassa Gambit

She didn’t react. He grinned, and spoke to Kyle. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn too. The monks are like that. Fine for them, eh, a planet full of men. But Earth if an ordinary man don’t get to missing a woman something fierce.”

Kyle didn’t speak. He must know he couldn’t prevent this. He must understand that not provoking the guard had to be the best thing he could do for Prudence.

Yet she could guess how much it cost him to remain silent. To look away in shame and helplessness. She could guess to the billionth of a credit what the cost was, because she had looked away helplessly while they beat Jorgun.

“You can scream or cry if you want.” He seemed disturbed by their silence. “I turned the audio off. I didn’t want to gag you. You wouldn’t be able to tell me how much you enjoyed it.”

He stepped in, close, the stench of his sweat overwhelming. She heard cloth rustle and metal clink as he undid his trousers.

Turning her face back to his, to stare him in the eyes, she put one leg up over his hip.

“Eager to get started.” His leer was vile, up close. “I like that. It won’t make me hurt you any less, but it’s a good try. Don’t forget to tell me how much you like it.”

She pulled him in close and put her other leg over his hip. Now she rested her weight on him, so she could reach up and grasp the chain, instead of hanging from it.

The guard grinned and tugged at his trousers, trying to pull them down without dislodging her legs.

Twisting, she pulled him around, turning in a circle. Focused on the heat of the moment, he did not realize which direction she was leading him.

When his pants fell to his ankles, the belt buckle clanking dully on the steel floor, he grinned at her and leaned in close.

“A kiss, first, then.”

She squeezed him tight and stared into his eyes. She let herself hate this man, with all the years of righteous wrath she had carried since a sixteen-year-old girl had traded her family for jars of ashes. Using him as a platform, she swung one leg out and over his shoulder.

Annoyed, he reached up to grab her leg. She flipped the other one up to join it. Locking her left foot behind her right knee, she squeezed.

Stupidly, he spent the first fifteen seconds fighting her, pitting the strength of his arms against the strength of her legs. Only when the lack of air began to weaken him did he think to start hitting her. She struggled with him, twisting and cranking at his neck, trying to avoid his blows while keeping the pressure up. He started pulling away, and now she was fighting just to keep her hold.

They staggered around in a circle, bound by the chain, and she realized she was losing. He kept getting loose enough to catch a breath. Soon his attacks would hurt her enough that she couldn’t hold on.

There was a sharp crack. She felt the force of the blow even through the guard’s heavy body. He stiffened momentarily, his eyes suddenly focused on some distant point, and then sagged limply in her grip.

They swung together, for an instant, until she let him fall. Lying on the ground at an unnatural angle, he feebly twitched his arms, trying to reach his broken back, while drool spilled from his mouth.

Kyle grinned savagely. “I might have broken a toe.” He had kicked the guard in the spine. The guard’s attempts to retreat had only brought him within range of Kyle.

Kyle stretched out and put a foot on the guard’s throat. She shook her head.

“I know,” he said. “They almost certainly have him on a sensor. If we kill him, they’ll come. I’ll wait until the door opens. I’ll give you as much time as I can. But please, Prudence. Say something.”

She couldn’t speak yet. Instead she released the chain and stood on the ground again, staring up. She would only have one chance. Carefully, her hands opened wide, fingers spread in a net, she spat the medallion out of her mouth.

Wet and slick, it slipped through her fingers, fell to the floor, and began to roll away.

Kyle stepped on it, quick as a snake.

“What the…”

Shame at her failure, at muffing the one chance they had to live, washed over her, released by the gift of Kyle’s second chance. She sobbed uncontrollably, tears spilling from a breached dam.

“What is this?” Kyle asked wonderingly. Gently prodding it with his toes, he tried to pick it up.

Prudence’s heart thudded. If he activated the device unknowingly, the blade would spring out at some random direction and cut off half his foot. She had thought it was impossible, but she remembered Jandi’s easy release of the blade.

She tried to warn him, and failed. Now that her mouth was free of the secret it had borne, the medallion that it had hidden while she stood by and let Jorgun’s heroics save her life, she found her voice was silenced by grief.

“I don’t think I’m flexible enough,” Kyle said. Gently he pushed the medallion over to her, avoiding the flopping guard.

She reached out with her foot, her toe brushing his. The contact was electrifying, the promise of hope burning like a branding iron.

Carefully, methodically, she maneuvered the medallion under her foot, until her toes could grip it. Experimentally, she sagged on the chain, letting her taped wrists take all of her weight.

It wouldn’t work. The pressure rendered her hands nerveless. She could not hang upside down and transfer the medallion from foot to hand. She couldn’t leave one foot on the ground and still reach her hands.

Standing on her other foot, she raised her leg and pointed it at Kyle. Straining at the limit of her strength, she flexed at the waist and brought her foot to his face.

He smiled at her, absurd in these terrible circumstances, but it made her heart light and feathery. Bending his head to her foot, he took the medallion in his mouth, his breath hot on her sole, his lips soft and wet.

She put her foot down, and they leaned toward each other, straining against their bonds to share their first kiss.

Their lips could not reach. But he pushed his tongue the last few centimeters, and she took the medallion from him, savoring the taste of his mouth on it.

Standing straight again, she flexed her wrists, bringing the blood back into her fingers. Paradoxically calmed by the galvanizing physical contact with Kyle, she took aim and tried again.

Her fingers wrapped around the medallion, snatching it from the air.

No tears this time. She was done with tears.

Flicking the knife alive, she sheared through the chain without effort. Her arms fell, weak from exhaustion and weighted by the loop of metal. She caught herself before the metal clanked on the floor. Or before the knife, still extended, wounded her.

She didn’t have room for any more mistakes.

Kneeling to the ground, holding her hands at floor level and twisting them around, she still could not reach the tape. At least she could cut the chain lower down, opening the loop so the metal links could slide quietly into a pile.

Standing, she stepped over to Kyle. Before she cut him free there was one thing that was more important, one thing that was more necessary than saving their lives or the entire galaxy. One thing that had already waited too long.

She kissed him, their lips finally meeting, the heat of their bodies shared, their tongues touching without restraint.

Afterward he stared at her, amazed.

Carefully she reached above his head, extending the blade again. She would have to operate by sight alone, since the knife gave no feedback. Touch would not tell her the difference between tape and flesh.

He stood perfectly still, trusting her. Even after she moved the knife away, his hands did not move. They stayed, locked in place, until she stepped back and nodded.