Philip Palmer - Hell Ship

However, the moment they had walked past I dropped down behind them and seized first one head, then the other, and snapped the necks of both. I was not as strong as once I was, but I was still exceedingly fast.

The two Kindred fell and rolled and immediately got up again, their necks twisted out of shape but rage leering in their features. And I realised that a broken neck was no obstacle to these creatures.

And they reached for their energy guns, only to find I had ripped them from their belts. I had a gun in each hand; I did not hesitate; I fired flame; they died before they were able to scream.

I found I was shivering and shuddering; my flayed skin was causing me pain, and it was reacting badly with the air. Underneath the jets of healing water I was strong; but in cold air, I was a walking cripple.

I stripped the clothes off one of the Kindred, recoiling at his ugly body hair, and carried the garments back to my cell. The healing waters still flowed; so I soaked the clothes, then put them on my body. The sleeves of the shirt were ridiculously long so I rolled them up; I tucked the trousers in the boots. I was now dressed all in black, wearing clothes far too large for me, and I looked absurd. But the healing dampness of the water from the well of life was now pressed up against my raw skinless flesh.

I stepped back out into the corridor, and sprinted as fast as I could away from my confining cell. Once the alarm was sounded they would send all their troops against me.

I emerged out of the silver corridor into a maze of metal; walkways and flyboards hovered in the air, and the low hum of machinery and computing machines created a music in my ear.

I listened again to a wall, until I could identify where the Ka’un dwelled. It was far from me; I was safe for now. But all around me the sounds of machinery told me that I was in the nerve centre of their outer-hull universe.

I went through four doors by opening their electronic locks with the energy from my body’s cells, until I found myself in a room with a large dome floating inside. I recognised this as a Machine Mind.

I had no idea what to do; and I wondered if the Machine Mind was designed to function in response to the thought patterns of a member of the Ka’un. I thought about destroying it, but I worried that would simply wreck the ship, and thus kill my friends in the interior world.

I returned, back down the corridors through which I had fled, towards the place where I’d killed the two Kindred. I was three corridors away when I heard the murmur of voices; reinforcements had arrived. The alarm had been sounded. The Kindred were hunting for me.

Once more I climbed the walls then slid along the ceiling the length of two corridors until I was above the Kindred sent to kill me. There were six of them, and they gathered around the two corpses I had left, barking gibberish to themselves; I guessed they were connected to others of the Kindred by brain-paklas.

I fell from the ceiling and began firing energy beams from my stolen guns. The Kindred were slow, and all of them burned and died before they managed to assimilate what was happening.

I was now in a corridor surrounded by Kindred corpses. I frisked one of the bodies until I found a dagger; then I dug the blade into the corpse’s skull. I opened up the brain until I found the crystal pakla. Then I cut it out.

And I returned back down the corridors, up the stairs, into the metal maze, until I was back in the room with the Machine Mind.

The pakla in my hand began to glow; and as it did so, a display lit up in the air around the Machine Mind. I touched it with my hand, and I felt the flow of data energy swirling within the Machine Mind. This, I was confident, was the part of the Mind that controlled the brain paklas.

I raised my energy gun and reduced the beam to its narrowest; and burned away that part of the Machine Mind. When the pakla stopped glowing, I stopped firing. I prayed that I had not caused any ancillary damage.

I left the room. I could hear, from two corridors away, the voice of one of the Ka’un leading a gang of Kindred, presumably to find and kill me. I thought about lingering to destroy my enemy but decided the risk was too great.

I used the energy gun to cut a hole in the ceiling above me. Then I leaped up in the air and clambered through the gap.

I did this eleven times until I could scent the air of the interior world.

I clambered through burned metal and found myself in the open air. I pulled myself through.

I was in a green field; I had cut my way through into the interior world.

I lay there on the ground for a while, gasping, entirely exhausted.

And then, to my astonishment, I saw the hole that I had carved in the hull begin to seal itself. The severed ends yearned towards each other; then touched; and eventually bare metal fully enclosed the gap.

I absorbed the implications of this phenomenon; this must be one of the reasons the Ka’un ship had survived so many battles, since the metal hull could heal itself. But the process had, however, been rather slow. My thoughts began to stir.

I knew that my enemies would be pursuing me; so I dragged myself to my feet, and began to limp slowly across the grass, towards the lake, where I knew my fellow slaves would be congregated.

I knew-for I have always kept a constant mental tally-that this was Day the Eighth, and all would be gathered there to tell their tales.

I was tired, and parched, and desperate; my vision swam; I was shivering and shuddering and my clothes were no longer damp, so I stripped them off and staggered onwards naked.

Finally I glimpsed the waters of the lake; and on the further shore, I saw my friends gathered. But I was nowhere near them; I had misjudged the route. This had never happened to me before-my mental mapping is usually infallible-and this was when I realised my brain was shutting down.

I dragged myself along the grass to the waters of the lake, leaving a trail of red behind me. And I tried to call out across the waters of the lake to my fellow captives; but it was too far away, and no sounds emerged from my throat.

My strength was failing me. I fell to my knees. I dragged myself along the grass, trying to reach the soft blue water. I was dying, I realised, and I needed a drink before I died. A drink. A Sai-ias

After the death of Explorer and Jak-in what I guessed would have been a massive explosion in space caused by Minos-I had returned to the interior world. Minos no longer spoke to me in my head.

I understood by now that from the moment he intercepted my first “radio” signal, Minos had deceived me utterly and flawlessly. I had lured Explorer onwards; and Minos allowed me to do so; time and again letting me roam “free” in the rooms of the exterior hull in order to make my radio calls. Then he destroyed the ship he called Nemesis, and Jak with it. It had been a plan carefully nurtured; Minos had allowed me to befriend Jak, so he could slay him.

I no longer had any hope left. My former friends hated me; and many of them like Fray had no memory of our good times together. They only ever knew me when I was masquerading as the evil bitch who freely served the Ka’un.

I knew that by this stage no one would ever believe that my actions had all been a pretence, in pursuit of my plan to overthrow the Ka’un. For that plan of course had now failed. The pretence had turned out to be the reality; I had simply been deceiving myself.

Thus I was left with nothing.

Then one day I felt a flutter of wings near my head, and saw Lirilla.

“Sai-ias,” she said.

“Yes?” I said. Lirilla no longer considered herself my friend, after witnessing me vanquish and humiliate the Krakzios; but she was at least speaking to me.

“Sharrock back, dead,” she said, and flew away.