Location: Orbital Station
Post 2/20
The door broke open with a metallic screech and the loud sounds of arguing from the pirates. Aerin didn't dare close her eyes. They remained riveted straight ahead, wide in terror, as her hearing let her monitor the unseen foes who were shoving their way into the room through the half-open door. The first thing they did was begin raiding the refrigerator; she heard the rattle of medicine cases roughly handled and shoved into bags, of doors banged open and items thrust aside. The syringes. She flinched faintly. She should have gotten a few syringes. Surreptitiously, she reached into the pile of items in front of her, gently moving things aside, looking for a scalpel or two. It wasn't a sword, but it would be something.
As her fingers slid over cold metal, she heard them start on the drawers. She swallowed and drew the blade to herself; this was different. It was not the same as being a prisoner. She had protection. She would escape. She took a slow, silent breath in through her nose, but her limbs remained rigid.
It was too dangerous to see if anyone still stood by the door, too dangerous to assume she could outrun their reflexes. It would only take one wary pirate to put an end to her flight, and she had no intention of failing. She waited, listening, trying to discern how many there were and if they had all moved into the room looking for items or if some still stood guard by the door. When she heard a drawer snap out in their search for valuable equipment, she froze.
They would eventually go for the tall cabinet with her nurses in it. Aerin glanced aside as if she could see the furniture through her fabric shield. Her mouth was a thin, hard line. That was a shame. She had liked them.
The pirates moved into the room, and Aerin heard footsteps near her. She didn't move. She hardly dared breathe as she watched the gap in her curtain, seeing something dark move past it. The cabinet, then.
She jumped at a shout and the bang of a cabinet door as a scuffle ensued behind her. Based on the sound, Jonnael had thrown himself out of the cabinet at the pirates. The scuffle was short and ended in the sound of a few well-placed shots; they had no need for difficult hostages. Not males, particularly.
Karrilyn was screaming as they dragged her out of the cabinet, laughing and calling obscene phrases to one another. Aerin folded in on herself at the sound, breath coming short.
Dark walls. No air. The feel of cold metal scraping under her naked legs and a grip hard enough to bruise holding her arm as she was dragged down the corridor.
Not again.
She threw herself out of the opposite side of the stretcher, aware only of escape. The pirates- distracted by their captive-- took a moment to register the movement as relevant, but blasters came up as her scalpel buried itself into the groin muscle of the nearest pirate. Aerin's lip was curled, her eyes still wide in terror. She ducked behind the injured man as he howled and rammed her shoulder into his back, sending him stumbling. The motion helped break the hesitancy of her limbs-- she was woefully out of shape-- and focused her; the action helped prevent the raised blasters from being an immediate issue as well. She was in control.
The pirate she had stabbed turned on her. Aerin, almost without thought, lunged forward, reached out, and retrieved her scalpel with a twist. Lashing out at the pain, the pirate slammed his blaster into the side of her head. Aerin lost her balance and hit the floor hard, but her grip on her weapons didn't falter.
"This one's a keeper!" one of the other pirates called, laughing as he strode over. "Play nice or we won't be gracious enough to take ya with us."
Aerin instinctively rolled away from him, knowing what was coming and trying to prevent it. She was in control.
His fingers wrapped into her hair and pulled.
Aerin's awareness of reality washed away and was overlaid entirely with memory. Her surroundings were the world where she and her husband had built their home together; she felt the edge of the doorframe as she was being dragged from the house, away from those she loved, to a fate it didn't do to linger on.
Ijaat! her mind shrieked. Ijaat!
She sloppily lashed out with her scalpel, but it was wrenched from her grip. As she reached up to disentangle the hand from her hair, the bonesaw fell with a clatter, forgotten.
He wasn't here. Every time. He was never here.
[member="Ijaat Akun"] [member="Rook"] [member="Ylvaris Desman"]
