Escape from Metal

She gasped for air. Her eyes opened allowing the bright sun’s setting rays to blind her. Gwen coughed as she hoisted herself into a sitting position.

It was then that what had happened came running back into Gwen’s mind. How far had she fallen? She had no idea, but no ordinary person would have been able to survive that fall. She hoped that no one saw or heard what happened she didn’t want to be under any scrutiny.

With the distance, she had fallen and how much noise the opening of the fuel tank had made she found it to be highly unlikely. She blinked several times until the blur of the world started coming back into focus. She could see a couple of people repelling down the side of the pit and one large man. She had guessed he was the one who asked for her help in the first place.

“We’ve got a live one” Someone yelled as they ran towards her.

That’s when she knew something was off, as some of them got closer to her despite the fact that she just survived a near impossible fall.

“What the…”

The man who had called out to the others moments before eyes widened as he stared at her right hand. Looking at her hand she realized what he was looking at. The skin had been torn off from half of her hand but there was no blood, and she didn’t feel any pain. All that had happened is the skin peeled off three metallic fingers starring back at her and the man. She had to think of something quick or she was going to end up like the decoys from the convoy.

“Don’t worry I’m not a robot. The machines were having issues with my DNA for my right arm when they were making another body for me, so they gave me a cybernetic one for the time being. Well, it was supposed to be but obviously, the rebellion happened.” She said as calm as ever.

The man’s eyes glazed over her body trying to assess her words by how the rest of her movements looked. Those few seconds seemed to slow down. He looked back at her hand and squinted his eyes for a second.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of that happening before, so I guess it makes sense. Too bad you’ll be stuck with a robot arm for who knows how long.”

She was relieved to say the least. He had bought her a lie, but she could see in the look in his eye that he didn’t entirely believe her story. For now, though she was safe.

Just as the large man who had found her earlier in the day arrived. He didn’t have as shocked a look on his face as the other guy, but he still eyed her carefully.

Before she could start explaining he cut her off.

“Cybernetic arm, eh? Here take this cloth and wrap your hand around it. You don’t want the others finding out about it.”

She quickly wrapped the piece of cloth around her hand.

She breathed a sigh of relief under her breath as they started walking. She wasn’t feeling anxious but she for some reason still emulated its symptoms. It usually kept people from asking unwanted questions. Today she was just happy that no one had asked anything about how she wasn’t dead.

Gwen followed everyone who had rushed down to her aid the same way they came down, with rope. She thought it would have been an easy climb she had done far riskier and more difficult stunts before. Her hand however was not making it ease. She guessed she must have gotten another injury or two from the fall.

It took her a couple of minutes to climb all the way up. She made sure to take a look at her surroundings. Where the people were and guards among other things but as she was climbing it was then that she got an appreciation for the titanic size of the pit. Of course, she had seen them plenty of times hundreds if not thousands of times.

She had heard that there were a couple on the planet that was far larger than the rest. Why the robots had done this she wasn’t sure, but the slavers sure used it to their advantage. Hanging the hulking pieces of old ships, old buildings and some of the bigger mechs like vines from trees. You could barely see from the one side to the other through the jungle of it all. She couldn’t help but wonder how many had died building whatever it was the slavers were working on.

“C’mon little lass.” As the big man helped her over the ledge.

“Thanks, but I never got your name.”

“Names Connor, I work in the forge area mostly.” He said as he started heading back to the forges.

“So, you work over there?” She said pointing to the forges.

“Yes?”

“Well, I was just wondering the forges are giving off so much light and heat and are always running. Won’t the machines find us?”

There was a few minutes of silence between them as they walked.

“You clearly aren’t very observant, they already tried recapturing us, have a look.”

Connor stopped and turned to face the pit. Gwen couldn’t believe her eyes. Four titanic sized tripods walked along the perimeter of the pit. They were invasion class tripods. They stretched from the artificial platform the slaves had built to some of the lower hanging hulks. Gwen had never seen one of them, she only heard stories from other slaves.

“Why aren’t they attacking us?”

“She controls them now, how do you think she controls such a large labor force.”

Gwen looked up to where Connor was looking. In the middle of the hulks, a low orbit transport ship’s bridge had been amputated and placed on a metallic pillar. She could see the outline of a woman standing and watching the slaves grind themselves to dust.

“Lights out.” A guard yelled as a low groaning siren rang through the pit. Everyone started shuffling towards the food stations. As Gwen and Connor got closer, they heard that there was a commotion going on near the front.

“What’s going on?”

“I have no idea,” Connor said, as the hulk of a man started carving his way through the crowd Gwen seeing her chance followed in Connor’s wake.

As they got closer to the front of the crowd, they could hear the shouting and a few of the people at the front arguing.

Gwen started to make out what some of the people were saying.

“This is outrages.”

“We are already almost dead as is.”

“How are we supposed to work without any food?”

A few of these people were talking to one of the guards.

“There will be no food tonight due to the increasing number of casualties.” The guard announced over the increasingly restless crowd.

Gwen was having a difficult time seeing as the people around her pushed and bumped into her as they grew more volatile. She tried moving forward but was blocked by the mob.

One man stepped onto the podium where the guard was standing and looked him in the eyes.

“More of us are dying because you and you’re master keeping giving us more and more dangerous jobs without the correct equipment.”

Before the guard could answer him, the man took a swing at the guard. The guard grabbed the man’s arm.

“You seem to have forgotten your place.” He said squeezing his arm.

“Your place is working on doing what we tell you and only what we tell you.”

The crowd started to become more silent as they saw the guard crush the emancipated man’s arm.

Connor came up to her as he moved through the crowd.

“We must go now.” Without another word, he started pushing his way to the back of the crowd.

Gwen thought to herself that you don’t maintain that bulk of a figure by being stupid and never eating. So, she quickly followed behind him. The crowd had snapped and started throwing whatever they could at the guard. Pieces of metal, tools, plates anything that they could get a hold of.

Gwen took a quick look back and saw the guard tapping his ear for a few seconds. Gwen and Connor had made it out of the growing crowd as night settled.

“Why did we lea-”

Before Gwen could finish her sentence, she saw a silhouette behind the guard as the clank of giant footsteps became louder. Those that knew what was about to happen tried to run but it was too late. A spinning, clicking sound could be heard over the panicking ground. The next moment a spray of orange erupted as the tripod unloaded two of its mini-guns.

Gwen had never seen guns fire that quickly. It was as if the tripod was simply cutting the grass as it mowed everyone in the crowd down. Connor seeing Gwen wasn’t moving quickly pulled her into one of the slaves’ living areas.

The screaming didn’t last long and soon the metallic footsteps faded into the distance. Gwen was taken aback. She tried to think what emotions she should be feeling now. How she should be acting in front of the others, but she couldn’t. All she could do was playback what had happened.

Gwen was still staring at the door Connor had dragged her through. Connor put his hand on her shoulder and that brought her back, back to now. She turned to face him. Connor didn’t seem moved by what had happened. The others inside the living area were much the same. Most sat in corners covering themselves with what they could. They were staring at the floor or at a place that they were long since removed from.

Gwen pulled Connor to one side where no one could hear them.

“You knew what would happen. How did you know?” Gwen said in a hushed voice.

A moment of silence passed between them before Connor spoke.

“It’s happened before.”

Gwen knew he was going to say it she was sure, but she still had trouble processing it. She had seen savagery, she had seen the slavers before from a distance of course and she has seen men and women being hunted by the machines but there was something about the clattering up of the mini-guns as they warmed up. There was something about the sound of bullets made for far heavier armored targets ripping through flesh and the screaming she’d never forget that.

She wasn’t feeling those emotions that most people would shock, or grief call it what you may but something of hers was disturbed. Perhaps it was her mind trying to make sense of it all she wasn’t sure.

“We have to do something.” She looked around her making sure no one was listening.

“We have to find a way out.”

“It’s a suicide mission there are too many obstacles we would have to get past without dying and where would we go anyways to the wastes of this rusting place?”

“Someone I knew was rescued by a group of people while we were being taken here maybe we could find them.”

Connor said nothing.

“I know it’s risky but I’m going to try with or without you, I prefer dying on my terms.”

“It might be worth the risk, but we have to gather some information first.”

“I’m sure with how long you have been here you have quite a bit.” Gwen said trying her best to imitate sarcasm.

*

As the sun crested the damaged and deteriorating spires that stretched across the horizon the low horn sounded again. Gwen and Connor rose along with the rest of the slaves.

“Come on girl we’ve got work to do.” Connor grumbled as he finished his meal.

“I thought we had consensus.”

“Aye, we do. I do not like melting steel, breaking apart old hulks and nearly dying everyday more than anyone else does but we won’t be able to learn anything if they suspect we are up to something.”

“I guess that’s true.” Gwen said as Connor extended his hand to her to help her get up.

“One thing I don’t quite understand though is, why do you want to gather information anyway. It’s not like they are trying to hide anything from us.”

“There’s a big difference between having information and knowing what to do with it. I have already learned most of what I need. All we need now is to make a plan with what we know.”

“I would do it sooner than later girl. Anyone finds out about that hand of yours and you’re as good as dead or you could end up as some kind of trophy on her wall.”

Gwen had some difficulty trying to see if Connor was being serious or if he was making an attempt at humour. His gruff voice and straight face didn’t make it the easiest of tasks. He had a far starry-eyed look and she had caught him occasionally staring outside.

“Thanks for the encouragement.” Gwen said trying her best at trying to immigrate sarcasm.

“Ha, who said you would get the worst of it. I’ll most likely be tortured or banished. Which if you weren’t aware is one of the slowest ways to die or one of the most painful at the hands of the machines. So, while you try to think of a way to get out of this hell hole try not to look suspicious. In fact, don’t try to look like anything, your facial expressions are terrible. C’mon then we’ve got metal to smelt.”

As Gwen and Connor got close to the forges hundreds upon hundreds of them. She started to feel the intensity of the heat. It was like nothing she had felt before and the close she got the worse the tsunami of heat became. The heat started searing the hair on her arms as she got closer. Connor however stopped at a crate and pulled out some sort of clothes and equipment.

“Puts these on.” He said as he tossed it to her.

“If you don’t, you’ll burn to a crisp.”

She didn’t understand how any of this was going to protect her with some basic thick clothes and a respirator. The combined heat of all these forges placed in such close proximity would surely kill most people. She wasn’t most people, but the forges were always running so somehow, they had to keep the heat from overtaking them.

When she put the clothes on however, she figured out how they survived. The boots she had put on had some sort of heat resistant lining that she wasn’t familiar with, the overall she was wearing had some sort of built in cooler device that was sewn into the front of the overall. It must have been salvaged from the machines and the respirator had the same lining as the boots. Even with the extras on the clothes, it was going to be neigh impossible to survive for long in these conditions.

“How am I going to learn anything.” She muttered to herself.

The forges weren’t the easiest things in the world to use especially over extended periods of time. They have placed quite a few close together and with their combined heat Gwen couldn’t understand how people could do this for weeks on end.

Seeing as how adept Connor was at smelting the metal slag they got and letting it smelt for what seemed to her to be the ideal time. She thought that he had to have been doing this for quite some time.

How had he survived so long around the forges? Gwen started wondering of all the other ways he should’ve died. The hunger, falling from a wreck or simply getting executed.

Gwen’s arms were starting to feel weak after carrying the slag for several hours and the heat was only making it worse, but she couldn’t slow her pace.

The guards were watching, from their comfortably perched towers. Out of the way of the blasts of heat that rushed upwards and out of reach of any of the guard.

She imagined how they relished knowing they could have a tripod to help them at any moment. How they could electrocute anyone at any given time. After all, a few people here and there wouldn’t make a difference with the thousands more waiting to take their place.

This continued for several days. In the day she and Connor would slave away for the woman in the central tower but by night they would conspire away from prying eyes and suspicious ears.

They would trade information and compare what they saw and what didn’t match up this way they made sure there were no gaps in their intelligence gathering or the execution of their plans.

Gwen, however had another problem she had to replace the cloth covering her hand every time it started getting worn out. Although, it wasn’t unusual for people to wear a cloth around their hands when working around the forges.

She wanted to do everything in her power to not stand out and a woman with an injured hand that could seemingly keep up with some of the strongest men there certainly raised some eyebrows.

Gwen had fallen behind Connor after another day of forging and reforging slag. She wiped the sweat off of her forehead as she put her equipment away. All the other slaves quickly did the same and soon she was caught in a massive crowd of people heading back to the living quarters. Well, that’s what the guards called them they were more akin to boxes where everyone got shoved in.

Gwen pushed passed worn and overheated bodies around her. Squeezing past the large men and women who weren’t exactly convenient to get passed. Eventually, she saw a gap leading to her living quarters where Connor was most probably now. After doing a sort of side shuffle she finally got away from the mass of people.

It only took her a few moments to spot Connor he was sitting on his makeshift stool with just the right angle to see the setting sun on the edge of the pit. As he often did, he was staring far beyond it.

“Connor.” She said breaking him from his trance.

Connor didn’t move but she could see in his eyes he was present again. The far lonesome stare had evaporated.

“Connor, we have to talk.”

Connor turned to look at her at least he was now paying attention to what she was saying somewhat.

“About what girl.”

“About my hand.”

Connor seemingly not interested in talking to her focused his attention back to the setting sun.

“People are getting…” Someone walked past them she quickly lowered her voice to a whisper.

“People are starting to wonder about me, and I fear that they might start asking questions. You know what will happen if they see my hand. The others will hand me over to the woman on a silver platter.”

“I don’t see what you’re worried about. So, what you hurt your hand, it happens all the time in fact and you wouldn’t be the first nor the last to wrap their hand in cloth.”

“Follow me.” Gwen quickly said heading to the sleeping area.

The sleeping area was more like an area with some very basic blankets that were only separated from the rest of the living quarters by a very thin wall.

“Why are we here?” Connor said folding his arms.

“Do you think you’re heavy?”

“Well, I guess but…”

“Who do you think is stronger between us.”

“Well, I am of course.”

Connor’s interest was piqued.He wasn’t folding his arms anymore and seemed vaguely interested in what she had to say.

So, theoretically you should be able to pick me up. No problem, right?”

“Yeah, I should but I don’t see what any of this has to do with your hand. I honestly wonder if the forges haven’t started getting to you.”

“Just humor me and pick me up.”

Although hesitant at first Connor picked up Gwen without a problem. Connor unlike Gwen was getting more confused by the second.

“So, I shouldn’t be able to do this.” Gwen said grabbing Connor by his collar with one hand. She hoisted him off of the floor without any issues. She didn’t even look like she was trying.

Connor was quiet for a few seconds after she put him down.

“Yes, I don’t suppose you should be able to do that. You aren’t gonna tell me how you can do that are ya.”

Gwen looked over both her shoulders.

“No, now is not a good time but what do you think is going to happen if that woman finds out. We need an escape plan, and we need it tomorrow night.”

Connor started walking out of the living quarters.

“I’ll get you another cloth that one that isn’t almost ruined.

*

Gwen had finished another day of forge work. The orange light that had appeared a few days ago had started to blink more rapidly the more time she had spent around the forges. She had gone from keeping up with the strongest around her to having to rewrap her hand every couple of hours. The heat did not help for keeping it on even with the protective gear on.

She was starting to draw eyes from some of the guards. Most of the slaves wouldn’t rewrap their hands so often after a couple of days of injuries.

The low horn sounded again for the slaves’ end of the day. This time however instead of rushing to get to the front of the mass of people they waited till the majority of people left. Gwen stayed semi ideally packing most of her gear away.

A guard strutted a few meters behind her. Tilting his head to the side for a few moments.

“Hey, you there. Didn’t you hear the horn? Time for work is up slave.”

Gwen didn’t respond and kept working on packing her protective gear away. The guard got visibly irritated with Gwen as his eyes narrowed.

“Hey, you! I’m talking to you.” He said as he walked up to Gwen putting his hand on her shoulder and forcibly turning her around.

Gwen recognized his face it was the guard who had tried to calm down the crowd the other night when they were withholding food from them.

“And talk off that mask. I want to see your face when I throw you into the stocks.”

The stocks was an area close to the living quarters where people who made trouble for the slavers or were delinquents were taken. They were put into metal stocks much like the ones on earth back in ancient times. Their everyone could clearly see them and mock them.

Gwen stood there waiting for her moment. Her facial expression remained completely neutral. She didn’t breathe she didn’t twitch, and she didn’t move at all.

“What’s wrong with you? Are you deaf now too, don’t worry ill knock some sense into you.”

Just as he raised his beating stick a large shadow appeared above him and Connor’s muscular arms wrapped around the man’s throat. He tried to fight back but Gwen kicked him. He quickly crumpled to his knees. Connor held him in this position until he lost consciousness.

Gwen quickly got to work and patted him down.

“Have you found it?” Connor said looking around them.

“Patience I’ve only just started- Aha got it.” Gwen said holding a keycard up.

“We have to move quickly it won’t be long before someone finds him here or he wakes up and alerts the others.” Connor said.

“Drag him between the two forges, I’ll secure the keycard.”

Connor looked at Gwen for a few moments. “You know the night shift workers will find him anyways.”

“Those five or ten seconds that it takes them longer to find him might be what we need to get out.” Gwen retorted.

“Very well.”

After securing the card and moving him they quickly moved through the forges to avoid detection by the Tripods heat sensors surveying the place. Although it was normal for workers to be there at night to do maintenance on the forges, there was about 20 minutes between the day and night shift where they resupplied the slag and coal piles and in those twenty minutes, no worker was allowed near the forges. The slag and coal piles were usually kept some distant from the forges. Mainly to prevent all the coal catching on fire at once.

So far, their plan had gone off without a hitch that was until they heard the distant drearing of the alarms sounding. Now they would have to get through the rest of the forge area and to the hover vehicles that took guards to and from the tower in the middle of the pit. Should be easy enough. Their plan was relatively simple. Get the keycard, use it to override the hover vehicle, use it to take them to the tower, retrieve Gwen’s bow and arrows and finally use that as a grapple to climb out of the pit. They would have opted for using the hover vehicle to fly out, but the tripods would shoot them down before they could get close.

“Why did you stop.” Gwen whispered to Connor.

They had both stopped dead in their tracks and were now hiding behind forges directly across from one another.

“Waiting for the riot.”

“What riot?”

“I may have forgotten to tell you that I traded some of my extra food rations to some troublemakers yesterday to annoy some guards.” Connor said as his hulking body was showing some discomfort at being crouched for so long.

“How many did you trade with?”

“About a dozen, more or less.”

“A dozen? How is that going to help us besides getting them killed?”

Gwen said with her eyes wide open, she hoped she was emulating the emotion of shock correctly. She’d seen it done enough in this slave camp but considering what people were mostly shocked about here. She hoped she wasn’t overdoing it.

“Well, the guards are looking for an excuse to take our food away. More for themselves and all that…”

“So, you think they are going to take away 12 living areas’ food? You’re insane.”

Just as she said that they could hear one of the nearby Tripods accelerate its pace and move towards their living areas. Connor had a smug look on his face it quickly disappeared when he heard footsteps approaching them. He put his finger over his mouth as they passed.

Gwen turned to see where they were coming from but as she turned to look at Connor he was gone. It’s then when she heard the sparking of a coilgun zipping behind her head.

“Hands up slave.”

Gwen hesitated for a second.

“I said get up slave.” He screamed at her as he pointed the coilgun at her.

Gwen slowly got up from her crouched position as she turned to face the man. He was dressed almost the same way as all the other guards, his clothes seemed a little less raggy than the rest.

He quickly tapped the side of his helmet and spoke.

“I found a slave trying to escape, she’s at the forg…”

Before he could finish his sentence Gwen knocked his hand away from the comm device. Not wasting a second the man stomped towards her as he tried tackling her. Gwen was well prepared for his desperate attempt at detaining her.

She had run hundreds of scenarios through her head before he had even realized that she had kicked the gun out of his hands. Now at least she didn’t have a coilgun pointing at her head. This didn’t stop him from charging head on towards her.

Just before he got in grabbing distance of her, she quickly sidestepped him and made him do a sort of twirl by using his own momentum against him. By the time he realized he was falling he was already caught in the tumbling spiral.

For safety Gwen kicked him in the face before he could attempt any other desperate capture attempts. She kicked him hard enough so that he would either end up unconscious or think twice before chasing after her again.

The forges were primed for the night shift to start working again, Gwen could feel the heat from the forges starting again. She had to get to the transport platform before she burnt to a crisp. She briefly attempted to find Connor before she continued on but couldn’t see him anywhere. She rationalized that he either got captured without her knowing somehow, or he would have gone ahead with their plan.

It was a fairly uneventful couple of minutes walking through the remaining forges, only occasionally stopping as a Tripod passed by but the heat was starting to get to her as her body felt more and more sluggish with each passing minute.

They had to have found the guard by now or realized what they were trying to do. Gwen thought to herself. The silence of this part of the escape is what bothered her the most. All she could hear was the wails of the distant sirens and the occasional thumping of the tripods walking.

She mused over the whole situation of being a slave and how they toiled for someone else’s benefit. She almost chuckled out loud when she thought about how much it should have bothered her, the collective suffering of thousands of people here but it didn’t anymore. Nothing could bother her anymore.

Before she could think any deeper into the situation the seemingly endless rows of forges came to an end just a few meters ahead of her. She made sure to approach the last forge slowly as she crouched tip toed towards it. She peered around it as best as she could.

There were more guards posted around the platform than she had expected especially with her distraction. She guessed it was one of the only ways to reliably get out of the slavers camp, so it was to be expected.

The next moment she felt the hair on her neck raise. She froze for a second before spinning around and grabbing the hand behind her.

“Easy now, it’s only me.” Connor said.

She slowly released her grip on his hand.

“Quite the grip you’ve got their girl.”

“Thanks, where did you get the coilgun?” She asked staring briefly at the coilgun Connor was holding.

“I snatched it from a guard, thought it might come in handy.”

Gwen started thinking of all the possible alternate outcomes in a fraction of a second. The coilgun could be just what they needed to tip the scales. As she ran through the scenarios in her head something hit her. Why didn’t she grab the other guards coilgun? She had a near perfect memory and almost infallible logic so it should have occurred to her.

She could not dwell on it too much now, now she had to escape.

“Where did you run off to, sure you didn’t go call some guard?” Gwen asked as she crossed her arms.

“Look girl we don’t have time for this. You want to ask me if I’m a ratting you out fine but do it after we’ve escaped.”

Gwen thought for a moment as she analyzed Connors face.

“Fine, I have a plan to get to the platform, that is if you’re willing to trust me.”

“Well, we’ve come this far haven’t we.” Connor said smiling.

“It’s simple but it should do the trick. You go to the side of the platform facing away from the tower. There are some forges there that you can take cover behind when you draw them to you.”

“Wait, wait, what exactly do you mean by draw their fire?”

“Well, you’re the bait. I need to get to the platform. I should be able to program a new route to pick you up and then go to the tower.”

Admittedly this wasn’t the best plan that she had come up with, but it was all they need in the circumstances. She only wished that she didn’t have to use him as bait, but it was necessary he would draw the majority of the guards away or hopefully all of them. Leaving her a chance to get past them alive.

She wasn’t sure what they would do once they got up there, but the tower had to have a way out and she was going to get her bow back. She wanted to say whatever the cost, to herself but that was very illogical, she wasn’t going to die for it. She wanted to still use it.

“Now or never isn’t it girl?” Connor said as he did one quick final check of the coilgun.

“I suppose it is.”

And without another word Connor dashed to the general area Gwen had gestured towards when she was explaining her plan.

Within a few minutes Gwen could see the first electric bolt fly through the air. A guard crumbled as the bolt hit him. His body spasmed uncontrollably as the electricity overwhelmed his nervous system.

A few more guards followed suit before they could react to Connors continuous fire. When they did react, they quickly took cover behind the scattered crates.

Gwen anxiously waited for an opening to get to the transport. She kept looking at what the guards were doing and then at Connor. She had a better angle of them than he did. She wished that she could tell him what they were doing.

As with the many times before the emotion that should have been present was not. Fear, she should have been afraid for herself or Connor but there was nothing.

After a few minutes of back and forth firing the guards must’ve realized that they far outnumbered him. Some of them were sent to flank his sides while the rest kept suppressive fire on him.

Gwen had to move quick she didn’t have much time before they overwhelmed Connor, even with his enormous size and strength he wouldn’t be able to overwhelm them all.

Finally, she had her chance only two guards were left guarding the transport.

She hit him hard enough that he flew a meter or so but not enough to do any permanent damage, she hoped so anyway.

She leapt up from her crouched position as she darted towards the two guards. Within a few seconds she had reached them. They swung their guns at her general direction and started rapid firing.

Good she thought to herself. By firing so quick they lowered the charge now they would not be able to stun her no less kill her. They must have been more surprised by her sudden appearance or more afraid than she had thought to fire so quickly.

When she reached the first guard she grabbed him by the collar, lifted him slightly from the ground and slammed him into the metallic floor. The guard coughed and gasped for air like a helpless animal on the floor. He was in extreme pain, but Gwen was careful not to kill him.

After seeing what happened to his friend the remaining guard tried to get some distance between him and Gwen, but she quickly caught up to him.

“If you drop your coilgun and run I won’t hurt you.” Gwen said only mere meters from him.

The man instead decided to overcharge his coilgun for a kill shot.

“Guess not.” She said as she moved to engage him.

She grabbed the front barrel of the coilgun and aimed it upwards. As the gun fired it managed to short circuit her exposed hand. She quickly pulled her hand away and glanced at it as it twitched.

“See my hand here?” She said holding her twitching hand up for him to see.

“It’s made by the machines, so is your gun.”

“Only difference being I still have my left hand.”

Even with a full-face mask on Gwen could see the panic strike him as she said that. He quickly dropped the gun and started to run the other way but before he could get away. She quickly ran alongside him and punched him in his side with her left hand.

Once she got to the it was a simple matter of retrieving the guard whose wind, she’d knocked out’s keycard to open the transport door. Unfortunately, the guards at the forges and the guards at the hover transport cards did not work at the same areas.

After a minute or so of fiddling around with the card and pressing buttons, she thought would over the door to the transport opened. Inside it was relatively small for a transport only three seats on each side of the transport.

Each seat furthest away from the isle of the transport had a small corresponding viewport. Probably kept small so the ship wouldn’t implode at high altitudes.

The pilots command console had a variety of buttons switches and a whole lot of other components she didn’t understand but she recognized some basic features human ships would have. Most importantly activating the ships engines and its steering joystick. She had trouble remembering what controlled its elevation, but she didn’t have time to think too much she had to fetch Connor and now before he got overwhelmed.

Gwen hopped into what appeared to be the main pilot’s seat, hit the green button. The ships engines roared as they came to life. A console between both pilot’s seats turned on and started displaying a message.

‘Following pre-programmed route, destination control tower, standby.’

“No, no.” Gwen said as she frantically searched for a way to override it. “Where is it, where is it.?”

‘Starting flight route.’

“Ah-ha, found it.” Gwen said as she admittedly hit the manual flight controls a little too hard.

‘Manual controls engaged.’

“Okay, this shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Gwen gradually increased the throttle as the ship’s engines rumbled as it slowly departed from the ground.

She briskly adjusted to the feel of the transport as she circled around to get Connor. She could see that he was surrounded, he had started to hit the guards with the butt of the coilgun. Even when they constantly shot him with stun shots.

Gwen descended towards Connor she approached him to go a little too low. As she did this the guards quickly scattered fearing they may get crushed. Once she was in position, she hit a button to maintain her current position on the console.

Gwen quickly rushed to the door of the transport. She opened it and stuck her head outside. She couldn’t see Connor anywhere. She started to try and think what could have happened to him. Did she injure him with her risky stunt? Did they somehow already capture him.

Before she could think any further a hand landed at her feet.

“Well, don’t just look at me girl pull me up.”

Gwen quickly hoisted him up.

“Here’s a seat for you she said as she pointed to the co-pilots seat.”

Connor stumbled to the seat and flopped onto it as he sat down. Gwen didn’t pay attention to Connor when she was manning the console. She was focused. She was going to get her bow back and she was going to get out of this hell hole.

Gwen disengaged the maintain position and increased the thrust of the transport. As they were rapidly approaching the tower Gwen glanced at Connor and noticed some black scarring on his side.

“Connor where you hit with a overcharged shot?”

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about me.”

“It’s not nothing those shots are meant to kill you.”

“I’m fine Gwen I just need to rest my eyes for… for a minute.” Connor said.

“Connor, you’ve got to stay awake… Connor?” Gwen asked under her breathe.