Chapter 27

She ate her next meal, and every meal that was delivered afterwards. She began stretching, loosening the muscles that had been tortured and then grown stiff from lying dormant on her bunk. As the days passed, she felt stronger and began calisthenics again, trying to keep her body toned and strong. Two weeks, more or less, passed before Gauss returned.

He entered as before, accompanied by the same man, and talked quietly with the guards. He seemed fascinated by Kat, staring at her as though observing a rare specimen in a zoo exhibit. He walked up to the bars, standing as close as he could without actually touching them, and let his eyes rove her still nude form. The red and raw spots had healed, for the most part, and left small lighter patches of skin. His eyes lingered on them, his tongue darting out and touching his lip in a vaguely lizard-like fashion.

Seeming to start, as though waking himself from a daydream, he motioned to the door of the cell and the guards moved. As one reached for the electrified truncheon from the rack on the wall, Kat felt her heart start to beat faster. Her blood rushed through her veins, her mind was preternaturally sharp and the movement of the men outside the cell seemed to slow to a crawl.

The guards, both of them armed with clubs, entered the cell and ordered her to her knees. Kat began a slow turn, as if complying with the demand, and let her momentum continue to build. She spun in place, lashing out with one foot. The side of her foot struck one guard in the throat, the crunch of the cartilage lost in the meaty slap of her skin against his and sound of his head impacting the steel bars of the cell.

Kat kept moving, using that momentum to launch a blow to the other guard's solar plexus, bending him over her fist. She grabbed his head by the ears and brought her knee up with all of her strength, feeling his nose and cheek bones collapse and showering her leg, and the floor of the cell, with blood. Slinging the dead man aside, she launched herself at Gauss, her hands crossed. Her wrists caught at opposite sides of his neck, her hands grasping the material of his collar. She collapsed backward, her weight drawing him forward, off balance, until his own weight caused him to flip over Kat and land with his back on the floor of the cell. Kat never released the hold she had on his collar and the hold forced his head back as he fell, breaking both of her wrists and his neck, with a sickening snap.

The last thing Kat remembered was a roar of sound and a feeling like someone had hit her in the head with a lead pipe. A burst of sound and pain followed by darkness.

Kat was surprised to be alive, all things considered. She was lying flat on her back, strapped to a bed in the medical bay. Her head ached abominably and felt like it was swathed in bandages. Her wrists were both throbbing and she could feel, by bending her fingers, that both arms had been set into casts. She didn't remember breaking them, but that move she had pulled on Gauss carried could do that if you did not release before the person you were attacking hit the ground. Chief had warned her about it, once during a training session, but she also remembered him saying that it would be lethal to the target. She hoped so.

She had probably been shot, and since her head ached and was wrapped in layers of gauze, she assumed that he had been a pretty good shot at that if he had hit her in the head while in mid throw. She knew the second guard she hit was dead, he had that strings-cut, dead weight feel when she tossed him aside. The first guard may or may not be dead, but she had hit him hard, and correctly, so if he was still alive it was because the medics got a tracheotomy into him in time. That kick would have crushed his windpipe and cut off his air supply. If She had been able to set properly, that kick might have broken his neck as well, but she had to surprise them for her to have any chance at all.

Behind her, outside the field of view possible to her, being tied down, she heard a hatch open. Footsteps approached and Kat waited patiently for the person to appear. There were some sounds of movement, drawers opening and closing, equipment being shuffled around, and, finally the scrape of a chair or stool being dragged across the floor. Entering her view was the man who had always accompanied Gauss when he visited the brig.

He was comfortably middle-aged, not particularly muscular and had a wide, flat face. His nose had been broken and not set correctly and one ear had a notch, as though he had just barely missed being shot. His hair was cut in a military brush style and was mostly gray, with a few darker strands showing what color it would have been when younger. The man had a slight beard shadow, as though he had not shaved recently and there were bags under his steady, gray eyes.

"I am Vladyev, and you have caused some trouble, yes? You killed the Vicar and two guards and I was supposed to protect him. So, I am in trouble as well, but not as much as you." He paused, staring down at her. He didn't look particularly upset, and he didn't have the look of someone who was about to do violent things. His accent was unusual, and it took her a minute to place. There was a planet named Noveske, in the Tau sector, that was settled by an ethnic Russian group from old Earth. They were unique in that it was one of the few planets settled by a strictly defined geographic, cultural and ethnic group. No outsiders had been allowed to join the colonization effort and they still, to this day, had very strict immigration policies.

The man looked uncomfortable, like he was trying to make a decision and it was tough going. His expression was pensive, thoughtful even and he stared at her for several minutes before continuing.