I wake to a droning hum, but it takes a few seconds before I’m sure it isn’t coming from inside my head. Engine noise. A ship.
My eyelids feel heavy as they flicker. I only get them open with effort.
The door slides open and a young Legionnaire walks in. “Commander Hamid wishes to speak with you,” he says, voice authoritative beyond his years.
“Huh? Send ’em in then,” I say, fighting my slack mouth to form the words.
I wait for Hamid to walk into my cell, but instead the trooper says, “You must be Mariam.” His voice has shifted up a register and softened: a woman’s voice coming from his mouth. “Commander Briggs’s pride and joy.”
I try to laugh, but I barely manage a hoarse bleat from the back of my throat. “Even if I hadn’t killed him, I doubt he’d agree with you.”
“You were everything he wanted his girls to be. Though I suppose he preferred them a little more . . . malleable.” Hamid’s wry expression looks wrong on this young man’s face, muscles moving in ways they aren’t accustomed to. She continues: “That’s why I wanted to see you. You are about to be delivered to a truly awful place, but I can have the Legion divert you if you agree to work for me.”
Even if I didn’t want to go to Homan, the thought that I might join MEPHISTO is as laughable as it is fucking disgusting.
“No deal,” I say.
There’s a long pause, then the guard’s face frowns. Hamid says, “Mariam, I’m trying to help you here.” She sighs. “Choose to join me now, or in time we will break you; we will force you to join the Legion.”
“You can’t break what’s already broken,” I say.
Apparently Hamid has already stopped listening though, and in his own voice the soldier says, “We’re nearly there.” He leans down close and there’s a sharp pain in my arm. I try to look away, but a restraint collar digs into my neck. I have to watch him pull the blood-steeped needle from my skin. I want to retch, but I swallow and force myself to breathe, and my head starts to clear.
“A squad will be here shortly to transfer you.”
He removes the collar from my neck. I gulp again, but there’s still a dull ache where the restraint sat snug at my throat.
The Legionnaire holds the needle up to my face and I pull back. “Your abilities will be out of reach until these drugs make their way through your system.” He spits the word “abilities” at me. I assume the Legion is pissed that I killed some of its parts, but that’s what happens when you bring cyborgs to a space witch fight. “The prison has other ways to keep you in line.”
“Are you done?” I say, forcing a smirk. “Let’s go already, I’m bored.” It takes a few seconds for me to focus on his face, but when I do I see a confused look spread across his features. That’s right—I’m not afraid of your guns or your prison; I chose this. You think I’m your prisoner? You’re all dead fucks walking, and I’m a monster in human skin.
He crouches and unfastens the restraints around my ankles. I stand and feel that woozy tightness as my blood pressure spikes. The Legionnaire studies me with his hand resting on his sidearm. There’s a tight tattoo of approaching boots, and he says, “Come along, then.” He motions toward the door with a nod.
I step out of the cell and into the hallway; my legs ache, muscles struggling after untold time spent unused. The corridors are packed tightly with MEPHISTO troops—all of them bearing scars that hint at their cyborg skeletons.
Two guards grab me by the arm. The woman barely comes up to my shoulder, but if anything, her grip is stronger. They perp-walk me down the hall and I hear the others fall in step behind us. As we move through the ship, Legionnaires duck into doorways and alcoves to let us pass, movements all seemingly choreographed, like I’m the only one who skipped rehearsals.
It takes us ten groggy minutes of walking before we reach an interior air lock door marked Hangar Deck. I don’t recognize the design of the vessel, but from the size of the ship’s hangar I’d say it’s a carrier.
The hangar bustles with countless Legionnaires in MEPHISTO uniforms. To the left are the external air locks, and far to the right are a collection of shuttles and sleek fighters in their bays. The middle of the deck is taken up with row after row of ROTs. They’re suspended from the ceiling on complicated apparatus, hanging over massive doors marked with caution stripes in yellow and black; they’re bombs ready to be dropped from space, carrying a cyborg payload.
For a second I think maybe they’ll drop me to the prison in one of those pods, but before I can decide if I like that idea the troops corral me to one of the main air lock doors. There’s a large viewport to one side, filled with deep black and smudges of color. I blink and my eyes slowly focus; the blur shifts and clears, revealing a planet drenched in sunlight. Its surface is mostly sapphire ocean, but there’s a single yellow-green continent running long and thin from one pole to the other, with a scattering of islands lost in the immensity of the sea.
“Is that Homan?” I ask, wondering how I’m meant to find Mookie on an entire prison planet, slowly realizing how little I thought this through.
“No,” one of the soldiers says. I wait for him to continue, but he stays silent.
“There.” One of the others points toward a small brown moon coming into view from behind the planet. It drifts closer in its orbit; flashes of metal line the rock, but I can’t see any large structures. “That is Homan Sphere; your new home, and your hell.”
A third celestial body comes into view—another moon, pale orange and large enough to dwarf the prison. The three objects shift and dance, overlapping each other on a background of endless void. We’re beyond the edge of the empire, civilization somewhere far behind us, and the visible constellations are entirely alien to me. These are the stars of far-off galaxies, impossibly small, infinitely distant.
We’re carried nearer, and the rock of Homan’s surface fills the viewport; I still don’t see any buildings.
“Where’s the prison?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
We come in, but not to land. We pull up close to a metal outcropping jutting out like a thumb from a closed fist. An echoing rumble fills the hangar as we dock—an ominous sound, full of dark promise.
For the first time since I let the Legion capture me, I start to wonder if this is a good idea. It’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it?