“Tan!” Itri cursed. “Netra tan!”
The contents of the syringe he had been hiding in his pocket all morning still dripped to the floor as Itri stood over his convulsing sister, gaping. No one would believe he had actually dosed her with Pigrann now. No one had ever started seizing afterwards.
More than anything, Itri hoped - no, he prayed to Eoil, that her reaction to whatever that cocktail contained, wouldn’t kill her. “Please don’t die.”
A quick glance to the observation window confirmed one of his fears. The Emperor - Itri still couldn’t believe the man he hated more than anyone in the entire galaxy was standing so close to him - seemed to finally recognize Itri. A different sort of panic shadowed his features, planted through his gaze. With the Emperor’s eyes locked on him, there remained only so much time left for their escape.
Still shaking, Itri grabbed Stela around the waist and forced her out of the chair, yanking her wrists and ankles out of the bounds that still held her. If she lived - no, she would live - when she woke, Stela might hate him a little for it. But she would be alive.
With her draped over his shoulder, Itri ran. “Please don’t leave me. Stay alive.”
Itri attempted to push the door open, but it wouldn’t budge. He moved to try again before he noticed the card reader placed next to the door, blinking at him calmly. Itri should have suspected secure access both ways and flashed his stolen ID card across the reader and waited.
Itri ran through the opportunities here. Any moment now they could block these doors and lock both of them in this room. They might have already discovered that he’d swiped this ID from cleaning staff and denied this card access. Armed men could be waiting for him on the other side, ready to fill his body with large amounts of electricity it couldn’t handle.
When the door eventually did unlock and the only men waiting were the two that Itri expected, he couldn’t believe his luck. Maybe the legendary Eoil really was watching over him. Or, more likely, just over Stela.
The two guards stared at him, their hands gripping the weapons on their belts, but not yet pulled. Confusion swept their faces and Itri understood why. He hadn’t been inside long enough for a typical Pigrann injection. He also wasn’t supposed to come out with her.
“Something went wrong with the procedure,” he tried to explain quickly as the door closed behind him. “I’m going to take her to the infirmary.”
Their hands fell away from their weapons. They believed him. But who wouldn’t believe someone dressed as a guard carrying a seizing woman?
Itri took a single step before one of the guards stepped forward. “I’ll come with you.” The guard ran his fingers through her hair and across the still-bleeding gash he had put there himself. “Then we can have a little fun with her, hey?”
Instead of bashing the guard’s head against the ground like Itri wanted to, to treat him like he had treated her, Itri forced himself to smile, as though that sounded like a wonderful plan. With a level of disgust that made him want to vomit all over this guard’s soon-to-be-dead body, Itri responded, “Perfect.”
The guard began walking towards the infirmary which, from the weeks Itri spent memorizing the layout of this entire building, happened to be in the opposite direction of his exit.
With this slight hitch in his plans, at least other things were going right. So many opportunities. One: the second guard hadn’t followed them meaning Itri only had one guard to deal with. Two: they had left the lab relatively successfully. Three: Stela’s seizures were becoming less and less violent. So she was either getting better or slowly dying. Four: The Emperor would have expected him to head directly to the hangar. Maybe this detour would give him a chance to actually break free. Five: He hadn’t heard from his ride yet and sitting alone in the open didn’t sound like the safest of ideas. Six: This guard still had no idea what was about to happen.
As soon as Itri was confident they had stepped outside of anyone’s earshot, he slammed his free elbow into the guard’s nose, hearing the splinter of bone on impact. Blood gushed. Before the guard could reach for his own nose, Itri hit again and didn’t care about the blood that now marked his sleeve. It would match Stela’s blood, seeping in on his shoulder.
“What the…” the guard started to say as he capped his face, speaking through a stream of his own blood. Itri interrupted by grabbing the guard’s head and striking it against the wall. The guard didn’t protest. In fact, he fell against the wall and slowly slid down to the ground, marking his path with a smearing of red just as Stela had marked the floor earlier that day.
The sound of running footsteps broke Itri’s enjoyment of the episode. He ran away from the noise, mentally mapping his escape route. He couldn’t go back the way he had come - it was bound to be swarmed with guards and maybe even some PROBers by now. They would expect him at the transport doors. Everywhere, they could be waiting for him. He took the stairs.
At the first landing, Stela stopped moving. So did Itri. Carefully, he pulled her off of his shoulder and set her against the wall. Clearly still unconscious, her shoulders slacked forward and her bloody and bruised head rolled to the side. Two of his fingers reached for her neck, desperate to feel a pulse under his fingertips.
When a weak BUMP BUMP coursed through him, Itri thanked Eoil that she was still breathing. Then immediately cursed Eoil when someone spoke behind him. Itri hadn’t heard him approach.
“Is she…?”
Stela’s still living body slumped even further to the floor as Itri turned with his non-issue PROBer firearm pointed at the intruder. Zek didn’t care - his attention fell on the unconscious woman bleeding before him.
“She’s alive.” Once Itri registered his inside-man, he put his gun back in its holster and relaxed a little. “She’s just really beat up.”
Zek nodded and stepped past him, bending down next to her. A tissue appeared in his hands and he began to wipe the blood stains away from her face. He would need a few more for her face alone, but Zek wouldn’t try to make her look perfect. He dabbed her forehead, brushed her cheeks and wiped her crusted lips.
Itri watched them, jealous. As the older brother, responsibility fell to him to clean her up while unconscious. He hadn’t had time yet. And Zek had been so instrumental in getting him in the building. Itri couldn’t rob him of this moment. Especially when it became so obvious that Zek cared for Stela more than Itri had expected.
If he ever hurt her… No, Itri wouldn’t think about that right now.
“I can’t believe you did it. After Varene…” Zek trailed off, which was wise of him. Not a moment to bring up Itri’s failures.
“I haven’t pulled it off yet, Zek. We need to get out of here. Now.”
At that, Zek turned back into the soldier he had trained to be and stood at attention. “Pick her up,” her ordered. “Follow me.” Finally, the man Itri knew.
Zek led them back down the stairs, retracing the steps Itri had just climbed. Itri hesitated for a moment, but ultimately followed.
A few flights of stairs later, a door above them opened. Panicking, Itri froze, imagining his imminent capture. But that didn’t happen yet. Instead, Zek dragged him down the stairs and pulled him out an exit door.
Itri had never been on this floor before, but in theory, he should have known his way around. He had memorized these floor plans, after all. But the further Zek pulled him, the less aware he became of where he was or where he was going. Still, he tried to keep a mental map of his steps.
So many opportunities for failure. Stela could die. Zek could betray him - he could even be leading them to a prison or another round of Pigrann. His ride might not find him wherever they ended up. His ride might not be here at all - he hadn’t heard from his ship yet. He could be stopped long before they even reached his ship.
This last opportunity turned into a non-issue. Despite passing multiple employees in this building, no one stopped him. No one even looked at him. Or, more accurately, no one looked at Zek. Only a moron would stop a lieutenant.
Zek pulled him to a stop at the base of a ladder. He looked up and after some internal mapping, Itri finally figured out where they had gone. They stood underneath the hangar, only a few feet away from freedom.
Itri reached behind his ear and pushed on the radio receiver. “If you can hear me, I’m going to need you in a minute. Copy?”
No response.
Itri waited another moment, but it was too late to stop now. He couldn’t stay here forever. After he secured Stela to his shoulder, Itri climbed the ladder to the hatch - the only thing that separated him from an army ready to kill him. Probably.
Itri pushed it open and light flooded in, temporarily blinding him. Still, he climbed up and almost immediately felt a shock run through his leg. He’d been hit. Without waiting for his eyes to adjust to the lighting, he ran in the opposite direction of the gunfire. He pulled Stela down from his shoulders and wrapped his body around her as a protective shield.
Zek’s voice echoed behind him, in full soldier mode. “In the name of the Emperor, I command you to stop and surrender yourself and the girl!” But Itri didn’t stop. He continued running down the length of the runway, not wanting to think about what would happen when he ran out of floor 47 flights above the ground.
“Stop!” Zek repeated and fired at them. And missed.
Itri was running out of opportunities. In fact, he could only think of one. Surrender.
Itri began to slow down as he neared the edge of the hangar’s runway when he saw his ship zipping towards him in the distance.
Another opportunity. And a really stupidly insane one. Itri pushed on his receiver again, “If you can hear me, I’m going to need you to play catch.”
Then he sprinted off the edge, legs flailing, gripping an unconscious Stela in his arms. They began to fall through the air, speeding towards their deaths. Itri really didn’t want to become acquainted with the ground. Not today, at least. Itri clenched his eyes and left the rest to fate.
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