Shells | Lo'ak Sully

Part 20: Lifeline

                         . • .° • *. •.  .

Three dead, two wounded.

Oh— Nevermind.
Four dead, one wounded.

Ni'teya was moving at a staggering pace, her only means of weaponry being the pathetically small knife she'd stolen from Spider as he'd complied to let her loose. There wouldn't have been much use in fighting her and Spider knew that, after all, he'd seen the look in her eyes. Unsurprisingly enough, it was the look he knew was only conceivable when Lo'ak was involved in something.

Removing the knife from another guard's leg, she finally made it to the room she'd been looking for; The room, nay, cage she'd been trapped in for the passed month, the one she remembered had her bow, her knives and her arrows in. Quaritch had made sure she could see them all splayed out on the floor or leant against the farthest wall away from her as because she was chained, there was no way she could've gotten to them directly.

Five dead.

In terms of killing, she had no morals left in her. In her unblocked mind, as she walked the long corridors of the ship, anyone who blocked her path wasn't going to block it for long. Be it a shorter Sky-Person or one of those taller fakes, Ni'teya would make sure she got to them before they had any time at all to react to her presence. She'd had plenty of opportunities along the way to grab hold of one of her victim's guns, which would've given her the upper hand in a large number of ways. She liked the amount of stealth the knife provided her, though.

Six dead.

With her bow and her arrows secured in the place that they fit best, Ni'teya made her way, violently, towards where she knew Quaritch was, simply by the sound of blasting, shooting and the occasional scream, which she considered mightily annoying most of the time.

This time, all three were useful.

.

"Did any of you see where he went?" His voice was loud, ragged. Quaritch was clearly agitated. Ni'teya didn't care for the reasoning, though she guessed it could only mean one thing: Jake was not dead yet.

"Yes sir. The East-wing, sir." One of his much-too-committed guards informed him, raising a flattened hand to his forehead each time he addressed his boss as 'sir'.

Almost gagging, Ni'teya edged closer on the raised ledge she was crouched on above them all. She could see three guards surrounding Quaritch, two guards down, wounded or dead, but no sign of any of her people. No Lo'ak, no Jake, no nobody. Who she did see enter the scene though, was Spider.

He looked anxious. — 'Rightly so.' Ni'teya thought as she prepared for what was about to happen, knowing what Spider had to tell his already angry father, if you could even call him that.

"Ah! There you are, son." Quaritch placed a hand on Spider's shoulder firmly. "Jake's gone around to the East side of the ship, so why don't you go back to where you where and get Ni'teya, bring her out here with you and we can pull another one of these 'I got your kid''s on the sucker. Sound good?" He didn't sound like he was exactly asking, that's for sure. Quaritch didn't even bother to look down at his son as he thought he'd merely comply. If he had, he'd have spotted Spider's guilty eyes long before he'd started suggesting the impossible.

After a pause, Spider let out a long, quiet "Uhhhhm—", raising his arm to scratch the back of his head.

'I knew he had flees' Ni'teya thought, almost laughing aloud at what she was witnessing.

As Quaritch heard, he checked again. "Miles?"

"I— Uhm."

"Miles?" He repeated, slowly realizing what his son's reaction meant. He waited a moment, almost as if he was waiting for Spider to confess what he already knew to him before he had to ask it himself. — "Where is she, Miles?"