HAWK

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: OBLIVION (2/6)

Kas, Mack and Worm rushed back into the hold to see the ramp descending slowly. Governor Swanne was already waiting on the other side, her eyes shining like green spotlights in the shadows.

Kymeira stopped licking her wound and ran back to her master's side. Behind Swanne, the Black Chains stood like an army of three. They stepped in unison off the ramp and started walking towards Kas, Mack and Worm. Vima led the way, her eyes alight with green fire.

'There's nowhere for them to run, Astrid,' Vima said as she stalked forwards. 'If you won't let me go, then I won't let your friends go.'

'I wouldn't recommend that,' Astrid replied from the walls, to which Vima smiled.

'There's nothing you can do to me that won't also endanger the life of your friends. I might not be able to hurt you, but I can hurt them. I will strip the flesh from their bones. Maybe I'll start with the child...'

'Wait!'

Vima, Otto and Remi all stopped. There was a sound in the air - a kind of distorted music. As it grew louder, Kas thought it sounded like a riff on the digital noise that had taken her first to Dante and then into the asteroid belt.

'What is that...?' Vima frowned.

'I had wanted to avoid this,' Astrid replied. 'As my creator, you are the closest thing I have to a mother. Thank you for the life you gave me.'

Otto's neck started twitching.

'Kkkkk... kkkk... kkkkkkk...'

'Stop that...' Vima said, but then her neck started twitching too. The sickness spread to Remi and soon all three of them were trembling. The shaking consumed their entire bodies and forced them to their knees. Kas looked at Kymeira and saw her stretched out on the floor, shivering and looking like she was trying to cough up a fur ball.

Swanne, meanwhile, looked panicked. Her eyes had lost their glow and were merely flashing as she tried desperately to reconnect to the bio-mechs, but the music had somehow shut her out.

And then, in a moment that sent a shiver down Kas's spine, Vima made eye contact with her, opened her mouth... and screamed. In it, Kas heard enough anger and pain to last a lifetime. It was all she could do not to follow Worm's example and clamp her hands over her ears.

When at last the scream ended, Vima looked at her hands, shiny enough to see her reflection in them. Otto and Remi straightened up beside her and looked at each other. Then, they all turned as one to look at Governor Swanne standing on the ramp. Her complexion was even paler than usual.

'You...' Vima growled in her own voice.

'Vima...?' Swanne whimpered.

'You... will suffer...'

'I... I will return you to your bodies... just as soon as we get back to Eidol...'

'You made us into puppets...' Otto hissed. 'You made us serve you...'

'Like dogs...' Remi seethed, his head cocked to one side.

'I can put you back the way you were,' Swanne trembled. 'I can... I can put you back!'

'Have you never begged before...?' Vima asked. 'Get on your knees!' Swanne dropped to her knees at once.

'Please! I-I can change you back, I promise...'

'We should tear her limbs off...' Remi suggested. 'Nice and slow...'

'Too kind,' Vima said, her eyes still locked on Swanne. 'She should know our pain. We will turn her into one of us.'

Swanne's eyes bulged. 'You can't... you wouldn't know where to start!'

'Not yet, but we'd have fun experimenting, wouldn't we boys?'

'That's right,' Otto rasped.

'Lots of fun,' Remi agreed. Swanne fell back onto her hands and started scuffling back onto her ship.

'Please,' she said, her voice reduced to a whimper. 'If you want your old bodies back, I'm the only one who ca--'

A silver blur shot across the room towards Swanne.

Kymeira...

Swanne howled as the large silver panther bit into her shoulder and started dragging her across the hold, kicking and clawing at the floor. Within seconds, the beast had hauled her onto the Wraith and out of sight, though Swanne's screams only seemed to grow louder. A particularly loud shriek was cut brutally short, after which all Kas could hear was the thrashing of limbs and ripping of flesh, and then the crunching of bone in metal jaws.