The redhead reared back and kicked Mero in the face with her free leg. Her heel made a satisfying crunch as it crushed and spread the fragile cartilage.
As Mero’s head flew back, bright blood squirted from both nostrils. The she-he coughed, spraying blood mist. Staring down at the red streaming through her fingers, Mero withdrew.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” the she-he said. “You really, really shouldn’t have done that.”
Krysty was already on her feet, and moving towards the wall of electronic equipment. She couldn’t reach the monitor with the manacles on it without coming into Mero’s range, but she could reach the one with the infrared scan of the oceans. She tipped the screen to the floor, and it landed with a crash, hissing, sputtering and arcing power. “I probably shouldn’t have done that, either,” she said.
Mero hooked the fallen chair with her foot and kicked up from the floor, at Krysty’s head. As the redhead ducked and turned, the she-he closed on her. The fingers of steel caught her wrist and twisted it behind her back. With the other hand, Mero grabbed the back of Krysty’s head, digging fingers into the mass of her hair, which separated into tendrils and coiled around the she-he’s thick wrist like miniature pythons.
“My, my, what do we have here?” Mero said.
Krysty said nothing and she didn’t struggle. The she-he held her arm at the dislocate point. Another ounce or two of pressure and it would have popped out of the shoulder socket.
Mero played with the mobile strands. “Does it do any other tricks?”
“Let me go and I’ll show you.”
“No, I don’t think so. I think we’re going to go back to your cell. Don’t worry, you won’t be there long. We sisters have all agreed that you’re coming with us when we make the next jump, which should be any minute now. We think you’ll make a fine incubator for our offspring. Actually, you’re going to be the only incubator for the foreseeable future. We had planned to recruit many dozens of Shadow World females for the job, but under the circumstances there isn’t time.”
Krysty tried to twist away, but Mero tightened the hammerlock. The pain shooting through her shoulder made her groan.
“When you’re nine months heavy with my baby, mine and Shadow Man’s,” Mero said, “you’re going to be a lot less troublesome. Less likely to spin-kick, that’s for sure. I know you’re going to make a good mommy for my baby. For all our babies.”
Krysty growled a curse, then tried to crush the she-he’s toes with the heel of her boot. The two of them danced around for a minute before Mero once again got the upper hand.
As the she-he pinned her face against the wall, the door to the room opened and two troopers entered.
“Good,” Mero said, hardly glancing at them. “You can help me with this hellcat. Get hold of her legs.”
The taller of the two troopers stepped closer. When Mero turned again, he used his helmet like a cudgel, headbutting the surprised she-he in the middle of forehead.
Knees buckling, eyelids fluttering shut, Mero dropped like a stone.
“Krysty, it’s us!” J.B. said, using his hands to block her flurry of full power punches to his chest.
She stopped fighting. “Ryan?” she said to the taller trooper. “Is that you?”
“Of course,” he said. The one-eyed man unscrewed his helmet and took a breath. His long, black hair was damp with sweat. “Where’s the comp?”
“Over here, I think,” Krysty said. She pointed to one of the monitors. “That shows all the slaves. Green zone is safe. Red zone isn’t.”
“This must be the CPU,” J.B. said after taking off his helmet, too. He indicated a cube from which all the monitor cables emerged. “Should we just unplug it from its power source?”
“No, I’ve got a better idea,” Krysty said. She picked up the chair and smashed its legs down on the CPU. The first blow made the images on the bank of screens quiver wildly. It took two more blows to crack the comp’s plastisteel housing, but on the second one, all the screens went dark.