The Skinner

Ron reached the Ski

Janer fired and a sheet of skin slid smoking from the Ski

The Ski

Captain Ron lay with one side crushed and ripped open. As Ambel crouched by him, he reached up and caught hold of his fellow captain’s hand. Hearing movement behind, Janer glanced round to see Erlin and A

‘Get these off me,’ said Erlin, holding out her wrists. ‘I can help him.’

Janer looked at the braided cuffs, and then inspected the charge meter on his carbine. He gave an apologetic shake of his head before returning his attention to the two captains.

‘It has to die,’ Ron insisted. ‘It has to die finally and completely.’

‘It will,’ promised Ambel. He glanced round at Erlin, then, freeing himself from Ron’s grip, he stood and stepped up to her. Almost casually, he clasped the material of the cuffs between her wrists and pulled. There was a hollow thud as they broke and he moved on to free A

‘Nothing much wrong,’ muttered Ron, then, looking up at Ambel, ‘What are you waiting for?’

Ambel turned to A

Janer gave a terse nod, then followed the Captain into the dingle.

Svan halted at the edge of a wide clearing, resting her weapon on the ground, then quickly unclipped the section of hot armour on her side. Underneath, her clothing was charred and it crumbled when she touched it. However, the burn on her skin wasn’t as bad as she had expected. She took a spray from the medpack on her belt to deaden the pain, coating it with synthiskin. The armour section felt hard and brittle, but she clipped it back into place anyway. What now, she wondered; what the hell do I do now?

She stood and took a drink from her water bottle, before moving on through the dingle. Her satlink position finder rendered her the information that she was located on one of the Segre Islands, and showed her as a little dot near the centre of that island. Beyond telling her that, it was useless to her and she had little clue as to where she was and where she must go next. She’d lost sight of Frisk almost immediately, and cursed herself for letting the woman continue to carry a laser with its power pack disco

Svan decided to keep moving, her best option seeming to head downhill towards the coast. Her first priority was to get off this island, and then off this damned planet with all its weird people and weirder animals. She moved fast, aware of sounds in the dingle around her, and determined to survive. After an hour, she heard the first screams, and recognized them as Shib’s. She would not have bothered changing direction to help him, but the screams came from straight ahead of her, where the dingle thickened.

Svan was heading into deeper shade, where the trees were tall and debris lay thick on the ground heaped in thick drifts spotted with orange fungi. She noticed the tracks of some kind of large animal and some of the tall stalk-trunks had clearly been gnawed on. Animals didn’t worry her, but the cause of those screams did. Eventually, Svan saw a white shape hanging in a peartrunk tree ahead of her, and immediately knew what it was.

Shib had stopped screaming by the time she reached him, though he was groaning and gasping, occasionally weeping. Someone had suspended him naked by his feet from the branches of a peartrunk tree. Ru

‘Svan,’ he whispered.

There was such pleading in the single word that Svan aimed her weapon at his head for a long moment, then slowly swung it away. Another leech was already making its questing way down his leg, and Shib started gasping again. She knew, from long experience in such matters, that in a moment he would start screaming again. If she intervened and stopped his screams, that would forewarn anyone ahead of her presence, so, without further acknowledgement, she walked away.

Shib’s renewed torment soon echoed through the dingle. Svan paused for just a moment before moving determinedly on. The next scream sent her into a trot, then a run, convinced that she wasn’t ru

In one smooth motion, Svan dropped to her knees and aimed.

‘Drop it! Now!’ she shouted.

The one called Roach tossed the weapon to the ground while Svan stared at him in disbelief, trying to comprehend how the hell he’d got here. Keeping all three of them in her sights, she stood and slowly advanced. The other one, with the moustache, she also recognized from the ship Frisk had torched. The third one, who was leaning on a stick and didn’t look so good, she did not recognize.

‘You,’ she gestured at him. ‘Who are you?’

‘Bugger you,’ was his only reply.

Svan considered wasting him right there, but she desperately needed to get off this island, and for that she needed help. She moved closer. Suddenly the ground erupted in front of her in a purple flash. As the blast flung her back, she felt her grip on consciousness slipping, and fought it. Burning debris rained down while she rolled and tried to stand. The flat of a hand slapped her back to the ground and her weapon was tugged from her grasp as easily as from a child. After a moment she was hauled to her feet and suspended in front of the bulky shape of Drum.