BooksBarbecue
Back Containment
Chapters (48)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. ONE
  4. TWO
  5. THREE
  6. FOUR
  7. FIVE
  8. SIX
  9. SEVEN
  10. EIGHT
  11. NINE
  12. TEN
  13. ELEVEN
  14. TWELVE
  15. THIRTEEN
  16. FOURTEEN
  17. FIFTEEN
  18. SIXTEEN
  19. SEVENTEEN
  20. EIGHTEEN
  21. NINETEEN
  22. TWENTY
  23. TWENTY-ONE
  24. TWENTY-TWO
  25. TWENTY-THREE
  26. TWENTY-FOUR
  27. TWENTY-FIVE
  28. TWENTY-SIX
  29. TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. TWENTY-EIGHT
  31. TWENTY-NINE
  32. THIRTY
  33. THIRTY-ONE
  34. THIRTY-TWO
  35. THIRTY-THREE
  36. THIRTY-FOUR
  37. THIRTY-FIVE
  38. THIRTY-SIX
  39. THIRTY-SEVEN
  40. THIRTY-EIGHT
  41. THIRTY-NINE
  42. FORTY
  43. FORTY-ONE
  44. FORTY-TWO
  45. FORTY-THREE
  46. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  47. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  48. Copyright

I took in my surroundings: the Mars Mining soldiers, the unsuspecting city, the red dust leading to scattered mining camps. If the aliens followed our signal here, no one would survive. We’d made our way off Sanctuary through cunning, skill, and more luck than we ever should have managed. I didn’t dare count on that sort of fortune again. At least on Sanctuary, we’d been able to contain the aliens to a limited space. Let them loose on Mars . . . A tremor shot down my spine. Give me Omnistellar. I’d take my former corporation, their wrath, even a death sentence before I faced one of those things ever again.

“All right,” I said, bowing to the inevitable, and we followed Yang through the crowd of angry soldiers, returning to the one place we had fought at all costs to avoid: back into corporate custody.

FIVE

THE SECOND WE PASSED THROUGH the heavy metal doors, the guards slammed us against the wall. Still disoriented from the blast and the blow to the face, I couldn’t even muster the energy to protest as they bound my hands behind me in huge, heavy cuffs. Some sort of padding forced my hands into involuntary fists as painfully tight bonds clamped over my wrists. My shoulders instantly ached, the weight of the cuffs dragging my arms down, pulling my elbows together. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw them do the same to Cage and Rune, jamming their hands into what looked like metal boxers’ gloves. Cage’s face locked in a mask of indifference, although the muscle twitching at the corner of his eye communicated volumes. Rune didn’t even try to hide her distress, closing her eyes and breathing heavily as the manacles snapped into place. As awful as this was for me, it had to be a hundred times worse for them. They’d only recently escaped five years of prison, and a few weeks later, they were voluntarily returning to a jail cell.

If Cage and Rune could handle this, so could I. At least that was what I told myself. But as the metal bit into my wrists and added what felt like ten pounds to the drag on my arms, ice-cold panic clawed at my chest, constricting my throat. I closed my eyes, tipped my head against the wall, and pretended I was in Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5. Yumiko was taken captive, on average, once a week. She always survived, and so would I.

The thought gave me just enough courage to keep my feet as the guard behind me tugged on my cuffs to make sure they were secure. He said something to Commander Yang. It sounded like Mandarin, a language I’d become pretty comfortable with between Cage and Rune. But I couldn’t understand a word of it.