Sy'anh II

I woke from fitful sleep.

The ground sunk slightly under me as someone stepped into the hatch.

“Sure we need to use this, boss?”

“There was a saboteur.” Another person—Sy'anh—stepped into the hatch. “That means they’ll be ready for us. We should destroy their camp from a distance.”

“No! No! No!” I tried to yell, but it was muffled. “Hey you! Listen to me! This guy’s a murderer and not just in the ‘he’s a soldier’ sense! Kill him or something, then leave us alone as thanks for the tip!”

“I just heard something weird,” Sy'anh’s underling said. “I think it was coming from the cargo compartment?”

“No, that’s the engine, it’s been acting up.”

“Is it…okay to go out in a tank with a messed up engine?”

“Sure. It’ll work fine, just give it a few kicks.” Bam. Bam. Bam. He kicked the cargo compartment door hard, jostling me to the side and sending the case that was in there straight into my tits.

Ow! Fuck! “Mmmph! Mmmph!”

A moment of consideration, then, Bam.

Okay, I get it. I’ll shut up.

They were going to blow up Casselian and the rest of the brave people who’d been planning to risk their lives in an attempt to fight back against their attackers.

And it’s my fault.

I had to fix this.

…What was in that case, anyway?

When I tried to move from a lying position, my shoulder hit the top of the compartment. I pushed myself backwards as far as I could, kicking the crate around my feet back, and felt around the case near my chest with my bound hands. There was a crack down it, for sure, but no latch on this side.

I couldn’t get a good grip on it while tied up, but I could push it around in a circle with the extra room I’d given myself, and did so. The sound of my breathing echoed in my ears. It was too dark to see, but I could feel a metal latch.

The tank started moving. I was thrown backwards by its momentum, head hitting the back wall of the compartment. Shit. I was dizzy and my ears were ringing. Keep it together, Naomi.

The sound of the engine roared around me. I groped around and found the box again. My hands were tied from the knuckles of my thumbs to my wrists (making me basically someone without opposable thumbs), but I could still use my fingers. With my pointer finger, I got the latch open.

Hammer. Screwdriver. Wrench. A handaxe and a few other implements native to this world I didn’t know how to use. It was a toolbox! Probably for repairing the tank if needed—it wasn’t anything unexpected—but I could get out!

I felt around the door. Sure enough, it was held on by hinges; screwed-on hinges. I ran my finger over the screws. They had an odd star shaped hole, different from at home, but the screwdriver should be fitted for that if that was the kind of screws they used. The size was a little under a half inch.

I had to hold onto the screwdriver by pressing it between the palms of my hands. At my first attempt, the screwdriver glanced off the side of the screw and fell out of my hands.

I bit my lip. I had to take this carefully, or I could destroy the screws by accident, too.

I picked up the screwdriver again and, navigating by the thin gray light and by touch, got it successfully lodged in the right screw.

The tank slowly turned. I braced myself on my elbow and held the screwdriver tight in place as my body threatened to slide to the side. It completed its turn. I was still okay…

I tried turning the screwdriver with my weird hand position, and immediately dropped it again.

This is life or death, Naomi. What are you doing?

What I always did, I guess; cause the deaths of other people. It’d happened once before with him, and now it was happening again—

No. I had to pull it together. I hadn’t caused his death, and I was going to prevent the Asan’s deaths.

But I really had been the one to cause this situation; I’d killed them the first time.

So what? You thought they were fictional. And maybe they are—you still don’t know how this world works!

I couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t speculate right now.

Screwdriver. Screw. Keep trying.

The third time, the screwdriver stuck.

I turned it between my palms, first slowly, then faster as I picked up the motion. The screw gradually loosened, loosened more, and fell clattering to the compartment floor.

Okay. Next one.

With the second screw, the hinge fell as well. I caught it before it could hit the ground so it wouldn’t make a loud noise—the only advantage I’d have on my side after getting this door off was the element of surprise, so I didn’t want to lose that.

Now, I had a little more light. I pushed the top of the door forward and it gave way, projecting out a few centimeters and showing me a view of Sy'anh’s boots through the small gap.

I pulled it back so I wouldn’t be noticed and got to work on the remaining hinge.

To get at it, I needed to lie down fully. That close to the ground, my spine jounced with every pothole and stone. My angle was horrible, too, but it couldn’t be helped; there wasn’t room to sit leaning down and go at it normally in this compartment. I was better at holding the screwdriver now and didn’t drop it, but it still glanced off the side of the screw several times as I tried to get it inside.

After quite a few minutes, I managed to get the first screw off. Almost there. Just one more.

“Stop here.”

The tank shuddered to a stop.

Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. Just get the last screw. But I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking.

“Do you have the gun set?”

“Yessir.”

“On my mark, then.”

The screw was getting looser and looser. It was about to fall—

“Mark.”

BANG!