Meeting Behind Bars

It had been a while since I had written anything. Luckily, one of the guards had returned my notebook, and now I could continue jotting down my thoughts.

I was in a cold, reinforced room. It had the essentials: a hard bed, a bathroom in the corner, and a large window that revealed the vastness of space. From there, I could gaze at my nearby galaxy, its light gently illuminating the shadows of my room.

I was lying on the bed, counting in my head the strange noises the ventilation made, when suddenly the door creaked open slowly. A metal guard entered silently, holding someone. With a slight push, he ushered a woman into my cell.

“Oh, wow,” I said, sitting up quickly, trying to make it seem like I had been expecting her all along. “Welcome. I’m Anna.”

I stepped forward, offering my hand.

At first, she looked wary, but then she sighed and accepted my greeting.

“My name is Maia,” she said, her voice calm but firm. “I come from a star cluster within the Seven Great Stars, visible from the galaxy outside this window.”

I widened my eyes and brought a hand to my chest.

“Fantastic! I was just looking for a roommate. I hope you can snore quietly, because the guard outside is already making enough noise with his hinges.”

Maia let herself fall onto the corner bed, as if still processing how unfair her fate had been.

“I wasn’t expecting this…” she finally said. “On the last planet I visited, there was an absurd rule: no one could turn their back on the statues of their leaders. I didn’t know, and when I turned to leave, they accused me of disrespect. The sentence was immediate: imprisonment in this station, at the edge of their galaxy.”

I opened my eyes wide and covered my mouth, fighting back a laugh.

“That is some really bad luck.”

She stared at me intently, then finally asked the inevitable question:

“And you? Why are you locked up?”

I raised a finger, like I was about to reveal some great secret, and smiled cheekily.

“Well… let’s just say one day, with nothing else to do, I started blowing up moons for fun. They were so beautiful, like fireworks! The problem was, apparently, those moons had an owner. Turns out, they belonged to the same civilization that built this charming little prison.”

Maia studied me silently for a moment, and then, for the first time, she let out a hearty laugh.

“Next time, I won’t hesitate to laugh in their faces too…”

Days passed, and on one of them, while I calmly gathered her blonde hair, strand by strand, shaping it into a fluffy round bun atop her head, I leaned toward her and said:

“How about I teach you a new language to pass the time?”

She just looked at me with interest and nodded, unaware that she would soon become an accomplice in my escape. Naturally, she would come with me—after all, she was my cellmate.

My plan started simple: there is a universal language among the major intelligent species, and I could use it to communicate with Maia. First, I needed to teach her a code that no one would understand during the escape. I taught her a language I had invented one idle day—before ending up a prisoner—and we practiced together.

I waited for our rest day as the routine went on. During that time, I read aloud random words in the universal language so Maia could grasp their meaning. She repeated these words in the new language I was teaching her. I made her practice in front of the cameras, pronouncing the words as if they were nonsense, so the guards wouldn’t suspect anything. Once she understood enough, we just had to wait for the day of rest.

The day finally arrived. We were sitting in the central area of the prison, Maia and I studying new words. I scolded her for not understanding properly—but in truth, I was just acting so our fake tension would seem real.

Then, in a flash, I stood up, confronted her, and yelled—this scene had to look real for anyone watching: I insulted her, called her useless for not speaking the language properly. She got up, confused by my sudden behavior; I struck her hard enough to knock her to the floor. It was a brutal choreography that almost made me cry at what I was doing. She grabbed her cheek, got up through tears, punched me in the stomach, and I kicked back. We continued until the guards rushed in to separate us.

As punishment, they locked us in separate cells, each at opposite ends of the hallway. These were the kind of cells that assaulted your senses: dark, walls designed to absorb every sound until the only thing you could hear was the beat of your own heart. It wasn’t my first time in this place. The first time I’d been punished for complaining and throwing away the disgusting food they offered, I was locked here for seven hundred and twenty hours. No one watched you closely; meals arrived every twenty-four hours with a sealed juice box, preserved with a thin plastic layer.

I had a trick in mind: I would moisten the plastic layer with my breath, then push my hand through the food slot and press it against the digital panel of the adjacent room, which was cleaned only every 168 hours. My goal was to leave fingerprints for the guard to leave a trace.

After the guard came and left, I would slip my hand through the slot again to peel off the nylon from the neighboring room’s numeric panel—used for entering the code—and, using the pattern of his fingerprints, try to deduce the room’s password.

By the way, in the bun I made for Maia, I hid a little note with the escape procedure. I hoped that, irritated by my scoldings and the blows, she would undo the bun and find the note.

The moment came. A guard came to clean the next room, entered the code, and left. I carefully removed the nylon: sixteen squares in total, with ten marked. I had to figure out the order of those ten marks. Only one attempt per twenty-four-hour cycle was possible—if I tried all at once, the system would detect it. I began testing patterns. On my fourth attempt, when a guard came to deliver the food, I took advantage of his departure to enter a new pattern that, finally, worked.

I acted fast. From behind, I approached the guard and grabbed the weapon strapped to his leg. I dragged him into my cell and, during the struggle, shot him in the head. I left my cell again and ran to a monitoring booth where another guard was overseeing that section of the prison. I shot him, took control of the console, and deactivated artificial gravity. In seconds, the hallways filled with floating, disoriented guards. Controlled chaos—it was exactly what we needed. Now all that remained was for Maia to do the same on the other side.

I ran down corridors lit by emergency lights that blinked like the pulse of a dying heart. The guards’ bodies drifted, disoriented, spinning slowly in the absence of gravity. I shoved a few aside as I rounded a corner… and then I saw her.

Maia.

She was coming toward me, hair tousled, a small suitcase in hand, an expression of obvious discomfort on her face. I stopped in front of her and offered a smile.

“Knew you wouldn’t be left behind,” I said, giving her a clap on the shoulder.

She gave a tired but genuine smile and dropped the suitcase onto the metal floor. She opened it wordlessly, revealing two energy cores inside—one for each of us. The instant our hands touched them, the matter around us reacted. A silvery glow spread, enveloping us completely.

“Time to go,” I said.

I nodded. We sprinted down a narrow passage and climbed a stairwell that would likely take us to the exterior. When we reached the top, we pried open a small hatch and, without thinking twice, climbed out of that great prison.

Before us unfolded the prison’s outer surface: a dark sea studded with stars and the distant lights of our galaxy—and of those who had buried us here.

Our eyes met for a brief instant, knowing the next step left no room for mistakes.

There were our ships. Without wasting another second, we pushed off toward them, floating among shards of technological scrap.

Before boarding our ships, I turned to Maia.

“Quick question: how good are you at piloting and fighting an army?” I asked.

Maia smiled, part nervousness, part confidence.

“Better than you,” she said.

We boarded our ships. Systems roared to life, and in the blink of an eye we were airborne. But hardly had we cleared the prison’s low orbit when we saw them: a swarm of ships, all crewed by guards, pouring out in pursuit.

The firing began immediately, lighting the empty space like fireworks. Maia and I weaved in zigzags, pulling daring maneuvers that pushed us to the edge, our voices crackling through the comms.

“You’re too slow!” she shouted after blowing up one group of ships with a well-placed missile.

“I’m just giving you the lead!” I shot back proudly, popping a couple of ships with a precise burst.

The battle turned into a dizzying dance: explosions flared like fleeting suns around us, wreckage drifted in scattered pieces, and the swarm seemed to multiply without end.

Every time an enemy fell, Maia laughed like a madwoman. I heard it through the comm link and mimicked the sound of my guns with my lips.

The swarm gave no quarter. They multiplied by the second, unleashing volleys of solidified energy that we barely dodged. Then, off in the distance, a massive field of asteroids appeared—a chaotic tangle of rocks spinning in unpredictable directions.

“That’s our way out!” I yelled over static.

Maia didn’t hesitate. She followed. We dove into the field, dodging stone colossi that could pulverize us in an instant. My hands moved by instinct, tilting the ship inches from impact after impact. Maia, behind me, matched me with astonishing skill. The tin guards weren’t so lucky: several of their ships struck the rocks and exploded, their flares opening a path for us.

“Hold on, the reactors are almost charged!” Maia shouted, breath ragged.

My ship’s core vibrated intensely; energy bars on the console climbed slowly. We were seconds away.

“Ready! Prepare for the jump!”

I clutched the controls, primed to escape. But just as the engines howled and the maneuver began, something unexpected happened: a small asteroid slammed into my wing. The jolt was brutal, systems glitched, and my ship veered into an uncontrolled spin.

“Anna!” Maia’s voice screamed through the comm.

I couldn’t stop it; the jump had been queued and, amid alarms and smoke, the ship was swallowed by the light-warp of hyperspace.

Seconds later, Maia managed to trigger her jump as well, though with a slight delay. The curvature carried her to the destination point… but when she came out, the first thing she must have noticed was the silence. Around her, space stretched vast and empty—no sign of enemy ships.

Only one thing was missing.

“…Me.”

I can already picture Maia turning her gaze in every direction, expecting to find me right beside her. I hope she takes the trouble to look for me—because I am in serious trouble.