02b: Miracles from Thorns

Klara

SLAM!

Klara's escape ship dove and skidded along the great plains of a nearby giant meteor slab. The colours of dull brown and the crushing pain of being trapped in one's own ship as it came tumbling toward was all that she could see and feel. If the ship Klara had boarded was any other escape ship with semi-capabilities of an escape ship, maybe she wouldn't have felt that way.

Usually, escape ships could fly over at least a few hundred kilometres before they broke a hole or have their oxygen tanks squeezed out of them. But not Bose's escape ships. If he wanted you dead like a spring roll on a silver plate, then Klara knew that you'll be damned to be a spring roll on a silver plate regardless.

Klara kicked the doors of the escape ship that was closed tight.

Galaxy-ridden…!

Klara's situation was not unheard of. Yes, she was being squeezed out of her life, and she was about to get blown up by an escape ship, she was still in good shape to escape from the, ironically, escape ship. Bose had done her good. In fact, Bose had probably done a lot of his enemies good. Who would ever thought that of all the dangerous places out there in the galaxy, the escape ship would cause so much trouble for a bounty hunter with a sea of experience? Not Klara, of course. If she didn't work her way out of this predicament, she might become a dead bounty hunter.

Gotta' deal with the galaxy-ridden door first…!

Klara pulled her hand right to where she kept Venge. There was a shuffle and a click, and Venge was now out from its holster. She struck the claw deep behind the handles of the door of the ship, and with whatever remaining strength she had left, which as she realised wasn't a whole lot, she pulled it right towards her.

TUG. TUG.

…

CRASH!

The handle smattered loose and broke apart, allowing Klara to push herself up and out from the escape ship. It took her a few seconds to get used to the blinding light outside before she recognized it. The red essence that hung in the sky like a bright torch had been blazing down on the hunter. She had remembered it like the last time she was here.

The Scarlet Skies. That was where Klara was, in the part of the region of the galaxy where population wasn't stifled and the economy was still functional. Nowadays, little things like making sure that she wasn't about to get her head blown off was top priority. Not the colour of the sky, the winds in these particular areas, and who she'd owed money to.

Klara's eyes lowered to the surroundings around her. The light didn't quite attack her like when she had left from the escape ship. Blue sky, green buildings and dead flowers. Klara walked out a little further before she allowed herself to take a gander that no longer lived to blossom in front of her.

Sad, she thought. Shame. Perhaps the trees in these areas had tall beams, leaves that swayed gently and freely, and now there were no more. The trees had died, the plants withered, but at least the sky was still blue, she figured. There had to be some form of positivity to take from all this once-was. And she knew that more than anyone. She used to live on the once-was. Taken by Serro Crane, taken by the all-conqueror, and now her quest is to get back at that galaxy-ridden prick.

Klara always knew that the escape ships on Bose's ship or any of the ships that belonged to the people she tried to kill were always never far-ending. And if they did, they wouldn't get far from where they crashed, and he would personally chase them down and eliminate them. Thankfully for her, or not, Bose was on a little mission to God-knows-where. She was perhaps still just a little spy on a man who had yet to pick up the swatter.

Klara wasn't the smartest in the galaxy, and she was obviously not dumb. She knew full well that heading into a colossal fort of Bose's or anybody else's ship meant that she was either going to have to fight her way out, die, or simply become a prisoner of that skirmish. She had envisioned everything, but that was only in her mind. If it did play out just as she expected, she was sure she would have been able to deal with it efficiently. If only things fell in place at the right time, or if she could only do it well enough --

"So," an elderly woman said as she watched Klara stand a few metres away from the fiery remains of the escape ship. "Are you alright, sweety?"

She wore what seemed to be stripes of grade-B military armor that seemed to have been used long before she even held it. The colours had faded, her skin toned, and her eyes were like large cannonballs waiting to fire. Her hair was parked to one side revealing a solemn tattoo that scorched the side of her head. It was a tattoo of what seemed to be a helmet of some sort, probably belonging to a cult or a gang of some kind.

Cute, Klara thought.

Next to the woman was a new Parmacular. A speedy, neon-chromed two-seater that reminded people of what it was like for high-speed land travel from cities to cities. The intensity. The rides. The breeze. The breeze was no longer there, but it was good and it seemed fitting to remind them of days they never got to experience a thousand years ago. It had the base chassis of a car, but the horsepower of a small speeder that allowed the Parmacular to burst forward when it needed to in order to gain an edge in small distances during chases or escapes. While the vehicle did contain two wings that could be enabled from the inside, the Parmacular wasn't able to fly a straight distance without dropping down or dipping its head downward. At some point a vehicle can only do so much, and this particular vehicle wasn't a ship, that's for sure.

Behind the two seats was also a small little hatch in which things can be deposited to and fro. While Klara had never driven nor been in any of these, she couldn't quite to attest to whatever it was that people placed inside the hatch for. Maybe it was a form of drugs, Xyuke, an emotion-enhancing drug that a lot of new-formed junkies would sip right into tubes and up their noses like new kinds of addicts.

She wants me. Klara watched the woman from a distance. She has to know who I am. I can't let her know about anything.

Klara checked herself. The lights of the Purple Thorn were still bright, the Tetoid gem was still shining, her helmet still covering the rounds of her face and she was probably capable enough of fighting her way through at least a dozen high-class armored pricks. This woman would be no match for her.

Klara ignored the woman and went back to the burning abomination of a ship and retrieved her blade, checking for anything that she may have left behind in the wreckage.

"You know, I could give you a ride back to the city. Or, well, what remains of a city. Not that you're from here, of course," the woman said. "Name's Moryna. M-O-R-Y-N-A."

"I'm not looking for a ride, lady," Klara said, pushing back up her hair and wincing as she limped her way forward to the green buildings in the near distance.

Shit'll take a while to heal.

Moryna smiled as she strode herself towards Klara. The uneasy feeling pointed at the back of the hunter was enough to convince the hunter to stop moving.

GUN COCK.

"I know who you are, Purple Thorn," Moryna said, "and I suggest you come with me. Not a threat or anything, just saying."

"And if I don't?" Klara said, trying to play it cool. That's the definition of a galaxy-ridden threat right there.

"Your choice, but so far, people who've decided to not do what I tell them at this point of the conversation usually end up dead, or dead."

"Then there's not much of a galaxy-ridden choice."

Moryna laughed. "That's what I'm telling ya'."

Klara sighed.

Galaxy-ridden prick.

"Like I said, your choice," Moryna pushed the gun up behind Klara's back.

SLIDE.

Klara was feeling less comfortable by the second.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I want you to come with me," Moryna demanded.

Moryna slapped an electric bracelet that tied Klara's hands behind her back and locked it, bringing her towards the Parmacular and placing her into the passenger's seat.

"You do know that I'm no threat to you, and that I've somewhere to go," Klara said, eyeing Moryna as she went across the front of the vehicle to the driver's seat.

"I know," she said, entering into the driver's seat. "But that doesn't mean that makes you any less of who you are, does it, Purple Thorn?"

Ah, guessing games again. And I've won the grand galaxy-ridden prize.

"I'm not always going to abide what you say, just a heads-up," Klara said truthfully. It wasn't because she was a rebel, but it was because she really had somewhere to be.

"I expected that," Moryna said.

"And just for the record, I'm going to kill you if I get the chance."

Moryna grinned. "We'll see, won't we?" She started up the engines, and then took another longing look at Klara.

"What?" Klara said, annoyed, drifting out to the clouds of white.

"You know, you seemed more intimidating in the rumours that swirled."

"Give me my gun, and I'll make sure those rumours become truths."

Moryna smiled. "That's what I expected," she said, and the Parmacular drove right on the paths that lead to the tiny green city up ahead.

The dust had settled along the path, and the green buildings were getting nearer and nearer. Up ahead, in the clouds, Klara could only wonder if she could see Bose's ship from where she was. Perhaps Bose had already reached his destination and was preparing for another deal to give Serro a new power to wield. She shuddered at the thought, but she had to get herself out of the chains first.

Her leg had somewhat healed, though not fully. If she were to start running at her usual pace she could get herself in more trouble than what she intended for.

"Do you know where we are?" Moryna asked Klara as she kept her eyes on the road.

"Scarlet Skies," Klara replied.

"You've got any enemies here?"

"I'm not going to answer every question you throw at me," Klara said.

"Fair. That's fair. But I would like you to know that I'm not privy to the information you disclose. I just want to know why a serial killer would be in town. One that's as infamous as famous as yourself."

That was a crude way of saying something, Klara thought, but people are people. They say one thing and forget about another. Or they say one thing and say another.

"I didn't drop in just to say hi. I was on a-" Klara stopped herself. Giving away needless information was definitely not the way to go.

"On a what? A trip? In your favourite rocket ship?" Moryna continued from where Klara had left off. The hunter wasn't sure whether to laugh or to keep motionless, or a mix of those emotions, but she went with keeping a straight face. Perhaps that was better, without having to emote or use those tired muscles on her face, allowing her to use them for later when the bang bangs and the shoot shoots got out of control.

That always happens.

"I don't think that's much of your concern," Klara said.

"If you're on a rocket ship, then it is very much my concern. These thing have been exchanged for lighter aircrafts, speedy corvettes and terminal carrier ships that have come and gone," Moryna said. "They are a thing of the past, and we're living in the future."

Of course I'd galaxy-ridden know that, I'm not an idiot!

The Parmacular drove past a dozen of ruined buildings that seemed to have roots and tendrils rising over them. Nature had taken control of this land and this slab of meteor, and maybe, it will continue to do so. This planet is, at its current state, uninhabitable. But could you even call it a planet?

Klara shot a look at Moryna. She didn't seem concerned about the lands and how the flora and fauna had taken over life here, but being concerned with rocket ships and how it was to live life in the past? Maybe she was just pulling her leg, or maybe she was just finding it funny, which as Klara thought about it, both of them were largely the same.

"We're here," Moryna said with a less-than enthusiastic tone about their arrival.

Moryna stopped the Parmacular by the front of a towering building. On its outside, the fading colours of green and blue and the signs of old-age concrete seemed to indicate that life had gone for this once-great building, sort of like the fading colours that Moryna wore. Klara wasn't very good at noticing these things, but when she had seen what the building looked like, and how ugly and desperate it's pillars had become, she felt a little hurt inside. Moryna stopped the engines and exited the Parmacular.

"What is this place?" Klara said as Moryna walked over to the hunter to pull her out of the vehicle.

"This is a jail for you, but a hideout for the rest of us. And just to add a little touch onto the extremes for you, you'll be staying here for quite some time."

"Cherry," Klara said.

Another day, another galaxy-ridden problem.

While most hunters were able to adapt to changing conditions, situations and circumstances, Klara was different. Yes, she was your typical hunter. Rob, loot and steal, but most importantly, to eliminate the target bounty that had been set upon by her client. She'd trained very much so, sharpening her skills as she took out each target one-by-one. This enabled Klara to be proactive in her search for her target, and being able to be as relentless as possible. Though, she must admit, she is still improving upon the last point.

One thing Klara couldn't quite admit to having was a soft heart. Or, at least, that was what she thought. When she had come around to the point that perhaps a hunter can indeed have a heart of gold, or a heart in the first place, it would limit the hunter's ability to be the best in the galaxy. In this case, Klara's search for revenge against Serro Crane. She dismissed the fact that it would be easy, with the rage and the anger burning inside of her, to take out Serro without a drip of regret. It was the easiest of her targets to manage, but the hardest to get to.

Usually, on her trips to reaching her target, she would end up in areas she didn't want to. She would also be a victim, a prisoner, or a variety of those things. But she was still alive, and that was a testament to her ability to be smart and out-think her opponent and her target. Maybe she did need to re-think about how she felt about her intellectual self. Not a lot of hunters survive coming conflict and still end up with limbs that are not detachable.

That was a point, too. Klara had a code for herself, a principle she stuck by with. Unless the enemy was a target she had intended to kill, then there will be no mercy. Otherwise, there would be conflict. Conflict is not good for anyone, but for a hunter, this doesn't complicate situations. Rather, it overcomplicates everything.

Seems the only way is to get out of this mess, Klara thought as Moryna and her arrived to the door that lead into the tall, old building, is by classic brutal effort.

"So, what are you hiding in there, a cult of idiots?" Klara said.

"No, not exactly a cult. More like a clan, or a gang of some sort. We're not really privy to share information that would enable us to get wiped out, would we?" Moryna said.

"You've just shown me your location, didn't you? Aren't you afraid I might come back to kill you? Or worse, torture you? Make banana skins out of you and your cult of idiots?" Klara said.

"Darling," Moryna said, "there's a lot you still don't really know. For example, you don't know whether you'd get out of here, or whether if you knew exactly what was inside, or if you'd know what I'd do to you if I had the chance. Which, I must preface, would be worse than what you can ever clearly do to me."

"Try me," Klara said.

"That's my plan," Moryna said. Her face glimmered with a smile. She stepped over to the left of the door and placed her hand to the scanner. The door zipped open.

PSSH. CRACK-BOOM.

Moryna grabbed Klara by the shoulders and carried her forward.

Bunch of cats with sharper and longer claws then necessary, Klara thought. But she's nervous.

Klara could tell when Moryna had dragged her forward and further deep into the building. This wasn't much of a tell, at least not from the naked eye, but it was a good point that she'd want to take note and advantage of if she could. That was what a hunter does after all. No hunter that didn't do that survived anything.

Other than broken down computers, some spare parts that could have been useful to furnaces, the building interiors were empty and abandoned for what looked to be years. Klara was no seeker, but she could tell by the deep tunnels that Moryna was leading her into show more than what meets the eye.

"So, how did you get into the murdering business?" Moryna said.

"You've got a little too much saliva to waste, don't you?"

"I asked you first."

"I'm not answering anything."

"Okay, then maybe if I asked you another question, you'd be able to answer something."

"Perhaps I wasn't clear. I'm not answering shit."

Moryna grinned. Klara knew she was going to ask anyway.

"How many times have you been to this region of the galaxy, hunter?" Moryna said. "The Scarlet Skies seem to interest you very much, doesn't it?"

I'm not answering, Klara thought. Besides, there's no reason to.

"You know the targets you've eliminated? Perhaps you'd like to know a little thing or two about them," Moryna said. "Perhaps you're aides or your friends do."

No, I don't.

The ceiling light at the end of the hall grew brighter, and Klara knew they were reaching the end. Perhaps this was her chance to strike. Let Moryna speak her monologue, let her soliloquy herself out of her own expense, and when the opportunity arrived, she would take it and not look back. She hadn't dealt much with people of her kind. In fact, she was hardly ever a prisoner where her captor was beside her all the time, asking question after question. It was annoying. A hunter like her was thrown into jails first before even being accepted into a normal conversation. This was unfamiliar territory for Klara, but a territory that she did not want to experience ever again.

"We're here," Moryna said as they reached a room of stairs that spiralled up into the heavens and lowered down into the depths of hell. Even if the depths had disappeared into the darkness below, a glint of light from one of the stray lamps allowed Klara a view into what she could see down into the bottom.

There were children. Lots of them, as Klara saw from up above, preparing to work on a new set of vehicle, a Parmacular. A new and improved version, as Klara expected, with a model that she hadn't quite seen before. Children, as Klara could identify, as young as 8 or 10-year-olds had been tasked to work on the vehicle.

Galaxy-ridden, she thought. Moryna's using orphans as slaves!

Klara was at first horrified at the thought of child slaves, but her perspective wandered somewhere else.

What if the kids meant to do it themselves? What if the orphans were just like… me? Used, misused, and trained and raised in ways they never had a chance of saying?

Up above, through the transparent ceiling, Klara could also see a dozen or so other children carrying what seemed to be ship parts around from one end to the next. Some of them had tiny arms that could barely lift whatever part it was they were carrying. Some of them were carrying large fan blades that needed three or more other kids to carry together.

Klara's instincts immediately snapped to Moryna being a terrible, displeasing, disgusting monster. Big mother, or something like that, but still with horrible traits.

"What is there to see?" Klara said. "That you use these kids as a way for you to shuffle your product to come together?"

"Orphans," Moryna said. "These children were orphans, are orphans. Not born so, not prepared so, but they are now."

"And this concerns me how?"

Moryna pointed to one of the kids below. He had a maroon cap, was of short height and had flimsy fingers as he tried to lift up a heavy gear. "Tomard Leony's kid," Moryna said. "Was a target by a bartender from a few years ago. I think you know what happened to him."

It's true, Klara did. Tomard was a target placed by Elph Yura, a bartender from one of the nearby bars. After Tomard got drunk and smashed up Elph's bar, Elph sent out a hit onto Tomard to make sure that he would never see the light of day ever again. Klara was the first to pick up the bounty that was then sent through the score pipeline. Unfortunately, Healy, Tomard's wife, was also caught in the complications. But she didn't remember no kid.

She's missing the point. She's trying to get a reaction out of me. I'm not going to blunder it here like an idiot.

Klara didn't answer Moryna regarding the kid. There was no need to. What would it help? To ease the pain of death? To ease the pain of grief? Or to ease the pain of lying, right to her face?

"There," Moryna said, to a girl with long hair and a bandage wrapped around her arm. "Myrstle Shone. An orphan only just last month. Does the last name ring a bell?"

"I know what you're trying to do," Klara said as her mind revolved around her most recent trips to Scarlet Skies. "And it's not working."

"I'm not stupid," Moryna said. "I'm not here to play games with a hunter that is equipped to kill me and leave with no remorse. What I'm trying to show you is that you can't keep getting away with this."

Getting away?

Klara didn't understood what Moryna was saying. Yes, she was a hunter. Yes, she showed no remorse. But what was she supposed to do? Being a hunter was a job, and like every job in the galaxy, nobody gets away with anything in their job, especially a hunter. It would take a fool to pay the price for doing what they were tasked to do, even if it meant they were emotionally attached one way or another.

For Klara, like everyone in the desperate galaxy, credits always came first. Living was always the main priority, not whether a child had a parent or not. Even if Klara was an orphan herself.

"It'll take a lot," Klara said, "to convince me of my sins. And I know about all of them."

Moryna walked closer. "You don't need convincing. You just need to pay the price that has been long indebted to you, right now." She held a plasma knife from behind her. A small, sharp dagger that glowed neon green with a toxic edge that seemed to prove more dangerous than Klara admitted. Still, she had dealt with worst.

Shit. I need to use that dagger as my advantage, Klara thought. If she didn't make a move fast, the dagger was to come right up onto her arm, or her thigh, or possibly throw her down for the kids below.

Kids below. That was a key. Klara shifted her leg backwards, taking a ready stance. It had to be quick and fast.

"You don't want to play with knives around a galaxy-ridden hunter, that's for sure," Klara said, buying enough time for her to think of an escape plan. "It's true, we don't have much remorse, and neither do we care that much about our bounties, kids or not."

"It seems I haven't gotten through to that thick skull of yours," Moryna said, bringing the knife ever so closer to the bounty hunter's neck.

Klara grinned. "And you never will."

Moryna lunged forward, her knife striking right at Klara. Years of training instincts and urgency have taught Klara well. Just before the edges of the blade had struck Klara's arm, she struggled right, allowing the knife to slice right into the handcuffs.

SNAP!

Off came the cuffs, tumbling and rattling down the stairs. With a light foot propelling Klara off the ground, she stabbed her feet into the gaps of the railing and dived down into the stairs below. Her cape spun, and so did she, and she was falling faster and faster, and her eyes could barely keep up.

This better galaxy-ridden work…!

Klara was free-falling. She kept her eyes open, her body watching the sky through the transparent ceiling, feeling the tight air and bristling wind brush up against her skin. She was almost reaching the end, and she reminded herself so.

Almost there...

It was a good feeling. It was almost…

...unending…

And yet, just before she had hit the bottom of the floor, before landing right into the Parmacular, Klara spun back around to face the ground.

...Now.

THUD!

Klara landed right in the driver's seat of the Parmacular, her hands freed of captivity. Now, her capabilities of becoming a hunter were back to what they've always been: enough to get away from pesky annoyances. She rubbed onto her knee. It was workable. Klara equipped her claw-hook gun and trained it right to the top of the building, and with her trigger finger, pulled the claw upwards to the top of the ceiling.

It was perhaps a little too easy.

"Children!" Moryna yelled from the railing up top. "Catch her!"

Klara watched the young little orphans, eyes too pure and innocent to understand attack. And she was right. The orphans only watched, returning back to fixing the Parmacular.

They were just… kids. Some of them not even old enough to dictate their own actions.

Shame, Klara thought. A child's life taken away from their very grasp, stripped to do the one thing that disabled them of enjoyment and their childhood. There had been moments before when Klara had thought she'd gotten away with her own childhood. Before the suffering, before the running little rats of living a life… Klara had indeed gotten away better than most of them.

So long.

Klara pushed her head upwards, and shot herself up to where the claw-hook had been trained at.

SHOOT!

She was rippling upwards, the freedom of the wind attacking her skin, and she was just about to pass Moryna by on her way up.

Galaxy-ridden prick!

With a swing of the arm, Klara moved away from where she knew Moryna would catch her and simply let herself get caught in the rapture of flying up.

RING!

Klara could only hear the sound of the buzzing wind, passing Moryna by in a quick instant before she could do anything else.

CRASH!

From above, Klara cracked open the ceiling and pulled herself up. A man, slender with slight muscles and brainy spectacles stuck to his face turned to face Klara with a clipboard in hand. Behind him, there were even more kids shuffling from place to place, dirt in the form of handprints on their faces, and their hands too busy with the heavy load that they were carrying.

Son of a bitch.

"You-" the man said, but he could barely get the words out before Klara started bolting off.

Klara had taken note of a light-premium jet, torn and tattered from delivery missions she supposed, but the ship was more than enough to carry her out of this shithole and take her to where she needed to go. She just needed to reach there before the man, who was now gaining speed on her, could get to.

No weapons. No tools. No special powers.

Klara grinned.

They can't possibly catch me.

Just as she reached the jet, Klara pushed herself upwards with one striking leg onto the jet. The force and the jump carried her upwards, and then somersaulting in the air before landing right behind the man that had ran all the way with a clipboard and hardly any fighting equipment.

Fool's gold, Klara thought.

Before the man could react, Klara threw a quick right hook across the man's face.

PUNCH!

The man crashed to the ground, barely conscious, his clipboard sliding fast and away from him.

"No, you can't take that jet!" The man screamed, barely clinging on and scraping his arms to get to Klara's legs as she climbed up the side of the ship. "It's not yours!" The man continued screaming.

Too late.

PSH!

Klara popped open the doors to the ship and allowed herself in without any danger. She started the engines immediately, trying to get back the time that she had lost here with Moryna. Her target was Bose, and eventually Serro. Not a woman and man with a bunch of orphans to their name.

And one that hoarded so many to do her outrageous bidding.

In the corner of Klara's eyes as she started up the jet and took it right into the skies she could see Moryna's tired expressions looking right up to her.

Nobody had won this little skirmish, as Klara would have liked it to be noted, even if she did steal a jet that belonged to the enemy's. All the lifting, all the commands. Young kids, some of them possibly equipped with bright futures, and yet here they were, scraping to fix things for a bunch of scumbags. But how was this Klara's concern? It wasn't, and she shouldn't try to have a hand on stirring this pot that she wasn't going to do anything with.

Looking up at the galaxy and the trail that Bose had given her, Klara drove the jet upward and onward. Catching Bose was top priority, not the kids. Of course, she was still scarred by them, partially with herself and how she was just like them.

No, not just like. I was. I used to be them.

Klara was always going to find herself in orphans or kids. That was a part of her that she could never change, and she was not going to.

Somethings have to change, she thought as her mind returned to one target. And it will have to begin with me.