Wiped by Nicola Claire Page B

What now?
    No one moved. Not us. Not them. Not Lena with a fucking laser gun to her chin.
    What now?
    I scanned the room, as much of it as I could without moving. Assessing the potential threats. No one else had pulled a laser gun - they didn’t need to, one was enough - but that didn’t mean they didn’t have one hidden like the woman had.
    They looked old and injured, just as Beck had initially assessed. Those not missing limbs, or wrinkled as if sun damaged, lay out on thin beds, sightlessly staring at the high ceiling, or unconscious and unaware of what was happening all around them.
    For that, we could be grateful. But before we could capitalise on their weaknesses, we needed Lena free of Grandma Laser Gun.
    “Lena?” I asked, checking she was still with us.
    “It’s OK,” she whispered. Like I had to her in the tunnel. But it wasn’t to me, I realised. And it wasn’t in Anglisc.
    She was looking up at the woman, her voice pitched low and non-threatening. Her words, as they tumbled from her beautiful lips, reassuring. Caring. Compassionate.
    Lena . Always so understanding.
    “It’s OK,” she repeated. D’maru, my traumatised mind provided for me. “We understand,” she added.
    The woman looked down at her. Gun muzzle still pressed to the tender skin under her jaw. A big, ugly thing. Handmade. Cobbled together with spare parts. Likely to explode if she so much as twitched.
    Fucking hell.
    “This is your home,” Lena was saying. “We mean you no harm. This is your safe place and we have invaded. I’m sorry,” she said, still in D’maru, and God knows why she’d chosen that language. The pidgin Anglisc the Lunnoners used was more Anglisc than D’maru, with a confusing mix of Teiamanisch thrown in for good measure.
    But as we didn’t speak Urip’s language, I would have thought she’d settle on Anglisc. But this was Lena. And sometimes Lena saw things we didn’t.
    “We mean you no harm,” she repeated.
    It wasn’t working. The woman was looking at her, for sure, and so were several others in the room, but no one replied. No one shifted. And that fucking laser gun did not move an inch.
    “We come from an island far away,” Lena said. “We didn’t know anyone still lived in Lunnon. We’re trying to get to Hammurg.”
    And there was a reaction. One that sent chills down my spine. Someone hissed. Someone spat on the ground. But most of the people in the room just started to yell.
    “Calvin?” I queried quietly. They were speaking in that pidgin language again. We couldn’t understand a thing they said. But the intent? Hell yes. They were not happy we were heading towards Urip.
    Why?
    “Kill them,” Calvin translated softly in our ears. “Hand them over,” he added, his words carefully delivered as if he could soften the blow. “You know the penalty should we not.”
    Interesting. But not exactly promising intel. The Lunnoners had an agreement with Urip, then. And from what we already knew, anybody trading with Urip, be it goods, services or information, could expect it to backfire monumentally.
    It had for us.
    Things were escalating, and still I was too far away to make them stop. I don’t think I’ve ever known fear as I did right then. Watching Lena plead for her life in the arms of a fucked off super-gran.
    “They have our people too,” she said, her voice raised above the shouts of the Lunnoners. Raised enough for everyone to hear.
    The shouting ceased. The woman frowned. Nirbhay jabbered away frantically beside them, trying to get his mother - if that was what she was - to unhand Lena. It didn’t work.
    But Lena’s words had an effect.
    “They have our people too,” she repeated, again in D’maru. “We’re going to rescue them.”
    Holy shit the explosion of noise was deafening. And confusing. Even Calvin couldn’t translate what they were shouting. And then a bent figure came out from the shadows, over by the electrical light in the corner. He shuffled forward as the