Darkness swallowed them. Vatra felt a fear trickle up her spine—one she hadn't felt in a long time. She dared a look over to Spyro and swallowed the hard lump in her throat.
"This is not good," Spyro echoed Vatra's own feelings.
Nodding, Vatra undid her restraints. She didn't wait for the ship to stop moving. Stepping out of the cockpit, Vatra looked over the others with a wide sweep of her gaze.
"What's the plan?" Hisato inquired.
"Plan?" Vatra chuckled. She reached a hand over and motioned over a space behind the cockpit. A compartment spun open, revealing a multitude of weapons. "Well, I've never been one to go down quietly."
Revna stepped forward, her hand slapping against Enyalius' chest in an attempt to stop him from approaching the weapons. His sparkling eyes lost their glimmer as they dropped away from the array of guns and knives.
"I can at least look like I could kill one of them," Enyalius said.
Shaking her head, Revna motioned through the cockpit. "That's not it. If we go out there with weapons hot, we'll all immediately be shot at. And not all of us will survive that," she replied.
"Yeah, not sure how I feel about dying that way," Hisato muttered. He slicked back the sides of his mohawk and leaned against the counter in the small kitchen.
Silence passed between them. The ship jolted to a stop, and they all swayed on their feet like stalks of grain.
Vatra snapped a gun from the compartment. The shortened stock of the weapon mimicked the shape of a shotgun, but the ammunition it fired was even more destructive.
"Now you're acting like a god," Enyalius mused. He hopped over the metal grating, magnetic boots thudding with each step, and clapped his hands together in an almost giddy manner. "Throw caution to the wind. I love this plan!"
"I do not," Spyro disagreed. He placed a hand on the barrel of Vatra's weapon and yanked it away from her.
Cutting her eyes to Spyro, Vatra kept herself from grabbing the weapon back. "I'm not letting us all die here."
"If they wanted us dead, they would have shot us down," Nat said. She pushed herself from the wall, where she had been leaning in a quiet observance of the others, and walked confidently toward Vatra.
A feeling of unease gripped Vatra's heart. She narrowed her eyes at Nat. "They seem like the type to play with their food before they eat it. Maybe they thought blasting us from space was too quick."
Nat shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think that's the case here."
"And you're so sure about that?" Vatra pushed. She stepped closer to Nat and straightened her back. "Am I the only one that saw what happened to Belltower? I'd bet a life on the fact they want us all dead."
"We don't have time to argue," Revna interrupted.
As if on cue, the boarding ramp to the Agkistrodon lowered. The enemy had managed to hack into their controls, apparently, and were about to come on board.
Spyro rushed over and returned the gun back to the hidden compartment. Seconds before the first thud of a boot sounded, the weapons were concealed once more.
"Show us your hands!" A voice shouted.
Dragging her eyes from boring holes into Nat's skull, Vatra found herself looking out over half a dozen armored soldiers. Their dark grey suits were well-made; they were no pieced-together scraps. Each suit was a replica of the other, appearing shaped to the wearer over a black jumpsuit beneath. The symbol displayed on the chest plate of their armor was the same one on the ship and jamming signal.
The weapons the soldiers held were similar to automatic rifles from Earth, except the muzzles were charged with a white light.
That's new, Vatra thought. She turned, admiring the weaponry. What she wouldn't give to add those to her arsenal.
"Hands up! Any weapons down and on the ground!" one of the soldiers shouted, motioning their weapon at Vatra.
Following the directions, Vatra slowly pulled free her godkillers and dropped them to the grating. She heard a few of the others relinquish their own hidden weaponry.
Vatra raised her hands on either side of her. Palms facing the soldiers, she started forward after the others in a single file. Slowly, they exited down the boarding ramp and into the belly of the enemy's vessel.
She couldn't help but admire the ship. Vatra pushed all thoughts of their imminent death away and took in the structure with awe. It appeared they were only in the docking bay still, but it was packed on either side with small vessels that filled every station floor to ceiling.
A long window looked out over the bay, but it was impossible to see anything behind it. The bright lights overhead and reflections of the other small, white vessels blocked the view. They marched toward a hallway illuminated in the far corner, white walls visible even from the distance they were at.
No one talked as they walked on. Vatra cast a wary look at a few workers they passed, trying to gather any information she could from their expressions. None of them returned the interest. They all continued on their work in complete diligence.
Blowing a raspberry, Vatra folded her hands behind her back and returned her attention ahead. She picked apart the hairs out of place in one of Revna's braids, wishing she could reach forward and fix them for her.
It took everything in Vatra's power not to open her mouth and say something. A sideways look at the glowing muzzle of the weapon just an arm's length away from her gave her even more motivation to stay quiet just a little longer. If they were going to kill her, she could yell anything she wanted then. Just not now, when the others were in danger, too.
At last, they reached the hallway. It was a short walk and a few turns later where they finally stopped. One of the soldiers opened a door, pushed Spyro inside, and closed the door.
"Wait a min-" Vatra started, but she was yanked to the other side of the hallway. She caught a flash of everyone else being pushed into separate rooms before she, too, was closed inside a room herself.
The room was completely black. Beneath her, solid ground turned to open space. Vatra fell. She slid and spun, careening down like she were on some slide at a park.
It didn't take long for her to slip out into another room, so she believed. The sound of a wall sealing shut behind her signaled the way in was gone. After a few moments, a light flickered on overhead and revealed a space barely large enough for her to take three strides in any direction.
They'd split them all up from one another.
Smart.
Vatra blinked hard and looked up at the light. She drew her gaze down the mirrors surrounding her on all sides. Even the ground and ceiling reflected her worried expression.
"Gods, is that what I look like from below?" Vatra pushed a finger into the skin beneath her chin and sighed. "What an awful angle for anyone."
Taking a step back, her magnetic boots tapped loudly over the glass. She tested the strength of the material with a firm stomp, but found that they weren't regular mirrors. They didn't even have a scratch against her attempts to break them.
"Makes sense," she observed aloud.
One thing she wouldn't admit was that Nat had been correct. They hadn't been immediately killed. Though, maybe forcing them to look at themselves at all their worst angles was the enemies' idea of torture. Vatra could think of a few hundred more creative ways for torture. She'd experienced a few herself.
Spinning around on the toe of one of her boots, Vatra wondered if they were going through the Agkistrodon. Hopefully they weren't messing with her things.
"Oh, shit!" Vatra thudded down with her other foot. "Poor Aspi. I hope they leave you alone," she said. A smile crept to her lips. "They'll be in for a big surprise if they mess with you, though."
Returning to her attempt to preoccupy herself, Vatra started to hum along to her favorite songs one by one. Bobbing her head along to the beats in her mind, she danced around in what little space the room provided.
If there was one thing her many lives had taught her, Vatra had learned to keep her mind grounded and focused. Their attempt to break her will was going to be beaten by the lyrics of a dozen Fleetwood Mac songs.