9
Starla
Starla figures they’ll just put her in another cell, but they only let the smoky air out and toss her back in. The air looks clear now, but it stings her eyes and scours her sinuses.
Starla surveys the damage.
The thin mattress is scorched and soggy on the far end, and the blanket — and her pillow, she notes sourly — are both gone. The brushed aluminum wall above the toilet is licked by a rainbow sheen. The toilet itself is a misshapen hunk of scrap metal now, but somebody’s put a bucket out next to it for her to use. Starla wrinkles her nose.
She sits on the damp mattress for a moment, but the smell of scorched metal is giving her visceral flashbacks of the Nanshe —
Strapped in against the maneuvering and helpless while on the screen Silk Station is disintegrating, shuttles
