#113

“Get down, friend cousin,” Mina says, yanking Jacob to the ground. Ahead of them is a medical cyborg, though the term “medical” is used here facetiously. It has its darts primed to fire into some unwitting victim's neck. Mina is aiming one of her guns at its head when suddenly it whips around and detects them.

Jacob lunges at it, and it fires at him. Mina gasps, but he slides down and knocks it over, as his legs meet its own. As it collapses it makes a braying sound, like a zombie donkey, but Jacob intends to put it out of its misery. A single punch downward with the metal glove—the same sort as the pair wielded by the medic—shatters something significant in its head or neck, killing it and releasing it from its torture.

That's when a bomb falls, blowing the two apart.

.

.

.

And by “apart”, we here mean that the bomb makes them separate; they are actually fine. But Jacob tumbles backwards, into something he didn't see in his focus on the cyborg. It's a pair of robotic mandibles, reaching out to drag him into a similarly-mechanical mouth. He gives out a tiny cry of anger before being sucked inside what turns out to be a one-person Imperial hovercraft.

Mina clambers to her feet just as it lifts off, flying south. She senses Jacob within—and he's alive.

Her cry is also of rage, but not of despair. Instantly, her adrenaline places her on a drive of rescue and revenge.