Ren's Guide On Dismantling A Crew

The deck under Aoi's knees didn't hum with the clean smooth purr of the Wanderer-7's core.

It rattled a lot.

The Black Kite was a predator built out of raw slate-iron and stripped-down military drives, and every burn sent a harsh grinding shudder through the cold steel plates and into her kneecaps like dull gravel. 

The air stank... stale recycled propellant, scorched insulation and the sharp copper stench of fresh blood.

Her wrists were wrenched behind her back and lashed to a horizontal reinforcement bar running along the port bulkhead of the raider's bridge. 

The coarse polymer rope bit into her skin until her fingertips had gone swollen and white and stretched out along the iron pipe beside her were the others.

All six of them, tied to the same load-bearing beam like cattle in a slaughterhouse chute.