There isn’t even enough time to regret your refusal–not enough time for me to berate you, even. It’s mere seconds that pass between the time they cut us down from the ceiling, and we’re tossed across the hall into the airlock. Literally tossed. Still bound. I land on my face, absorbing most of the blow as the floor slams against us–but you can feel the impact rattle through your aching spine, too.

And then, as the rush of frigid not-air meets you, just before the oxygen sucks out of the room you hear me swearing at you, and just before your eyeballs freeze you see the sweet Trinidarian hulk who helped you float off into the void to die–orbited by a rat-sicle.