Warchild(2)

Then she went quiet and a suited form walked around the corner. You didn't see the face. It wore a helmet with no markings on it, not like Mukudori helmets, and thin armor. You stared.

You stared. It came toward you like a creature from the vids, black and sleek, scarred on its reflective face, carrying a big gun. Rifle. It took its time. It said, "Kid," in a hollow voice that didn't seem to come from anywhere near where the mouth should have been. It walked toward you like you were no threat, walked over Derek where he lay still and staring. It tracked blood across the deck and that would've made Cap very, very mad.

You went deaf.

You raised your gun and shot the creature directly in the chest. Somehow your fingers had found the release and the trigger and the small gun went pop pop in your hand, spitting out two bright red pulses that burned the creature through its armor and cast it to the deck.

Two more came around the corner, faster.

Your hand spasmed again, raining red on the creatures so they scattered. Then you turned and ran because suddenly space became noisy again. Now you weren't deaf. Footsteps chased you. The creatures chased you. You knew all the towersteps and you took them, holding the rails, hooking your ankles and sliding down the way you'd done a hundred times, playing.

But somewhere along the line you'd dropped the gun. Going down the stairs.

Stupid, stupid Jos. They shouted above you on crew deck, below you from engineering deck. Now you were on the command deck where Cap should have been. You pounded away from corridor mains and into corners you knew from years of exploring. You remembered the best hiding place in the galaxy. You squeezed into that maintenance shaft and shrank back in the shadows, hoping the ship would not lose gravity, violently, and send the loosened grate across the deckplates. You smelled smoke and tried not to breathe.

Mukudori was dying. The steady low thrum of her atmospheric controls whined to a halt. You knew the word "die." You'd seen it now. Somewhere Simone shouted "No!" You heard Hasao screaming for Johann, you heard all the silences after, silence creeping toward you from all over the ship, deck by deck, until nothing remained but your own breathing.

Dead in space.

You lost the gun. You lost the gun and now you had no defense. Were you going to sit and wait for the creatures to leave the ship and shoot it from wherever they'd come from? Mama said that was what pirates did. What aliens did too, because they didn't like to take prisoners. Were you going to go out and look for Cap, for friends, for family? Daddy and Mama didn't know where you were. You shouldn't have left the secret compartment. You shouldn't have gone so far because now if they were looking for you they would never find you. You were in the best hiding place in the galaxy.

You couldn't breathe. The shaft was filling with smoke. You shut your eyes and covered your mouth with the bottom of your sweater but it didn't help. You coughed, big wracking coughs as if your lungs were going to fall out your mouth and onto your lap.

The grate opened and a thick, gloved hand reached in and dragged you into the blinking red lights that meant the ship needed help. You couldn't stop coughing, even when the hands pinched and felt you all over in places nobody was ever supposed to touch—Daddy had said so when you'd gone on stations and into playdens with other kids. But these hands poked and Daddy wasn't anywhere to hear your voice. You kicked and swung fists but the hands hit you then. The creatures kicked you and yelled at you to stop it or they'd shoot you. The violence of it shocked you motionless.

"He ain't armed," one of the creatures said.

"He was. This is the one killed Martine."

They hit you again. You stared at their boots. The deck was cold against your cheek. Above your head, far up against the lights the creatures carried on their distant, hollow conversation. You blinked and your eyes ran. Something red made a film over your sight.

"He'll be good. He's strong."

"Pretty."

"He'll grow. What does he look like, six?"

"Hey, kid, how old're you?" Something prodded your back. You couldn't answer.

"Look at his tag."

The gloved hand came back, smacked you when you tried to roll away. Your head spun and you couldn't see clearly. The hand reached in your sweater and yanked out the chained disk from around your neck. The reflective helmet that gave no features came close, looking at your face on the tag and all the basic information it held in case you were lost on station and something had happened to your parents or the ship. Something had happened. But these were the wrong people. They wouldn't help you.

In the helmet you saw your own eyes. They were black holes.

"Eight. Small for eight."

"Can use a P-90 well enough."