by Barry Kirwan
Luke cleared his throat. “What about the other three ships?”
Saul drew his pulse pistol, checking the charge. “Decapitation strategy – we take out Blake, their leader, and all those aboard this ship. Louise will take care of the others.”
Luke nodded. “Good enough for me.” He’d only met Louise once, and had decided there and then that it was true what they said – the female of the species was deadliest, especially after her recent Q’Roth DNA transfusion, which had apparently honed her aggressive instincts.
He shifted on his feet. “I want to be the one to kill Micah.” He sheathed the stiletto. His eyes blazed. “Of all the parasites on this ship, his death deserves personal attention. If it weren’t for him, none would have escaped.”
Saul holstered his pistol. “The kill is yours. I’ve seen the roster. He should be outside with us later today. Just don’t underestimate him. Remember, Louise herself failed last time. Let’s go, it’s time to keep up our side of the bargain.”
Luke felt powerful, like a jaguar on the hunt, every muscle, every cell’s DNA united in single purpose. They slipped out of the room, disappearing into the hordes of human prey infesting the corridors.
* * *
Micah scanned the pasty, sun-starved faces around him while he sat in one of the ship’s dozen grimy canteens. Yellow light seeped out of the walls and ceilings, highlighting every crease of worry. Nothing could hide the stooped postures of a people whose backs had been broken by unimaginable loss – the near extinction of the entire human race.
He stared into his daily bowl of brown, nucleic phyto-soup – Sandy called it gloop – and stirred it absent-mindedly. Four sticky nondescript globs in his slurry-like food made him think of their four stolen Q’Roth transports, holding the last remnants of humanity within their hulking interiors. The four captains, Blake, Vince, Rashid and Jennifer, each took a disguised route – in case the Q’Roth tried to finish the job of genocide – to a new planet everyone hoped they could call home. But he couldn’t eat, despite the rumblings in his stomach. He felt like he was at a perpetual funeral, though it was two weeks since they’d escaped. Each time he tried to eat he imagined all the dead back on Earth who couldn’t. Survivor’s guilt, he knew, though having a name for it didn’t help. His stomach seemed to understand, like a family friend at a funeral patting him on the shoulder, unable to offer any words that could make a difference. He laid the spoon down and tuned in to a conversation at a nearby table, two men with their backs to him muttering their grievances.
“So, anyway, this planet, whose whereabouts they won’t even tell us, what the hell do they actually know about it? I mean, all they know is it’s out there somewhere, right? Don’t know shit about it otherwise, how could they?” The man poked the air with a knot of stale bread. “Like, is it really empty? Who’s to say the Q’Roth ain’t waiting for us right there, eh? I bet they don’t even know if it has water, food, or breathable air for God’s sake. And, it could be really hot or cold. I’m telling you, nobody knows shit about this planet.”
Micah shut his voice out, letting the sound of cheap cutlery on plastic tables drown it, along with the other muted, Spartan conversations that hung listlessly in the stuffy, catacomb-like ship, their temporary sanctuary. Still, the thought that they were drifting in uncharted space, with smouldering Earth far behind them, did nothing to whet his appetite.
He’d noticed how people clung to their meagre possessions, no matter how basic or common-place, and if they met someone who was miraculously from the same town, they became instant life-long friends. In the ‘evenings’, people gathered around anyone who had music or a vid-player; the lack of sound on the ship reinforced how much everyone had lost, how many human voices had been silenced. For Micah, who like most had escaped with his skin and little else, the sheer rootlessness of it all created its own chasm of nausea inside his guts. He interlaced his fingers and rested his brow against them.
Many complained of space sickness, though the doctors argued there was no reason for it – no vibration, no sudden movements, and certainly no pitching and yawing. He suspected nevertheless that the term was apt – people were literally sick of space, there was no ground, no earth beneath them, just a heartless vacuum.
He searched for something positive. Looking around him, at least people’s clothes weren’t ragged – it had only been a couple of weeks – but he noticed how most were starting to wear any old thing, as if nothing mattered. Black was the favoured colour, only adding to the morgue-like atmosphere in this behemoth of a ship, with its bottle-green walls that felt like dead skin to the touch. The ship, after all, belonged to their enemy.
“Not hungry?” Sandy dropped down into the seat opposite him, having already started her bowl.
He shook his head.
She soaked up her own steaming mush with a chunk of black, vat-produced, rye bread, eating with gusto. He watched, fascinated. He slumped back in one of the ubiquitous white gel-form chairs. Thank God you’re here, Sandy.
“It’ll probably end up on the cockpit shield like last time,” he said. “Want it?” He nudged the dish across the metal table. “Eating for two, after all.”
She launched a glare from beneath her pine-coloured fringe, conjuring in his mind a wild cat staring through jungle bushes – not a predator as such, but lethal when cornered. He decided not to say any more on the subject. Anyway, he guessed no one would suspect yet – she still looked as fit as a Tycho marathon-runner.
“Hope he appreciates this, one day,” she said frowning, pulling the dish towards her, lobbing rye meteorites into the primal, hyper-nutritional sludge.
“He?” Micah raised his eyebrows, but she ignored him. Watching carefully, he noticed she had to make an effort to swallow; and then he knew she hated it as much as he did. She was simply determined to put on a good show. It was due to her proper upbringing, he knew she would say, and she would be right – if only everyone onboard could make such an effort.
A gruff voice intruded. “Hey, ain’t you the sonofabitch who got us into this mess?”
Micah twisted around to see two men, the closest with a face as scarred as a strip-mined asteroid. The second was bear-like, stubby features shrouded in muddy brown hair and a straggling beard. They looked like cloudpunks – which meant trouble, since they could no longer get their drugs or kicks playing dodgem on high-alt jet-bikes. Shoulders hunched like jackals, the type who would only attack weaker prey. It was obvious who they were addressing.
Micah turned back to Sandy. Her right hand had dipped beneath the table. She had a wry smile on her face, he assumed because she was aiming a pulse pistol at the nearest man’s groin. Micah had the stun-pen in his pocket, but decided to leave it there – for now. He scraped his chair back, and rose to face the two ration-hollowed men towering over him. The smell of the nearest one’s breath almost made him sit back down.
“I’m Micah Sanderson, and, well, technically I got you out of a mess.” He tried to control his breathing, to appear calm, congenial even. His pulse pistol was in a locker four levels down, and these men were bone-breakers. He wasn’t sure the stun-pen would take them both out.
“Shouldn’t you be a little taller, less scrawny?” The closest one jabbed a finger into Micah’s sternum.
“With a decent haircut!” spat the second, smirking.
Micah kept his arms loose by his sides. He noticed several other people rise from their seats. This could get ugly. Ignoring the second man, he stared the first straight in the eye. “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” A leer scrawled across his bony face. “What do I want? From our resident hero?” He turned momentarily to his comrade.
Micah saw the opportunity to strike – Zack had been giving him combat training – but let it pass. He’d always seen violence as the very last resort, usually so late it just underlined failure.
The man’s unshaven face loomed close. He whispered loud enough so everyone could hear. “I want to knock a
piece off the prick who made us all run away when we should’ve stayed and fought those mother-fucking locusts.” Spittle decorated his lower lip. “You know, the asshole who has us cooped up in this garbage can flying to some Godforsaken planet where we’ll starve to death or tear each other to pieces.”
Micah stood his ground, guessing he was likely to be hit pretty soon. He continued to stare into the man’s hungry eyes, the bloodlust welling up inside them. Micah didn’t blink. Neither did the man.
“Try to leave his brain intact,” Sandy said, still sitting.
“H-hey, Lady,” the second man stuttered, clearly less accustomed to public speaking than his colleague. “S-stay out of it.”
“No, seriously, his brain is what saved us. Might come in useful. The rest, well… He’s pretty skinny, won’t be much of a fight.”
Micah struggled not to blink. He wanted to offer this man some mouthwash. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed an old woman walk up to the pair of them. Now what?
“Excuse me,” she said, in an old lady’s voice that could only belong to an ex-teacher. She tugged the man’s arm. His brow creased. Micah suppressed an urge to smile.
“I said, excuse me!”
The man pursed his lips. “What? Go away, old woman!”
“I’m not that old! Look at me, young man!”
The man growled and whirled to face the diminutive octogenarian whose head barely reached his chest. “What the hell do you want, lady?”
Micah blinked several times in relief.
The old woman beckoned the man closer with a bony finger. He sighed and bent forward. She slapped his face with surprising speed and force. He stumbled backwards a step, more shocked by the act than from any real pain. He looked around him, then advanced on her, fist raised. “Why you old –”
A cracking noise announced an upturned table as Sandy sprung to the man’s side, pulse pistol nuzzling his neck. Only the man’s eyes moved, swivelling between the pistol’s barrel and Sandy. His buddy made to move towards his friend, but two other men barred his way. Several others circled around him. Micah noticed three had picked up knives from the tables.
Sandy primed the pulse-laser weapon, causing it to emit its unmistakable hum. “This respectable lady is trying to teach you a lesson, one you can learn from. I, on the other hand, specialise in lessons you personally won’t learn anything from, though others might.”
He drew away from her gun. “Aw, C’mon, I wasn’t actually going to –”
“I don’t doubt it, not enough balls, but you’re going to apologise anyway.” She advanced, pressing the nozzle deeper into his neck.
“Sorry,” he said, to the elderly woman. The pistol edged forward a few millimetres. “Ma’am,” he finished.
The old lady nodded, chin up, somehow appearing taller than the man dwarfing her.
“Apology accepted, I’m sure. Now, you should go back to your room, young man. A cold shower and a shave will remind you not to bite the hand that feeds you, or in this case, protects you.”
Sandy retracted the gun. The man stepped away, ready to leave, then paused, turning back to Micah, the fire extinguished in his eyes.
“One thing, Mister Sanderson. Next time we face the Q’Roth or some other enemy, do we stand? Or do we run, and keep on running?”
All eyes fell on Micah. He wanted to swallow but thought better of it. It was a good question, and ultimately it would be up to Blake and the others, not just him. But he had to answer, right now. He knew the correct answer, the logical one to ensure humanity’s survival. But he’d learned the hard way that it’s not always wise to be logical in public. Reluctantly, he imagined how his dead father would have replied. He cleared his throat, stood tall, made his chest proud, and addressed everyone present. “We stand, and we fight,” he said. “But next time we make sure it’s on even terms.”
The man nodded. “Then I’ll be there fighting alongside you.” He and his friend left. A few of the people who’d rallied round Micah briefly met his eyes, then either sat back down or went about their business. The old lady patted Sandy on the arm. “Nice pistol, I don’t suppose I can have one?” She cackled her way out of the canteen without waiting for an answer.
Micah restored the table, sighing at the puddle of gloop on the floor, but a couple shooed him away as he went to clear it up. He slumped back into his chair, facing Sandy, who had regained her seat, acting as if nothing had happened. He leaned forward, whispering. “Can we eat somewhere else tomorrow?”
Her eyes, the colour of hazelnut but sharp like a hawk’s, offered him no quarter.
“No, Micah. From now on we eat here every day.”
Two new steaming bowls appeared before them.
“So, Mister Sanderson,” she launched, after thanking the young man who had set down the bowls before them, “is humanity still worth saving?”
He scooped up a large dollop of synthetic algae. His eyes swept around the room, and he saw the people there differently: subdued, yes, but strong and ready to fight, whether despite, or because of, their grief. He blew across the top of the spoon, to dispel the odour as much as to cool the soup. A smile spread across his lips. “Sure.” He took a breath and opened his mouth. His wristcom buzzed twice. He didn’t need to read the message. The fracas had almost made him forget what he had to do today. He lowered the spoon back into the bowl, and stood up. “Saved by the bell – it’s time.”
She gripped his sleeve as he passed her, stopping him momentarily. “Good luck, Micah.”
It always unnerved him whenever Sandy was sincere. He preferred her legendary sarcasm any day of the week, but especially today.
Micah threaded his way across the camp-site on the fourth level, as large as ten football fields. He skirted around each tent’s territorial markers of straggled possessions and chem-dry laundry hanging on makeshift lines. He averted his eyes, not wanting to get stuck in conversation with anyone about the inevitable, heavy questions to which he had no answers, much less what these people needed more than anything: concrete hope.
He reached the central spiral ramp. A solitary soldier who looked too young to be in uniform saluted him, and Micah dipped his head in response. It was sad that soldiers had to be posted to control access, but at least they needed only one – humanity’s remnants hadn’t descended too far out of control yet.
He’d gotten used to military deference. He was only twenty-five, and had no rank or military background. But he’d been granted military status by virtue of being the one who had discovered the human race’s fate early, uncovering the Alician plot – their millennium-old collusion with the Q’Roth – so helping a sprinkling of humanity to escape the Q’Roth cull.
At first he’d been embarrassed whenever soldiers, some quite high-ranking as far as he could tell, saluted him. He’d even tried saluting back, until Zack had one day told him not to, saying his hand was clearly non-military issue. Besides, Zack had pointed out, just because the soldiers were offering him respect, they didn’t necessarily need it back.
Micah had never understood the military.
He strode down the wide, coiling slope, towards base level, the artificial gravity pulling him softly forwards, making him feel lighter. He knew it wasn’t real, but it lifted his mood anyway.
At the bottom of the ramp he met a group of heavily-armed soldiers, deep in discussion. The only words he caught were “more nukes” and “seen off the bastards”. It was a familiar military refrain: if only we’d had more weapons. The armed forces, what was left of them, had a hard time accepting that they’d been defeated by strategy and intelligence, and not just by bigger weapons. Still, he envied their disciplined lives: it would keep them from going off the rails long before everyone else. But he also knew that if the new planet didn’t work out, and they were all confined to this ship for months or longer, then these stalwart soldiers could end up shooting people to maintain ‘civil order’.
They turned to salute him. One, a major from the look of it, a
ddressed him. “Good evening, Sir.”
Micah knew he had to respond in some way. “Good evening, Major, evening men,” he ventured, drawing inspiration from war vids he’d watched as a kid, before he’d learned to really hate war for what it was, having been taken prisoner just before the end of WWIII. Was it only ten years ago? He remembered hearing the cries at night from the wounded, the screams of his buddies being tortured... He applied mental brakes, backed out of that particular cul-de-sac, and re-focused. The major clearly had something on his mind, so Micah waited.
“Sir,” the major said, “I had the great honour of serving with your father, the Gray Colonel, during the War.”
Micah’s guts turned to lead. He’d forgotten how much he loathed that particular label. They’d even buried his father – the great war hero – in a grey coffin. He dredged up a smile from somewhere, praying it looked half-real.
The major beamed. “Well, Sir, I just wanted to say it’s an honour to serve again with a Sanderson. You did us proud on Eden, Sir. And, if I might add, the Gray Colonel’s jacket fits you well.”
He had to get out of this fast. He stood to what he presumed was attention, and violated Zack’s directive, giving the major the best salute he could offer. “Thank you, Major. But without the military,” he added, making eye contact with each of the men, “none of us would have gotten out of there alive.” He offered his hand to the Major, who shook it with a bone-cracking grip. Micah managed not to wince.
