Eugene Lambert - The Long Forever

I crouch, which pulls him closer. Fists together, I burst upwards and lash out to break free. Before he can react, I’ve spun and hip-thrown him on to his back on the deck. He stares up at me, mouth open, winded and shocked. I’m guessing nobody’s ever body-slammed him before.

His mates look gobsmacked too. Good.

It’s tempting to be all sneery and ‘ I-did-warn-you’ . Instead, I hold my hands out in front of me to show him I don’t want to fight. And I go for my most reasonable look.

‘Okay, you’re right, I do know the guy. His name’s Murdo Dern. But it’s not what it looks like. He’s no Slayer. He’s just wearing their gear and pretending.’

Even to me it sounds lame, heading for unbelievable.

I step back. Cam picks himself up, glaring at me the whole time. ‘Pretending? Why would he?’

‘It’s a long story,’ I tell him.

‘And not one we want shouted out loud,’ Sky says. She’s up now, but it looks like it’s costing her.

‘So get telling then,’ Cam growls.

‘It’d better be good,’ the pox-marked girl says.

Now I’d rather be finding out from Murdo how in hell he’s wound up in this star freighter’s cage with us. But, short of pulling my blaster, that’ll have to wait.

‘Tell them, Kyle,’ Sky says. ‘But keep it down. Okay?’

‘Fine.’ I whisper the telling in as few words as I can manage, starting with Sky, Murdo and me being ident resistance fighters. Their eyes go wide. People fighting for them instead of against must be hard to take in. Skipping the bad stuff – that we were making our last stand out in the No-Zone – I bang on instead about the Facility raid and the hundreds of nublood kids who were found there and brought to safety. At least for a while anyway.

One of the younger kids cheers, but I shush her.

I move on to how we stumbled across the Slayer spaceport. ‘That’s how they smuggle their mined darkblende off-world. And nubloods, like you guys.’

Cam recoils, like I’d punched him. ‘We’re off -world?’

‘They didn’t tell you?’

‘No. We’re just beasts to them,’ the girl says. ‘We thought we were being moved to a new camp.’

Sky’s scowl slips. She looks almost sympathetic. ‘We don’t know where we’re being taken, but it won’t be on Wrath. This is a starship, not a windjammer.’

I see and hear the shock at our news. Fair play though, nobody wails or cries. Like I said, toughest of the tough.

The lad shakes himself. ‘Were you captured then?’

‘Huh?’ I say, confused.

‘You’re in this cage with us. How come?’

‘Oh yeah. I mean, no, we weren’t captured. That’s why Murdo’s wearing the Slayer gear. We scavved it off troopers we’d killed. He walked us to the cage like he was our guard. Two prisoners, late for loading. The guards didn’t ask any questions. Why would they? They’re more worried about you guys busting out, not us breaking in.’

Cam looks like his head will explode. He’s not alone.

‘Knowing you’d be taken off-world, you got yourselves chucked in this cage?’ he says, his voice climbing.

‘Why would you do that?’ pox-girl says.

Can’t help it – I glance at Sky. She narrows her eyes.

But what can I do? I’ve a dozen mean-looking nublood kids glaring at me. I have to give them something.

‘We got in,’ I say. ‘And we can get ourselves out.’

Slipping my hand inside my jacket, I flash my blaster. Just enough that they see what it is before I tuck it away again.

I see lots of eyes light up with hope.

Cam darts a look at Sky. Scowling, she nods. But makes no move to show them that she’s carrying too.

‘Well, what the hell are we waiting for?’ he snarls.

Yeah, good question! Before I can answer him though, a groan reminds me that Murdo’s still lying at my feet. I look down and see one of his blue eyes is open. The other looks like it’ll be swollen closed for a while.

‘We can’t wait,’ he croaks. ‘It’s bust out now, or never.’

‘Who asked you?’ Sky snaps.

Clutching his ribs, Murdo struggles to sit up. I help him to lean against the bars. He spits into his hand loudly and bloodily, fishes a tooth out of it, curses and chucks it away.

‘How are you even here?’ I whisper.

‘Tell you later,’ he whispers back. And then, so that everyone can hear: ‘You don’t get it, Sky, do you?’

‘Don’t get what ?’ Sky says, scowling down at him.

Murdo shows her his blood-framed teeth in a grimace. ‘Feeling sick, Sky? Guts twisting themselves inside out? Skin crawling? You look like death, you know.’

‘You don’t look so great yourself,’ she hisses.

Murdo just glances past her at the watching kids. ‘Yeah, even you lot will be suffering.’ He jerks his head at the hatch he was brought in through. ‘There’s a big red sign on the other side of that. It’s a warning. Says this hold is unshielded. Which means that while they’ve got this tramp freighter’s leaky old drive going, you’re all being zapped. No big deal for nubloods – you heal fast enough to take it or they wouldn’t carry you back here. But Sky and me, we’ll be dead long before we make planetfall.’

Sky snorts. ‘Bullshit!’

‘Is it? You’ll have felt them kill the drive before they dragged me in here. Why do that? So they didn’t get zapped, that’s why. And they were hardly in here any time at all. What’s that tell you about how lethal it is?’

Feeling as crap as I do, I don’t doubt it’s the truth.

‘Fine,’ I say. ‘We bust out next chance we get.’

A glance at Cam and the others and I don’t see anyone shake their head. They look well up for it. Sky, trembling visibly with the effort of staying on her feet, shoots me her darkest look, curses and nods.

‘We’ve no choice,’ I say.

‘Story of my fraggin’ life,’ she says.

Growing up in the Barrenlands of Wrath, I’m no stranger to seeing people on the receiving end of beatings. Murdo’s looks worse than it is. A cracked rib or two; a lumpy, battered and bloody mess for a face.

‘You’ll live,’ I tell him.

Fishing with a finger inside his torn mouth, Murdo glares at me out of the one black eye he can still open.

‘Only if we get out of here.’

‘Yeah, yeah. We heard you the first time,’ Sky says.

‘So come on, Murdo,’ I say. ‘How did you end up here?’

But he says that telling can wait until after we’ve busted out. We’re all crammed up against the bars of the cage now, as far from the drive compartment as we can get, with us nubloods shielding Sky and Murdo from whatever crap the freighter’s drive is leaking out. That was Anuk’s suggestion, the girl with the pox-scarred face.

Sky says it helps, but she’s clearly still suffering.

‘What are we up against?’ Cam asks.

‘There’s only five crewmen aboard,’ Murdo tells us. ‘Two gave me my kicking, another three watched.’

‘Good odds,’ I say. Especially with us being nubloods.

‘So we wait until they bring us food, then you pull your blasters and make them open the cage?’ Cam says.

‘Or shoot them, then blast the cage open,’ Sky says.

Murdo shakes his head. ‘Bad idea. See that hull? It’ll only be a few mils thick. A stray blaster shot, even on low power, will punch through it like a hot knife through lard. And that’s vacuum the other side. One hole and it’s goodbye to the air in here. We’d be sucking on nothing.’

I groan. ‘You mean we can’t use our blasters?’

Sky curses. ‘Course we can. We don’t miss, that’s all.’

Murdo rolls his eyes. ‘No! You don’t need blasters. There’s loads of us, five of them. And they won’t have energy weapons either, just killsticks or blades.’