Chapter 67: Protecting Family

Chapter 67: Protecting Family

Back in the lower decks, Petros quickly hid the stolen, tattered uniform and clutched the satchel containing the oxygen-tank and the vials of medicine. These precious drugs, stolen from the medicae-bay, were his only hope of easing his sister's rattling cough. The oxygen was for the inevitable toxic-gas leaks that plagued the under-deck.

He kept his head down, moving quickly and silently toward his family's hab-unit. The flickering, dying lume-strips cast disjointed shadows, amplifying the ever-present stench of sweat, refuse, and decay.

Petros knew the lower decks were becoming more dangerous. In the last year, strange, new cults had taken root among the slave population. They whispered of new gods: a "God of Courage," a "Healthy Father," a "Princess of Joy," and a "Prophet of Wisdom." The names were insane, but the cultists were lethally devoted.

They painted strange sigils on their rags, or carved them directly into their skin. The most common, the one that had burned itself into Petros's memory, was a star with eight points.

He remembered the first time he had seen it. He'd been scavenging when he saw a group of them, their bodies marked with the eight-pointed star, corner a husband and wife. The couple was clutching the body of their dead son, a boy of maybe four or five. The parents were weeping, but the cultists, armed with knives and iron pipes, were demanding the body.

The couple refused. The cultists beat the father's skull in with a pipe and stabbed the mother a dozen times in the gut. Their screams had echoed in the dark, but Petros had remained hidden, frozen in terror. He watched as the cultists... butchered... the small body and began to eat it. They dragged the parents' corpses away, presumably for the same purpose.

Petros shuddered, pushing the memory down, and hurried his pace.

He reached his hab-unit and silently opened the door, his hand shooting out to catch the empty ration-can he had balanced on the top of the jamb—a crude, but life-saving, alarm.

His mother, Aelia, was asleep on their cot, his sister Liliana cradled in her arms. Her face was gaunt, her hair matted. She held the baby as if she were her last anchor in the world. Seeing them safe, Petros let out a silent breath of relief.

He grabbed a bowl from the metal table. It held the same grey, flavorless paste of corpse-starch they ate every day. Starving, he scooped a mouthful, the bland, gritty texture familiar. He felt a moment of grim satisfaction.

Then, the feeling was gone, replaced by a cold, prickling dread.

Something was wrong.

He didn't know how he knew, but the hab was... wrong. He set the spoon down. His eyes darted around. His mother. His sister. The cot. The table.

He looked back at his sister. Her coughing... had stopped. The silence in the tiny hab was absolute.

He prayed to any god that he was wrong. He reached out and touched his sister's cheek. It was still warm. He almost sagged in relief.

But it was too cool.

He gently, his hand trembling, placed his finger under her tiny nose.

Nothing.

No breath in, no breath out. The warmth he'd felt was just the last, lingering heat.

Petros froze. He didn't know what to do. Wake his mother? Her screams would echo through the decks. Her screams would alert them. The cannibals.

He thought of the couple, beaten and stabbed. His mother would die before she let them take Liliana. And he would, too. But what could they do?

The 13-year-old boy's mind raced. He made his decision.

He gently emptied his satchel. Then, his movements impossibly slow, he slid his arms under his sister's tiny, weightless body. He lifted her from his mother's sleeping embrace, his heart pounding. His mother was so exhausted, she didn't stir.

He placed his sister's body in the satchel. He put the stolen uniform back on, slung the bag over his left shoulder, and slipped out of the hab, sealing the door behind him.

He had to move. He had to face the cultists, the patrols, the whole damned, dark world of the under-deck. His mother had told him, "You must protect her." The words were a spike in his heart, but they were also his strength.

He ran, deeper into the ship's labyrinth. He dodged a patrol of Skitarii, their mechanical eyes scanning the dark. He hid in a waste-chute as a pack of the eight-pointed-star cultists passed, their eyes glowing with a frenzied, hungry light. He nearly gave up a dozen times, but he kept moving.

He finally reached the stern of the Gloriana-class ship, in the vast, roaring chamber of the plasma-drives. He stood at the railing of an engineering-gantry, looking down into the massive, unshielded ion-conduit. The air shimmered with the heat, the raw, white-hot plasma roaring like a captive star, powering the ship.

This was the only way. Here, she would be vaporized, returned to her base atoms, and scattered into the void.

He opened the satchel and took out his sister's body, holding her one last time. He did what he had seen his mother do, and gently kissed her cold forehead. The tears he had held back now flowed freely, dripping onto her tiny, pale face.

He remembered her smile. He remembered her tiny hand clutching his. He remembered her, just once, trying to gurgle his name.

His heart was breaking, but he knew what he had to do. This was the only way to protect her.

Petros held his sister's body out over the railing, over the raging, pure-white heart of the engine. And he let her go.

The tiny, rag-wrapped bundle fell, vanishing into the plasma-glare without a sound, without a trace.

Petros stood there, his small body wracked with silent sobs. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the tears were gone, and his eyes were as hard as iron.

He turned and began the long walk back. His mother was still waiting. He could not, would not, falter.