“J-Jacob.”
“Well, Jacob, it’s your lucky day. You’ve got a spot.”
Elodie crawled back toward the front, gripping the bars in her hands as her eyes widened in horror.No.
“Thank you...”
“But you have to kill one of these two.” Rod-man nodded. Trainet handed Jacob the gun.
She watched everything in slow motion and vaguely out of focus, as Jacob lifted the firearm, limbs shaking, and pointed it at her dad, toward the other man, and back at her dad. Her mouth opened in a silent scream but the only noise to be heard was the click of the gun and the burst of a bullet.
NO!
A body hit the floor, smoking.
Elodie caught Chesnik’s eyes over the twitching corpse between them as it sank in that her father still lived. They stared at each other for what seemed like a gut-wrenching eternity until time resumed its normal flow.
“Throw Jacob back in his cell with the body. If he’s still sane in the morning after a night next to the dead, we won’t have to recruit again.”
Goodbye.Chesnik mouthed the final word.
Elodie couldn’t form the word back.
Twenty minutes was all it took for them to separate.
Elodie rested her brow against the cold bars and listened to Jacob sob in the distance.
***
AT SOME POINT SHE HADcrawled to the back of her cell. The lights overhead remained low, timed to the ship’s preconfigured cycle, as an indication of night. It was the only way to tell time, but her suspicions grew as the quiet around her deepened.
The longest night of my life.
Elodie didn’t even try to sleep, knowing from her racing heart that she’d never be able to anyway. Staring into the empty cell next to hers, she hoped that her dad would magically reappear, that he hadn’t left her to rot in the brig alone.
Chesnik was the only family she had and the only one who knew who she really was. Deep space and long voyages—some privately funded and some government-sanctioned expeditions—were no place for a woman. But deep space was exactly where she was and where she had been her whole life. Having played the part since she was eight, being a man was second-nature to her. At the time that decision was made, she’d been too young to understand how selfish of her dad it was. Not until after he’d sheared off her long blond hair.
It was either stay on Earth and make a life amongst the dirt-chrome cities and the wastes or retain some sense of freedom out in space for him. As a boy, and then a man.
She rested her head back against the wall, peering at the long strip of light overhead.
“He ain’t coming back.”
The voice startled her and she looked to her left at Kallan. He’d been here long before she was thrown in next to him, and he was still here now.
Elodie rubbed her face, hoping to smudge grime further over her features, and pushed her head inward slightly to round out the excess skin on her jaw and cheeks. There wasn’t much left to work with; weeks of sparse rations had taken a toll on her. The thought sent her stomach into a rumble.
“They never come back,” Kallan continued. “I should know. I’ve been here longer than you.”
She closed her eyes and tried to ignore him.
“Boy-o, you gotta grow a thicker skin.”
“Shut the fuck up!” another nearby prisoner yelled. Jacob’s distant cry started back up.
Kallan drew up to the bars between them, pressing up as close as he could to her. Elodie moved away, against the bars she’d shared with her dad. Kallan had reached for her frequently but she never let herself get near enough for him to grab her. At least not close enough where she couldn’t easily twist away. But she watched as he settled in and lowered his voice.
“Chesnik your real pa?”
