Kate
Jex shouts and leaps forward. His arms fly up and a spray of electric blue light rains down from the ceiling and shoots up from the floor. It streaks across my eyes like millions of lightning bolts and instantly stops the fiery blast the woman aimed at us. I feel the impact, though, of her weapon against whatever Jex just did, and it throws me back as a surge of heat crashes over me.
Through the strange electrical barrier, the woman stares at us, with a look of complete and utter shock across her features. The air sizzles and buzzes. “Only the Sentinel are armed with defense shields that strong.”
Rune holds up a hand to Jex and the thousands of lightning bolts vanish, leaving a soft haze of smoke where it stood. “Jex is my Sentinel, and IamGeneral Rune. Your actions scream of mutiny and treason.” He steps forward, bare-chested and practically defenseless. “Now, answer the questions my female asked of you. Are you a grounder or Caelum?”
As the mist of fumes dissipates, I notice a small movement behind the woman. Without thinking, I lean closer trying to see a clear view. There are two children hiding behind her, dressed as Caelum, yet not as polished as the others I’ve seen here on the ship.
“Rune,” I say, pointing my finger ahead. “There are children behind her.”
“So, you are grounders. How did you board the ship? Did Pious take you?” His tone turns harder and colder. “How did you find armor for children? There is no one here that size.” Rune advances and the woman and her small group fall to one knee and bow their heads.
Rune stills instantly. “If you are not Caelum, why do you kneel?”
My eyes scan over the small dimly lit room. There are two uploading docks on the far wall and a small mobile first-aid station next to it. A stack of what look like books sit in one corner and another lies a pile of blankets or clothing. I can’t tell from where I’m standing. “You are Caelum, aren’t you? And you live here? In the tunnels?” I ask.
Rune jerks his head around to me, wide-eyed and confused. I gesture toward the belongings that lay neatly around the room. “Look at the room, Rune. They’re staying here. There’s an uploading thing and a first-aid thing over there.” I look back to the woman. “How many of you live here?”
“There are six of us,” Sarah whispers.
“Please, stand or sit. There is no need for kneeling and we promise you no harm,” Rune says. He fixes his eyes with mine then and asks, “Is there anything you can give Kate to keep her warm?”
One of the children dashes into the corner and rummages through the dark lump of materials and brings me back a strangely textured blanket. “Thank you,” I say, wrapping the heavy garment around my shoulders. It’s so large it drapes down past my feet and trails behind me. Within seconds I’m warm.
“How did you come to be here? I have not seen a female Caelum aboard this vessel,” Rune asks.
“We were created sixty-two years ago. We are the last of the females. There were only six born in that generation,” she says, gesturing for us to sit on small metal blocks that create a circle in the middle of the room. Two other women come forward and take a seat on the empty cubes. They must be strange uncomfortable alien chairs. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen much furniture or belongings on this ship at all.
I jump on the closest one. My freaking feet are killing me. As soon as my ass hits the surface, I let out a loud sigh of relief. The children come sit on the floor by my feet and stare up at me. I wave and they flinch back. “Oh no, please don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.” I lean forward and smile at them both. “That’s how we say hello to each other on Earth. It’s called a wave.”
Both of them wave at me.
I laugh and look up to see Rune staring at me. So, I wave to him. I can’t quite see too well, because the lighting is so dim, but I think he rolls his eyes at me.
“We were told the last of the women were born and all expired generations ago,” Rune says. “Jex, Tore, Garve, please join us.”
The others all sit, forming the rest of the circle. Four Caelum women, four Caelum men, two children, and one naked me. “Does anyone have any extra armor or anything? Something I could defend myself with?”
I’m ignored.
Jex inclines forward, his elbows leaning heavily on his knees. “This doesn’t make sense, at all. Why were we told there were no longer women? And why are you hiding in the core?”
“All females born on this ship end up in the preservation lab and are only used to harvest eggs. But we weren’t. We were supposed to be sent out the airlock, hiding was our only option.” As Sarah and the other females relay their story, I stare down at the children carefully. Something isn’t right.
“I’m sorry,” I say, holding up my hand. The kids cringe back again and gasp. “Can…is there any way we could get more light in here?”
Sarah nods and one of the women climbs up from the chair slowly and walks over to the shadowy area of the uploading station. She swipes away at the dashboard and the room brightens. My eyes dart around the room. There are no lightbulbs or lamps, the walls just seem to illuminate. I look back down at the children.
But they aren’t children.
Their skin is wrinkled and pale. The irises of their eyes a stark white, circling unusually large pupils and set too far away from each other. They remind me of Claire’s eyes. Their feet are clubbed and jut out of their armor at awkward angles, topped with a few extra toes. Oh my God, I snap my eyes up to Sarah.
Her features are off too, as well as the other women sitting before us. Eyes set too far apart and deformed chins. Skin translucent, taking on a jaundiced hue. I lock my eyes on Rune’s trying to catch his attention.
He’s already staring at me, wide-eyed. The last of the women born on this ship were being thrown away, and they were being thrown away because something happened to them when they were born to make them look like this. A shiver runs through my shoulders and down my spine. These people remind me of those old vintage posters of circus performers who were freaks or human oddities audiences would pay to see.
“I think inbreeding or mutations is what made your women die out,” I whisper. “I don’t remember anything about genetics from school, but something definitely went wrong. I just don’t know what.”
