Star Wars: Death Troopers

Chapter 24 Futureproof

When Kale came back, Trig was gone.

The hatch to the escape pod stood open, and he crouched down and crawled inside, the green display lights glowing across his face.

"Trig?"

His brother wasn't in there, either, but the gassy, festering smell was bad enough that Kale didn't linger for a closer look. It reminded him of some kind of predator's den, the kind you might find littered with the picked-clean bones of its last meal. He supposed he'd have to put up with it if the pod was their only means of getting out of here, but for now he had to find his brother.

Stepping back out, he bumped his foot against a small flat object. It let out a little electronic gurgle. He looked down and saw that it was the comlink Zahara had given Trig. Kale frowned. It wasn't like Trig to leave something like that, any more than it was like him to wander off for no reason.

He picked up the comlink and switched it on. "Dr. Cody? This is Kale."

"I hear you, Kale," she said.

"Listen, something happened to my brother."

"Say again?"

"An alarm went off and I went to go check it. When I came back, he was gone. The pod hatch is open, but he's nowhere in sight."

"Just a second, Kale. Let me check something."

Kale waited, and looked back down at the inner wall of the escape pod door. It was scored with dozens of scratches, some of them deep enough to gouge into the metal itself. He reached down to touch it and discovered it was wet. When he drew back his fingers, they were dripping with blood and something sticky and warm. He wiped it off on his pant leg with a shudder of revulsion.

"Kale, the scanner's showing a life-form about fifteen meters up the corridor to your immediate right. Do you see it?"

He turned around but there was nothing but the same dirty familiar walls, dim lights, and low cramped ceiling, yellowing and dingy, as if stained by the doomed and hopeless breaths exhaled by thousands of inmates over the years. "No," he said, "there's nothing here."

"You're positive? The signal's strong."

"No, it's just an empty hallway, I-hold it."

He put the comlink down and raised the blaster, walking over to the wall for a closer look. In front of him, at shoulder level, he saw a separate wall panel and the words:

MAINTENANCE ACCESS SHAFT 223

Kale placed the barrel of the blaster rifle against the spring-loaded panel and pushed it open to reveal the widemouthed shaft within. A gust of foul-smelling air rushed up into his nose and he groaned, almost gagging, covered his nose and mouth with his free hand, and leaned back into the ripe blackness, looking down.

"Trig?"

The sound of his voice reverberated down the metallic emptiness, ringing shapeless in the void. Kale thought back to what he'd seen when he'd gone through the doorway to investigate the alarm. It had been nothing special, nothing at all really, probably just a malfunction somewhere, although one particular aspect of it had stuck with him- a single bloody handprint on the wall, half smeared and still so fresh it was dripping. When he'd seen that, he'd realized it wasn't a good idea to leave Trig alone, even for a few seconds, and that was when he'd come back to find this.

He decided to try once more, leaning back into the shaft. "Trig, are you there?"

His brother came vaulting up and out of the shaft with a scream. He smashed face-first into Kale, knocking him to his knees with a speed and momentum that probably saved his life. If it had happened any slower-if Kale had been given any time to get his blaster back up again-he probably would have shot his brother on pure reflex. As it was, Trig was already on top of him, still screaming, fists flying, clawing, kicking, and sucking in great drafts of air. He was crying, too, Kale could see, sobbing in a high, choking, desperately frightened voice that made him sound much younger than his actual age.

"Easy," Kale said, holding on to him, noticing now how badly torn Trig's uniform was, like an animal had been at it-the collar ripped to expose Trig's slight, hairless chest, one sleeve torn completely away to show his skinny arm. Parts of the cheap fabric were damp and clammy, like the inside of the escape pod hatch. Kale held on to him. He hugged Trig tightly to his chest until he started to feel, if not the fight going out of him, at least a kind of exhausted fatigue slowing the panicked thrashing, and kept holding on to him after that until Trig was quiet except for the occasional hitching breath.

"It's okay," Kale said, and then drew back enough to get his first real look at Trig's face. "What happened?"

Trig just stared back at him with bloodshot eyes. If he'd been any paler his skin would have been translucent. Nothing moved in his face except for the slight tremble in his chin.

"Did someone attack you?" Kale asked. "Inside the pod, was there.?"

He waited, letting the question drift out to where Trig might pick it up and respond to it, but Trig didn't. The longer he stared at Kale, the more Kale wondered if his brother was seeing him at all. He put his arms around his brother again and held him.

"Listen," he said, "it's going to be okay. I won't let anything bad happen to us, okay? I promise."

But the thought of the bloody handprint came back to him again, and he realized that for the first time in his life he'd made a promise to his brother that he knew he couldn't keep.