Star Wars: Death Troopers

Chapter 27 Say It Three Times

When Kale came to, he was sprawled on his back, Dr. Cody kneeling beside him. There seemed to be a great deal going on around him that he couldn't see. Zahara's hands moved with easy efficiency, wrapping a blood-soaked strip of fabric around his lower leg, once, twice, pulling it snug, tying it off. Kale hissed through his teeth, cold strange air that tasted like iron shavings, and felt his guts recoiling.

Where are we?

"It's all right," her voice was saying from across a great distance. "We made it. We're up inside the Destroyer's landing bay."

Kale rolled over and tried to look around. The pain in his calf was incendiary, intense enough that for a moment he didn't trust himself to speak. He sipped in a shallow, tentative breath and held it until he thought he probably wasn't going to be sick, then glanced up at Dr. Cody again, the scope of his vision broadening a little. Behind her, Han and Chewie stood outside the sealed docking hatchway.

"Where's my brother?" Kale asked hoarsely.

"He's right over there," Dr. Cody said, "he's fine. Just try not to move."

Kale craned his neck and saw Trig sitting on the floor against the docking shaft's outer wall, curled up with his chin resting on his knees, rocking back and forth, staring at nothing. He didn't look fine. Kale thought of Trig's stunned voice saying: Dad's out there, seeing the eager thing that had come after him, and wondered if his little brother would ever be fine again.

Say it, he told himself, and thought back to an old superstition he'd heard as a very young child. Say it three times and make it real.

"It bit me," Kale said, "didn't it?"

She tightened the makeshift dressing. "Is that too tight? I have to stop the bleeding."

"It bit me."

"They're crawling up the shaft," Han Solo muttered, taking an uneasy step back, and glanced back at Dr. Cody and Kale. "How soon can we get going?"

Kale could hear it-the scraping. It was coming from inside the docking tower. Hands pounded and scratched on the other side of the shaft. Gnawing sounds. Those things down in the barge had climbed right up after them, he realized, up the tower. Right now they were breaking their brittle fingernails and teeth inside that metal tube, trying to get out. He thought about what he'd seen when he'd looked back into the barge's pilot station. It wasn't possible but it was true. The sound of their hunger and anger, along with the stinging pain in his leg, made the memory real.

The corpses of the prison barge had come back to life and his father was among them.

His father had bitten him.

Kale felt his mouth flood with coppery spit and leaned forward, opening his lips to vomit, but nothing came out. His stomach wouldn't quit trying, though, wouldn't say die, as his dear old dad might have said. Dead old dad, his brain blathered, and his diaphragm kept jerking and heaving spasmodically with the awful insistence of an involuntary muscle twitch.

"Look, kid," he heard Solo's voice saying, its impatience penetrating the thick cloud of horror that had accumulated around his thoughts. "We gotta go."

"Which way do you suggest?" Dr. Cody asked.

"If we can find our way back to the Destroyer's command bridge, maybe we can actually get this big beast moving."

Chewie gave a dubious growl.

"It's a ship, isn't it?" Han said. "You've flown one, you've flown 'em all. We just gotta get past. " He gestured vaguely."… all this."

Kale wiped his eyes and took his first real look around at where Han was indicating. The main landing bay and hangar that surrounded them was an endless durasteel desert whose perimeters stretched out so far that they seemed to elude the eye. Even now, the notion of crossing it was more than he could fathom. And yet.

"Help me up," he said.

Dr. Cody reached down. He took her hands and lifted himself, straightening his back as she guided him. At first he thought it was going to work-he actually might be able to put weight on the other leg as well.

"Take it easy," she said. "We don't have to rush."

The pain hit hard, and Kale fell back to the floor with a silent cry that came out as little more than a groan. He looked down. Blood was spurting recklessly from the wound in his leg, soaking the tourniquet and turning it dark red. He saw Trig staring at him but didn't know if his brother was worried about him, or about what he'd seen down below. Did it matter? It was all one thing now, their situation spelled out around them in spilled blood.

"You can't travel like that," Dr. Cody said.

"Just give me a second."

"You'll bleed out before we make it across the landing bay."

"I'll be fine."

She stared at him, then leaned down, close enough to whisper. "Listen to me. I want you to understand this. If we try to move you now, you're going to die." Without moving her head, she indicated Trig, hunched over. "And he'll have to watch that happen. Is that what you want?"

Kale shook his head.

"I'll stay here with you," she said, loud enough for the others to hear. "Han, you and Chewie can take Trig and head for the command bridge."

At the mention of his name, the younger boy jerked as if shocked and sat up straight, shaking his head. "No." He stared at his brother. "I want to stay with Kale."

"Come here," Kale said.

The younger boy stood up and walked over.

"I told you I wouldn't let anything happen to you," Kale said, "and I won't. But to keep that promise I need you to go with the others, right now."

Trig shook his head again, violently, tears filling his eyes. He spoke in a fierce whisper. "I'm scared," he said. "Dad's face…"

"Listen to me," Kale said. "That wasn't Dad."

Trig stared at him.

"That was something else. We know what Dad was like. We remember him from before, and that wasn't him." He waited. "Right?"

"But.»

"Was it?"

Trig shook his head.

"You have to go. I'll catch up later."

"What's going to happen to you?" Trig asked.

"Dr. Cody and I will catch up to you guys as soon as we can."

"You promise?"

"I promise," Kale said, and was glad when Dr. Cody put her hands on Trig's shoulders to turn him toward Solo and the Wookiee. Looking at his brother's heartbroken, terrified expression was becoming close to unbearable now, but Kale made himself do it for one more second. "Trig?"

The boy's eyes shone on him.

"I love you," Kale said.

"Then don't make me go."

"Doc, you want the blaster?" Solo asked.

Zahara looked up at him, surprised. "You'd really give me your last blaster?"

"Well," Han said, looking away, "you know, if those things start coming through the shaft…"

"That's all right."

"You sure?"

She nodded. "We won't be here that long." Glancing at Trig: "We'll see you soon, okay?"

Kale watched his brother's expression, but Trig didn't say anything, didn't even nod, as Han Solo and Chewbacca led him away.