The Long Forever. Eugene Lambert

when there’s only a crescent left open. Without thinking, I throw myself into the gap, brace my back and shove as hard as I can.

      No chance. Its hydraulics are way stronger than I am.

      All I can do is make one last desperate effort, wriggle through and throw myself out the far side. The hatch slams shut behind me. I’m picking myself up when I smell sour sweat and hear a breath being sucked in.

      ‘No you don’t!’ a voice growls.

      An iron bar cuts viciously through the air at me.

      But I’m already ducking and somehow make it miss. The big crewman swinging it curses, off balance. And I don’t give him a second chance to brain me. I sweep my strap around, putting everything I’ve got into the swing. The buckle end catches him high on the right side of his head.

      He grunts, and collapses at my feet in a boneless heap.

      I poke him with a boot, but he doesn’t move. I make that four crewmen down, one to go.

      And he doesn’t look much of a threat.

      At the far end of this corridor is an open hatch. A skinny little guy rushes through it, sees me and stops in his tracks. Pulls a killstick from his belt. But he’s shaking so much that he fumbles and drops it.

      I sneer. Can’t help it. The guy looks so frightened.

      But there’s no point taking chances.

      The closed hatch behind me has a flat plate on the bulkhead beside it that’s covered in greasy handprints. A dead giveaway. I slap my palm on to it, hard. It flickers and something hums. The hatch starts to slide open. When I look round, the crewman’s weapon is back in his hand. Much good it’ll do him. With the alarm still howling its head off and flashing lights bathing me in red, I walk towards him. I make sure to clatter the buckle end of the strap off the deck, once, twice, so he sees what he’s got coming. And it works. Before I’m halfway to him, his killstick hits the deck again. This time it’s no sweaty fumble. He chucks it away, rather than take me on.

      ‘I give up, okay? Please don’t hurt me!’ he whines.

      Pitiful. But that’s that. In almost less time than it takes to tell it, we bust out and take over the star freighter. And Murdo was right. Five crew, that’s all. We hunt high and low, but find nobody else. Anuk waves a blade at skinny guy and he swears blind that’s all there were. Only three are left alive now. I didn’t mean to kill the guy who tried to brain me, but my blow must’ve caved his skull in. Nobody’s crying about it, least of all me. The guy that shouted orders zapped two of our kids who jumped him. Killed them both stone dead.

      The guy who did the killing is dead too. His crewmates have been thrown into the cage. They might live, but they’re so messed up I doubt their mothers would know them.

      ‘Can somebody shut that siren down?’ Sky yells. She’s on her feet again, outside the cage, her back against the mesh.

      Murdo grabs skinny guy off me.

      ‘You heard her. Where’s the off button?’

      ‘Flight deck.’

      ‘Show me.’ He drags him away, out of the hold.

      I head over to Sky, skirting around the foam-splattered crate. The fire is out, but a few wisps of smoke still curl up.

      And that reminds me – I’m angry with her. ‘What if the alarm didn’t go off ? Or the crewmen hadn’t got here so fast? We’d have burnt to death. You think of that?’

      ‘Worked out, didn’t it?’ she says.

      Sure. If you’re not one of the dead kids. But I bite my tongue, knowing there’s no point arguing. And I’m rewarded with one of her blink-and-you-miss-it smiles.

      ‘You should’ve seen your face,’ she says, poking me.

      ‘One day you’ll get us killed.’

      ‘Yeah, yeah. You worry too much.’

      The red lights quit flashing and the siren’s wail chokes off. The silence that follows is kind of shocking, but it’s a relief too. My ears adjust, my heart stops thumping. It’s not the crisp silence like you’d get outside our cabin on a calm night after the birds had settled. Instead I hear background hums, the hiss and sigh of air pumps doing their thing. Keeping us alive. We stare at each other. And I guess that’s when our heads catch up with what we’ve done.

      ‘We’ve busted out,’ Anuk says, her scarred face softening, her eyes shiny. ‘Can you believe it?’

      Next thing, everybody’s whooping and jumping up and down, pumping fists and trading hugs.

      ‘We’re free, we’re free at last!’ a freckled girl chants.

      Sky shrugs at me. ‘Their whole lives they’ve been caged.’

      I’m grabbed and hugged and have my back slapped. A tall girl spins me round gleefully, laughing as I stumble. All this with the dead bodies of their friends lying only metres away. Feels weird. Soon as I can, I slip away to rejoin Sky.

      ‘Leave them to it?’ I say.

      She nods. We make for the hatch out of the hold.

      But Murdo’s back, shoving skinny guy ahead of him. He’s holding the crowbar the dead guy tried to take my head off with and bashes it on the bulkhead.

       BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

      Everybody shuts up and looks around.

      ‘Save it for later,’ he calls out. ‘We’ve got work to do.’

      It goes deathly quiet in here. Delight fades from faces. Mouths lose smiles and pull down into harsh lines. My guess is that Murdo’s forgotten he’s wearing matt-black.

      ‘We’re done taking orders from Slayers,’ Cam snarls. He steps towards Murdo, fists clenched.

      ‘Stop!’ I call out, shoving between them. ‘He’s no Slayer, just wearing their gear. I told you, remember?’

      Cam slowly lowers his fists.

      ‘So you did,’ he says, and looks disgusted. ‘Pity. All my life I’ve wanted to rip a Slayer’s head off.’

      Murdo swallows so noisily I think we all hear him.

      We’re in the corridor, stripping the guy I killed so Murdo can wear his clothes. Murdo grunts and points. ‘Look.’

      Dead guy has no little finger on his left hand. Like me. And Sky. And the rest of the nublood kids. They all had them hacked off as soon as they were born. Mine, I traded to that sicko Answerman in the Blight, to find out I was the Saviour’s long-lost son.

      I shiver. ‘Do you reckon he’s an ident?’

      Murdo shrugs. ‘Could’ve lost it in an accident.’

      I try to picture the guy’s attack on me. How fast was he? Hard to say. Not fast enough.

      For sure, the dead guy doesn’t look like any nublood I’ve ever seen. He’s a big slab of fat. So much so that his work clothes hang off Murdo. They’re made from some material I’ve never seen before and look hard-wearing. Lots of pockets. Reinforced knees and elbows. I definitely need to find some for myself.

      ‘This guy’ll start stinking soon,’ I say. ‘So will the other bodies. What’ll we do with them?’

      ‘Stick ’em in the cage for now,’ Murdo says. ‘Space ’em later.’

      He yells for somebody to give us a hand. Two kids, Ravi and Pol, come out. They help us wrestle the dead guy inside the hold and into the cage. Skinny guy’s already there.

      He twitches big time. ‘Is he dead?’

      ‘What if he is?’ I snap.

      The guy sticks his head in his hands like it was his mother lying