or blades.’
I picture the guys who brought Murdo in. And it’s true – neither carried a blaster.
Sky snorts, clearly unconvinced.
‘You spring us out of this cage, we’ll take care of the crew for you,’ Cam says. And cracks his knuckles loudly.
His hard-eyed mates nod behind him.
‘Should we blast the lock?’ I ask Murdo. ‘To get ready?’
‘No. Could be alarmed. Best wait until they show up to feed us. We’ll know they’re coming when the drive shuts down.’ He winces. ‘With luck, I’ll still be alive.’
I glance at Sky. Will she last that long? I’m sure she’s thinking the same dismal thought.
Next thing I know, she’s hauling out her blaster.
‘Uh, Sky,’ I say.
Before I can stop her, she squirms round and snaps a crackling shot off through the bars of the cage. My skin was crawling off me; now I nearly jump out of it.
‘Are you crazy!?’ Murdo hisses.
‘No. Just sick of being fried, that’s all.’
Her blaster round has hit one of the wooden crates stacked further up the hold. Flames lick at the blackened and splintered hole. I smell the choking stink of smoke.
‘Oh great,’ I moan. ‘So now we get to burn to death!’
A siren starts to wail . . .
Red lights flash. Everybody jumps up, shouting. Not that I can hear them over the wail of the siren, but I see the fear in their wide eyes, their scared mouths working.
I pull my blaster, but Murdo snatches it off me.
‘I’ll sort the lock!’ he yells into my ear. ‘The alarm will bring the crew running. Get the kids ready.’
And then he’s gone, scrambling towards the cage door.
Cam’s nearest. I grab hold of him and shout into his ear, telling him to get his mates ready to bust out. And he might be sullen and hard work, but he’s no fool. He shoves me away and starts frantically passing the word on.
Sky tries to get up again, but slumps back down.
I go to help her, but she waves me away. So I run to see if Murdo needs a hand. He doesn’t. I see a flash, hear a bang. The cage door flies open. Murdo pulls it closed again, its rusty hinges screeching. A second later I feel that lurching sensation again and my skin stops crawling off me as the freighter’s drive shuts down. Cam’s got the kids ready. Too ready. They’re all eager and poised, eyes flashing.
I wave at them. ‘No, no! Act scared.’
Anuk gets it. She rattles the cage’s bars and starts yelling and screaming. ‘Help! There’s a fire in here!’
More kids join in. Just in time, as a man’s wide-eyed face appears at a porthole in the forward hatch. Next thing, it’s opening. A crewman wriggles inside; two more follow close behind. By now the crate is really blazing. The first guy curses and shouts orders. The other two pull red tube things off the bulkhead. They scuttle as close to the burning crate as they dare and start spraying the flames with a white foam.
Murdo shoves the cage door open. ‘Get them!’
Cam’s first out, Anuk right behind him. The guy giving the orders sees them coming. His hand dips for something at his belt. Too slow. Cam’s already on him, drops a shoulder and knocks him flat. More kids scramble out, getting in my way. They hurl themselves on to the backs of the crewmen battling the fire. I see a girl snatch a packing strap off a crate. One end is a big metal ratchet. I finally make it out of the cage and help myself to another, leaving an arm’s length to swing.
‘Kyle!’ Murdo shouts. ‘The hatch!’
It’s sliding closed again. I get there 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?’
