Stellar Objects

Chapter 17: Unboxing

Andra spotted Rys stride through the brig door.

She marveled at how the boy carried himself. He was at least three years younger than she was, but he stood straight and projected a confidence like he owned the entire ship. She noticed the way she slumped on the steel bench of her cell and immediately stood up, forcing her shoulders back to seem powerful and in control of a situation she had no control over.

"You okay, Andra?" asked George. "You're standing funny."

"I'm payin' 'tention to my posture," she said.

Rys was followed by Shelly, the woman who'd captured Andra and George on the shuttle. Andra felt her shoulders slump again and she retreated back to her bench. She didn't want any more trouble with this police woman.

But the cop wasn't interested in her or her brother. She marched straight to Judson's cell and rattled her compliance stick along the bars.

"What were you smuggling?" she demanded.

"Namaste to you too," Judson replied with a smile. Andra couldn't be sure, but she thought he was flirting with her. Gross.

"I want to know what was in the box?" the cop asked.

"Was?" Judson asked, his eyes widening with fear.

Before he could say anything more, Captain Nayar wheeled himself in. "Answer her question," he said, sounding angry and annoyed, but also genuinely curious. "Someone was willing to destroy us to get that box."

"That someone is Kralyx," said Judson. "But the cargo's too valuable to destroy.

"I'm sure it'll fetch a pretty rupee on the black market," said the Captain. "He's free to fence it, whatever it is."

"What! No?" shouted Judson. "You condemned—"

"Not my problem," said the Captain.

"Children," said Judson.

This was too much for Andra. The adults were squabbling, not making any sense. She stood back up, straightened her shoulders, and addressed Judson. "What were you carrying in that shuttle?"

"Meds," he said. "There's been an outbreak of Ventitis, highly contagious," Judson continued. "The children, younger than you – some can't even walk yet - are quarantined at Our Lady of Saturn. I stole a crate of meds to save—"

"I was at Our Lady of Saturn," said Shakes from the corner. He leaned on the bars of his cell, catching the Captain's eye as he wheeled himself into the centre of the brig. "Two years. Fungal infection in my left lung."

Andra held her breath and backed up. A fungal infection was deadly and outbreaks were more and more common. A few years back, on The Heap, a gang of scavengers got wiped out when they stumbled upon a colony of spores. The whole Heap mourned for about a minute then the scavengers picked over the dead scroungers' stuff. That was the cycle of life on the Heap.

The Captain looked at Shakes suspiciously. "You're not contagious, are you?"

Shakes shook his head, nearly laughing. "I would've died, but some crazy pilot broke blockade and landed a crate of meds. So here I am."

"Good thing Captain Scaredy-pants wasn't in charge then," said Judson, bitterly.

Andra looked at her brother. He was alive, underfed but healthy. She remembered when he was really little and caught a nano-infection. Tiny machines started eating away at George from the inside. Andra had to sell off her mother's necklace to score the anti-robotics. It was Simmo's older sister, now long dead, of course, who'd tracked down the meds and saved George's life. Death was the only sure part of life, and Andra knew that better than most, but little kids didn't deserve to die from treatable diseases. That wasn't right.