chapter 2.1

She looked lost, out of place.

“Hey there, uh-”

She looked up, and relief flooded her face. “Taz,” she said.

“Taz, yes, Taz.” Up scratched his neck uncomfortably. “Well, I reckon they’re full up in here. Commander says you’re to come with me.” “Come with you?” She sounded surprised.

“Ya see, Taz, I kinda – I kinda goofed up bringing you on board the ship. Not supposed to happen that way, strictly speaking, but the Commander’s agreed to let you stay until we get to the Academy in a few weeks’ time. Thing is, you’ve got to stay with me.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “So I am your punishment?”

He didn’t know what to say. Finally he shrugged. “Looks that way.”

She nearly smiled, and stood, holding her side gingerly. He looked at her, quivering in her too-big clothes. Her cheek was still swollen but her skin was clean now, and he could see her better than he could before. She looked so young.

“Okay, then, compañero. Lead the way.”

Taz slept in a dead Ranger’s bed, wearing a dead Ranger’s clothes, and was fighting the robots all over again in her dreams. Flashes of fire and shiny white blasts. That terrible mechanical laughter. Being lifted like a child’s juguete into the air, powerless against the inhuman strength of her attackers. She screamed and screamed again, knowing her voice alone wasn’t enough but wishing it was “Taz, Taz! Wake up!”

She sat up, her last scream still on her lips, to find Lieutenant Up’s face inches from hers and the front of his shirt twisted in her hands. He looked surprised, and concerned. She released him.

“Sorry,” she said, pushing herself as far away from him as the tiny bunk allowed, and wincing as the wound in her side protested. Up was kneeling next to her, bleary-eyed and wearing the same grey G.L.E.E. issued pyjamas that she was.

“Are you – are you going to be all right?” the Ranger asked, somewhat awkwardly, in that southern drawl of his. Taz supposed that he probably didn’t spend a lot of time around fifteen-year-old girls. She found herself wondering how old the Lieutenant was. There was just a hint of silver in the blond hair around his temples. Was she going to be all right? Good question. She heard her mama’s voice. I’m proud of you, hijita mia. Her eyes burned. Dios muerto, was she going to cry? In front of him?

“I’ll be fine,” she said, turning her face away from him. Lieutenant Up didn’t move. She could feel his eyes watching her, worrying. A scared little girl, she scoffed at herself. That’s all he thinks of me. Before she could stop herself, she turned back to him.

“What’s going to happen to me when we get back to the Academy?”

“Well,” Up said, settling back on his haunches. “It’s in the Capital, so we can take you to the refugee centre there. You’ll have a place to sleep, food to eat. They might even set you up with a trade, if you like.” He was trying really hard to make it sound appealing, she could tell.

“A refugee camp?” she echoed, trying to imagine it. She pictured rows of sleeping bags in a school gym, crying babies, old people wetting their beds. What she wouldn’t give for Mexico again, for her mama and her pimply cousins and even that stupid quinceañera dress. Jesucristo, she was going to cry. She blinked rapidly. Up looked like he wanted to say something reassuring, but changed his mind. “Yeah, I wouldn’t like the idea much, either,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”

“No,” she said. He should never be sorry. “You saved my life.”

Up didn’t say anything, so she turned her back to him again. “Go back to bed. I’m sorry I woke you.”

He paused a moment, as if deciding whether or not he was okay with taking orders from a pint-sized girl like Taz.

“All right,” he said, and returned to his bunk. Over her shoulder, she watched him go. He didn’t look so fearsome now, pyjamas hiding most of his bulk as he stumbled his way through the dark, but she’d seen him take down half a dozen robots with nothing but a gun and his bare hands, and then shrug it off like he did it every day. Maybe he did.