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hoped that the guards’ presence on<br />
the spaceport dwindled since she<br />
was captured.<br />
Samir started showing signs of<br />
exhaustion an hour after their escape,<br />
and they had to stop every<br />
few minutes for him to recover his<br />
strength. After a year of not being<br />
able to see him clearly in the darkness<br />
of the cell, she now noticed<br />
that he was sickeningly thin. She<br />
was in a somewhat better shape,<br />
especially since Antoine decided to<br />
accompany her torture-nights with<br />
luxurious dinners. A very bad decision,<br />
she thought as she recalled the<br />
knife she managed to smuggle out.<br />
Then a memory of the guard she<br />
stabbed flashed, and she felt consumed<br />
by guilt.<br />
“Look,” she finally told Samir.<br />
“We can’t go on like this. We’ll find<br />
a place to hide, you’ll get some rest<br />
and I’ll steal some food—”<br />
“Don’t be stupid. We’re getting<br />
out of this spaceport as fast as we<br />
can. Figured out how we’re going to<br />
do that?”<br />
She hesitated. “Cargo section.<br />
We need to look for an unmanned<br />
ship with organic cargo—they are<br />
launched automatically.”<br />
Samir frowned. “Organic cargo?<br />
We’ll be spending the next three<br />
weeks with chickens and cows and<br />
all their shit?”<br />
Niatti sighed. “Organic cargo<br />
ships are the only unmanned ships<br />
that contain a supply of oxygen and<br />
food.” It was chickens’ and cows’<br />
food, but Niatti decided to keep that<br />
little detail for herself.<br />
“So how long does it take us to<br />
get there?”<br />
“Three hours, since we don’t use<br />
elevators. Hanging in corridors like<br />
this one for too long is also a bad<br />
idea.”<br />
When they started moving again,<br />
Niatti discovered that her assessment<br />
was too optimistic. Samir had<br />
to take longer breaks to recover, and<br />
at their current pace, it would take<br />
them more than a day to get to the<br />
cargo section.<br />
“Just leave me here,” he finally<br />
told her.<br />
“I will not.”<br />
“Haven’t you learned anything,<br />
Niatti? The reason we got in this<br />
mess to begin with is because you<br />
wouldn’t leave the Colonel behind<br />
here.”<br />
“That’s because you don’t leave<br />
people behind, Samir. Besides, Chen<br />
could give me orders. You can’t. In<br />
fact, I can give you orders. Get on<br />
your feet, Sergeant.”<br />
“So I’m going to disobey your order,<br />
just as you did, Lieutenant. I’m<br />
not going anywhere.”<br />
“If you’re not going, than I’m stay-<br />
ing here with you.”<br />
“Well, at least we tried.” He<br />
turned to one of the iron walls, and<br />
kicked it. A faint echo was heard<br />
throughout the corridors.<br />
“What do you think you’re doing?”<br />
“Noise, Niatti. They’ll be coming<br />
here to get me soon, so you’d better<br />
run.”<br />
He kicked the wall again, harder—and<br />
this time he cursed in pain<br />
immediately afterwards. The sight<br />
was almost funny.<br />
“Samir, that’s enough!”<br />
He gave her a desperate look.<br />
“Enough yourself, Niatti. You want<br />
to help me? Find a way out of here,<br />
and come back with the entire Coalition<br />
Patrol.”<br />
She hesitated for another second<br />
before turning her back on him and<br />
running. She could hear his body<br />
falling on the floor behind her.<br />
***<br />
Niatti’s body started shaking.<br />
In the year since she escaped the<br />
spaceport, her body behaved the<br />
same way every evening, as though<br />
it was still getting ready for its daily<br />
abuse, bringing up memories of<br />
breath-stench, rude bragging, and<br />
endless pain.<br />
She opened the pack, got a cigarette,<br />
and brought it to her mouth<br />
ISSUE <strong>53</strong><br />
while struggling to keep her hand<br />
steady and light it. The heat spread<br />
through her body, and the shaking<br />
was gone. She sank into her leather<br />
chair, slowly letting the smoke out<br />
of her lungs.<br />
Her body started shaking again<br />
almost immediately after she finished<br />
the cigarette. She needed another<br />
one. She sent a nervous hand<br />
toward the pack on the desk. It fell,<br />
and all the cigarettes rolled in different<br />
directions. It didn’t matter,<br />
really—she could pick them all up<br />
later. All she needed now was one<br />
more cigarette. She bent under the<br />
desk and took one.<br />
She sat back on her chair and was<br />
about to light the new cigarette,<br />
when she noticed that someone<br />
was standing at the other side of the<br />
desk. It was General Matsumoto,<br />
the newly-appointed commander<br />
of the spaceports campaign.<br />
“What do you want?” she asked<br />
impatiently.<br />
“I want many things, Captain. But<br />
we can start by satisfying my curiosity<br />
as to why you don’t get up and<br />
salute a senior officer when he enters<br />
your office.”<br />
“Funny, I expected you to be worried<br />
about bigger things, Sir. Like<br />
the war they let you handle. You<br />
know—the one we’re losing.”<br />
“We’ll get to that too, Captain,<br />
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