Evac

Klingon Hamlet

I remember it well: me, my mom and dad all bundled into a shuttle and flown across town. I was six and small for my age, on my mom’s lap, peering through the shuttle’s slits for windows, watching bombs rain down on the homes. There was so much fire and noise. I worried my friend Tommy was dead. I wondered if he made it out, was on a shuttle like mine. I later realised, no one had a shuttle like mine. We were special. My parents were special. We were the only ones to make it out alive.

The noise. Booms of bombs. The gush of twin ion engines blasting us towards Hub City. I’d never been, only heard of it. Mom had said One day when you’re grown up you can enlist, go to the Hub. See what we saw. She kept me up late at night telling me stories, so many stories of the wars, of how she patched up the soldiers, send them back out to keep the planet safe. Of giant Sentinel Ships, the size of cities, coming in for shore leave. Beaming men and women in bright white, grins gleaming, eyes bright with heroic pride. I’d be them. I’d be a Protectorate soldier.

I looked past my parents, past the pilots’ seats, to the front window. The Hub was mushroom shaped and colossal. Black ants darted to-and-from: escape pods, defence droids, countless other ships and drones. It was hell but I didn’t know it yet. We flew in fast, scraped to a stop in a landing bay, and were dragged up stairs, into lifts, til we reached the central station, the Bridge. Me, mom, my dad, and two armed escorts. I couldn’t see the two escorts' faces; they wore dark metal masks. Later I would realise they were biobots.

A man came up to us, turning away from the dozen or so chattering officers. He smiled widely, I remember how blue his eyes were. “You must be Ben.” He ignored my parents, looked right at me, through me. He offered a hand; I frowned at it. “Mom?”

I turned and she was gone. So was dad. I looked to the tall smiling man, and said—nothing, because there was a terrible shudder, and the deck tipped sideways, and everything turned dark for a moment. I remember screams, and sparks, and a terrible burst of smoke from one of the walls. A man rolled to the deck, and when he pulled his hands away from his head, half his face came off. The tall man was not smiling. He was crouched by him, injecting something into the screaming man’s neck, and the injured soldier went still, his scream fading, while the rest of his face slid to the floor.

I stood, frozen still, legs and arms numb. My heart kicked my little chest. Where were my parents. “Mom.” Where were they. “MOM!” What was going on?! “MOOOOM!”

Fire and screams and death. Shuffled off, this time by the man who no longer smiled; the man with the silver hair, and crystal blue eyes. He looked ten foot tall, and he carried me the rest of the way, and he told me, “Don’t worry, son, you’ll be OK.” Lights flashed by as he hurtled down corridors, shoving past running soldiers, barking, “Out of the way.” Someone froze in front of us, his face a mask of blood; the silver-haired man stopped, took one arm out from under me, and shoved the bleeding soldier to one side; then off we went. I cried for my mom, while everything around us—the corridors, the deck, and the people---burst into flame.

Dark now; though not completely. Cold air rushed around me, and I curled into the warmth of this strange protector. Protectorate soldier. I was tired suddenly, and my face was covered in sticky tears. He hushed me gently and brought me into the waiting arms of a giant and monstrous looking ship. I saw guns on its nose, huge engines, long wings; it looked like a pterodactyl, and it smelled like burnt metal. He lay me on a bed, and behind us five soldiers rushed on, carrying huge rifles, eyes wide. One shook violently. I watched him bit his lower lip until it bled. The deck heaved. Another cried, “Come on, come on!”

My strange friend turned from his seat; I saw him through tears as I lay on the bunk; he roared, “Mouth shut, private, before I shut it for you.” He turned back and shoved his nav-sticks forward.

The deck bounced, and daylight flooded the pterodactyl; we were sky-bound, free of the Hub. I watched the front window like I did from the shuttle; the Hub was trembling, blackened, spilling fire and men. Screams filled the air. The empty blue sky was filling up with hundreds of pillars of smoke rising from the ground. As the pterodactyl tipped its nose up, I saw the Hub topple and heard and felt a terrible boom. The Hub was destroyed, and even through the fear and panic, I remembered my mom saying it housed a thousand warriors at times of peace; ten times that during war. This was war, and most certainly, ten thousand were dead.

But I just wanted my family back.

Blue sky became flames; then black replaced it all. We launched into space, and as the stars became smears, and the ship leapt into hyper, exhaustion took hold. I fell into nothingness, the screams following me.

ToasterSparks

Hey, I read this a few days ago, but didn't get a chance to reply.

I liked it. And it definitely passed the would-i-read-on-if-i-picked-it-up-in-a-book-shop test. I can't see anything in the piece that was poorly done. Well done!

Antilles

Hi OP,

the sentence that starts "Dark now; though not completely" a bit off. Everything else in the piece is past tense, but this uses "now" in present tense.

However, that's the only thing that stood out negatively for me. I really like how you developed the story. It feels very much like a flashback, or an origin story for a much longer piece.