he ordered again.
“Humanoid, female, deceased.”
Fourteen peered through his visor for a better look. In the past twenty years he’d battled many of the Federation’s enemies, but where lay the threat in colonists? Federation citizens? With only close-range projectile weapons, why engage them at all? Why not rain fire from beyond the atmosphere? Oh yeah, bodies to swell the ranks of the Federation’s military, in order to conquer more worlds. Mustn’t spoil the goods.
Images flashed through his mind of his parents screaming, his mother pleading, and then, finally, sobbing and clutching her bloody nose as his father led him out the door, the last time he’d ever seen her. Is that what happened here? Had the older female been told to give up the younger? Is that why the colonists fought? All for naught. What the Federation couldn’t get they’d destroy.
Tiny noises escaped the tiny human. Fourteen reached out a hand—why, he didn’t know. The infant wrapped miniature fingers around his glove. Then she peered up at him, in all his hideous, bloodied glory… and smiled. “Sister” had smiled, too.
Fourteen stopped, waiting for directives. Nothing. For the past twenty years, the constant stream of instructions had rendered no need to make major decisions. Now, in the calm of the cave, with only his own heart for guidance, he raised his weapon to follow his original orders.
That smile. That guileless smile.
He lowered his hand. Before, each target had offered its own reward: freeing the Universe from anarchists, or repelling marauding invaders. Ending their lives spared his, and the lives of fellow soldiers. But killing harmless colonists? On an agricultural world?
He powered down. Mindlessly cutting a swath through armed and screaming invading forces was one thing, killing a helpless infant another entirely. But what to do? If he simply left the creature in the cave, could it care for itself? Probably not.
The diminutive female smiled again while pulling his finger to her mouth. Hungry. Fourteen recalled a time when he’d put food in his mouth to nourish his body, long before being assigned an enhancement suit to see to his needs and keep him ever ready to fight.
Something in his chest tightened. He’d been young and helpless once.
“Please, Father, not again!” he shrieked, while his mother stared down at her hands twisted together in her lap.
Spittle flew from his father’s mouth, his nose mere inches from Fourteen’s. “You’ll do as I say, and you will please the senator. If I hear one bad word…”
There’d always been a senator, a judge, a magistrate—even a governor. None came to Fourteen’s aid. At night they’d taken pleasure from his body, and in the morning they’d opened their doors and surrendered him back to the man who’d continued to use him in a bid for power and influence.
He couldn’t turn back time and stop the madness for himself, or for “Sister”, wherever she was now. He’d stop it for this child. The first thing he needed to do was get her someplace safe.
His life pod wouldn’t make it very far, being designed only for short trips to a planet’s surface and back to the ship, but hadn’t he heard of another colony nearby? In the midst of battle chaos, pods launching and landing, and interrupted signals, surely he had time enough to hide the child off-world without being missed.
Boom! Dust and rock rained down. He threw himself to the ground and shielded his intended victim with his body until the danger passed. The ground stopped shaking, and his visor adjusted its lens to allow vision through dust clouds. Now or never. He scooped the child from the dead female’s arms and tucked it inside his armor, catching a whiff of something clean-smelling. The infant made a warm lump against his chest. A few filaments broke free of his flesh to wrap around the child, cradling but not entering her skin. His peripheral now displayed two heartbeats and monitored two sets of vital signs. He left a gap in the suit so he could peer inside and keep watch over his new charge. Warmth seeped through his skin where she lay.
“You be quiet now, little one,” he said in a voice long unused, after two failed attempts to communicate via his implanted com unit. Right. Sergeant would hear via com once he left the cave. Voice only from here on out. Voice. Did he even remember how to use spoken words, or did his voice emerge as primitive grunts?
Trained to stand tall and depend on his suit for