bald officer cleared his throat. “Charge number one—following the captain for a goodly amount of time without him detecting your presence.”
“Guilty!” the captain sang out.
“Charge two—stealing the captain’s dinner from literally behind his back.”
“Guilty!”
“And—the most heinous of the lot—stripping the captain of his rightfully earned Coalition rank in a most humiliating fashion.”
“Guilty!”
They were going to punish him. Maybe kill him. Eriff swiped his knuckles across his nose, trying hard not to cry.
“No one’s ever bested the captain like that,” the officer said.
“Need you remind me, Major Atir?”
Eriff sensed the men were smiling at the captain’s dramatic, wounded tone, but he was too sick and scared to be sure.
“You’d better remember how to walk really quick, little rimmer. For a scrap of a thing, you sure are heavy.” He dropped him to his feet. Eriff’s legs wobbled like overcooked kristalks, but the man propelled him along. “When I ordered the force-field around the ship, it was to keep wild things out, not to keep them in. But if not for that perimeter, you’d have escaped me. No one escapes me. Until now, that is. You have a gift, a natural-born talent. I know of a school for special boys like you. In fact, I helped found the school.”
A school? After hearing the charges against him, he was sure they planned to execute him. Now it sounded as if they meant to draft him. Forced conscriptions were legal—it was wartime; it had always been wartime—but in the Rim it was the stuff of fireside stories, not anything that actually happened to anybody. And not to kids.
His boots hit the gangway of the ship. Eriff’s blood chilled. The men were bringing him on board.
“No!” He dug in his heels. “I want to stay here. I don’t need a school.” Especially not an off-worlder school.
He was a Sandreemer. He could never leave the woods and the inland sea, the midnight sun in summer and the smell of his mother’s cooking in the dead of winter when the sun stayed down all day. If these men took him, it would be like tearing out a vital organ. He’d be as good as dead. “Please!”
A hand spun him around. In a second, the captain’s face had filled his vision. “Enough!” The intensity of his piercing green gaze and the deadliness of his tone struck icy fear deep in Eriff’s chest. “I serve the Coalition in many ways, but what I loved most was working as an assassin. Do you know what assassins do?”
Sniffling, Eriff shook his head. “K-kill people?”
“On command. And sometimes when we feel like it.” He gave Eriff another hard shake, choking him by the collar. Eriff’s stomach protested but he was too terrified to throw up.
“Soon men like me will be obsolete. Mere humans will be no match for the super soldiers of the future. Biomechatronic components integrated into the human body on the cellular level. A REEF—Robotically Engineered Enemy Fighter. When I return to base, I will begin gathering candidates for the program. But it looks like my side trip through the Rim rewarded me with an early recruit.”
Only now did the captain’s hand loose its hold on Eriff’s collar. He wheezed air into his starved lungs.
“A reward indeed. Your talents are undeniable, little rimmer. With bioengineered enhancements, you’ll be unstoppable.”
An officer called down from inside the ship. “We’re ready to launch, Captain.”
“No! You can’t take me! My parents will never let you!”
“Hell, boy, they’ll thank me. I just gave you a future beyond their wildest dreams.”
His father’s words came back to haunt him: “I wish for you the chance to leave this world and find your fortune, but alas, the chances of that are next to none.”
Eriff grabbed hold of the hatchway as the captain tried to push him through it. He held on to the rim of the hatch for all he was worth.
Anger tightened the man’s voice. “You might be the ideal age, size and temperament for the REEF program, little rimmer, but as for intelligence? The way you’re hanging on to that hatch I’m having my doubts. Let go of the goddess-be-damned door!”
Eriff hung on with all his might. “Papa!” he yelled. “Mama!”
Other crew members gathered around, drawn by the commotion. Finally, Major Atir crouched to peel his fingers off the hatchway frame, one at a time.
“No!” Eriff scrabbled for a handhold as he was dragged away. Once more he swung from the captain’s hand, which was looped through his waist-belt. “Mama! Papa!” His fingernails scraped over the