A Spaceman

Chapter 33--Ashes to ashes

"Stg. Shepherd? What are you doing here?" I ask. My hand is on my battle axe. Something feels wrong here. Well, distinctly not right. He looks over at me. too clean. He's too clean for spending the days out here he has.

"Clarisse, breaking the rules as always, I thought you'd agreed to stay with Quentin," he says, calmly.

"Something is wrong," I say, "I need to go back to Milton. Isn't that where you're going?"

"Yes, yes," he says, nodding, vacantly, looking off and putting his hand on the butt of his gun, "I am on my way. But we're miles from there."

"What happened to the rest of your party?" I ask.

"They all died. I did too," he raises his pistol and fires. I leap just as he does, the bullet racing past me. I do not carry a gun. Not out here. Guns run out of bullets. Axes don't. We don't have factories to make bullets. Not anymore. We're all savages. We have crude weapons. Cavemen. I swing the axe, feeling a bullet graze my side as I do. He only gets one bullet off before my weapon connects with his side slice off an arm and into the rib cage. He falls, screaming, I decide to end it quickly for him. he was a good man. I bring the axe down on his head. I have seen much carnage since the Ulyssess, but I still tip my eyes away as the spray of blood hits my face. I look up at the stars and not at my body, splattered in blood and brain matter.

**

Exit Shepherd. One less radio I have to monitor. I log off of that channel. Thank you Clarisse. Well, I was hoping he would be a bit more useful than THAT. but at least he met a worthy end. At the hands of a girl. He would have hated that. I keep walking. This is a rather arduous path we are taking. I should have thought of that, well I did think of that. but I did not account for my age. I do not like walking. I like running and flying. And this is not enough mental stimulation.

**

I'm too old for this tromping around in the woods bit. if I weren't expecting some sort of trap I would be more miserable. But as it is I'm half miserable because I can only use half my energy sulking and I need the rest to be alert. I try Alexander on the radio again. no luck. Why are all of our signals jammed?

**

I shouldn't have jammed all their signals. Now I can't hear them talking to each other and I can't talk to them pretending to be somebody else. Of course, I did it to make it easier on me but it's also less entertaining. Now. so. I could unjam them. but I need that for part of the game. Can't have the boy or Quentin warning them now, can we?

**

"Are you there?" Donovan asks.

"I'm still here. Seems we're the only ones with a signal tonight," I say, leaning back in the chair. I haven't been able to reach Clarisse. No doubt Titus is interfering with all of our radio communication.

"I'm having to retune it every few minutes, something is messing with this," he says.

"Somebody," I grunt, "You okay there, little one?"

"Yeah."

"That wasn't very enthusiastic."

"I know everyone had to go off, for a good reason. But if they don't come back, which they all told me they might not, then I'm afraid I won't be very brave," he says.

"Between your mother and your dad, I think you've got enough braveness locked up inside of you," I say, "You just don't know it yet."

"That's the sort of thing my dad would say," he says, softly.