Anstractor (The New Phase Book 1) Read Free

airlock into open space. The decision did not come quickly, but once it was made—that he was a starving child suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder—the airlock was still suggested!
    Civilian children were not welcome aboard a military ship en route to war, so they deliberated whether or not he was worth the rations that it would cost them to keep him alive.
    The situation was grave, and after three hours of discussion, the leaders decided to give Rafian a chance to earn his keep. He had to prove he could be useful to the corps within a year’s time, or they would drop him off at the nearest hub to fend for himself among the other homeless and destitute of the various planets. Living at a hub would be a death sentence, since compassion for children was in short order in those places. People fought over scraps of food. They robbed, raped, and preyed upon one another like animals. The only ones to survive were the ones strong enough or wicked enough to outsmart and get over on the others.
    Rafian was taken in by Captain Samoo LES, a Vestalian farmer turned military war hero during the Seventh Invasion, known as the Geralos Vox . Samoo was unhappy with his assignment of babysitting a stowaway. He reminded Rafian daily that he was an annoyance by calling him names and constantly assigning him chores. Rafian’s name was “boy,” and his sleeping quarters was a tiny corner of the soldier’s apartment.
    Samoo’s apartment was the same as the other 1,500 soldier-issued quarters aboard the ship. It was a ten-by-nine-foot space occupied by a bed, which flipped out from the port wall and could double as a table by selecting that option on an exterior panel. Samoo kept it as a table, not ever sleeping in the presence of Rafian, who wondered how the man could stay so sharp and clean without resting.
    Samoo was a closed book on everything, including his eating and sleeping habits.
    There was a tiny metal sink that protruded from the wall and a toilet and mirror, all retractable so that the room could become an empty cell with the simple touch of a button. Every day, between the hours of 0500 and 1000, the room was a cell for Rafian that was used for training.
    Each morning the boy was roused, made to jog out a three-mile trek, do a number of push-ups and sit-ups, recite military doctrine, and eat a breakfast of laucks and mosh (which would be the equivalent of dry oatmeal and egg whites). This ritual continued for months, and while he hated every second of it at first, he slowly began to accept it and even liked it. The captain was given a year to make young Rafian into a prodigy. The boy was too impressive to be cast out with the rubbish, and Samoo was not going to fail, no matter how much he had to push him.
    What made it very hard for young Rafian, however, was the fact that there were other children on the ship. They were called cadets, and they dressed and acted the part well enough. Rafian realized that he was being made to prove himself worthy of becoming one of their number, but he knew that they had not been required to do the same daily ritual as he. They were lucky, chosen from healthy, happy homes—the sons and daughters of military fathers and mothers. He expected that he would pass, and when he did, he would have the new hell of dealing with the constant ridicule and bullying from them, his would-be peers. It placed his mind in a dark place and made him very defensive and aware.
    “Look at you now, boy, all fire and no weakness” was what the captain had to say after he had completed the eleventh month of training. He was nicer to Rafian now, offering him real chow from the dining halls when he could and telling him war stories from the past whenever they had time together. Rafian had grown fond of the captain and had developed a real love for training and military logic.
    Samoo had given him a tiny las-gun a while back—a gift for being quiet and doing as he was told. The pistol had a fried ejection rod,