***

ELODIE LIFTED HER HEAD off her knees when the doors split open across the way. Bright light from the hallway flooded her vision and she flinched as it pushed back the gloom of the brig.

“Ely, wake up.”

“I’m awake,” she whispered, throat tight. Trying to blink away the forced dilation of her eyes, she glanced from her dad to the men now entering.

Their eyes roved across all the cells, hers included. Her captors’ dark gazes looking for something—something she refused to give—and she shriveled into herself.

“They may be recruiting again,” he muttered, hopeful.

“Shhh...” someone shushed from down the line.

Ely scooted closer to her father. He was being held in the cell next to hers, closer to the entryway door.

“Dad. Don’t,” she pleaded for the hundredth time. “Please...”

His face hardened and his lips flattened into a straight line. It was the only reaction she got from him now when it came to the pirates that held them.

Several weeks before, their mining ship had been attacked suddenly and without cause by a fleet they couldn’t withstand. In a matter of hours her life had gone from monotony to hell.

“They killed your friends,” Elodie reminded him. “They nearly killed us.”

But he wasn’t having any of it. Her words entered one ear and flew out the other, and even with her cheek pressed up against her knee, she could see how ineffective her pleas were.

I’m not ready to say goodbye.

She never would be. Even when she thought she was, when the time came, she always chickened out and stayed. Because she knew once her father, Chesnik, left her, or when she left him, that would be it. The likelihood of ever seeing each other again was unlikely. Her dad had been a worker-bee his entire life, moving them from one ship to the next, taking her with him wherever he went, no matter how dangerous it was for her.

When she was old enough to cut ties and find her own way, she chose to stay with him.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into entire jobs, and jobs turned into years, and here she was. She had followed him straight into the slaving units of a pirate ship.

And now he was leaving her.

“Please... Dad...”

“Don’t you fucking start! Man the fuck up, boy,” he spat.

“I have manned up,” Elodie hissed. “This has nothing to do with me—”

“It has everything to do with you.”

She stiffened and made sure the guards weren’t paying attention. “Risking yourself to join them isn’t something we agreed on. Just,” she took a heavy breath, hoping it would calm her nerves, “think about what you’re doing. You have no idea what happens once you leave this room. No one has returned from recruitment. No one has come back.”

“That’s because they’re not dumb enough to put recent prisoners in charge of the flesh stock.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Kallan sneered on the other side of her. “You keep talking and you’re gonna get us all killed.”

Her dad scooted away, distancing himself. From her. Elodie knew why he was doing it. He was trying to protect her by sacrificing himself. He was guarding her secret. She understood his reasoning, but that didn’t stop it from hurting.

He was making a big mistake and she couldn’t convince him. She had tried to since he first brought up joining the pirate’s crew. Helplessness wasn’t something she often felt, but at the moment, the sensation drowned her.

If she only had more time to convince him, they could come up with a better plan. Elodie eyed the locking mechanisms on her cell.

The guards did a full walkthrough of the brig, eyeing her and everyone else like choice pieces of meat.

They didn’t bring the evening meal, which meant they weren’t getting one that night. She tried not to focus on the gnawing pit in her stomach as she followed the pirates’ movements back and forth.

Everyone had gone quiet, waiting, wondering what would happen, knowing collectively that they wouldn’t be fed. Another twelve hours or more would go by before they had a chance at another meal—if they didn’t reach wherever the hell they were going to first.

One of the men turned away from the other and grinned, lifting an electrical rod from his belt to slap in his hand.

Despite the calm facade Elodie was so desperately trying to broadcast, she could feel herself sinking, her veneer cracking. She was on the verge of tears, but even crying would do little to alleviate the ache weighing her down.

Men don’t cry. Goodbyes are nothing.

“Well, pussies and gentlemen, we have two openings in our crew. Had some men who went and got themselves killed. Any takers?”

The question was loaded.

This wasn’t the first time she and the others had gone through a recruitment. Someone would die or get bludgeoned to an inch of their life. It happened every time.

When no one initially spoke, she chanced a look at her dad, hopeful that he would reconsider. But he stood when he caught her eye.

Hope was such a fleeting thing.

“I’ll take one of those slots. Anything has to be better than dying without dinner,” he announced.

Elodie looked at the man in the cell directly across from her, past him, and to the wall. She focused on it as if it would save her life. The guards walked through her line of sight but they passed as shadows, obscured and out of focus.

“We have a taker!” the man with the electrical rod bellowed. Her periphery blurred, the edges growing fuzzy, until there was nothing left but her—her and grey wall. “Ding ding ding ding!” The rod slammed into the metal bars with each syllable.

She heard her dad’s grunt and the shuffle of his feet, undeterred and unwary, followed by the hum of the lock on his cell as it opened.

The sounds filled her ears, her mind, prying with sharpened claws to lift her head up and force her to watch the events taking place.

The word goodbye pounded through her skull over and over, monotone and depressing.

How could you?

Her throat constricted. The betrayal was hard for her to stomach.

“What’s your skills, old man?” one of the guards asked.

“Systems, mechanics, the upkeep of the bowels when called for, and resource mining on occasion. I know a half dozen different rig setups and have practice welding in an exosuit.”

You can also speak several languages, tell a good story, and give a decent hug.

“Ah, space fodder, you’re space fucking fodder. That’s okay, it’s okay. Too bad you ain’t a doctor,” Rod-man muttered.

“Or a woman,” said the other.

“I’ll go where you need me,” Chesnik finished, undisturbed.

“You hear that all! He’ll go where he’s needed! Who else wants to join the crew today? Last chance, fuckers.”

The electric rod slammed into the bars again, louder and harder than before. Elodie’s grey wall slipped out of her vision completely as she was jerked back into reality. She lifted her eyes to see her dad shifting glances her way.

His cell door closed with a bang, and for the first time in weeks, it was empty.

“One more, fuckers, who’s it gonna be?” Rod-man ran his eyes over her and moved onto the other prisoners in the cells beyond. His footsteps trailed away and his voice faded as he continued down the line.

For a moment, it was only her, Chesnik, and the quiet guard that held a gun to Chesnik’s side. She sized them up.

The tension between them was stifling, overpowering. A feral spark lit within her that demanded she volunteer too, to derail whatever suicidal plan her dad made and get the guards to open up her cell just so she could attack them, knowing it would cost her her life.

I love you. She mouthed the phrase, pouring her heart into it.

He frowned and looked away. Elodie couldn’t. She kept her eyes on him and tried her best to memorize every little detail about him.

But all she saw was her dad in the rest-cycle dimmed lights, wearing dirt-stained clothes that hung limp around his frame, with deepening wrinkles around his mouth, and a slight hunch that bent his once upright figure.

When did he become so frail?

Her heart dropped into her stomach and she pulled her legs more firmly into her chest. The booming sound of the cattle prod slamming against metal bars was the musical accompaniment to her misery. Soon, the sounds of grunts and hollers joined the chorus as a man was beaten to a pulp.

“I’ll join the crew,” an unfamiliar voice spoke out, but Rod-man was already dragging another prisoner behind him.

Three takers... Elodie stuck her neck out to get a better view, moving her feet under her.

The guard thrust the other prisoner at her dad before sourcing out the third voice, but Chesnik didn’t catch the man, instead letting him stumble and drop to his knees.

The opening of a third cell door sounded.

“You want in on the crew, do you?” the guard asked.

“Yeah. I do. Had to think on it but then I remembered how fucking hungry I am.”

“We have two spots and three takers. How hungry are you, dumbass? Because we all want to know. What would you do for what you want right now?”

Elodie crawled forward, unable to help herself. The third man stood level with the guard. Idiot. He’s got a damned electrical weapon.

“Pretty fucking hungry. Enough to tell you I’m worth more than both those two combined. Enough to be done sitting in a cell all day rotting.”

She snuck a glance to her dad and wished she hadn’t, seeing creases of worry appear on his brow. Her head snapped back as a sizzling screeching noise filled the space, followed by howls and seizing. She knew that sound but it always startled her: when a cattle prod was used on a human.

“That didn’t answer my fucking question! What would you do for it?” Rod-man bellowed. The prisoner dropped to his knees as the guard thrust the weapon into his thigh. He fell the rest of the way to the floor with a groaning thud, writhing like a fish.

The smell of burnt flesh and roasted meat, ashen cloth, and fried hair assaulted her nose. She pressed her palms into her stomach to stop the gag from coming forth, knowing the bile wouldn’t be able to wash the taste of it out of her mouth. She buried her nose into her shoulder, sickened.

“Get up!” he screamed. “You still fucking hungry!? Then get the fuck up!”

Elodie cringed and scurried back to the wall as the prisoner was hauled from his cell and past her own. She clutched her nose as the limp, partially cooked thigh dragged across the floor, attached to a screeching man.

“Please, stooop! Pleasse. I’ll do anything, anything. I’ll prove my loyalty, just please ssstoooop!”

The second taker had risen to his feet, holding his limp arm. What had been an initiation bludgeon now only looked like a bad bruise compared to taker number three and his burning skin.

“Well, Trainet, we got ourselves space fodder, a security nerd, and a gimp with a cooked leg.” Rod-man lifted the crying man up and looked him in the eye. “What makes you better than the two who don’t need immediate medical care?”

“C-c-cryp—”

“You’re a what, a c-c-c-crybaby?”

“Nooo, a c-cryptocurrency investor,” his voice hitched.

Rod-man dropped the crying man and turned to the one named Trainet. “Kill him.”

“No! WAIT! I have money,” the man begged, sobbing, “A lot of m-money!” Trainet stepped around the others and pointed his gun to the prisoner’s temple. He scooted back, Trainet followed. Taunting.

Elodie pushed herself as far up into the corner of her cell as she could go as the men neared her cage.

No one made a sound. Not one of the dozen or so prisoners dared. Someone was going to die, and no one wanted it to be them.

“Waait, I have an idea.” Rod-man sidled up to the guard holding the gun, leaned down, and grabbed the sputtering prisoner again by his scruff, dragging him back to where her dad and the other man stood. “What’s your name?”

“J-Jacob.”

“Well, Jacob, it’s your lucky day. You’ve got a spot.”

Elodie crawled back toward the front, gripping the bars in her hands as her eyes widened in horror. No.

“Thank you...”

“But you have to kill one of these two.” Rod-man nodded. Trainet handed Jacob the gun.

She watched everything in slow motion and vaguely out of focus, as Jacob lifted the firearm, limbs shaking, and pointed it at her dad, toward the other man, and back at her dad. Her mouth opened in a silent scream but the only noise to be heard was the click of the gun and the burst of a bullet.

NO!

A body hit the floor, smoking.

Elodie caught Chesnik’s eyes over the twitching corpse between them as it sank in that her father still lived. They stared at each other for what seemed like a gut-wrenching eternity until time resumed its normal flow.

“Throw Jacob back in his cell with the body. If he’s still sane in the morning after a night next to the dead, we won’t have to recruit again.”

Goodbye. Chesnik mouthed the final word.

Elodie couldn’t form the word back.

Twenty minutes was all it took for them to separate.

Elodie rested her brow against the cold bars and listened to Jacob sob in the distance.

***

AT SOME POINT SHE HAD crawled to the back of her cell. The lights overhead remained low, timed to the ship’s preconfigured cycle, as an indication of night. It was the only way to tell time, but her suspicions grew as the quiet around her deepened.

The longest night of my life.

Elodie didn’t even try to sleep, knowing from her racing heart that she’d never be able to anyway. Staring into the empty cell next to hers, she hoped that her dad would magically reappear, that he hadn’t left her to rot in the brig alone.

Chesnik was the only family she had and the only one who knew who she really was. Deep space and long voyages—some privately funded and some government-sanctioned expeditions—were no place for a woman. But deep space was exactly where she was and where she had been her whole life. Having played the part since she was eight, being a man was second-nature to her. At the time that decision was made, she’d been too young to understand how selfish of her dad it was. Not until after he’d sheared off her long blond hair.

It was either stay on Earth and make a life amongst the dirt-chrome cities and the wastes or retain some sense of freedom out in space for him. As a boy, and then a man.

She rested her head back against the wall, peering at the long strip of light overhead.

“He ain’t coming back.”

The voice startled her and she looked to her left at Kallan. He’d been here long before she was thrown in next to him, and he was still here now.

Elodie rubbed her face, hoping to smudge grime further over her features, and pushed her head inward slightly to round out the excess skin on her jaw and cheeks. There wasn’t much left to work with; weeks of sparse rations had taken a toll on her. The thought sent her stomach into a rumble.

“They never come back,” Kallan continued. “I should know. I’ve been here longer than you.”

She closed her eyes and tried to ignore him.

“Boy-o, you gotta grow a thicker skin.”

“Shut the fuck up!” another nearby prisoner yelled. Jacob’s distant cry started back up.

Kallan drew up to the bars between them, pressing up as close as he could to her. Elodie moved away, against the bars she’d shared with her dad. Kallan had reached for her frequently but she never let herself get near enough for him to grab her. At least not close enough where she couldn’t easily twist away. But she watched as he settled in and lowered his voice.

“Chesnik your real pa?”

She gifted him with a blank stare.

“You two look alike. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Must be nice to know someone in this hellhole. Too bad he gone up and abandoned you. I guess that means I can be your new daddy.” The smile he flashed made her sick. “Always been wondering how a frail, twig-armed boy like you chose work in a field that could lead to this.” Kallan cupped the bars. “You know they ain’t taking us straight to the slave rings.”

“What do you mean?” Elodie asked.

He grinned. “I’ve been on the other side. No. If we were just slaves, we’d have been sold off by now. No. We’re for something else.”

“Else?” she asked. Do I really want to know?

Kallan reached through the bars and tried to grasp at her but his fingers didn’t even make it halfway. “Maybe your pa has the right of it. But is the risk worth it?” He drew his hand back and shifted away.

She lifted the collar of her work shirt and breathed in the scent of her sweat. It grounded her; although unpleasant, it was better than the reek the rest of the brig often had. Everything, every square inch of flesh and cloth on her body was filthy. Her skin itched, her short hair fell in clumped strands around her face, her nail beds were broken and lined with dirt, sweat stains sported her undershirt, but the worst part about her current state was the extra-tight, double-banded sports bra underneath it all. She’d been wearing it for weeks and Elodie was certain the skin underneath was as desperate as her lungs for fresh air.

She didn’t have large breasts, or really any breasts at all. Elodie couldn’t be sure, not having spent much time in the presence of women, but not being well endowed had saved her a lot of hardship.

The tips of her fingers skated over her pulse. Feeling life under her skin, literally touching it, reminded her how lucky she really was.

“You and your pa plan it?” Kallan’s voice stopped her fingers from trailing under her shirt to itch.

I’m the epitome of stupidity. She streaked her fingers across the scrapes on her knuckles instead, feeling a slight twinge of pain. It helped distract her from her thoughts.

“Plan what?” she asked.

“Him gettin’ recruited and you staying here? You two got a plan?”

Elodie dropped her hand, suddenly tired.

“That’s it, isn’t it? You two got a plan!”

She turned away and lowered to her side.

“You better cue me in before it goes down. Or your being related won’t stay a secret. You listening to me boy-o? They’d find a way to use you two against each other.”

She closed her eyes. It didn’t shut the pain away but it kept her from staring off into her dad’s empty cell. It allowed her to pretend, in short, desperate bursts, that he was still there. That, in some miraculous way, she wasn’t locked up at all and that she had no secrets to hide.

I don’t care if they know he’s my dad.

I care if they find out I’m a girl.

I need a plan.

Slumber teetered out of reach even though Kallan went silent. Elodie curled one arm over her empty stomach and prayed to whoever—whatever—out there that might listen and help get her out of this cell before she could hide no longer. She allowed one single tear to make its way down her cheek. Just one.