Dru sat down in the middle of the main room and cried.

As the wave of grief possessed him, his distraught mind conjured up a melange of dreadful thoughts. He feared what had happened to Gar, and the other disappeared children. He fretted about his parents, and wondered why he hadn't seen them in months. He even considered that his parents had left The Star, leaving him and Meri behind.

It was sometime later, that the dark, smothering despondency lifted enough for him to notice the rat was moving around in his pocket again. He opened the flap and peered in. The rat looked up at him.

"It's just you and me now, mate." Dru said to the rat.

The rat took the comment as an invitation to explore. It climbed out of the pocket, and crawled down Dru's chest and onto the floor. It seemed to have recovered from its lethargy.

Dru just watched the rat as it crawled across the floor, sniffing at everything it encountered.

What am I going to do now? He wondered.

He was starving and exhausted. Should he turn himself in to the Marines? No! He said to himself. He needed to at least find Gar first. The image of Galan patting his tummy and grinning kept playing over in his mind. Was Gar really...?

Just as the tears began again, Dru noticed that the rat had abruptly stopped. Just moments before it had been scrabbling towards the front door. Now it remained motionless, its nose wiggling and ears twitching.

Dru wiped his eyes, and moved over to the rat. He could hear movement on the other side of the door: heavy boots.

"Yes. The sensors are old. Isn't that us?," said a male voice from beyond the door. It was muffled, like the woman's in the control room had been.

Dru snatched up the rat, and ran to where his parent's bedroom had been. He suspected there was a hidden door located there, just like there had been in Milly's apartment.

Dru chided himself. It should have been the first thing had had done when he arrived: find an alternative escape route in case he was discovered. No, the first thing he should have done was lock the front door.

He stuffed the rat into its pocket, as he triggered the bedroom door lock. That would have to do. It wouldn't stop them for long, but it might give him a few extra seconds.

He found the hidden door easily enough. It was located in the same place as the one in Milly's. He scrabbled about looking for the opening mechanism. Behind, he heard the front door hiss open.

"It's moving!" he heard the Marine cry.

The hidden door opened, and Dru stepped through. It was a maintenance corridor like the others he's seen.

Before he could close the door behind hm, the bedroom door swung open.

Dru glanced back to see a Marine burst in, his weapon drawing a bead upon him. Dru leapt away, fleeing along the tunnel beyond.

"Hey kid!" he heard the voice call out behind him, "Stop!"

But Dru didn't stop. He ran as fast as he could, leaping down the stairs three at a time to the level below.

He heard the Marines chasing after him. He slipped through one of the hidden doors, and into another empty apartment. Crossing to the apartment on the opposite side of the corridor, he found the maintenance door and slipped through into the tunnel beyond.

Now he'd done it. The Marines knew he was free and they would search for him. How long could he possibly elude them? These were the same people that slipped aboard the Di Ren ships and fought them hand-to-hand.

Dru kept running, even long after he'd stopped hearing his pursuers. He knew they could track him, despite his HUD being turned off and his transponder cut out. All they needed to do was to set up an ambush ahead and they'd nab him.

He considered slipping into the ducts, like he had when the Grownups were after him, but that would slow him down too much. He needed to keep moving, choosing his route at random. That would make it difficult to predict.

Even after he was forced to slow to a walk, he kept moving. He snuck through the tunnels; climbed up and down the narrow stairs and ladders; and slipped through maintenance doors into former apartments, offices, and recreational areas. They had all been cleaned out. The Habitat was eerily quiet.

Then either by some subconscious intention, or by malicious fortune, he opened a maintenance hatch and found himself in the Assembly Room. Everything was exactly as he remembered it before his escape.

The rows of bedding, with bedclothes haphazardly strewn across the floor. The play area, littered with their small collection of educational toys. The empty food tables.

Yet it was vacant. There were no Brethren Mothers, no kids, and no Meri.

Dru remained huddled behind the hatch. He was half-afraid this this was some giant jape, and that the kids and Brethren Mothers would leap out of their hiding places as soon as he stepped into the room. His gaze darted about from one familiar item to the next as he tried to make sense of it.

Everyone was gone. He couldn't quite understand why. This was the Internment Camp. Where were they? Had the Marines rounded them up?

Then his eye fell upon the bed beside his own. From the way the bedcovers were scrunched up, it was almost impossible to tell that there was something hidden beneath. However, Dru could see it. That lured him from his refuge.

He wandered in a daze, drawn towards it. He could see the Observers watching him, flitting to-and-fro. The Marines and anyone else in the Central Core could see him.

Dru stopped before the bed and knelt down. He hesitated, afraid of what he would find. The he reached out and drew back the covers. Hidden beneath, he found Chocolate.

Whatever had happened here, the kids had been quickly and forcefully removed. Meri would never leave her toy behind.

Dru expected the Marines to burst in upon him at any moment. He no longer cared. He was beaten, starving and exhausted.

He dropped down upon Meri's bed, and hugging Chocolate to his breast, he waited for them.

Nobody came.

Dru waited and waited, but there was nobody. He even activated his HUD, in the hopes that it would draw their attention. Yet most of the services had been blocked. Dru could no longer access any of the fundamental data like maps (other than those he had made), or even the libraries. Still neither the Marines nor the Grownups arrived.

He feared that he had been left behind. The Marines had rounded everyone up and shipped them off-station. Or they had shot them all, and placed demolition charges, before escaping. His mind went round and round like this as it conjured up horrid fantasies. Ultimately, exhaustion won out, and he fell asleep.

Dru woke to movement in his belly. The rat was awake again, clawing at the seams. He opened the pocket and pulled the rat out. It squirmed in his hand.

"What's wrong?" he asked it.

The rat glared at him.

"Don't worry," he told it. "I'll look after you."

Then on a whim, he extracted his water nib.

"Have a drink." Dru said, placing the rat's mouth to it.

The rat didn't do anything at first, so Dru squeezed the tube causing water to bead at the nipple. The rat, sensing the moisture, drank. Dru squeezed out more and the rat drank all that too. For the next few minutes, the two of them drank, each alternating turns on the nib.

"So what do we do now?

The decision was made by mutual consent.

The Central Core was the control centre for the entire station. His mother worked there.

Dru had visited it only once, a very long time ago. He remembered the mass of controls and backup displays – in case the HUDs went down. Security was tight, with guards and Observers everywhere.

His mother had to get special permission from Commander Goul just to let Dru push one of the buttons to initiate an adjustment burn. It had lasted for less than a second, but he had felt the sudden lurch as the entire station shifted, and the sirens announcing the All Clear.

Dru entered the Main Corridor.

During his escape his heart sank every time he made a wrong turn and glimpsed it through the grate. It was always busy, filled with Grownups - even during Third Watch. Now he found it unsettling to discover it so empty.

"I hope they haven't left," Dru commented to the Rat, which rode in his pocket, it's head peeking out the opening.

He checked all the important places along the Corridor. They were all vacant.

For the first time ever, Dru saw the Comms Room door open. Normally it was closed with a pair of guards posted outside. He peeked in and saw that the communication gear had been destroyed. It appeared as if someone had taken to it with an axe. Dru wondered if Gar had ever made it here.

By the time he neared Central Core, the rat was exhausted again. Dru closed the pocket and let it sleep.

"Using b-curd. Link. Was that...?" Dru heard as he approached the entrance to the Core. It was the woman he had seen in the Hub.

Dru crept up to the door and peeked inside. What had once been a pristine environment without so much as a button out of alignment, now lay in ruins. All the interfaces and displays had been broken – clearly sabotaged.

The Marine knelt, attempting to repair the Main Board. She had a collection of tools arranged on the lower console as she attempted to reconnect a strand of fibres. Their ends were ragged as if they had been hacked apart. The Marine picked up one of the tools and used it to weld a strand together.

"Really? That can't be right," she exclaimed, as placed the tool back down onto the console, but she missed. It clattered to the floor and rolled away.

Without thinking Dru scooted over and collected it.

The Marine froze. She looked at him as if he was a ghost. She slowly raised both her hands, palms open.

Dru offered the tool back to her. "You dropped this," he said.

She made no attempt to take it.

"You... ah," she mumbled. Her eyes flicked to the nametag on the front of his suit and she regained her composure. "Drew?" she asked.

"Dru," he corrected her. "Short for Drummond. Like my Father."

"Dru. Howdee...I'm Abra," The Marine said. "Nice to meet you," She glanced toward the doorway. "What ya doin' here? Are there other children maybe a larkin' nearby?" Her gaze dropped to Chocolate, which hung limply from Dru's left hand. "Is that ya doll?"

He shook his head. "It's my sister's."

"Where's she at?"

"Don't you know?"

Abra slowly shook her head.

Dru could sense she was screaming behind her pale blue eyes. The expression reminded him of his mother.

"Dru, I need to comms ma Rek, to let him know about ya. Is that okie dokie?"

Dru nodded.

Abra had the visor of her helmet open. He could see a wisp of red hair peeking out from the balaclava she wore underneath it. The armour made her look bulky, but her face was thin – almost starved.

She kept her eyes on him as she spoke with her commanding officer. "Sir. No, not yet, sir. Um...I've found a youngin'. A boy, sir. Yes. His name is Drummond...Dru. Yes, Dru. He just ambled in. About ten. No. He says he had a sister, but she's missin'... yes. Yes, sir."

She smiled, as she spoke to Dru. "The Rek wants to see ya. He'll be here in just a moment."

Abra reached into one of the pockets on her belt. "Are you hungry?" she asked. "You look famished. Would you like some chocolate?"