Kik woke slowly. His eyelids felt heavier than a set of weights, but he managed to open them. A flat grey ceiling came into view above him. This definitely was not aboard his ship, where the ceilings were strewn with wiring and access panels.

He could feel something rough against his back but he couldn’t move his head. The most external movement he could manage was to twitch his fingers, blink and move his lips slightly. He lay still with his eyes closed and waited for the paralysis to pass, pretending to be asleep.

Five minutes or so later, but he was only guessing as he didn’t have a timepiece, he tried and found he could sit up. He pulled his upper body upright and leaned against a wall as pins and needles shot through his muscles. He was in a grey room with a single door, the bed he had been lying on, a toilet and no other furniture. The entire room was at most three metres by two metres, and the bed took up more than a quarter of it.

Looking over towards the door, it was made out of thick metal and vacuum-sealed to the wall. There were two slots in it, one at adult human eye level and another flat space close to the ground, probably for sliding food in. A timeless prison door. The toilet and bed were similarly unfurnished, with the only thing on the bed besides Kik being a scratchy grey blanket.

Kik had seemingly been stripped of his suit and was now only in his near-skintight white undergarments. He looked around the room but couldn’t see the rest of his equipment anywhere. He felt somewhat naked without it.

Kik’s mind took his course. Against his wishes, he was forced to remind himself of everything that had happened in the past few days. Drawn back to memories of his father, Kik finally let a wave of emotion overcome him. He screamed and cried at the empty room for what seemed like hours before sobbing himself into near silence. Why couldn’t he have found two suits? Why did he have to cut his father’s suit off when he could have left it on and patched it? Why hadn’t he noticed the oxygen leak earlier? If he had he could have jumped to another system and there would have been plenty of air. Why was he so useless? He had let his father die from his own negligence.

After he had calmed down again, more from tiredness than actual relief, he remembered being knocked down and pinned by the boarders and then having something sharp jabbed in his arm. It was probably a needle. After that, he had felt weak and collapsed, before waking up on the bed.

Thinking he may be a bit stronger, he sat up again and tried to stand up, but a sudden wave of dizziness came over him and he fall back onto the bed and into blackness.

When Kik came to again, he was being shaken awake. Some instrument shone light into his eyes and he blinked and moved his head. “He’s up”, he heard someone say before him, and the light moved out of his eyes.

Once he could see again, he lifted his head and saw one white-jacketed man alongside two armed soldiers. The soldiers had pistols and short blades at their waist. They were dressed in utilitarian two-piece uniforms with multiple pockets, decorated in shades of grey. The other person, perhaps a doctor, was wearing similar grey clothes but with an unbuttoned white jacket over it. You could almost think that they weren’t in space with their lack of care for decompression.

“It seems the drug was a little strong,” the doctor continued to himself. “The dosage would have been for an adult. They should have known better than to use it on a child. The effects may stick around for a day or so. Still, it’s lucky he’s still breathing.”

Indeed, Kik didn’t feel much better after collapsing onto the bed. He could move, but he wasn’t confident standing.

“You don’t worry about it, surge,” the taller of the two soldiers said. “If he’s awake and can speak, that’s fine for now. We can carry him to where he needs to go.”

The doctor backed down, waving his hands. “Whatever, his life isn’t in danger anyway. I’ll just go back to helping with the other patient we were brought.”

The soldiers grabbed Kik by his armpits and dragged him out of the door and down the hallway. Compared to the barely metre-wide corridors on Kik’s ship, these were wide thoroughfares that up to five people could walk down abreast. Kik wasn’t really walking, more being dragged, but he did manage to lift his head and look around him.

The feeling he got was essentially quiet discipline. People, usually lightly armed, were walking unhurriedly but purposefully everywhere. On any thirty-metre stretch of corridor, there would be at least three and up to about twelve people. Kik estimated that based on size and population density, there should be between a thousand people and twice that number on this ship.

He got a few chances to peer into rooms, but not many. He saw rooms full of sensors, a few weapons batteries, ammunition and gear storage. There was also occasional sleeping quarters and off-duty rooms, with soldiers sleeping, eating and playing cards.

Kik was dragged about a hundred metres of winding corridors and taken up a level on a personnel ascender platform. He was then taken into a windowless room and sat at the only chair at the table. The entire space was either unpainted metal or clean white and sterile, except for one mirrored wall. The soldiers then walked out and left him to look around, closing the only door behind them.

Kik wasn’t tied to the chair, but neither was he capable of walking around without support. He pulled himself up by holding onto the back of the chair and pushing off the table. He came upright and checked the room for surveillance gear. He couldn’t see any obvious cameras, but there very well may be smaller hidden ones. Technology was good enough to make flat cameras that could be stuck to walls and camouflaged.

However, while looking around he froze, having spotted his reflection.

Out of the mirrored wall stared a boy, a void dweller judging by his pale skin, in dirty white clothes. He was holding himself up on trembling arms. He was slightly above average height for his age, just over a metre and a half, perhaps exaggerated because of a lack of gravity throughout his life. However, his back was bent which reduced this amount by at least ten centimetres.

More noticeable was his face. He had hair coloured the grey of dark slate tiles, and skin slightly paler than his off-white clothing. His blue eyes were slightly darker than the iris which surrounded them. His expression was weary and tired, and his eyes were red-rimmed, from crying, physical or mental exhaustion, or all three.

He attempted to smile, but the reflection came out as more of a grimace. He was just making himself more depressed, so he let himself sink back down, turned his head away from the mirror and rested until he heard the door open again.

Alexander Stenoff was having a bad week. He had just arrived in-system yesterday on a routine patrol and the governor had been “too busy” to meet him before he left system. Even worse, now some kid piloting a small ship had almost run into one of the single most expensive structures on the planet. This would require at least one extra report on his return.

To cap it all off, the planet he was in orbit of was Lanos. It was a den of villainy at a level rarely seen. If it was illegal, the chances were it was found in some obscure building in Lanos. If it had been up to him, and if he wouldn’t be held responsible, Stenoff would have let the ship crash into the orbital ladder and sent a few volleys of his ship’s weapons after it. Almost more than having had to write paperwork, it irked him that he had to help a planet like this.

Now he was walking back and down from the bridge towards the room where the ship’s young pilot was about to be interrogated.

If it was up to him, he honestly wouldn’t want the kid questioned, but protocol was another matter. He had been in command of a ship which threatened the assets of a planet in the Interstellar Conglomerate, the galaxy’s overarching government. According to law, he was working against galactic will, however unwittingly.

Stenoff and his sub-captain, Coby, came up to the room next to Kik’s. They walked through and observed him lying on the table through the one-way mirror in the wall. The head of security, Drett Rufus, was already inside waiting for them at a large table. They greeted each other familiarly, as they had been working together for many years, and sat down.

“Has he moved?” Alex asked Drett once the pleasantries were over.

“Yes, he has, but he seems to still be weak and finds it difficult. He’s probably partially paralysed. It also might not help that the ship is larger than his, so gravity is stronger.” Alex nodded at this. “My men will be here soon to interrogate him. Just relax, captain, we’ll find out what he knows without harming him.”

Alex continued nodding and they all lapsed into silence. None of them really wanted to discuss what they were doing but they all knew they had no choice. The only way that the child was getting off this ship was if they knew he posed no threat.

Their reflection was broken by the door in the other room opening and three men bringing in a large, boxy device. It was almost as tall as they were, far larger than the child, and was covered in wires, screens and sealed sections. The child attempted to lift his head to look at them and Stenoff was shocked by how hard it seemed to be for him to move.

The three men were unlike the other personnel of the ship, as their faces were covered. It was standard practice in interrogations, as it protected the interrogator’s identity and added another psychological effect. The masks they were wearing were steel over the top of their head, with a slit for their eyes and mesh over the lower head and mouth.

Two of the men dragged over the machine towards the seated boy, while the other carried a chair in from outside and sat down on it. The two by the machine pulled a few wires off of it and attached them to his forehead, then turned on a few switches and adjusted some dials. One went over and stood just inside the boy’s peripheral vision, while the other stood next to the machine and concentrated on the screens. The boy had to turn his head quickly to keep an eye on all of them, a feat which he was currently incapable of.

“What are your men doing?” Stenoff asked his security head, rising out of his seat. “He’s a boy, not a convicted criminal! There can’t be any reason why you need such heavy-handed tactics.”

“There is very much a need, Captain,” Drett replied hurriedly. “There were enough explosives aboard his ship to blow us all outside the galaxy if they were to go off. While I agree with you about using these methods on children, these are hardly normal times.”

He sat back down, only half-convinced, but neither was he sure enough to stop them. Meanwhile, the questions in the other room began.

“This is a truth machine,” the man sitting at the table told the small figure opposite. “If you lie, my colleague over there will know and will let me know. So I’m going to start by asking a few simple questions. What is your name?”

The child replied quickly but not calmly. “Kik.”

Behind his back, the man at the screen nodded. The questions continued.

“What’s your last name?”

“I don’t have one? What are those?”

The man at the screen shrugged but nodded again.

“How old are you?”

“Eleven… no, twelve.”

“Where were you born?”

“In space, on my parents’ ship.”

“And where are your parents now?”

‘Kik’ choked up a bit for that, and took a minute to answer. The men, sensing the reason, didn’t press him.

“They were aboard the ship with me.”

“What happened to the ship?”

“Pirates attacked us, damaged it and left us for dead. I was hiding in the ventilation system.”

The questions continued for more than ten minutes. The main consternation came about when Kik spoke about the things the pirates had left. The men were curious about the pistol, medical kit and rations, but even more so after learning that the pirates had left the explosives.

The two men just out of Kik’s view shifted and coughed to distract and pressure him, but he seemed to be able to take it. In some ways, he seemed almost relieved to tell the story to someone, even if the people were three faceless men who were questioning him. Stenoff was pretty sure this wasn’t how questionings usually went. In all likelihood, the men were taking it easy on the child who had just been through so much.

Eventually, the questions dried up. The men took off the contacts from Kik’s forehead and rolled the machine out. The pair of men waiting outside were the same ones that had carried him in, and they walked over and took him out. Left behind were the three observers behind the glass, speaking on what they had seen.

“I’m sure he’s lying about the pirates leaving behind the supplies for him,” Coby told the other two. “They’re military issue, so they were probably stolen goods. Can’t say it really matters, though, in the grand scheme of things.”

“Well, you don’t know whether he was picked up as lying,” Alex said. “Maybe it was the truth. By the way, Drett, how come you used such a big truth machine? I’m sure you have something smaller available.”

“Actually, that wasn’t a truth machine,” Rufus said. “That was just for intimidation, and to keep military secrets. It was an old diagnostic machine we borrowed from the medical bay. The real lie detector was the AI watching from inside the machine and out here.” He gestured to a camera on the wall behind them, pointing at the other room but invisible from inside it. “A mind is far more effective than a machine. Seriously, you’d think the captain would pay some attention to what’s going on aboard his own ship.”

Alex grimaced. “Fine. I won’t question your job if you don’t question mine.”

Rufus patted his back. “That’s the Alex I know.”

Kik was brought back to his room by the pair of soldiers. He didn’t remember much of the interview. Whether due to tiredness from the drugs or from his emotional state, all he could recall was that he answered the questions truthfully, and the coldness of the sensors and the seat against his suit. When he was brought back into the room, he lay on the bed for a few minutes before drifting off.

He woke up hours later. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed except from how much the drug had worn off. He was able to freely move his arms, and he could stand unassisted, albeit shakily.

Another hour later and he was able to walk around the room. He tried exercising to remove the drug from his system earlier and soon realised that he couldn’t move around as freely as normal, despite no longer being constrained by a full suit, even accounting for his wearing off paralysis.

He tried jumping up and down before he realised the gravity on this ship was heavier. After running around the room and testing his limits, he realised that he could adjust, but he still felt heavy and sluggish. The amount was only about an extra twenty percent gravity, for a total of close to half a standard G, but it was fairly noticeable.

He thought about this and realised there must be two reasons, the ship’s size and its larger fuel tanks. The gravity systems worked off of passing electricity through dark matter held in the bottom of the hull. Then, a ship such as the nebula traveller, which made its own fuel, would never hold quite as much dark matter as a ship like this, and the gravity wouldn’t be as strong. Also, a larger ship would have more accumulated space and requirements for fuel, and would hence have larger gravity.

This also made him think about living on planets. If he was ever to land on a planet with more than twice a standard G, it was doubtful whether he would be able to move. He would have to train his body to adjust to higher gravity. He seemed to remember that Garet had been born on a high gravity world. Perhaps he would ask for some advice on training, he thought to himself. Then he realised that he couldn’t and again depression set upon him. He curled up under the thin sheet, trying to be alone with his own warmth.

He was broken from his concentration when the door opened. The doctor from before walked in, again accompanied. This time there was only one guard and he was unarmed. The doctor walked over to him and poked a few joints, ignoring Kik’s questions and attempts to slap him away. Instead, he observed his movements closely.

“Good, it seems you’ll be able to move around by yourself now. Command has determined it safe to let you outside, so I’m letting you see my other patient.”

“Who is that?” Kik asked the doctor, who seemed disinterested in him after finding out that the effects had worn off.

“The woman who was aboard the ship with you. I believe she is your mother?”

Kik, excited at the prospect of seeing her again, nodded gladly. “Is she awake?”

“Well, best you see for yourself.”

Kik was led through the ship, this time walking by himself, by the doctor. After taking several corridors to a spot near the very middle of the ship, they walked into the medical bay. It was mostly empty, with a few doctors overseeing some minor injuries, mostly cuts, sprains and a few electrical burns. In a corner, though, was his mother.

Kik ran over to the edge of the bed. Hala’s face, pale and eyes closed, lay above the pillow, her black hair lying across the white covers. She had an oxygen mask on her face, and the bed was conforming to her body, keeping her in place.

He looked towards the doctor. “Is she going to live?” His voice choked slightly.

The doctor nodded, but hesitated before replying. “Her life isn’t in danger. That’s the good thing. She was treated in time to prevent lasting damage.”

Kik nodded and grasped her hand by the bed, but the doctor wasn’t finished.

“But she took a blow to the head. We don’t know when or even if she’s going to wake up. Another question is the condition she’ll be in if it happens.”

Kik looked at the doctor, who honestly seemed apologetic. In fact, it was the most emotional Kik had seen him so far.

“I understand that it’s hard, but you can’t give up,” the man continued. “The only way you’ll speak with her again is if you stay alive for as long as it takes.”

Kik nodded slowly, hearing the words but not fully understanding them yet.

“Can I stay here for a bit? I don’t think I can leave just yet.”

A few hours later, Kik finally let himself be pulled away from the bed by the escort and they made their way back to the room he had woken up in. He curled up into a foetal position onto the bed and once again let out his emotions at the uncaring room.

Stenoff was sitting on his bridge, reading the reports from his men about the planet. The ships arriving were heavily-armed and their escorts more so. His crew had destroyed a pirate ship or two which had tried to resupply, but soon the news had spread and the scum had stopped arriving. It wouldn’t make any difference in the long run, but they were at least presenting a semblance of interstellar law.

He had run this patrol several times in the past as a bridge hand, and the planet hadn’t gotten any better since his first time. Now that he was running his own ship it was many times worse. He had to deal with all the very obviously criminal captains who he had to release simply because he had no time or capability to punish them.

He looked up as a sensor hand read a ship entering the system from his monitor, but before he could order his crew to close in they received a transmission from the planet.

“Calling Aurora Cruiser, Flammenmeer. Calling Flammenmeer. This is council headquarters, pl*zz* come in.”

“Council headquarters, this is Captain Alexander Stenoff of the Flammenmeer. Has my meeting with the councillor been approved?” This day was finally starting to look up. Maybe he could properly fulfil the purpose for his visit by the time they finished refueling tomorrow.

“Negative, Captain, we received word that you had *zz* a prisoner. He is wanted for attempted assault on planetary assets. We will take custody.”

Stenoff leaned forward in his seat, a vein beginning to bulge on his forehead. “Please repeat. You mean to say that you think yourselves more qualified to question a prisoner who the navy captured? And you ask us to simply hand him over?”

There was a moment of silence before the comm crackled on again. “Aff*zz*tive. Escort prisoner with other hostages, confiscated equipment and belongings to Low Orbit 3. We will handle *z* from there.”

Stenoff was actually too shocked to reply, before he brought the speaker back to his lips. “I am already reluctant to hand over the person in question. What could possibly make you think that I will give you his parent, his ship, his belongings and the weapons aboard it? What would you do with enough explosives to blow up Low Orbit 3, which we’d be sending it through? I won’t do it.”

This time the pause on the other end was longer. “Confirming ord*zz* correct. Send prisoners along with all personal effects and confiscated items to *zzz* 3. Will be received at the bottom.”

Stenoff almost dropped the microphone. “I just told you, and I will repeat it as much as it takes. I. Won’t. Do. It.”

“Wait for *zzz*. Redirecting to a higher authority.”

Stenoff tried to call them again, but they were already gone. He had no choice but to wait, his annoyance growing. The thought that this was the other party’s intention crossed his mind, but he dismissed it. Finally, a bored but obviously cultured voice came over the channel. The connection with this one was much clearer, perhaps from better instruments.

“I’m told you have been requesting a meeting with me, Captain. It has indeed been a few years, but I can’t imagine you’d be so desperate to meet me that you’d hold my subordinates’ personnel hostage.”

He vaguely recognized the voice, but realised who it was from the contents. Alex spoke through gritted teeth. “It’s good to finally speak with you, Councilman Veris. Who would have thought you would find time in your busy schedule for me.”

Veris laughed. “Oh, we both know that’s not true. Of course I could meet you, I’ve just been ignoring you until you leave the system. I mean, why should I waste time on you when you’ll protect us either way?”

This person was half the reason why Alex hated Lanos. “I’m glad to know our protection is so valuable to you. Now could you explain what you mean by your men’s personnel?”

“Why, certainly. You see, one of my men hired the parents and that boy you’re holding hostage. It’s hardly their fault they were attacked by pirates, so you can just hand the two of them over to us and we’ll make sure he’s taken care of. We have to pay our worker’s compensation, after all.”

“And if I refuse you like I did your men?”

“Then let me make this very clear. You are in my planet’s space, so you follow its laws. That means you obey my orders, for so many reasons I gave up counting in the triple digits. Now, you can do what I tell you to and avoid an interstellar incident marking your career. Or you could make a stand over some boy, his parents and his equipment, and I will make sure you are demoted to ranking serving aboard a ship cleaning up scrapped satellites. Those are your orders, and if you don’t like them go warp them up your ass.”

Stenoff sat back in his seat. He hated this planet. “Very… well. Orders are orders.”

The councilman laughed again. “Glad you understand. In that case, we’ll be expecting him and his mother in four hours. It should just be dawn when they arrive.”

Stenoff nodded to nobody, grunting in acceptance. “Alright. But one question, why Low Orbit 3? Aren’t you and all your government beneath Low Orbit 2, on the other side of the planet?”

Stenoff could almost imagine Veris laughing from the tone of his voice. “Well, that’s because the primary owner of Aurora Station, which he was going to hit, lives there. He’s also the employer I mentioned. We’re giving them to the person most involved in the incident. Well, until the next time we chat. I can’t wait.”

The line cut off. Goby looked at his captain. “Are we really doing this to that kid?”

Alexander Stenoff sat back in his seat and rested his head backwards, against the top. He looked at the metal ceiling above him. He very much hated himself and his job right now. Mostly his job. “Orders are orders.”

When Kik woke up, nobody would talk to him. He was given back his void suit alongside a plethora of apologetic stares. He was then taken into the cramped storage room of a small passenger ship by a pair of escorts who he hadn’t seen before. They were dressed in light combat armour but their shaven heads were uncovered, only their mouths hidden by a breathing mask. The armour was made up of bands of overlapping, semi-rigid material. Beneath this was thick bulletproof clothing, finished with thick combat boots and heavy padding over the elbows, knees and wrists. Their back was also built up slightly for some storage space, including a holster for a rifle which Kik couldn’t see except for its triangular stock resting above their backs.

Neither of them talked to him when he tried to speak, so he stayed silent until his mother was rolled into the ship on a bed. One of the people bringing her in locked the wheels on her bed while the other took pity on Kik and told him what was happening.

“You two are being handed over to people on the planet. They’ll meet you on the ground. Your ship will follow later along with the rest of your equipment.”

“So you’re just leaving us? Interrogating me then letting us walk free like it never happened?”

The attendant shook his head. “It’s out of our hands. Word is some bigshot wants you planetside.”

Having shared this information he walked off with the other man.

A half hour of awkward silence passed with Kip staring at the wall and the two escorts shifting around. Eventually, the younger one got sick of it and asked Kip just before they launched, “Where are your parents? How’d you end up here by yourself?”

Kik gave a meaning-filled glance to the woman lying unconscious in the stretcher, then looked back at the man. The rest of the flight passed in silence.

The place they landed, Dock 46 on Low Orbit 3, was fairly clean, but not as much as the near-sterile environment aboard the naval ship. The floor held evidence of many people’s boots, but currently the space was deserted except for a few guards to make sure that nobody blew up anything.

The dock was circular, and was more aptly described as one of the hundred floors of the station. It held twelve different ports for large ships around the edge, of a size perhaps twice the size of Kik’s.

The older escort wheeled his mother’s trolley away to a large doorway while Kik was taken to a smaller doorway by the younger man. He questioned this, and was told that they were going down the express elevator, while his mother was taking the relatively slower one which took over three days.

This made him question his situation. “So how long are we going to take?”

“Slightly over fourteen hours. By the way, did you know our predecessors considered what we’re about to do a sport?”

“Um, really? What was it called?” Kik asked as they walked into a circular room with a radius of three metres. Twelve tanks lined the walls, although the two of them were the only people inside. Kik’s companion locked him into one of the tanks before doing the same to himself.

“Orbit diving, apparently.”

“Orbit wh…” he managed to get out before his head was covered in a deluge of green, transparent slime, sealing his helmet speakers and whatever else he was going to say.

The ground suddenly fell out from under him. He screamed into his helmet terror as he accelerated to speeds faster than he could perceive, overcoming the gravity of the station to press his back against the ceiling of the pod through the gel.