Before I knew it, I was standing in front of Jackie, arms outstretched like I could do something if we got attacked.

  “The hell is this?” Jackie was shielding her eyes from the flashing lights.

  Kwil skidded around the corner, combat boots scraping against the polished floor and a heavy rifle in his arm. “Kids. Hide. Now.”

  “What the hell is this?” Jackie repeated, louder this time.

  “Get in the damn closet!” he wrapped a prickly arm around my chest and flung me back in.

  Jackie tumbled behind me.

  “Holy- what's happening!?” I hopped to my feet and peered out the side of the closet.

  A voice came onto the ship’s announcement system. “Hello, this is Glorax REPO carrier 00097 hailing in, we're conducting a mandatory search of all vessels in the area for stolen Glorax property. Please remain still and prepare to be boarded. We have more firepower than you, and more speed so I wouldn't recommend trying anything funny.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That's what's happening. That's really bad.”

  Kwil threw his hands in the air in an eerily human gesture. “No shit!? Stay in there!”

  Something really important suddenly occurred to me.

  “Wait, what about my sist-”

  He sealed the closet shut and clicked the lock into place.

  I hammered on the metal from the inside. “My sister! I need to help my sister! Kwil let me out! I need to help Mel. Please! Please!”

  A soft hand settled on my shoulder. I looked down at it. Jackie's. The black nail paint was chipped and chewed on.

  “There's nothing we can do till that door unlocks,” she said. “You can't save Mel by shouting.”

  I stopped, forcing myself to breathe deep. “How… how are you so okay right now?”

  She smiled. “I'm not autistic, and last I checked I don't think I'm particularly delusional, but I do have a heavy helping of plain old stupid.”

  Ten minutes passed. I could hear the ships dock with the heavy hiss of pressure equalization. Another five minutes passed in silence. I sat shoulder to shoulder with Jackie in silence, trying to keep pictures of Mel's dissected body out of my head. She kept a tight grip on me. It was comforting. Somewhere in the ship, a staccato burst of gunfire hammered into a wall.

  I was back up and shouting before I could stop myself. “Mel! Mel, are you okay!”

  Quiet. Then more shooting. Thumping footsteps approached somewhere much nearer.

  Jackie tried to grab me. “Tommy! Shut up.”

  “Mel! I'm gonna-” Jackie's hand wrapped around my mouth, and she pulled me down to the floor, wrestling me still.

  The shooting stopped.

  The footsteps thumped. Closer.

  A hand knocked on the closet door.

  I tried to shout but Mel kept her hand clamped over my mouth.

  “It's me,” the voice was Kwil’s. “It's safe now.”

  I twisted my mouth out of Jackie's grasp. “Let us out you Halo-grunt on anabolic steroids, porcupine looking dickhead!”

  “Just one second.”

  Click.

  That was weird, no snark at all.

  The closet door unlocked and slid open. Jackie screamed. I shouted in a very masculine and powerful way that betrayed no fear and definitely didn't yelp a full note higher than her.

  Big, twitchy, blue grey hands, with only three fingers pulled the door apart. It was some kind of ape-thing with a heavy toucan-like beak.

  It cocked its head to a side and reached out, grabbing me by the throat and pinning me to the closet floor. I squirmed, twisted, grabbed those big hands while the heavy beak dragged across my face.

  It was impossibly strong for its size. Eyes felt like they'd pop out of my head.

  “Please remain calm,” it said to me in a perfect imitation of Kwil’s voice.

  No air. World was turning purple.

  Jackie was hammering down on its back with her fists, but its clammy grey-blue skin seemed entirely unaffected. It leaned lower, tighter, my windpipe was going to give…

  “Jackie, please step aside,” it said, again imitating Kwil.

  Only… its beak hadn't moved this time. Or maybe I had just faded too far. The world was getting blurry all around me.

  Thump.

  A heavy combat knife stuck out of its back. It gurgled and spasmed, blood sprayed from its beak all over my face and shirt.

  Its grip loosened, and it fell limp over me. I gulped down heavy breaths, massaging my throat with both my arms. I tried to speak. No sound came out, but I did almost break into a coughing fit.

  “I think I like you better this way,” Kwil tugged the knife out of the thing and held out a hand. I took it in a shaky grasp, and he pulled me to my feet.

  He nodded to Jackie. “You were protecting him. Good job. Unfortunately Lure don't tend to be very vulnerable to unarmed children. At least not ones as soft and squishy as you. Next time, use this,” he gave her the brutal knife, it looked like a sword in her white-knuckle grip.

  “L-Lure?” she stammered.

  “There was no Glorax vessel, it was a goddam Lureship. A trap. The Lure are-”

  Another monkey-thing- a Lure- slid into view and rushed Kwil, leaping into the air with the outstretched strangling hands.

  Kwil calmly drew a compact pistol from his hip, raised it to the flying Lure’s face, and pulled the trigger twice.

  Blood erupted in a red cone behind its head, and the limp Lure bounced off his body, rolling to the floor.

  “The Lure,” he continued as though nothing had happened. “Are somewhere between space pirates, and space vermin. Masters of imitation. They hijack ships and send out false distress signals or search warnings and draw in ships they can surprise attack or board.”

  “That's interesting and all, academically fascinating, but where the hell is my sister?” I wheezed through my crushed throat.

  “She's safe with the Captain, Bucky’s charting a flight path out of this… this this. I was assigned to find you two.”

  “I didn't ask how she is- though I do appreciate you telling me that, I asked where she is! I need to see her.”

  Kwil nodded. “Cap,” he said into his translator. “Location? Where? Shit. Shit. Okay, ETA ten minutes.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “They're holed up in the kitchen of all places. Guess the escape pod bay was too far. Bullets aren’t cheap. I already went through too many walking on board that deathtrap of a ship they docked onto us with. Dammit.”

  “Follow me, kids, and don’t do anything stupider than usual,” he unslung a lengthy rifle with a three pronged tip wreathed in arcs of electricity.

  Kwil broke into a long, loping run, while I staggered along behind him, Jackie keeping herself back to make sure I wouldn’t be left behind.

  At the entryway to the dining common, a Lure climbed in. The Captain was facing the other way, standing in front of Mel and Jean, firing bursts of plasma down the length of the kitchen into an approaching swarm.

  The grey monkey-like creatures for their part seemed undeterred, spilling in through any doors they could manage.

  The sneaky Lure leapt onto the Captain’s back and started yanking at the riveted lining of his exo-suit bubble. He shook while continuing to fire but it wouldn’t come loose. His swinging arms were coming dangerously close to my sister, and I tried to rush forward, but Kwil took one hand off his gun and tossed me back. Jean grabbed Mel around the shoulders and dove out of range of the brawl.

  Calmly, Kwil sighted down his rifle. Crackling energy writhed at its tip.

  “What are you waiting for?” I shouted. “Shoot!”

  “Don’t rush me, kid.”

  “Be careful, what if you hit the Captain,” Jackie asked, staying behind a wall with me.

  “Don’t pressure me, kid.”

  A thin spiderweb crack began to form on the Captain’s dome with a ear-piercing squeal.

  “But-”

  He pulled the trigger. A beam of blue light shot out from between the three prongs of the rifle and struck the Lure directly in the back. It screeched, and its body popped in a flying mass of fried limbs and blood.

  Jean screamed, covering Mel as bits of Lure flew into him.

  The Captain’s translator blared to life, simulating a shout, as his body went a deep purple. “You could have blown me apart!”

  “I didn’t,” Kwil blew another Lure into chunks.

  “Wh- what is that gun?” The only way I could stay calm was to keep asking questions.

  “Generic brand microwave rifle.”

  “Oh,” thinking about getting microwaved from the inside wasn’t so reassuring on second thought.

  A massive crack tore through the ship and all of us besides the Captain fell. Air dragged across my face as air sucked out of the ship. Bucky had forcefully undocked. Some of the furthest back Lure were pulled together into a door and held in place. Hissing locks pulled shut and the ship sealed itself again. Kwil kept shooting from the floor.

  The horde was thinned as Kwil and the Captain had systematically shot, detonated and cut all that was left.

  I stayed behind Kwil, Jackie next to me, clutching that massive knife and staring at it like it was a bomb.

  Finally, the last Lure thumped heavily to the ground and all that was left were the six of us, and a massive pile of grey and red bits.

  It was like my body had been frozen and only just released at that moment. I sprinted to Mel and grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her in as close as I could.

  “Mel, are you okay? Are you hurt? Can you stand?”

  “Jesus! I'm okay, Tommy!” she smiled playfully as she pushed me off, but her face was pale and I could see her hands shaking.

  I put a hand on her shoulder and held her close. I gave Jean a firm nod.

  “Thanks for looking out for her.”

  “I mostly just stood there and screamed.”

  “Not when it mattered.”

  He held out a hand with his elbow crooked, fingers curled but palm open. I tried to shake it.

  “Wow, you really do not have a lot of friends, do you?”

  “I mean you don't have to say it out loud.”

  He grabbed my arm and adjusted my grip so my elbow was also crooked. “It's called dapping someone up, and you do it like this.”

  ***

  “A Lureship… a bloody Lureship. What's the galaxy come to,” Bucky was muttering to himself in his navigation socket, as we readjusted to our normal course.

  “Do I get to ask for a proper explanation of what that was now?” I asked Kwil.

  I was helping him pile the grey monkey bodies into the biomass recycler, which was really just a big furnace. They were smaller than me, but the Lure had a surprising amount of mass on their dense, muscular bodies.

  “It was a Lureship.”

  “Wow, thanks, that explains a lot.”

  He relented. “The Lure are a kind of interstellar vermin. Some of them got on a spaceship on some planet, nobody really knows when or where, and the rest is history. They're clever bastards and they can perfectly mimic any sound they hear. Sound is the easiest way to communicate through space so it's the system most ships use. Ships that communicate through smell, they get off easy. The Lure breed like wikkas on ships they’ve invaded, feeding off any biomass they can find on board- usually passengers, and when they run out, they get to imitating distress calls or boarding warnings, they can barely fly the things… they often can't. In this case they just happened to be on an intercept with us, and made us dock. Then they break in, eat everyone on board and live off the food processor while sending out more distress signals and boarding warnings.

  “There was a real Glorax ship there. The personnel… Lure food. It's been defunct for weeks. I actually stepped inside…” Kwil shuddered. “It wasn't nice there. It was disgustingly organic… the network of Lure nests, too alive… these big mucky pasty things like cement. The babies were almost cute…”

  Kwil stopped to heave another body in.

  “Couldn't shoot them. I probably should've. It's not like there are many adult Lure left to feed them,” he tossed a severed hand into the furnace. “A good half of them must have tried to board.”

  “Half? Just half?” the biggest pile of remains went higher than my head.

  “They really do breed fast,” Bucky interjected into our translators.

  I heaved a whole Lure into the furnace, gritting my teeth. My arms burned.

  “How do they live off so little food for so many?”

  “Recycling,” Kwil didn't elaborate, and I decided it would be best to let him be.

  ***

  It turned to “night” on the ship. The Captain had coded our quarters to have an earth-like light routine, perfect twelve hours of light followed by a perfect twelve of dark. We could turn them on and off as we pleased, the tables between us had sensors for just that purpose, but right then, the dark was nice. The four of us lay in our cots, staring at the shadowed ceiling.

  Finally, I broke the silence. “Today could've gone worse.”

  Jackie snorted. “Could it, now?”

  “I mean none of us died. Or even got really badly hurt.”

  “I was covered from head to toe in blood and bone!” Jean said.

  “It wasn't yours.”

  Mel stayed quiet.

  “Hey, kid, you good?” I asked.

  “I'm not a kid anymore.”

  “Sure thing, kid.”

  “I'm good, Tommy.”

  “Okay.”

  I relaxed on my hard undecorated cot in our cold undecorated door. If not for the closet, and the washroom door across from it, the sterile white walls would've been entirely undecorated.

  I didn't mind that. I didn't need any more stimulation. I closed my eyes. Instead of the peaceful sleep I'd hoped for, my mind kept racing through the events of the day, over and over again. First boarding the Crimson. Exploring with Kwil. Meeting Bucky. Bonding with Jean. Fighting with the girls. The closet… the closet… it could've been my imagination but I could swear I heard the closet door open.

  I cracked my eyes open. The room was dead black with the door shut, but I could make out something slick and grey reflecting what little light there was, and poking out. Six long, narrow fingers.

  “LURE!” I shouted at the top of my lungs and slapped the table beside me, bringing the lights to life.

  Mel and Jackie jerked up to either side of me, and the suddenly exposed Lure shrieked, hiding its eyes before leaping out of the closet.

  It grabbed Mel and leaned in. She kicked and punched, but it didn’t even seem to notice. Grey muscles tensed as it squeezed tighter and tighter.

  I threw myself against it, and started wrenching its fingers off, one by one. It loosened a hand and batted me across the room. The wall hit my back hard, something cracked and I thudded into the floor.

  Jackie grabbed the knife off her own bedside table and brought it down hard on the Lure. It punched into its shoulder. The Lure spasmed before dropping Mel.

  Jackie tugged the blade out again, and the Lure tore off, slamming into the automatic doors and squeezing through them before they'd fully opened. A trail of blood followed from its shoulder.

  “Knives are supposed to be more effective than unarmed children,” Jackie gasped. “Oh God, I stabbed it. I stabbed it.”

  I pushed it off Mel and pulled her up. “I've got you. It's okay… it's okay…”

  She was shuddering like a jackhammer. That thing had tried to kill her. It was going to strangle her. And now it was going to get away.

  I let her go and took off down the hall, trying to keep up a solid Tom Cruise stance. The Lure was losing blood and clutching its shoulder, running ahead and hooting madly. I passed Kwil’s room, where he was hastily trying to detach his sleep-time breathing apparatus and strap on his suit. The Lure glanced back at me with creepily human eyes and turned another corner.

  It was headed towards- the escape pod bay I guessed based on my recollection of Kwil’s tour.

  I slid across the corner and thudded into a closing airlock just in time to see the Lure climb into a massive cylindrical structure. The airlock clicked firmly into place, leaving nothing but a foggy porthole to look through.

  I hammered on the window. “Get back here! You sister strangling sonuva- why don't you pick on someone your-” I hesitated, before deciding it was small enough. “Your own size!”

  I couldn't hear anything on the other side, the pod was just there one second, and the next, it wasn't.

  Kwil stumbled to the airlock entranceway, still adjusting his methane-flow systems with one hand. “Where is he?”

  I pointed at the cylindrical patch of negative space where there had just been an escape pod.

  He stared.

  “I take it that’s bad,” I said.

  “No shit,” he grimaced.