CHAPTER 5 – STOWAWAY

JULIAN

"Where is she?" I asked myself. I looked left and right, around the room. Nothing seemed out of place except for the fact that the girl was missing. The room was filled with junk, everywhere. Some of the things looked valuable, which we would sell on some distant planet. There were bookshelves on all sides of the room, but because of Reds reckless driving during our rescue, they had all toppled out of the shelves onto the floor. The forest green paint on the walls seemed to be pealing and faded. There was a small cot in the farthest corner of the room, were there looked to be more junk piled up. Little odd thinks like screws and pieces of machinery that looked old and worn-out were also on the floor and cot.

That's when something fell on me from above. The girl. She wrapped her arms around mine, putting them into a tight hold, making them unmovable. She jammed one knee into my lower back, making me cry out in pain, then she jammed her other foot into the back of my legs, making me fall to my knees, hard. She was breathing hard, in short, aching breaths.

"Don't even think about turning me in!" She shouted in my ear. I grimaced as I my ear began to ache from the sound. She had a razor blade sticking out of her mouth pressed firmly against my throat. Blood slowly crept down my neck. Before she had time to react, I jumped to my feet and slammed my back against the wall, knocking the wind out of her. She fell to the ground in pain; the razor blade fell into her lap. Quickly I turned around and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, lifting her off her feet with one hand. She seemed shocked to see that I was this strong.

"Listen kid, we have no intentions of turning you in, but if you're going to stay here, you're going to work! Understand." She glared for a second then considered my words.

"Fine..." She said flatly. With that I set her back on her feet and grabbed the razor from the ground and putting into my pocket. The girl was small for her age, but she was lean and had a little muscle on her. She wore dark cargo pants and a tight dark blue hooded shirt with long sleeves. Her hair was a light brown and pulled back into a tight ponytail. She was breathing hard and some of the girl’s hair had pulled away from the mass and was now hanging in her face. She didn't seem to mind.

"What's your name?" I asked boldly, wiping away the little bit of blood on my neck.

"Akima." She told me, "And yours?"

"Julian," I answered. "The reason we aren't turning you in is because we stole this ship, turning you in would be suicide on us, but as long as your here, you’re going to work. No questions asked. By the way, if I find another blade on you, until we can trust you that is, you’re off the ship."

"What happened to your whole 'turning you in would be suicide to us'?

"I didn't say I would turn you in, I just said you would be off the ship and believe me, we know plenty of deserted planets that the federation has no clue about." She gulped at that.

"Fine..." she said flatly, pulling a razor blade from underneath one of her sleeves and then bending down and pulling one from her sock. She looked at me for a second before handing them over.

"Thank you." I told her sincerely putting them in my pocket as well.

"I'm keeping one no matter what you say. you think you have trust issues, I say if you can have one on you at all times, I should be able to too!"

With that being said I grinned, this girl had balls I'd say that much, brains I wasn't so sure of at the moment but I would never tell her that.

"You know where Anna and the others are don't you?" I continued dismissing her outburst, but agreeing with what she said. She could keep a razor.

"Anna?" she asked, "Is that the loud women who threw me in here?"

"Err- yeah."

"Then yeah, I know where she is."

"Go find her and get some sort of job, I need to go check on something."

"That boy sleeping in the room next to us?" she asked, with a mischievous grin on her face.

"Yeah. Now go, later tonight, once we have figured this ship out, we will find you a bed." And with that she left. I stayed in the room a little longer wondering how she knew about Kade. My eyes wondered around the room until they rested upon a somewhat large open air vent. The cover had been ripped off and the hole was just big enough for Akima to get through. I had no doubt that that was how she had disappeared and found Kade.

I walked around the hall way for a little while, going into each room and seeing what was in them. The first three rooms at the end of the ships hall were nothing but plain rooms with a bed in each along with an extremely small bathroom. The next two rooms looked to be some kinds of library's or studies, then the next three rooms after those were again more plain rooms attached to bathrooms. Then the hall ended leading to the main control station where the rest of the crew was. The crew was no more than just Anna, who drove the ship, Red, who watched the radar and navigated. Rip was just there to complain, sometimes he would actually work, but he was pretty good when it came to battle. And then the newest crew members, Akima, whose main duties at the moment were to keep the ship clean.

I walked slowly to the first room at the end of the hall where Kade was sleeping. It had been a few hours since I had last checked on him. Tyens was a proud race, Worrier's mostly, and we healed fast. For all I knew, Kade was only a few hours away from getting up and being completely normal or it could take another full day for him to heal. I entered the room to see that Kade was fast asleep. I went over to his bed and knelt by his side. I lifted his arm and turned it left and right. The bruises and cuts were almost completely healed. I looked at his chest and raised the bandage up a little to get a look at how his chest wounds were healing. It looked a little better but would leave a pretty bad scar along with the scratch on his eye.

Kade suddenly jerked awake into a sitting position, his sudden movement made me jump and cry out in surprise. He was breathing hard He quickly laid back down, crying out in pain at the sudden movement that he had just made. He grabbed his chest and began to breathe even harder. After a moment his breathing returned to normal and he fell fast asleep once again.

I sat a few feet away from him where I had jumped away to; my heart was pounding so hard it hurt. What the hell was that about?! I moved toward him again. Symbols quickly appeared all over Kade's body, they were engulfed by a fiery light that was blinding. In a blink of an eye the light was gone along with the symbols and all was back to normal. For a moment I thought that my mind had just been daydreaming, but something in the back of my mind told me that something wasn't right. A few agonizing seconds later the ship completely lost power. The light's shut off and I could feel myself slowly being pulled into the air as the gravity shield lost power. Darkness surrounded us. I winced as my head bounced off the ceiling. I heard the soft clanks of Kade's bed as it too floated to the ceiling. That's when I saw them. Hundreds of small red eyes began to appear inside the room. They were hypnotizing for a moment.

There was a scream from outside the room. That's when I realized what was happening. This wasn't just a rare power outage! We were under attack. At that moment the eye's seemed to glow brightly, slightly lighting the room, showing the faces of the demon's that they belonged to. They screeched and began to move in fast blurs towards me and Kade. We shouldn't be under attack! We are miles away from their territory! This shouldn't be happening! I screamed in pain as one of the demons plowed into me, its claws extended, ripping into my shoulder. The venom from its claws seeping into the wound. I could feel the darkness flow threw my body as the venom spread. Another demon did the same, their skin was cold to the touch and with every scream, and they showed their brilliant white fangs. Their bodies were black and looked like a dark shadow. Their bodies were small and had tiny wings on their back that were torn and broken looking. Their red, pupil less eyes were large compared to the size of their heads.

"What the hell is going on!?" I screamed as another one came charging towards me. I threw up my arms for protection and closed my eyes and waited for the impact, but it never came. The demon seemed to move right through me. There was a pain in my stomach as I felt the Dark venom traveling threw my body still, every second the pain grew worse. The let out a high pitched screech that sounded as if it were laughing at me. I turned to Kade to see that the demons were attacking him without mercy. Anger swelled up inside me. The demon that had been laughing moment's launched him towards me again. Remembering the razor blades I had taken from Akima hours ago, I pulled one from my pocket and gripped so hard that it began to cut into the palm of my hand I could see that my blood was turning black. The venom was working quickly. I set my other hand on the ceiling and waited for the demon to get closer before pushing off and stabbing in the back right between his shoulder blades. The blade cut into it easily, it screeched in agony as Black blood squirted from its wound. The injured demon became still as what was left of its life left it. I yanked the blade from its corpse and kicked the demon, floating my way towards Kade. Once I was near him, I reached out, only to have my hand sliced and cut by a demon that was hiding in the darkness. I floated closer and stabbed it in the side of its pointed ears. Blood gushed from its wound. The demon died instantly. Without hesitation, I grabbed Kade's arm and pulled him towards me. I wasn't going to let him die. He was infected now; it was only a matter of time before we started to change. We needed the anti-virus. As Kade neared me, the symbols that I had seen earlier began to reappear. Again there was a blinding light. I felt pain course through my back and side's as three demons charged and attacked me. More blood ran down my sides. I was beginning to feel weak. I watched as the blood seemed to float away in the gravitlyless room. I swiped at one of the demons with my hand that held the blade, only to miss. My mind was racing and I was losing strength, fast.

There was another flash of light from Kade. This time I realized that I wasn't dreaming. The light grew brighter and the Demons screamed as the light burned them. At that moment, the gravity kicked in and we all fell to the floor. The light from Kade disappeared and ship's light's turned on. There weren't many demons left, only about ten or twelve. The light seemed to have dissolved most of them. There may have only been a few, but I was weak and trying to protect Kade. I set the kid down slowly and straightened up. I got into a fighting position and held the blade out in front of my chest. I felt the adrenaline pumping through my veins. A demon a few feet away from me jumped towards Kade, trying to avoid me and directly attack him. With a flash of movement, I sliced through him, aiming towards its head. Within a second, its lifeless body bounced to the floor, it vaporized seconds after death leaving nothing a little ash. Two more demons attacked. I moved the blade with lightning speed and quickly disposed of the one that reached me first but wasn't quick enough for the second. I rammed my in the stomach, ripping into my. Pain shot threw me once more, but I stood my ground. Quickly I kicked the monster to the side. It bounced off the wall on the opposite side of me.

I stuck my hand into my pocket and watched as all the demons left in the room tensed as I pulled out the other two blades that Akima had given to me. The blood dripping from my sides and hand slowly began to turn to a shadowy mist that wouldn't seem to float away. The darkness seemed to engulf me itself, but I ignored it and kept my eyes on the demons in front of me. A thought raced through my mind as I realized that I had no clue if the others were all right either! I pulled the two blades from my pocket and put one between my teeth and the other in my left hand. There were only nine demons left in the room and my adrenaline was running low. I once again got into a fighting position and this time I charged them. They seemed surprised at my lightning speed. I cut through three of them at once; they screamed and then turned to ash. Six left. I rushed towards another but this one dodged, jumping into the air a few feet above me, then as it came down upon me, it kicked me in the back of the head. I flew across the room and landed hard on the ground. This was it, my energy was spent. I looked back expecting the demons to be on me any second, but they were all going towards Kade. My vision was slowly going black as the poison from the demons took what was left of my strength. This was it.