Heroes: Starships & Apocalypse Volume Four by Andrew P. McGregor

Author:Andrew P. McGregor [McGregor, Andrew P.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2023-12-12T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

The shuddering of the ship ceased within a few seconds, replaced by calm silence. Many people, those that had previously been staring at nothing, fell over, asleep or dead. The soft clanking of robots entered the room, and Leo watched as dozens of robots dragged away more and more people, up to a hundred of them.

“They were already dead on the shakedown march,” Pony-tail woman commented casually.

“Already dead?”

She shocked him with a genuine smile. “Yep. Poor bastards must not have survived the procedure. I’d say the aliens sent us all upstairs to test us out. Hey, my name’s Rohini Chowdhuri. Ro for short.” Without another glance at the bodies of the dead, ‘Ro’ stood up and walked to where Leo and Olivia were sitting on their beds. She stuck a hand out to Olivia, who reciprocated and shook her hand.

“I-I’m Liv. Olivia I mean. Martin.”

Ro snorted and grinned back. “So which is it? Liv, Olivia, or Martin?”

Liv wrinkled her nose. “You know it’s Liv.”

“Because you’re still alive?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Liv replied, but looked aghast at her arms and legs.

Ro turned to face Leo. Remembering his manners, he stood to shake her hand, just as his father had taught him, despite being in an alien spacecraft. “Leo Martin.”

“Lee. Leo. Lo?”

“Just Leo.”

“Think I prefer Lee, but whatever. So how did you win your ticket to space?

“Win?”

“That’s right, what brought you to the stadium to get abducted by these arseholes?” She began tying her hair into a bun at the back of her head. Without any string or bands she didn’t have a lot of success, and the hair fell about her shoulders. She grunted and flicked the hair away. “Gotta find some scissors before I lose my shit. Sorry about the language, I’ve been around too many baggage handlers.”

“I was just out with my friends to watch the soccer and down some beers.” He looked down at the floor, remembering that day. “Had a bit of a nightmare job that day so needed to blow off some steam. I’m an auditor.”

“Auditor? Yeah, I’d want to drown my sorrows if I got caught doing auditing.” She squinted at his face. “You look young to be an auditor.”

“Eighteen. I’m just a trainee. What about you? Why were you at the stadium?”

She looked wistful for a moment, as if remembering that fateful night back on Earth. “I, uh... it doesn’t really matter. I’m just a fan of the planes.”

Leo and Olivia looked at each other, one eyebrow raised each. “Don’t you mean the Newcastle Jets?”

Ro gave them a cheeky grin. “Caught me. I’m no soccer fan. But, look, it doesn’t matter why we were all there, we’re here now, hurtling through space at some unholy velocity, where any of us might go crazy or start a mutiny.” She tapped her forehead, mock-remembering a little detail. “Or both. Hey, here’s a little distraction: I’ve been trying to work out if these, um, let’s call-em ‘upgrades,’” she said and held up her arms, “included some cognitive enhancements, but I don’t think I’m any better at working things out than before.

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