Deathform

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Standing at the airlock door waiting for his ship to be boarded, Jack Kind fights the disorienting pull of memory. Twenty years old again, sheened in sweat, he wears nothing but a pair of piss-speckled tighty-whities. The barracks has already emptied. Stomping boots echo through the bulkhead. Screams rebound. When FROST soldiers burst into the room, he drops his weapon and dives to the floor with his hands on the back of his head.

“You alright?” Dino says.

Back to the present. This is his freighter. The war long over.

“Fine,” Jack says.

The airlock prep chamber is filled with equipment. Reinforced lockers house helmets and hardware. There’s a bench bolted to the center of the floor, a reminder that this is little more than a high-tech dressing room. Not the most glamorous place to die.

The proximity alert went off during dinner. A ship beelined toward them, small and armed with an illegal plasma cannon. Jack hailed but there was no response. He ordered the rest of the crew to the panic pod, but Dino stayed with him, so now they wait, while on the other side of this door unwelcome guests scrambling along their hull like insects seeking blood.

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