CHAPTER ONE

The Children of Kalee

The thing about being a smart child is that, although you don't really understand a lot of things that happen around you, some of it filters in, and you get them, even if you know quite well you shouldn't, because you are, after all, four years old, and shouldn't have to deal with this kind of thing until you were much, much older.

Stiles is not only smart enough to understand what is happening to him, he is also smart enough to realize he shouldn't understand this at all — and right at this moment, he wishes he didn't, because he would be much less scared if he actually believed the people who took him from his home only wanted to keep him safe.

He's smart enough to realize that, as one of the few human families in Kalee, he had been considered an easy target. He also understands that his mother probably wouldn't make it, unless someone went to help her really, really soon after they left his house, and he doesn't think anyone even knows they have been attacked. He knows he and Lydia, one of the few playmates he had, will probably be sold, or killed, or something even worse, and something in his gut — something he has always had, like a tiny little voice whispering in his ear ever since he could remember — keeps whispering at him that he needs to get away, he needs to run and hide, otherwise he'll be dead or worse in a couple of days.

The thing with being four years old and understanding all of this is that, well, you are four years old.

You may even know things, but it's not like you can act on them. His heart is beating fast, but he's trying as hard as he can not to cry. Crying won't really help him all that much, it certainly isn't helping Lydia, if the way the Huks keep angrily buzzing her way is any indication — he doesn't blame her, though. It's not as if she's crying like a little kid, she's angry crying, he knows her enough to understand that. He focuses on breathing, and trying to calm down. They can't take on the five adult Huks who are minding them — well, they can't take on even one — but he kind of wishes they could squish them like the little bugs in his own house, take their antlers and pick them off their bodies, and step on their beady red eyes until they stopped blinking at him.

His mom says he has some anger issues, but he doesn't think that's a bad thing — they are at war, after all, someone has to be angry to fight for their homeland. They might be human, but they're Kaleesh, and their General can't win a whole war all on his own.

His dad is not a very angry person, but he's in the army anyway. They were supposed to come home that day, which is probably why the Huk decided to raid their village then, before the soldiers were back, kidnapping little kids because they can't take on their army.

Lydia scoots closer to him, the metal from the ship cold against his skin when she jostles him to the side. She grips his hand tightly, her green eyes big and full of tears — this is when he knows he's not the only one who doesn't believe the little human who went with the Huks to take them from their village meant well. Lydia is smart, every bit as smart as he is, and as she's scared too, he knows he's not being stupid for thinking they're in danger. A few of the other kids have their eyes closed, probably tired, but Stiles and Lydia can't. They are too scared to sleep.

"What do you think it's going to happen?" she whispers at him, her hand squeezing his, and Stiles just shakes his head.

It's not that he doesn't have an opinion on it, it's not even that he doesn't know what could happen, it's that he doesn't want to say it out loud.

The smart part of him, the one that he feels like he shouldn't have, thinks they'll be dead in a couple of days, or sold as slaves somewhere. He fears for Lydia more than for himself, right now. He fears for her, and Heather, and Isaac, his closest friends. Only he and Lydia are human, though, so maybe they'll make it out alive. Heather and Isaac are Kaleesh in race as well, and Stiles has heard his dad talking about the wolfish Kaleesh being thrown into pit fights never to come back.

He's worried. He is so worried, it's like this feeling doesn't really fit it all in him, like it wants to explode out of his chest and run away in a way they can't.

"Stiles," Lydia hisses again, waiting for an answer, but he shakes his head again, pressing his lips together, because he doesn't want to answer — he knows what he wants to happen. He wants his dad to come and rescue them. He wants his dad to come, brave in his uniform, blasters in hand, and blow away half of the freighter's fuselage, and throw those bugs into space. He wants them dead for hurting him and his friends, and he wants them deader for hurting his mom.

But as much as he hopes and wishes, he is also a very smart kid. And smart kids know that a whole army doesn't just change course and comes to rescue little kids — kids are great in the eyes of adults, but in a war, Stiles has this feeling that they don't really matter all that much.

"You think we're going to die, don't you?" she whispers then, and Isaac turns to look at them, his eyes snapping open in alarm, his better hearing allowing him to listen to them even if he's on the other side of the corridor. Eyes shining in bright amber even in the darkness, Stiles can tell he's twice as afraid now as he was before Lydia said anything, and he sighs, knowing he should say something. He isn't the oldest here — he's a full year younger than Lydia, and two younger than Heather and Isaac, but they listen to him, because he's smart. His dad, sometimes, says something about a force in him, and he looks every bit as proud as he looks scared when he mentions that, so Stiles pretends he never hears it.

"No, I don't," he ends up replying, more for the boys' benefit than Lydia's, "I think General Hale will come and rescue us, because we are Kaleesh, and he won't leave us behind."

That seems to appease Isaac, who goes back to looking slightly less terrified, but the girl just keeps staring at him intently, and he knows she didn't buy it.

He wouldn't either.

Stiles looks around the cargo ship they're in again — it's the reason they had managed to land on Kalee in the first place. It's not a war ship, but an old, rusted thing, not seen as a threat. His mom had said they had probably come for negotiations, but that was before Huks started pouring out, and the Yam'rii soldiers started invading houses and taking kids away from their homes.

He had been hiding with his mom in his room — she was crying and desperate, and that only made Stiles get even more scared, because his mom was so very, very brave. He had heard the sound of the Yam'rii's pincers on their door before his mom did. The huge insect had tossed his mom aside when she tried to protect him, her head hitting the side of the wall in his room, staining it red. The insect creature had grabbed him with his pincers, yelling and kicking. The creature's angry muttering was babble to him, but the soldier didn't sound very happy, and he had kicked up such a fuss one of the other soldiers, this one carrying a little kid who seemed way too quiet to be okay, hit him on the head and he blacked out.

He came to inside the ship, and he was hoping they hadn't gone too far away yet. They couldn't reach deep space, or they would never be seen again, and Stiles wants to go home.

He wants his mom, and he wants his dad — and a part of him, a very, very small part of him, is just so angry with his dad, because if hadn't gone off to fight, if he had stayed home like his mom had asked him to, so many times, he would have been there to protect him. To protect her. To protect his whole village. He knows his dad is doing the right thing, though, he does. He had said, the day he was leaving, that the Huk would never attack their village, they would never bring war into the homes of women and children and the elderly.

It's a very hard thing to learn at four years old that your father isn't always right. That there is no guarantee you'll always be safe. That sometimes, no one is going to come and rescue you.

Thinking like that made his stomach turn into knots, so he closes his eyes tightly, and squeezes Lydia's hand as hard as he can. He feels Heather, big, and brave, and always willing to stand up for the smaller kids, come and sit on his other side, taking his hand into her bigger one, and squeezing it gently.

"It'll be okay," the bigger girl says — even though she's not yet seven, she always talks as if she's the one responsible for them all, "Even if they take us away, someone will come. And if they don't, we'll be together, right? We'll protect each other. We don't need any adults to help us out, we'll be fine."

Isaac whimpers a little when Heather talks of rescue not coming, but he too comes along, and sits huddled with them, near Lydia, grabbing her other hand and squeezing it hard, as if he's afraid she'll disappear if they let go.

Stiles swallows hard, fighting back the wave of pure despair he's feeling — they are already trying to make up ways for things to feel better, as if they have already given up hope of rescue or help.

They won't be together — they won't be together at all! He'll be alone, and scared, and without his mom or his dad or his friends, and he feels as if he can't breathe or feel his hands, and he's not sure if that's because Lydia is squeezing it too tightly, or because he's not alive anymore.

He vaguely hears Lydia calling his name in an alarmed tone, but he can't answer it because his voice is gone, he feels like something terrible is coming. He tries telling her that, but he can't make his mouth work, and then, in a split second he doesn't have to worry about that, because his whole world is turning into fire.