Chapter Nine

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"Personal log, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, December 1, 2153. I have researched ship registries, missing ships, Mars colony, school records, birth records, abductions, prodigies… hell, I have even used search words such as telepathy and overseers to no avail. It's as though Hoshi never existed, even though she obviously does. Her mess is lying all around my cabin," Malcolm sighed and stopped the recording, rewinding it to delete the last part.

"Computer, resume recording. I'm not even sure when her birthday is. Phlox is able to gage her age, yet unable to provide me with an exact date. It's become quite a chore to get information out of her. She seems to withdraw whenever I am around her yet she is very protective of me, as though I remind her of someone. She has obviously suffered drastically," Malcolm paused, "And at such a young age."

Malcolm stopped the recording thinking back to his own childhood. Sure, it hadn't been traumatic but his dad… well his father was a bastard; always had been and always would be. When Hoshi asked him if he was hurt and bleeding a sense of foreboding swarmed over him and he hadn't been able to get to sleep.

His attention swung to the top bunk as she thrashed around in nightmare. She was pleading in a language he didn't recognize, the look of distress aging her young features. He placed a hand on her forehead in a comforting manner and she settled down.

***

"No, Papa. I don't want to kill it!" she whispered and lowered the bow and arrow.

To drive the point that she must kill in order to survive, he threw his spear and impaled the struggling creature through its midsection. Taking his daughter by the hand, he approached the dying animal. "Now, shoot it," he ordered the six-year-old.

The smell of blood filled her nostrils and she wanted to vomit. "I-I can't," she said flatly and dropped the bow and arrow that her father had given her and so patiently taught her to use.

"You will!" shouted her father. "Or you don't eat."

Hoshi squared her shoulders and held her conviction, her stomach growling in protest. "I won't kill it."

She watched in horror as her father took a knife out of his boot and sliced the animal's throat open, rubbing his hands in its blood.

"You will kill, Hoshi! Or you will starve!" He grabbed her arms in a bruising grip, crushing the blood into her skin. "God, I wish you had inherited an aggressive trait, something you could defend yourself with. No, you had to inherit the gift of gab. How are you going to defend yourself with that? You can't. You're going to have to fight and to kill like a normal person!" He smeared the blood on her face as she tried to pull away.

"No, Papa, please," she shook her head from side to side trembling and retching.

Disgusted, her father shoved her to the ground. "Until you kill your own food, you don't eat," he stated as he walked away.

The little girl with the pigtails and blood on her face hunched onto the jungle floor sobbing.

***

"Hoshi, wake up." Malcolm shook her. She had been sobbing in her sleep for several minutes now and he still couldn't get to sleep.

She leaned over the side, her eyes opening and threw up all over Malcolm's chest.

The rant that went through his head never made it to his lips. He just backed up, opened his communicator and contacted the janitorial department, and then walked to the shower.

He didn't even wait until the water turned warm and stepped in with his pajama bottoms on. He didn't want to be caught in the shower naked when janitorial arrived to clean up that splattering effect of …her… vomit. He could hear the buzzer to his door and he shouted, "Enter."

The crewman whose unenviable task it was to clean it up, got to work stripping the bed sheets off of Malcolm's bunk and mopping the floor. "Miss, is there any on your bunk?"

Hoshi shook her head back and forth, shame and embarrassment flooding through her as she looked at the displeased expression on Lieutenant Reed's face - just like her Papa.

She sat up in bed, unable to get down, as the crewman was not yet finished cleaning, tears streaming down her cheeks unabashed.

"Now, what is the matter with you?" Malcolm glared at her, wet pajama bottoms clinging to his hips.

Finished with the clean up, the crewman excused himself.

Hoshi jumped down off the top bunk, toppling into Malcolm.

Instinctively he wrapped his arms around her and she shoved him away. It was as though she could hear his disapproving thoughts in her head.

She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door gently behind her. Looking at herself in the mirror, she scooped some water up and rinsed her mouth out. She grabbed a towel and blotted her mouth, stepping into an empty cabin.

She was glad Lieutenant Reed was gone. Now she could crawl beneath the warm sheets and go back to sleep without him keeping her up.

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