The Dozen Seventeen

Chapter II

Akio pov:

Seeing what was outside the windows baffled me beyond compare. I was on a huge space ship and it freaked me out. The last I remember was being stuck in outer space seeing the earth rotate slowly beneath us. Now as I look out the windows, the earth is not in sight. 

Suddenly a thought struck me. What if the Aerglos were actually humanoid creatures with enough intelligence to steal humans for test subjects or something? It scared me.

Was my squad taken for that reason? Shaking the thoughts from my mind, I continued to look out the windows. Following the spaceship with my eyes, it seemed to be rectangular in shape and wide. I was in a circular hallway that floated by itself. 

The spaceship looked like a massive city. I couldn't see the whole ship, but, by the sound it was making, it had to be huge. I tried to think of the number of people living on this thing, but, I couldn't make out an approximation until I saw the whole thing.

A beep and a rushing noise distracted me and suddenly there was a rush of wind through the hall and a train like machine flew passed. In the wink that I saw it, I saw several people riding it. I had just about been hit by it and now I leaned against the window clutching the spot over my heart. They were going the opposite way I was going and it made me a little more aware of what I was doing.

I couldn't just walk into the Township and not have anyone question who I was. The people who live on the ship all had to have some sort of I.D. and I would be a red flag to anyone who stopped me. If they had cameras, they had to have seen me already. 

Fingering my clothes, I bit my lip in frustration. Undoing the clasp at the neck of my full bodysuit, I pulled it halfway down my chest. Seeing the tattoo on my skin, I remembered what I was doing out in space.

Along with my squad members, we were sent into outer space with intentions of destroying the Aerglos before they destroyed us. I remember reaching the space station and being assigned our own Bird. A Bird is a type of weapon in which you sit in and control from within. With high powered lasers and guns, the Birds were meant for wiping out the Aerglos.

Remembering the accident which led us all to be confined to one rescue pod, I shuddered. The twelve of us were risking a lot by sharing a rescue pod. A rescue pod usually only fits about six to seven members in it. Fortunately for us, the pod was made for grown men while we were still growing.

With my squad members, we sat in the pod for days before feeling cramped and several days after that we began to run short on food. I remember one of the members fainting from no food for a couple of days. It inspired me to do something about. Remembering the feeding tubes the rescue pods had but didn't use anymore, I acted fast.

The gas the rescue pod used was not used to accelerate us through space, it only let us use the mechanics inside the pod. Living with the person who made the gas was a great advantage. My father said the gas could be used as a preservative and could be used to knock someone out while still nurturing their body. He had said it only took a little bit to live every day. With all that I learned, I told the boys what I discovered.

They didn't believe me for a while until one of the boys said he would be an experiment to try it out. Then several of them said I could try it out on them also. I got to work quickly having several tubes ready within hours. The boys all strapped in and I had to insert the tube into their mouth and into the esophagus. We had to knock them out for this process. After inserting the tubes, I flipped a little lever and the gas began to slowly drip down the tubes and into their stomach.

I told the others that now we had to wait several days to see if it would work. About a week later, you could see the results on their body. They seemed more colored than us who had barely any food to eat. At one point I remembered the rest of the squad wanting to do it. So, one by one, I inserted tubes in everyone including myself. I remembering flipping the little lever then saying a little prayer before it faded to black.