if their basin wasn’t flipped...but maybe his prayer had come true.
He was completely drenched by the time he got there. His thin, oversized tank-top clung to his narrow frame. The grey-green freight container apartment sat highest on the Stack, staring down at him. The fight last night had been one of the worst he could remember and the look on his mother’s face was fresh in his mind. Sad. Broken. Surrendered. The way she had cradled her swollen belly...
Their plastic front door was cracked open when he reached the top of the rickety stairs. The water basin sat upside-down and unmoved next to the door. Jogun flipped it over to let the rain collect and used some to rinse the mud from his feet. Through the crack in the door, the apartment looked pitch black. He leaned in.
“Dad? Mama?” His voice came out in a squeak. No answer. He strained to hear through the noise inside. Rain on their metal roof sounded like machine-gun fire. Not home. He breathed a sigh and walked in. When the door shut, a faint whimper rose above the noise. He tensed as he saw the pale light at the far end of the room.
Jogun’s father stood motionless outside the back door on the balcony, facing the shining Sedonia City skyline in the east. Jogun’s eyes adjusted to the dimness of the apartment. Signs of both last night’s fight and a new one were all around. Overturned crates, boxes, and tables. Their radio smashed to pieces in the corner. Broken bottles and glass lamps shattered and scattered and now...blood. A lot of blood. A spreading puddle of it led to the family mattress and stained the edge. A soaked woolen blanket covered a limp, curvy shape on the bed.
Jogun’s heart sank and pounded near his stomach. The fingers on his small hands flexed as one foot crept in front of the other toward the bed. Keeping one eye on Dad, he knelt next to it. Pulled back the blanket.
The wide-open pupils of her blue eyes stared at him. Through him. The color had gone from her light brown skin. Her full lips gray and dry. Jogun dropped the blanket and threw up beside the bed.
“That you, boy?” his father said without turning. “Toss that bag in the corner, I’ll look through in a minute. Better be more’n last time.” Jogun heard the whimper again, louder now and coming from the balcony door. The baby! Shaking and dizzy, Jogun got to his feet, picked up his satchel, and reached inside. Closed his fingers around a pistol grip. Hesitated.
“Ma...Mama—”
“Told the bitch she couldn’t have any more. Now I gotta deal with it.” It sounded like he was talking about the chores or something. Jogun’s hand whipped out of the bag gripping the jet black nine millimeter pistol. It was so heavy he almost dropped it.
The big man turned with a sneer twisting his dark leathery features. A brown-skinned, newborn baby boy lay naked in his arms. It sputtered and coughed between brittle cries in the rain.
“If I gotta take that from you,” Jogun’s father growled, “you won’t get it back.” They glared at one another as the room dimmed. Another clap of thunder. Shoot. Shoot! Jogun’s trigger finger wouldn’t obey. His arms drooped under the weight of the pistol. Dad snorted. Turned back into the storm.
Jogun couldn’t hear a thing over his throbbing heartbeat. Sobs choked in the back of his throat. Then a sharp wail ripped through the room. His baby brother’s. Jogun raised the gun and pushed back the hammer with both thumbs. He squeezed the trigger.
1
Brotherhood
Twelve years later
ON TOP OF a low island chain of concrete apartments, Matteo could almost see everything. Didn’t matter that he was short, sick, and weak. Countless hazy miles of the living, breathing Slums surrounded him. The cracked, sun-drenched streets. Tin roofs and awnings sticking out from cheap brick apartments. Gutted spacecraft and hull fragments turned into neighborhoods. And a dizzying network of scaffolding, catwalks, and plank bridges tying it all together. He grumbled at the mess. Squinted further east through the early afternoon heat.
Towering bright and proud above the Slums, Sedonia City glittered in silence. Matteo’s big brown eyes traced the ivory skyscrapers at the center and carved each of them into memory. Early rush-hour traffic flew high overhead, to and from the center. Where do they go? He saw one ship had a cluster of glowing, blue-green engines on its belly. He watched it shrink into the