Chapter 43 (1/2)

Chapter 43

Going to War

Chu Shen followed Officer Hugh to the room he had woken up in. He was panicking now. He was in an unknown realm with no idea what was going on. As a young twelve year old kid isolated from politics, Chu Shen was hopelessly naive and didn’t want to lie to them but they would never believe him.

He was still trying to figure out what was going on when he remembered, he wasn’t alone. ‘Master Ti Wu, can you help me?’

‘Oh ho. So you finally thought of me brat. I’m surprised you still remember me hmmph.’

‘Master, please don’t be like this. I don’t know what to say. The only one I can turn to for help is you.’

‘Fine. Just see what he has to say and then repeat what I say.’

‘Thank you Master.’

Officer Hugh sat down in one of the chairs in the room, oblivious to the conversation that was going on. Chu Shen came back to reality and sat down with him. His relief was obvious on his face.

Hugh misinterpreted his expression as relief that Sergeant Delgado was okay. He cleared his throat and began questioning him. “Now kid, we discovered the bugs were inbound and we evacuated all the civilians two days before the bugs landed.”

“We couldn’t take the bug craft down without some bigger guns but we were able to kill all the ground troops and retake the colony. We finished repelling the invasion less than two hours ago. Now that you have the big picture I need some questions answered.”

“Where were you when all this happened? Why did you not get evacuated? And finally, where are your parents?”

Chu Shen listened and repeated back what Ti Wu said. “I don’t know anything about the evacuation. I lived on the outskirts of the colony alone. I don’t know where my parents are. They left the colony and told me stay put. I heard the fighting and everything going on and then after it all stopped I went to see what was happening and then I was hurt.”

Hugh nodded his head in agreement but inwardly he was skeptical. The UBF had gone house to house confirming everyone was gone. Their genetic scanners hadn’t picked anyone up so unless they had an expensive safehouse with scan blockers they wouldn’t have missed him.

The whole story about his parents leaving the colony also sounded a little fishy. Of course it could be that they decided to leave on a camping trip and left Chu Shen at home. With his body strength he had nothing to fear from the other colonists especially since weapons were outlawed.

“Okay, thank you for the information. Let me talk to the captain for a bit and then we’ll decide what we can do.” Officer Hugh walked over to a corner and activated his comm link.

“Hey Jim, I have something to report.”

“What is it doc?” The captain was an old friend of Officer Hugh, dating back to the UBF academy. He was one of the only ones on the s.h.i.+p that could talk so casually to the captain.

“You know that civilian kid that we picked up back at the colony?”

“Yeah. What about him?”