tightly as he dared, praying to a God long dead that this
wasn’t it, this wasn’t how she was going to go down, not to
some stupid snake on an alien moon, not a fighter like Taz.
“How come you never tell me stories, Up?” she said
suddenly, her speech slightly slurred.
“Stories?” he said, surprised.
“About you. Before we met. I know so little about you. I
don’t even know how old you are.”
“There’s not much to know,” Up said quietly, after a
moment. “I grew up in an orphanage. I have no family to
speak of. When I was sixteen I joined the Academy. The
rest you can read about in the history feeds.”
“I don’t want to read about it,” she said. “I want to hear
it from you.”
“Okay,” said Up. She was still shivering. “What do you
want to know?”
“How did you get that scar on your back?”
Up closed his eyes. “The big one? That would be from
the time I took down a Bird of Prey with my bare hands.”
“¿Qué?”
She nestled in closer, and he began. His words seemed to
soothe her. He’d tell her stories all night if he had to.
“It all started when Tripp got into trouble with some
pissed off Klingons in a space bar...”
In the morning, they realized just how far they had
managed to travel after night fell. The mountain loomed in
front of them, and it was only then that Up realized their
next biggest problem: how they were going to climb it.
Taz was awake, but listless, and the greenish hue was
spreading up her leg, the edges of the puncture wound gone
completely black. She looked up at the summit with
trepidation, and refused to meet his eyes. With her leg
worse, there was no way she could do it, but she wouldn’t