Free Half Way Home by Hugh Howey Page A

other, wondering what had happened. Then the high-pitched screaming started. The two noises had come in the wrong order.
    I left my iron in the dirt and ran toward the source, trying to keep up with Muriel, who had taken off immediately.
    The wail emanated from the direction of the launch pad. Other colonists converged on it as well, despite the shouts from enforcers to return to our stations. One of them raised his gun and fired a shot straight up.
    I cringed, then I realized the sound from the gun was the same as the one we’d heard earlier. The whistling noise was distant shrieks, which grew louder as we stumbled down the slope toward the rocket site.
    Several enforcers stood together, their gleaming guns drawn. Hickson came running up to join them, shouting questions. Stephany, one of the girls I knew through Kelvin, sat in the dirt, screaming. She held someone in her lap—an eerie recreation of what I’d come upon the day Stevens died. The boy was large and unmoving, and for a second I thought it was Kelvin, but then I saw him drop down from the scaffolding.
    “What did you do ?” Stephany shrieked, rocking back and forth. I ran to her, joining Julie—a nurse who had become, by default, the base’s doctor.
    The boy had both hands pressed to his stomach, vainly attempting to staunch the flow of blood. His chest heaved in and out rapidly; the only other thing moving was his eyes, which darted back and forth between us.
    “Let me see,” Julie said, pulling his hands away and pushing the thin fabric of his top up to his chest. Blood welled out, thick and dark; she immediately placed her hands over the wound and started barking out commands: water, clean towels, coagulant. I didn’t hear what else. Someone pulled me back forcefully.
    “Give them room,” Hickson said.
    I stumbled backward, feeling a fury rise up inside. One of the enforcers came to me, holding the gun out between us, but he wasn’t threatening me with it. He held it limp and on its side, looking at it like he wasn’t sure how it got there.
    “I didn’t mean to—” he said. He looked at me, water coating his eyes. “He was trying to take an extra break,” he told me. “I didn’t mean to—”
    I pushed the gun down, getting the barrel away from me, and looked around for Kelvin. He stood beside the scaffolding, his fists clenched in front of him, his eyes glaring daggers at Hickson.
    I stepped away from the enforcer, making him cope with his guilt alone, and ran to my friend to save him from making a huge mistake.
    ••••
    Later that night, the three of us sat together in the cab of our tractor, the overhead light turned up just enough so we wouldn’t bump into each other. It felt hot and muggy inside, but none of us felt safe out on the hood. Partly out of fear of being overheard, and partly out of fear of the bombs overhead.
    “We need to get out of here,” Kelvin said, looking back and forth between Tarsi and I.
    “And go where?” Tarsi asked. “Just wander out into the wilderness of a planet we haven’t been properly oriented for? Colony won’t even show anyone the satellite maps. We have no idea what’s out there.”
    “We know what’s in here,” Kelvin said.
    “Tarsi’s right,” I told Kelvin. “Besides, we would just be abandoning everyone else.”
    “Anyone that wants to come, can come,” he said. “The more the merrier. The place gets enough rain, right? And there must be tons of bombfruit out there, especially since the tremors. It’ll last us until we get started—”
    “Started on what?” I asked. “Rubbing sticks together? Do you have any idea how long it would take us to rebuild a fraction of this?”
    Kelvin squared his shoulders at me and raised his voice. “Do you have any idea how long we’ll last here if we keep killing one another?”
    “Settle down,” Tarsi said. “Both of you.”
    “I’m sorry,” Kelvin said. “I’m just angry at what happened today. I knew that enforcer was going