Free Gunship by J. J. Snow Page A

up. “He did better, got up to the bridge and lit her up. But then he disappeared once we got through the first plotted jump okay.”
    Chang confirmed it. “He’s down there again. Looks like maybe a few days or a week on this one. Not talking again, I tried. Duv did too.”
    Duv nodded in agreement.
    Reilly bit her lip. “Duv, you stay on the bridge then. Chang and I will do the sales on the hub. We can’t risk it in case things go fraggin’ bawoon on us and we need to blast off. Get it set. I want to be there tomorrow, early.”
    She stood and walked out the hatch towards the bay. No one asked where she was headed; they already knew.
    When she and Duv had brought Skeeter back to the ship, it had been bad. He would disappear for hours at a time until they had finally figured out what was going on. The forward holding area had several compartments for various supplies. The smallest one was only five feet high and four feet wide and had empty ammo bins and some spare items in it. Reilly had found him there, holed up with blankets and a pillow, a stash of food he had stolen from the mess, a small lantern, and some knives. They had all seen this before in the ISUs, but this was especially hard because this was a kid, and not just any kid, but Duv’s kid. Traumatic stress on the battlefield had turned one of Reilly’s commanders into a cave dweller too. He showed a booked-up calendar on the tasking wall and would appear every morning in his battle gear to check in. They had all just assumed he was running his regular command duties, which kept most of the leadership busy nonstop. That was until the day one of the sergeants went looking for cleaning supplies in the wrong closet. They found the major in there with a blanket, food, a gun, and his body armor, rocking himself back and forth. Apparently it was all he could do to force himself to leave the closet on a daily basis to make a quick appearance in the command post. Empty drink bottles held urine if he didn’t make it to the regular facilities. The medics carried him out on a stretcher and he cried the whole way. They sent him back to one of the central planet military facilities for treatment. Reilly never saw him again. When Skeeter started vanishing, Reilly knew it was the same thing. She found his hiding place but made a point to not force him out of it right away. At first she just talked to him as she passed by, like it was no big deal he was hanging out in the hold. Then she would find things for him to do, little things at first that he could do at the edge of the hold, and then bigger things that required him to come out into the bay and lend a hand. If he got reluctant, she would push, and on occasion she would order. Sometimes it worked and he would do it, yet other times he couldn’t overcome whatever fears haunted his memories and would sit shaking or rocking until she let him be. With time, it had improved. But then something would happen, and he would disappear again for a week or a few days. These episodes were hardest on Duv, who still blamed himself for being two solar systems too far to get back in time to save his family.
    She stepped down into the bay and made her way to the front. Seth was sitting at the edge of the door, hunched over, looking at something he held in his hand. This was a good sign, since he had not retreated into the hold completely, like he did when he first came on board, closing the door behind him with just a small crack for air. She stepped more loudly so she wouldn’t startle him, and he looked up. At these moments, Reilly could see it in his eyes, the stare that masked pain and fear and sometimes anger, the same stare that some of her men had developed, hell, that even she got from time to time. She nodded at him, pretended to be checking the cargo for the sale the next day, and opened up a couple of the crates.
    They didn’t speak, but as Reilly worked, Seth watched her. And when she began to manhandle one of the