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in quarters until they heard from him or the captain sounded an “all clear.” Then he picked seven of us to follow him. I was one of the ones he picked.
    EL-MASRI: Why did he pick you?
    DAMANIS: Me or all of us?
    EL-MASRI: Both.
    DAMANIS: He picked all of us to be a security detail. He picked me, I think, because I was where he could see me. I didn’t know he wanted me to be part of a security detail until he took us into his office, opened up a footlocker and started handing out shock sticks.
    SPURLEA: Shock sticks? Why didn’t you have firearms?
    DAMANIS: It’s a spaceship. Guns with bullets aren’t a good idea on any ship that works in vacuum. And the only reason to have weapons on the ship at all is to deal with someone who’s gotten into a fight or is drunk and out of control. And for that, a shock stick is what you want. You zap someone, they go down, you shove them in the brig until they sober up and calm down. So we have shock sticks. Zarrani handed them out to us. There were six of them and eight of us, so I and Tariq Murwani didn’t have any. Bosun Zarrani said that we got to be scouts and told us to turn our PDAs to a general channel so that everyone would know where the enemy was. That didn’t make much sense to me. I figured that we knew where they would come in.
    EL-MASRI: Through the airlocks.
    DAMANIS: Yes, sir. They’d open them up from the outside and then get through that way. I think Zarrani and Captain Gahzini were thinking the same thing because Zarrani took two of the crew with the shock sticks with him to the port maintenance airlock while the other three went to the starboard maintenance airlocks. But we were wrong.
    EL-MASRI: How did they get in?
    DAMANIS: They cut through the hull forward and aft and dropped in maybe a dozen soldiers in each spot. I saw the aft breach and the soldiers dropping in and yelled into my PDA about it and then ran, because the soldiers were carrying assault rifles.
    SPURLEA: I thought you didn’t want projectile weapons on a spaceship.
    DAMANIS: We don’t, sir. The soldiers did. Their job was to take over the ship. And maybe they thought that since they were cutting a couple of holes through the hull anyway, what’s a few bullet holes here and there, right?
    GANAS: Here we go. Three tablets.
    DAMANIS: Thank you.
    GANAS: Let me get you some water.
    DAMANIS: It’s too late. I already swallowed them. How long will it take for it to start working?
    GANAS: Those were extra-strength, so not long at all.
    DAMANIS: That’s good. My leg hurts a lot. I think it’s getting worse.
    SPURLEA: Let me look.
    DAMANIS: Ahhhhh—
    SPURLEA: Sorry about that.
    DAMANIS: It’s okay, Doctor. But it’s like I told you. It hurts a lot.
    SPURLEA: I’ll see what I can do about cleaning it out again after we’re done talking here.
    DAMANIS: I’ll definitely need some real painkillers for that. The last time you did it I thought I was going to hit the roof.
    SPURLEA: I’ll be as careful as I can.
    DAMANIS: I know you’re doing your best, Doctor Spurlea.
    EL-MASRI: You say these were soldiers. Were they Colonial Defense Forces?
    DAMANIS: I don’t think so. They weren’t wearing CDF uniforms. These were bulkier and black, and there were helmets covering their heads. We couldn’t see their faces or much of anything else. I suppose that makes sense, since they were coming in from space.
    GANAS: If they were cutting through the hull, wouldn’t bulkheads close off to contain the breach?
    DAMANIS: I think they’re supposed to, but the automatic systems are sensitive to pressure loss. These guys were coming through without any air going out behind them. I think they must have made a temporary airlock on the outside hull before they cut through.
    EL-MASRI: Your captain still could have thrown up the bulkheads to keep them contained.
    DAMANIS: The forward breach was right above the bridge deck. The very first thing they did, as far as I can tell, was to take the bridge and Captain