He savoured the meal.

It wasn't much, but it helped stave off the nagging emptiness in his belly. It also gave him a purpose: he would head to The Hub. The rats would become the renewable food resource that he desired. All he had to do was to open the door he wasn't suppose to open, and pick them off. It sounded so easy.

He wouldn't need to eat the rats raw either. His mother had insisted he learn to cook, fabricating up raw meats, vegetables, and other foods, and then using the old burner she had salvaged. He was getting quite good too, cooking at least one meal per week for the entire family. That was before The War, when they could still use the Fabricators for food, of course.

As he crawled through Green Sector, he had ruminated about the feast to come. Once he had caught two or three rats (or six or seven), he planned to roast them on a spit. He wasn't certain how he could light a fire, or where (fire in microgravity was devastating), but that wasn't of immediate importance. All he could think about was the rich meaty aroma.

However being unable to use his HUD slowed him. As before, he became lost in the tunnels without it. After what seemed like days of wayward wandering, he was forced to leave the ducts and make his way to The Hoist. It was dangerous, but otherwise he might have roamed the tunnels until he passed out from hunger.

It was a calculated risk. Yet, it had been days since he had seen or heard anyone else. He figured it was safe as long as he didn't do anything stupid, like use his HUD.

A location tag revealed that he had wandered into Beta Quad. Perhaps that's why he had seen nobody.

The Beta Quad had been deemed dangerous. He had heard that the engineers feared that the bulkheads could collapse at any time. However if that were true, why weren't the pressure doors in the tunnels secured? All the ones that he had passed through were open. If the structure failed, they would lose not just the atmos in Beta Quad, but in Alpha (and perhaps the others) as well. He didn't trust the automatic systems to respond in time, or at all. The Habitat was ancient, the systems constantly in need of repair.

As he cautiously made his way to The Hoist, he didn't hear nor see anyone. It was quiet, with just the contant hum, burble and low rumble that meant the systems in the hab were still active.

Fortunately, The Hoist was at the bottom of The Spoke, and not all the way up at The Hub. He dreaded being forced to linger for half-an-hour while it made the descent. Activating it might attract the attention of a patrol.

Still, he waited anxiously as it ascended, fearing that Galan, or one of the other Grownups, would be in the car when it arrived. However, it was empty, and he slipped inside and triggered the up arrow.

It took nearly thirty minutes to reach The Hub. Dru could feel the subtle sense of the centrifugal gravity lessening the closer he got to the top. He strapped himself in as a wave of dizziness washed across him. It was much worse than what he had experienced before, probably because of the lack of food.

The Hub had closed down months before. Commander Goul had even made an announcement about it during school. He'd said there was no use wasting energy now the silos were empty.

Whereas before there had been minimal lighting, heat, and the rhythmic sounds of The Habitat, now there was complete darkness and oppressive silence. It was also freezing. Dru lowered his mask to keep the warmth in.

Dru was actually surprised there was still an atmos. However given his experience in Beta Quad, perhaps there was no choice. The whole Habitat was connected.

The Hub being closed turned out to be a good thing. The walls and safety rungs had frozen dots of condensation covering them. If he'd been forced to crawl through the maze, with The Hub under rotation, there was no way he would have been able to continue. It was simply too slippery. In micro-gravity he was able to float through easily.

That's how he'd ended up in the rats nest, tired, starving and very much alone.

[https://i.ibb.co/mDQY87t/seven-pointed-star-small.png]

A small cloud of frozen vapour accompanied him as he floated within the chamber. Each breath adding to it, a legacy of keeping his mask open.

He sought out more of the deposits the rats had left behind. He didn't find much, but they were food. Even frozen they were something. He shovelled them into his mouth, all the while trying not to think about what he was eating too closely.

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As he ate he pondered why anyone had bothered to clear away the rats in the first place. Were they pilfering too many stores? Or had someone else had the idea before him, of using them as food? If so, why bother cleaning up the place, and wasting disinfectant?

On a whim, Dru turned off his lamp. He bathed in the total darkness and complete silence. No, not completely silent. He could hear his own body working, as well as that of the suit's systems labouring to keep him alive. Plus, every now and again there was a faint shiver, a rumble almost too low to hear, but he could feel it passing through him.

Was that normal?

Dru initiated his HUD. It was the first time he had used it since escaping Blue Sector. In the isolated Hub, he figured it was worth the risk for a quick look.

It took a moment to initialise. It was only a basic model. His parents weren't wealthy. That's why they were on the Sunrise Star. The only ones with any wealth on The Star were Commander Goul and his True Believers. You didn't have to believe their religion to be on the Star, but it helped.

Promotion beyond general labourer without submitting to their beliefs was uncommon (some said impossible). Fortunately, Dru's parents had managed to lift themselves up without becoming subservient tools.

Sure, he and his sister had to sit through the hours of mandatory religious education each day, but it was obviously made-up junk to suppress the feebleminded. It hadn't taken root inside of him, or any of the other children he knew. Meri had shown some deference, but she was still young. She was smart enough to work it out eventually.

The HUD popped into life and he could see all the way to edge of the room's horizon, where it curved around the rear hangar. He tuned the sonic visualiser to focus on infrasounds, hoping to identify the source of the noise.

Did I imagine it? He wondered, when it failed to register. He couldn't hear it anymore either.

As he flicked through the other viewing modes he detected a heat trace in the distance. It was tiny, likely hidden to anyone on the ground. Floating near the ceiling he could only just see it. The source originated from within the bulkhead wall. Then he saw there were also trace amounts of respiratory gases.

He pushed off the wall, drifting across the chamber. As he got closer, he could see there was a small hole.

The Star was an ancient vessel. It was far older than his parents. There were cracks and breaches throughout its internal structure. That's why it was the last refuge of the destitute, religious freaks and The Ashamed. Nobody else wanted to live on it.

By rights, The Council should have insisted on reprocessing the hulk, but there were far too many Carcass Habitats - as Dru's dad had called them. There wasn't the energy allowance to relocate the inhabitants let alone reprocess even a fraction of these stations, and that was before The War.

Dru peered inside the hole. His HUD showed the area inside was warmer than the chamber he was in. It was still cold but not icy. It appeared to be much warmer further back. However, the breach curved to the right obscuring his view.

He brought up the schematics on his HUD, and saw that there was a conduit leading from the heat exchanger inside the wall. The valve couldn't have been fully closed, and it was leaking into the pipe. That explained the warmth, but what about the gases?

The hole was just too small for his hand enclosed in the suit. He removed his left glove. His hand began to ache almost immediately thanks to the freezing cold. He reached inside the hole.

He worked his way in, careful to avoid the jagged edges. He had to push through a thick layer of what he presumed were frozen spiders webs. He hoped the cold had killed their inhabitants.

With his arm inserted almost up to the shoulder, he felt the humid air on his fingertips. It felt gorgeous, as feeling returned to his fingers. It was nearly as warm as his suit.

He felt around, then jerked his hand back suddenly as something scratched the inside of his index finger. He scrabbled about and managed to grab it: something long, thin and quite sharp at the end.

A wire? He wondered.

It felt hard, but lacked the mass of a metal object. He extracted his arm to find it was a small bone. Most likely a rat's rib. There were teeth marks on it.

Was there something feeding on the rats?

He stuck his arm into the hole again and felt around. There were many more bones hovering inside.

Dru extracted five tiny rat skulls: babies. Picked clean, the bones had been gnawed extensively.

He reached in again.

He was stretched as far as his arm would go, brushing away at the layer of bones that floated around his hand. It was uncomfortably warm after the cold outside the wall space. His fingers must have been only centimetres from the pipe.

The bite, when it came, hit him with little warning. He sensed the air around his hand move, then the teeth sunk in.

The attacker struck on the thin flap of skin between the thumb and forefinger. He cried out in pain, and his fingers snapped shut around the attacker enclosing its body. The baby rat bit him again as he withdrew his arm, but he didn't let go.

Minute globules of Dru's blood sailed away as he stared down as the rat struggling in his hand. It chirped in fear.

His HUD thoughtfully pointed out various bits of the rodent's anatomy. It also provided Dru with a helpful warning not to let it bite him with its sharp teeth.

With a squeeze, he could end its life, but he just held and watched the animal struggle. Should he kill and eat it? It would barely serve a mouthful. Should he return it to its lair? Did it have any food back there? Most likely, it had survived this long by feeding upon its siblings. Returning it would mean condemning the rat to a slow agonising death by hunger.

The lights along the ceiling suddenly flared. His HUD adjusted automatically, but it left him momentarily blinded. Dru let out a cry and the rat tumbled from his grasp.

From behind, he heard a cry.

"There he is!"

It was Galan.