The CHANGI BULLET

Chapter 43 - The New World

Cerys woke Ezra by banging hard on his cabin door. He had been sleeping in his clothes, so opened the door fully and dopily looked out at her.

'Ezra, I'm worried about Medina. I think the stress of the journey has finally got to him.'

'Where is he?'

'We were exercising, and walking by the air lock area, when he suddenly stopped and began staring through into the first air lock room. He then completely ignored me. I'm so worried about him.'

'Come on, let's find him.'

They hurried down to the air lock station, somewhere Ezra had wanted to avoid for a while, and found Medina standing exactly as she had said.

'Medina, mate?' Ezra approached slowly. 'What's up?'

Ezra touched the man's arm, causing Medina to jerk away quite violently. Cerys was very upset by it all.

'It's all right, mate,' continued Ezra. 'You can tell me.'

Medina thought he was going to be touched again and backed off a few steps to the side, now facing Ezra. He seemed ready for a fight.

'You lost,' Medina spat at Ezra.

'Lost what?'

'Lost Cerys. She's mine.'

'That's all right, mate. All's fair in love and space travel.'

'If I don't survive, you'll take here.'

'You are going to survive. Me and Cerys are only friends.'

Medina's mood quickly escalated to one of shaking fury. Ezra prepared to defend himself. Cerys cried out as Medina's hand moved to his pistol. Ezra was forced to make the same move.

'Steady, Medina.'

'You're not having her.'

'Trust me, I don't want her. Take your hand off that weapon, soldier.'

'It ends here.'

'Medina...'

Medina drew his sidearm, and so did Ezra. Ezra found himself faced with a dreadful situation, trying to keep a highly-distressed Cerys back, while begging Medina to lower his weapon. Any second and Ezra knew he was a dead man - how much longer could he not pull his own trigger?

'Medina, put it down.'

Cerys forced her way forward to attempt to reason with Medina, and that milli-second of distraction allowed Ezra to knock Medina's gun hand away, strike up with a blow to the face and a barge the man back against the wall. But Medina was very strong, forcing Ezra off him, and they were instantly back in the stand-off situation. Then Medina did something that chilled Ezra to the bone, he reached into a pocket and withdrew a handful of bullets; obviously, Ezra's bullets, stolen at an earlier stage. Very slowly, Ezra examined his magazine.

Medina dropped Ezra's bullets onto the hard deck. Ezra looked down at them, rolling harmlessly about. Two of them rolled against Medina's boot, taking his attention for another fraction of a second, letting Ezra launch himself at the man. With Cerys screaming, then deciding to run for help, the two men grappled and punched, both using their military training to try to get the upper hand. They bounced off a bulkhead, and then were down on the floor, knees and elbows going in. Evenly matched, they fought to near exhaustion, until Ezra managed to slip free and dived for Medina's gun. Medina did the same. Both men came up to their feet aiming a gun, but which was empty and which was loaded? They pulled the triggers simultaneously.

Cerys screamed and screamed as she ran along the corridor, and then she sat bolt upright from her nightmare. She was panting and sweating, highly distressed by the emotions of it all. She realized that she was in her cabin. Shaking the terror out of herself, she reached for Gareth the teddy bear.