Chasing the Shadows

by Maria V. Snyder

  Sand crunches under my boots as I traverse the corridors. Otherwise it’s silent. After a short walk, I enter the main factory. Warriors lie prone on hundreds of tables throughout the space as if they’re waiting for surgery. Even though I’ve been here a couple times before, it’s still creepy. Along the back wall are more tables, but this time they are filled with Warrior hearts. I shine the beam over them. The silver alien symbols engraved on them gleam, but the black porous material drinks in the light.

  They’re the same shape and size as a human heart. And now to test if what I witnessed the last time I was here actually happened or was due to panic because all the lights went out, I switch off the flashlight. The blackness is instant. Then I blink and a row of ghost Warriors appear. They’re identical to the Terracotta Warriors, standing tall and staring straight ahead. Except they’re white and a bit translucent. Nice to know I didn’t imagine them.

  “It’s a go,” I say. Toggling on my flashlight, I wait for the others to join me.

  It doesn’t take long for Morgan, Elese, Beau, Zaim, Ho, and Rance to arrive. Bendix stayed on the surface in case that’s our only way out. The team peers into the shadows with anxious expressions.

  “No HoLFs down here,” I say, but don’t add it’s peaceful because they already suspect I’m crazy. No need to confirm.

  “What do we do?” Morgan asks.

  She and the others are lined up by the table.

  “It’s easy. Just pick one up. It’s going to crumble in your hands, but there’s no way to avoid it.”

  “Anything else we should expect?” Beau asks.

  “Yes, it’s gonna feel like your hand’s been stabbed by an icicle, but it doesn’t last long.”

  “Wonderful,” he mutters.

  Everyone hesitates as if no one wants to be first. Then Morgan huffs and grabs a heart. As expected, it disintegrates, raining fragments. She wrinkles her nose, but doesn’t remark on the pain.

  Beau shrugs and picks one up. Or he tries; it’s dust by the time he lifts his hand. “Ow, that sucker stings.” He wipes his palm on his leg.

  The rest follow. Four more hearts are destroyed—sorry, Mom. No one else comments on the pain. Rance and Elese rub their arms as if their muscles ache.

  “How do we know it worked?” Morgan asks me.

  “Everyone turn off your flashlights,” I say.

  They do. Elese curses in surprise. Zaim and Beau reach for their emitters.

  “Can you all see the ghosts?” I ask.

  “Hell, yeah,” Rance says. “And to think we made fun of you about them.”

  Nice.

  “And we really didn’t believe you, either,” Zaim says. “Sorry, Ara.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Rance and Ho echo.

  I glance at Elese and Beau.

  “Don’t look at us, we believed you,” Elese says, giving the others her hard stare.

  “The real test will be if we can see the HoLFs,” Morgan says. “Flashlights back on for now. Rance, get the floodlights ready.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Since we only have six emitters, Rance is in charge of the floodlights. With Morgan in the lead, we creep over to the hatch. I’m surprised the ladder is still there, although I don’t know why. Icy air pours from the hatch.

  Morgan pauses at the base. “Lights off. Time to set up the perimeter.”

  By the creaking sounds, I guess Rance is climbing the ladder. I’m right behind him. Once he reaches the top, he triggers the floodlight before stepping out. The bright white beam slices the darkness. He sets the tripod down.

  My turn. I scramble into Pit 4. The heavy air presses against my skin as I slide onto the floor, keeping below the brightness. Lying on my stomach and elbows, I hold the emitter so it’s pointed straight out. Shadow-blobs fly toward us.

  “Incoming!” I sizzle-zap the closest ones.

  Elese is next. She hands Rance another floodlight on a tripod and dives for the ground. “They’re ugly little blobs,” she says and then sizzle-zaps a bunch.

  The rest of the team bubbles from the hatch, bringing more lights and more emitters. They waste no time taking up similar positions. A few curses and a gasp echo around me as they get their first look at the enemy. We’re in a circle around the hatch fanned like flower petals around the middle. A strategy that will hopefully keep us safe.

  Morgan settles next to me. “You weren’t kidding about the tentacles.”

  Shadow-blobs rush us with their weapons already formed. We aim and fire repeatedly. Sizzle-zaps crackle in the air. So many it sounds like an electrical fire.

  After a few minutes, Zaim asks, “How much juice do we have in these things?”

  “Like I said at the briefing,” Morgan says, zapping a couple HoLFs. “We have a few hours before the emitters need to be recharged.”

  “There’s a million of them,” Rance says.

  I check over my shoulder. Does he need help? He’s adjusting the beams to protect us from an attack from above. His other job is to keep the HoLFs from breaking the bulbs. He appears to be okay.

  Focusing forward, I concentrate on the shadow-blobs. A million is an exaggeration. It’s more like hundreds. But we’re holding our own. Mostly. A few sharp tentacle tips stab forward faster than I’m able to aim and fire. The damage is minimal. Being on our stomachs, we present a smaller target. Plus they’re having a harder time puncturing the jumpsuit’s material. The chemists brewed up a chemical agent—don’t ask me what it is; all I know is it strengthened the fibers to counter against a stabbing motion. It’s not impenetrable, but it’s much better than before.

  After an hour…or two, my arms ache with fatigue and my fingers are stiff. A loud pop then the crackle of a bulb shattering sounds amid the sizzle-zaps. I glance back. Rance is wielding his flashlight like a sword as shadow-blobs try to stab him. Another couple of bulbs blow.

  “Lawrence, help Rance,” Morgan orders.

  I scramble to my feet and sizzle-zap the HoLFs harrying Rance. Sharp appendages snake between the gaps in the lights, stabbing us. His uniform is damp with blood, but he keeps moving as he rearranges the remaining lights, but then more pop behind us. I spin in a slow circle, shooting as I turn.

  The HoLFs are smart enough to wait for my back to be turned. I stumble forward as the force of their blows increases. Great, they figured out our uniforms are more resistant. We lose a few more lights.

  “On your feet,” Morgan orders the others.

  Smart. Now the rest can duck and dodge.

  “Status?” she barks.

  “Keir, check.”

  “Dorey, check.”

  “Zaim, check.”

  “Ho, check.”

  “Lawrence, check.” I jump back from a vicious looking saw-toothed blade just in time to be stabbed in the arm. Ow.

  “Rance?” Morgan asks.

  Nothing. I turn and Rance is lying on the ground. Blood is pouring from a cut on the side of his face.

  “Man down,” I say and rush over to him. Crouching next to his prone form, I feel for a pulse. It’s there. I’ve no time for relief as two more shadow-blobs advance on us. Sizzle-zap. Sizzle-zap.

  “Status on Rance?”

  “Alive. Don’t know for how long.”

  Morgan curses. “Are you sure the HoLFs are being killed and not just re-forming in the darkness?” she asks me, shouting over the sizzle-zaps.

  “Yes.”

  Zaim cries out in pain and crumples to the ground.

  “Retreat,” Morgan orders.

  More bulbs pop, spraying glass over us.

  “We can’t,” Keir says. “As soon as we turn our backs they’ll be on us.”

  “At this rate of attack only a few of us will be able to get down the ladder,” Beau says. “Those left behind will be quickly overwhelmed.”

  “Stay the course,” Morgan orders.

  We do. It’s brutal and the metallic stink of blood mixes with the almost continuous sizzle-zaps. I catch sight of Ho. He’s firing hi
s and Zaim’s emitter. Those long lean arms must be stronger than they look.

  After a while, I reach a state of numbness. Sounds are muffled and my breathing steadies. Actions slow down. I think of Niall. He’s going to be mad if I don’t survive this. I wonder if he needs more rice paper to draw on. Strange and unconnected thoughts pop up in my mind.

  And then Bendix is there. He grabs Zaim’s emitter from Ho and aims. Sizzle-zap.

  “You disobeyed orders, Officer Bendix,” Morgan says. But it’s half-hearted.

  “You can yell at me about it later. You guys needed my help.” He shoots a few more. “Ugly suckers.”

  “That’s what I said!” Elese grins at him. “Welcome to the party!”

  Bendix’s arrival turns the tide and, after another hour, what’s left of the shadow-blobs retreat. We glance at each other in surprise. Is this a trick?

  “Check on Zaim and Rance,” Morgan orders.

  Elese examines Rance, while Beau inspects Zaim’s injuries. Both men are bleeding from multiple cuts. Beau and Elese apply pressure bandages to the worst ones.

  “They’re stable for now,” Elese says. “But we shouldn’t linger.”

  “Fan out,” Morgan orders. “Clear Pit 4.”

  We find a few shadow-blobs hiding in the corners and behind mounds of debris. The temperature warms.

  “Do you feel that?” Beau asks.

  “What?” Elese swings her weapon around, shooting a fleeing HoLF.

  “The air is…lighter.”

  “You sure the strain hasn’t gotten to you, Dorey?” Morgan asks.

  “Ha, ha.”

  “Four is clear,” Morgan says. “Check Pit 3.”

  Not many shadow-blobs remain in Pit 3. In Pit 2 we find a black slit in the air above the place that is the middle of the octagon of Warriors had they still been standing there. Instead pieces of broken Warriors lie in scattered heaps courtesy of Jarren and his looters.

  Slit is the best word to describe the slash of black—it’s thicker/wider in the middle at about fifteen centimeters and tapers at both ends. The bottom point is about thirty centimeters above the ground and the slit is about two meters long.

  “This is nuts,” Bendix says.

  “Heads up,” Morgan says.

  A handful of HoLFs rush past us. We shoot half of them and the others disappear into the slit.

  “That’s it, run home crying to your mamas,” Elese shouts after them.

  “Now we know how they’re getting here,” Beau says.

  “Aim your emitter at that…tear,” Morgan orders.

  We do.

  “Fire!”

  Nothing happens. Too bad.

  “Stop. Shine your flashlights on it.”

  We do. The blackness thickens and darkens—yes, I know it’s strange—but it’s as if the slit is feeding on the light. It doesn’t grow or shrink or do anything else.

  “That’s enough. Let’s clear Pit 1.” Morgan takes point.

  Within the next hour, the pits and lab are cleared of shadow-blobs.

  Dr. Edwards brings in a crew of nurses and they rush to attend to Rance and Zaim. Bendix and Ho accompany them just in case we missed a HoLF. We’re all bloody and exhausted. But it’s a good kind—a triumphant exhaustion. The team’s mood is jubilant. Operation Warrior Hearts was a success. Radcliff and my parents meet us in the archeology lab with their techs. Jim arrives with a bunch of maintenance people and they work on restoring power to the pits. Quite a number of people who are all probably annoyed at being awake at oh-five-hundred hours. The rest of us are ordered to allow the nurses to inspect and clean our injuries. We all look like we lost a fight with a thorny bush. But it appears none of us has anything too concerning.

  “I feel like a pincushion,” Beau complains without much energy.

  Soon the power is reconnected to the pits. Lights shine in all four of them and the astrophysicists plan to install emitters on the walls to constantly flood the pits with null waves. Despite the brightness, the slit remains.

  “We’ll keep the pits off limits and post guards here with emitters until we figure out how to close it,” Radcliff says. “We’ll have six more of the weapons by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “We might need to bring in intact Warriors from the other pits,” I say. And when Radcliff and my parents glance at me, I add, “There were no HoLFs in Pit 21.”

  “Yes, but they might need all fourteen hundred and forty-eight of them to keep the HoLFs out. If we skim a few off, it might not,” Mom says.

  Good point. The mood sobers as Dr. Edwards and his team carry out Rance and Zaim.

  “How are they?” Radcliff asks Edwards.

  “They’ll live. Officer Rance has a concussion. I’ll know more about Officer Zaim when I get back to the infirmary.”

  In other words, stop bothering the good doctor so he can do his work.

  Radcliff, my parents, and the techs go to touch the hearts just in case the HoLFs invade again. I follow them down to the factory along with Morgan. We turn on our flashlights as we enter the big cavern.

  “I hate to ruin these, but I’d rather see the enemy,” Mom says as she picks one up. She winces. “Stabbed by an icicle is an apt description.”

  My dad and the techs follow.

  “Yikes, that’s cold.” Dad rubs his hands together.

  Morgan reaches for one and I say, “Don’t—”

  “Don’t what?” Morgan is holding a heart in her bare hand and it hasn’t disintegrated.

  “I was going to say not to touch it because you already destroyed one.”

  Morgan stills. “Maybe it’s a dud?”

  “Give it to me,” Radcliff says. It turns to dust as soon as he grasps it. “I felt the pain, does that mean it worked?”

  Only one way to find out. “Turn off the flashlights.”

  The gasps are like music to my ears as I’m sure all the techs believed I was lying about the ghosts. Vindication is mine! I’d chuckle evilly, but that would probably put a few techs over the edge. It wouldn’t do to have them running away screaming. Or would it?

  We experiment and it appears that since we’ve already touched a heart, we can now pick one up. Which means we can move the hearts to a safer location and we can distribute them to other key personnel, like the rest of the security team.

  “I guess once you have a ghost, you can’t get another,” I say.

  My mother rounds on me. “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s…”

  I wait, but my mother is at a loss for words. Wow.

  “It’s scary,” Dad says. “To think we’re hosts for an alien spirit.”

  “Spencer,” Mom admonishes.

  “It’s true, though,” I say.

  “We don’t know that for sure.” She’s wiping her hands over her chest and arms as if brushing away crumbs.

  Talk about denial. “Think of it as a super power, Mom. Now you have X-ray vision…well, you have radio wave vision, but that doesn’t sound as cool. And you might be better at accessing the Q-net.”

  “Did you get better after touching a heart?” Radcliff asks.

  Figures he would ask that. “No, but it could have been a contributing factor.”

  “Guess time will tell,” Dad says, looking thoughtful.

  We all carry a heart up from the factory. I plan to give mine to Niall. A giddy warmth spreads through me as I realize I’ve already given him my heart. Yes, it’s sappy, but hey, we’re in love.

  As soon as I enter the archeology lab, the Q-net sounds a strident warning in my head. My happy thoughts sizzle-zap away. Another missile? I concentrate and connect to the Q-net.

  Yes! And it’s not coming at us.

  My parents and Radcliff turn around when they realize I stopped.

  Then where? The trajectory shows it heading straight to—

  “Lawrence?” Radcliff barks.

  “The satellite!”

  “What about it?”

&nbs
p; “A missile is on its way to the satellite.”

  Nineteen

  2522:245

  Cursing, Radcliff strides over to a terminal. He shoves his tangs in and accesses the satellite’s defensive controls. The screen shows the hash marks of the missile’s projected path. My parents stand behind Radcliff. I monitor what’s going on through the Q-net.

  Radcliff targets the weapon as it closes in. Suddenly he’s blocked from the controls. “Sonovabitch. Jarren took over. Lawrence, can you get me back?”

  I try. But Jarren has set up a convoluted program. A helpful green line glows. I follow it as fast as— Everything goes black as the satellite is destroyed.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I wasn’t quick enough.”

  “Not your fault,” Radcliff says. “Jarren had it timed out perfectly.”

  The Q-net sends me a second warning. I squeak in surprise.

  Radcliff asks, “Another missile?”

  “No. Four military shuttles.” I do the math. Forty-eight invaders are flying toward our base.

  “Four shuttles?” Dad asks. “Is that bad?”

  “It’s better than a missile,” Radcliff says. “It means he plans to invade instead of just killing us all.” He pauses as if in thought.

  Things are really screwed up when an attack is considered the lesser of two evils.

  “Lawrence, is Jarren aware that you can track his shuttles without the satellite?” Radcliff asks.

  “He shouldn’t be. I wasn’t able to get past his defenses around his base,” I say.

  “Plus the timing of waiting until the satellite was destroyed might mean he’s not aware,” Dad says.

  “Regardless, we have six hours until they arrive, people. Time for Operation Looter Attack.” Radcliff starts barking orders.

  A part of me is relieved. Strange, I know. But the threat of Jarren’s return has been hanging over my head for the last seventy-four days. And now it’s here. A part of me is ready for it. Bring it on. Yet another part is worried and scared and wants to run away. But that last part is just wanting it to be all over. Win or lose, let’s be done.