United

by Melissa Landers

  Neither he nor Troy moved until the door began to materialize from the bottom up, forcing them to jump over it into the hall. Aelyx landed as softly as he could and paused, cocking an ear to listen for voices or approaching feet. When he didn’t hear anything, he strode forward while Troy followed close behind.

  As Aelyx walked, he studied the texture of the wall and noticed it resembled the dark, grainy material of the airlock door. He trailed his fingertips over the surface, expecting to find it slick with condensation, but the wall felt like animal hide, dry to the touch and slightly bumpy. He pressed harder, torn between disgust and amazement. He’d heard of “living ships” made from organic material, but he’d never thought such a thing possible.

  The surface gave way beneath his touch, and he yanked back his hand as a patch of the wall opened. There was a pipe on the other side. “Look at this.” He craned his neck and followed the pipeline to where it disappeared into a section of ductwork. “If this pipe leads to the onboard humidifier, it’s only three floors above us.”

  Troy tested the pipe, touching it briefly with the pad of one finger. “It’s too hot for us to scale. We’ll have to find a stairwell.”

  Aelyx quickened his pace to a silent jog as his insides fluttered with hope. Maybe he wouldn’t have to detonate the fuel cell after all. He reached the fork at the end of the corridor and stopped to glance left and right. He noticed bodies in movement and quickly jumped back. His glimpse was so brief he couldn’t describe the beings, other than to say they moved upright and stood at least five feet tall.

  He pointed to the right and mouthed at Troy, “Someone’s down there.”

  Troy crouched near the opposite wall. “How many?”

  “Two, I think. Maybe three.”

  “Are they coming this way?”

  Aelyx didn’t know, so he poked his head out from around the corner. About twenty paces away stood two creatures facing each other as if engaged in silent conversation. He could make out their general shapes—two short legs attached to a slim torso; two long, willowy arms; an oversize, oblong head resting atop a thick neck—but their edges and features were blurred. Their flesh seemed to glow, changing color from gray to pale pink to beige and back again. He squinted, unable to bring the details of their faces or hands into focus. It was like viewing a film through a broken projector, and he recalled what Cara had said about Noven brains being unable to perceive the Aribols’ true form.

  As if sensing his presence, both creatures turned their heads toward him. Aelyx ducked back behind the corner and locked eyes with Troy. “I think they saw me.”

  Troy hissed a swear and pointed at the staff. “Use it on them.”

  Before he lost his nerve, Aelyx leaned into the open and pointed the staff at the creatures. Nothing happened. He tried again, mimicking what Jaxen had done, but the orb nesting inside the staff remained dull. Then his brain buzzed with confusion. He could sense what the Aribol were feeling. Their mental activity swelled within him, a force so powerful he shrank back and cringed.

  They thought he was Jaxen. His russet skin and long, brown hair matched the person they’d seen months ago on their home world, but his actions were all wrong. They didn’t understand his odd behavior, and they were coming to investigate.

  “What’re you doing?” Troy asked.

  Aelyx gripped his head. “You don’t feel it?”

  “Feel what?”

  “They’re coming.”

  “Use the staff!” Troy whisper-yelled.

  Fighting to clear his head, Aelyx thought back to the alliance signing last spring, when he’d fired an iphal at Jaxen. It hadn’t been enough to point and shoot. The weapon’s safety mechanism had required intent—he’d had to want to fire it. Perhaps the staff worked in the same way. He concentrated on harnessing the power within the sphere, imagined drawing on it like a conduit through his skin. He felt a hum of energy, and the sphere glowed alive.

  The first Aribol glided into view. Aelyx thrust the staff forward with all his might, and in the blink of an eye, the creature struck the wall with a sickening crunch and crumpled to the floor. Before Aelyx could lash out at the second one, he felt his limbs stiffen. The creature was inside his mind, shutting down his motor control. He dropped to his knees, the staff disappearing beneath clouds of steam. His lungs seized, and he couldn’t breathe.

  Troy leaped from his crouching position and tackled the Aribol to the floor. No sooner had they landed than Troy gripped the creature’s head and twisted it sharply. There was a crack, and its body went limp. Instantly, the effect lifted and Aelyx was free.

  While catching his breath, he crawled forward to study the Aribol more closely. There was a purplish smudge on the wall where the first body had hit. Blood, probably. Even in death, their edges seemed to vibrate at speeds too fast for his eyes, so he used his hands to see, feeling their fingers, which were long and skeletally thin, but with the flexibility of cartilage instead of bone. There were three fingers and an opposable thumb, covered by rough, dry skin that reminded him of fine-grit sandpaper. Despite the moisture in the air, several cracks marred the creature’s flesh. No wonder they avoided contact with the ground. Dust could easily make its way inside the bloodstream through these fissures.

  Aelyx fanned away the steam and noticed a sprinkling of soil had fallen out of Troy’s pockets. “I’d forgotten about that.” He patted his own pockets, still full. “We should’ve thrown some at them.”

  “I’m sure we’ll have another chance. Come on, let’s find the stairs.”

  Aelyx retrieved the staff and followed Troy down the left hallway. As he strode along the corridor, he wondered why Troy hadn’t felt the Aribols’ emotions or succumbed to the mental attack. Perhaps it was because they hadn’t known he was there. Or maybe they could only breach one mind at a time.

  Something caught Aelyx’s attention, and he paused. There was a whooshing noise coming from inside the wall. He tugged Troy to a stop. The sound came again, and Aelyx followed it a few paces forward to a slim doorway about half the width of the airlock exit. He rubbed a hand over the wall, and it parted to reveal a tube barely wide enough for both of them.

  “An elevator?” he guessed.

  Troy pressed the toe of one boot into the tube. When the floor held his weight, he stepped inside. “Worth a shot.”

  Aelyx squeezed in beside him, looking for a set of controls as the door re-formed. The interior walls were bare. He didn’t touch anything, but the tube shot up on its own volition and then stopped almost at once.

  “This must be the next level. Maybe if we don’t touch—” Inertia cut him off as the tube lifted again. Perhaps its default setting was to take them to each floor one at a time until they chose to exit. Or until someone else wishes to enter, he thought with a chill.

  He held his breath when the tube stopped again. The wait at this floor seemed longer than the last. To his relief, the door remained sealed and the tube shot upward.

  “Next floor, right?” asked Troy.

  “I think so.”

  The tube stopped. Aelyx rubbed his palm over the door, and right away he knew they’d reached the boiler level. A burst of heat tightened the skin on his face, and swirls of steam obscured his vision. But it wasn’t until he exited the chute and came face-to-face with dozens of Aribol, each basking in the warm mist leaking from massive water tanks, that he realized his shortsightedness. To creatures like these, this location would be the most desirable room on the ship.

  Troy froze beside him, and Aelyx felt the same waves of confusion crash over him, ten times stronger than before. There were too many thoughts piercing his skull. Who are these Noven? Why are they here?

  “Now I know what you were talking about.” Troy clutched his forehead. With labored movements, he pulled both hands down to his pockets.

  The creatures’ bewilderment turned to a suspicion so intense it was nearly blinding. Dark spots twirled in Aelyx’s line of vision, as if he were about to black out. He tigh
tened his grip on the staff and used his other hand to clutch a fistful of soil from his pocket.

  “Now,” Troy said, and threw two handfuls of dirt into the air.

  Aelyx cast another handful at the group and fired the Nova Staff. He couldn’t see what happened next, but he heard the smack of flesh against metal. There was a brief reprieve that cleared his vision and loosened the vice around his temples, just long enough for him to scan the area for any Aribol left standing. One of them stood in the background, far beyond his reach. He raised the staff to strike, but with the movement came a pain so sharp Aelyx had to probe his scalp to be sure it hadn’t split open. He clenched his eyes and sank to his knees while Troy cried out in agony. Aelyx curled into a ball on the floor, cradling his head. His muscles locked, starting with his arms and legs, followed by his torso, and eventually his lungs.

  He willed himself to breathe, but his chest refused to obey. Soon his eyes bulged and his face began to tingle. He thought desperately of Cara. He had no way to warn her; no way to destroy the ship so she could evacuate. More than that, he would never see her again; never watch her blue eyes sparkle when he entered a room. He pictured those blue eyes and held tightly to the image as consciousness slipped away.

  And then she was gone.

  Cara touched her com-sphere through the fabric of her uniform, hesitating twice before leaving it in her pocket. Aelyx and Troy would contact her when they were ready. The best thing she could do was let them focus. She’d give them fifteen minutes of uninterrupted silence.

  Then all bets were off.

  She spotted Larish’s legs sticking out from beneath one of the ships. On the opposite side of the hangar, Syrine and Elle were searching for a control panel that might lift the anchors from the landing gear and allow them to flush the ships into space. Cara had checked her end of the room. So far, none of them had found anything.

  She scooted on her back to join Larish under the ship. Its belly was open, exposing thick, granular, fleshy-looking tubes that reminded her of the cow’s intestine she’d dissected in AP Biology.

  “There’s no doubt why the Aribol wanted fertilizer and raw phosphorus destroyed,” Larish said. “These ships aren’t fully airtight. Their filtration systems can block the toxins in errant dust or dirt, but the concentration of elements in fertilizer would be too high for them to screen from the pilots.”

  “Is that what you’ve got there, the filter?”

  “No, I believe this is the fuel line.” He sliced into a tube and frowned when nothing came out. “Or not. Regardless, it must be a necessary component of the engine or it wouldn’t exist.”

  “So if we can open the bellies of a thousand ships and cut their innards, the engines may or may not operate.” She shook her head. “There has to be another way.”

  “Well, unless we can find a control panel …” Larish trailed off as a buzz tore through the air. Loud and steady, it struck Cara as some kind of alarm. She drew a sharp breath and locked eyes with Larish as both of them reached the same conclusion. The external hatch was about to open. Any loose objects—or bodies—inside the hangar would be blown into space with crushing force.

  She slid out from beneath the ship and screamed across the hangar, “To the airlock! The shuttle’s back!”

  After running like hell to the airlock doorway, she flattened her palm over the rubbery panel, and its molecules separated beneath her skin. She and Larish stepped inside while making a hurry-up motion to Syrine and Elle, who were sprinting fast enough to leave burn marks on the floor. The buzzing intensified. Twice the airlock door began to re-form, and each time Cara scrubbed her hands over it to leave an opening. When the girls were finally within reach, they dived through the hole and landed hard on their bellies. The barrier had just sealed when the floor rumbled with the force of the enormous hatch opening on the other side.

  Everyone released a breath.

  The chamber pressurized and the opposite door dissolved, leading to a long hallway carpeted with steam. Instantly, Cara’s gaze fixed on the end point of the corridor, where two bodies were slumped against the wall. In the moment before she realized they weren’t human, her heart lurched.

  She jogged forward as quietly as she could. When she reached the Aribol bodies, she struggled to take in their details. Zane hadn’t lied about his kind. She couldn’t view them properly. Their forms glowed and shimmered at the edges, almost as if they were made of incandescent gasses.

  There wasn’t time to study them any longer. Once she darted a glance up and down the intersecting hallway, finding it vacant, she used her com-sphere to contact Aelyx. He didn’t reply, not even to deny the summons, which caused her stomach to twist.

  “Troy’s not answering either,” Elle whispered, her lower lip pinched between her teeth.

  Syrine pulled out her sphere and began navigating its holographic directory. “You track Troy. I’ll lock on to Aelyx.” In moments, she displayed his position relative to theirs and gestured left. “This way, up three flights.”

  “Troy, too,” Elle said. “They’re together.”

  Larish adjusted his satchel, shifting the heavy bulk of soil behind him, and then the four of them set off down the hall. As they followed the signal, Cara darted frequent glances over her shoulders. The dim lighting, the dead bodies, the steady hiss of steam, all of it sent a cold finger down her spine. Larish, however, kept his eyes fixed on the walls as they passed.

  “Remarkable,” he muttered under his breath while touching the surface and watching it part around his finger. “They’ve constructed the ship using a combination of manmade and organic materials. I wonder what species the walls are derived from.”

  Cara didn’t share his fascination. She would be impressed when the Aribol stopped trying to annihilate her race.

  Ahead of them, Syrine stopped in front of a slim doorway and brushed a hand over it. There was a cylindrical chamber inside, too narrow to fit all of them. “This must be the lift. We’ll have to go in pairs.”

  Cara pushed her way to the front of the group and squeezed into the chute beside Elle, who was already inside. The door sealed and they shot upward so fast Cara nearly left her stomach behind. After two more abrupt stops and starts, she touched the door panel and tentatively poked her head out while Elle strode forward.

  Cara crept out of the chute. Whatever this place was, the air was so thick with steam she could barely see the back of Elle’s head. Heat curled at the nape of Cara’s neck, making her dizzy. It was ungodly hot in here. She waved a hand to dispel the steam and noticed several enormous vats, like water towers, each connected by metallic ductwork.

  This must be the shipwide humidifier.

  Her movement caused the steam to drift, and something at the base of the nearest vat caught her eye. Her heart skipped a beat. A standard Marine issue jacket lay balled up on the floor. Elle saw it, too, and they shared a wide-eyed glance before both of them flew into action. Cara snatched the jacket and used it like a fan to clear the fog while Elle jogged to Troy’s beacon, which according to the map was less than a few yards away.

  Cara tripped over something and found an Aribol body, and then another. Grit crunched beneath her soles, telling her how these creatures had died. Her pulse rushed as she stepped over more of the dead. She silently prayed her loved ones weren’t among them.

  The macabre trail ended with Aelyx and Troy lying face up, their hands positioned atop their chests. At once, Cara checked their ribcages, and when she saw them rise and fall, she exhaled in relief. But the moment was fleeting. Just beyond them crouched an Aribol, very much alive and radiating fury.

  She barely had time to register fear before she lost control of her body. The next thing she knew, she was on the floor beside Elle, struggling to breathe. The creature was inside her head. She could feel its rage at the lives Aelyx and Troy had taken. It wanted to kill them all, but its leaders had given it instructions to keep them alive until others arrived to probe their minds. Then they would be execu
ted and flushed out the nearest port, while the fleet liquefied the inhabitants of Earth.

  Cara heard footsteps, and Larish fell down beside her. She struggled to bring him into focus as her face grew numb and her sight dimmed. Then as suddenly as she’d lost control of her body, it was hers to command again. She sucked in a loud breath. Oxygen rushed through her veins, restoring her senses, and she sat up to find the Aribol writhing on the floor, its holographic skin covered in dirt. Above it stood Syrine.

  “It couldn’t control me,” she said in wonder, brushing the soil from her hands. “I felt it penetrate my consciousness, and I pushed it out.”

  Elle rose to her knees. “I tried blocking my thoughts, and it didn’t work.”

  “So did I,” Larish added.

  “Maybe it’s because of the ‘emotional healer’ thing.” Cara crawled to Aelyx’s side and tried to rouse him. He wouldn’t wake. Neither would Troy. “It did something permanent to them. Can you remove its influence like you removed Aisly’s?”

  “I can try.”

  “Others are coming,” Elle cautioned. “I sensed it.”

  While Syrine bent over Troy and gently pried open his eyelids, Cara looked for a place large enough to hide all six of them. Behind the vats, she thought. But that was a temporary fix. She noticed the Nova Staff on the floor and picked it up, glancing at Larish. “Parts of the ship are alive, right? If the walls are made of flesh, maybe burning the elevator doorway—”

  “Will cauterize it and lock out the Aribol,” he finished. “It’s worth a try.”

  “We have to hurry,” Elle said as she helped pat down Aelyx for the cube. “Now that the shuttle has returned, there’s no reason to delay the invasion. I’ll use my sphere to scan the ship for its fuel core.”

  Larish tipped his head at the boiler equipment. “I’ll look for an off switch. A drastic loss of humidity may very well kill them.”

  Cara tried to ignore the number of mays and mights in their plan, focusing instead on removing the Nova sphere from its cradle and replacing it with the cube she’d pried from Aelyx’s back pocket. As soon as the cube clicked into place, she cradled the staff in the crook of one arm and ran back to the elevator.