by I. O. Adler
“We are outpacing the pursuing sphere,” She Who Waits said. “I have plotted an intersect point which will result in a collision with the harvester near designate the One’s captured vessel. After the collision, the sphere will strike us fifty seconds later. My shuttle will not survive impact.”
Fifty seconds? Carmen licked her lips. That seemed to be the time it took for the airlock to cycle.
“What about you?” she asked. When She Who Waits didn’t answer, she pressed the matter. “She Who Waits? Will you meet us at the airlock?”
“I will try. Operating my shuttle under these circumstances is taxing.”
“Can’t you program it to go on autopilot? Get back here. We can get out together. Can you hear me?”
“Carmen,” her mother said, “let her do her job. It’s all any of us can do right now.”
Her jaw tremored as the shuttle suddenly arrested its tumble with a startling amount of force. Her vision went momentarily red. But like the nausea, the effect passed. She was breathing too fast. She wished she could actually see what was in front of them, where they were going, and how close the pursuing sphere was.
She put her head back.
“Brace for impact,” Sylvia said.
Carmen couldn’t do much of anything as the shuttle shuddered, buckled, and disintegrated around her.
Chapter Forty
Carmen’s helmet light came on automatically as the hold went dark.
Shuttle parts sailed past. It took a few seconds to realize she was no longer inside her crash couch. She reached out before her and caught a wall. The bay ceiling and floor looked wrong somehow. The floor was above her. She had been thrown but was steady enough that she knew where she was. Broken wall panels bounced past and the ceiling had folded in.
How many seconds had ticked by since they had crashed? She spotted the airlock. They needed to get through it before the sphere destroyed the shuttle. She was about to jump for the hatch when she spied Ovo extricating himself from a portion of the wall that had pinned him to a corner. Trying to gauge the distance, she pushed off towards him. She landed nearby and would have bounced except her mother had anchored herself to the wall and caught Carmen by an arm.
Sylvia pulled the wall section off Ovo. Pointed at the airlock.
The three leaped together, her mom pivoting at the last moment and stopping them next to the hatch.
The hatch didn’t open. No button. Carmen waved her hand before the door as if there might be some sensor that needed to be alerted to their presence. Sylvia leaned in and punched the door with a frustrated sound.
The sphere was going to hit them at any moment.
“Open the airlock!” Carmen cried.
Ovo darted off, flying towards the front of the hold. “This way!”
The door to the forward compartment stood open.
Carmen shook her mom’s arm to get her attention. She didn’t want to try the maneuver on her own.
“Hang on,” Sylvia said.
Carmen clung to her mom as they made the jump. Ovo vanished through the door and they followed on his heels. The forward compartment was a shredded wreck, with a sea of splintered debris obscuring the front of the ship. A tear along one wall revealed a portion of open space and the dark surface of the harvester’s hull beyond.
Sylvia paused only for a moment before propelling them next to Ovo. Ovo was peering out between the two vessels. Carmen grabbed the lip of the breach. Tiny shards of fragments swam everywhere.
“She Who Waits,” Carmen said. “We have to get her.”
But Ovo was on the move, squeezing out through the breach and crawling towards the nearest curve of the harvester’s hull.
Sylvia pushed Carmen through the tear in the shuttle. “There’s no time.”
Before Carmen could protest, the shuttle wall almost jerked out of her grip as the entire vessel crumpled. Her mother unceremoniously shoved her butt and followed her in the tight space between the ships, setting a foot down and planting them both on the sphere. The shuttle appeared to ripple as it broke to pieces behind them. The sphere was smashing through the rear of the vessel and didn’t look as if it was going to stop.
Hand over hand, they shimmied along the harvester’s hull before rising to walk. The slow stroll was frustratingly deliberate after their headlong escape.
Behind them, the front of the shuttle and the cockpit were now breaking to pieces. The oncoming sphere crashed through it like a stone dispersing water in slow motion. Fragments tumbled towards them like a tide, bouncing off the harvester and threatening to sweep them from the hull and into space.
Each step felt glacial, as if her feet were stuck in quicksand. The debris field was almost upon them. But then Ovo disappeared into one of the harvester’s airlocks. It was too far.
Carmen heard no words from her mother, but as if by practiced maneuver she picked Carmen up and jumped. The hull curved away below them. Carmen clung to her mother and found herself screaming. In one quick motion, Ovo snagged Sylvia by the foot and hauled them both inside. Giant metal shards blew past, some skipping off the hull as the airlock door closed.
Her heart threatened to jump out her throat as she squeezed her mother in a vice grip. “Oh, god. Oh, god. She Who Waits…”
“Is gone,” Sylvia said. “Set your feet down. Breathe.”
Carmen nodded even as she knew her mom wouldn’t see the gesture. She felt the certainty of the floor of the harvester. Ovo kept a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Jets of gas were pushing against them. She could only hope the winking indicators on her suit were telling her it was safe.
“Can we get in?” Carmen asked.
Her mother consulted her wrist device. “Just a moment. Yes. The former Primary has shared his access solutions. But we will need to be careful.”
The inner airlock door opened. Carmen peered into the corridor. It lay empty.
“The worm’s alive?” she asked.
“Yes. The One’s ship suffered damage, but nothing catastrophic.”
“If the shadow is in control of the harvester, we have to assume it can hear and see us.”
Sylvia took a previously unseen sidearm from her boot and powered it up. “Agreed. And we didn’t exactly steal our way on board. Our one advantage is the One got hurt bad when it took the sphere. Hopefully, it’ll be slowed down.”
“Remember Jenna’s on board, Mom.”
“I know. I won’t miss a target as big as that blob.”
“The One’s not itself. The shadow is controlling it.”
Sylvia ignored the comment as she stepped out into the harvester’s corridor. She swept the weapon’s barrel to either side before motioning Ovo and Carmen to follow.
Carmen had an immediate sense of where they were. The harvester had returned to its ring shape, but smaller. If it was the desire of the creature controlling her sister, the remaining spheres would likewise be incorporated, restoring the ring to its full size. The ship had many configurations and for the moment, the creature was also using the spheres to keep the One’s ship in check while simultaneously destroying She Who Waits’ shuttle.
She pushed the thought of the translator’s fate from her mind. She would mourn later, assuming any of them survived.
She walked ahead of her mother. “This way.”
The floor shook. Carmen froze for a moment, her feet locked in place, wondering if they would once again have to flee outside if the harvester pilot reconfigured the ship and depressurized the atmosphere. But the shaking stopped.
Carmen remembered being overwhelmed by the controls of the harvester. Without the helpful subroutines, handling the ship would have been impossible. And Jenna had less experience than Carmen. Hopefully this meant the creature manipulating her would likewise have difficulties.
But as a fresh jolt ran through the floor, her doubts resurfaced. The thing had taken out two ships. What was a trio of squishy boarders in comparison?
As the corridor stretched ahead of them, Carmen felt
her footing grow more certain. They had gravity.
“We’re spinning,” Sylvia said.
Carmen switched off her boots so they wouldn’t cling. Each step had a bounce to it. She had seen enough footage of the work crews on the moon to recall hopping was the best way to get around. If her guess was correct, they would arrive at the control room in moments. Her mom’s firearm made her nervous. They had done little against the One before.
Carmen checked the nearest door. It wouldn’t open. “You said something about access solutions, Mom. We’ll need to get doors open.”
Ovo examined the doorway. “I have it. While the harvester has its operator functions locked behind the encryption, many of the subsystems are easily hacked.”
She grinned. “Quit bragging and do it.”
As if to prove his point, he touched the door and it obediently vanished, revealing a bare room. Carmen pressed on and arrived at the control room. She waited for Ovo. As he approached, all the doors ahead and behind that they hadn’t checked simultaneously opened.
Carmen felt her stomach go queasy. “Uh-oh. Was that you?”
“No,” Ovo whispered.
A shuddering breath echoed all around them.
The harvester had enough air to carry sound. Made sense, Carmen supposed, as this kept both the One and Jenna alive and neither had suits. The harvester also had failsafes which would compartmentalize any breach, and for all she knew, the shadow monster that had taken her sister might survive in a vacuum.
But if the shadow using the One had opened all the doors, that meant it was about to do something about the intruders.
Carmen didn’t want to wait for that to happen. She cautiously approached the control room door. Peered inside. The room stood empty.
“Jenna?” she whispered.
Her sister wasn’t there. The ship had been reconfigured. The control room might be any of dozens of rooms.
Ovo let out a high-pitched croak that needed no translation.
Trouble.
The One shoved its way out into the corridor through a door behind them. Hands gripped the open portals and it pulled its bulk towards them, the low gravity allowing it to propel itself faster than ever. Eyes emerged from folds of skin, followed by the mouths, so many mouths. Teeth gnashed and the lips smacked and slobbered. More limbs appeared, spear-like and multijointed.
Carmen backed up. “Jenna’s not here. We have to find her.”
Sylvia stepped into the center of the hall with her weapon raised. “Go! I’ll keep it busy.”
“Mom, come on!”
The One wasn’t waiting for a discussion. It slammed a claw down where Sylvia had been standing, but she moved like a trained dancer and bounded up and off a wall, landing again in the corridor. She pointed her weapon and fired.
Or tried to fire.
She squeezed the trigger over and over. “Something’s wrong!” Then she put a hand to her head and screamed. A hand the size of a car door swatted her, cutting her cry of pain short. She landed on the floor. The One grabbed her and pulled her into its mass of flesh.
“Mom!”
As Carmen began to back away, Ovo stiffened. He would have fallen, but Carmen grabbed him. His green eye light blinked frantically before going out. His arms seized up. He barely kept his feet under him as Carmen pulled him along behind her.
The One lurched forward. It cascaded from side to side, a billowing mass of flesh. Her mom’s legs were still visible, and then they too vanished into the thing. The mouths cackled. Its many eyes locked on to Carmen and Ovo and looked hungry.
Ovo stumbled. If not for the low g’s Carmen would have lost her grip. But as she hauled him along, the One closed in, smashing the floor next to her with an appendage.
“My enhancements are freezing up,” Ovo gasped. A crackle came over his suit’s speaker. The next sounds he made were his spastic chittering, which received no translation.
“Get your legs moving!”
They ran together. The One hesitated for only a moment, as if suffering a full-body spasm. But the jiggling creature regained its composure before launching itself after them.
Chapter Forty-One
Carmen gripped Ovo’s arm and yanked him along as she bounded down the harvester’s curving hallway. All the doors remained open but each room they passed stood empty. The One charged after them, churning and catapulting itself from one doorway to the next, its arms and other limbs acting like legs and kicking off the walls with terrible speed.
She felt as if she was about to falter. The corridor was a ring. How long could they evade the monster?
She glanced inside a pair of rooms across from each other before pulling Ovo with her in another series of hops. The One smashed the floor where she had been standing. Swiped at her with a talon before pulling itself together for a jump.
Too close. It had almost caught her.
Carmen groaned with the strain of pulling Ovo. He was dead weight. And her mother was gone.
The One would consume them next and no one would stop the shadow from using Jenna and the harvester for whatever acts of destruction it desired, be it against Earth or the Framework. The shadow held the power. It no longer had to skulk and wait for opportunities for sabotage.
They came to a closed door. Carmen slapped the hard surface, but it didn’t open. Ovo looked like he was doing everything in his power just to keep from falling.
They were approaching the airlock. Full circle. The only door that might lead to the control room was closed, with no way to open it. And the sphere could hide multiple rooms behind its sealed walls.
“Jenna?” Carmen cried. “Are you there?”
It was futile to hope her sister would hear her. Ovo tugged on her suit and almost caused her to drop him. She firmed up her grip and got them moving. There were no more rooms to search except the one behind the closed door. She doubted she could make the loop again.
The One surged after them, nearly catching her with a sudden thrust of an arm. “Jenna!” a pair of mouths cried in unison. “Jenna! Jenna, are you there?”
It was mocking her, toying with her in these last moments. Her muscles burned. Her eyes stung from sweat. And Ovo kept tugging.
“Stop it,” she panted. “Just stop. I don’t want to drop you.”
He let out a croak. Unintelligible and she couldn’t even fathom what emotion might be behind the sound. They ran past the point where her mother had been caught. A smear of slime glistened on the floor.
She adjusted her grip and tried to find a rhythm of sprinting jumps. Somehow she was gaining ground, but only because the One continued its taunts, its laughter growing in volume as more mouths began spouting the insane giggles.
Ovo grabbed the front of her suit. During their flight, he had undone his helmet and dropped it. He let out a deep-throated grumble.
“I don’t understand—”
A red light popped in the air. It remained in front of her as she kept them moving. The suit belonged to She Who Waits’ ship. Either some machine on her shuttle was still working, or…
“Are you there?” Carmen cried desperately. “Are you still alive?”
“I can continue functioning in my designated role for now,” She Who Waits said.
Carmen didn’t like the implications. But Ovo wasn’t waiting for her as she understood his words instantly.
He spoke in fragmented sentences as he was out of breath. “In the hospital…the humans had a weapon…which I scanned. I surmise…the shadow creature…was their prisoner…inside the containment vessel.”
She was almost too winded to reply. “Well, it escaped. And we don’t have a box to catch it. Can’t you move faster?”
“Some sort of system disruption from the One…apologies…but the weapon in the hospital appeared to be sonic. Perhaps using sound waves is how they subdued the shadow…before it escaped.”
“You happen to have a sonic weapon on you?”
But he wasn’t answering. His head lolled and his b
ody began shaking. He slipped from her grip. When she stooped to pick him up, a broad hand clamped down on one of his ankles.
The One brought itself to a stop. A dozen mouths grinned. “Are. You. Still. Alive?”
Then it whisked Ovo away. He vanished into the sea of flesh.
Carmen backed away. She was shaking. Couldn’t breathe. Fought to remove her own helmet and flung it at the thing. The helmet bounced harmlessly off the creature. The One inched forward, pushing itself along both sides of the corridor, deliberate in its movements as if it were savoring the moment.
“Are. You. Still. Alive?” it asked again before answering its own question with a chorus of laughter.
She ran. Bounced. Hurtled herself forward despite her ebbing strength. The One stopped laughing. Its own renewed mad dash pursuit replaced the eerie silence, its body flopping and skidding along the corridor.
“Jenna? Jenna? It’s me. It’s Carmen. You have to be there somewhere. You have to listen. Let me into the control room. I’m coming towards the sealed door. Open up for me and let me in. It’s our only chance. Can you hear me?”
The wet sounds behind her only grew louder. It felt as if she had been running for miles. She was about to collapse. Despite the low gravity, her suit felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. She lost track of the doors and where she was on the ring. But there ahead was the airlock.
She had passed the closed door because it now stood open. Turning, she saw the mass of mouths and limbs charging her way. The door lay between them.
Carmen hesitated for only a heartbeat before launching herself at the opening. Did her sister see her on the internal sensors? Was she awake enough to be aware? She called Jenna’s name again as she hurtled forward. The One was reaching for her at the same moment with multiple hands, each with dozens of fingers and broad palms the size of tennis rackets, its hungry eyes bulging and its greedy mouths clacking in anticipation of rending her to pieces.
She tumbled through the doorway. The door materialized, but it wasn’t completely closed. A hand remained beneath the door. Unlike the sphere’s airlock, the interior doors must have had a safety feature. Or Jenna couldn’t force it closed. A dozen digits wormed their way underneath, and a second hand gripped the door. Carmen got up and backed away. The creature was too strong. The door began bending open.