Deimos Station (Broken Stars Book 2)

by I. O. Adler

  “Jenna, can you hear me?”

  Her sister’s voice came from all around her. Frail. Hesitant. “Car, I’m here. It said it would hurt me if I interfered.”

  “It’s going to kill all of us once it’s done with the ship. Get that door shut!”

  “Everything’s so fuzzy. The door’s not working.”

  The control room wasn’t laid out as Carmen remembered. No console. Three open crash couches were arranged in a circle with a fourth that was sealed closed. It was made of the black ship material and looked like a smoothed-over sarcophagus. The spindlebot that had stood at the doorway now lay on its back against one wall.

  “Car, I’m here,” the One rasped from the doorway in a mock approximation of her sister’s voice. Then it once again sounded like Carmen. “It’s going to kill all of us.”

  A ruby eye as big as a dinner plate stared through the gap in the door. Then more hands squeezed in and the door inched open. Any hope the One would lose more of itself evaporated.

  “Okay, forget the door,” Carmen said. “I need you to sound every alarm you can.”

  A maddening few seconds passed. The One had several appendages inside and was now using its body to shove the door completely open. The metal screeched. From behind the wall a machine was humming furiously.

  “I can’t find the alarms,” Jenna said, her voice over the speaker at panic levels. “I don’t want to open my eyes.”

  Carmen fought to sound calm. “Open them. You need to look at the virtual menus. Select anything that signals a hull breach.”

  “There’s no hull breach.”

  “I know, but we want the ship to pretend there is one. I need that alarm now!”

  The One had pulled half of its body through the gap. With mismatched arms it propped itself up and let loose a bellow.

  “Jenna?”

  An ear-splitting tweeting drowned out everything. Carmen crouched next to the sealed crash chair, scarce cover she knew wouldn’t protect her once the monster could reach her.

  The One began trembling. A series of pulses ran through its skin. It thrashed from side to side, but its movement was impeded by the fact that part of its body remained in the hallway.

  It screamed with its many mouths. At first she thought this meant the alarm was doing nothing. The monster controlling the One still wanted to terrify her. But then she realized there was something familiar about how the One sounded. This was how it had been acting when she and Ovo had been on the elevator.

  Was it trying to communicate? It had stopped and was writhing.

  She realized the red translation light still hovered near her. She tried to call for She Who Waits, but the piercing alert drowned out her voice. She got up. Inched towards the One.

  “Tell me what it’s saying,” she shouted, fighting to be heard over the shrill alarm.

  The One continued to thrash. A pair of hands were slapping the floor. She navigated between them. All her instincts were telling her to hide. The One continued to call out in its many voices. Carmen wanted to shrink away from the onslaught of sound. But the translator wasn’t responding.

  Carmen kept the red light between herself and the One. “She Who Waits, tell me what it’s saying! If you’re there and you want to serve, then I need you to do your job!”

  She Who Waits replied. Her response was brief, perhaps only a couple of syllables long. Carmen couldn’t make it out.

  “Say it again!”

  The translator’s voice blared, “It says louder!”

  Louder? How much louder could the alarms go?

  As if expecting Carmen’s request, Jenna said, “I can’t turn the volume up any more!”

  One of the monster hands made a fist. It slammed the floor and then swiped at Carmen. Carmen backpedaled. The One continued to struggle, but part of its body appeared to be paralyzed. A few of the mouths hung slack. The mass shuddered and sagged, even as its back half was now sliding through the door. It would be inside in moments.

  An exit. Jenna had to make them an exit. Carmen would run. But then what? Hide in a sequestered part of the ship?

  “How many translation nodes can you summon?”

  The response was instant and lengthy, and Carmen couldn’t make out a word of it.

  “Bring all of them, as many as you can. Direct them all to the One. Do it. Do it now!”

  A second light popped up, then a third, then more than she could quickly count. She could only hope She Who Waits had been paying attention. If the One wanted loud, it would get loud.

  “Go back to where you came from! This ship isn’t yours!”

  A pair of arms had merged into one thick limb. It swung at her.

  She had backed up to the crash couches. “Leave us alone!”

  The One pulled the last of its bulk through the bent door. It took a moment to gather itself before hunching up and grabbing at the closest chair.

  While the red lights continued to hang in the air, Carmen had heard no sounds. It wasn’t her ears. The One wasn’t wearing a suit. She Who Waits had kept silent.

  “You have to translate this.”

  The crash couch bent and broke apart under the One as it crept forward. Carmen retreated to the sealed couch. As the One spread out before her, she had nowhere to go but the wall near where the bot lay.

  “She Who Waits, please. Don’t listen if talking to it hurts you. Just make him hear. And do it as loud as you can.”

  The One reared up. Its gigantic eye glared hatefully as it reached for her. She left the last crash couch behind and ran to the wall. Turned to face the creature. The One was still struggling as spasms rolled through its body. But the creature controlling it was winning. A claw scraped and tapped at the sealed chair as if confirming its dominance. The other hands flexed and popped and made fists. Next it would swat her down like an insect.

  “What would you like me to say?” She Who Waits asked.

  Carmen choked off a mad laugh. “Tell it to leave Jenna alone!”

  Scores of voices blasted at once, a cacophony of shouts blaring from the translation nodes. Carmen clamped her hands over her ears. The One buckled and churned as if something internal was struggling to break free. But it wasn’t breaking free. It was being expelled. The One howled and roared and tore out a chunk of itself from within its core. This it cast aside as it thrust itself back towards the wall by the door.

  The lump of meat was the size of a person. But the gooey mass held no discernable shape. It quivered. The room fell silent as the translator finished speaking. The translation lights vanished until Carmen was left with a single red light before her.

  Across the room, the One seemed to be catching its breath. It heaved like bellows. Its eyes were wide and panicked. Mercifully, its mouths had stopped talking.

  Motion caught Carmen’s eye.

  The excised portion of the alien’s body continued to move. Carmen gasped as something wriggled up from the lump of discarded skin. It stood erect, like a shaky sheet of gelatin, nearly transparent and thin, its body holding a sparkle that might even be beautiful if Carmen didn’t know how cruel the creature could be.

  It appeared to be wilting.

  Was it dying? Was it the alarms? Would they be enough to finish it? She searched for anything that might be a weapon. But then the thing moved. It came straight at her, darting forward and diving on top of her.

  The tingling sensation lanced through her skin wherever it touched her. She clawed at it, swatted the jelly appendages as they tried to grasp her. It was in her mind again, tugging at her dark thoughts. But it felt weak. Even as her skin went numb she fought, focusing on keeping the thing out of her head, feeding it nothing but her own contempt for it as she drank in the high-pitched trill of the alarm and forced it back at the creature.

  It let go. It was smaller now and unable to hold its upright form. It sank into a rolling ball of slime and trickled away from her.

  “It’s here. We have to stop it.”

  But Carmen couldn�
��t follow it. Her legs refused to cooperate and she sank to the floor. And who was listening to her, anyway?

  The One let out a deep growl. It had gathered itself up into a lean form, with sinewy limbs holding it up. The shadow creature continued to retreat, moving faster now. It slithered around the sealed couch and then found a seam and forced itself inside.

  Jenna was in there. Carmen felt it in her bones.

  The One grumbled as it rolled forward, its eyes fixed on the couch.

  “No…” Carmen tried to cry. Her jaw and throat wouldn’t cooperate, and she couldn’t speak above a whisper.

  The alarms went silent. Through the speakers, Jenna Vincent’s voice gasped. “Car? I…I can’t…I can’t…it’s trying to make me pull the ship apart…”

  It had her. The shadow creature had her again. The harvester shook. And even as Carmen tried to rise to stop it, the One vaulted forward, slamming down on the sealed crash couch with tree-trunk-sized limbs and crushing it to pieces.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Carmen ran to the One and pushed it. It was like shoving a wall of muscle and she couldn’t dislodge the alien from the top of the demolished crash couch. A mouth formed and blathered before snapping at her.

  “Get off! Move!”

  If She Who Waits was translating, Carmen couldn’t tell. But the giant alien slunk away, revealing a broken ruin of the lightweight ship material. Carmen willed her sister to not be there. Then she discovered Jenna’s broken, bloodied form.

  She moved pieces of the broken couch away. “Jen? Jen? No, no, no, please be okay. Please be okay.”

  “Get away from her,” the One said. She Who Waits was still doing her job. “The shadow is there. Injured, but alive.”

  “I won’t…I won’t let you hurt my sister.”

  “The fractions-less-than-one must respect their betters.”

  Carmen tried to feel for a pulse. She didn’t care that whatever monster they had fought might once again try to seize her. Jenna’s neck was slick with sweat. Blood oozed from her mouth and nose and both eyes were half-open and staring blankly. Carmen pressed her fingers against her sister’s throat at every angle she could in search of any sign of life.

  Nothing.

  The One blorped. “It’s moving. It’s slipped below the floor. We leave now.”

  Carmen’s hands trembled as she moved to perform CPR. But the One grabbed hold of her and picked her up as easily as if she were a child’s toy. It tore away the broken door and churned out into the hallway, bearing her along as she feebly tried to free herself.

  “No. Go back. Get Jenna. Please!”

  It ignored her as it made it to one of the airlocks. Something hummed and clicked outside of the harvester.

  “My mother…Ovo…”

  “Still live. I carry them. We risk ourselves every moment we remain. My ship has achieved a satisfactory seal.”

  The airlock opened. Carmen momentarily refused to inhale, but found the air breathable as the airlock pressurized and she was once again on board the One’s vessel. The Melded worm waited for them. The One churned past it as if it was beneath its notice and headed for the control room.

  The One dropped her off in a corner as it expelled both Ovo and her mother from the folds of its body. Both were slick with a saliva-like substance. While remaining in the center of the room, it reached with its long arms and tapped at several wall screens at once.

  The ship vibrated. A tortured metal noise made it sound like something was being torn apart. If the One was concerned, it didn’t show it. They were moving. But the ship didn’t pull any maneuvers, nor did it pour on the thrust. Carmen guessed they were far enough away from the harvester that the shadow couldn’t try to board.

  Ovo and Sylvia lay on the floor as if in repose. To Carmen’s relief, both were breathing inside their suits. With the worm’s help, Carmen opened her mother’s helmet. She couldn’t rouse her. She brushed hair from her mother’s face and caressed her head. Ovo likewise wasn’t waking up.

  “What’s wrong with them?” Carmen asked.

  The One grumbled. “The shadow prompted me to exploit an ultrasound beam weapon I had prepared on my ship, which I found can disrupt the Melded. They will recover.”

  She felt her eyes burn with tears. “We’re abandoning my sister. And She Who Waits is somewhere in the wreckage.”

  The red translation remained in place next to her.

  The One gazed at her with the giant eye. “She Who Waits has taken refuge in a sealed compartment in the remnants of her shuttle. I will recover the translator after I finish cleansing the harvester. Your sister resisted to the last. But the shadow would have used her to kill us. Now I will end its life.”

  “You’re going to destroy the harvester?”

  “Unnecessary,” the One said impatiently. “That less-than-one Melded was correct. They can be destroyed with sonic weaponry. I will launch several probes into the ship and bathe the harvester in bursts of high-frequency vibrations.”

  The worm had entered the control room. “That should work.”

  “Of course it will work.”

  “Can’t the shadow use the ship to stop you?” Carmen asked.

  “Without you or your sister, no,” the former Primary said, its tone oddly gentle. “It’s trapped and helpless and the time for hiding is finished. May the stars shine mercifully on Jenna Vincent.”

  The worm assisted with getting Sylvia and Ovo free of their suits and helped each regain consciousness by administering a shot to both. Neither spoke. Both looked worn out. After a while Carmen got the sense they were communicating, as she saw her mother nod a few times while Ovo appeared to bristle.

  Carmen kneeled next to him and took his hand. “What’s wrong?”

  Her mother moved over to her and put an arm around her shoulder. “We’ve all been through a lot. It’s time this ended.”

  “I know that tone. What are you planning?”

  “Ovo is coming back to the fold. There’s been too much violence. We’re going to rendezvous with our ship. Enough of the crew survived and they’ve got her flying. We’ll all go back to the Framework. You’ll need to help by releasing the ship encryption so we can return the harvester.”

  She shook off her mother’s arm. “You’re going to answer for what you tried to do.” To the One, she called out, “The Melded aren’t finished with their tricks. They’re about to try something.”

  An exchange followed, too quick to see, between the worm and her mother. Ovo exclaimed something that didn’t get translated, made a broad gesture with his arms, and retreated to a far side of the room where he began pacing.

  The One shifted and sagged. The large alien’s skin looked pastier than before. “They will do as they will.”

  “So that’s it?” Carmen asked. “You’re not going to shout, throw a hissy fit, or stop them?”

  “Mind your tone. My time for fighting is over. I’m launching the probes. Soon you will recover your sister.”

  Carmen realized there was an arc of translation lights around the One. She hadn’t noticed them before. When she tried to ask She Who Waits about what she was doing, she didn’t receive an answer. The One got busy with his controls.

  She found a spot on the floor away from everyone and waited.

  ***

  The One’s ship docked without incident. The worm, Ovo, and Sylvia waited at the airlock. It didn’t open for them until Carmen joined them. She had no helmet.

  “Stay here,” her mother said. “The ship’s hull may be compromised. And those things might still be alive. I’ll get Jenna.”

  “Is there air over there?”

  They waited for Ovo to check his arm device. “Atmosphere and power are intact.” He hadn’t shared what he had been upset about earlier.

  “Then I’m going.”

  They preceded her into the airlock.

  “Wait,” the One said. It hadn’t joined them and spoke through the translation light. “I’ve scanned the ship. T
he shadow is difficult to detect, but there are the remnants of a bioform in the water cistern below the command sphere. It appears to have survived the sonic probes. Do not linger.”

  “Our ship will dock in moments,” Sylvia said. “Our soldiers will find it and kill it.”

  “There’s more of them back at the Framework,” Carmen said. “Outside of the One’s home ship, possibly elsewhere.”

  “Yes. I have sent a warning to the council,” the One said. “These shadows…demons…fractions…dared manipulate me. I saw within it the joy it knew from my brethren’s demise. Its race destroyed the last of my kind’s star chasers. They caused the calamity which nearly wiped out the survivors who now take refuge on the Framework.”

  “And they damaged my world. You could have warned us. Your ships were giant bombs.”

  She was expecting a blaring rebuke, but the One’s tone was somber. Multiple voices spoke, which She Who Waits dutifully rendered, but Carmen heard the actual words echo from across the ship. It was loud, but also somehow elegant and harmonious, like an a cappella chant of a dozen trained voices reciting a poem of complex meter.

  “It was not our intention. Our vessels have never suffered such a failure. We would never wish to jeopardize a potential ally against the enemy.”

  “Is there even an enemy? If these shadows did this, then maybe it’s them we need to worry about.”

  “The enemy is real. Distant. Ancient. But now we understand the enemy has servants.”

  “I need to get my sister. Why are you telling me all this now?”

  “Seek me out once you’re finished on board the harvester. We will speak in private.”

  Sylvia waited at the airlock hatch. Carmen doubted she had missed a word, but she asked, “What did that thing have to say?”

  “The One sent a warning to the Framework. Now that we’ve seen what one shadow can do, we might also know how to beat them.”