She sent a hate-filled glance toward the mirror.
How far would Captain Henriksen allow Carr to go? What were their limits? If they were truly scared of the xeno, was any measure too far? Kira knew how the politicians would spin it: “In order to protect the League of Worlds, extraordinary measures had to be taken.”
… had to be taken. They always used the passive voice when acknowledging a mistake.
She didn’t know exactly what time it was, but she knew they were getting close to their final deadline. Was that why Carr had left off tormenting her? Because more xenos were emerging among the crew of the Extenuating Circumstances?
Kira eyed the closed pressure door. If so, it would be chaos throughout the ship. She couldn’t hear anything, though: no screams, no alarms, no pressure breaches.
She rubbed her arms, feeling cold as she remembered the breach on Serris, during her third mission out of Weyland’s system. A pressure dome on the mining outpost had failed, nearly killing her and everyone else.… The whistle of escaping air still gave her nightmares.
The cold was spreading throughout her body. It felt as if her blood pressure was dropping, a horrible, doom-laden sensation. In a detached way, Kira realized the ordeal had left her in shock. Her teeth chattered, and she hugged herself.
Maybe something on the exam table could help.
Kira went to examine it.
Scanner, oxygen mask, tissue regenerator, chip-lab, and more besides. Nothing overtly dangerous, and nothing to help her with the shock. Mounted at one end of the bed was a bank of vials containing various drugs. The vials were sealed with molecular locks; she wouldn’t be opening them any time soon. Underneath the mattress hung a canister of liquid nitrogen, beaded with condensation.
Feeling suddenly weak and light-headed, Kira sank to the floor, keeping a hand on the wall for balance. How long had it been since she’d had any sort of food? Too long. Surely the UMC wouldn’t let her starve. At some point Carr would feed her.
He’d just have to, right?
5.
Kira kept expecting Carr to reappear, but he didn’t. Nor did anyone else come to talk with her. That was just fine, as far as she was concerned. Right then, she just wanted to be left alone.
Still, without her overlays, being alone was its own special form of torture. All she had were her thoughts and memories, and neither of those were particularly pleasant at the moment.
She tried closing her eyes. It didn’t work. She kept seeing the loader bots. Or if not them, the last, horrifying moments on Adra, and each time, her heart rate spiked and she broke into a hot sweat.
“Dammit,” she muttered. Then, “Bishop, you there?”
The ship mind didn’t answer. She wasn’t even sure he heard, or if he did, if he was allowed to answer.
Desperate for a distraction, and with nothing else to do, Kira decided to run an experiment of her own. The suit could harden in response to threat/pressure/stimuli. Okay. How did it decide what constituted a threat? And was that something she could influence?
Ducking her head between her arms, where no one else could see, Kira concentrated on the inner part of her elbow. Then she imagined the tip of a knife pressing into her arm, breaking the skin … pushing into the muscles and tendons beneath.
No change.
She tried twice more, struggling to make her imagining as real as possible. She used the memory of past pains to help, and on the third attempt, she felt the crease of her elbow harden, a scar-like pucker drawing together her skin.
After that, it got easier. With each attempt, the suit became more responsive, as if it were learning. Interpreting. Understanding. A frightening prospect.
At the thought, the thing constricted across the whole of her body.
Kira sucked in her breath, caught by surprise.
A deep sense of unease formed in her as she sat staring at the weave of fused fibers on her palms. She’d been concerned, and the suit had reacted to that concern. It had read her emotions without her making any attempt to impose them on the organism.
The unease turned to poison in her veins. That last day on Adra, she’d been so upset and out of sorts, and then during the night, when Neghar had started vomiting blood, she’d been so afraid, so incredibly afraid.… No! Kira recoiled from the thought. It was the UMC’s fault that Alan had died. Dr. Carr had failed, and because of his failure, the xeno had emerged the way it had. He was the one to blame, not … not …
Kira hopped to her feet and started pacing: four steps in one direction, four steps in the other.
Moving helped shift her thoughts from the horror of Adra to things more familiar, more comforting. She remembered sitting with her father on the bank of the stream by their house and listening to his stories of life on Stewart’s World. She remembered Neghar jumping up and hooting after beating Yugo at a racing game, and long days working with Marie-Élise under Adra’s sulfurous sky.
And she remembered lying with Alan and talking, talking, talking about life and the universe and all the things they wanted to do.
“Someday,” he said, “when I’m old and rich, I’ll have my own spaceship. Just you wait.”
“What would you do with your own spaceship?”
He looked at her, serious as could be. “I’d make a long jump. As long as I could. Out toward the far rim of the galaxy.”
“Why?” she’d whispered.
“To see what’s out there. To fly into the deep depths and carve my name on an empty planet. To know. To understand. The same reason I came to Adra. Why else?”
The thought had scared and excited Kira, and she’d snuggled closer to him, the warmth of their bodies banishing the empty reaches of space from her mind.
6.
BOOM.
The deck shuddered, and Kira’s eyes snapped open, adrenaline pumping through her. She was lying against the curve of the wall. The dull red glow of ship-night permeated the holding cell. Late or early, she couldn’t tell.
Another tremor jolted the ship. She heard screeches and bangs and what sounded like alarms. Goosebumps crawled across her skin, and the suit stiffened. Their worst fears had come true; more xenos were emerging. How many of the crew were affected?
She pushed herself into a sitting position, and a veil of dust fell from her skin. The thing’s skin.
Startled, Kira froze. The powder was grey and fine and smooth as silk. Spores? She immediately wished for a respirator. Not that it would do any good.
Then she noticed she was sitting in a shallow depression that perfectly matched the shape of her sleeping body. Somehow she’d sunk several millimeters into the deck, as if the black substance coating her were corrosive. The sight both puzzled her and increased her revulsion. Now the thing had turned her into a toxic object. Was it even safe for someone to touch her? If the—
The cell tilted around her and she flew across the room and slammed into the wall along with the dust, which poofed out in a cloud. The impact knocked the breath out of her. The exam table crashed next to her, parts flying loose.
An emergency burn. But why? The thrust grew stronger … stronger … It felt like two g’s. Then three. Then four. Her cheeks pulled against her skull, stretching, and a lead blanket seemed to weigh her down.
A strange vibration passed through the wall, as if a giant drum had been struck, and the thrust vanished.
Kira fell on all fours and gasped for breath.
Somewhere nearby, something banged against the hull of the ship, and she heard the pop and rattle of what sounded like … gunfire?
And then Kira felt it: an aching summons, tugging her toward a place outside the ship, tugging on her like a string anchored in her chest.
At first, disbelief. It had been so long since the summons had been laid upon her, so very long since she had been called to perform her sacred duty. Then exultation at the much-delayed return. Now the pattern could be fulfilled, as once before.
A disjunction, and she stood in familiar flesh upon a now-v
anished cliff, at the moment when she had first felt the compulsion that could be resisted but never ignored. She turned, following it, and saw in the gradient sky a ruddy star wink and waver, and she knew it was the signal’s source.
And she obeyed, as was only right. For hers was to serve, and serve she would.
Kira gasped as she returned to herself. And she knew. They weren’t facing an infestation. They were facing an invasion.
The owners of the suit had come to claim her.
CHAPTER VII
COUNTDOWN
1.
A sick knot formed in Kira’s stomach. First contact with another intelligent species—something she’d always dreamed of—and it seemed to be happening in the worst possible way, with violence.
“No, no, no,” she muttered.
The aliens were coming for her, for the suit. She could feel the summons growing stronger. It would only be a matter of time before they found her. She had to escape. She had to get off the Extenuating Circumstances. One of the ship’s shuttles would be ideal, but she’d settle for an escape pod. At least on Adra she might have a fighting chance.
The lightstrip overhead started to flash blue, a strident pulse that hurt Kira’s eyes to look at. She ran to the pressure door and pounded on it. “Let me out! Open the door!” She spun toward the mirror-window. “Bishop! You have to let me out!”
The ship mind didn’t respond.
“Bishop!” She pounded on the door again.
The lights on the door turned green, and the lock spun and clicked. She yanked the door open and dashed across the decon chamber. The door at the other end was still locked.
She slapped the control screen next to it. It beeped, and the lock turned a few centimeters and then stopped with a grinding sound.
The door was jammed.
“Fuck!” She slammed her hand against the wall. Most doors had a manual release, but not this one; they were determined to keep their inmates from escaping.
She looked back at the cell. A hundred different possibilities flashed through her mind.
The liquid nitrogen.
Kira ran to the exam table and crouched, scanning the racks of equipment. Where was it? Where was it? She uttered a cry as she spotted the tank, relieved that it appeared undamaged.
She grabbed it and hurried back to the decon chamber’s outer door. Then she took a deep breath and held it so she wouldn’t pass out from breathing too much of the gas.
Kira placed the nozzle of the tank against the door’s lock and opened the valve. A plume of white vapor hid the door from view as the nitrogen sprayed out. For a moment she felt the cold in her hands, and then the suit compensated and they were as warm as ever.
She kept up the spray for a count of ten and then twisted the valve shut.
The metal-composite lock was white with frost and condensation. Using the bottom of the tank, Kira struck the lock. It shattered like glass.
Kira dropped the tank and, desperate to get out, yanked on the door. It slid open, and a painfully loud klaxon assaulted her.
Outside was a bare metal corridor lit by strobing lights. A pair of bodies lay at the far end, twisted and horribly limp. At the sight of them, her pulse spiked, and a line of tension formed in the suit, like a wire being pulled taut to the point of breaking.
This was the nightmare scenario: humans and aliens killing each other. It was a disaster that could easily spiral into a catastrophe.
Where did the Extenuating Circumstances keep its shuttles? She tried to recall what she’d seen of the ship back at HQ. The docking bay was somewhere along the middle part of the ship. So that was her goal.
To get there she’d have to go past the dead crew and, hopefully, avoid running into whatever had attacked them.
No time to waste. Kira took a breath to steady herself and then hurried forward on light feet, primed to react to the smallest sound or motion.
She’d only seen corpses a few times before: once when she was a kid on Weyland, when a supercapacitor on a cargo loader had ruptured and killed two men right on the main street of Highstone. Once during the accident on Serris. And now of course, with Alan and her teammates. On the first two occasions, the images had burned into Kira’s mind until she’d considered having them removed. But she hadn’t. And she wouldn’t with the most recent memories either. They were too much a part of her.
As she approached the bodies, she looked. She had to. One man, one woman. The woman had been shot with an energy weapon. The man had been torn apart; his right arm lay separate from the rest of his body. Bullets had dented and smeared the walls around them.
A pistol protruded from under the woman’s hip.
Fighting the urge to gag, Kira stopped and pulled the weapon free. The counter on the side said 7. Seven rounds remaining. Not many, but better than nothing. The problem was, the gun wouldn’t work for her.
“Bishop!” she whispered, and held the gun up. “Can you—”
The safety on the pistol snapped off.
Good. So the UMC still wanted her alive. Without her overlays, Kira wasn’t sure if she could hit anything with the gun, but at least she wasn’t entirely helpless. Just don’t shoot a window. It would be a bad way to die.
Still keeping her voice low, she said, “Which way to the shuttles?” The ship mind ought to know where the aliens were and how best to avoid them.
A line of green arrows appeared along the top of the wall, pointing deeper into the ship. She followed them through a maze of rooms to a ladder that led toward the center of the Extenuating Circumstances.
The apparent gravity lessened as she climbed past deck after deck of the rotating hab section. Through open doorways, she heard screams and shouts, and twice she saw the muzzle flashes of machine guns reflected around corners. Once, she heard an explosion that sounded like a grenade going off, and a series of pressure doors slammed shut behind her. But she never saw whatever it was the crew was fighting.
Halfway up, the ship lurched—hard—forcing Kira to grab the ladder with both hands to avoid being thrown off. A weird, swirling sensation caused her gorge to rise and bile to flood her mouth. The Extenuating Circumstances was spinning end for end, not a good situation for a long, narrow ship. The frame wasn’t designed to withstand rotational forces.
The alarms changed tone, becoming even more shrill. Then a deep male voice emanated from the speakers in the walls: “Self-destruct in T-minus seven minutes. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill. Self-destruct in T-minus six minutes and fifty-two seconds.”
Kira’s insides went cold as ice. “Bishop! No!”
The same male voice said, “I’m sorry, Ms. Navárez. I have no other choice. I suggest you—”
Whatever else he said, Kira didn’t hear, wasn’t listening. Panic threatened to overwhelm her, but she pushed it aside; she didn’t have time for emotions. Not now. A wonderful clarity focused her mind. Her thoughts grew hard, mechanical, ruthless. Less than seven minutes to reach the shuttles. She could do it. She had to.
She scrambled forward, moving even faster than before. She’d be damned if she was going to die on the Extenuating Circumstances.
At the top of the ladders, a ring of green arrows surrounded a closed hatch. Kira pulled it open and found herself in the spherical hub that joined the different hab sections.
She turned aftward, and vertigo gripped her as she saw what seemed to be a long, narrow pit dropping away below her. The shaft was a terror of black metal and stabbing light. All the hatches in all the decks that stacked the stem of the ship had been opened, an offense that normally would have been worthy of a court-martial.
If the ship fired its engines, anyone caught in the shaft would plummet to their death.
Hundreds of meters away, toward the stern, she glimpsed troopers in power armor grappling with some thing: a mass of conflicting shapes, like a knot of shadows.
An arrow pointed into the darkness.
Kira shivered and launched herself toward the distant
fight. To keep her stomach from rebelling, she chose to view the shaft as a horizontal tunnel rather than a vertical pit. She crawled along the ladder bolted to the floor/wall, using it to guide her path and keep her from drifting off course.
“Self-destruct in T-minus six minutes. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.”
How many decks to the docking bay? Three? Four? She had only a general idea.
The ship groaned again, and the pressure door in front of her slammed shut, blocking the way. Overhead, the line of green arrows switched directions, pointing to the right. It started to blink with seizure-inducing speed.
Shit. Kira swung herself around a rack of equipment and hurried along Bishop’s detour. Time was running out. The shuttles had better be primed for departure or she’d have no chance of escaping.…
Voices sounded ahead of her. Dr. Carr saying, “—and move it! Hurry, you moron! There’s no—” A loud thud interrupted him, and the bulkheads vibrated. The doctor’s shouting shifted into a higher pitch, his words incoherent.
As Kira pulled herself through a narrow access hatch, a fist seemed to grip and squeeze her chest.
In front of her was an equipment room: racks of shelving, lockers stuffed with skinsuits, a red-labeled oxygen feed pipe at the back. Carr hung near the ceiling, his hair frazzled, one hand wound in a strap tied to several metal cases that kept bumping into him. A dead Marine lay wedged in one of the shelving units, a row of burns stitched across his back.
On the other side of the room, a large, circular hole had been cut through the hull. Midnight-blue light streamed out of the hole from what seemed to be a small boarding craft mated to the side of the Extenuating Circumstances. And within the recess moved a monster with many arms.
2.
Kira froze as the alien propelled itself into the storage room.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars Page 10