by Caryn Lix
“Yeah, great—unless the creature drops in there,” Cage pointed out. “Which is exactly what it did a few seconds ago.”
Rune frowned. “True. Well. We can drag one of the cots up to the console.”
“If you’re trying to avoid contact with the floor, couldn’t you sit on the chair and fold your legs up?” I offered.
“I think the cots are made of a specific material, or contain a signal to block the jolt. Mia tried staying on the couch in the rec area one time and almost got herself killed.”
Mia grimaced. “Not my brightest moment, but I wanted to see if it would work. Fortunately it was only a drill. Over in seconds, not that it felt like it. I got burned so badly they had to call an actual human to take a look at me.” I hadn’t seen anything about that in her file. My expression must have reflected my horror, because she rolled her eyes and continued: “I spent a couple days in bed and I was none the worse for wear. Which doesn’t distract me from what an incredibly stupid idea this is.” She ticked off points on her fingers. “One, we’ll all be completely helpless. If one of those things lands on a cot instead of the floor, it’ll eat us alive while everyone else watches. Two, as we just saw, they can jump from the floor to the ceiling. What’ll stop them from doing that as soon as they get the first jolt?”
“At least they won’t be—”
“Three, they’re smarter than they look. They’ll hear us shuffling around on our cots and realize they’re not electrified. The next thing we know, they’ll land on top of us.”
“I can end the lockdown if that happens—”
“Four,” Mia interrupted, glaring at Rune, “what if one of them lands behind you and gets in a good swipe before the electricity kicks in? We could be stuck in lockdown mode—completely trapped with no way to end it while they pick us off one by one.”
We all exchanged helpless looks. Mia wasn’t exactly wrong. But still . . . “I think it’s the best chance you have of protecting yourselves,” I said. “If you drag a cot into the server room for Rune, and maybe one nearby for Alexei so he can target as wide an area as possible—”
Mia kicked the wall so hard something snapped. Rune and Matt sucked in gasps of air, and Alexei grumbled in Russian. He reached for her hand, but she shoved him away. “So that’s it?” she demanded, her voice rising to a dangerous level. “After all this, we’re going to walk back into our cells and voluntarily imprison ourselves again? This time with a couple of bloody space monsters running around?”
“Mia, please be quiet,” Rune whispered, with a panicked glance at the ceiling.
We’d drawn attention from other areas of the prison too. Other prisoners were glancing at us from beneath lowered lids, reluctant to stare outright but obviously curious. Mia closed her eyes, visibly bringing herself under control, then stalked off toward the cells. “Do what you want,” she tossed over her shoulder.
Rune took a step in pursuit, her face a picture of misery. “Mia, where are you going?”
“Back to my cell,” she said. “The same one I’ve lived in every day for the past three years.”
“I didn’t mean . . .”
“We know you didn’t.” Cage hugged Rune tightly. “And this plan puts you in as much danger as anyone. But without it, we’re leaving you here defenseless. . . .” He glanced at Alexei. “Well, more or less.”
Alexei nodded. “We’ll get everyone up to sector four, and I’ll move cots for me, for Rune, and for Mia.”
“Mia?”
“I won’t leave her alone. And she’ll do better in the common area than a cell.” Alexei glanced at me. “Mia is not a fan of enclosed spaces. Prison has been . . . difficult for her.”
I winced, the accusation in his tone grating against me. But Sanctuary wasn’t my design, and I couldn’t keep taking responsibility for everything that happened here. I straightened my back and met his eyes. “Then you’d better get ready.”
It only took a few minutes to put Rune’s plan into motion. The other prisoners weren’t much happier about the idea of huddling in cells than Mia, but they more readily accepted the necessity. Before long, everyone shuffled up to sector 4—after Cage, Matt, and I checked to make sure no aliens lurked there, waiting—and took up residence in the cells. “I think we’re ready,” Cage said. “Where’s Matt?”
I shrugged. “Last time I saw him, he was ducking into the server room with Rune.”
Cage groaned. “Of all the times . . . Matt!”
“I’m right here.” Matt rounded the corner, Rune on his heels, a smile playing on her lips.
She gave everyone a quick hug, even me. “Stay with Alexei,” Cage reminded her.
Rune rolled her eyes. “Hǎo, gege.”
He flicked her cheek affectionately and she snapped at his fingers like a puppy. They exchanged grins, but hers lasted a moment longer when her gaze landed on Matt. “Quiet,” he whispered, pointing at me as we slid into step behind Cage.
I assumed a look of innocence. “I didn’t say a word.”
“Uh-huh.” But he was smiling too.
Smiles didn’t last long after we entered the corridor. We took the steps as quickly and quietly as possible. “Matt?” Cage asked every few seconds, and Matt responded with a frustrated “I don’t know! Nothing? Nothing. I think.” Every exchange set my heart thrumming a bit faster, my hands trembling on the stair rail.
My mind raced. I had to get everyone off this station, and I had to do it fast. But Mom was still somewhere on board. Not to mention all of the missing prisoners. Where the hell were they? This wasn’t exactly a big place. Not counting the prison levels, which we’d already explored, you could loop the station in five minutes.
A ceiling panel caught my eye. Movement?
No. My imagination.
The creatures weren’t skulking around in the air vents. They wouldn’t fit well, and their weird backward-flexing legs weren’t made for crawling. But they definitely used the ceilings to travel between levels. Reinforced steel crisscrossed the ceiling panels in the prison levels, but that didn’t mean much to creatures whose claws could rip through Sanctuary’s hull. Was it possible they used the vents or the empty space between the drop ceilings and next floor above as some sort of . . . storage?
Oh God. The image rising in my mind made my stomach clench. I stopped and leaned against the wall for support, and Cage caught my shoulders. “Kenz. You okay?”
I nodded, then told them what I suspected.
Both boys stared suspiciously at the ceiling. “How the hell do we find out?” Cage muttered. “Matt? Anything?”
Matt closed his eyes, his forehead wrinkling with effort. “Nothing,” he said at last. “But . . . Kenzie . . . I don’t know how to say this. I’ve been searching for signs of life since we left the prison level and I haven’t found any. Us, of course, and I’m vaguely aware of everyone back in four. Otherwise, it’s just that weird feeling I sometimes get when they’re around. Nothing else.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I replied, more sharply than I’d intended. “You said yourself there’s a ton of things that interfere with your abilities. Emotional turmoil, right? I bet Mom’s feeling pretty messed up at the moment. And that’s if she’s even conscious.” He nodded but didn’t meet my eyes, and somehow that made me angrier than anything in the last few hours. “She’s alive, Matt. And I’m not leaving this station until I find her.” As I said it, I realized the words were true. Part of me wanted Mom to suffer for betraying me—not at the aliens’ claws, of course, but to know the same agony of learning someone you loved was no longer on your side. But I couldn’t afford to be petty where her life was concerned. However Mom betrayed me, I was different from her. I made my own choices, and one of those choices was not to leave her behind.
And yet . . . there were fifteen people down in four. They were alive, and I didn’t know how much longer they’d stay that way. Without me to pilot the shuttle, probably not long. And that made them, first and foremost, my responsibility.
/> And not because I was an Omnistellar guard. Not because I was like them, an anomaly. Just because I was me. I might have fallen down seven times, but I would get up eight. “I know there’s a chance she’s . . .” I trailed off, unable to get the word out. “But I won’t believe that until I have to. You don’t have to worry. You guys are my priority right now, getting you off Sanctuary. But after . . . I’m coming back to find Mom.”
Cage nodded. “I’ll be with you,” he promised.
No. He wouldn’t. I wasn’t taking anyone else into danger once I got them off the station. But I didn’t need to tell him just yet. Instead I turned and hugged him, a full-on rib-cracking embrace. For a second Cage hesitated, and then his arms came around me, pulling me against him. “Thanks,” I said.
Matt coughed loudly. “Should I go around the corner?” he asked. “Give you guys some space?”
I smothered a totally inappropriate grin, broke free, and swiped my thumb to unlock the prison door. From there it was only a few hundred feet to the shuttle bay.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I jogged forward. The shuttle bay had one of the only doors on Sanctuary with a window to allow someone to witness the docking procedure and give visual confirmation when it was safe to enter. The console showed a secure airlock, and inside I saw Rita’s shuttle cleanly—if hastily—docked in the bay. “That’s it,” I said. “Everything looks good. Let me run a quick check on the shuttle and we can collect the first load.”
I reached for the door panel, but something stopped me from scanning my thumb. Movement from the corner of my eye? I hesitated.
“Kenzie?” Cage asked.
“Yeah, I . . . Hang on a sec.” I leaned against the door, peering through the window, examining every corner of the shuttle dock.
And suddenly one of the creatures stared back at me.
TWENTY-FOUR
IT THREW ITSELF AGAINST THE window inches from my face. I screamed, recoiling, and the creature roared in response. If it hadn’t been aware of me before, it sure as hell was now. “How’d it get in there?” I shouted, grappling for Cage’s hand. He squeezed in return, steadying me.
“The same way it gets anywhere,” Matt replied.
I shook my head frantically. “Not the shuttle bay. That’s a potentially sealed airlock. There are no maintenance hatches or ceiling panels, and it’s on its own ventilation system. If it just clawed its way inside like in sector four, we’d see the damage. I don’t see any holes in the walls, do you? So where did it come from?”
The creature howled, the thick door diminishing its screams. It pounded on the glass. The three of us flinched away, but that glass could withstand a botched shuttle entry. It easily held up to the monster’s pounding. I had no doubt that the aliens could breach a normal window, but the specially formulated glass was a different story. Without somewhere for its claws to find purchase, they skidded against it.
All at once, the alien seemed to give up. It retreated, its tongue snaking from its mouth, dabbing at its fangs. I couldn’t hear, but it looked like it might have hissed.
We charged for the window. Of course Cage got there first, but I elbowed my way in front of him. The creature stalked to the shuttle. For a being without sight, it moved with unerring accuracy.
My heart caught in my throat when it raked its claws lightly over the shuttle’s hull, almost a caress. “No,” I whispered.
Cage shook his head. “There’s no way it can break through a shuttle hull,” he said. “Can it?”
“It got onto Sanctuary somehow,” Matt pointed out. “I’m guessing through that hole in four. So if it can smash through Sanctuary’s hull? Yeah, I’m guessing the shuttle won’t cause much of a problem.”
Helpless, we watched the creature press against the shuttle, experimentally probing the hull’s strength.
It turned and stared at us with its unseeing eyes, and for the first time I became aware of a keen, malevolent intelligence lurking there. It cleared any lingering doubts: these were not animals. They thought and planned and strategized—maybe as much as we did.
Maybe more.
Without looking away, the creature poked the shuttle with a long-clawed finger.
“How did it know we were here?” Matt whispered.
“It might have heard us approach,” I replied. “After which my screaming probably clued it in.”
The creature slashed viciously at the shuttle. I winced at the screech of rending metal, even though no sound actually escaped the bay. “Cage,” I said desperately.
He clutched at the doorframe, his knuckles white, and shook his head. I turned to Matt, but I could tell he didn’t have any more ideas than I did. Could I get the door open and shoot it with the stun gun? Would I have time? Or would it attack, dodging my shot, and destroy everyone in the blink of an eye? If it had been just me, I might have risked it, but with everyone depending on me—not to mention Mom—I held back
The creature ripped into the shuttle. This time great gaps appeared in the hull. Tears flooded my eyes, blinding me. That shuttle would never fly again. The aliens had well and truly trapped us.
Cage took my elbow in one hand, Matt’s in the other, and pulled us in the opposite direction. “Come on,” he murmured. “Let’s get out of here before that thing finishes with the shuttle and rips through the door.”
I closed my eyes and let him lead me away. He was right, of course—but still, deserting the shuttle bay felt like abandoning our only hope.
“What do we do now?” Matt whispered.
“Command center,” I replied, forcing my voice steady. “It’s the only place I might accomplish something.” I glanced at Cage. “We have no choice now but to contact Earth. You know that, right? Whatever’s waiting for you, it can’t be worse than what’s here.”
Matt snorted. “What’s waiting for us? Kenzie, have you taken a look at your arm lately? You chopped out your chip just like everyone else. Don’t kid yourself: the company will know what that bandage means. If we go to prison, you come with us.”
I’d known violating Omnistellar regulations would get me fired, ruin my future, and I’d given lip service to the idea of prison. But I hadn’t seriously considered this before. Matt was right. I was a company traitor, a vile and ungrateful turncoat destined for a sentence on a penal colony.
Was that what my parents wanted to protect me from when they sent me away and dumped a chip in my arm? Would I ever get the chance to ask them?
I shook my head. The two boys stared at me, Matt with a hint of challenge, Cage with pity. I didn’t know which was worse. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, surprised at my firmness. But then, I’d given up on Omnistellar a while ago. Now more than ever, I really was Robo Mecha Dream Girl. “Either way, we can’t stay here. The shuttles are gone, and those things are all over the station. We have to contact Earth, which means we have to get to the command center.” For good measure, I smacked Cage in the chest. “And stop looking at me like that.”
He broke into his more characteristic grin. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get moving. Matt . . .”
Matt shook his head, his jaw set in frustration. “I’ll come with you, but I’m useless. I didn’t sense that creature until it popped up in the window. Apparently my abilities are limited to humans.”
“You sensed something in the prison,” I pointed out.
“Okay, fine. My abilities are limited to humans, with a rare glimmer of a split-second warning included for aliens. Still not useful.”
“You’re too hard on yourself,” Cage said with surprising gentleness. Matt scowled, clearly unhappy, but he acknowledged Cage with a nod.
“Well, you can help just the same,” I pointed out. “Look for human life signs. Look for the other prisoners.” Look for my mom. I didn’t say it, but it hovered on my tongue, a bitter tang begging to be spit out.
Cage heard it and slid his hand against the small of my back. Matt only sighed.
Keeping our steps light and careful, we ran in the d
irection of the command center.
Amazingly, we arrived without another alien encounter. How did they actually hunt? We often spotted the creatures alone, but it seemed like every time we encountered one, another lurked in the shadows. Did they hunt as partners—in teams?
How many aliens were on this station?
Mom’s congealing coffee still sat by the command chair. Hard to believe it was less than twenty-four hours since I’d been taken captive. I swallowed the lump in my throat, focusing on the computers. When Sanctuary went into lockdown, the shutters slid over all the windows. High on my list of priorities: get them up. If more creatures hovered outside, searching for ways to blow holes in our hull, I wanted to see them. I didn’t know what we could actually do about them if we did see them—Sanctuary’s weapons all aimed inward—but I hated working blind.
First things first, though: I connected to Rune in the prison. Everything was fine, according to her, but her voice carried an edge of strain. By the tight cording of muscles on Cage’s arms, I could tell he caught it too, but he kept his response light. “She’s okay,” I said after I disconnected.
“I know.” He rubbed his hand across his forehead, easing the lines there. “I want her off this station. I want everyone off this station.”
“I’m right there with you,” I agreed, pulling up the next screen. I’d asked Rune to drop any shielding she maintained on the system, so that I had full control of Sanctuary again, not that it did much good. I could track the prisoners who hadn’t removed their chips, but the aliens hadn’t been helpful enough to install any in themselves before invading my home. And according to Sanctuary, the only prisoners remaining on the station huddled in sector 4.
Without Rune’s intrusion, I should have had full communications access, but I didn’t. I got the exact same interference when I tried to call Earth now as I did when Rita and I picked up what we thought was a distress call yesterday. “It’s not Rune,” I said out loud.